I made CDs of E3 Halo 2 footage, and then distributed it to my friends.
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Of course, I couldn’t shake Destiny while playing this game. Halo 5: Guardians hasn’t done a whole lot to pull me back in, but those of you who are still content with Master Chief and his wacky adventures across the galaxy will likely walk away satisfied.
The things that are different are merely parasitical developments from other massive first-person shooter games of the contemporary period.
If you liked doing the things you did in the previous Haloes, and don’t really care about story, you’ll probably like this game. Halo 5: Guardians has a few good parts, a few bad and a lot of question marks that can’t be answered until the game comes out and is played by hundreds of thousands of players. There’s always something to do, and always players to kill. This essentially made previous titles feel sluggish at times.
All of Halo 5’s enemies have received a makeover as well. The first is the campaign, and the second is the multiplayer modes. One pre-launch mode was set on a large multi-base map and challenged both teams of players to try to score 1000 points. The game has a near immaculate presentation, a flawed but still very entertaining story, and is one of the best multiplayer shooters I’ve played in quite a few time. For the other two “missions”, Locke runs around in a UNSC camp, talking to Spartan Palmer and then Halsey or vice versa. “We left out details to increase immersion; the less players knew about the Chief, we believed, the more they would feel like the Chief”, said Bungie lead writer Joseph Staten back in 2011. Locke and Chief are now permanently accompanied by their squads, who can save players from a “downed” state with the press of a button. It’s still your standard Halo campaign, with players switching between on-foot skirmishes and long vehicular segments, but the variety on display is unlike anything else in the series. Level design is varied, diverse and has the makings of an experience that will keep players coming back.
Throughout the campaign you’ll come across a mix of enemies and encounters. Chief and Locke both have a host of new moves and abilities, with a few that will make you never want to play another Halo game without them. But the most important addition is the thruster pack, which allows you to boost in any direction, whether on the ground or in the air. The large map size also brings something to Halo that really hasn’t been done before, as they’re roughly three times bigger than past locations in the series. Instead, the new movement system improves speed and mobility while still feeling characteristically Halo. This makes the higher difficulties a little more bearable, but unfortunately the artificial intelligence in teammates can be dreadfully bad. Others are long and grandiose.
Arena features more of the traditional 4v4 Halo multiplayer modes, which include: Breakout, Strongholds, Slayer, and Capture the Flag.
My favourite online multiplayer mode however is the newly added “Warzone”. So does Halo 5: Guardians live up to the franchise’s lineage? To ensure that core competitive multiplayer remains balanced, only cards that have cosmetic effects can be used in Arena mode, while all of them can be used in Warzone.
At the start of a Warzone match, every player has just one hexagon of energy and can only use cards that have an energy cost of one. And as much as they’re pushing the narrative of the game, the story still feels confusing and convoluted, as if 343 assumes that everyone has watched Halo: Nightfall, read the prequel novels and listened to the companion podcast. From the get go it was easy to understand how they were built and how to get around them quickly.
It’s hard to judge something like this if you can’t feel it, but the remarkable thing is that the illusion is there, and it’s unbreakable. On paper everyone wins, but we will learn how well the balancing adjust to the online community and how well the serves handle the soon-to-be overwhelming demand that the community places on the game when it launches on October 27, 2015. Raising a spartan player level unlocks requisition packs. Not with Halo 5. Not stellar, but reasonable.
But I have to say, I’m hoping my friends pick up Xboxes if only so we can play Halo together. What the game lacks in storyline however, it easily makes up for in stellar gameplay. After the problems that still plague Halo: The Master Chief Collection, 343 needs to bring its A-game, and they need to keep that hype train fueled through launch.
Similarly, there were times in the game where the enemies in the distance are clearly animating at a lower framerate than those closer to me.
You’ll also be able to aim down the sights or zoom in with any weapon, like you can in most shooters. As mentioned earlier, this component is an additional 9GB worth of data.
Overall, the visuals are still pretty fantastic. Another change is that most fights with the Prometheans have been tuned to be less of a chore. The environments are much more open and feel alive – all kinds of little creatures crawl and fly around feverishly to give credibility to these alien environments. With the AI? It’s hit and miss. You’d jump higher in one game or run faster in another. Couple all that with the ability to sprint, and it gives the combat more of a Titanfall feel, thanks to all the manoeuvrability you have on the battlefield. To put it more simply (and bluntly) – the soundtrack really isn’t memorable at all. It’s one of the highlights of the “Halo 5” experience, if not its greatest strength. Still, the game looks stunning, and it’s clear that a lot of work went into making this one of, if not THE best, looking games on the Xbox One.
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Halo 5: Guardians’ campaign has you follow two protagonists: Spartan Jameson Locke and, of course, Chief. Sadly there’s no split-screen, and playing online means connecting to Microsoft’s Azure servers (of which there aren’t any locally). Halo purists may scoff at this addition, but it works well. Both games are set during the events of Halo 2 and are co-developed by 343 Industries and Vanguard Games.
