Halo Infinite [Fall 2021] [XO, XBSX|S, PC, XGP]

"I wonder if there are some memory management problems 343 need to address. Several time during my gameplay experience, Halo Infinite would freeze for a short while for seemingly no reason. It looks and feels like a crash, only the game comes back and works just fine several second later. "

This seems to be isolated problem as it not appeared to other players, some people has reported no such issues and right now it seems it can be a sign of a broken/bad XSX (RROD!!!!!!)

These are review builds which may be less stable. The final verdict will be on release versions. A bit too early to call.
 
https://www.giantbomb.com/reviews/halo-infinite-review/1900-800/

I've been meandering down this road since 2019, when Microsoft put out Crackdown 3, of all things. A bad game, but when it's part of a good subscription service, you might as well at least check it out, right? At the time, the idea that a bad, two-stars-at-best game like Crackdown 3 was still something that I could shrug off and say "I mean hey, give it a shot, you might as well, right?" felt like shoe #1. Halo Infinite is shoe #2. One of the biggest franchises from gaming's modern era now shows up in two spots, one free-to-play, the other via a subscription. You don't need me to do this anymore. There are better avenues for me to talk to you about the relative quality of new video games than this one. Whether it's in an existing format or in an all-new one, this whole thing needs to change to better serve you, the modern video game enthusiast.

I have to say I generally agree with a lot of his takes and this is one of those. This year the content of game pass was enough that its a no brainer to own on any platform. So what is the point of a review. not only that but in 3 months the game will have more content and features and at some point additional graphics and so on.
 
One thing I have seen is how widely disparate the reviews ares. One person says XYZ wasn't good while another said XYZ was perfect. Same thing on multiple other fronts and sections. However, what is generally shared across all reviews is just how good the Campaign for Halo Infinite is. As with all games and reviews, the key is to actually play it yourself and make up your own mind.

Here's a solid post going into more details on the different takes from XboxEra: https://forum.xboxera.com/t/halo-infinite-campaign-review-ot/10041/104

PoderickPayne said:
The most interesting thing I’m noticing in these reviews is yes, reviews are subjective and opinions often vary, but…holy shit are we getting some massively different takes on certain aspects of the game

One review I hear Esharum is a very boring big bad, who just yells really uninteresting dialogue, then in the next few I hear is an excellent villian who’s extremely well written and voice acted performance helps carry the story

I hear how the open world is very drab and there is no great discovery to be had. Only to then hear about the world is amazingly crafted fun where exploration’s quite rewarding with so many secrets to dicover. Though this could be a result of some reviewers doing a far better job of actually trying to find things than others. (I’m looking at you, Skill-Up)

I’m told the music is only okay, but really needed Marty O’Donnell. Then it’s how the music is incredible and really adds to the experience

The character trio of Chief, the Weapon and the pilot doesn’t work great as the latter two are just annoying and deliver far too much humor that detracts from the impact the narrative is going f…wait, what’s that? Oh actually turns out they are great together and add a lot emotion to the story and bring back some needed elements of humor from the old titles

The story is very meh and clearly is playing things safe. Wait no apparently it’s amazing and will shock you in certain moments and leave you on the verge of tears in others

It leaves me feeling more than ever that while reviews can be fun and interesting and sometime infuriating to consume, but the only way to really know is when you play it yourself. And yes, I know it’s always been like that, but I’m pointing it out this time because I can’t remember ever seeing so many intensly different takes on so many specific things as we are here
 
Halo was always going to be this extremely decisive title. And it will likely continue to be as some players don't want anything to change at all, and others have moved on to newer FPS games, and look back and see that Halo hasn't moved forward enough. There's always goign to be these two groups and everything in between that 343i has to cater to. Honestly, I can't see this ever working out for them.
 
Halo was always going to be this extremely decisive title. And it will likely continue to be as some players don't want anything to change at all, and others have moved on to newer FPS games, and look back and see that Halo hasn't moved forward enough. There's always goign to be these two groups and everything in between that 343i has to cater to. Honestly, I can't see this ever working out for them.
The Halo community is so weird about 343 making Halo games. I mean, I get that they "aren't Bungie", but The Coalition aren't Epic, and while you can find people who aren't the biggest fans of Gears 4 and 5, you rarely see them having the same distain for The Coalition that Halo fans have for 343. It's so bad that I was listening to a podcast this week and the host was taking about Halo 3 being the last good Halo, and someone brought up Reach and they said something to the effect that that's when 343 took over and ruined it with their edgy/gritty story. Except, you know, that was a Bungie game. So 343 even gets blamed for things Bungie did that the fanbase didn't like.
 
The Halo community is so weird about 343 making Halo games. I mean, I get that they "aren't Bungie", but The Coalition aren't Epic, and while you can find people who aren't the biggest fans of Gears 4 and 5, you rarely see them having the same distain for The Coalition that Halo fans have for 343. It's so bad that I was listening to a podcast this week and the host was taking about Halo 3 being the last good Halo, and someone brought up Reach and they said something to the effect that that's when 343 took over and ruined it with their edgy/gritty story. Except, you know, that was a Bungie game. So 343 even gets blamed for things Bungie did that the fanbase didn't like.

I think its because of the huge falling out with bungie and people thinking bungie was the only reason halo was good. They then went on to make hte horrible destiny and okay destiny 2. While with Gears , Epic just didn't want to make the games anymore and focus on other titles with cliffy b leaving them. So MS bought the franchise. They still work closely to this day
 
The Halo community is so weird about 343 making Halo games. I mean, I get that they "aren't Bungie", but The Coalition aren't Epic, and while you can find people who aren't the biggest fans of Gears 4 and 5, you rarely see them having the same distain for The Coalition that Halo fans have for 343. It's so bad that I was listening to a podcast this week and the host was taking about Halo 3 being the last good Halo, and someone brought up Reach and they said something to the effect that that's when 343 took over and ruined it with their edgy/gritty story. Except, you know, that was a Bungie game. So 343 even gets blamed for things Bungie did that the fanbase didn't like.


Bungie fan base is maybe zealots? When more and more micro transaction was added, they blamed Activision. But after bungie goes independent, the micro transaction goes over the roof. But they praise it as something good.

When there are few missions/contents, they blamed Activision. After bungie went independent, the missions/contents gets even fewer and became ephemeral and they praised this change.

The way they praise bungie halo and negged 343 halo also feels like zealots. They keeps forgetting that bungie halo were not perfect. But they keeps hammering the bad things of 343 halo.

As for the discrepancies of infinite reviews, I'm chalking it as reviewers have different taste and concerns.

For example, DF were saying infinite was catastrophic (not that exact word, but kinda similar meaning albeit less severe, I forgot the word) due to something that's probably streaming issues. Like pause for 1-2 secs and popins.

To me, those are minor issues. Severe issues are like cyberpunk on launch day.
 
The Halo community is so weird about 343 making Halo games. I mean, I get that they "aren't Bungie", but The Coalition aren't Epic, and while you can find people who aren't the biggest fans of Gears 4 and 5, you rarely see them having the same distain for The Coalition that Halo fans have for 343. It's so bad that I was listening to a podcast this week and the host was taking about Halo 3 being the last good Halo, and someone brought up Reach and they said something to the effect that that's when 343 took over and ruined it with their edgy/gritty story. Except, you know, that was a Bungie game. So 343 even gets blamed for things Bungie did that the fanbase didn't like.

It's not just the Halo community that has problems with how 343 has handled the Halo IP. Even people who only just recently played through the Halo series (specifically CohhCarnage) was like, "WTF are you doing with the story 343?" after they played Halo 5 and definitely weren't happy with where they took the franchise.

But beyond that, there's just been an inept handling of basic Halo gameplay (my biggest pet peeve being the disappearing weapons) that are so key to a system that revolves on the player only being able to carry 2 weapons at a time. Part of the fun of Halo gameplay was strategically using weapons that enemies dropped depending on what enemies were on the screen. For me, I like to save the sniper rifle, rocket launcher, etc. for big foes, so during hectic fire fights I would drop those weapons and pick up something more suitable for CQC then pick them up for large priority targets, etc. But in Halo 4 and 5, if you do that, there's a good chance that they'll just disappear... Good job, 343. :p

Things like that aren't going to be as noticeable to people who haven't played a lot of Halo, but even then it still bugs them without them knowing it bugs them. Like (using Cohh again for a specific example), when Cohh didn't immediately pick up a power weapon that was dropped by a large enemy in Halo 5 because he was clearing out enemies close to him first. Then he turns around to pick it up like 10-20 seconds later ... and it's gone and he's sitting there wondering if he's going crazy because he could have sworn there was a large power weapon there.

At least when the Coalition took over, they didn't go and F-over the established universe or fuck up really really basic combat mechanics that the series had used up to that point.

If 343 didn't want to hear complaints about how they F-ed up the story, or botched the gameplay then they should have made something other than Halo. If you are going to continue with an established IP, it's helpful to remain consistent with the established IP.

To their credit though, they did have a really nice implementation of the Pistol in Halo 5 or so I've heard from die-hard Halo fans, since I'm never going to play that game.

From what little I've heard, Halo: Infinite seems more a return to Halo's roots, so I remain hopeful that 343 finally "gets it" in the way that the Coalition "got" Gears of War. At least thus far, what I'm hearing is that Halo: Infinite is the best Halo since Bungie's Halo with some even saying it's better than Bungie's Halo. We'll see.

Regards,
SB
 
If 343 didn't want to hear complaints about how they F-ed up the story, or botched the gameplay then they should have made something other than Halo. If you are going to continue with an established IP, it's helpful to remain consistent with the established IP.
So I don't disagree with this, but as I outlined above, 343 gets blamed for Reach's story, and that was a Bungie game. I'm also not one that played Halo for the story. Same thing with other shooters in the "wide, linear" genre like classic FarCry or Crysis, so those complaints, while I think are perfectly valid, don't really bother me too much. Also, I know there was a change in tone when 343 took over, but I'm also old enough to remember when Bungie's I was pronounced as an L. Not sure I have faith that Bungie would have not messed things up either.
 
So I don't disagree with this, but as I outlined above, 343 gets blamed for Reach's story, and that was a Bungie game. I'm also not one that played Halo for the story. Same thing with other shooters in the "wide, linear" genre like classic FarCry or Crysis, so those complaints, while I think are perfectly valid, don't really bother me too much. Also, I know there was a change in tone when 343 took over, but I'm also old enough to remember when Bungie's I was pronounced as an L. Not sure I have faith that Bungie would have not messed things up either.

I guess I haven't run into people that blame 343i for Reach. Most Halo fans that I've run across feel that Reach was one of the better games in the series. The biggest complaint that I've heard WRT Reach wasn't that it wasn't a good Halo game, but that if you knew the Halo timeline and lore, you already knew the ending.

Regards,
SB
 
When I checked last night, there was still no pre-load in the UK which is very unusual. Xbox games generally seem to pre-load about a week ahead of launch.
 
That's strange since the Pre-Load has been available for a while now at least in the US.

Apparently not for the campaign. It seems the download I started this morning before going to work was the multiplayer pre-load, which I am not interested in. D'oh!

Although it sounds like you may need to download that anyway. Did Halo Infinite not get the memo about smart delivery? :runaway:
 
The campaign is treated as DLC for multiplayer and shares a lot of the same assets, so there's going to be a lot of overlap anyways.
 
Here we go. Game started up. Options set. Good set of graphical options although disappointing that I can't completely disable DOF.

As a vocal critic of how 343 has handled the franchise, let's see whether they can impress me with this game. Cautiously optimistic.

Regards,
SB
 
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