Halo 5: Guardians [XO]

Wife gave me the okay. So we're going to run 4 player coop all night until the game is finished starting at midnight, woot. Too old for this, but Daddy Day Care must deliver!

 

I know it's strange to have opinions for a guy who's probably not going to play the game for quite a while yet... But I've really liked Halo ever since the first game - I still remember playing it on an Xbox borrowed from a friend on a tiny TV in my old room for long nights. I've played every game but Halo 2 in the past years, and also got to contribute to the story with Halo 4's prologue and epilogue movies. So I kinda like to pay attention to its journey and such. Kinda spoilerish from now on - going to tag the more serious ones, but only those.

I really like how 343i has made their physicality more apparent. Previously, the Chief was mostly someone who could jump further and take more punishment than regular soldiers. Now the Spartans really feel faster and stronger than any other human, something that's been sort of missing before. The cinematic intro may be the first time where a Halo game has managed to capture what such a soldier should be like on the battlefield, not even the Halo Wars Spartans vs. Elites movie had that feel.
On the other hand I hate that they now have leather gloves, and with stitches! But seriously, first the suits should be sealed against vacuum and that's kinda impossible with such gear; and also, Spartans should be able to manipulate really heavy objects and punch through walls, so they'd really need the power amplification of their armor even in their grip and fist. Silly move here.
I also don't understand the bright colors on some of the Spartan IVs - Vale should look like a bright target in any battlefield... Or how they now just simply put their helmets on - Halo 2 had this nice hiss sound where the suit pressurized. It's not just armor, it's also a spacesuit and all.
And I understand that the assault rifle is a part of Chief's iconic look, but still, it's a mediocre weapon at best - even though in H4 and 5 it's far better than in Bungie's games, it's still silly to have the Chief start with this one in every new level.

I'm still a huge fan of the art direction, in fact I think it's one of the best in current video games. On the other hand I'd really like to see some more things going beyond what we've seen in H5 - in particular, a new take on the landscapes of a Halo and the Flood. The Elite homeworld doesn't really feel unique; but fortunately there's something new in this game, and it is indeed amazing.

Now the story... more serious spoilers here, obviously.

Spoiler

On the one hand, the new direction might look silly at first - but it actually has quite some roots in both the previous fiction, and it is in fact based on an abandoned idea of Bungie for Halo 1. AI uprising, while a common SF trope, has also been there in Halo fiction for a long time, with Guilty Spark and Mendicant Bias. There were also some hints about this direction in Halo 4; and it's also a universal theme - live long enough to become the villain, Dark Knight style. So the choice can be justified easily.
The cliffhanger ending also hints at some great things to come in Halo 6, there are some really interesting possibilities now, both in the larger scale events and in the character conflicts. The reunion in the ending cinematic is actually quite powerful, and Chief dealing with the new Big Bad is definitely a very interesting story.

But on the other hand, you can't help but feel that there's a LOT of wasted potential with this game.
I haven't read a lot of the expanded universe material, but I can still tell that the scope of the Halo universe has grown a lot bigger. And yet, 343i chose to ignore practically everything that they've seeded - we don't get to meet any actual living Forerunners, the Didact is all but forgotten, the Flood - or the Precursors - aren't even mentioned, and so on.
Then there's the whole John vs. Locke thing, which seems now like an afterthought. They have a fistfight and that's all; but beyond that, there are even at least two pretty good issues raised in the game which are then completely ignored. One is Buck's note that everyone in the UNSC is going to hate Osiris for its mission; the other is Arbiter's knowledge that Locke was once planning to assassinate him. Both are mentioned and then left behind, even though they could've added just so much to the story.

And even the stuff about Chief being conflicted gets basically nowhere - he merely tries to talk the villain into surrender and then gets overpowered in a second. Then he gets home and it's sure that there's not going to be any consequences to him going AWOL. And no wandering alone in a poncho - although I understand that it would've been hard to get that to work and that it would not have mixed with the co-op focus, but still, it's another wasted opportunity.

So... all in all, while I can't say that the story choices are bad (I'm still making my mind up about this), it's still hard to see it as anything but a missed opportunity, at least for a main Halo title.
But then again, it's also quite close to what I've been expecting after H4 being so similar to A New Hope... It's a sort of Empire Strikes Back, especially in terms of where the heroes are at the end.
And as I've said, there are some great and exciting new opportunities now, but it's also something that could end up being left empty if H6 ends up to similar to H5...

 

I find the work of 343 completely subpar. Halo 5 looks no better than a 360 game and yet they still had to gut the LOD so much. Awful, just awful.

 

I know they wanted to hit that 60fps target real bad and they did an excellent job in that respect. It's just that the pop in LODs and shadows kills the immersion factor for me. After seeing it happen so often during Single Player gameplay it's hard not to focus on it. In Multiplayer however it's not as bad.

 

I have to wonder what I would feel if there were such coverage for Halo 2 at the time.

 

I still remember the fan reactions when Halo 3 was proven to be less than 720p.

Comparing Halo2 to the E3 demo - Bungie would've been burned at the stake.

 

Not reading any spoilers. Kinda curious how 343i did this time.

 

I can't say for sure without playing it, but I feel like the game would just be better at 30 fps. Halo was never was very twitchy in my experience. Responsiveness is great, but so is presentation and visual consistency. IMO Halo 5 doesn't seem like the flagship game it should be just because of the sacrifices made.

 

Here's my review so far playing 4 player coop on Legendary from the get go:
Amazing. best 4 player FPS coop campaign I can recall for the longest of times. There are so many areas to approach a situation, the enemy AI can be incredibly challenging, dying was constant. We only managed to complete 4 levels in about 4 hours of play.

Graphics are great IMO. If I was picky I could definitely recall scenes of low texture quality probably a lot, but man you just don't care. The gameplay excels all too well here.

Story: interesting. Every cutscene follows every mission where the graphics engine really ramps up to impress. It's actually really impressive. The narrative is done in a lot of short cuts so without knowing other things like Hunt The Truth or following up on EU: it can be hard to get into the story or rather you will care less if you don't follow the story.

Interestingly, this is how I felt about Matrix Reloaded. They released 10 animated skits before the movie and if you watched them all there were tie ins, but if you didn't their existence is just glossed over. Similar things appear this way in he story, it unfortunate this won't trigger anything with casual Halo story lovers. That being said he story is still better than other Mainstream FPS games, at least IMO.

War zone: great. Once again playing with 4 close buddies is just wicked. coop especially. The requisitions are fun to collect and use and the game has a logical progression

overall, from a content and gameplay perspective I think they really nailed it. Graphics, easily top 5 in all Xbox One games. #1 for 60fps IMO. Game is beautiful when you play it an these static images and media reviews don't do the game justice. You just need to play it, every level we played on had tons of things going on that had nothing to do with the game. But it made the battlefield just feel so much more alive. I don't want to sit here and defend Halo all day long, but don't be surprised if you ever find yourself behind the controller one day, that you'll see a very beautiful game, but if you're nit picky, you'll be able to spot lots of blemishes.

 

I'm on the other end. I was just playing Halo 4 and was really tuned off by the art direction. All the Tron looking colors nd lights. Greens, blues, purples and greys making dizzying lines and hard edges. The only time you get some relief is outside with a more natural look, but there isn't much of that is the first part of Halo 4.

 

I always wondered how Spartan IVs, who are supposed to be between 7-8 feet tall in armor and weigh a metric ton, are so easily able to handle standard issue weapons. I mean shouldn't their hands in armor be a little too big?

Makes you wonder if some Spartan IVs have "little man hands" syndrome? LOL.

"Why did MC kill those 5 ODST with his bare hands?"
"Just remember, don't use 'cute','supple' and 'MC's hands' in the same sentence!!!"

 

Well how does the Warthog stay balanced with a half ton Spartan sitting alone in the driver's seat?

They can cheat this stuff a little IMHO. But there are a lot of funny little aspects to wonder about

 

Are the tron lines back in Halo 5?

 

From what I remember, warthogs flip over real easy, so maybe they got it right?

 

From a google image search, at least some.

 

I'm not seeing it in the covenant map. The tron stuff in H4 was all Forerunner.

 

So do the tanks.

 

I've only played the first mission until I got into the base and I'm not impressed. Granted just a few minutes so not really an "in depth" impression. But my issue at that point was the visibility is poor because of the visor, visibility of available weapons and the weapons feel clumsy. I realize that Halo needed a "face lift" but this isn't what I had in mind. I deeply loathed Halo4 for instance and this feels like going further into the wrong direction.

I've played Destiny excessively the last year(far too much) and this here feels artificial/plastic compared to Destiny's organic/smooth mechanics/gunplay.

 

Played the 1st mission and part of the 2nd this morning before work. All I can say at this point is that Forerunner weapon still suck ass. I need a goddamn DMR!

Oh yeah, don't try to ground pound a Knight, LOL!