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

PSA

early in the game when you found

Spoiler

an aircraft

you might want to park it somewhere close and safe, so you can quickly zoom thru the map. Because the map is so large... and the game really really love to give mandatory "cat chasing tail" missions all over the map and separated quite far apart.

 

I am adoring the first 2 hours. Cant even put my finger in why a game either clicks with me or it doesn't. The voice acting and so far story is just absolutely fantastic. So natural. Put this against something like the garbage that is Gears of War dialogue and VA the difference is two grand canyons. So far it really just grabbed me and I dont even like single player. Contrast that with something like Cyberpunk that really just didn't grab me so I stopped early on. I love the first boss Tremonious guy. He was a pushover but it felt cool and bombastic thats all I care about, and portends for lots of cool boss fights throughout the game. I think Dark Souls really upped the entirety of gaming with realizing what boss fights could be, not necessarily in terms of difficulty but in terms of cinematics. I also saw it in Jedi Fallen Order. Love me some good boss fights and it's something Halo franchise seemed to never embrace (due to all the praise for CE not having a final boss, which IMO was misplaced praise)

My worry is it's early, can it keep my interest? Metro Redux was one SP campaign recently that at a point I was loving, then I just ran out of steam with it and couldn't muster the care to soldier on. But yeah, so far so good.

I've said my piece on the gfx. I wish MS had decided 5 years ago this was going to be a next gen only showcase. They didn't. It still looks good, but it's clearly a last gen foundation. Especially after seeing stuff like the Matrix Demo and Ark Raiders out of TGA.

The combat feels great so far, it doesn't feel clunky and slow like most games do after Destiny. It feels fast paced and vibrant. The two weapons system was also grating on me in 5, this time it's not, maybe because all of the weapons feel so good.

 

Unfortunately the game quickly transforms into the usual open world full copy-paste levels (and as fas as i have played, i have yet to find the game took a nod of that, unlike gardeners of the galaxy) and filled with busywork (go to point A, turns out need to go to B, C, and D. Then go back to A). Made worse by the map that's ridiculously huge, and the game keeps making you go to new places, so you cant simply fast travel to various points.

that's why i recommend to

Spoiler

keep an aircraft tucked somewhere near and safe

although if you do traverse the ground, the map have good amounts of stuff scattered, if you are the kind of person that like to get stuff (weapons, audio logs, perk points, etc).

 

@orangpelupa you do realize you can fast travel between FOBs and other event regions, right? So you at least can limit travel when "backtracking" as you said.

 

I squeezed in another half an hour this morning, such is my impoverished gaming timetable. Loved that I can cowardly cheese an encounter by grappling up a cliff and picking off everyone below or squeezing a Warthog up a path that it's not really supposed to go up.

 

btw anyone know whether the bug where Xbox remote play windows 11 streaming from xbox series S = no controller input works on halo infinite has been acknowledged? any bug list on their website? maybe something like official FH5 buglist?

 

indeed back tracking can be done, and not just to FOB but also to the mission location when the multi-part mission requires you to go back to start of the mission.

the issue was on the process of doing that kind of mission. Becase the game keeps introducing new locations, thus no fast travel yet.

the game also allows you to speedrun.

for example, you need to go inside of something above you. The mission told you to turn on an elevator, but to turn it on you need to kill all enemies and to bring a battery.

But you can ignore those. You can get inside the building using anything else.

same with "light bridges" and so on that padded the game with extra busywork. Simply skip those with anything you got!

no invisible wall. the mission did not get broken.

 

Yeah, I was amazed that you can basically pick off enemies that are just a moving pixel on your screen (because you're SOOOOO far away from them) with a rocket launcher if you aim it well and get lucky with their movements. I'm amazed that the game bothers to activate it's AI or even have them appear in the world from that great of a distance. I'm also very grateful that they do, because unlike most open world games, it actually makes the world feel like something I could run across in real life ... if it existed.

My only regret is my lowly GTX 1070. I have to have almost everything cranked down. I wonder if graphics card prices will ever get to a reasonable level again such that I won't feel horrible buying one?

Regards,
SB

 

OK, You REALLY REALLY should not look at this spoiler unless you've finished the game. I caught it while watching Cohh stream, but I don't mind since the gameplay experience in Halo: Infinite is so good I'm still hugely enjoying it and hugely looking forward to getting to the ending myself.

So again, REALLY REALLY do NOT look at this spoiler unless you've finished it or don't mind seeing it. But 343i hugely impressed me...

Spoiler

Cortana's last monologue isn't just meant for Master Chief. It's 343i apologizing and owning their mistakes that they've made with the Halo franchise. It's them apologizing to all the Halo fans through Cortana's last monologue. It's extremely well done and it feels sincere.

I think 343i finally gets what a Halo game is. They took the gameplay in a different direction but still managed to keep the feel of what makes a Halo game a Halo game. Something they were unable to do in Halo 4 and 5. I'm impressed. And unlike after Halo 5, I'm really looking forward to see what they do with the next installments in the Halo universe.

I'll probably revisit this after I've finished the game. But in short. Good job 343i, good job. You have finally inherited the mantle of Halo developers, IMO.

Regards,
SB

 

So, after more playing and exploring.

These things are marked on your map after you capture FOBs

• UNSC soldiers that need help.
• Mjolnar Armories
• Spartan Cores
• Important Banished Targets
• Major encounters (like forts, depots, etc.)

These things are not marked on your map when you capture FOBs, but will be marked after you find them.

• Forerunner Artifacts
• Propaganda towers

And the following are not marked on the map no matter what.

• Audio logs
  • Some will show up as part of FOBs or Major Encounters

Regards,
SB

 

fortunately audio logs makes a distinct sound, so it can be searched to some extend.

 

finally p;ayed this on PC with 3070. I got hit by all of the bugs/issues digital foundry mentioned. It is much more polished on xbox series s.

btw this game did not use left trigger vibrator. bugs? design decision?

 

How to kill

Spoiler

the large enemy with shield all over their body and have a gun in their right hand and a shield on their left hand

¿

I've thrown explosive, I've spend 1 hour shooting at their hand (its the only thing that's glowing and shows red cross hair).

But I don't seem to have damaged them at all.

EDIT

the red crosshair on their hand-gun is a fake-out. Simply keeps shooting their head and they'll die.

 

Halo 4 felt too "call of duty"-like. Halo 5 felt.... weird (the dissapearing weapons, why???). Halo Infinite felt like it was made in a very short time (obvious padding, obvious copy-paste levels, etc). Basically Halo Infinite felt like Destiny 1 vanilla but with fewer set-pieces, fewer variety (i actually liked how laser-focused halo infinite is), fewer special moments, and a less confusing story.

so from my understanding, this is halo infinite story. did i get it right?

Spoiler

• Sometime after halo 5, master chief finally gets to infinity space ship but it was destroyed by the cabal big-bad, with the master chief being ejected to space, until found by the pilot.
• Cortana and the cabal big-bad was fiddling with this new ring to achieve... something (never explained in the game at all AFAIK, as the game only explains that they want to repair the ring, but not explaining why they want to repair it and what makes this ring different to other halo rings).
• This "something" turns out was really bad, thus cortana betrayed the cabal big-bad, and cortana suicides, taking some part of the ring software down with her.
• The cabal big bad, then work together with the vex granny to achieve this something. THis something was explained a bit in the legendary ending narration, as "the endless". But what is the endless, why they are so scared of it, why this halo ring is so special and need to be repaired relates to the endless... never explained.
• master chief and the new cortana work together to stop the cabal big bad and the vex granny
• in the end, the big bad cabal turns out to be still alive and managed to access the deep archive of the ring. What, why, how, when... not explained.

so instead of trying to explain everything (that destiny 1 failed spectacularly), 343i decided to use the "J. J. Abrams mystery box". So, the player, stays focused with what's on hand and ahead. Just like master chief.

 

Halo: Infinite, from the little I have played of the campaign, is fantastic. That is all.

 

Some things are left deliberately vague for future campaigns. And I imagine we'll get more information as we play future campaigns.

I haven't finished the campaign yet so I'll only answer what I know.

Spoiler

The Banished are the bad guys in this one, but they aren't THE bad guys of the new Halo story arc. That will be the Endless. The Endless are currently an unknown (to us) threat.

It is inferred (not directly told to us) that Zeta Halo has the Endless imprisoned in it and if the ring were destroyed that this might release the Endless.

What currently doesn't make any sense to me is why Zeta Halo contains the Endless. It's a newly created Halo ring. Why would The Endless be transferred from wherever they were being held to the new Halo ring?

Regards,
SB

 

Also, something else to add @orangpelupa , if you want to understand more of what's going on, the audio logs go into some of the things that happened between Halo V and Halo: Infinite. They also explain to an extent why the Banished are doing what they are. I think one of the logs also had the name that the Forerunners had given to what was mentioned in the spoiler before.

Basically to get a grasp of what's going on, you'll need to find all of the audio logs as well as the Forerunner artifacts.

Something I'm realizing as I play.

If you want something close to a traditional Halo experience, you should focus mostly on the main mission. This preserves some of the difficulty and streamlined storytelling. Unfortunately the game becomes pretty short if you do that. Alternatively don't upgrade any armor abilities other than maybe the cooldown for grappleshot (because it's too fun) and don't use any unlocked weapons.

If you explore and do everything as I'm doing, it's fun but it does make the game a fair bit easier. Weapons dropped by the Banished Targets as well as ones unlocked at later levels of the FOB are more powerful (sometimes significantly so) compared to the base version of the weapons. The only drawback is that you can only refill their ammo at ammo stations. You cannot pick up ammo for a special version of a weapon from its base weapon. So if you have the homing rockets version of the rocket launcher, you cannot get ammo for it from regular rocket launchers.

On top of that, some of the armor upgrades pretty much turn you into an almost unstoppable god. Max level grappleshot is basically a cheat code for the game and most enemies cease to be a threat after you get it.

Also, if you are only getting Spartan Cores because you want to upgrade all armor abilities, you don't have to go out of the way to get remote ones. There are FAR more Spartan Cores that you can get than you need to upgrade everything. I think I currently have something like 6 or 7 extra Spartan Cores and there's still more I can get.

For funsies load up 5 marines with homing rocket launchers into a Razorback and pretty much nothing on the map lives for very long as you drive around. Be careful though, as if you drive too close to an enemy next to a rock as they fire, they can blow themselves and you up.

Regards,
SB

 

I play Halo Infinite on my Xbox One via Cloud.

What I don't understand: The game supports keyboard&mouse, but not my Chatpad? Or is it cloud limitation?

 

I played it the way I usually play halo : speed run it.

So I skip optimal enemies, I skip optional puzzles, and only do battle with required enemies and solve required puzzles.

I though the story explantions (at least the most of it) will be presented via the game itself like halo reach, 4, and 5. But turns out it was relegated to audio logs, like destiny 1 with grimoire cards (although to Bungie's props, the way they interwoven mysteries into play space and explanation in the cards was quite amazing).

Turns out halo infinite is laser focused. Just like how master chief operates.

Btw I didn't even know you can unlock weapons hahaha

 

I was on my 3rd FOB before I realised the annoying beeping noise was coming from the pads and not the bases themselves.