Does anyone else feel like me about this game: the combat and gunplay is great, everything else is pretty bad.
The combat mostly feels great. Guns feel great and are fun to use. Enemies are fun to fight. My guess is the battle rifle is most peoples favorite, but even the more spaced out alien weapons, like the beam, are fun and satisfying to use. My only gripe is that on higher difficulties you can die very fast and it feels like some times it comes down to bad luck. Maybe Im not that good at the game, but I never felt that about doom.
Graphic wise I think the indoor forerunner stuff look great. Amazing detail on the assets and artstyle, in the vein of the orignal halo. The artstyle on the brutes bases look so out of place, not like it its from a different planet or civilastion in the halo universe, but like its made for a different game. It looks like its made fort a cartoon show, while the forerunner stuff look like its from a high budget movie. In halo ce the covenant ship had theese curved surfaces and alien design, purple and blue colors, while still feeling grounded. Both the covenant stuff and forerunner stuff was very esthetically pleasing. The brute assets and designs dont look as good or well crafted imo. Its never a problem to see your enemies which is a huge plus, the game is easy to read.
The open world is the game biggest flaw. The way its executed means the game have all the negatives of OW games but none of the positives.
*Visually it doesnt look good. A lot of last gen OW environments looks a lot better. Its a stark contrast from the great looking indoor forerunner stuff.
*The shattered ring gimmick they went with doesnt work either. It looks unrealistik: these pieces of the ring just hanging still in space, no cracks or damage, everything just made of these clean octagon shaped pillars? I dont know how it would work in real life, but isnt it weird that if you look down you see space and the stars? Shouldnt the sunlight somehow effect the atmosphere? I dont know, maybe its correct but it looks weird. The whole thing looks more like a level from a mario game. Those big cracks in the world are just anying from a gameplay perspective, you´re on your way to your objective but the you have to take a detour because a chunk of the ground is missing, and it doesnt add anything gameplay wise.
*The sense of scale is lost. If your on a high peak, or take one of the flying vehicles, you can see like the entire map, and it just looks like a small, fake, word. In the silent cartogropher the island you were on were surrounded by this big ocean which streched into the horizon. It made halo look awe inspiring. The fact that this map room were on this isolated island, which itself is a part of this huge artificial structure, were also really cool. I played a bit of the first level of reach recently, and the first map also had this great sense of scale.
Pros about OW is that you are exploring and getting to know this exciting world. You can stumble upon an location and explore its mystery, run into to an interresting sidequest which can be a mini story of its own etc. One minute you can be in a sprawling city, later you can be in an old ruin somewhere or in a destert etc. Halo Infinite has none of these things.
*The world looks identical wherever you are on the map. There are no distinct locations, no changes in the environment. One of the positives of OW games the sense that you are exploring and getting to know this real environment. Skillup made a similar point when comparing RDR2 with AC Odyssey, everplace in Odyssey looks the same.
In AC origin, or RDR2, witcher, etc, you could be in the desert, see some loney ruin alone in the desert and start exploring this very well crafted dungeon. You just got some loot and an extre ablity point when you found the ancient tablet, but they used environmental story telling to keep things engaging. The things you find in infinite are upgrade points, audiologs and skins. Things from the marinies which just feel artificialy placed around the map, nothing that tells you anything about the world and the secrets of this halo ring.
*The way the world is designed makes traversal a chore. There are rocks and other stuff scattered around everywhere which you are constantly bumping into to. And there are constantly cliffs in the way if your going somewhere so its not worth it to take the jeep, its better to go by foot, using the grappling hook in this unrealistic way to get to where youre going as fast as possible because the world is just so dead and boring. Its basicly long loading times to get to the next blip on the map where you can have a fun combat encounter. Halo CE and other halo games had parts where you could actualy drive for a while. Just taking in the world like this can be fun, its one of the reasons to go OW in the first place. Riding around in tsushima is fun beacuse it a vibrant living world. I never played BOTW, but from looking at it a get the feeling it also succeds with this.
Halo infinites open world is probably the worst open world I have ever played. None of the cons of open world, and only the negatives. It doesnt enhance the game in any way, it just makes it worse.
Combat encounters and level design are pretty awfull IMO. Other halo games have such iconic, rememberable levels and encounters: landing on the first halo, assulting the covenant cruiser, finaly getting to the control room which is inside this huge pyramid structure, the streets of new mombasa, riding vehicles in africa and fighting the scarab with this huge crater in the bakground, etc. I cant recall a single mission in infinite.
The combat is great but the encounters are designen in a way that makes it more boring. You are in an area and have to do alot of boring stuff like activating a bunch of switches or shoot towers while reinforcements arrive when you have achived these menial tasks. It totaly kills the momentum. Fighting your way up the pyramid structure to get to the control room doesnt involve any backtracking, you have a clear goal, both from a narritive and gameplay point of view, and you constantly feel you are moving forward.
In the final level you are in this structure and boss ape is on the speaker and sending in increasingly more difficult waves of enemies. I dont understand what they were thinking. Isnt this like breaking i fourth wall of gaming or something? Totaly ruined what immersion I had left at that point.
I remember in one of the later mission you get the tank, but you drive this tank (which is a real pain to control) down a tight corridor, and its only about shoting the enemy before they can shoot you because there is no room for maneuverability.
The OW seem to have forced them to nerf the vehicles. When you get those helicopter like things on the arc halo or what its called in Halo 3 they are pretty over powerd, which makes them fun to use when you get to use them. In infinite they probably had to nerf them since after a while you can get them any time you want, and it would ruin the balance if they were too powerful. That makes them real boring and ineffective. They are only good for fast getting around the map, which is a plus in a way.
When it comes to story I have no clue whats going since halo 3 or something, but, as dunkey have pointed out, 90% of the cutscenes is looking at holograms talking. The main villian regulary shows up on holograms, "snarl snarl, something". He doesnt seem like a worthy antagonist, he just comes across as a big, dumb ape
I personaly hate the leveling. The leveling ruins the balance of the combat. Especially when the grappling hook is maxed out, its so overpowered. Plus it just takes to much time. I just want to shoot aliens and have fun wihtout this grinding bs which is in every other game now, even when it doesnt suit the game. Adding leveling and getting rid of the mission structure ruins playablitity for me.
Personaly i dont like the equipment either. I must admit the grappling hook is fun, but personaly I dont think it suits my personal halo fantasy, I think it makes it too arcady.
And why four types of grenades? Its so finicky to choose the right type. The icons showing showing which d pad is which is sooo small. And why isnt the one to the left on the screen to the left on the d pad? Incredible. And why cant you predict were your grenades will land any more? One of more rewarding things in halo is throwing a grenade in a group of enemies, thats pretty hard to do now.
Any way, rant over. I hope the next halo will be a classic halo like halo 3, but without the flood and boss battles.
