Played some games with @jediyoshi and it absolutely works as advertised. It's Halo 5's custom games multiplayer, on Windows 10. I had to add friends via the Xbox app because lol, but then inviting them to my party in Halo was very simple, and he didn't have any problems joining. From there, I picked a map and gametype, and we were playing. Besides the initial hurdle of adding friends in another app, it was shockingly painless.
I was pulling a locked 4K/60fps on a 3570k@4.4/1070/8GB and I don't really anticipate anybody really needing the absurd processor and RAM requirements from the MS spec sheet. Then again, it was normal slayer on a stock map with 3 people, so maybe if you had a full BTB going on your crazy Forge Blood Gulch map, things might be different.
As for how it plays, I actually found it way more difficult to adjust to m+kb than I anticipated. I grew up playing UT/Quake as a rocket launcher guy, so I'm not great with realistic shooters on PC, and I'm kind of bad at hitscan weapons in general on the platform. Even as a PC gamer first and foremost, I could not hit jack shit with the pistol. I think people may underestimate the impact of aim assist and bullet magnetism on consoles, and maybe overestimate the general skill of the average m/kb player. This is probably especially true when it comes to Halo's emphasis on the pistol, i.e. a single-shot weapon with a longer TTK, as opposed to turning 180 w/ an AR and downing a guy with a quick burst.
Without any sort of aim assist, I found it legitimately difficult to keep a bead on a moving target, and my accuracy suffered for it. I'm decent, not great at Halo 5 - I have a 52% accuracy w/ the magnum over 1130 kills in Halo 5 Xbone w/ 854 headshots, and I think I probably hit maybe 30% of my shots, and I really struggled to get that last headshot after depleting shields. It wasn't too far from the
magnum scene in Pulp Fiction, honestly. I'm sure I'd be better with, say, a rocket launcher and shotty on PC, but the pistol - the best weapon in the Halo 5 arsenal - is a nonstarter for me on PC without more practice. Playing with the controller re-enables aim assist and bullet magnetism, btw.
The mouse controls themselves are beyond reproach. Options to disable acceleration, options for raw input, and 0.1 increments in sensitivity. It's legit great. Beyond that, thruster on caps lock feels super weird, and putting it on shift and sprint on caps lock feels even weirder. I did feel somewhat hamstrung by only being able to thrust in 8 directions, but it's not a big deal in practice. With somewhat awkward placement of the binding, though, I did have to remind myself that it was there. You can't bind anything to left alt, which is a bummer, because I would've put sprint on there instead.
Anyway, aside from my own personal musings on controls, it's a fantastic port of the best console shooter available at the moment. For anybody who knows about the product and has reasonable expectations of the game and its console origins, I can't see how anybody would be disappointed with what Microsoft is literally giving away for free.
Anybody who wants to play should add my gamertag (who came up with that awful word) Mikerrrrr, and join our Discord channel too.
