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LTTP: Halo 5

M

Moofers

Member
With all the recent deals on Xbox One lately, I finally went for it and got a bundle. I've been having a great time and I really love Killer Instinct as well as Gears Ultimate, but on a whim I decided to rent Halo 5 and give it a shot. I've been a Halo fan since the first one launched and all the glowing reviews in EGM made me decide I had to have it!

I haven't always loved every direction the series has taken, but I think that's pretty common among fans. Halo 4 wasn't a bad game, but the Prometheans didn't make for a fun or interesting enemy, in my opinion. I don't think they're fun to fight, and I really don't care for their weapon set. That said, the campaigns are what always bring me to Halo (or anything co-op like Firefight) and while overall the campaign was decent, I didn't like the new enemies or the way some of the environments became increasingly alien. My favorite thing about Halo has always been those moments where you are someplace that feels familiar like The Silent Cartographer (beach) or Assault on the Control Room (snow) and this invading force needs to be removed. Environments are big and make vehicular travel and combat possible, but not mandatory. Those are Halo's best moments, to me.

Now I'm not super far into Halo 5, but what has hit me right away is that none of this feels familiar anymore. All of it feels alien. I don't even know what I'm standing on as the game opens. I know we are rescuing Halsey but if I didn't know that, I would not even guess we are anyplace that humans would reside. The whole early part feels so weird. And when did Buck go from being an ODST to being a Spartan, and why is that not explained at all? That's a small gripe, I know, but I remember where Halo 4 left off with Chief and Cortana and the way this game starts makes me feel like I missed an entire entry between the two games.

I've got more campaign ahead and I'm going to stick with it, but so far I'm not really feeling it. There are a lot of Promethean weapons I have to keep using because there aren't any human weapons around. It just doesn't feel like Halo 1 or even Halo Reach anymore (my two favorite Halo games)

I gave multiplayer a shot for a while, but only the Warzone stuff so far. I want to go play 4v4 or 8v8 later, but Warzone is new to Halo 5 and I wanted to try it.

In short, its neat but the REQ system is a barrier to having fun. I am new to this game and so I'm basically fresh meat out there. I get waxed and have to run for about 50 seconds each time to reach the area where everyone is fighting, only to die and start the cycle over again with the same loadout. Others have fuel rod cannons, plasma swords, shotguns, etc. and I'm sitting there with the assault rifle and pistol every time. The game mercifully granted me some REQ packs for being a newcomer, I think, but I mostly got XP boosters (what does XP even do?) and some profile card unlocks. Like little clipart things for my nametag I guess. There was a warthog and a mongoose in there too, which was nice, and I even got a battle rifle, but I died right away when I spawned with it, so it was gone as quickly as I got it. That really really sucked.

What's the fun in hoping that you randomly get brief access to your favorite weapons? I never saw the sniper rifle. I never saw the shotgun. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth because I just spawned, ran, ran some more, got killed, spawned again, ran, ran some more, got killed again, and that was about it. I didn't really get to use many different weapons and I played this mode for a good hour at least. Maybe an hour and 30 minutes. It seemed unreal that I could have given that mode such an effort only to be left feeling like Halo had moved into some other reality where it was part mobile game and the key to having fun was to grind out random decks of unlock cards. BARF.

I don't know what to think about Halo 5 at this point. I've got a lot of campaign left ahead of me and I've yet to try many of the multiplayer modes but hot damn has this game already managed to sour me on giving it more time. I will, and I will report back here to be fair to the game, but I was really caught off guard how alien the whole thing would feel to me in such a short time. Since I haven't owned an Xbox One until recently, I mostly ignored Halo 5 threads. What is the general consensus among fans? Is it a recovery from the missteps of Halo 4, or a move further in the wrong direction? Or do you love all of it and find it refreshing? Am I out of touch with what Halo is now?

Looking forward to reading everyone's thoughts. Thanks!
 
S

ShadowsFell

Member
I played the entire campaign and a bunch of the multiplayer over the first week or so. And I haven't touched the game since. It pretty much killed off whatever love I had left for the franchise, so I really didn't like it.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Campaign didn't have the highest highs of 1-3 but it felt more like a Halo game than Halo "Press these three buttons and then move on" 4. You get some actual combat sandboxes that bring back the feel of having to navigate an environment and figure things out, if only briefly.

Buck becomes a Spartan-IV, it's a less invasive, all-volunteer program that was underway around the time of Halo 4.

I kind of agree about the REQ system, but it gets better when you start picking up permanent weapon unlocks and other passive upgrades that you can use in every match.

Overall I consider it better than Halo 4 in every way, so it's odd for me to see lower reviews and people saying THIS one killed the franchise.
 
S

SpiceMelange

Member
Yeah the story starts abruptly, doesn't recap at all and expects you to be in the know with the previous game's coop-mission (story bits in there) and the EU if you don't want to be lost. On one side I appreciate a game that doesn't waste it's first 20% of content just retreading stuff I already know and have the balls to move the story forward immediately but yeah it's definitely off putting.


Regarding the multiplayer I feel it's the best since CE, I can't go back to no dash no sprint Halo in arena. The weapon sandbox is the most balanced and useful it's ever been, the starting pistol is one of the best weapon in the game and the AR isn't... completely trash I guess (for once). Warzone is a bit iffy but personally I just chill out and try to pop some heads, it's a very casual mode.
 
R3TRODYCE

R3TRODYCE

Member
ShadowsFell said:
I played the entire campaign and a bunch of the multiplayer over the first week or so. And I haven't touched the game since. It pretty much killed off whatever love I had left for the franchise, so I really didn't like it.
Click to expand...

This is where I stand as well. It's sad to see what happened to the franchise but I guess it was inevitable.
 
¡

¡HarlequinPanic!

Member
amazing reinvention of arena shooting and halo rules.


regretful death of big team battle maps.

great post-release support.


really, really fucking real skill gap :[
 
S

ShadowsFell

Member
R dott B said:
This is where I stand as well. It's sad to see what happened to the franchise but I guess it was inevitable.
Click to expand...
Indeed. It's been a downhill ride starting with Reach in my opinion. (Though I actually enjoyed Reach's campaign a good deal.)

I actually had high hopes and good expectations for 5, but the series has just completely lost its way, and its identity in my eyes.
 
K

Kalentan

Member
Helacious said:
Regarding the multiplayer I feel it's the best since CE, I can't go back to no dash no sprint Halo in arena. The weapon sandbox is the most balanced and useful it's ever been, the starting pistol is one of the best weapon in the game and the AR isn't... completely trash I guess (for once). Warzone is a bit iffy but personally I just chill out and try to pop some heads, it's a very casual mode.
Click to expand...

The AR is God. I love it so much and was always sad to see how useless it was in previous games.
 
I

IHaveIce

Banned
campaign is not the best but has better encounters than Halo 4.


Arena MP is the tits though, best Halo mp since like idk... playing Halo since CE release and Halo 5 is just so great. Though it is kinda hard to get into it, keep trying though


Warzone is mindless fun, you should group up with us of HaloGAF on the weekends.
 
E

EBE

Member
every character was wasted and underdeveloped.
Locke is a shit protagonist. absolutely zero energy or emotion from him.
campaign is an absolute travesty as a result, especially coming from the excellent character-driven Halo 4.
 
K

Knuckle Sandwich

Member
I thought the campaign was pretty good. Locke is a swing and a miss though. just a toal zero as a character. Should really have been Buck leading Osiris.

I'm not really a fan of online multiplayer but the few hours I put into it were ok I guess.
 
J

J_Viper

Member
Moofers said:
The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth because I just spawned, ran, ran some more, got killed, spawned again, ran, ran some more, got killed again, and that was about it.
Click to expand...

This is my exact experience every time I try Warzone. It's a mess.

I'm with you regarding the campaign as well. It's a boring slog, a huge step down even from Halo 4.

The Arena mode is mechanically well made, but I'm not enjoying it much either. Thing about Halo MP is the people that are good at it, are really good at it. Which is fine, but I always end up matched against them, and continuously getting killed from across the map with the pistol isn't a fun time. What's the point of a ranking system when it is not even being taken into account?

343 really need to go back on drawing board for Halo 6, because they really fumbled this one.
 
S

SpiceMelange

Member
Kalentan said:
The AR is God. I love it so much and was always sad to see how useless it was in previous games.
Click to expand...

Maybe they buffed it since I stopped playing but personally I always had a shorter time to kill with the pistol at all range minus like, in your face I can melee you range.
 
R

Ramirez

Member
Best MP in the series, if you're willing to stick it out and learn. The game will do an amazing job in 4v4 of matching you with same skill players. My 6 year old boots it up from time to time and manages to get kills and have fun, despite being clueless.

And unless you're playing a WZ squad designed to dismantle you with high REQs, a basic BR is more than enough to do well in a match.
 
D

DontBeThatGuy

Member
Favorite competitive MP since H2, and honestly, it plays better than that game, albeit with a few weak maps. I didn't care much for BTB then, and I still don't. Warzone is alright once in a while.

Campaign is decent.
 
T

The Jackdog

Member
The campaign was a huge disappointment. "Biggest ever" and was awful, had a halo 2 cliffhanger which I thought this series had learned not to do, and while having the squad with you was cool it was pretty much useless story wise. Ai wasn't impressive either.

Not to mention the hunt the truth stuff literally amounting to nothing. My least favorite halo campaign yet.

But the multi-player. No other game has had me keep coming back. The updates are nice. 343 is listening, just listening slowly. But there's constantly new content.

Its the best feeling multi-player game I've played this gen. All the new movement stuff is good and makes a different. It's just damn fun. Warzone is a nice casual experience and arena is nice and competitive.

If they get the campaigns back on track, I really like the places they series is headed.
 
BeforeU

BeforeU

Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
Best FPS Multiplayer = Halo 5.

I can't get enough of it.

343 nailed the gameplay yo.
 
B

blue_phazon

Member
Moofers said:
You are 100% correct. I meant to type fuel rod cannon there. I guess I was thinking about the BR and typed that instead.
Click to expand...
Ah that makes sense.

For warzone though, I usually don't use any reqs except for the permanent loadout ones and usually don't have too many issues. Warzone took me a long time to get used to because I didn't know what I should be doing. If you're playing alone, it's better to stick with your teammates. And whenever bosses spawn you should be sneaky and get the last shot into it. Oh, and keep in mind that you can spawn at any base your team captured. You can cycle through then on your death screen.

Then again I don't think warzone is much fun alone. I only play it with others. You should hop by the halo 5 community thread as we play warzone every Saturday. There's also a group of us who play most nights
 
D

DedValve

Banned
Multiplayer is the clear winner here.

Campaign was crap. Didn't make a lot of sense and barely used their characters (team blue especially).

It wasn't terrible by any means but it was largely forgettable. Even the setpieces.
 
N

nillah

Banned
Kill zone, Gears... A halo, let these franchises die and of course spark something new.

Isn't it because such titles are exclusive is that why they haven't been able to catch fire like Call of Duty or Rocket League?
 
A

AGoodODST

Member
It's a super fun game. They nailed the gun play and movement.

I enjoyed the campaign for what it was, had some fun set pieces and some of the stages were really nice looking.

Multiplayer is the games biggest success though, they done a really good job of making it fun and rewarding to play.
 
G

gollumsluvslave

Member
Having just played through MCC and just started my 2nd playthrough Halo 5, I can see some of what you say. My biggest gripe after fisrt play of Halo 5 was the story beats are off somehow, like stuff was cut out, and I agree with the OP that the start of the game is very abrupt - IMO not so much with Fireteam Osiris, but with Blue Team.

Where did they come from, no background, no exposition, nothing. Very odd.

Then the way Jul as treated in Osiris mission - major dropped ball IMO, I thought that the first time, and 2nd time it bugs me even more, all his story, and no payoff? He could have AT LEAST been given a showdown with the Arbiter in Sanghelios missions.

Gameplay though is glorious, the core gunplay and mechanics are great, 60fps works. The one thing I dislike about it is the same thing I disliked about Reach - squad-based gameplay ALL THE TIME. The revival mechanic I think removes a fair bit of tension for me, and the squad AI is not that great - better than Reach but that's not saying a lot.


I like Prometheans as enemies, better than Brutes by a long way, and the weapon set is good (love the lightrifle). However, Halo 5 tends to throw 'waves' of enemies at you (almost like minifirefights in the campaign) which feels a bit lazy - the encounter design is not the best at these points.
 
S

SmartWaffles

Member
Loadout weapons like AR, BR, DMR (lol I don't have it after god knows how long) and SMG are permanent when you unlock and equip it so you don't lose it even if you die, you can also select where you spawn so you don't have to run that far.

For warzone if you engage smartly you can destroy people just with two BRs or a BR+SMG, common power weapons like the normal SAW and Railgun do wonders too, you don't absolutely need fancy stuff to succeed. Come to the OT we have warzone saturday stomp groups to play along.
 
S

Sou Da

Member
Being put off that you don't get to use human weapons 24/7 is weird gripe that people have always had. Even weirder here since they're hidden all around the levels.
 
J

JumPeRJumPzZ

Banned
Ok Multiplayer with sadly a lot of flaws.

Bad Campaign.

Technically not really impressive for a 1st party game. The list goes on and on.

Overall a pretty forgettable game.

Was my last Halo Ego Shooter for now. Wont fall into another hype train and PR lies.

Played some MCC MP the last couple of days and found that MP way more fun. The MM times are really bad there sadly.
 
G

Gator86

Member
I think the hate for the campaign is overblown. It's definitely flawed in how much they expect you to bring in from other games/outside media, but is still a fun ride. It's weird to see so many people calling Locke boring considering the main character of the series is probably the most generic video game character of all time.

Arena is great and maybe the best shooter MP on consoles right now. Unfortunately, the aiming still kind of sucks. I've played hundreds of shooters for thousands of hours over the years, and H5 is one of the only ones I can recall struggling with the aiming. Even post patch, it still feels off a lot of the time.

Finally, fuuuuuuuuuuck the REQ system. It is complete and total fucking garbage designed to do nothing more than siphon cash from whales. Every single effect it has on gameplay is a huge negative. Card systems in games are terrible roughly 100% of the time and this case is no different. These systems add a ton of RNG and imbalance to the game solely for profit and need to fucking disappear forever.
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
Bad campaign.
Good but boring MP.

IMO I don't think i343 will have success creating a really great Halo game... looks like they can't add Halo soul at the game.

Maybe it is time to give freedom to i343 show what they can do in a new IP.
 
B

Blue Ninja

Member
I thought Halo 5's campaign was great and really nailed the Halo-feeling, which Halo 4 never really did. But those damn Warden fights...

The MP is good, but I just want Firefight now.
 
D

dt2

Banned
Moofers said:
And when did Buck go from being an ODST to being a Spartan, and why is that not explained at all?
Click to expand...

There's really not much to explain. In Halo 5 he's a Spartan IV and the Spartan IV program gave exceptional military personnel within the UNSC the opportunity to join the program and transition to a Spartan IV. One can make the assumption that this opportunity was extended to Buck and he took it.

Personally I love the campaign and feel it's one of the strongest in the series. I've completed it 4 times and each time was quite a different experience due to the new traversal options and different paths hidden within each level. Additionally changing the difficulty and messing around with the skulls changes things up quite a bit as well. I felt the story was good and feel much of the hate towards it is overblown. Halo games have always given you enough to keep you interested and move the story along but required you to explore the expanded universe to really get the most out of it. Was it the strongest in the series? No...but none of the previous games were academy award winning caliber either.

Multiplayer, I feel, is definitely the strongest in the series. Almost everything feels super polished. The minute to minute gameplay is sublime and everything feels balanced. When I die, I feel it's because of how I approached the situation and I immediately think of a minor adjustment I could of done to turn things around. Additionally the fact that it's all on dedicated servers has made everything extremely smooth with few instances of lag and disconnects. Is it perfect? No...but it's the best in the series for me.
 
O

OneUh8

Member
Multiplayer might be the best in the series. The weak part is the maps being average. If the maps were as good as the first 3 Halo games, it would be the best yet no question. I still have not bothered to finish the single player campaign, been mostly stuck to playing arena with some warzone here and there.
 
M

Miker

Member
I just started playing last week and I can't get enough. I actually think it's my favorite console shooter since the original Halo.

I thought the campaign was absolutely fantastic - definitely not from a story perspective, but from a pacing and gameplay perspective, I thought each mission remained fun to play throughout (Warden aside), which is more than I can say about all the other Halo campaigns. Prometheans are a huuuuuuge upgrade over Halo 4, and are actually fun to fight - hell, I'd take Halo 5's Prometheans over the Flood from Halo 1-3. There's also more environmental variety than previous Halos, and each large encounter is dense with lots of alternate paths and little nooks and crannies holding power weapons. It's shorter and more linear, which is probably a negative for lots of people, but conversely it never devolves into mazes of purple hallways or forerunner structures that go on forever and ever. My biggest complaint, besides the Warden, would be a lack of infighting between Covenant and Promethean forces, which only happens in a select few missions.

The story is way, way, way better than what the hell Halo 4's was. The core of the story - Chief chases Cortana and Lock chases Chief - is nice and simple, which is a Good Thing. I found there to be an actual sense of mystery and a feeling of a larger threat rather than "who is didact and why does he evil."

At the end of the day, level design aside, the mechanics and sandbox just make it feel so fun and dynamic to play in a way that the other Halos can't match. The combat sandbox is the best it's ever been, and all weapons serve a purpose. I truly believe it's the most varied and balanced arsenal of any FPS to date. Not only that, but the gunplay is rock fucking solid. The hit indicators, the audio mix, and the feedback from impulse triggers all come together to make every shot feel satisfying. I'm normally a PC gamer, and I couldn't imagine playing it on m+kb just because I'd miss the impulse triggers.
 
I

inoperativ

Member
My favorite console MP FPS since Halo 2. Campaign is decent and stays fresh for a couple of playthroughs since there's quite a few different ways to approach most encounters.
 
S

SmartWaffles

Member
OneUh8 said:
Multiplayer might be the best in the series. The weak part is the maps being average. If the maps were as good as the first 3 Halo games, it would be the best yet no question. I still have not bothered to finish the single player campaign, been mostly stuck to playing arena with some warzone here and there.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have a standout map for sure, but overall map quality is solid, there definitely is room for improvement on that front.
 
S

sir_dany12

Member
JumPeRJumPzZ said:
Ok Multiplayer with sadly a lot of flaws.

Bad Campaign.

Technically not really impressive for a 1st party game. The list goes on and on.

Overall a pretty forgettable game.

Was my last Halo Ego Shooter for now. Wont fall into another hype train and PR lies.

Played some MCC MP the last couple of days and found that MP way more fun. The MM times are really bad there sadly.
Click to expand...

image.php


Oh, you
 
B

Beach

Member
I've never wanted to like a game more than Halo 5 but after the first few weeks of finishing the campaign and playing multiplayer its just not for me anymore. This game is in a whole different universe compared to Halo 1-3. There was no Halo magic to it. And while I didn't like Reach or Halo 4 as much as the previous installments at least I had still had split screen for my friends/brothers that I would go with.

The game and series is for that matter has no soul to me anymore. I'm glad that some of the fanbase is enjoying it though.
 
J

jem0208

Member
IMO probably the best playing shooter I've ever played.

Campaign gameplay is absolutely superb, level design is brilliant and the game is just so smooth to play. The story is a bit meh though

The resdesigned prometheans I think are excellent and are some of the better designed enemies in the series. The new knights reward you for being accurate way more than any other enemy.

Multiplayer is sublime and extremely addicting, my favourite in the series. There is a very real skill gap though, you'll find yourself being destroyed if you get good.
 
K

Kysen

Member
Prometheans and their weapons suck why they kept them around from 4 I do not know. The ending was missing as well.
 
J

jelly

Member
The thing about the REQ system being a crutch for free DLC, to me it basically seems like they held back most Halo standard staples, mixed it with REQ for profit items rather than actually you know, making more content for free. Does nobody notice this?

343 once again did well with gun play and movement, aiming mistakes aside but they still can't make a good campaign. Waves are just really boring and no matter how big things look, doesn't mean anything if your path is a straight tunnel to no pay off.
 
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