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LTTP: Halo 5

Sosokrates

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Having a blast, the gameplay reminds me of Doom.
Fast visceral combat with cool melees all at a silky smooth 60fps.

Its weird how Doom gets nothing but praise but halo 5 doesent.
 
Halo 5 hatred is for 2 reasons

1- Xbox one
2- Halo campaign is supposed to be Masterpiece but H5 campaign sucked
 
They nailed modernizing the controls. Campaign needed more MC and had some repetitive missions (that's Halo) but I liked the squads being added to the mix. Story wasn't as good as it could have been, but people need to seriously go back and look at the stories in the Bungee games. The ad campaigns had better stories (and were some of the best ads ever created so that hurts in comparison). I had pretty much stopped playing multiplayer in H3, H4 kinda got me interested but H5 is fantastic. Warzone is a great addition. Really happy with it, gets a B+ from me. Better campaign would have made it an A+ because the multiplayer is marvelous.
 
xviper said:
Halo 5 hatred is for 2 reasons

1- Xbox one
2- Halo campaign is supposed to be Masterpiece but H5 campaign sucked
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Eh I'd say that it didn't necessarily suck as much as it didn't impress as much as previous halo games. The squad aspect of the game I think hurt it quite a bit. I prefer the feel of being all alone and trying to survive in the different parts of the halo universe versus having 2-3 other AI teammates tagging along with me every where i go. Just doesn't feel the same. For the record I didn't enjoy halo 2's campaign either and for some of the same reason. Being th Arbiter just didn't interest me nor playing along side a bunch of AI.
 
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The gameplay was fun, but I think a lot of lore fans thought it went completely off the rails this time. The books and all the surrounding media around it before the launch laid out where it could have gone, and then the AI rebellion was kinda out of nowhere. They could still be building up to the rest of it, but we just don't know yet.
 
LordOfChaos said:
The gameplay was fun, but I think a lot of lore fans thought it went completely off the rails this time. The books and all the surrounding media around it before the launch laid out where it could have gone, and then the AI rebellion was kinda out of nowhere. They could still be building up to the rest of it, but we just don't know yet.
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Raise your hand if you hate fighting AI. /raiseshand
 
Can't speak on the Doom comparison, but MP is great even if 343 kind of caved in to the current landscape of FPS'.

SP I haven't completed, but looks great graphically.
 
Campaign was a mess of unclosed narratives from 4 that go nowhere, are promptly abandoned, and replaced with something decidedly less interesting, less humanized.

The squad is underutilized, underdeveloped. Some of the missions are okay. Weapon balancing is the best it's ever been, giving you real combat choice. Warden fight hate is overblown but he's definitely a problem. Brings to light the rather poor arenas that characterize the game. Reliance on trash mobs (grunts, crawlers, and watchers) leaves most enemy encounters feeling tedious. Game difficulty is unbalanced at legendary, which admittedly has been a problem for most of the games but you'd think they work some of the legacy problems out.

Multiplayer is fine but lack of map variety hurts replayability for me (forge maps can go away forever).
 
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I absolutely love Halo 5. I'm doing the campaign co-op on legendary and it's a blast and I love the multiplayer. It's one of my faves isn't the series.
 
I enjoyed the campaign, but as with the earlier games in the series it's only really fun to fight the Covenant forces. Any level in the old games where I had to fight the flood was an unenjoyable slog, and while fighting the forerunner enemies is better than that, it is still simply not as fun as fighting brutes, elites, jackals, et al. That one boss you fight numerous times in H5 was no fun at all, and his repetitious phrases caused me to mute the volume.

As for the story, and splitting the missions between Locke and MC, I was fine with it. I like where the story is going enough to look forward to the next game. I also liked the squad gameplay. I finally finished Reach the other day after playing H5 and I desperately missed the ability to order my squad to certain areas or take certain weapons, vehicles, etc. That's a nice feature.
 
Do the people who find the H5 campaign bad also find other FPS's bad?
Like doom ?
Because the games are different but they do have quite a few core similarities.
So far I could not give a crap about the story but halo 5s gameplay itself is really quite fun and the graphics and environments are good enough to keep the experience visually stimulating.
 
Played it for the first time via Xbox One X and finished it a few days ago.

Felt good to be playing Halo again. Looked great in 4K. There was some really great moments. It wasn't until the end I understood some of the complaints. Levels a bit too straightforward with similar objectives, wish I could have played more as Chief. I still really liked it.
 
The campaign is fine but it lacks that Halo feel for me. I've tried to replay it but I just can't get through it.

The multi is still amazing imo. Love me some super fiesta.
 
Sosokrates said:
Having a blast, the gameplay reminds me of Doom.
Fast visceral combat with cool melees all at a silky smooth 60fps.

Its weird how Doom gets nothing but praise but halo 5 doesent.
Click to expand...

The Act Man has a good series on YT about what's wrong with H5's campaign. The series is a long watch, but he's not wrong.

For me: I love playing video games with my kids. They'll always ask to play Halo with me, and they don't really care what we play. Usually we'll play The Ark on H3, because there are a lot of vehicles to drive. Sometimes we'll play Firefight on Reach.

Now, H5 has some good vehicle missions, and Warzone Firefight would probably be a blast in split screen, but there's one problem. Microsoft thought it was more important to sell consoles than to make players happy and put in split screen. Sorry guys, I'll just play the old Halo games. I'm not buying another system, gold membership, and copy of Halo 5 so I can play the game with my kids.

Aside from this issue, the story needs help. I don't want to sort through novels, comics, a short video miniseries, and who knows what else, to know what is going on in a video game. I won't touch the plot of the story, in case anyone else hasn't played it. It just feels forced, that's all I'll say. The relationship the main antagonist has with the Warden is just bizarre.

Finally, other games have had you fight the same several times throughout the game, but they spice it up a little. H5's boss fights are pretty lazy.

That being said, I did love H5's multiplayer. It had a few rough spots, and is still a little low on content, but it's still a blast.
 
Sosokrates said:
Do the people who find the H5 campaign bad also find other FPS's bad?
Like doom ?
Because the games are different but they do have quite a few core similarities.
So far I could not give a crap about the story but halo 5s gameplay itself is really quite fun and the graphics and environments are good enough to keep the experience visually stimulating.
Click to expand...

If you're not caught up in the lore of the series (or are indifferent to the story), you're going to have a great time. A lot of gamers got caught up in the pre-release hype campaign at the time and imagined that the game would take a different narrative direction than it did. A lot of the irrational Halo 5 hate was spawned from this.

IMHO it's a fantastic game. The gameplay in the SP campaign is sublime. It's actually better on repeat playthroughs. As much as I disliked the squad aspect initially, I absolutely love it now. The combat sandbox is fantastic. Now that the shine has worn off of Doom for me, I think that I might hold Halo 5 in a higher regard from a gameplay perspective. I've certainly returned to Halo 5 more often since.

I've been following the series since it's launch on the OG Xbox and whilst Halo 5 wasn't the new Halo story that I wanted, I still consider it to be amongst my favourite games of this generation.

That said, I still feel that 343 genuinely don't understand the original appeal of Halo. The original game was viewed entirely through the eyes of the Master Chief, while a sexy half naked AI girl whispered in our ear and guided us in our "great journey". On top of that, we were going on an adventure to an uncharted world, seeing something completely new and we had a fantastic enemy to fight and an ancient history to uncover in our attempt to overcome adversity and circumstance. Mixed in with that was a brilliant and grounded combat and physics sandbox. That is an ULTRA SIMPLE formula to follow that is easy for any professional creative (worth their salt) to reproduce. Yet, 343 -with their Halo 4/5 team- seem to be completely ignorant of what made the original game a cultural icon that a majority of consumers could find appeal in. They seem to be transfixed on furthering a Bungie narrative that was already headed off in the wrong direction. If I was the game director at 343, I would have scrapped everything, gone back to basics, looked at what made Halo CE a success and gone "how can we make a 2018 version of that"? Because it's what "everybody" wants (*everybody = mass consumer appeal). Hell, if they just copied the Halo CE formula and dupicated that in the Halo 5 engine (+ any currently trending game mechanic), they'd be onto a massive hit. The dots are there, they just needed to fill them. I'm surprised that with all of the money that MS is throwing in their direction that they can't achieve a simple objective.
 
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One of the best halo games , played a few games today after so long . It really good.
Here if you want to try to get one the Achilles armor , we are only 2 commendation away , and 28 for the helmet. The armor will probably take another year or so .

Team Frankie Spartan Company(Please send me a PM here, I always forget to check halowaypoint) (>.< I hoppe for halo 6 make it easier to manage a company , going to halowaipoint for invites and managing the company is such a pain.
 
Artistic said:
Can anyone explain how Reach isn't a rehash of CE's campaign?
Click to expand...
Whoa whoa whoa who is saying that? CE is my all time favorite campaign and Reach is my least favorite out of all the halo games. I see little to no similarities between them. Halo = interesting. Reach = uninteresting. Bloom sucks. Hitscan rules. Power ups = good. Armor abilities = bad. Master Chief + Cortana rock. Noble team meh. Mystery of halo, covenant, and flood is epic. Mystery of Reach is disappointing. CE music is king. Reach music is forgettable. CE's ending gives hope and satisfaction. Reach ending gives depression and diarrhea. CE pistol is king. Reach pistol isnt.
 
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The campaign was atrocious, add to that you played 70% of the game as a boring ass Locke instead of Chief and yea people were quite disappointed with the game. The shooting was great however and the multiplayer was fantastic but a lot of people play Halo for the campaign and Chief and both of those under delivered for sure.
 
Koala Driving a Ferrari said:
If you're not caught up in the lore of the series (or are indifferent to the story), you're going to have a great time. A lot of gamers got caught up in the pre-release hype campaign at the time and imagined that the game would take a different narrative direction than it did. A lot of the irrational Halo 5 hate was spawned from this.

IMHO it's a fantastic game. The gameplay in the SP campaign is sublime. It's actually better on repeat playthroughs. As much as I disliked the squad aspect initially, I absolutely love it now. The combat sandbox is fantastic. Now that the shine has worn off of Doom for me, I think that I might hold Halo 5 in a higher regard from a gameplay perspective. I've certainly returned to Halo 5 more often since.

I've been following the series since it's launch on the OG Xbox and whilst Halo 5 wasn't the new Halo story that I wanted, I still consider it to be amongst my favourite games of this generation.

That said, I still feel that 343 genuinely don't understand the original appeal of Halo. The original game was viewed entirely through the eyes of the Master Chief, while a sexy half naked AI girl whispered in our ear and guided us in our "great journey". On top of that, we were going on an adventure to an uncharted world, seeing something completely new and we had a fantastic enemy to fight and an ancient history to uncover in our attempt to overcome adversity and circumstance. Mixed in with that was a brilliant and grounded combat and physics sandbox. That is an ULTRA SIMPLE formula to follow that is easy for any professional creative (worth their salt) to reproduce. Yet, 343 -with their Halo 4/5 team- seem to be completely ignorant of what made the original game a cultural icon that a majority of consumers could find appeal in. They seem to be transfixed on furthering a Bungie narrative that was already headed off in the wrong direction. If I was the game director at 343, I would have scrapped everything, gone back to basics, looked at what made Halo CE a success and gone "how can we make a 2018 version of that"? Because it's what "everybody" wants (*everybody = mass consumer appeal). Hell, if they just copied the Halo CE formula and dupicated that in the Halo 5 engine (+ any currently trending game mechanic), they'd be onto a massive hit. The dots are there, they just needed to fill them. I'm surprised that with all of the money that MS is throwing in their direction that they can't achieve a simple objective.
Click to expand...

Excellent post.I agree with everything you said.
However I would suspect game development is not as simple as you suggest.
I do hope halo does return to its roots but if 343 deliver another halo game with a similar quality to halo 5 I will not be disappointed.
 
Crew 511A said:
there's one problem. Microsoft thought it was more important to sell consoles than to make players happy and put in split screen.
Click to expand...

Rubbish. 343 correctly prioritised having the game run at 60fps (which made many players, like me, very happy) over a feature that was used by a small (but very vocal) minority of players.
 
Sosokrates said:
Having a blast, the gameplay reminds me of Doom.
Fast visceral combat with cool melees all at a silky smooth 60fps.

Its weird how Doom gets nothing but praise but halo 5 doesent.
Click to expand...

It really isn't weird at all, Halo 5 is awful. Bad balance, bad gameplay and nothing like what a game with "Halo" in the title should be.
obviously excluding halo wars before any of the 343 defence force chime in
 
SatansReverence said:
It really isn't weird at all, Halo 5 is awful. Bad balance, bad gameplay and nothing like what a game with "Halo" in the title should be.
obviously excluding halo wars before any of the 343 defence force chime in
Click to expand...

Interesting that a games franchise Legacy has such a big impact to how you judge a game.
I would imagine doing this would create inconsistencies on how one reviews games.

I dread to think of your opinions of other FPS's this gen.
 
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Sosokrates said:
Interesting that a games franchise Legacy has such a big impact to how you judge a game.
I would imagine doing this would create inconsistencies on how one reviews games.

I dread to think of your opinions of other FPS's this gen.
Click to expand...
Yet new Doom undeniably rode a wave of popular sentiment that harkened it back to classic Doom, in stark contradistinction to Doom 3, which received near universal criticism at release for abandoning the precepts of it's predecessors and trying something new. Its not at all uncommon and I don't see how it would necessarily negatively impact his ability to judge other genre games

Furthermore, you've drawn a weird conflation between Doom, Halo 5, and their critical reception that is undeveloped at best and oddly obfuscatory at worst.

I like Halo 5 but it's problems are too many and too profound to ignore.
 
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EBE said:
Yet new Doom undeniably rode a wave of popular sentiment that harkened it back to classic Doom, in stark contradistinction to Doom 3, which received near universal criticism at release for abandoning the precepts of it's predecessors and trying something new. Its not at all uncommon and I don't see how it would necessarily negatively impact his ability to judge other genre games

Furthermore, you've drawn a weird conflation between Doom, Halo 5, and their critical reception that is undeveloped at best and oddly obfuscatory at worst.

I like Halo 5 but it's problems are too many and too profound to ignore.
Click to expand...

What is this conflation between halo and doom I have done?

And why is it underdeveloped?
And what did you find obscure or hard to understand in what I said?
 
Multiplayer is top-tier but campaign was hyped up so much that it was so disappointing. Fifteen missions and three of them are Chief? Yikes.
 
The multiplayer is the best yet, and I dare say best multiplayer FPS of the generation so far in terms of polish and finish and enjoyability.

If 343 listen to the community for Halo 6 single player as much as they did for 5's multiplayer hold on. It wasn't bad per say but christ tone down the boss recyclement and give us more Chief play.
 
I'm all about the campaigns, don't really do much MP, so all this is campaign oriented...

Halo 5 is extremely frustrating - the core gunplay is the best in the series IMO - 343 really nailed the base mechanics.

However, the encounter design is really hit & miss, some levels like Swords of Sanghelios are fantastic, but others degenerate into wave-spawn combat arena of Prometheans and don't have that organic feel I expect from Halo encounters. Prometheans are a real issue, they simply aren't as much fun to fight as Elites. I really hope the next Halo comes up with something better than Prometheans, but i'm not holding my breath.

So much of Halo 5 campaign feels disjointed and really lacking in execution - there are great bits, but it's very uneven, and feels to me like there was a lot of rushed edits towards the end of the design, I think this comes across most of all in the plot execution which is really jarring in many cases and downright inexplicable at worst (offing Jul in at the end of the first mission to make Osiris and Locke seem 'badass'? Weak sauce of the weakest order!)

Final and probably biggest issue for me is the focus on Squad gameplay. It was pretty poor IMO, AI was non-existant to frustratingly dumb. For me, the Halo feel is mostly a 'lone wolf' kind of vibe, broken up by moments of marine squads etc, but it's NOT the core.

In summary

+ Core mechanics and shooting feel amazing
+ 60fps is buttery smooth

- Poor squad implementation & AI
- Lazy & uneven encounter design
- The Warden Eternal. Jesus. So lazy.
- Uneven and disjointed narrative execution


I still enjoyed playing through it, but it's the only Halo i've yet to playthrough on solo Legendary, and due to the squad gameplay / Warden I really doubt I will even attempt it.

Considering how fantastic the gunplay feels, it's an extremely frustrating game, as the campaign could have been so much more.
 
If there's a stragteic element in how to take down Prometheans, it'll be better than just wasting two clips to kill one.
 
Still play Halo 5 daily.

The hatred is completely overblown, campaign is fantastic, just didn't mesh with the marketing. There's not a single moment where you think Chief is a traitor. And Locke is bland and boring. But they nailed the beat by beat gameplay, figured out how to make the promethians fun, and didn't force any racing segments.

Still is the best controlling and feeling FPS I've ever played.
 
Good thing 343 has recognize they need to go back to basics for H6. Removing key loved features like split screen was just wrong. Also, mis-leading folks with the marketing campaign too.

I just want back to core basics GREAT SP game play and campaign story that isn't all over the place. They had a good concept but execution was poor. Also, what is up with that avengers-like opening? Was pretty meh.

Also, more blue team please and just let me play as the chief for the love of God. Chief = Halo and Halo = Chief (for the mainline story games anyways).
 
I thought the removal of split screen was due to a conflict of hardware limitations? And if it was, why would it be any different unless it's highly optimized for the One X?

It's not a feature I would use readily as of now, but it's a feature I would like to have if the times arises.
 
I still play Halo 5 regularly; the MP is one of the best if not the best of the series. There's nothing--to me, like getting on a Warthog with a friend and bringing havoc all over a map. I love the weapons and the amazing variety of game types, Warzone and all big team games are my favorites. The SP was different, yes; but not as bad-for me, as many mentioned.

I am looking forward to see where Halo 6 takes the lore and gameplay of the series. In the meantime, I'll be happy when the MCC gets the X update and upgrades.
 
Crew 511A said:
For me: I love playing video games with my kids. They'll always ask to play Halo with me, and they don't really care what we play. Usually we'll play The Ark on H3, because there are a lot of vehicles to drive. Sometimes we'll play Firefight on Reach.

Now, H5 has some good vehicle missions, and Warzone Firefight would probably be a blast in split screen, but there's one problem. Microsoft thought it was more important to sell consoles than to make players happy and put in split screen. Sorry guys, I'll just play the old Halo games. I'm not buying another system, gold membership, and copy of Halo 5 so I can play the game with my kids.
Click to expand...

Have you never looked into family sharing?

I used to like split screen ages ago, but once online multiplayer on consoles took off with XBL (for me anyways) there was no going back. So my oldest son had a Wii U that we weren't playing much so I asked if he'd rather have an XB1 so we could play more stuff together. He agreed, we sold it and bought another XB1 have been playing more games together since.

All you need is another XB1. That's it. If you buy the game digitally, you can have it on 2 systems, same for your XBL Gold. I honestly wish more of the things MS was pushing for in terms of digital games and sharing would have made it through and faster because I'll never go back to discs.

I would rather 343 put more resources into other areas of the game because there's no doubt the game will have to make serious performance compromises to run in split screen on the OG XB1 and the S.
 
hiphopcr said:
And Locke is bland and boring.
Click to expand...

I'm a huge fan of this series, but I have to admit I don't get these complaints and the "Must play as Chief" camp. Chief hardly talks and when he does he barely emotes. He's just a blank vessel for the player to insert themselves. Yes, over the course of the games you still get a sense of a back story and that he's loyal to his comrades, etc. but there's hardly any characterization there. Locke was poured from the same no-nonsense "empty vessel" mold. Locke has a backstory that you learn over the course of the game as well but again he doesn't really emote or become much of a character. It just didn't bother me at all. I love the Chief, sure, but for me playing as Locke didn't FEEL much different in the grand scheme of things. I welcome a return to all-Chief gameplay, but I don't mind stepping out of his shoes. If they had a new game where you played the whole thing as Buck I'd be pretty excited, actually.
 
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Son_of_Zardoz said:
Have you never looked into family sharing?

I used to like split screen ages ago, but once online multiplayer on consoles took off with XBL (for me anyways) there was no going back. So my oldest son had a Wii U that we weren't playing much so I asked if he'd rather have an XB1 so we could play more stuff together. He agreed, we sold it and bought another XB1 have been playing more games together since.

All you need is another XB1. That's it. If you buy the game digitally, you can have it on 2 systems, same for your XBL Gold. I honestly wish more of the things MS was pushing for in terms of digital games and sharing would have made it through and faster because I'll never go back to discs.

I would rather 343 put more resources into other areas of the game because there's no doubt the game will have to make serious performance compromises to run in split screen on the OG XB1 and the S.
Click to expand...

:/
Vs just needing a controller, besides we could do all that on 360 and had split screen.
 
Halo 5 is great, but I can't help but prefer 4's campaign. MP is fucking ace though, I'm just getting back into it with my scorpio.
 
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