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[VertigoOA]

This is like the one time I’ve seen a gaming community genuinely unified in opinion. I’m actually impressed.

343 Halo is worse than Disney Star Wars. It’s that bad. Glad to see that it’s recognized.

They should’ve been taken off the job after Halo 5. Hack cover band that they are.

 

[Roberts]

So, I played through MC collection when it came out on Xbox, one game after another and then Halo 5 a bit later. Halo MP doesn't interest me at all and I played it way too little to have an opinion.

Didn't really read gaming forums at the time and had no clue that 343 is supposed to be evil entity that has destroyed Halo. So that was a surprise, because I really enjoyed all five games. Some a bit less, some more, but no clear winners or losers. Despite a few gameplay or story flow issues on 5, it is still a more entertaining game than the first one, which just hasn't aged all that well. I think Halo is in good hands.

 

[Cutty Flam]

Halo 4

Sprint: Large maps came to feel like small maps when you can travel from one side to the other a couple times in just a minute or so with the ability to sprint. I used to love Big Team Battle (BTB) where traversing from one side to another in hopes of accomplishing your tasks, was a mission. You dying meant so much more when you had to walk and plan and fight for distance covered. You really had to play it smart. It Halo 4 it's just, let's book it. Sprint like Usain Bolt, we'll be there in a second. So boring, such a poor choice. It did nothing but ruin the pace and strategy in a game. Instead of control and holding down a map; it was more or less chaos and can you pay attention among the chaos to prevail and claim victory. I liked the slower methodical pace where every step forward is hard earned

That's all I have patience for atm lol. I don't want to even speak on Halo 4. But Sprint and Loadouts and 90% + of the maps were all poor choices for Halo. Everything about that game was executed with mediocrity

 

[Cutty Flam]

The maps were not interesting in the slightest. Maps in Halo 2 and Halo 3 used to have some lore behind them. Artifacts, interesting ships, areas where battles took place I think. In Halo 4, and I played the campaign fully, getting most achievements, I cannot remember one area that was even in the campaign. I really disliked the maps. Even the maps I liked were barely fun enough. The loadouts and sprint lowered the quality further of how fun those maps could be. I feel like sprinting and the loadouts limited the already plain to begin with, maps

 

[Cutty Flam]

Forge though, in Halo 4, that was a thing of beauty. If there is a forge in Halo: Infinite be sure to try it out. Very, very good option. It allowed for such a limitless amount of creativity. I was really proud of what they did with their forge mode. It's just a shame that there was little reason to play the game longer than 3-5 months. Just wasn't a very fun game to play matchmaking in. Even with all my friends from highschool and more playing, it didn't last. I found myself bored, not enthused or engaged. It wasn't exciting or thrilling at all. I used to play games in Halo 2 or Halo 3 that felt like they mattered as much as a community sports league game or something. Everybody wanted to win, many competed very hard and took it seriously. Halo 4 never was fun enough to form such a legendary community of players. All in all, it didn't feel competitive and it definitely wasn't fun enough to keep my attention for long. I played Halo 2 for like 4 years nonstop. Played Halo 3 for like the same. Halo 4 was done in like 5 max. 4 months I think was it tbh

It's a very disappointing entry in the series. Everybody wanted to like it, but it wasn't even great in many respects. Just good I guess. Good enough to be there for a short while and then everybody moves on

Halo 4 in one word = disappointing

 

[NeoROCK]

When Halo 1-3 came out on consoles they were really some of the first big time FPS on console. FPS were generally on PC in the PlayStation 1 era and most popular games on ps2 were 3rd person (GTA, FF, Res Evil, MGS, etc). Halo made FPS popular on consoles.

Now FPS is one of the most oversaturated genres. We get yearly COD iterations, battlefield, destiny, etc etc.

No matter how good Halo Infinite is, 343 will never be able to recapture that spark Bungie once had with Halo.

 

[Steve.1981]

The story was absolute garbage. It didn't fit with the previous games at all. It was clearly established that Halo 3 was the end of the story and that the flood and Covenant were defeated, THE END. There were so many great stories that took place before Halo 3 that involved many of the beloved characters including Master Chief but they had to shoe-horn a new story with a completely re-worked lore and everything. Halo 4's lore feels completely different from the previous games, for example the ancient humans. Halo 5 is just the continuation of the train wreck that was Halo 4 so I don't hate it nearly as much. It just doesn't feel like any of the previous Halos at all. 343 should have made games about everything that happened between now and the end of Halo 3, you could easily make hundreds of fantastic and interesting games in that time frame. Insurrections, first contact with the Covies, Spartan Is, Spartan IIs, stories about individual marines, ODST, pilots. You could easily make a whole game where you fly a pelican, just look at Dropship: United Peace Force. A fantastic game where you mostly play a pilot of a transport craft. But no, they had to re-write everything and "suddenly everybody is a bad guy again" so you get to shoot everyone again for no reason. It is just pure trash and completely ruined Halo for me.

This is pretty much how I feel. 4's storyline was a real shocker for me. The way it just jumped straight back into fighting the Covenant. Like nothing from the previous games meant anything. Then, even worse, it came out with all the Precursors, Didact bullshit. Completely rewriting the established history of the universe. I checked out at that point & gave up on caring about the new story.

These days I'll play the new games just for the fun of it. 4 & 5 were both decent enough FPS fun, but are nowhere near the level of Bungie Halo.

We'll see how Infinite turns out.

 

[Knitted Knight]

I think now that Infinite is coming to PC it has a chance to establish itself a space in the genre with a solid dedicated player base. But FPS oversaturation is indeed an issue. Doom Eternal waned fast as hell for example. Being a good game just doesn't cut it.

 

[dilbag]

I like halo 4... 5 on the other hand was just bad (campaign wise) the pacing, the weird anime cutscenes, playing as locke... all of it

 

[GC_DALBEN]

I liked both games, but Halo 5 had the worst bosses ever , ill buy the next one, love the franchise. I really liked the MP on both games.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

I stopped playing halo after 3 so I am not up to date on the new games and their pitfalls. From an outside observer the prevailing opinion seems to be that 343 has struggled to carry on the franchise.

Reading in this thread that the next Halo might be “destiny-esq” seems like it could be a mistake for them. If they are having issues matching the Halo feel why would they try to take another Bungi game and slap Halo on it?

 

[Kev Kev]

Halo 4’s multiplayer took a bunch of shit from COD in terms of load outs and killstreaks. I actually really liked the Halo 4 multiplayer though, and I think if they just didn’t do the COD shit, it would have been much better received and have a much better rep. I think the single player is good though, I played it back to back with ODST earlier this year and enjoyed it a lot. It looks incredible too, maybe the best looking game on the Xbox 360 and still impressive in MCC.

Halo 5 is the reverse, it has solid multiplayer but the single player is awful. The story is terrible and MS‘ marketing was really deceptive, to the point where, I believe, they even sort of apologized after the game launched. It plays well enough though.

The problem is, in both instances, 343 seemed to show a lack of understanding for why people play Halo. Did they learn? Not sure.

this is a good post

although i dont agree that halo 5 single player was "awful", that's just too strong of a word. it wasny great, good maybe, but not amazing. and its definitely the worst campaign since reach (people seem to forget how heavily that game got pounded when it came out)

i really like how you put everything else though. theres a lot of hyperbole when it comes to halo (as there are for all popular franchises in any medium tbh), but you have a pretty level headed opinion here

and yes 343i did come out (i think it was frankie... or maybe i just read this on era? i dunno, but i def heard it) and said they regretted not focusing on master chief (the character everyone knows and wants to see) and introducing Locke (a character no one wanted or asked for). i think thats meant to say theyll just be focusing on chief and blue team (fred, kelly, linda)

as someone whos read the books (well a lot of them, not all), i can confidently say they need to stop crossing so much over from the novels and comic books. i read a lot of that stuff and was still confused, i cant imagine how someone who hasnt read them feels when trying to understand halo 4 and 5's story. its insane (and i hated the cortana plot).

wow this post turned out way longer than i thought it would. anyway, heres to hoping halo infinite addresses all this and blows our tits off.

 

[SpartanN92]

Art style is one of my biggest complaints. They made unnecessary changes for the sake of change and it took a very unique military sci-fi aesthetic and turned it into a sci-fi fantasy.
Every other problem with the games stems from that “Change for the sake of change” mentality.
Combine that with poor leadership (Both 343 and MS in the 2010-2013 era), bad writers, a few calamitous staffing departures, throw in a few pinches of Seattle Liberalism, and above all a shortage of people at 343 and MS that truly cared and appreciated what Halo was and that gets us to Halo 4 and 5. I will always defend 4 as a flawed but ambitious first attempt, Halo 5 on the other hand is...

A colossal failure

Nay, it was HERESY!

And I guarantee you 50%+ of the staff at 343 could not tell you where that reference comes from.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

 

[Rickyiez]

Just a simple answer . 343i

They don't understand Halo , that's it

 

[kraspkibble]

honestly, not much. very much enjoyed Halo 4. in Halo 5 Master Chief didn't appear much but whatever. it was the 5th game in the main series so y'know....good on them for trying something different. other than that? the only thing that stands out to me is the multiple Warden fights. i was so excited to see where they went with Halo 6 but i don't think they will really be wrapping it up with Infinite. as for gameplay, then Halo 5 is easily, hands down, without a doubt, the best Halo game.

most of the hate comes from the Bungie Boys who are stuck in the past of 2001-2010. no matter how good Halo 4 - 5 were (or "could've been") they were never gonna be satisfied because it wasn't Bungie. they were never gonna give the games a chance. unfortuantly their pissing and moaning has rubbed off on 343 who seem to want to appease them.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

My only exposure to Halo is that many years ago I was in a pickup Wailing Caverns group in WoW with an individual who I imagine must have been a middle school-aged child who roleplayed as Master Chief the entire time.

 

[teezzy]

They chased the COD train rather than doubling down on what made Halo unique in the first place

 

[PendekarRajawali]

There were nothing really wrong with Halo 4&5, people have moved on, that's it.

 

[Enzo88]

Level design, enemy ai/encounter design, weapons' feel.

 

[Halo is Back]

1. Story has been trash with absolute no vision and most importantly no commitment from 343. It's all over the place. The best thing was the relationship between Cortana and MS in Halo 4. Slowly seeing her die was very emotional for me and the lead story writer took inspiration from his own mother dying from dementia. Now that is what a true artist does.

2. Bland/bad map design in both games (especially 5). You will likely never see another Halo remaking maps from 4 & 5 for good reason.

3. Big divergence from core gameplay mechanics. Halo 4 was basically a COD ripoff and Halo 5 was a step in the right direction in terms of arena gameplay but thrusters, ground pound, sprint, climbing, and ADS all just make it feel like a different game.

5. Halo 5 was incredibly buggy and super unprofessional. Nothing about that game was consistent.

6. Halo 5 was with out a doubt the most bare bones Halo game at launch. It took them 1 year to make the game feel pretty complete but even then they removed all kind of game modes and made them timed exclusive in certain parts of the year. Huge L move and really dumb.


I could go on and on but you get the picture.

 

[gtrwll]

Halo 4 just wasn’t as fun to play as the Bungie games. Haven’t played 5 after being disappointed by 4.

 

[hymanator]

For me it was just franchise fatigue. 4 and 5 didn't seem interesting no matter who made it.

 

[silentsod]

I just wrapped Halo 4 in the MCC after playing through the series campaigns.

What a low point. The weapons feel is off, the story is nonsensical, the tone of the story is wrong, the Knights take forever to die and are always teleporting away to safety or teleporting to you and murdering you in one shot which can be a difficult read in the middle of combat, and the levels are all highly linear and yet too long at the same time. I think, for the story, there's too much wrong which is waved in your face. When the Chief wakes up and fights the Elites/grunts he mentions "these seem more fanatical" which is out of context and not something the Chief is likely to say. Moreover, there's no reason for the player to believe this is the case (lol, steamrolling them). This repeats itself throughout the story and, from what is presented in the games, makes zero sense that the Chief or Cortana have a bunch of this world knowledge that you haven't experienced despite being in his shoes in this universe for the prior three mainline titles. To top it all off Cortana somehow manifests as a bunch of corporeal tiny versions of herself and holds the Didact down for you to stick a grenade to him in a poorly executed quicktime event. I'm torn between rolling my eyes and laughing out loud because she's somehow managed to use a hard light bridge to create physical copies of herself that detach from the bridge and fly around like fucking fairies.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

There was a 4?

 

[levyjl1988]

Halo 5 is the game that killed the franchise for me, it was either play this or Destiny 2. I stuck with Destiny 2 as most of my friends were playing it than Halo 5.
Halo 5's story was extreme shit. I really liked Halo 4's story, but the antagonist could have been more villainous.
Halo 5 introduced characters I didn't care about in the game. It was all set pieces without any context.
It requires the understanding of the game's lore from previous books, comics, modes, etc to understand as a prerequisite.
Adding clothes to Cortona in Halo 5 cemented the SJW influence and I was like, "I'm done, the franchise is dead".

Am I looking forward to Halo Infinite? Halo Breathe of the Wild open-world concept, nope. I'm done.
The Halo franchise ended with Halo 4 for me and I'll leave it at that.

 

[Naked Lunch]

Let me preface by saying I still find Halo 2 and 3 to be the best FPS on the market to this day, zero contenst on consoles at the least. I still play the MCC online mp on a weekly basis. Counter Strike and Quake 3 are close on PC.

Halo 5's multiplayer started in a good place but it ultimately ended badly. They made all weapons not called a pistol weaker with an update in the midpoint of its life. For some reason they reverted the game back to Halo 1 - and made all weapon pickups outside of power weapons useless. I still cant believe how worthless the BR and DMR are now - no point in using them at all. The sad thing is the MP was fine for a while then they went full pistols-only.

Halo 5's Big Team Battle is the true loser of the entire MP though - its easily the weakest of the entire series. This is strange because 343's Halo 4 Big Team Battle was actually good.

343 needs way more internal designed maps. Too much reliance on (ugly) community-made forge maps. Theyve yet to make any classics on the Lockout, High Ground, Zanzibar stage.

I need to see some stuff on Infinite's MP because at this point - we just dont know how its going to turn out.

 

[deriks]

Halo 4 is like "why this is a thing?", but turned out to be a great game. Not that great, but great. Halo 5 thou is kinda short and could easily be an spin off, so is another step back

 

[01011001]

Halo 4:
-Terrible campagne with corridor levels
-Kill Streaks to appease the CoD Bros and casuals
-Death Streaks to... see above
-Loadouts to... again, see above
-SPRINT... again put in to appease CoD Bros and casuals
-awful weapon balancing (you could basically spawn with a shotgun that kills in 1 shot)
-Spartan Abilities pushed on us again
-the new artstyle was shit
-THE FINAL BOSS IS A FUCKING QTE!

Halo 5:
-pretty bad campagne (at least not as corridor level heavy as 4)
-Spartan abilities feel clunky and cumbersome while killing the Halo gameplay
-Low FOV even tho you fly around like a fucking power ranger all the time. this adds to the clunkyness of the game.
-still awful artstyle, at parts even worse than 4
-no big team maps designed by 343
-LOOTBOXES and pay 2 win MP modes
-the differences between the weapons of the 3 fractions have been basically removed for the most part because you need weapons that are basically hitscan to hit the always sprinting and dashing spartans. so 70% of all weapons are hitscan or close to it while the rest have a homing ability.
-Vehicles are useless in the new spartan ability meta

so that's the quick run don of why Halo 4 and 5 are shitty Halo games.
they completely ignore what Halo is, ignores the established artstyle, ruined the established gameplay loop and the story was completely fucked as well (but that's the least of my issues)


Sprint DOES NOT WORK in Halo, it kills the game.
Spartan Abilities DO NOT WORK in Halo, it kills the game.

A true Halo game will NEVER inhibit your ability to attack through your movement mechanics. The fact that Infinite still has clamber and Sprint shows that they still do not understand this, they still do not understand why their design choises suck.

 

[Kev Kev]

essentially, they tried to do too much.

they should have just stuck to the basics, story and gameplay wise.

 

[01011001]

essentially, they tried to do too much.

they should have just stuck to the basics, story and gameplay wise.

the issue is more that they tried to copy other popular games. with Halo 4 they copied Call of Duty (Killstreaks, Loadouts, Corridor levels, Unlockable perks and weapons)
and with Halo 5 they tried to copy Titanfall and CoD Advanced Warfare (Spartan abilities like dashing and shit)

and they don't understand the fundamentals of what Halo is.
Halo is a Run and Gun arena shooter with a heavy focus on the sandbox aspects (weapons, vehicles, map control)

Arena Shooter = Equal Starts
Run and Gun Shooter = You never lower your weapon due to movement abilities

Halo 4 was neither an Arena Shooter nor a Run and Gun shooter
Halo 5 at least went back to the Arena Shooter roots but is even less Run and Gun than 4. 4 had 1 movement ability that inhibited your weapon use and Halo 5 had Clamber, Sprint and Dash

 

[Nyxir]

Halo 5 multiplayer is the best in the series.

 

[ThatOneGrunt]

I really enjoyed both games. But 343i is terrible at telling stories. I Halo 4 when they introduced the Didact, I thought I had accidentally skipped a cutscene. Everyone in the game seemed to know who and what he was except me. Same thing with Halo 5. Nobody seemed shocked to see Cortana skipping around. Again, It was like I missed an important story beat.

 

[Phase]

The biggest problem? Advanced movement mechanics (i.e. sprint, etc.).

 

[93xfan]

4 really messed up the multiplayer.

5 has a great multiplayer, but the campaign was really lacking.

 

[Andodalf]

4 really messed up the multiplayer.

5 has a great multiplayer, but the campaign was really lacking.

This is pretty much it. Halo 5 often gets called lacking at launch, but aside from the lack of forge (due to a last minute bug) it had a good amount of content. It’s just didn’t have the traditional content (ie BTB) people wanted. There’s a difference. War zone and breakout took a lot of dev time, and they didn’t land with some fans, but the normal MP was great, and that shows in how the Pro Scene did super well.

 

[HaveButOneLife]

Campaign in Halo 4 wasn't bad, the MP was for some people though. The same goes for Halo 5 except the opposite, Campaign was just plain bad but the MP was serviceable.

 

[Corgi1985]

The enemies in the campaign fucking suck and the warden is one of the worst bosses of all time.

 

[SatansReverence]

Sprint DOES NOT WORK in Halo, it kills the game.
Spartan Abilities DO NOT WORK in Halo, it kills the game.

The end.

But the drooling morons still try to convince themselves that HaLo NeEdS tO mOdErNiSe!!!!!!

 

[silentsod]

Why on earth does it sound like a modem dialing when the shields recharge in Halo 4? Sound design was also off in comparison to the other Halos and this choice for the shield recharge was baffling.

 

[Allandor]

So far, best Halos I played
It is just the personal taste. Halo 4 & 5 just took another direction.

 

[CAPSOL]

343's Halo games simply lack soul. I wish MS would have switched dev teams by now.

 

[sainraja]

I think it probably has to do with the developers trying not to adopt some of the advances in FPS games and trying to hold on to Halo gameplay (e.g. aiming down sights.) I have only played Reach (did not finish it though but I was liking it) and Halo 5 (it was ok, not bad, but not great but I did finish it).

 

[Haggard]

They were pretty soulless iterations. Not bad, but just not great either, kind of generic like the 150th COD or the yearly fifa.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Halo 4 was awful, class system, stayed zoomed in when shot, maps was meh, story was wack.

Halo 5 tried to do better but still sucked, game just didn’t feel fun at all.

343 hopefully gets it together with infinite, because I really believe Microsoft should’ve put the cash up to buy bungie a long time ago. Right now 343 has an awful track record, took them YEARS to get MCC right.

 

[SkylineRKR]

A lot was wrong with Halo 4 and 5. I beat nearly all of the MCC and 5 over the last few months and they're just not good.

They are lacking in scale
Enemy encounters are lame, esp those robots
much more bugs
worse story
lots of boring samey indoor areas, outdoor areas feel very limited and arbitrary.

Just play Halo 3, get over the aged character details, it has a much better encounter design, much wider and varied landscapes and a better pacing overall. Even the much maligned Halo 2 was much better, let alone CE. All classic Halos are masterpieces compared to 4 and 5.

 

[HTK]

Not sure about Halo 5 but Halo 4 mp felt like Call of Duty.

 

[Alan Wake]

I remember having fun playing Halo 4 (it was amazing looking on the 360 and I actually enjoyed the new enemies) but feeling that the story in Halo 5 was mediocre. Suddenly Master Chief was a character among others I felt.

 

[ItsTheNew]

I thought 4 was a pretty good impression of a halo game, and halo 5 was just too diluted. That and the graphics/art weren't industry leading made it feel like a warm up to a real halo game.

 

[Shut0wen]

FFor me halo 4s multiplayer was incredibly underwhelming, the story just wasnt needed at all never felt like a sequel to halo 3, ganeplay wise like someone said it was casual, obviously going for the cod fanbase at the time, multiplayer was pretty poor especially compared to reach and halo 3, halo 5 was just awful especially since the beta at the time felt incredible, you felt like you were in a spartan armour but when the final product came out they removed it, the new characters in halo 5 were shit to put it nicely and also feel out of place, making buck from an odst to a spartan was just odd, no thought to it and was clearly there for fan service, i will gove credit to halo 5 that its multiplayer was alot better then halo 4 but again it just didnt have that bungie feel and magic, one of the biggest problems i have with both games is the art style as well, it just doesnt work and the prometheus also feel out of the place, like the sentinels in halo 1-3 are meant to be Promethean technology yet they look nothing like the other promethean enemys, even if halo 4 and 5 werent halo ganes there incredibly medicore at best and wouldnt have the same amount of sales if it was for the halo name, im hoping infinte is the start of something good from 343 as 4 and 5 are incredibly week games and i hope the rumours of infinte taken the timeline from 4 and 5 are true