I have been an avid fan since CE. I feel like 343 have finaly nailed the artstyle and fun gameplay that I have come to love. I found halo 4 to be too ambitous when it pushed new gameplay mechanics too far, and Halo 5 was too much of a distilled competitive experience. Infinite feels like an awesome successor to 3 that will appeal to a wide audience. I absolutely loved the flight. Here are my thoughts.
I started the flight on the xbox one and found the aiming to be difficult. I was able to get an X box series X for the second week and had less issues with aiming. I think there’s some minors issues with aiming and a little more aiming stickiness may help.
The starting weapons are the best in series. The AR is finally worthy of Chief’s primary and has suprising range. I think a little more vertical recoil is needed after the intial burst so players have to control recoil a little more and it’s not as easy to hose down players by holding down the trigger. The sidekick is near perfect once the aiming controls are worked out. The BR is perfect IMO. The needler is too OP and almost guarantees 1 kill and is hard to counter, so maybe reduce ROF. The skewer needs to penetrate, kill overshield, and also needs some more physics. The shock rifle needs an additional gymic like an AOE for its impact or something to differentiate it from the UNSC sniper. The plasma rifle is effective on bots, but near worthless in PVP, maybe extend the red reticule range. The plasma pistol did not EMP vehicles and the overcharge tracked insufficiently. I found everything else to have cool roles.
My biggest issue is probably the radar. I didn’t mind the first weeks implementation, but I prefer the traditonal radar. However, I did not like the range of the second week and think it needs to be extended, espescially when it comes to BTB.
BTB was a ton of fun, but I feel like the power weapons and equipment may have been too prevalent. Vehicles felt powerful and tanky enough to distract players, but all the equipment and power weapons nullified them too much. Equipment improved the sandbox and I loved it. However, in BTB there may be too much in play at one time. The grapple hook and repulsor are amazing. The shield and threat sensor need a buff. The shield needs to be stronger and maybe have less charges. An idea for the threat sensor could maybe have an alt fire when charged that shoots a gravity grenade that consumes all the charges and shoots a sensor that uses physics that “repulse” stuff in the area to knock stuff off a zone where it lands.
Fantastic job 343, thanks for the flight invite. I think you have a great game on your hands and I cannot wait until launch!