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> [CUT - didn’t had enough space, sorry about that]What do you guys think about the direction 343i is heading in?
HALO 4I think H4 would have been good if it wasn’t called Halo to begin with. The main story by itself is good, but side characters and situations frankly aren’t. Also both Chief and Cortana were morphed into new characters to make the story work in first place. I enjoyed it, but the dissonance between previous Bungie titles was just too big. The only real connection were the voice actors. Same could be said about the Didact, who in the books just ain’t the same bad guy. In fact I thought he was fairly bland in the game, especially in comparison to the books. That was a huge let down for me! And let’s not start with the obvious critiques about Palmer, Spartan IV, punching an atomic warhead and getting TPed to safety, Del Rio being antagonistic for the sake of being antagonistic, Librarian super powers, killing off an interesting new character that mirrored Halsey basically from the get-go and so on.
On a gameplay level it was just bad. There is no saving it! From weapon balancing to level design to simplified AI routines to the introduction of the worst enemy type ever in the series, Halo 4 is not a good FPS experience period. Than again, I have the same issues with CoD SP campaign, but people seem to love those badly scripted tunnels for some reason. Sadly for 343i the Halo community doesn’t share the CoD fanbase opinions most of the time. MP had personalized loadouts and the ability to see behind walls. Enough said! Forge was good, but just a shadow compared to Reach (see what I did there?).
HALO 5Story-wise Halo 5 was just plain bad and partially even boring. An empty shell without soul story wise. I might have issues with H4, but at least I can admit that it works a stand-alone and its cinematography is among the best in the industry! Halo 5 on the other hand is a pile of flaming paper thrown in the wrong recycling bin. And it makes me sad! Because the premise of “Hunt the Truth” was amazing and Spartan Ops introduced some fantastic concepts! Sadly 343i did nothing with it. Instead we got evil Cortana.
On a gameplay level it’s a huge step forward thanks to a more coherent and intriguing level design (sadly the art doesn’t convey the same feeling, but on geometry level it works fairly well), but sadly it still feels extremely linear. One major culprit for that imho is that AMM as base mechanics don’t work well with a mission structure. Plus enemy AI can’t do what do what you do, so to counter your movement plasma bullets became faster and change trajectory mid way to hit you, resulting in a much more cover based gameplay that just doesn’t work with Halo’s health system and aggressive AI. AI that still dumbstruck me when I compare it to H3 and Reach btw. H5 feels like Crysis 2.5 with the Halo name attached to it sadly. MP was good, but not my cup of tea. It lacked interesting maps though, I think even Halo 5 apologist could admit that. So I hope Hi will do better. Also loot-boxes with one use items. I mean, seriously? And they got the guts to say that the community loves that system!
Forge is yoinking amazing. It’s the main reason why I never completely abandoned the game even I despise the gameplay with a passion! I can only hope they can build upon it, because again: IT’A AMAZING.
HALO WARS 2Halo Wars 2 was great! The second half was a bit weak on a story level, but all characters have been awesome to say the least! Apparently 343i had a big saying in the story side of things so yeah, that actually does give me hopes. That said let’s remember this though: Halo Wars 2 not a 343i game. Creative Assembly made the game for the most part. MP, level-design, units (always with the blessing of 343i and MS, but those are still their concepts), music, scripts… What we loved about HW2 was mainly CA doing. I often read the art side of things gets associated as a 342i effort, but when I checked the people behind it a few years back I saw that the Art Director was Tim Longo, who worked for Blur back than, and people from the credits where Creative Assembly employees. Maybe it was collaboration? In any case story aside HW2 doesn’t really give me hopes for Hi, because I just can’t associate its success with the same company.
HALO INFINITE
343i hasn’t given me much to keep my hopes high. I believe the guys and gurls behind that company name are among the most talented people in the industry, but sometimes I feel like they don’t want to make Halo in first place and it shows. You can’t just take and existing IP and morph into something drastically different without rebooting it, that doesn’t work! And yet that’s exactly what 343i did. They did however under the wind of Don Matrick who called the shots back in the day. Until than under Phil Spencer the company changed direction and actually started listening to the fanbase. A lot of issues also came from the Blam engine, which is well known to be hard to work with if you don’t know it in and out. So Slipspace will not just provide nice visuals, it will also make artists and programmers life a hell lot easier!
So yeah, I’m expecting a quality product, but it’s not thanks to the games I’ve seen so far. If something 343i past is the reason why I can’t get exited about the reveal yet even though it’s just a week away and the curiosity is actually killing me. Everything I saw so far I liked is what thy should have done from the beginning art wise. Music sound great, but it’s recycled with little to new unique atmosphere. The Banished I believe are a good addition, but they’re basically building upon the work of somebody else. They have to proof me that they can make the Banished work in a FPS too!
Do I have high hopes for Halo Infinite? Do I enjoy the direction they’re taking? I kinda do actually! However contrary to you guys it’s for different reasons. In fact imho 343i hasn’t done a good job with the series at all so far. Their games don’t feel or play like Halo and, their comic lines was meh at best and plain terrible at its worst. Now they are basically starting over while trying to captivate what made Halo great to begin with. And that’s why I still have hopes! A lot changed behind the curtains, Slipspace is promising and Hi will be a spiritual Reboot similar to DC’s Rebirth, so taking what was good and leaving behind the bad. And that - I hope - means forgetting about H4/5 altogether and using all those talent at 343i to actually produce a real Halo game for once!