I’ve bought and played Halo 5 for a while now, I’ve grown up with the original trilogy and the Halo Franchise is one of the strongest reasons for me owning an Xbox rather than a PS. I’m at the age where I can give an honest and fair review about a game that I want to enjoy yet stumbles on the details a bit.
Campaign-
I started this campaign with a genuine feeling of excitement, particularly with all of the advertisements and the “hunt the truth” premise. I finished the campaign feeling underwhelmed and a little. I had based the “two characters” idea on playing as Master Chief and the Arbiter in Halo 2, with the campaign playing out as both evenly. Only playing 3 missions as Master Chief was a real kick in the teeth…to put that into perspective, you only spend 20% of the campaign playing as the main protagonist.
3 of the 15 missions offered were simply talking to people, it felt bloody cheeky that 343 could present them as legitimate missions with a straight face. For those who play Destiny, it felt like a trip around the Tower, visiting the various vendors. These missions could have easily been replaced by cutscenes, explaining a lot of things that went unanswered…
Regarding the “Greatest manhunt in video game history”, it never felt like a man hunt at all…It felt like I was trying to find a drunk friend before he messaged his ex. The reasoning behind ONI’s hunt of Master Chief simply wasn’t strong enough…he’s saved humanity several times by now and investigating Cortana’s “message” never felt like it warranted sending Osiris after him.
I try not to compare the 343 series with the original trilogy, but look at the missions. In Halo 3, you knew the exact purpose of each mission, it was well designed with obvious phases. I never got that sense of “distinct purposes” for the missions in Halo 5.
Multiplayer-
Gameplay wise, I cannot fault the multiplayer. It’s well designed, balanced and nothing feels out of place. I hated sprint in Halo 4, now I can accept it without any real issues. None of the “Spartan Abilities” feel overpowered, generally speaking the game comes down to the gunplay, as it should.
Map design is another matter, however. They just don’t fit into the Arena style shooter any more…None have the feeling of Guardian, Construct, Narrows, The Pit.
What was wrong for flat walls for instance? Not every empty space needs to be filled with a room with various corridors. The sight lines are all wrong and barring the detail, any decent forger could create the basic shape in a couple of hours…The colour schemes are all rather drab and dark, again its a common trend with modern FPS’s. Not every map needs to be realistic or have so much going on! The map design and general layout comes first…then you doll it up a bit. The Pit was fairly simple in terms of its colour scheme and narrative, yet it was a brilliant map due to being well thought out and designed, not the other way around.
Why have so few playlists been shipped? Where is BTB, Snipers, Objective, Infection etc? I’ve never and still don’t understand why playlists aren’t released on launch day…it just seems like you’re disadvantaging yourself from the off.
Finally, the REQ system. I get it, you need to add some flavour for Warzone, but it just smells of a lottery machine people constantly have to buy into. It’s in Destiny with the engrams system etc. I will state that because it is cosmetic only, I can easily live with it! But again, why not give obvious tasks for various rewards? Complete the Vidmaster Challenges, you get Recon…as simple as that. You unlock this animation for getting 50 assassinations in MP…It’s rewarding, gives incentive to play yet it’s fair to every player. The REQ system just seems to be dipping your toe into microtransactions, which is common business practise now but a very risky one also.
Customisation-
If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it! Just add more, that’s all you needed to do. It really bugs me that we can’t create unique emblems anymore, for instance. You have to choose from a preselected set of colours. Every game seems to be going the route of a “banner” style emblem, with schemes. Reach had this customisation down to a tee! Every piece of armour could be customised, none of it felt unrealistic and there were some truly great designs.
Also, why can’t we easily display or access each other’s Spartans? Again, take your cue from Reach…You could see every player’s Spartan easily and editing your own felt like a character creation screen in an RPG it was that good.
Anything Else-
The actual “Menu Screens” feel hastily put together and poorly thought out in my opinion. Do we need 1/3 of the main menu titles to be about the “Message of the Day”? Even the background seems bland, I mean, do all of the Menu Links have to fit into the ship?..You’re allowed to use the entire screen for menu’s if you’re going to have the links opaque (so you can see background images for separate missions etc). In my opinion, your Spartan should come under a separate category underneath Community.
There is a real lack of detail in the after-game stats for Multiplayer. I mean, who is the MVP for the game? What Medals did everyone get? As far as I am aware, no one complained about these features, so why have they been removed exactly?..
Conclusion-
I’m sure there will be areas and features I have missed out. I know Forge wasn’t shipped with the game and that it’s being released in December. Feel free to bring anything up that I may have missed. None of these criticisms are attempts to belittle 343 or make them feel bad, I simply want to suggest areas they could have done better and get everyone’s thoughts!
If you’ve read this wall of text, thanks!
