Reading all of the Halo 5 reviews, it seems that people either find the campaign to be mediocre or excellent.
The biggest complaint is character development & following the narrative.
So, what do I take from this?
If you haven’t played or remember Halo 4, and haven’t familiarized yourself with Blue Team in the novels: you will not be able to follow this campaign. It’s a shame 343 didn’t take the time to flesh out characters & backstory for the Halo casual crowd. You can only rely so much on expanded fiction to tell a coherent story!!
But as a huge lore nerd, I fully believe I’ll enjoy the story presented in Halo 5: Guardians. I just wish everyone could enjoy it equally as much!
Seriously, Gaming Nexus calls it the best Halo narrative ever written.
Lazygamer calls it a short, disappointing tale.
People weren’t kidding when they called this 343’s Halo 2. Divisive campaign with consensus excellent multiplayer…
> 2533274856274009;3:
> Seriously, Gaming Nexus calls it the best Halo narrative ever written.
> Lazygamer calls it a short, disappointing tale.
>
> People weren’t kidding when they called this 343’s Halo 2. Divisive campaign with consensus excellent multiplayer…
Hope I am part of the Gaming Nexus crowd and not the Lazygamer one.
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> > 2533274856274009;3:
> > Seriously, Gaming Nexus calls it the best Halo narrative ever written.
> > Lazygamer calls it a short, disappointing tale.
> >
> > People weren’t kidding when they called this 343’s Halo 2. Divisive campaign with consensus excellent multiplayer…
>
>
> Hope I am part of the Gaming Nexus crowd and not the Lazygamer one.
It all depends on how lazy you are.
> 2533275011491088;2:
> For anyone who hasn’t read the expanded fiction: Watch Halo Canon’s Halo 5 Primer series.
^This
I’m hoping for the best.
This is what I’m finding too. Honestly reading the books makes all the campaigns so much better and I’m almost more happy 343 catered to the more hardcore crowd for the campaign (granted that’s obviously a biased opinion).
Having completed the campaign over the weekend and having played all Halo games so far and not having read a Halo novel since Ghost of Onyx I manged to follow the Halo 5 story just fine.
I think as long as you have a rough idea of what is going on in the Halo universe then you will be just fine.
> 2554720502913882;8:
> This is what I’m finding too. Honestly reading the books makes all the campaigns so much better and I’m almost more happy 343 catered to the more hardcore crowd for the campaign (granted that’s obviously a biased opinion).
I don’t know man. I love that 343 are Halo super-nerds. But for everyone that isn’t, it detracts from the experience. I’m seriously disappointed that Blue Team got hardly any screen-time. But at least they’ve been established, and hopefully they are more involved in Halo 6
I like Halo, but I would rather do something else than read Halo books in my free time so… I may not be extremely in-touch with the lore but I should have enough knowledge to appreciate Halo 5. I’m not really worried unless everyone’s acting is poor/rushed/etc. (which shouldn’t happen because of Nathan Fillion and Mike Colter)
> 2535456533691021;11:
> I like Halo, but I would rather do something else than read Halo books in my free time so… I may not be extremely in-touch with the lore but I should have enough knowledge to appreciate Halo 5. I’m not really worried unless everyone’s acting is poor/rushed/etc.
Don’t worry about the acting. From all the missions I’ve seen, the character capture and voice acting is top notch.
> 2533274856274009;12:
> > 2535456533691021;11:
> > I like Halo, but I would rather do something else than read Halo books in my free time so… I may not be extremely in-touch with the lore but I should have enough knowledge to appreciate Halo 5. I’m not really worried unless everyone’s acting is poor/rushed/etc.
>
>
> Don’t worry about the acting. From all the missions I’ve seen, the character capture and voice acting is top notch.
I’d disagree on that front. The dialogue has felt…stilted? It doesn’t flow naturally? Something along the lines of that.
Let’s be honest:
Jumping into a franchise this old with lore this expansive and having only the slightest understanding of said lore at this point is … well, you’re just going to have to do some homework. It’s gotten too big to fit it all in the games without including a four hour long prologue to each title.
It’d be like if I, who never played a Medal Gear Solid game, jumped into MGS 5 and expected everything to be laid out for me right there in that one game.
And yeah, I know the feeling that “I played Halo Wars, Reach, CE, H2, ODST, H3, H4, and Spartan Ops, shouldn’t that be good enough … do I really to start cracking open novels and encyclopedias just to understand a video game? Someone dropped the ball somewhere along the line, what happened?”
Well, here’s what happened:
Blue Team and “The Fall of Reach” has been around since before Combat Evolved released. It was a New York Times best seller with fantastic characters and story. Bungie ignored it in the games. Yell at them. lol
> 2533274883669557;14:
> Let’s be honest:
>
> Jumping into a franchise this old with lore this expansive and having only the slightest understanding of said lore at this point is … well, you’re just going to have to do some homework. It’s gotten too big to fit it all in the games without including a four hour long prologue to each title.
>
> It’d be like if I, who never played a Medal Gear Solid game, jumped into MGS 5 and expected everything to be laid out for me right there in that one game.
>
> And yeah, I know the feeling that “I played Halo Wars, Reach, CE, H2, ODST, H3, H4, and Spartan Ops, shouldn’t that be good enough … do I really to start cracking open novels and encyclopedias just to understand a video game? Someone dropped the ball somewhere along the line, what happened?”
>
> Well, here’s what happened:
>
> Blue Team and “The Fall of Reach” has been around since before Combat Evolved released. It was a New York Times best seller with fantastic characters and story. Bungie ignored it in the games. Yell at them. lol
Look, I agree with you for the most part. But hardcore narrative junkies, or those who’ve simply read the extended universe, aren’t the majority of players. Rather, I’d gather they’re the minority. It’s up to 343 to adequately integrate the extended universe into Halos narrative, the onus shouldn’t be placed on players to seek out the extended universe to understand what is going on and enjoy the campaigns narrative.
Look at what happened with Halo 4. The narrative for myself has been the best so far in a Halo game as my knowledge of the Extended Universe (Forerunner Trilogy) allowed me to understand The Ur-Didacts motivations and character (Even though Silentium released after Halo 4, which in itself was a terrible move on 343’s part). Also, you know, the whole Cortana/Chief Human/Machine dynamic was handled beautifully. On the other hand, The Didact came off as your standard bog-fair villain with weak characterization, motives, and seemingly came out of nowhere to my friends who hadn’t experienced the EU. I’d imagine it was the same for a large number of players as well.
In short, one’s enjoyment of the campaign shouldn’t solely linked to ones knowledge of the EU. Players who haven’t the chance to experience the EU shouldn’t have to go out of their way to enjoy and understand the narrative of future Halo games because 343 ineptly ties the narrative in the campaign.
> 2533274883669557;14:
> Let’s be honest:
>
> Jumping into a franchise this old with lore this expansive and having only the slightest understanding of said lore at this point is … well, you’re just going to have to do some homework. It’s gotten too big to fit it all in the games without including a four hour long prologue to each title.
>
> It’d be like if I, who never played a Medal Gear Solid game, jumped into MGS 5 and expected everything to be laid out for me right there in that one game.
>
> And yeah, I know the feeling that “I played Halo Wars, Reach, CE, H2, ODST, H3, H4, and Spartan Ops, shouldn’t that be good enough … do I really to start cracking open novels and encyclopedias just to understand a video game? Someone dropped the ball somewhere along the line, what happened?”
>
> Well, here’s what happened:
>
> Blue Team and “The Fall of Reach” has been around since before Combat Evolved released. It was a New York Times best seller with fantastic characters and story. Bungie ignored it in the games. Yell at them. lol
Exactly. Its like people dont expect Halo to have a deep lore since its a shooter. All the reviews for Metal Gear gave it a pass for its story with “If your a metal gear fan youll get it”.
It doesn’t seem that people give halo that excuse.
> 2533274826317859;16:
> > 2533274883669557;14:
> > Let’s be honest:
> >
> > Jumping into a franchise this old with lore this expansive and having only the slightest understanding of said lore at this point is … well, you’re just going to have to do some homework. It’s gotten too big to fit it all in the games without including a four hour long prologue to each title.
> >
> > It’d be like if I, who never played a Medal Gear Solid game, jumped into MGS 5 and expected everything to be laid out for me right there in that one game.
> >
> > And yeah, I know the feeling that “I played Halo Wars, Reach, CE, H2, ODST, H3, H4, and Spartan Ops, shouldn’t that be good enough … do I really to start cracking open novels and encyclopedias just to understand a video game? Someone dropped the ball somewhere along the line, what happened?”
> >
> > Well, here’s what happened:
> >
> > Blue Team and “The Fall of Reach” has been around since before Combat Evolved released. It was a New York Times best seller with fantastic characters and story. Bungie ignored it in the games. Yell at them. lol
>
>
> Exactly. Its like people dont expect Halo to have a deep lore since its a shooter. All the reviews for Metal Gear gave it a pass for its story with “If your a metal gear fan youll get it”.
> It doesn’t seem that people give halo that excuse.
The difference here is that all this lore is within the Metal Gear Solid games (I’m assuming), not present in large magnitude in an Extended Universe. In Halo, there is a sprawling EU. It’s not an issue of needing to have played previous games to understand what’s going on. It’s obvious if you just jump into Halo 5 without playing the previous games you won’t have a -Yoinking!- clue what’s going on. It’s more of an issue that 343 has inadequately tied the extended universe into the narrative as opposed to a lack of familiarity with past games on the players part.
I thought i would just share my experience and puts some minds at ease. Apologies for the length, but i wouldn’t be doing it justice otherwise! Read on if you want to know what a casual gamer thought of the experience.
Firstly, i’d just like to give some context.
- I am not a Halo fanatic and haven’t read any of the literature surrounding the series.
- I am not a great fan of Campaigns in general (i know many will view that badly haha) and i have only ever fully completed 2 campaigns. Gears of war and Halo 3. I didn’t even complete Call of Duty 4 and i racked up something like 30 days game time online!
Therefore, having played through 10/15 missions on solo Legendary, i can say that MOST people will enjoy this campaign. Like i said, i am not one for offline play in general, but i fully intend to see this one through in the next day or two on the hardest difficulty, which i admit, has been a grind at some points!
For me, what kept me playing and enjoying it was the environments(great work there), the cinematic scenes are well made and most of all- the challenge. This is no easy game. I can assure you of that! But it’s been a while since i’ve sat down and replayed a part of a mission until i couldn’t try it anymore and then actually came back to complete it when i’m fresh. There’s a definite sense of achievement there.
The only gripes i had with the campaign at all were that, and prepare yourself for this, the AI are infuriating. They get in the way, if you ask them to target someone specific, they run straight at them and ignore all the other dangers around them, inevitably dying. But, most annoying is that when you call to be picked up, they all run at you at the same time and don’t cover for each other, ignoring dangers yet again. I suppose you can’t expect AI to have common sense, but the phrase ‘if i asked you to jump off a cliff’ comes to mind.
The other annoyance is that there is a serious lack of ammo for any decent guns throughout. All you can ever find on the floor is the Supressor(awful gun) and various pistols. This is fine, i’m sure, on co op or on lower difficulties. But on legendary, you need a decent gun to take ANYTHING out and they simply aren’t available often enough.
These are minor things though and whilst annoying, don’t take away from the challenge or enjoyment of the campaign. As an online fan boy, i’m even more excited reading that they say the campaign is the weak side of the game! Because if it is, i’ll be playing Halo for a long long time to come.
Hope this helps reassure some of the other casual gamers out there!
> 2533274869104903;15:
> > 2533274883669557;14:
> > Let’s be honest:
> >
> > Jumping into a franchise this old with lore this expansive and having only the slightest understanding of said lore at this point is … well, you’re just going to have to do some homework. It’s gotten too big to fit it all in the games without including a four hour long prologue to each title.
> >
> > It’d be like if I, who never played a Medal Gear Solid game, jumped into MGS 5 and expected everything to be laid out for me right there in that one game.
> >
> > And yeah, I know the feeling that “I played Halo Wars, Reach, CE, H2, ODST, H3, H4, and Spartan Ops, shouldn’t that be good enough … do I really to start cracking open novels and encyclopedias just to understand a video game? Someone dropped the ball somewhere along the line, what happened?”
> >
> > Well, here’s what happened:
> >
> > Blue Team and “The Fall of Reach” has been around since before Combat Evolved released. It was a New York Times best seller with fantastic characters and story. Bungie ignored it in the games. Yell at them. lol
>
>
> Look, I agree with you for the most part. But hardcore narrative junkies, or those who’ve simply read the extended universe, aren’t the majority of players. Rather, I’d gather they’re the minority. It’s up to 343 to adequately integrate the extended universe into Halos narrative, the onus shouldn’t be placed on players to seek out the extended universe to understand what is going on and enjoy the campaigns narrative.
>
> Look at what happened with Halo 4. The narrative for myself has been the best so far in a Halo game as my knowledge of the Extended Universe (Forerunner Trilogy) allowed me to understand The Ur-Didacts motivations and character (Even though Silentium released after Halo 4, which in itself was a terrible move on 343’s part). Also, you know, the whole Cortana/Chief Human/Machine dynamic was handled beautifully. On the other hand, The Didact came off as your standard bog-fair villain with weak characterization, motives, and seemingly came out of nowhere to my friends who hadn’t experienced the EU. I’d imagine it was the same for a large number of players as well.
>
> In short, one’s enjoyment of the campaign shouldn’t solely linked to ones knowledge of the EU. Players who haven’t the chance to experience the EU shouldn’t have to go out of their way to enjoy and understand the narrative of future Halo games because 343 ineptly ties the narrative in the campaign.
I’m not saying it couldn’t have been handled better (especially in terms of the didact), I’m just saying a story this complex and expansive that now goes beyond books, games, TV shows, movies, graphic novels, etc. is going to require a few google searches here & there … even a lore head like myself needs to every once in a while (“y r gruntz fartz green gas?” or “why didact so mean?”). It’s just impossible to put it all in one place at one time anymore.
Even if it requires the EU to be fully understood, as a Warframe player I’m used to filling in the gaps. Hell, a quick browse of TVTropes would probably bring me up to speed.