Let me preface this by saying Halo Infinite is fun. It is the Halo game that I want to play instead of the previous games on MCC. This does not mean that Halo Infinite is the best Halo, but it does have potential to be one of the best.
A little about me: I’ve played Halo since the CE days, played Xbox Live since Halo 2. Attended numerous local tournaments throughout Halo 2 and Halo 3.
I continued playing through Reach, Halo 4 and Halo 5 but these last few I never really enjoyed. So I’ve been waiting more than ten years for a true Halo experience, and I can say with confidence that Halo Infinite feels like it can be just what I’m looking for.
So, without any further ado, let’s talk about the game.
I will start with the issue that has me truly worried about this game, the issue that could make me not want to play it or buy it, a dealbreaker. And that is: the aiming. As I mentioned, I’m a Halo veteran, and I’m a controller guy, I will not switch to mnk, that’s not my thing. And honestly, the aiming feels terrible. It feels even worse than Halo 5 at launch. I understand that games should not be easy to play, specially since 343 wants to promote a competitive scene and cross play. I get that. But I think it’s a mistake if they don’t also cater to controller players.
And the best way for me to explain it is this: I feel like I’m fighting my controller stick instead of my opponents. Which ends in total frustration. I want the game to be challenging but fun. Aiming has to be something that I will not notice, something that allows me to compete and get rewarded. And this is ultimately what’s wrong with the aiming in Halo Infinite, there’s way too much effort needed and very small reward. I’m not lying when I say my right thumb hurts after playing.
Things I’ve been able to detect about the aiming:
- It feels every weapon has different aim assist levels. This is bad, it makes the learning curve unnecessarily hard without any higher purpose in sight. - It feels weapons have different aim assist levels by distance. For example the commando feels like it has plenty of aim assist at a distance but up close it feels like it doesn’t have any. - The reticles have been getting progressively smaller with each new game. And Halo has never been that kind of game. Halo CE had big reticles but no magnetism, so it was easy to track enemies, but you still need to fix the crosshair in order for bullets to hit. - Bloom. I cannot believe that 343 is still falling into this trap. Reach proved Bloom doesn’t belong in Halo, and yet once again they’re adding bloom into the game. - Recoil. I’m not against recoil, but it has to make sense. Some weapons like the Assault Rifle are more accurate if you fire at will, if you fire in bursts, it is unpredictable, here’s the evidence: video. But when you pair recoil and bloom, you just have a recipe for disaster and player frustration. - The plethora of aiming settings have players scrambling online for the perfect settings, because nobody knows how to fix the aiming. This causes players who underperform to blame the settings and continuously tweak them to get better results, to no avail. I was never forced to spend so much time tweaking in older games because the aim just worked. In Halo Infinite I’ve spent hours in training mode, this is a huge red flag, and it’s worrying.I was planning to talk about many other aspects of the game, but this is getting too long, so I’ll create other topics later on. Please discuss.