Many of the weapons and combat sounds in the demo look and sound too alike. The weapons used in the demo were the Assualt Rifle, MK50 Sidekick, VK78 Commando, CQS48 Bulldog, Ravager, Pulse Carbine, Mangler, grenades, shade turret and (ai only) plasma pistol. The video was initially watched with the IPad 2’s speaker which sounded poor, but sounded MUCH better under a pair of Sennheiser HD6xxs due to the sounds blending together.
Sound Design:
The overall combat sounds had too many high gain, low frequency sounds which resulted in many of the gun sounds blending together. It was difficult to distinguish which sound was what weapon which made the weapons feel less unique.
The Assault Rifle sounded pretty good, solid but not very strong.
The VK was somewhat unique like a cross between a DMR and SAW.
The MK50 sounds works alright but struggle in the heat of combat.
The Ravager has a good sound when equipped, less so when being fire upon, suffers greatly from the overturned bass and seems to lack a sound when connecting with enemies.
The Pulse Carbine sound works but it can be improved upon (its hard to say since it was the only held “plasma” weapon).
The Mangler suffers similar issues to the Ravager, with the overtuned bass. The gun itself is confusing, the gun sounds, reticle, projectile supports a one-handed sniper but the weapon’s cartridges do not.
The grenades are barely audible and sound distant. The frag grenade sounded like a distant explosion when exploding around from 10 m away and the initial trigger sound could be a bit louder. The plasma grenades sounded too harmless and weak especially when stuck. The spike grenade felt equivalent to shooting an enemy with a pistol and was barely distinguishable.
The shade didn’t sound scary or intimidating.
The CQS48 had a very underwhelming and boring sound effect. It was about as strong as a shot from the VK, reload was not very noticeable.
The Plasma Pistol shots were not distinguishable, especially the overcharged shots. The enemy gunfire sounds were far too muted and droned out. In the other Halos, AI other hostile weapon fire could be easily heard and distinguished without line-of-sight.
The melee sounds were overall boring. There were a few good ones with the grunts; however, they sound similar to punching a wall in Reach.
Art Design:
There was too much grey in too many guns. The UNSC guns, Ravager, Mangler were all mostly grey. All guns (maybe except the Pulse Carbine) would benefit from looking grittier, especially the UNSC ones. The three new UNSC guns look a lot like today’s guns, don’t have many memorable traits and arguably look like civilian firearms. Would be cool if the VK’s holographic sights were made more “holographic” and/or the Sidekick/Bulldog has a bit more happening. The plasma coil-things on the Ravager were cool, but it really felt like holding a plain grey rectangle box. The Mangler doesn’t really look alien or Brutish enough, the colour scheme doesn’t do it justice.
TL;DR Too many of the sounds and art design for weapons blend in. Many weapons lack uniqueness and are not easily recognizable. Weapons sound weaker than they actually are and too many weapons have dominant loud bass sounds.
Some random other tidbits, the music in combat might work better if it was louder. I prefer the “show don’t tell” philosophy in the earlier Halo games and felt the dialogue was a bit wordy and could have relied more on non-verbal expression. I hope we will see many cinematic shots of the ring and other settings along with beautiful music like the intros in the old Halos.