So now two days beyond the lapse of playing Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer beta I feel I should add my commentary. If nothing else I hope this helps the developers at 343 studios; while taking on the task of building on the success of what Bungie made famous. 343 with Halo 4 may have had mixed feelings from the Halo Universe and it’s fans but let us get right to the Beta.
With a few struggles in the beginning the matchmaking was troublesome to see and the fact that it never got fleshed out entirely should be a big focus for 343. After all matchmaking in MCC has been an issue. The game struggled to find people initially, especially if one person quit after a completed search; only success was if all 8 players remained match after match. Somehow they program an “excuse us” message but didn’t know the problem for the kick out.
Spartan abilities, the new 7 abilities (Thrust, Sprint, Charge, Smart Scope, Ground Pound, Clamber and Slide) brought many interesting things to Halo and for the most part worked. The thruster pack worked for dodging most things including the Spartan Charge and came in quite handy. Sprint was smartly balanced with not recharging the shield; however a lot of times the controls wouldn’t recognize my request to sprint,especially when I needed Sprint the most. Spartan Charge was great when in worked but when you timed it perfectly and hit an injured enemy not knowing about you and he bounces off with minimal damage you then become vulnerable and die.
Smart scope works to have scope on every weapon which is better than the previous binocular view. The fact you come out when being hit worked really well. Ground pound while sounded fun on paper was never really seen or used, the cumbersome of trying it in control schemes made it useless. With my fishstick control setup, it was on the B button, while easy to press with my thumb there was no way to aim with the right stick to execute. The inability to choose each button layout out in 2015 seems silly; being stuck to something 343 views as best possibilities still leaves something to be desired.
Clamber was great, it changed how I played Halo in every way and for the better, after going back to Halo 4 multiplayer it felt slow not to have the ease of climbing. This ability made the Beta so much better. However slow response to control inputs made it not work occasionally; if I switched weapons in mid-air, got the new weapon out then hit the clamber button, my Spartan wouldn’t clamber. It was as if they couldn’t calculate the jump, weapon change and clamber ability as fast as I was executing the necessary buttons. The slide ability when working seemed pointless, while quickly sliding out of fire was great being in slow crouch position made me not want to use it. If the maps however implemented new short cuts with the slide ability only, then that would be great!
Weapons for beta weren’t anything spectacular; hydra was neat but didn’t feel new after Halo already once had the seeking rocket. Granted that rocket was for vehicles and hydra works on players, it felt more insignificant than fun. The sword on some maps was good but most of the time was so bright, you couldn’t properly see for an attack. The DMR and Battle Rifle both good for fighting didn’t sound as beefy of weapons as they should. The new SMG was great, the pistol if wielded well (not by me) could be devastating.
Maps were hit and miss for me; Truth and Regret: Truth was a remake and the layout and design and color schemes made it easy for call outs and knowing where the fight was with teammates. Regret, Regret is a great name for this map because I regretted playing this map every time. While watching Sprint it sounded awesome and a neat concept but everything blended with everything else, there was a loss of where I was or my team was fighting constantly.
Eden and Prime: Eden was good and balanced with trying to hold key points for the sniper rifle return, those good with a sniper could be devastating and those good with team work was unbeatable. Prime neat design terrible execution; 343 needs to figure out what lighting is and the ability to customize brightness in a game. The map was so dark to find anyone and if you were fighting the blue team it was immensely frustrating. Now lighting effects 343 has it down, looks gorgeous with light reflections bullet spray lighting areas up but having extremely dark areas with closed of sections with an awkward spawn is stupid.
Pegasus and Orion: Pegasus had some good points but the fight for top section really made the rest of the map boring and useless. The rocket bridge to the sniper rifle to the top section was the focus, a better balance of big weapon locations may make this map more useful to play everywhere. Orion was weird, a double ramp to one station, a wonky stair case or rock climb to the other side and sniper rifle on rock with jagged edges to climb out of felt like a slap together map. While some parts was fun, it never aspired to what you want out of a halo map.
Breakout is where it is at for Halo 5 Beta, this was great! The basic look of a speed ball match and no over the top design art to the map gave it a unique look and fun play . Having a single BR on the map brought a smart balance to fight together, winning five rounds felt intense with back and forth fights and last man standing struggles. If anything was to change on this for the better would be a possible 5 vs 5. Working with two teams of two with one rogue or BR guy would have it benefit better.
Stronghold seemed like a good idea but after finding my love for breakout and distaste for BR as part of your load out whether starting weapon or secondary I didn’t spend any time in this game mode. It wasn’t there long enough to try fully or see if it was fun with original load outs. Since I don’t have much to say here, I’ll add something that needs to be addressed: Assassinations look awesome but they need to be executed faster as a reward to the player and once started another teammate cannot steal the kill; it is so gratifying to assassinate a player to only have a teammate with a DMR steal the kill in the middle. Or to show off a great animation to have it take 5 seconds and be left vulnerable for doing something difficult.
Balanced is the new thing that Halo 5 Beta tried doing and it did it great in the first week with everyone starting with an assault rifle and pistol while fighting for power weapons. Once the BR was thrown into the mix, the fun and charm was gone. The maps often too small for everyone to have a BR meant that once you spawned you were going to spawn into a bunch of bullets from people just outside the radar ring. This caused too much frustration and shorter beta nights.
So in a short look Halo 5 beta accomplished balance with starting weapons as the assault rifle and pistol. Breakout is the closest and most satisfying part of shooter I’ve played since Rainbow 6 on the original Xbox. Breakout did suffer from an issue of sending people into the map and they not make it with an automatic suicide.
Lastly 343 needs to allow more customization to the controls and to the brightness level of the game as well as more animations for game launches and winning celebrations. The small clips that were provided seemed campy and over redundant, the Ginyu force had more moves. So hopefully this information can be useful to the game success or to my success as a writer for IGN or game tester for 343.