Halo 5 first week review
Weapons
AR - I like the AR probably too much so far, I like the fact that you can zoom, so it doesn’t feel so inferior to the DMR/BR, but sometimes I feel it can outclass DMR/BR in medium ranges. This weapon needs either a damage reduction or more recoil to make the kills more skilled.
Pistol - I think this gun is extremely difficult to use at times, but i find that to be a personal opinion as I have had people out gun me with the weapon. I has more range than the AR and if you can manage to put all your shots on point, it might have the fastest kill time out of all the non power weapons. I like where it is at in terms of balance.
BR - The BR feels inferior to the other weapons. I enjoy using it just because of familiarity, but the weapon fires rather slow. I like the range that it has, it is very good in medium to long range, but it gets outclassed by the DMR. If the DMR never becomes a loadout weapon (which I hope it doesn’t), I feel this gun will only need a slightly faster fire rate.
DMR - This gun feels very powerful, especially at medium to long range. close range, it is rather garbage compared to the AR and pistol, and even BR to some extent, but if you are firing cross map with this gun, your going to win those battles. I think this gun is fine the way it is, but the BR will need a fire rate buff to compete mid range with this weapon.
Prophets Bane - I love the weapon, I feel like someone extremely skilled with this will dominate a match, especially on a small/medium sized map like midship. I feel that thruster makes with weapon a beast with someone skillful enough to use it, but if the person i am charging is at least competent, the can usually thrust out of the way and maybe get a kill on me with the AR.
Sniper - Needs some work, the zoom is too slow, and after playing halo 1 and 2 on mcc, i just can’t get used to the slow fire rate, I would like that to be faster. The sniper feels very “bulky” and hard to use, it just doesn’t feel very smooth. I would like a sniper more like Halo Reach actually, it just felt like butter, it took skill to use, but it felt so smooth.
SMG - I have only used this gun a handful of times, it was not my favorite weapon. I didn’t want to take the time to pick it up when I already had the AR in my arsenal. maybe once BR starts come into play, the weapon will be more useful, but right now, the only thing i noticed is that is will destroy anyone at close range and it has some kick to it.
Grenades - they felt find to me, a lot of people are complaining that they are mini nukes however. maybe i’m just not that great with grenades, but i feel like a grenade kill comes once is a great while, maybe two or three a game out of 15 kills. sticks feel rather difficult to come by with sprint and thruster pack, but i’m ok with that. cuts down on me randomly being stuck by a guy rushing at me to get melees.
OVERALL - the weapon balance needs a little bit of tweaking, but I feel it is just about there, if they left it the way it is now, I would find it very much playable, but for it to be amazing, just a few more tweaks here and there would do wonders.
Maps
- Truth
I knew I was going to like the map, but I didn’t know I would like it as much as I am. They actually improved midship quite a bit and they centered it around sprint rather well.
Things i like about the map are that there are many different routes to take to get to the same area. The jump from red/blue base to top middle is great for map flow and also has its risks/ rewards. it can get good flanks on your enemies when they are on either of the side bases. I also like the added path to get from red 1/blue 1 to blue and red 2. they also encorperated clamber well on the map and made it a useful ability to make the gameplay feel smooth and not just some perk thrown in.
One thing I don’t like about the map, sometimes people will be camping around the bends on the corners of the map, and It can be frustrating trying to get grenade kills on them. I feel i bomb the hell out of them with plasmas on one of the bases cubby holes and none of them will connect. If you have a coordinated team, you can flush them out pretty well, but if you are lone wolfing it, it can be frustrating.
- Empire
I was surprised at how well this map played. It is very balance and has some good passage ways. however there are things that could improve
Some of the things I like about the map are the choke points. both open snipe and snipe tower are great areas where battle can be expected. The red and blue bases are easy to identify and don’t confuse me in the least. There is enough openess to the map that I don’t feel like opponents will get away to easily.
Some things I dislike about the map, sometimes movement can feel a bit sloppy. clamber is used well on the map, but there are areas that it could be improved. this isn’t a very good sniping map, there aren’t a lot of long halls other than open sniper that are great areas to have the sniper. this map would be better suited with maybe replacing the snipe tower sniper with a rocket launcher or a shotgun.
Gameplay
Gameplay felt great and i wouldn’t change a whole lot.
Descope, i’m glad it’s back, halo 4 just didn’t feel very good when you didn’t get descoped.
sprint, it feels a lot more balanced than halo 4 and reach, but people can still get away from someone with sprint rather easily. maybe make the shield recharge a bit longer
Thruster - i like thruster and i feel like i can fly around the map with it and make some great skill jumps. however, sometimes when i try to thrust backwards, it initiates groundpound.
groundpound - it feels fine, i haven’t actually landed a groundpound on someone because i feel vulnerable floating in the air for so long.
clamber - feels much better and more consistent than crouch jumping. I liked crouch jumping for the skill gap, i wish i could still at “gandhi hop” during my battles, instead of initiating ground pound
smart scope- it plays EXACTLY like the original zoom, it is only cosmetic and it actually looks great. when i thought it was going to be COD style ADS, i wasn’t very happy to see that, but now that i have played it, there is literally no difference in gameplay. Every weapon now has zoom, which is fine, as long as it doesn’t make AR or SMG or other weapons that couldn’t zoom before too powerful.
charge - it feels almost underpowered, but thats ok. I feel it is easy to avoid and isn’t any better than a normal melee. maybe fix assassination not working with it and it will be fine in its current state
slide - haven’t actually used it. it doesn’t feel as natural to use as it is in destiny. maybe i just need to play more games with it and try to use it.
Other stuff, i hate that stupid floating in the air while zoomed in thing, there needs to be another way to initiate that ability because sometimes when i jump while zoomed in, i don’t want to float in the air, i want to come down, or if i accidentily back into a ramped wall, i keep initiating the floating zoom thing. its annoying. it should be taken out or map it to a different button.