Hi again community. As we all know E3 is only a knock on the door away and before 343 announces their current progress with Halo Wars 2, I’d like to point out a few things regarding Halo 5 that affect Halo Wars 2 (the good & the bad).
Firstly, I like Halo 5: Guardians. In my opinion it was the only successful game of 2015 (also Witcher 3 is 10 stars) because it has captured my attention all year so far despite the let downs.
I was very disapointed with the campaign however because of how pointless the story was. There were things about the story that were pointless and a waste of time (false advertisement or not). One of these pointless things within the campaign/story was the UNSC Infinity.
Before jumping to conclusions I’d like to say that I do like the Infinity. In Halo 4 I was impressed with the Infinity. I liked how it located Requiem via Installation 03 coordinates. I liked how ruthless the captain was (he was a jerk). I like Lasky (didn’t like Foreard Unto Dawn movie). I liked how impressive the ship was and it’s size and power. I liked everything about it in Halo 4. It’s involvement was very thorough. VERY THOROUGH, even when it departed Requiem without Master Chief, very memorable moment. Spartan OPS was the icing on the cake!
Now we’ve come to Halo 5, and I’m not in agreement with it’s involvement. Why? Because the UNSC Infinity does jack shiezer. (AKA nothing at all). I don’t care how impressive the ship is any more, I was already impressed in Halo 4 and Spartan Ops.
Halo 5’s story, besides Locke and Fireteam Osiris, evolves entirely around what the Infinity is involved in and doing instead of what Master Chief is involved in. That’s a big let down for me in Halo 5.
It’s hard to explain. When the Galaxy needed saving the Infinity didn’t do anything to help fight the Guardians. Somehow everyone on board knew about the existence of the Guardians and the return of Cortana, without any explanation. I don’t want to read a book to find out why (nice try 343). The Infinity also sent Fireteam Osiris to retrieve Dr Halsy from a heavily glorified Forerunner planet (were we supposed to be impressed by the sudden and unexpected war between Jul’ M’dama’s Covenent vs the unexplained arrival of Prometheans?). Soon after that, the Infinity crew forget everything that happened in Escalation and Spartan Ops without any explanation and treat Halsy with unlimited freedom. (Oh btw, Sarah Palmer holding Dr Halsy’s hand to escort her safely across the ship, seriously??) Then, not long after that, thanks to their unexplained awareness of Cortana’s resurrection, they send Fireteam Osiris to investigate Cortana and try prevent Master Chief from keeping his promise, which to also investigate and save Cortana (any logic in the Infinity’s decision to prevent Blue Team when they were needed elsewhere?) In the meantime while Spartans II’s vs lV’s, the Infinity sits back and relaxes while the Galaxy crumbles by the awakening of the Guardians.
As you can see this is pretty boring stuff. It only gets interesting when they send Osiris to Sanghellios, and even though Lasky makes arrangements and alerts ONI of his decision to go to Sanghellios, he refused to participate in an of Arbiter’s battles against the Covenent (Arbiter may have welcomed the Infinity’s involvement). In fact if the Infinity was so desperate to get to the inactive Guardian, they should’ve done everything they could to get to it but still did nothing to get to it. They relied heavily on one SlV Fireteam who were already struggling. They could’ve crushed Sunaion if they even wanted to.
Long story short, Infinity avoids the opportunity to blast a Guardian in plain sight, and instead escapes from it’s EMP attack via slipspace. End of Story. (So… why was the Infinity so interesting to Cortana this whole time?)
As you can see, from a critical perspective, Halo 5 was milked because the Infinity didn’t do anything. There was definitely lots of potential but it was all thrown away. Halo 5’s advertisements showed the Infinity engaged in combat and receiving critical damage and the final result is not even close.
Halo 5’s story evolves entirely around the Infinity’s hunt for Chief, not Locke’s. Locke was just a puppet for the Infinity until he decided to help Master Chief fight Cortana in the end instead of continuoully hunting him, releasing Chief would be a helpful ally instead of being told by Infinity that he was rogue.
I hope you understand what I’ve been saying so far. If not please let me know in the comments.
Now, I’d like to talk about Halo Wars 2.
The UNSC Infinity will be in Halo Wars 2. It’s extremely obvious at this point and this time, the Infinity will be extremely important despite it’s poor involvment in Halo 5. The UNSC Infinity will be extremely valuable and important in Halo Wars 2 because they will do a lot of stuff on the Ark. They’ll actually help save the Spirit of Fire. They’ll team up with them, fight the Brutes, fight on the Ark, and all sorts of cool stuff.
It feels like to me the Infinity was only in Halo 5 so that it could meet up with the Spirit of Fire on the Ark, which is sort of a good thing, but Halo 5 either didn’t need the Infinity or need a much more authentic involvement.
Like what you read? Read week 1’s discussion here: Hunters