Like a lot of people, ive been around since the CE days. Ive played in just about every type of halo tournament from CE to Reach, ive seen the good and ive seen the bad and there are some things ive noticed over the years and even recently.
When CE first came out, it was an exciting time, a hit console FPS game, who could ever imagine it would be what it is today. When I think back to when Halo 2 released, I remember being mad that the BR had replaced the pistol and that the pistol even now would be a garbage weapon. Ive never understood that one, Ive never understood how over multiple halo’s the franchise could have had 3-4 great range weapons. Imagine having the choice between the Pistol, BR, DMR, or carbine in todays halo. All with the ability to kill in 4-5 shots all taking varying levels of skill to use instead the pistol was nerfed into oblivion.
For me I felt like Halo CE and Halo 2 were great games to play competitively, i felt halo 3 was solid, not great but solid. I felt by removing button combos in Halo 3 it made getting more clutch multi kills on your own that much more difficult and slowed the game down a little. Still liked it
Each time a halo would come out we would all have to learn new maps, how the new weapons worked, but the feel of halo always felt pretty close to the previous version, it wasnt a drastic change, the core of the game was always there. Enter reach, with sprint, jetpacks, evade and a host of weird clunkiness it somehow was trying to be passed off as halo. what happened to strafing? oh that right it was killed thanks to the decreased player speed, I always felt like i was in molasses in the stupid game and the melee was just stupid broken. the introduction of the dmr and bloom which everyone hated, maps that were horrible forge maps instead of beautifully rendered maps. wth had happened to halo, it was like they tried to change it so much they just broke it into a billion pieces.
I will say the one thing i always enjoyed was the ridiculous amount of stats that was tracked, I miss that to be honest.
Halo 4 for me hit detection wise seemed ok, graphically it seemed ok, what i didnt care for, weapon drops and all the new crazy medals for doing nothing. I mean the saw anyone? wth is a saw doing in halo? what happened to controlling maps and power weapons like snipe and rockets and or sword? that must have got boring hmm. I wasnt a fan of active camo or any of that non sense. Not to mention people really only wanted to play 2 maps, i felt like i was trapped in a bad rerun
When i look at mcc’s H2a its not horrible, but its not great imo either. the graphics look great, I like the sniper except i do think the rate of fire is just a touch to fast. the shotgun seems to be solid, although it seems to sound meaner than all hell. Im unsure if i like rockets yet, they feel like halo 4 rockets with an extremely small splash radius and tend to sound like a potato gun when fired. the sword seems to function almost h2ish which is cool since it was broken in h3 and reach. what i do not care for
the grenade indicators, really? why would these be added to the game? is it to help the noobs with zero awareness? part of playing halo is being aware of what is going on around you and listening for key sounds to let you know whats coming your way and communicating with your team. all this does is take a step to dumb the game down.
on Lockout im not a huge fan of the falling stalactites, controlling lockout at least from a comp perspective requires br3 and snipe 2 and both have those. Little things like that believe it or not change the game drastically imo and have turned that map into a ffa of chaos.
also is it me or are the size of the hill boxes in koth smaller? no matter where you stand its like you are in the middle of the hill because its so small, not a fan of that, the hill used to be big enough to use some structure for cover while in the hills, but that doesnt seem to be the case anymore. is this so that the games are closer because its easier to remove people from the hills?
my other question is the medals, is there a medal for breathing? and why are there so many lackluster medals for doing nothing? a perfect example. KOTH medals. you seem to get a medal every 10 seconds just for standing in the hill, its like every single action in the game is a medal now and im not sure i see the point of that. Medals used to be a way of rewarding skill, but are now just common place and are devalued.
the other thing that just crawls under my skin, why is juggling the flag broken, if you are any kind of halo player that has played halo 2 or 3, juggling the flag is just part of it. it is damn near impossible to do in H2A.
why is the melee like halo 4? why isnt the melee fluid? reach did this and broke the melee, and 4 carried that tradition, imo it should be fluid and fast not mechanical and hesitative
Im not going to touch on whats being patched or what broken, thats been beaten to death and isnt really part of this.
when I look forward at H5 I see a lot of things that concern me as a halo player.
the addition of being able to grab onto walls, looks like this has replaced crouch jumping to locations, why? it looks stupid and not fluid. this is not titanfall
bringing sprint back, seriously? did you play reach? just increase the player speed, or leave it at whatever h2a is at and dont screw it up. yeah yeah i read your shields do not recharge when sprinting i dont care, sprint sucks period, this isnt gears of war or cod, stop with this crap
the jet burst, upon looking at this, its not haloesk, but it might be ok, although it sure does look a lot like what cod has right now.
the ground pound attack, seriously wtf, is this mortal kombat?
also are you trying to ruin people from communicating and learning the game? i ask this because now you have an announcer in game letting us know when snipe is up? is that even going to be really considered?
the br and dmr, looks like there are some changes, from just a visual inspection of how the weapons work they seem to be more call of duty than halo now, at least the look of them and the reticle size seem more call of duty than halo.
im sure there are going to be lots of changes to halo 5, but i have some serious concerns on whether or not this will be the worst halo to possibly ever come out.
I do not have a problem with a game progressing, but when a game changes so much that it doesnt feel like halo anymore or what makes halo…halo just to appeal to all the kids out there who want a titanfall, cod, halo , magic the gathering halo then you will have destroyed it.
im sure the next thing we will see are pelican drops when players get kill frenzies