Sorry I missed sharing this in the official post, had a new nephew born and just was able to get back into town. Got to play Friday and Saturday for several hours.
Specs: Played on a XSX at 120hz and 60hz on Samsung QLED
Pros:
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Maps feel and look amazing. Felt like they were designed for the 4v4 arena style. - Weapon design and feel were amazing all around. - Also, timers on the weapon spawn locations is a great feature! - New abilities felt useful. Love the grappling hook. - Bots actually felt like fighting real players most of the time. Was very surprised on this, expected cannon fodder. They went to the Shaxx school of grenade throwing. Loved this. - Bot AI has me have high hopes for enemy AI during campaign. Feels like an evolution from the great AI we’ve come to expect from Halo. - Also, bots subbing in as teammates is a much needed feature. Hopefully that stays with PvP too. Always hated the afk’r who would cost us a man down. - Played using an elite controller on Saturday, integrated well and felt better to use than the standard controller. (I mapped sprint, jump, reload, and mark to the paddles) - Verticality in the maps is a standard of the Halo experience and it delivered here! - Solid 60fps gameplay in 60hz mode. Felt very good. - Love the customization system, even if we only had a small taste of it. - Personalized AI is an awesome feature, can’t wait to see you expand upon it (small request, have Nolan North do an AI where he has an identity crisis and uses phrases from his various characters).Cons:
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UI was a little “bright” at times in the menus. The top Play | Customize | Shop were washed out and hard to see. Might need to adjust HDR settings or give ability to change colors of menus? - No game xp towards battle pass (after completing challenges, xp become a slog to grind via the repeating daily) - Purchased Season Pass + Microtransaction store leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If this is the standard, it will create some FOMO and force kids into buying storefront items that seem like they only exist there. - Put a location of where to unlock items while previewing in Customization (or remove until unlocked). - Armor coatings were meh. Still miss the ability to have a variety of solid colors as the default. - Bots were literal aim bots at times. Felt they had pinpoint accuracy from across map. Also felt like they were PC gods with reaction times. I’ve seen a few turn so quick it would have snapped the Spartan’s neck with the whiplash. Maybe tone down or adjust their turning speeds to be more inline with other controller users? - Bots sometimes had bad pathing and would get stuck trying to traverse some maps. Mostly trying to jump up to platforms or stairs (even I have had those days) - The Commando rifle feels weak. After picking it up, and using it for a few matches, I never wanted to touch it again. Why use it when the pistol and BR out preform it in every way. The weapon sounds cool and is fun to shoot, but just seems like it tickles the enemy. - Aim Assist may need to be slightly adjusted for some weapons (like the before mentioned Commando). Nothing too drastic, just a slight bump for consoles/controller users. - Weapon drills were fun, but should have a reward attached to completing the 3 stars? Maybe a UNSC/Covenant based skin for the weapons? Could really push those to learn the weapons a bit more before jumping headfirst into PvP.Bugs:
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Opening the settings menu during a game created a strobing white light every time moving through the menu. - 120hz mode was very inconsistent (Digital Foundry has a great video on this) - Bots continue to attack at game end which causes funny end game animations if you die or lose a shield (honestly, keep this!) - AI will sometimes default to Butler mid game and then back to the selected one. Took me by surprise the first time it happened. - Game only crashed to desktop twice during matches. - Had 1 game in which teammates kept getting kicked or dropped. Ended up with an end game screen of about 16 Spartans on the leaderboard. - Customization UI would occasionally revert my model back to defaults. Only was visual bug as by the next game it was back to what I selected. - Loading times seems inconsistent. Would think the SSD of the XSX would allow for fast loading, but this was not the case.Can’t think of anything else at this time. Overall I really was impressed by this tech preview and have my spirits lifted seeing the future of this game and franchise! Can’t wait to be part of more flights and pick up the game on its release date.