Justifications (or lack thereof)

Games Halo 5: Guardians
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WARNING. THIS READ IS A TOTAL BLOWFEST. THERE ARE A LITTLE OVER 6000 CHARACTERS TO THIS TOPIC. IF YOU CARE TO COMMENT (which I encourage you to) THEN PLEASE READ MY FULL OPINION ON THE TOPIC RATHER THAN JUST THE TITLE OF IT.
My Background
I want to start this out by saying I am a die hard Halo fan. I’ve been playing the franchise since I was only 10 years old. This franchise has been basically the main reason I even play video games or keep myself up to date on them. I was never upset or anything when Bungie gave 343 the key to their house. I was interested, rather.
In my personal opinion, I thought Halo 4 was a pretty decent game. It seemed to branch off a little too much from the first trilogy but I was totally okay with it. I thought the story, like alot of the community, was a little confusing at first, but after another play-through or two and some research I learned to love it alot more.
As Halo 5: Guardians approached and Hunt The Truth Season 2 was winding up, I got incredibly excited as I had still refrained myself from spoilers or any streams or anything like that. But once I booted up the campaign at about 1:30 AM after the midnight release (call me old school but I like to actually go stand in line for it), I found out more and more about the game that I really was not satisfied with. At all. MAYBE some of these can be righteously explained but some or these… Well… Just aren’t.
Here are my stories. DUN DUN. [Law and Order anybody? No? Just me? Sweet.]
What 343 Industries Can’t Justify:
1: Split Screen
Maybe I’m beating a dead horse, but what the fudge 343? I literally grew up falling in love with this series by playing campaign with my older brother and sitting in on his LAN parties. Maybe some people don’t really care about the Split Screen but I feel like a majority of the community still has to be pissed about this. 343i, you literally created THREE other mentally-handicapped spartans (See 2. Campaign “Teammates”) that are forced to stay with you the entire game. How could you POSSIBLY justify removing the function of someone picking up a controller and deciding which one of your terrible spartan AIs to play as? I don’t think anybody EVER complained about playing as a Master Chief clone (better than not playing as Master Chief at ALL in this game [See 4. Who’s The Main Character?]), the Arbiter or a regular Elite. At least all of them could actually take a bullet (see 3. Honorable Mention).
2. Campaign "Teammates"
Did anybody else find the AI absolutely useless? Correction: Did anybody else only let the AI commit suicide just to draw fire away from you? Between their obsession with you (not walking away more than 2 feet from you) and their lack of reviving “skills” (covering your dead body by standing in front of you while reviving you thus dying before picking you up?), I found these AI to be absolute

-POOP-Yup. Said it. #SorryNotSorry
3. Campaign. Period.
Story? There was a story? Did we play the same Halo 5: Guardians? Did I play the 3rd party version? Was this a Wildcatz production?
This game lacked MAJOR story. I think alot of us probably theorized that Halo 5 was going to be about finding Cortana due to the ending of 4 and the trailer of 5 where Chief grips her computer chip (1:40 of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blW40AVWXrE). But this game hardly revolved around that even though they tried to make it about that. It was basically all about Osiris the entire time. Who, might I add, nobody cared about it compared to Blue Team who you might as well have not played as at all.
Oh I’m sorry. You’re right. You DID play as Chief.
THREE.
FLUDGING.
TIMES.
3. Honorable Mention
This is more of an afterthought. Did anybody else feel like the addition of terrible Spartan AIs made your individual character weaker? It feels like they expect the AI to do more work so they make you worse.
4. Who’s The Main Character?
Please answer the followings questions with either True or False.
In this campaign, you play as Master Chief. True.
In this campaign, you play as Spartan -Yoink-. True.
In this campaign, it makes sense to center TWELVE (12) missions of the 15-mission campaign, LITERALLY 75% of the game, around a brand new character with hardly any exposition or development to him. False.
There is NO justification that can come to this logic. How did somebody look at the campaign mission list and go: “Guys, wtf. There are only 3 Chief missions. I thought this was Halo?”. This feels like reading the 6th Harry Potter book, but only having Harry in 7 of the 30 chapters and following the Half-Blood Prince for the other 23.
5. Forcing Specific Playlists
To me, BTB is an absolute classic. It is most definitely my favorite gametype of all time. I hate the fact that we are stuck with only a few ranked playlists and warzone. 343, I understand you want us to love and enjoy your new, slightly above mediocre playlist, but forcing it on somebody isn’t the way to go. Don’t you know that’s not how love goes? Can’t just rape somebody and expect them to like it.
6. REQ Packs
I’m not even going to touch this one. The community can handle this absurd overflow of Mongeese and Needlers.
Conclusion
Look guys. This is straight opinion. I know how the world works. One decision makes alot of people mad, while that same decision makes alot of people happy. However, I do feel as if that decision should typically be made off of the majority opinion. I HIGHLY doubt no matter what kind of gamers were in their focus group that at least half of them said, “Yeah I would MUCH rather sacrifice split screen to have NPCs as teammates in the solo campaign that don’t know how to fight. I think everybody would agree with me.” Please feel free to quote and dissent and agree. I’m not looking to start any form of argument. I really would like to know what some other people think. Additionally, do not mistake this as a “deuces”-type post. In no way am I going to stop playing Halo (primarily due to my lack of funds). These are just things I felt like were shoved to the side to mainly focus on multiplayer or a release date.
Feel free to hate me for all of my opinions, click on my name, view my Service Record and then try to hurt my feelings by using my Service Record against me.
JoBo4
Blue Squad

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Some valid points made, some i disagree with. I actually liked the story, and i LOVED the settings. Being on an outer colony world as well as Sanghelios (I love elites) were highlights. I do think the story was falsely advertised though. You spend barely any time actually hunting the Chief and i’d prefer a more equal distribution of Blue Team and Osiris.

I also share your frustration about lack of content, but i do have faith these game-modes will be brought in over time. Should have been straight away though…

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> 2533274827731650;2:
> Some valid points made, some i disagree with. I actually liked the story, and i LOVED the settings. Being on an outer colony world as well as Sanghelios (I love elites) were highlights. I do think the story was falsely advertised though. You spend barely any time actually hunting the Chief and i’d prefer a more equal distribution of Blue Team and Osiris.
>
> I also share your frustration about lack of content, but i do have faith these game-modes will be brought in over time. Should have been straight away though…

Fair. The setting was definitely cool. As I was disappointed to not be on a Halo at any point during this game, I was most definitely content with being on a new place. Sanghelios was definitely a neat introduction and breath of fresh air.
I think the story wouldn’t be horrible if this was a standalone game, however, I believe it wasn’t much of a story compared to the ones the rest of the series told.
Thank you for legitimately responding, too!

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Yo, I read it all. But I am not going to go to respond to each of your points, which I believe are all very valid and correct for you. But the key here is that you believe that you are forced to endure the things you do not like. This issue right here goes beyond these in game code issues and into your health and life. This maybe a sign of something that is not quite psychologically right with you, maybe it is just addictive behavior.

There are things that 343i mislead people on, like saying warzone has 6 maps but there are only 3, which can be understandable with anger. But a lot of the other stuff you did not like was something you as a consumer expected but was not promised by the producer.

It is okay to stop Halo.

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I agree with you on many things. I too am mad that 343 isn’t even reaching out to attempt to explain anything besides aim assist. I’m assuming they already had a few responses typed up hours after they changed the game dynamic. I bet I’d be alright with some feedback. Otherwise I feel left out of the loop and in deep confusion. Something’s got to give

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> 2807377803439483;4:
> Yo, I read it all. But I am not going to go to respond to each of your points, which I believe are all very valid and correct for you. But the key here is that you believe that you are forced to endure the things you do not like. This issue right here goes beyond these in game code issues and into your health and life. This maybe a sign of something that is not quite psychologically right with you, maybe it is just addictive behavior.
>
> There are things that 343i mislead people on, like saying warzone has 6 maps but there are only 3, which can be understandable with anger. But a lot of the other stuff you did not like was something you as a consumer expected but was not promised by the producer.
>
> It is okay to stop Halo.

Uh… Okay? Thanks for your input.

> 2533274828740661;5:
> I agree with you on many things. I too am mad that 343 isn’t even reaching out to attempt to explain anything besides aim assist. I’m assuming they already had a few responses typed up hours after they changed the game dynamic. I bet I’d be alright with some feedback. Otherwise I feel left out of the loop and in deep confusion. Something’s got to give

I agree. I’m honestly not even sure why they took the time to explain the aim assist. I thought that was just something that everybody just sort of knew about. It’s like one of those unspoken things. Like peeing in the shower!

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The campaign wasn’t bad. I think 343 tried to make more of an RPG-style story in an FPS with zero RPG elements in its campaign (outside of assuming “the role of Spartan Locke/Master Chief”). It could definitely have been better, though.

My main gripe, honestly, is that 343 took the route I praised Bungie for avoiding for so long which was “artificial intelligence will try to enslave humanity.” The AI in the Halo-verse were different, and I loved that, but here we are… Chasing down the most complex half of our dynamic duo for treason against the universe.

I have similarly mixed feelings about the REQ system in the same way I do about the LEGO minifigure sets, collectible card games, and booster packs of minis for table top games. It’s a different model, and it’s going to rub some people the wrong way.

Split screen… they claim that’s a technical issue, frame rates and whatnot… I don’t know enough, but I was supremely pissed about it. My brother and I grew up playing these games together, and now that we’re adults it’s harder to find time. So when we ran out and got a copy to sit down and play, we raged over it.

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