Iv been seeing a lot of negative feedback on these boards throughout the past week and its honestly a bit shocking. I completely understand people not enjoying the feel halo 5 has to it or just not fitting their needs which is completely fine and understandable. However many of the complaints iv heard seem not only hypocritical but also really one sided…
“Campaign is too short” - as iv played every halo game on every difficulty but easy, id imagine your referring to the Normal Difficulty. Its not unfair to say the game is short on normal, id imagine it was very short for you. But on the other hand any halo game on Normal can be rushed through pretty quickly, in fact me and my best friend beat halo 3 the night before Halo 5’s release in under 3 hours. Halo 2 is defiantly a lot longer but again, normal makes the game significantly shorter but thats the same with practically every halo game. The game features 15 missions and if you played them on Legendary either co-op or solo you would know that the game can feel quiet long when your actually faced with a challenge rather then speed running through enemies.
“I have no idea what is going on in the story and its really horrible” - While i can totally level with people not understanding the back story behind blue team, team osiris and who exactly each member is and their origins. The game is an open book for details beyond those points. Its defiantly true that many things weren’t told to the player about several details but everything after that seems to be explained pretty clear as day. I hear many saying it really lacks any story, which is funny because Halo 1 consisted of practically no story beyond “Your master chief, you have a suit of armor and an AI. Heres an assault rifle go kill the aliens who are attacking”. Several times in Halo 1 they mentioned things like the forerunners who never even got a proper introduction til the 4th installment of the game. Again, where halo 5 seems to “Fall short” to many, can be seen in the other games too that are apparently “beloved” by them.
"no playlists for casuals" - As for the most part i am a casual player and understand what people may mean, i also realize that in FPS games their is generally a goal to win as that is the whole point after all. Even if we had Action Sack or Griff Ball, people still want to win and apart of that is trying be competitive to win. I don’t see why Team Arena, slayer or warzone isn’t casual enough to be honest… If your in low gold or silver then your placed with people who have less focus/skill to win so your playing as casually as it gets for an FPS game. Their defiantly should be more playlists and a ton need to be returned that were in past games, but their is plenty for casuals to do for now.
“Pistol is way too over-powered” - This is one i don’t really understand what all the complaints are about… If you played any previous halo’s you would know that the pistol has often gone from strait over powered to down right weak. halo 1’s pistol for example could practically out trade anything yet you never hear anyone complain about how broken it is on the chief collection. Halo 2’s pistol was rarely used and even if it was it couldn’t compete with most weapons anyways so it was often ignored. Halo 3’s followed a similar path where it was defiantly a lot better but with its slow fire rate made it a 2nd to the Assault rifle and again, rarely used for most. Halo 5 has come along and people complain its just too powerful. I believe its perfect for the game, you can win trades if your accurate enough to get head shots and you use it at close-mid range, sometimes long range. You can still easily be out traded with an SMG in arena and even breakout.
"REQ packs are horrible and 343 is money hungry AF" - This one is a double-edged sword for me to be honest… while i agree the REQ packs seem to rarely give you anything you want, and instead a crap ton of vehicles and warzone weapons, i also don’t think it makes 343 money hungry for having a $4 max charge for the highest pack (Gold). Not only is that a pretty small price to pay considering we have free maps for the whole year but most companies have a far more impactful money shops that create huge advantages and cost a stupid amount for. The system may need some updates/tweaking, but id say the paying aspect is far from horrible and ill imagine rarely used considering it takes 4-5 games for a silver pack and double that for a gold.
"no split-screen in halo is the last straw" - While i do believe split-screen in older halo games made for some great memories and times with friends, its also something that has been dying over the years. Xboxlive slowly progressed through the years as a means for those who owned a console, game and decent connection to meet up and play games online with all their buddies. But since not everyone could afford one split-screen was often implemented into many video games, for the reason that if you had someone over be a cousin or friend, you could play your favorite game with them. While it was great for convenience and didn’t leave your friend with a hole in his wallet, games have also changed a lot since then. I believe as gamers we do expect a high scale of graphics, gameplay and immersion the more years that pass by, as we should always expect high quality products. However i think we’ve been massively spoiled in this area, This is were split-screen comes in. The better the textures, resolution and overall smoothness of the gameplay (FPS) can make it hard for companies to implement split-screen as your duplicating the same display on another separate window on the screen. Playing through Halo 2 anniversary you’ll notice that on split-screen you can see many areas where the FPS likes to bounce a bit, going from smooth to slightly choppy. this makes me to believe that adding split-screen to the collection was barely a reality and that even when its implemented can still cause issues. All year iv heard so many complaints from games only being 720p and not a full 1080p 60 fps. But when a company decides to give us both those things in exchange for an already dying feature, its suddenly massively hated?? as much as anyone it would be nice for split-screen, but like many i’m not in a situation where my buddies come over every weekend to hangout and play halo. if anything split-screen is even more inconvenient than just buying a xbox one.
My Conclusion
Those are just some iv heard recently and i just wanted to give my input on how i feel about those complaints and what i had to say about them. I’m not trying to cause any issues with others, just simply trying to understand where they are coming from with such hostile negative feedback towards the game. If you want my honest opinion, i feel like a lot of it is people stuck with nostalgia wearing rose covered glasses. We all remember halo games being so great and amazing, but when we look back at them now, you can more clearly see the flaws they had. I feel like most aren’t giving this game a fair chance simply because it doesn’t live up to their memories or hype that the older halo’s games gave them when they were younger. I don’t see that ever happening and i feel like people are being too biased with older games acting as if they are Legendary monuments to gaming with no faults.
