There are some great things and there are things that suck. The visuals are great, but the story was terrible. There’s plenty of customization, but it’s highly unorganized resorting to you having to scroll through a long list to find what you want. The overall them of the UI is neat but its functionality is terrible, such as not being able to mute an individual player, or not being able to see their stats nor their armor pregame. Warzone is a great idea, but in firefight the respawn times become exceedingly terrible. On top of that when trying to take down a boss one team could fight the boss all the way down to the tiniest bit of health, only for another team player to get the final hit on the boss, thus acquiring those points. I feel like those points should be split depending on which team took what percentage of health, rather than if a team did the most damage they get all of the points.
The REQ system was a good idea initially, but it seems to favor players of a higher level when it comes to obtaining more powerful and more rare weapons, instead of anyone having the same probability of obtaining a rare item/weapon. At the same time 343 should leave the customization items available to be unlocked at higher levels. I hardly ever see balanced teams, whether it be Warzone or Arena. One team always dominates and the other team seems like it was their first day every playing Halo. The matchmaking in conjunction with the req system gives a highly unbalanced experience. There’s been plenty of games in Warzone for instance where one team would charge in with multiple wasps, bypassing their first capture point to attack the opposing team’s first capture point to completely annihilate them. I’ve gotten like 2 or 3 wasps the day the update came out, and I have yet to get any since. I’m not totally sure if that’s the case with the REQ system, or what exactly can be done to improve it, but something is definitely off about it. But one thing that is evident is not being able to sell multiple REQs at once, and having to go through an unorganized mess. I almost would rather have a custom loadout option, but that too would mean higher levels would have an advantage due to being able to unlock more powerful weapons.
Sprinting is a great thing to have, it quickens the pace of the game. However your shields don’t recharge and getting hit and trying to take cover often yields in not being able to reach cover in time, even it it’s just around a corner. The initial start of sprinting feels clunky, versus feeling like a super soldier dashing off into battle. It’s as if the gameplay is fast paced in offense but then when you have to be defensive it slows down tremendously. It forces you to play at a distance, instead of being able to utilize a variety of tactics whether it be offensive or defensive at various ranges. If you are able to take cover while getting hit you’re forced to sit and hide, hoping that you don’t get grenade spammed as there’s hardly anywhere else to go.
Clambering is a great addition, and so is the spartan charge and the ground slam. However, clambering sometimes doesn’t work, and the animations for the spartan charge and the ground slam seem slow. They all however feel really clunky. The controls in general feel clunky I might add, whereas Halo 4 felt like a truly fast-paced Halo game with hardly any issues with gameplay from my experience.
There’s a lack of a custom game browser, leaving players to resort to having to go online to other websites to find those games. Custom games is a huge part of Halo, and with all the praise from 343 about the forge system, why not utilize this notion and take advantage of it? It creates longevity for the game tremendously. The Spartan Companies feature is somewhat of a joke, as this feature is no where to be seen in game. As with a number of features such as Spartan Companies, it requires users to go online to the website instead.
There are some kool maps, and I’m glad that some remakes were brought into the game, but most of the maps feel cookie-cutter in a way. It’s kind of sad that the good maps are the ones that were brought back, but even they feel plain, the textures and the environment feels the same. Where are the blades of grass for instance? Walking on grass or the ground does not feel like you’re running through a field at all. Every game mode feels like there aren’t enough players, on top of the maps feeling crowded and small.
At its core Halo 5 is a pretty decent game, but I hope that we all can provide evidence and logical reasoning to what needs to be changed with the game. Not only that, we need a gaming company that listens to their community, and not just people that whine, but to the people that do provide that evidence and rational thought. There’s more that could be said but I guess I’ll leave it at that.
