I’d just like to start by saying this isn’t a rant or complete praise of HALO: 5 but an opinion of someone who has played HALO for quite some time while playing a variety of other games as well.
Before HALO: 5 I thought I was what some may call a “HALO Purist.” I thought I didn’t want the game to change much at all. However that went against my understanding of that games need to innovate or else they get left behind or become repetitive. HALO 5 does a good job of modernizing itself while avoiding being a complete gimmick. Your movements aren’t too far fetched for a Spartan and interact great with the newer maps and add many different flanking routes as well as to some more interesting battles when compared to the old hide behind a wall, shoot a few times and hope you kill the other person before he/she kills you.
A huge worry of mine were the microtransactions that were being added to the game.
15 DLC maps will be free in this game probably as a direct result of these microtransactions. This will help keep the community from splintering which it desperately needs after the trainwreck of HALO: MCC This logic also applies in the game GTA: V. You can pay for money to virtually buy anything, and that has helped the DLC in that game to be free of charge. The transactions of Gold Packs and lower are obtained moderately. Not too easily or too difficult. Yes I don’t like someone paying to get ahead, but it’s the same chance of an unlocking individual items unless somebody pays lots of money. What weapons or vehicles you do unlock has to be earned by req level. Yes you can earn req level to go up if your teammates capture a base with you nearby or you help kill A.I. but if you don’t help out in any other ways, you won’t be able to use anything beyond the lower levels. As well as you have to wait a substantial amount of time in between using high level reqs. For example if you use a scorpion card, it’s likely going to be five minutes or longer before you can use one and you probably had to wait until the game was already half over. Having the req in warzone keeps too many people from focusing all their attention on power weapon and vehicle spawns as well as allows for people to be assigned specific roles and tasks in a team. For example one person is a sniper, two for a warthog team, defense team with close ranged weapons, ect. Many other games have much worse microtransactions that should be shamed. I’m sure you can think of them yourself. I believe too microtransactions can and have been toxic for the gaming community in many ways, but perhaps good comes out of them like in GTA: V. However in HALO: 5 and GTA: V there isn’t a need to buy the packs at all unless you want to get something quickly. 7. If someone does purchase many packs, they will likely get lots of the same power weapons/vehicles and will end up selling most back anyway as well as have to deal with the system I mentioned earlier which prevents them from spamming power weapons/vehicles and arguably keeps the gamemode more objective based. I don’t know how to properly formulate an argument of weather it is pay-to-win or not because you can pay for stuff that yes can be used, but it depends on the individuals opinion of what pay-to-win is. I know I hate free-to-play pay-to-win games and despise even more games that have the same set up after you’ve already payed for the game, but for some reason my opinion doesn’t feel the same about HALO: 5. I also see that 343i has mentioned adding new weapons and reqs and some of those are likely to enter arena and forge like say if it’s a gravity hammer : P which if 343i really does profit off of these reqs then perhaps this has been helped along as well.
HALO: 5 has a short campaign that you have to be deep into the lure unfortunately to understand the greater aspects of or even feel like agent Locke has any character development at all. It felt a little disappointing to play as Blue Team so little, but it isn’t unforgivable as the gameplay is still solid and the levels are often very open ended allowing great movement for 4 players. The lack of repeated areas keeps the gamplay fresh. I do feel like I’ll play through this campaign a few times, but without the daily, weekly, and monthly challenges, I struggle to find reason to…
This is probably a good point to start in on what I feel HALO: 5 is missing. I feel like it’s really missing gamemodes. Yes I know this can divide players more, but it more importantly keeps more people playing and enjoying the game. We need infection, grifball, and btb. I’ve heard big team battle is supposed to make a return, but I’m not sure about infection and grifball. I need infection or else the main reason I liked to forge is gone. It wouldn’t hurt to have oddball either as those Indiana Jones maps were pretty damn fun ; P. I also think it couldn’t hurt to have a classic playlist without all our fancy new gadgets. Now I don’t think this will hurt the community and everyone will run there where it’s safe for the HALO Purists, but I think I’d like to play some classic HALO on some classic maps or maps with similar style once in a while. There is something to be said for the HALO that I enjoyed and still do as well as if people truly want that experience and some of the other features HALO: 5 has to offer like forge and custom games, then I say let them. Just because they don’t want the game to change, doesn’t mean they should be left without something accommodating to them. There are many people that would like to have a classic HALO playlist as that may be all they want, but more importantly we’d all like to play some classic HALO every now and then. I feel like telling people to go play HALO: MCC is an insult as the multiplayer didn’t work for SO long and still has some issues today. I still can’t play co-op campaign on any of the games in HALO: MCC with a friend. It’s a huge mistake and HALO: 5 really should apologize for that or at least try to by making a classic playlist.
I suppose in conclusion I really love HALO: 5 but it’ll struggle to keep me playing without daily, weekly, and monthly challenges and the variety of gamemodes HALO typically has for more players to enjoy.
Weather you agree or disagree that’s okay, but I’m game if anybody who is chill wants to play.
GT: Sam Maxis 115