So after a 2 hr wait I got to get my hands on a controller and go wild in some BTB slayer.
Overall I was very happy. I got a chance to used the sniper and binary rifles, the Covie Carbine, Plasma Pistol, Regen Field, and Promethean grenade. The ORD drops seemed to work quite well, though I wasn’t really happy with the ORD drop selection, I think that I have the ability to customize it a bit if I had more prep time, so I don’t see that as much of a problem.
Overall the gameplay was closer to that of H3 than Reach, but then…I tended to forget about my Regen field. The Map, a remake of an old fave of mine, seemed to be nicely tuned for the addition of sprint. While I didn’t move around the map too much, keeping mostly to the right side of the map by the turret, getting to the “50 yard line” was really easy with the combination of the grav lifts and sprint, getting you to places with good sight lines quickly. I thought the carbine was quite effective… its a bit less accurate when spamming the trigger, but it seemed responsive enough to spamm the trigger a bit, to drop the shields and follow through with a paced headshot to finish them off. One thing that I noticed from players using the AR, is that the guns are very specific to their roles. You have to back track with a precision weapon if you have a guy with an AR charging you. I saw many people trying to strafe with the DMR or BR, hoping to take out the AR guy with a melee as they got close, but the guy with the AR just closes the distance and chews them up before even getting into melee range. Tracking with the plasma pistol was nice, it wasn’t dominating against infantry, but it did seem as the tracking was better against vehicles than infantry. You need to be closer to the people when tracking infantry with the PP, but when tracking against the Banshee it seemed to track a bit better and longer, from a farther distance. ( as I don’t have the theater, It was hard to tell, but it seemed that way) The Sniper rifle was real nice. I don’t know if it was just the sound that made it seem that way but was very satisfying taking the opposing teams heads off. I had trouble with the Binary Rifle, I will need more time with that to get better, and the Promethean grenades, seemed ineffective on such a large map.
Ok I did have a few problems with the gameplay. First is I felt like I was being punished for doing well. A few kills after my first killing spree I had no grenades ( pro grenade only gives you 1 ) and was running low on carbine ammo so I called in a ORD drop for a Binary rife. I dropped my PP for the Binary rifle, and began taking out targets( or trying to)…Ok so now my binary rife is empty and I have a clip and about a half left in my carbine. There is NO ammo on the map. All the people I killed getting my killing spree had respawned and when I went to check for their dropped weaponry, it had disappeared. The only weapon that was there for me to pick up was an AR dropped by the last person I’d just killed, and it was out in the middle of the open. So here I am, by the creek near left side of red base, with no ammo and no grenades and the only weapon is in the middle of the kill zone. So I make for the AR, because there’s two red dots flanking me, and I get assassinated. This isn’t a major issue, but I would like fallen enemies weapons to sit on the ground longer, if there are going to be so few weapons on the map, I could have kept my spree going if that was the case. Grenades are another issue, I understand that in Reach spamming was a problem, but I only have 1, and with very little on the map, and no ability to replenish them from fallen teamates or enemies, I felt like I had an arm tied behind my back.
The point scoring was a bit of a pain too. I think the scoring system is great, but when you get points for assists, kills, saves, killing while reloading, helping a teammate skyjack, emping…ect, the point feed becomes insanely distracting in the center of the HUD, especially if you are preforming really well.
Those few things that I brought up were very minor for the most part, it didn’t ruin the fun factor for me at all and that to me is the most important thing about Halo…even if you have a problem with something it’s still fun.
Went 15-6-2, had a great time, and won me a nice little ONI patch and MC avatar armor.
I also want to say thanks to the 343 crew for being so nice and hooking my buddy up with some free stuff, since he didn’t get a chance to play, being stuck in Artist Ally all weekend. That was really cool.
