Halo 5 Guardians Review - Reclaiming and Redeeming a Franchise

[fix-the-spade]

Wait...did I read that right? There are fifteen missions in the campaign, and twelve of those missions you are playing as Locke and his team? Which means that I play as Linda--er, I mean Master Chief--for only three missions? Not going to lie, that's more than a little disappointing..

It's one of the hallmarks of the Halo series that it takes what the fans want and then profoundly ignores it.

Halo 2, skips over the first battle of Earth in two missions and punts you back to another Halo.
Halo 3, skips over the fight in the Dreadnought and the second battle of Earth, briefly focuses on the defense of Earth only to punt you off to a Forerunner installation containing yet another Halo. Also skips over the adventures of Arbiter and Half Jaw (UNACCEPTABLE!).
Halo: ODST, actually that one's pretty cool.
Halo: Reach, skips over Operation: RED FLAG and the Spartan II's ill fated defense of Reach for some randoms you never heard of before and never see again.
Halo 4, skips over the tale of Chief and Cortana trying to get home and instead shoves in a Forerunner bad guy and yet another doomsday plot.
Halo 5, skips over Master Chief/Blue Team's search for Cortana, 117's increasingly unhinged state and the chain of events that led to Cortana suddenly being both alive and the bad guy. Instead puts in some new guy's shoes for a round the houses tour of places and people we have no reason to care about. Brings the Arbiter back but no Shipmaster Half Jaw (ALSO UNACCEPTABLE!).

On a side note Halo's various trailers frequently show or tease things that bare no relation to the game too. So Halo 5 carries on the tradition of demonstrating why Halo fans are the most forgiving in the world!

 

[Thomas Barnsley]

I have to say, if I didn't have a hate boner for the Xbone, this would probably make me get one.

Side note: The allied AI has always been terrible. The inclusion of orders just gives it a new way to screw up. I gave up on my allies in Halo 3 when my attempts at finishing legendary were stymied by Johnson and his infinite ammo spartan laser constantly bulls-eyeing me and that is a trend that has continued throughout every game. I think the only guy I didn't have a problem with was Jorge and that was because his character design prevented him from being harmful to me.

They were ok in Halo 2; I once had these two marine chicks follow me through almost the entire Regret mission, even into the elevators, on Heroic. And I don't think it was some kind of invincibility glitch, since I did occassionally see them die before I died.

Then again, I was playing the sacred icon mission the other day, and one of the elite buddies I got drove his ghost straight off a cliff almost as soon as he got deployed. "Do not squander their talent," halfjaw told me. Yeah, righto mate.

 

[Paragon Fury]

As I'm reading this, I have 3.5 hours until I can play. I haven't been this excited for a launch in some time. I can barely wait.

 

[Paragon Fury]

No armor powers? No loadouts? Oh sure, lets give in to the WHINING from all the Halo fanboys who hate to acknowledge that armor powers have been a thing since Halo Reach, and realistically, as pick ups in Halo 3. Once again the Halo fanbase refuses to evolve with the times. Almost all modern shooters have loadouts, but not Halo. No... it's just as stale as it ever was.

Ugh. That that's going to make it annoying when I pick up the game later on. You can't just pretend that armor powers weren't a thing. But sure, lets cater to all the people who cried foul at Halo Reach and Halo 4 for daring to be even REMOTELY similar to Call of Duty, not that I personally ever found the armor powers to be anywhere near close to that. They fit in with the Halo universe. But sure, reject them. Get rid of them entirely so that people won't cry about getting killed by someone using invisibility that anyone could observe, or a jetpacker than any idiot could see in the sky.

Halo 'fans' don't want the game to evolve past what it was in Halo 2. Personally, I thought the Armor powers added much needed flavor to the multiplayer. But yeah, get rid of all of that. Fuck the people that liked it. I guess I'll end up getting bored as shit with this game just like I did with Halo 3.

The Armor Abilities were terrible for balance, terribly designed and completely fucked the flow of Halo.

People accepted Equipment in Halo 3 because they were essentially Power Weapons like the Rockets or Sniper, but for utility instead of offense. And they could be kept track of and seen and spawned and controlled like a power weapon, unlike Armor Abilities.

Halo is designed around people starting every match and every spawn on equal footing - Loadouts completely destroyed that. Loadouts in Halo would be like removing ADS from CoD, or hipfiring from Quake.

 

[Ylla]

"sprinting resets your shield recharge cooldown"
YAY i remember 343i talking about this feature back when Halo 4 was released, glad to see they implemented it, Halo 4 multiplayer was full of people just running away from fights.