Zero Punctuation: Halo 5: Guardians

[InterstellarFascist]

Halo 5 suffers heavily from having two Spartan protagonists, Locke and team is pointless when you have chief as the heroic professional and Blue Team alone could have carried the game.

It doesn't help that they didn't have the balls to make Locke the space illuminati assassin he was billed to be, so he's basically like a less iconic master chief.

It's like they initially made the game with just Osiris, but later realized they needed the chief to be playable and so added him it later with Blue Team as fan service.

Honestly, it still bugs me that two games on from the end of the covenent war, your still fighting the covenant. Yeah, I know, rogue factions blah blah, too much bad history blah blah... it still just feels like regressing the story to make sure veterans have their comfort blanket old enemies instead of moving on entirely.

Yeah, after Halo 2, i would have thought that giving you the other side of the story would mean it's time to move on to something with more mystique. You can't show a sympathetic viewpoint one game, then go back to the binary good/evil formula as if the past never happened. As you mentioned, i'm sure they have a colon-load of contrived reasons to pull from their ass to excuse no new enemy designs. Creative laziness. Get the Xcom guys to give them a few lessons, it isn't like it's an impossible task. How easy is it to mock up a random alien design? Even Pokemon try with their new games, and they already had hundreds to start with. Edit: I know pokemon aren't aliens, but for all intents and purposes, they might as well be. Fictional species are fictional species.

It's worse than that. 343i only makes use of the same covies the first halo had and no others in their games. Of all things I consider 343i being hesitant to make new species is probably a good thing seeing their only species addiction in the EU have been Yonhet, who are pretty uninspired in their appearance.

I would've liked to fight brute warlords or jackal pirates in game for a change. I thought one of the finer aspects of halo 2 was when they had you fight heretics for a couple levels. However, Elite dominated post covenant factions who call themselves the covenant seem to be all 343i is willing to depict in the games.

Needless to say, looking for nuanced sci-fi in halo is like looking for water on Mercury. Outside of the pole craters where NASA found water-ice pf course.

 

[truckspond]

I was expecting that big November 10 release that everyone and their "next-gen" dog is talking about, but I guess that a fifth installment in a game that is closer to never changing than war is a more deserving target.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Oh, you don't like loadouts or armor powers? Well, lets toss ALL of those things! Lets instead replace loadouts with something like... having to request new weapons in the middle of the fight. At a certain point in a battle you can run up to a terminal (or be dead, whatever) and request a certain starting set of weapons that you will randomly unlock via Mass Effect 3-esque unlocking. Jetpacks? Pfft, why have jetpacks when you could PAY US for the CHANCE to unlock something cool? You know, if you don't feel like playing to earn the points.

Yeah, that's where I get pissed off. Play the game to EARN things that are IN the game. What? Why can't I just grab a banshee now? I have to use a Burn Card like I'm playing fucking Titanfall or something? Well I only have two of those... why use one now? But ohhhhh, look! Pay 4 dollars and I can get a nice fat pack of spectacular things! Things the other Halo games used to just give you!

I don't give a shit if they wanted to lock helmets, armors, visor colors, special knee pads, or spiky elbows or whatever shit behind some kind of wall, but why did the majority of the weapons and literally ALL of the vehicles have to get locked behind that wall too? Why, dear me! I've been 'authorized' to use a Battle Rifle. Thanks, Halo! Now I'm off to earn more credits to roll a d20 to see if I can unlock permission to use a DMR! Only after Jennifer Hale tells me I can use it, of course. Wouldn't want to be getting ahead of myself.

 

[L377UC3]

Oh, you don't like loadouts or armor powers? Well, lets toss ALL of those things! Lets instead replace loadouts with something like... having to request new weapons in the middle of the fight. At a certain point in a battle you can run up to a terminal (or be dead, whatever) and request a certain starting set of weapons that you will randomly unlock via Mass Effect 3-esque unlocking. Jetpacks? Pfft, why have jetpacks when you could PAY US for the CHANCE to unlock something cool? You know, if you don't feel like playing to earn the points.

Yeah, that's where I get pissed off. Play the game to EARN things that are IN the game. What? Why can't I just grab a banshee now? I have to use a Burn Card like I'm playing fucking Titanfall or something? Well I only have two of those... why use one now? But ohhhhh, look! Pay 4 dollars and I can get a nice fat pack of spectacular things! Things the other Halo games used to just give you!

I don't give a shit if they wanted to lock helmets, armors, visor colors, special knee pads, or spiky elbows or whatever shit behind some kind of wall, but why did the majority of the weapons and literally ALL of the vehicles have to get locked behind that wall too? Why, dear me! I've been 'authorized' to use a Battle Rifle. Thanks, Halo! Now I'm off to earn more credits to roll a d20 to see if I can unlock permission to use a DMR! Only after Jennifer Hale tells me I can use it, of course. Wouldn't want to be getting ahead of myself.

Yeah, they fucking dropped the ball there. That's Warzone for you. It's replacing BTB until December, where we'll get Forge maps to play it on. Yay.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Gotta admit, I laughed quite a bit at this one. And personally, I strongly prefer Red VS Blue, at least that has an interesting story. Halo itself seems to be running bare by now...

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

It's worse than that. 343i only makes use of the same covies the first halo had and no others in their games. Of all things I consider 343i being hesitant to make new species is probably a good thing seeing their only species addiction in the EU have been Yonhet, who are pretty uninspired in their appearance.

I would've liked to fight brute warlords or jackal pirates in game for a change. I thought one of the finer aspects of halo 2 was when they had you fight heretics for a couple levels. However, Elite dominated post covenant factions who call themselves the covenant seem to be all 343i is willing to depict in the games.

Needless to say, looking for nuanced sci-fi in halo is like looking for water on Mercury. Outside of the pole craters where NASA found water-ice pf course.

Hold the noise...no brutes?? But they were great! So does any creature jump on your vehicle and pull you out anymore, giving a sense of urgency and different tactics? Does this game offer anything that isn't an absence of something?

 

[L377UC3]

It's worse than that. 343i only makes use of the same covies the first halo had and no others in their games. Of all things I consider 343i being hesitant to make new species is probably a good thing seeing their only species addiction in the EU have been Yonhet, who are pretty uninspired in their appearance.

I would've liked to fight brute warlords or jackal pirates in game for a change. I thought one of the finer aspects of halo 2 was when they had you fight heretics for a couple levels. However, Elite dominated post covenant factions who call themselves the covenant seem to be all 343i is willing to depict in the games.

Needless to say, looking for nuanced sci-fi in halo is like looking for water on Mercury. Outside of the pole craters where NASA found water-ice pf course.

Hold the noise...no brutes?? But they were great! So does any creature jump on your vehicle and pull you out anymore, giving a sense of urgency and different tactics? Does this game offer anything that isn't an absence of something?

Yeah, you can get boarded. Not that it matters in a game where you have three other squadmates.

And no, the Brutes (and the Flood) have been conspicuously absent for 343's entire tenure.

I think they don't want anyone to know they've really just been ripping off Reach for five years.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

So it's Another Halo Game, much like Syndicate is Another AC Game.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Oh goody! It's time for Shooter Season 2015! Kicking things off is a jolly good paddling to HALO 5. A nice appetizer, with the main course being what he'll do to CoD:BlOps III.

I kind of have to agree with Yahtzee. I really would like a smaller more focused game, perhaps one focused on the power vaccum the collapse of the Covenant would've caused, but no, games always have to follow up threats with bigger threats because there's always another galaxy threatening super monster/weapon buried on the next planet over. Not only does it feel unreal because when they introduce another even more ridiculous threat that it turns out was there all along you wonder what the fuck is coming next and not in a good way, it belittles the threats of the previous games because past threats rarely get any respect, and when they do it's just them doing the same thing they always did. There's no freaking growth, it's just constantly trying to raise the stakes because that's what needs to be done.

Why can't we have smaller stories in Halo, why does it always have to be galactic threat # are we even counting anymore? Here's a thought. The SPARTANs were originally created to combat the Insurrectionists, people who want to declare their colonies independent from the UNSC and commonly resorted to terrorist actions to do so. They kind of went quiet during the Human-Covenant war, but now that that's over you'd think the Insurrectionists would crop back up because they thought the UNSC was being fascist and 30 year long wars aren't exactly well known for improving the quality of life in a nation. It'd be interesting to see Chief be forced out of the guilt free actions of fighting aliens who want to kill all humans and be forced to fight insurgents who want independence, because that's not as morally clean.

But no, more Forerunner doomsday weapons, HOW DID THESE GUYS LOSE TO THE FLOOD AGAIN WHEN THEY'VE GOT GIANT FUCKING ROBOTS BURIED ALL OVER THE PLACE!?

I guess the whole Insurrectionist cause petered out when they found the UNSC ain't so bad compared to the Covenant or the Flood. Although you're right about the Forerunners; how the hell did they lose to that?!

 

[normalguycap]

A lot of fun wit in this review. Highly enjoyed it. Not because I dislike the product, but how he crafts description and also the insults, which are fantastic.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

The ironic thing though is that there were still insurrectionists cells around during the Human-Covenant war, and some of them fought alongside the the UNSC it was very much a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation. In fact, they're established to still be around post Human-Covenant war in an incident where they, and I swear this is true, killed The Rookie. Remember? Halo 3 ODST's MC? Yeah he's dead now. The even tried to hijack the Infinity at one point.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Ilsa_Zane

And get this. Some SPARTAN IVs defected and joined the innies. We could've had freaking antagonist SPARTANs! GOD DAMN 343 you dropped the ball.

 

[Defective_Detective]

I don't think Yahtzee understands first person shooters, why people play them, or how to review them.

I don't think you realise that it can be helpful to read a review about an FPS from someone who isn't a typical FPS fan. I couldn't think of a more boring gaming news ecosystem than one in which only "FPS guys" get to talk about FPS games. Not that FPS nerd reviews aren't useful for FPS nerds, but it's terrible for anyone outside of that clique if that's all we get.

 

[Erttheking]

I don't think Yahtzee understands first person shooters, why people play them, or how to review them.

I think he responded to that line of criticism in Medal of Honor Warfighter.

I warn you, it was the only time on Zero Punctuation I remember him being legitimately angry.

 

[Spartan448]

I think a big part of the problem with the story is that they're starting to really rely on people having read the companion novels. As someone who HAS read them, the story is perfectly fine, and actually quite good, if not way too short. On the other hand, to someone who hasn't read the companion novels... there's no story at all.

 

[xxobot]

GOD DAMN 343 you dropped the ball.

They seem to be missing the mark on every account now... Halo is becoming another bland shooter. Yes I know people would argue it already was.

They literally put us in a (extremely for the series) narrow canyon vehicle segment for halo 4, I mean, really?!


There was plenty of interesting directions to take the narrative that didn't involve retconning the puny humans to be one of the most important races in the galaxy because reasons and inventing a whole new faction of aliens to fight.

Yes, a new faction would be needed eventually, but it just seems so shoehorned in... And their backstory sucks.

Spoiler: They also made the mistake of...

Cheapening the death of one of the most recognizable characters by bringing them back. ((?) Havn't played the game yet so I can't verify the extent of this sin).

This would also mean a missed narrative opportunity by not giving him a new plucky sidekick computer and working through everything that entails; The reminders of loss, the learning to work together, the character development. All perfect things to put into a filler game like this one apparently is.

 

[WindKnight]

Snip

The ironic thing though is that there were still insurrectionists cells around during the Human-Covenant war, and some of them fought alongside the the UNSC it was very much a "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" situation. In fact, they're established to still be around post Human-Covenant war in an incident where they, and I swear this is true, killed The Rookie. Remember? Halo 3 ODST's MC? Yeah he's dead now. The even tried to hijack the Infinity at one point.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Ilsa_Zane

And get this. Some SPARTAN IVs defected and joined the innies. We could've had freaking antagonist SPARTANs! GOD DAMN 343 you dropped the ball.

I'm reminded of how Freespace 2 had its initial enemy faction be racist Terran (human) terrorists out to destroy the Vasudans (the race you were initially fighting in 1, but who you allied with when the much more nasty and omnicidal Shivans showed up), who ended up calling down an even bigger threat with their actions. There was a game series that took its story interesting places (though admittedly it failed after the 2nd one... bleah)

 

[Colt47]

From my perspective it seems like Bungie wanted to move on because Halo was turning into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which is now Call of Duty: Black Ops X, where X is a specific number one integer larger than the previous. Basically, Microsoft wants a secure cash cow they can roll out year after year to help fund other projects, just I don't think it does given how much money they have to spend on all the CG cutscenes, actors, MoCap, digital artists, etc. They've had to shorten the games going forward just to keep the game profitable even with an IP power house behind the game and it was inevitable they were going to have to go the DLC route just to keep things in the green.

What they should do is just release a core Halo multiplayer game and have the single player campaigns separate purchases that link into the multiplayer game. Just keep updating the multiplayer portion for free and charge something like 40 usd for the SP campaigns.

 

[mrdude2010]

Haven't played any Halo game since 3. It became very clear to me they they just wanted to cash in on bros and multiplayer and the story was going to be a side note that someone slapped together over a weekend.

You didn't miss much. The multiplayer has gotten progressively less arena-shootery and the story has been mostly nonsensical.

 

[stormtrooper9091]

I forgot, is Halo a spunkgargleweewee game or is that exclusive to CoD/BF series. Either way I never saw the appeal of this series and likely never will

 

[Anaphyis]

So, let me take a guess at this one before actually watching.

- long diatribe about franchises and lack of originality, bonus point for a Nintendo non sequitur
- shot at the xbone for lack of meaningful games and how this isn't one
- 'this is badly written' because that's the new shtick since he found a publisher for his pulp (read it, wasn't impressed)
- Cortana, so BOOBS because that's comedy for lazy people

Let's see... pretty good. Doing overtime on the last point until it gets outright creepy and spiteful, and I'm not sure whether the ire is targeted at the fanservice or if it's another stupid bitches week in his calendar.

I have to say, the game seems to dovetail nicely with the originality and degree of stagnation in his reviews. Unfortunately, that probably wasn't intended to make some kind of point.