Today’s game is Halo 5: Guardians. Me and the group i usually play Halo with discovered we all have the game so we decided we’d give it a try. We played Halo 1-4, so we have nothing to lose really by giving it a shot.
It’s an interesting experience. To be honest, it feels like more Halo 4, along with some NPCs backing you up. I accidentally blew up Vale though because my friend was saying you can slap them around because they’re invincible. So, thinking they’re invincible, i chucked a grenade at Vale. Turns out? They’re not invincible.
I can’t really find it in me to get attached to Osiris, but i also only just started. It feels a bit weird though to be playing as someone other than Master Chief. I don’t know though, Halo 3 did it too. Something about it’s execution felt seamless though. Like it was normal. I think part of my issue is the Character select screen between missions. It just feels weird.
The NPC AI is so bad it’s funny though. We’ve started this in joke of just yelling “Fredrick!” to get his attention like we’re addressing a dog. Our voice call was just filled with his name. I also had an Enemy elite within energy sword distance just… freeze. Poor guy must have gotten stage fright.
Honestly though, i am enjoying it. I’m sure having friend’s though is making the experience better. It’s the same kind of vibe as Halo 4 gave me. It’s not a bad game, just kind of a bad Halo game. Like as far as everything is it controls fine, plays fine, and they even made the Prometheans slightly more fun to fight. Where it fails is the story (and the AI, but i can overlook that). I don’t really know though. It’s too early for me to be giving my opinions.
I’ve got a big soft spot for halo, my favourite memories in gaming happened in halo 3 custom pre-game lobbies, they really don’t make em’ like they used to!
I wish i had grown up on Halo, having played most of the games now. When i was first starting to get into gaming Halo 3 had just released and i tried it and wrote it off as just a Sci-fi multiplayer shooter. I was young, but damn. I didn’t know what i was missing out on. I had no idea about the Flood and the entire campaign. It took a while for me to realize the Flood was A actual enemy, and not some name for Zombies in the Infection mood.
Ya the lore is pretty great actually with the caveat that I don’t consider anything cannon post-bungie (including that stupid tv show). I even read some of the books and they’re not bad. like cheap margaritas, not much to them but you can just slam em’ back. The best was a full lobby playing jenga, mongoose race, trash compactor, ghostbusters, I haven’t scratched that itch in years. Back when games were built around fun and not competitive sweaty twitchy cash grabs.
To my understanding, for H4/5 one of the big drivers for why the games are quite different is that, following the split from bungie and breakoff to 343, naturally, a lot of new devs had to be brought on. That’s not terribly surprising, but additionally, during that hiring process, it was a goal to bring on devs who were not previously halo fans. Strange choice imo. The goal was to bring in fresh ideas and attract a wider audience (for one of the biggest franchises of the moment). The effect was a bunch of the employees didn’t have much investment in the franchise and often wanted to make changes that would alienate long time series fans.
I can see this reflected in the game for sure. It feels very COD-esque. The sprint always being an option is definitely the stand out example of this, but there’s also how much faster it feels in general. Along with the AR feeling more precise
Halo 4 and 5 are just more examples in the massive pile of “why appealing to a wider audience is almost universally bad for video games” games
