2015/12/12: Xbox One: Halo 5: Guardians

[VideoGameCritic]

I'd like to know what you think about my Halo 5: Guardians review. What say you?

[ptdebate]

I agree with it wholeheartedly. It's still a good game, but it's hard not to see the lost potential with the omissions. B- is a fair grade.

[Tron]

Sounds like an A+ game up until "No local multiplayer". If this game had a good-functioning local multiplayer would it be an A+?

[Hardcore Sadism]

Story wise, I smell something fishy. By fishy, I mean, something happened between the months of Hunt the Truth's ad campaign and the actual story line in the game itself. It's an enigma how cornball it gotten, and there had been a worse plot in the comic series Escalation.

Game play wise, it's weird having a squad-revive system instead of just copy/pasting what Reach had.

[BlasteroidAli]

I have to take umbrage with your views. I think this is the game that killed the franchise. Lacklustre and boring game play through out. The multi player is fine if you want to play COD. Most people call it call of halo.
In the December update it is going to get the Forge but really I have not put the game in in 3 weeks. Every other game I have played for at least a month. This one. One week and then I was bored with it.

Looking forward to Halo Wars 2 and Halo wars backwards compatibility on the one. Also Reach is backwards compatible this month also. That is about it.

Plus the other games have been big sellers. Staying at the top of the charts for at least a month. Not this one. This is Halo's GOW Judgement... and it is yet to be seen if that game killed the entire series...

[Steve]

Even though I haven' finished the campaign (currently Mission 11 of 15), I'd like to chime in here. It's clear that both here and many other places, points or grades are being deducted for missing functionality such as split-screen co-op. As I've stated in other posts, that doesn't matter to me. However, I'd like to boost up a grade because of features they do include. Here are the things that are new to me that are a vast improvement
1) An easy difficulty level that is actually 'easy'. I've still died plenty of times but clearly I'm having an easier time with this Halo compared to almost any other. This is how games should be when there are three other difficulty options. I've also heard good things about how having the teammates (preferably human) is really well utilized at higher difficulties.
2) Teammates for the entire mission. I never liked playing alone. I'm just not that good. This gives the whole game a new feel to me. I never had the need to just play as the Master Chief and no one else.
3) Objective markers. I know there have been other Halo's with objective markers but unless I was doing them wrong, many times, without an objective marker, I would be hopelessly lost and frustrated. Halo 4 had some of the most frustrating levels I've ever played in a video game. Some of the others in the series have had this problem too. So far, in this game, I find the levels quite enjoyable.
What don't I like? Well, I'm not a fan of the first level in this game. While I made it through in time, I felt lucky. I'll probably replay it now that I understand the controls better. Also, since when are there so many collectibles in a Halo game. There were always skulls to collect and those are back but there are 117 other collectibles. I am trying to get them but it's a bit excessive.
Overall, I would rank this game as an "A" so far. Final judgment reserved for when I finish.
By the way, what would it say about me that my favorite games in the Halo Universe are Halo: Reach, Halo 3:ODST, Halo Wars, and now this one.

[David]

I think if there were more evidence that people played local co-op, they probably would've included it. It's also why I believe that some recent FPS's have removed the single-player campaigns. That's not a popular sentiment here, but if THAT many people cared they wouldn't risk alienating them by eliminating local co-op features. None of my friends and I game together locally. It's all over PSN or Steam. I'd rather get dinner and drinks or go to a sporting event rather than do something we can do from our own homes at any time.

[VideoGameCritic]

I don't think the industry cares if people want to play local multiplayer or not. They just want to make money, which means 1) getting everybody online, and 2) forcing each player to buy a copy of the game. Having four players enjoying a single copy of the game is something the executives find offensive.

So what we have is a self-fulfilling prophecy - less games support local multiplayer so gamers play less local multiplayer. There is a perception it's no longer needed, when it fact I think many gamers would really prefer to have that feature. I think we need to speak out because the publishers are going to do what they want and don't have our best interests in mind.

Everybody I've talked to in person has echoed by sentiments about Halo 5. It's a real travesty.

[Voor]

All comes down to the dollar. Apparently there's a greater profit in ditching all the work into implementing split screen into the game, than keeping it.

[ActRaiser]

It's almost as if the game deserves two grades. 1) Against its peers on the Xbox One [D] and 2) Against the rest of the games in the series. [F-]

My problem with game is the following:

1) Controls are jacked up. If you're only playing the campaign and picking enemies off from afar, you'll never notice. But if you try to play online and get into close firefights you'll quickly look like a spaz spinning around. There are two reasons that I'm aware of

For full details checkout
https://www.reddit.com/r/halo/comments/3qsgeu/video_in_body_this_is_halo_5s_aiming_bug/

Seriously, they screwed up the one thing that matters the most, aiming and control. The diagonal movements are slowed down compared to horizontal and vertical. Second, combine that with some weird acceleration effect as you approach the maximum limit at roughly 70% for full tilt.

Compare that to any other shooter and there is no problem with weird X / Y oddities or weird acceleration based on how far you press the stick. If they do it's a gradual acceleration on turning and not an immediate jump.

2) No LAN
Even Gears of War for the Xbox One supports it, so this is crazy to not support it.

3) No Local Co-op for multiplayer. This one has been pointed out repeatedly.

The complete and utterly cowardly way in which they announced no split screen. Josh Holmes replied back to a Tweet directly asking him about splitscreen. He replied right before the July 4th holiday weekend hoping it would get blown over. They easily could have announced at E3 there would be no split screen 2 weeks earlier. Instead they tried to hide it. Likewise, there was the SHIELD TV show tie in where you see two actors playing splitscreen in Halo 5. They really tried to make a concerted effort to cover it up.

They kept saying we're doing this to give you 1080p and 60 FPS. They couldn't even hit that. The resolution drops as you play. IMHO they need to fire Bonnie Ross and Josh Holmes and replace them with someone that understands why Halo is such a beloved franchise. It has nothing to do with graphics or high frame rates but with playing with ones friends in the same room. Lack of understanding on this point is a deal breaker on so many levels.

4) No Local Co-op for campaign - they built the freaking campaign around co-op by having the revive mechanism a part of the game itself. Yet, it doesn't support local co-op. That's terrible design.

5) No match making for Co-op - so that amazing design they put in can only be enjoyed by those you know that have their own Xbox One and Xbox Live Gold subscription. Halo 3 supported matchmaking for 4 Player and Local Co-op, so why can't the more powerful system?

6) No Firefight mode. Since ODST every release has contained some form of Horde mode called Firefight. In 4 it was Spartan Assault but did the same thing. In 5 you get something called Warzone that's an incredibly weak form of large scale fighting with pay to play micro transactions.

7) No Forge mode - supposedly that's launching next week but I wouldn't be surprised if that gets pushed. Same goes for fileshare.

At best, it's half a Halo game. Sure, compared to its peers such as Battlefront it at least offers a sizable campaign. However, when you're playing a Halo game you'd think you'd at least get to play more than 3 levels as the Master Chief. If you can buy it at $30-$40 then it might be worth it. But it's certainly not worth it at the full price. For the record I made sure to not give MS any money and bought it used at Gamespot. I completed the game on Normal. I tried Legendary and figured it wasn't worth the time.