okay let me begin with saying that this was thankfully less of a fucking slog to get through its campaign than Halo 4 and let me Celebrate that...

having said that however, this is definitely lacking in any of the highs that existed in the earlier (pre-4 tbh) games of the series and kinda just blends together. the sense of homogenization with other titles that started with Reach has carried on here with this being the Big Cinematic effort on top of having new series additions like aim down sights (which feels like they just took the prior zoom from earlier titles and made no further adjustments at times lmao).

i'm past the point of trying to get into the lore and characters of Halo but if i was into it, this would've been a disaster. things in this game just come and go with no build or impact. it almost felt like there was a game missing between this and 4.

would like something more with Infinite but i'm not getting my hopes up.

Halo 5 does not feel like a Halo game. It may look like one, but when you get your finger on the triggers, its overhauled systems are plain to see and more akin to more generic blockbuster shooters like COD. While the new gunplay and traversal systems aren’t bad, they do not feel at home on this sort of game, watering down the experience which results in some of Halo’s identity being lost in the process. While the game is gorgeous and there is some intrigue to the story, it isn’t memorable. Halo 5 is not an awful experience, but it’s a misstep which unfortunately tarnishes the name of this fantastic franchise. Here’s hoping that the shift in momentum back in the right direction initiated by Infinite can make people fall in love with Halo once again.

2015 Ranked
Halo Ranked

História horrorosa, o marketing todo que foi construído pra no final o produto ser totalmente diferente é o que decepciona, Locke é dito como um caçador impiedoso e que ia trazer Chief pra justiça por ter traído a UNSC, lembrando que o marketing dizia que o Chief nunca e nem foi um herói, lembro de ter hypado tanto isso pra no final o jogo final não ter ABSOLUTAMENTE NADA DISSO chega parecer piada, outra coisa paia nesse jogo é que os personagens novos não são desenvolvidos, o jeito que eles são "desenvolvidos" são através de diálogos durante o combate, QUEM QUE VAI OUVIR DIÁLOGO NO MEIO DO COMBATE 343?

dito isso, campanha horrível uma das piores da franquia infelizmente, já o multiplayer foi um dos melhores e mais divertidos que já joguei.

this is a real two steps forward one step back situation. let's start with the good.

the new spartan abilities are cool! this is a nice example of the mid-2010s "mobility shooter" trend, where you can now dash, slide, clamber, and hover for free. it's fun to do a sprinting melee or a dive bomb on enemies.

although readability is still an issue in this game, something even the game concedes by highlighting items for you, it's not as bad as halo 4. in fact, the environments are genuinely beautiful! some of the best images in the series are here. the level design is unique for the series, every room is very open and offers lots of different paths for flanking and finding weapon caches to give to yourself and your allies. you're always moving forward, and each room is different from the last. there are even a few cool setpieces with the guardians.

however, the quality level layouts are betrayed by the completely undemanding enemy ai, which was previously one of halo's most distinctive characteristics. very rarely was i actually forced to move positions or change strategies. half the time they were so distracted by my squad that they didn't even attack me at all. i tried turning up the difficulty but it didn't affect ai routines, just changed the damage numbers to make encounters take longer. these beautiful, cleverly designed levels just become scenery for a pretty mindless shooting gallery. which might be fine, if most of the guns didn't sound so weak, or of half of them weren't just slight variations on each other. even the vehicle sections are strangely scarce of enemy vehicles to shoot.

these eight main characters actually have a lot of dialogue, and yet somehow still only have half a personality between them. the dialogue is 90% dry exposition and 10% lame quips, all delivered in the tone of someone reading off a powerpoint slide. there are three non-combat missions where you just listen to people talk in a room, and there are audio logs strewn throughout the levels, and somehow none of it is memorable! even the arbiter doesn't get a single cool line.

the meridian arc of the story has a little bit of interesting mystery and tension with governer sloan, and completing optional objectives to protect the colony is a fun dash of roleplaying. but the rest of the story is bizarrely dramatically inert. most of the important events seem to happen offscreen. a third of the game is spent on sanghelios, which is presented as some kind of endless quagmire, but the situation is no more politically complex than arbiter vs covenant, and the covenant are already fragmented and leaderless before you get there, making the arbiter's victory feel like a foregone conclusion. he has no villain to strive against, no loyalties to manage, nothing resembling a dramatic scenario. and the spartans don't even really care about the conflict, they do five levels just to hitch a ride on a guardian.

in only three levels, chief's story repeats the same beats over and over. it's just a road to cortana with the warden eternal telling you to fuck off over and over. the big confrontation should theoretically be interesting, but everyone is already perfectly certain of their position and course of action from the beginning, so there's not much drama to explore. you know how exactly how that confrontation is going to go five hours before you get there. the game keeps bringing up the struggles of ai, but always chooses to cut away from the scene before anyone can have a real conversation about it.

Starts out about as unremarkable and yawn-worthy as Halo 4, but around the halfway point takes a serious dive in the level and encounter design that ends up making it worse. The locales and arenas are so banal with enemy placement ranging from uninspired to complete fucking Adderall abuse. The story's completely uninteresting with characters I have zero attachment to other than Blue Team...whom you get to play as for exactly one fifth of the game's missions. Each level has a collection of audio logs to find that attempt to and fail to flesh out the story, but you can only hear them diegetically from the exact sources which you find them and they don't have subtitles. System Shock got this right in 1994, for Christ's sake. The score is generic fluff you'd expect to hear in a Michael Bay blockbuster; Martin O'Donnell is sorely missed. Forerunner enemies and weapons still suck my ass. I can keep bullet-pointing all the flaws here until my fingers cramp. It's just all around a genuine, bona fide, 1000% not good.