I find Halo frustrating. I've played four games in the series up to this point, and only one of them (Infinite) has engaged me to any real level. It's hard for me to pinpoint things I enjoy about this game, since I find essentially every element to be underwhelming, disappointing, or poorly executed.
The worst part is I don't WANT to feel this way. These are some of the most acclaimed games of all time, and every time I visit one I try my best to get in to the flow and enjoy the games for what they are. It sucks to be the outsider on this one, but every time I try, I get more and more disillusioned to the series. This review contains my genuine, unfiltered thoughts on why the Halo series doesn't appeal to me, almost at all.
The gunplay is weightless as even on easy your weapons barely do any damage to anything bigger than a grunt. The only weapons I actually enjoyed using were the rare melee weapons such as the energy sword and gravity hammer, as they felt significantly more impactful than any of the other flimsy, weak pea shooters I was using for the vast majority of the game.
I also find the level design to be particularly weak, though this isn't anything new for Halo. The layouts are simultaneously frustratingly simple and too vague, as I was either walking down a hallway or spat out into a bland area with no clear direction to go, and I would end up wandering around for a handful of minutes after clearing all the enemies until mercifully an icon would lead me in the right direction. And within levels, Halo has the terrible urge to almost always make you backtrack through each area once you've gone through it the first time, making many levels feel like repetitive slogs.
The story is the only real element that put this above the first two for me, as its at least sort of fun to see characters like Johnson, Keyes, Cortana, Arbiter and Guilty Spark have to work together. Unfortunately though, in the end the one note, obnoxiously stereotypical characters placed into a painfully straightforward plot made the story nothing more than background context to be shuttled from bland area to bland area.
The game also contains incredibly underwhelming set pieces, as they boil down to running down a hallway, driving a warthog through impressively repetitive areas, or beating the easiest, lamest boss ever conceived, within a twist that almost makes no sense for what was supposed to be the end of a trilogy.
I just honestly and truly feel nothing but disinterest or frustration when I play Halo. I sit there, clear my mind and try my goddamndest to immerse myself. After about half of any of the missions though, my mind begins to wander. Flaws with nearly every element of its design begin to cloud my experience, and I start to sigh and groan at each new identical enemy encounter, straightforward set piece, cheesy one liner with no personality and area I either feel like, or literally have already been in.
Repetitive structure. Unrewarding, weightless gunplay. Simplistic, boring set pieces. Uninteresting level design. One note characters. A terrible final boss. The handful of highlights such as taking down the first Scarab (not as fun the third time), solid visuals and art direction and a very good original score can't save this from being one of the most underwhelming games I've played in a long, long time.
The worst part is I don't WANT to feel this way. These are some of the most acclaimed games of all time, and every time I visit one I try my best to get in to the flow and enjoy the games for what they are. It sucks to be the outsider on this one, but every time I try, I get more and more disillusioned to the series. This review contains my genuine, unfiltered thoughts on why the Halo series doesn't appeal to me, almost at all.
The gunplay is weightless as even on easy your weapons barely do any damage to anything bigger than a grunt. The only weapons I actually enjoyed using were the rare melee weapons such as the energy sword and gravity hammer, as they felt significantly more impactful than any of the other flimsy, weak pea shooters I was using for the vast majority of the game.
I also find the level design to be particularly weak, though this isn't anything new for Halo. The layouts are simultaneously frustratingly simple and too vague, as I was either walking down a hallway or spat out into a bland area with no clear direction to go, and I would end up wandering around for a handful of minutes after clearing all the enemies until mercifully an icon would lead me in the right direction. And within levels, Halo has the terrible urge to almost always make you backtrack through each area once you've gone through it the first time, making many levels feel like repetitive slogs.
The story is the only real element that put this above the first two for me, as its at least sort of fun to see characters like Johnson, Keyes, Cortana, Arbiter and Guilty Spark have to work together. Unfortunately though, in the end the one note, obnoxiously stereotypical characters placed into a painfully straightforward plot made the story nothing more than background context to be shuttled from bland area to bland area.
The game also contains incredibly underwhelming set pieces, as they boil down to running down a hallway, driving a warthog through impressively repetitive areas, or beating the easiest, lamest boss ever conceived, within a twist that almost makes no sense for what was supposed to be the end of a trilogy.
I just honestly and truly feel nothing but disinterest or frustration when I play Halo. I sit there, clear my mind and try my goddamndest to immerse myself. After about half of any of the missions though, my mind begins to wander. Flaws with nearly every element of its design begin to cloud my experience, and I start to sigh and groan at each new identical enemy encounter, straightforward set piece, cheesy one liner with no personality and area I either feel like, or literally have already been in.
Repetitive structure. Unrewarding, weightless gunplay. Simplistic, boring set pieces. Uninteresting level design. One note characters. A terrible final boss. The handful of highlights such as taking down the first Scarab (not as fun the third time), solid visuals and art direction and a very good original score can't save this from being one of the most underwhelming games I've played in a long, long time.