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Gaming / Pip reviews: Halo 5 Guardians
« on: December 19, 2015, 01:21:13 PM »
Aaay, haven't done any of these in awhile.
So hello, this is your host Pip, and I will be reviewing
Halo 5 Guardians
One of the most hyped games of the year, and it turned out better than Halo 4.
Story:
I'll put it in spoilers so anyone who doesn't want spoilers don't have to read it.
Multiplayer/Extras:
Now that I am not talking about story, let's get to the special stuff!.
Multiplayer, in my opinion, is good. Sprint isn't OP as fuck, everyone has equal starts, the new zoom feature isn't anywhere near as bad as CoD. Halo 5 in my opinion is closer to previous Halo games than 4.
Matchmaking isn't horribly slow or glitchy now, very nice, and I haven't seen horrible horrible lag so the game is very playable. The playlist is okay even without Big Team Battle or Infection but it's still fun. The new Arena gamemode Breakout is really fun as well, elimination style 4v4 capture the flag is fast paced and intense. One game I was the last guy on the team against two, I got one of them and then it was 1v1 of us carefully watching all around us...then I choked and died but it was still pretty great. I recommend grabbing a friend or two and just playing the hell out of Arena.
Next up is Warzone, and my god is that a fun gamemode. Sure I wouldn't say Warzone is the most balanced gamemode out of all them, but it has a good system in place so that teams can go back and forth for the win without total domination.
Everyone starts out with an Assualt Rifle and Pistol, dropped into an arena with covenant and promethean enemies all around, take them out, capture points, take down the enemy team and defeat the enemy bosses to win. There will always be something going on to fight through, and it's pretty easy for two teams to get to a choke point between capture points trying to push forward. You can also use REQ cards to spawn in weapons, abilities and vehicles to help your team get the victory.
Speaking about REQ...
Yes, the Requisition system. Microtransactions in Halo....yep. The most controversial part of Halo 5...could've been worse.
Seriously, the REQ system isn't nearly as bad as some put it out to be. However I do hope they don't try anything else with microtransactions as this is the limit they can go without treading into Pay to win territory.
Basically, you use REQ points(or real money) to buy packs of REQ cards that give you weapons and weapon skins for Warzone, armor customization pieces, emblems, animations, etc. All the weapons you get from REQ cards only go to warzone while the only stuff allowed in Arena is cosmetic. Pretty harmless.
However, the amount of unlockable armor pieces is REDICULOUSLY LARGE, to the point of too many. Unless you played hundreds of hours of Warzone or payed hundreds-a thousand dollars of real money. You won't be unlocking everything...ever.
I can't comment on Forge as I brought back my rented copy of Halo before it was released sadly.
Overall, this isn't what we were all hoping for, however this is still a fun game to try out. I give it a 7.5/10
So hello, this is your host Pip, and I will be reviewing
Halo 5 Guardians
One of the most hyped games of the year, and it turned out better than Halo 4.
Story:
I'll put it in spoilers so anyone who doesn't want spoilers don't have to read it.
Spoiler
The story in Halo 5 is....eh, not as good as Halo 4 by a longshot.
The game starts off with you playing as Spartan Locke, leading Fireteam Osiris which consists of Spartan Buck, Spartan Vale and Spartan Tanaka. Your first mission is to find and rescue Dr. Catherine Halsey from Jul'Mdama. The first problem here is that if you never played through Halo 4's campaign and Spartan Ops, you would not understand this at ALL. There is no summary to help explain to new players what's going on. The opening cutscene is still pretty badass though.
Next up is the mission with the original Blue Team, led by Master Chief and followed by the well known Kelly, Freddie and Linda. Again there is no summary to explain the origins of Kelly, Freddie and Linda if you never heard of the books. These three just kind of appear out of nowhere...
In Blue Team's mission Chief is contacted by a once thought dead companion known as Cortana. Who gives a cryptic message to come to Meridian. This makes Chief and his loyal friends go AWOL, and Fireteam Osiris is charged with hunting them.
For the rest of the game, you learn about some new Forerunner stuff, Cortana ends up being evil and takes over with so many other AI's, etc. I'm not going to explain it all for now but it is pretty lackluster.
The level design of the campaign was great though, Prometheans went from my least favorite enemy in 4 to one of my favorites to fight against. Soldiers are a mix of Jackal and Elite as they can be very powerful but pretty easy to take care of. Knights are now akin to Hunters now as they are more powerful and have specific points you have to shoot at, however they are slow and thanks to new abilities pretty easy to dodge. And thank GOD THE WATCHERS ARE FAR AND FEW BETWEEN. In 4 there was at least 3-6 Watchers in each level, now they are more uncommon and easier to kill. Making those fucking runts much better to fight.
However, there is one problem with the Campaign. One of the main enemies in the game is Warden Eternal, a huge sword wielding defender of Cortana. Who has One mind, millions of bodies. You know what that means? It means he'll be the only boss fight you get! As you fight this guy 9 FRIGGIN TIMES throughout the campaign....WHY?! Sometimes he even comes up 2 or 3 times at once, good luck trying to play through Legendary with that motherfucker.
Next up is the team mechanics, unlike previous games where you are a one man army, in Halo 5 you now lead two teams. Osiris and Blue Team. As much as I played....it was meh, nowhere near what people expected. It's basically look where you want them to do something and click up on the d-pad. The AI is okay most of the time, but every once and awhile you'll go down and the teammate RIGHT NEXT TO YOU will not pick you up....
Anyways, the story is meh but the Campaign is still worth a playthrough or two thanks to it's gameplay.
The game starts off with you playing as Spartan Locke, leading Fireteam Osiris which consists of Spartan Buck, Spartan Vale and Spartan Tanaka. Your first mission is to find and rescue Dr. Catherine Halsey from Jul'Mdama. The first problem here is that if you never played through Halo 4's campaign and Spartan Ops, you would not understand this at ALL. There is no summary to help explain to new players what's going on. The opening cutscene is still pretty badass though.
Next up is the mission with the original Blue Team, led by Master Chief and followed by the well known Kelly, Freddie and Linda. Again there is no summary to explain the origins of Kelly, Freddie and Linda if you never heard of the books. These three just kind of appear out of nowhere...
In Blue Team's mission Chief is contacted by a once thought dead companion known as Cortana. Who gives a cryptic message to come to Meridian. This makes Chief and his loyal friends go AWOL, and Fireteam Osiris is charged with hunting them.
For the rest of the game, you learn about some new Forerunner stuff, Cortana ends up being evil and takes over with so many other AI's, etc. I'm not going to explain it all for now but it is pretty lackluster.
The level design of the campaign was great though, Prometheans went from my least favorite enemy in 4 to one of my favorites to fight against. Soldiers are a mix of Jackal and Elite as they can be very powerful but pretty easy to take care of. Knights are now akin to Hunters now as they are more powerful and have specific points you have to shoot at, however they are slow and thanks to new abilities pretty easy to dodge. And thank GOD THE WATCHERS ARE FAR AND FEW BETWEEN. In 4 there was at least 3-6 Watchers in each level, now they are more uncommon and easier to kill. Making those fucking runts much better to fight.
However, there is one problem with the Campaign. One of the main enemies in the game is Warden Eternal, a huge sword wielding defender of Cortana. Who has One mind, millions of bodies. You know what that means? It means he'll be the only boss fight you get! As you fight this guy 9 FRIGGIN TIMES throughout the campaign....WHY?! Sometimes he even comes up 2 or 3 times at once, good luck trying to play through Legendary with that motherfucker.
Next up is the team mechanics, unlike previous games where you are a one man army, in Halo 5 you now lead two teams. Osiris and Blue Team. As much as I played....it was meh, nowhere near what people expected. It's basically look where you want them to do something and click up on the d-pad. The AI is okay most of the time, but every once and awhile you'll go down and the teammate RIGHT NEXT TO YOU will not pick you up....
Anyways, the story is meh but the Campaign is still worth a playthrough or two thanks to it's gameplay.
Multiplayer/Extras:
Now that I am not talking about story, let's get to the special stuff!.
Multiplayer, in my opinion, is good. Sprint isn't OP as fuck, everyone has equal starts, the new zoom feature isn't anywhere near as bad as CoD. Halo 5 in my opinion is closer to previous Halo games than 4.
Matchmaking isn't horribly slow or glitchy now, very nice, and I haven't seen horrible horrible lag so the game is very playable. The playlist is okay even without Big Team Battle or Infection but it's still fun. The new Arena gamemode Breakout is really fun as well, elimination style 4v4 capture the flag is fast paced and intense. One game I was the last guy on the team against two, I got one of them and then it was 1v1 of us carefully watching all around us...then I choked and died but it was still pretty great. I recommend grabbing a friend or two and just playing the hell out of Arena.
Next up is Warzone, and my god is that a fun gamemode. Sure I wouldn't say Warzone is the most balanced gamemode out of all them, but it has a good system in place so that teams can go back and forth for the win without total domination.
Everyone starts out with an Assualt Rifle and Pistol, dropped into an arena with covenant and promethean enemies all around, take them out, capture points, take down the enemy team and defeat the enemy bosses to win. There will always be something going on to fight through, and it's pretty easy for two teams to get to a choke point between capture points trying to push forward. You can also use REQ cards to spawn in weapons, abilities and vehicles to help your team get the victory.
Speaking about REQ...
Yes, the Requisition system. Microtransactions in Halo....yep. The most controversial part of Halo 5...could've been worse.
Seriously, the REQ system isn't nearly as bad as some put it out to be. However I do hope they don't try anything else with microtransactions as this is the limit they can go without treading into Pay to win territory.
Basically, you use REQ points(or real money) to buy packs of REQ cards that give you weapons and weapon skins for Warzone, armor customization pieces, emblems, animations, etc. All the weapons you get from REQ cards only go to warzone while the only stuff allowed in Arena is cosmetic. Pretty harmless.
However, the amount of unlockable armor pieces is REDICULOUSLY LARGE, to the point of too many. Unless you played hundreds of hours of Warzone or payed hundreds-a thousand dollars of real money. You won't be unlocking everything...ever.
I can't comment on Forge as I brought back my rented copy of Halo before it was released sadly.
Overall, this isn't what we were all hoping for, however this is still a fun game to try out. I give it a 7.5/10
