Are You Buying Halo 5? Why?/Why not?

[spaceelf]

Yeah, it's strange isn't it? During my youth it was always so great playing with my mates around the house. I find it odd people don't seem to want that anymore.

Once everything went widescreen it just made things really wonky IMO.

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Hopefully going to finally check it out tonight, I had the digital version pre-ordered as amazingly I still had Live credit from this past Xmas I had not spent, so I preordered it and Forza 6 months ago. I am generally against digital games, but both are reasons I own a One to begin with, because of the exclusives, and I had $150 in Live credit, so I went ahead and outright purchased both games despite not really playing MP these days. So I will see how it is.

I did wait a few days to check it out as I also caved in and purchased the Elite Controller. Although I did not preorder it I was able to purchase it on release day from Best Buy. Arrived today and I have to say it is a beautiful controller so far and I LOVE the feel in my hand. Feels substantial. The paddles are super weird though, just not used to them, and already took one set off. Looking forward to seeing how it works in a little bit for sure.

I do have to say the release of Halo has me reminiscing about the days of Halo 3. Not that many people left these days from the forums back then, but we had a very, very healthy Neowin community who played quite regularly with each other for a good couple of months. Really was awesome and the reason I was at one point in time so fond of this place. It was not always easy being a Moderator here specifically in charge of the Gamers Hangout then joining everyone in MP matches, but it was always damn fun. If someone is feeling up to it, they should really try to organize something along those lines for the regulars here. I may even come out of MP retirement for it.

[Mr.XXIV]

Beat the campaign and I'm HELLA anxious for Halo 6 already.

[Vandalsquad]

 

Patiently waiting for positive feedback on a newly released product is the opposite of a disservice.

Not sure what more feedback you need? Everyone on here praising the multiplayer, All reviews praising the multiplayer, massive threads on all gaming sites praising the multiplayer.

but with online gaming being predominant for this generation, I don't think the vast majority would utilize split screen even if it was included.

That's more than true, I don't even carry a 2nd xbox controller anymore. But picking up an elite or halo special is making my wallet anxious with the amount I've spent on gaming the last few months.

With every troll review giving it 1 or 0 out of 10 on amazon and metacritic for lack of split screen co-op but maybe we're all the odd ones out 

[1337ish]

343i has confirmed that there will not be any campaign dlc.

Damn....

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

I have to say, I do not play much MP these days. Being 40 years old with limited time means I just leave it to the people that have time to put in, as quite frankly it is not all that enjoyable getting your ass handed to you by people who can put it in 10x the time you can and learn the maps, intricacies of the weapons, etc.

With that said, whether it is because it is still relatively new for everyone and/or just because it is that well designed and does help out players like myself still enjoy themselves, I really, really enjoyed what I checked out of Warzone last night. These days if I play Halo DM or any other DM type modes, I am almost guaranteed to be one of the worst players playing (referring specifically to Halo here). It is just how it is. Last night, although I was not at the top of the leaderboard, I was hovering in the middle/Top 5 the 3 matches I played, and I actually was contributing. Or at least I felt as if I was. I never felt dominated or over powered or at a disadvantage. Perhaps somehow the Elite controller was making me feel like Elite player (that's a joke), or perhaps, just perhaps, 343 has really done a damn good job of making a balanced, yet fun, MP experience.

I also played the campaign for about 2 hours, and it was pretty well done so far. Looks good. Performs good. My only complaint towards it, and keep in mind I was playing it solo, was it felt a bit formulaic. So far it almost always comes down to entering an area and finding the best weapon that is usually laying on its own somewhere in the area, clearing it out, and on to the next area. It was still fun, but felt a bit familiar.

[George P Global Moderator]

I haven't finished the campaign yet, finished the first 6 missions, and then played some slayer, I've been pretty up and down with my kills/deaths but they're new maps I don't know yet.  I haven't tried warzone yet but I probably will tonight.   I'm licking it though, miss big team slayer from halo 4 but I'm thinking that's what warzone is + AI enemies mixed in for total chaos. 

[George P Global Moderator]

Well, I played some warzone, it's pretty neat, the maps are huge which is nice but players always seem to fall into the same section and just turn it into another slayer match,    I think they should've had more AI running around, but instead after the initial clearing out of the enemy they have a few boss level guys that just stand around in specific parts, guess that's fine if you want teams to fight over who kills them and gets the points but so far it just means lots of times large parts of the map are empty.

I went back to playing normal 4v4 slayer for now, learning the maps, I like what they did with MP levels though, they're all a bit complex and multi-leveled,  you can go up and down and so on, basically 3 levels to each map from what I've seen, makes it both small and also large at the same time, way more vertical than I remember in any past Halo, and I like it, again once you figure out the maps that is.

And it really is back to map control and who gets the best weapons first, plus team work, if you run around a map on your own you'll quickly fined yourself in a being shot at by multiple enemies, it's best to work with others, be it a team of 2 or all 4 members moving together as a whole to control a specific part of the map.

[madd-hatter]

Not sure what more feedback you need? Everyone on here praising the multiplayer, All reviews praising the multiplayer, massive threads on all gaming sites praising the multiplayer.

I was mainly waiting on the feedback of friends that I would be playing with. I needed to hear from them that they'd be playing for a while and it was worth picking up. I ordered it new on eBay for $50 yesterday. I probably won't touch campaign.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

I've only played a couple of matches of Warzone so far, but I can't really say I'm a fan. It seems like 343 tried to copy the best parts of Titanfall and Battlefield but didn't quite understand what makes the multiplayer in those games so much fun. It almost always devolves into more of a deathmatch-style mode where people don't play the objective. The two maps I played on were extremely generic as well.

On the campaign front, the mission design is insanely bland. There's almost nothing that sets it apart from any other FPS campaign, and there was literally only a single memorable moment in the entire campaign for me, unlike previous Halo games. No big set pieces, which would be fine if the missions were memorable in some other way. In fact, I like how the scope of the campaign is much more focused since it's really just going after Chief the entire time instead of this big, messy, Bond-style locale hopping with no connection between missions.

I mean, the encounters with enemies are good, it's just that everything feels the same. It's so formulaic, including the two or three "missions" where you're just walking around talking to people. How those made the cut is beyond me, since they're so unnecessary.

On the plus side, I have to disagree with most reviews I've seen and say this is one of my favorite Halo stories thus far, up there with Reach and ODST. It isn't a convoluted mess like most other Halo games. It starts kind of slow, but ramps up halfway through the game. The starting storyline of Chief going AWOL and Locke sent after him is fine, but the storyline involving artificial intelligence is what makes it so good. It seems like the conflict in this game is one of the few that actually make sense in the lore of Halo. I mean, the Didact in Halo 4 just seemed wildly unnecessary.

I like the game a lot, just seems there's a few missteps. Now I'm going to dive in more to multiplayer, get started on Legendary solo and go through in co-op at some point. If anyone's interested in Heroic co-op and going for those achievements, shoot me a message.

[George P Global Moderator]

I finished it today and liked the story, it's a good setup for the next game, sure it doesn't do anything brand new for a FPS but I didn't find the missions boring, heck, fighting the warden can be a pain.     I didn't find the level designs bland though, there's multiple ways to get through enemies, it's really meant for co-op more than for solo play though.

 

[+Eternal Tempest MVC]

I'll eventually pick it up after its first major price drop.
Not in a rush to go out and play it, not saying the game is bad/good. 
I currently have too many other games viving for my interest.

[techbeck]

Halo 5...disappointing for a single player campaign.  Not nearly log enough and the ending leaves you feeling like the ending of Halo 2.  Where you just get in to it and then it ends.  Now have to wait a couple years for the next release.

[Emn1ty]

After playing the Halo 5 campaign, my friend and I beat it in about 5 hours on Heroic. A very short campaign. Also, count on being a little lost if you've not been reading or keeping up with the lore of the story. There are several things in this game that go completely unexplained. Lastly, the campaign feels schizophrenic. There are multiple plots happening at the same time, making it difficult to remain invested in the core story as the shorter plots have little to no connection whatsoever.

Other than that, though, a couple of the maps have fantastic momentum and design. It is by no means a mechanically bad game, but the storyline is terribly executed in my opinion.

[George P Global Moderator]

After playing the Halo 5 campaign, my friend and I beat it in about 5 hours on Heroic. A very short campaign. Also, count on being a little lost if you've not been reading or keeping up with the lore of the story. There are several things in this game that go completely unexplained. Lastly, the campaign feels schizophrenic. There are multiple plots happening at the same time, making it difficult to remain invested in the core story as the shorter plots have little to no connection whatsoever.

Other than that, though, a couple of the maps have fantastic momentum and design. It is by no means a mechanically bad game, but the storyline is terribly executed in my opinion.

I don't think anyone expected this to have a self-contained story, you have to have been keeping up with it till now, that's expected of you really.

[Anthony Tosie Veteran]

Maybe I'm missing something, but the story felt way more self-contained than the Halo 4 story, which I felt was th biggest mess in the franchise by far (though I thought it was generally a fun campaign).

[George P Global Moderator]

I think its story is fine and a good setup for the next one.

[Hedon]

I am on mission 8 now...with about 5 hours into it. Best campaign and gameplay and graphics to date for a Halo game, that is for sure.

[Emn1ty]

I don't think anyone expected this to have a self-contained story, you have to have been keeping up with it till now, that's expected of you really.

This is not how video games work. It's funny, when Halo: Reach threw the entire book's story in the trash people defended it with "if you didn't read the books it still makes sense". Now, when Halo 5 is pretty much forcing you to have read the books to get the context of anything that is going on (why does Halsey have only one arm?) it's "it wasn't meant to be a self contained story". It should be, people who play the games cannot be expected to read the books or be involved with the extended lore. This is exactly why so many review sites were upset with the game's campaign. Not to mention none of what is there makes any real sense (on top of the marketing being an outright lie).

Lets get into some spoilers here:

1. Halsey is missing an arm, and there's never any mention of how she lost her arm.
2. Halo 4 and 5 never really go into why the Arbiter is no longer leading the Sangheli. Halo 5 just sort of tosses you in the middle of their war with the Covenant with little to no context. The only reason I even know about the situation is because I've read summaries of the books.
3. One thing I've never understood is how the Prometheans are suddenly just normal Forerunner things all over the place. What ever happened to their drones? Halo CE and Halo 2 had these massive drones all over the place... yet now we have these Prometheans (which I initially thought were unique to the Didact) everywhere.
4. 343 continues to not understand what rampancy actually is. They've used it once more as a shallow plot device to move the story forward with Cortana.
5. Cortana's reasoning is just idiotic. Why she somehow thinks she can "cure" rampancy, or take the place of humanity as the "reclaimers" is just weird. Why would the Forerunners leave everything they had to AI's and not another living race? This is also not explained, it's a plot twist with no real substance.
6. We fight the Warden Eternal seven times. Talk about reusing a boss. He was an interesting enemy, but no that interesting.
7. The entirety of the Locke vs Chief marketing resolved in a crappy fisticuffs cutscene between the two (which was the only conflict that either were in through the entire game).
8. 3 missions were crappy walking around parts that served no purpose (albeit had some interesting easter eggs... which could have been present without these sections).
9. You only play 3 missions as chief, and only one of them is any good.
10. The entire story was only about five hours, and was a cliffhanger. An obvious ploy at making us buy the next game when they should have given us a full story in this one.
 

Now, lets talk mechanical BS.

1. The allied AI is absolutely terrible.
2. The unique weapons do not use the same ammo as normal weapons of their type. Basically, if I have Kelly's shotgun and I find another shotgun I can't put the bullets from that shotgun in her shotgun. Thus the game forces you to abandon the unique weapons of the Spartans and use whatever is lying around in a vein effort to make you use all the crappy weapons available (specifically the terrible Promethean weapons).
3. The ammunition problem of Halo 4 is still present, every gun runs out way too quickly and there's not enough around to replenish them. So you end up swapping weapons constantly in an effort to survive. Unlike previous Halo games where you could actually grow accustomed to a weapon in some fashion.
4. The game is inundated with cutscenes. In fact, around an hours worth of cutscenes. This means my 5 hour play was only 4 hours of actual gameplay.

The campaign is by no means terrible, but there are some serious flaws with it that hold it back from being anything close to good in relation to the previous games. It's slightly better than Halo 4, but that's not because the storytelling was better. That's because the mission design was better.

[dead.cell]

4. The game is inundated with cutscenes. In fact, around an hours worth of cutscenes. This means my 5 hour play was only 4 hours of actual gameplay.

The campaign is by no means terrible, but there are some serious flaws with it that hold it back from being anything close to good in relation to the previous games. It's slightly better than Halo 4, but that's not because the storytelling was better. That's because the mission design was better.

It's... only 4 hours long?

[Emn1ty]

It's... only 4 hours long?

On cooperative mode, on Heroic a friend and I started the game about 6pm and finished by 1am. This is the shortest campaign in the series. Angry Joe finished the game in 4.5 hours on normal himself (3.5 without cutscenes). Keep in mind that 3 of the missions take roughly 1-5m to complete due to being just walk around and do nothing missions. This makes this game only 12 missions long, not 15.

[George P Global Moderator]

This is not how video games work. It's funny, when Halo: Reach threw the entire book's story in the trash people defended it with "if you didn't read the books it still makes sense". Now, when Halo 5 is pretty much forcing you to have read the books to get the context of anything that is going on (why does Halsey have only one arm?) it's "it wasn't meant to be a self contained story". It should be, people who play the games cannot be expected to read the books or be involved with the extended lore. This is exactly why so many review sites were upset with the game's campaign. Not to mention none of what is there makes any real sense (on top of the marketing being an outright lie).

 

You must have not been paying close enough attention then, they flat out say how Halsey lost her arm, using that as an example is a poor one.     

As far as your team AI being poor, it's suppose to be I'd say, you really want a great AI that does most of the work while the player can sit back and watch?  What kind of game mechanic would that be exactly?   They're dumb, they're suppose to be dumb, you're suppose to either solo it, like the setting says, or co-op with friends.  In both cases the team AI doesn't come into it.

As far as weapons go, I don't see an issue with ammo for anything other than the UNSC weapons, yeah, those run out and you can't find much, like for the assault rifle and so on, but I didn't find the promethean weapons poor, or weak, heck I like those the best and use them often, even in MP (shotgun anyone?).     The game forcing you to keep swapping weapons to stay alive, IMO, is part of the challenge, why drop buckets of any ammo you want on you?  That's not exactly how it goes in real combat, and while it's a game, others have used limited ammo as a effective game mechanic and one that works, I also think it works fine in this case.

As far as length goes, well, sure it could be longer, but tell me this, in your 5hr run, did you manage to find everything?  I took longer and still didn't manage to find any skulls or all the intel around the missions.    Some might not care, true, but the intel at least helps with the story, as is always the case in Halo, collecting it all is a plus.  I took around 6, maybe 7hrs, because I tried to find stuff, and didn't even get half of it. 

[Hedon]

Oddly enough, everyone else I am friends with and those posting on forums, it has been taking about 8-10 hours to complete on normal, and that is without skulls or finding all the data. My son's time was 9 hours, and that was without looking for any skulls or data and on normal. The number of missions don't matter, as that isn't what determines the length of the game. The game could be 1 mission and be 10 hours long, 15 missions and be 10 hours long or 12 missions and be 10 hours long.

I imagine it will probably take me close to 15 hours when I go back and do legendary.

[Emn1ty]

1. You must have not been paying close enough attention then, they flat out say how Halsey lost her arm, using that as an example is a poor one.     

2. As far as your team AI being poor, it's suppose to be I'd say, you really want a great AI that does most of the work while the player can sit back and watch?  What kind of game mechanic would that be exactly?   They're dumb, they're suppose to be dumb, you're suppose to either solo it, like the setting says, or co-op with friends.  In both cases the team AI doesn't come into it.

3. As far as weapons go, I don't see an issue with ammo for anything other than the UNSC weapons, yeah, those run out and you can't find much, like for the assault rifle and so on, but I didn't find the promethean weapons poor, or weak, heck I like those the best and use them often, even in MP (shotgun anyone?).     The game forcing you to keep swapping weapons to stay alive, IMO, is part of the challenge, why drop buckets of any ammo you want on you?  That's not exactly how it goes in real combat, and while it's a game, others have used limited ammo as a effective game mechanic and one that works, I also think it works fine in this case.

4. As far as length goes, well, sure it could be longer, but tell me this, in your 5hr run, did you manage to find everything?  I took longer and still didn't manage to find any skulls or all the intel around the missions.    Some might not care, true, but the intel at least helps with the story, as is always the case in Halo, collecting it all is a plus.  I took around 6, maybe 7hrs, because I tried to find stuff, and didn't even get half of it. 

1. Just to be sure this is the case I'll take another stab at the campaign on easy and pay closer attention to the story, but I do not recall them going into it.

2. The AI is worse than the marines were in previous games. They often stand around not reviving you (inches away from you) or don't even shoot at the enemy. There's no excuse for completely useless AI. It does not ruin the game, but it's terrible regardless. I don't see any reason to defend it with "if it was good then the game would be easier". The game isn't particularly hard to begin with outside of constantly running out of ammo in the middle of trying to kill something.

3. I can understand if you like the promethean weapons. Personally, I find everything but a couple of them impractical, the ones that aren't impractical are just carbon copies of other weapons. The weapons that are actually useful are rare finds, most of the time the crappy homing automatic rifle and the pistol are the only drops around (and prove to be terrible since they lack any and all capability to be precise). When dealing with Covenant, the carbine is also extremely rare, forcing you to resort to less optimal weapons constantly until you find one that can actually help you on harder difficulties. There's not realistic here, people don't go around in real life combat picking up weapons all over the place and using them cause they ran out of ammo. They bring enough ammo. The capacity on these guns is laughable in Halo 4 and 5, barely getting you through a handful of enemies when they are throwing dozens upon dozens at you. It's not challenging, it's frustrating.

4. I don't think it matters how anecdotally long it takes different people to finish. What matters is how long it actually is, and the campaign is unforgivably short for something that ends in such a dumb cliffhanger and doesn't even provide what it advertised (this is the same as Halo 2's "finish the fight" cliffhanger).

I'd like to see some people address the issues in my spoiler category, as well.

[George P Global Moderator]

1. Just to be sure this is the case I'll take another stab at the campaign on easy and pay closer attention to the story, but I do not recall them going into it.

2. The AI is worse than the marines were in previous games. They often stand around not reviving you (inches away from you) or don't even shoot at the enemy. There's no excuse for completely useless AI. It does not ruin the game, but it's terrible regardless. I don't see any reason to defend it with "if it was good then the game would be easier". The game isn't particularly hard to begin with outside of constantly running out of ammo in the middle of trying to kill something.

3. I can understand if you like the promethean weapons. Personally, I find everything but a couple of them impractical, the ones that aren't impractical are just carbon copies of other weapons. The weapons that are actually useful are rare finds, most of the time the crappy homing automatic rifle and the pistol are the only drops around (and prove to be terrible since they lack any and all capability to be precise). When dealing with Covenant, the carbine is also extremely rare, forcing you to resort to less optimal weapons constantly until you find one that can actually help you on harder difficulties. There's not realistic here, people don't go around in real life combat picking up weapons all over the place and using them cause they ran out of ammo. They bring enough ammo. The capacity on these guns is laughable in Halo 4 and 5, barely getting you through a handful of enemies when they are throwing dozens upon dozens at you. It's not challenging, it's frustrating.

4. I don't think it matters how anecdotally long it takes different people to finish. What matters is how long it actually is, and the campaign is unforgivably short for something that ends in such a dumb cliffhanger and doesn't even provide what it advertised (this is the same as Halo 2's "finish the fight" cliffhanger).

I'd like to see some people address the issues in my spoiler category, as well.

They revive me when I call out and they can get to me, many times they'd rush or try to and end up getting crippled as well, in which case we're both SOL.   I figure you have to call out for help or they won't come, even if they are next to you.   Still, I don't take the AI into account, in the past 4 games we've been alone, they're there mostly because 343i wanted to give you more of a co-op option in this compared to the other games.