it's totally just me being subjective but the brighter colors remind me more of the Halo CE art style that i still love (and miss).
ODST didn't have sprint, did it?
Games without sprint:
CE, 2, 3, ODST
and Wars lol
Games with sprint:
Reach, 4, 5
-
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Halo |OT 21| Battle is the Great Redeemer | LIVE. DIE. RESPAWN.
- Thread starter Plywood
- Start date
- Status
it's totally just me being subjective but the brighter colors remind me more of the Halo CE art style that i still love (and miss).
ODST didn't have sprint, did it?
Games without sprint:
CE, 2, 3, ODST
Games with sprint:
Reach, 4, 5
VisceralBowl
Member
4 w/o sprint to 3 w/ sprint you mean.
Both of those are a lot better than what we got in Halo 4.
If your including ODST yeah I guess that counts as 4 but MP wise its 3 to 3.
Wars didn't have sprint
Agreed. I just don't like the visual aesthetic of Halo 4, it's too... shiny/smudgy.
I would hope my Spartans were sprinting as fast a possible to protect my base.
PVP MP. Better? Lol
VisceralBowl
Member
So 4 to 4 then?
This is a completely false and erroneous assumption. The entire creative process is 343s alone. Now whether you agree with it is another matter, but there are zero suits touching the game. Period.
For some reason this gave me the image of disembodied suits walking around touching Halo 5 boxes. I'm thinking my mind simply downshifted into "Holiday mode" about 30 minutes ago.
Yeah... a wee bit too much bloom lighting, not enough contrast. The red & blue seemed too desaturated when the overall environment is hazy enough.
CloudyTuba
Member
I really like that first promo shot better than the second image.
Haha I imagine it sort of like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=CzuUZdBxcg0#t=36
What is he, a farmer?
Snuggly or nevernude.
Did Spartan Assault have sprint? I can't remember.
User 73706
Banned
Yep. It was an arcade-style AA thoughyou sprinted around like a crazy person speed-wise instead of just chugging into a run.
Dunno what the timers were. Felt like 2 minutes. Timers seemed static considering there could be 2 of a power weapon on a map at a time.
No powerups in early beta
Magnums time to kill is much faster but I'd argue the H5 Magnum, BR, DMR take much more skill to use than the CE magnum in MCC. Don't remember what it was like on the OG xbox but that thing is SO easy to 3 shot and melt people in MCC.
H5 has the lowest auto aim, or so it feels like, in any recent Halo game.
link1201
Member
It has shown me how bad my aim can be some times. I was really focused on improving it during the beta.
So that's 5-4. It's official then.
Munch Poke
Member
I know no one else really cares but have they added a Halo 4 playlist for us oddballs that actually wanna play that game? I hate having nothing but BTB for it, I miss Haven.
link1201
Member
Nope, I miss it too. It's in swat too.
User 73706
Banned
So Halo 3?
User 73706
Banned
It'd be cool, but A) if they're still following the holodeck conceit of Halo 4 War Games, they're in a created reality, so there's no reason to be "dropped", and B) seems like a waste of time and resources to make some impressive intros for every map.
Un-scoped? Yes. Using smart scope? No.
Scoped aim assist felt a lot higher than in Halo 3
So basically how Titanfall does it? I like on that one map in Titanfall where you would enter the simulation pod and it would show you in the inside of the pod and then the simulation would load you into the map.
Well that's interesting. Thanks for the clarification.
Really? I don't think I ever caught a noticeable difference
Ah, I keep thinking of it as Moonbase Alpha for some reason
4-shotting a straight moving target was easier to 50 metres smart scoped than to 15 metres firing normally. That's how I felt atleast.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
Watching The Sprint, really enjoying it. The chemistry between the developers as well as the pros is funny, everyone is really nice but you see spurts of awkward passive aggression here and there. It makes development seem so much more human...working with people can be hard. Especially when it comes to the creative process.
Zeouterlimits
Member
Caught up on the Sprint, enjoyed the first two episodes the most.
Hoping we see a bit from engineering at some point, if they did infact get involved at a later stage of the map's development. It would be cool to see what 343 got from the early beta last weekend too.
I wasn't particular impressed by the continued US Navy ads [I now know the names of a bunch of US Navy vehicles, uh, wtf] or the paintball episode.
Tried to play some multiplayer MCC too, and the quitters were... frustrating.
Hoping we see a bit from engineering at some point, if they did infact get involved at a later stage of the map's development. It would be cool to see what 343 got from the early beta last weekend too.
I wasn't particular impressed by the continued US Navy ads [I now know the names of a bunch of US Navy vehicles, uh, wtf] or the paintball episode.
Tried to play some multiplayer MCC too, and the quitters were... frustrating.
dragonelite
Member
Jellycrackers
Member
I see the shot of the french horn player in the intro of every episode of the Sprint and then I get sad when they don't talk about music in the episode 
FUNKNOWN iXi
Member
Incredible! Hopefully it stays since it's a technique you need Plasma Grenades for, making it balanced to those against it because you don't spawn with them. It creates another interesting tactic and allows for creative setups.
10/10
They certainly do stand out more, but I definitely prefer the final armor shader.
vs
-
hammertomb
Banned
Hooking up my xbox one to my monitor makes a world of difference .
Im finally doing well in halo 2 and 3.
Im finally doing well in halo 2 and 3.
Yeah, the insanely small amount of auto aim definitely makes it feel more satisfying when you get a kill, it makes it feel like you earned it. The other night when it ended, I went straight from a match of Halo 5 to CE matchmaking and destroyed kids like crazy. it's funny how not having auto aim makes you, at least, feel like you're better with it once you go back.
I see the shot of the french horn player in the intro of every episode of the Sprint and then I get sad when they don't talk about music in the episode
Season 2 hopefully. Season 1 seems to be just for the beta. Once we get more info about Campaign, etc. we'll likely get more Vidocs, behind the scenes, etc.
Well MCC works less often so
GringoSuave89
Banned
Sure hope so.
User 73706
Banned
Took me a little bit to find an opportunity to write my feelings up, but felt obligated to respond to this.
I want to make a couple things clear so that I'm not just coming across as "halo is dad, RIP, i'm out" or anything near that level of one-dimensional. Provided the options aren't there, it's really more my personal circumstances combined with Halo's current standing on the Xbox One as a franchise rather than some kind of fervent undying hate of adding new things to Halo. What we've seen of H5G so far has made it abundantly clear to me that Guardians is going to be pretty similar to Halo 2 in that it's going to have some high highs, but low lows. As far as my personal opinions on Guardians itself:
Pros
+ Gameplay looks to be pretty fast-paced.
+ Spartan designs already seem to show marked improvement over Halo 4's attempts at new armor designs.
+ There's a clear emphasis on competitive viability as well as attempting to leave a lasting impression on players e.g. there's fun to be had in a session, not an individual match. Halo 4 got a little overboard and convoluted and as a result I'd usually just hop in, play a single game and be reminded of why I don't play Halo 4.
+ Alternative movement options are being explored, including some that don't even bottleneck player control! Stabilizers, namely.
+ Debatably a first for the series, 343's looking to keep a relatively high weapon count but have the sandbox roles operate more as a spectrum rather than a checklist. That is, precision rifles all have their own individual ins and outs, offering the same primary function (shoot enemy in head to kill) but still having enough variety per weapon that there's overlap, but not too much. Definitely an improvement over 4 in this regard. So far it's looking to have the most cohesive sandbox since the Reach Beta.
+ For arguably the first time since CE, every weapon is viable. I think the SMG is ultimately going to end up being the new Combat Evolved Pistol of Halo 5 in that it's an innocuous-looking sidearm but ends up having a whole bunch of bite. Will probably be met with "they should have just made it look like an LMG" analyses in the long run.
+ Balancing the range game is a priority, albeit I'm not 100% keen on their actual methods of doing so. ADS on AR can be used to ping people out of scope, while the Magnum is basically everything I wanted to be improved with Halo 4's Magnum: it looks, handles and sounds beefier, while still retaining the basic sandbox function of 4's in that it's essentially Diet Precision Rifle Pepsi.
+ Despite all of the weapons, layouts on map look to be pretty reductionist - it's certainly a breath of fresh air after a bunch of Certain Affinity's maps just peppered the entire frontier with power weapons. Let us spawn with a precision rifle, and we'll be in business.
+ Definitely has potential for an increased skill gap while offering tastes of fun to new players - sprinting after a Bane versus nading it to you and yielding a Combat Evolved medal, etc.
+ Making big strides in terms of attempting to keep map flow, combat control and player awareness up. Implementation is debatable, again, but ambient contextual Spartan bro banter is absolutely a step in the right direction. Weapon indicators and a separate announcer dedicated to broadcasting power weapon spawns are completely welcome additions to the Halo formula.
+ Steps (precautions?) are being taken to keep player incentivization sustainable, from a strong and replayable core sandbox to all sorts of cosmetic goodies that could become customizable in the retail release. It's a little fratty combined with all the "bro banter," but I actually like the pregame / postgame vignettes with your team all posing and lauding one another. Absolutely seems like it'd be worth adding unlockable pregame / postgame vignettes to make your Spartan do such as brandishing certain weapons, dancing, etc. Not to mention unlockable bro banter voices since we've already got Nathan Fillion and Mike Colter in there.
+ Rather than turn the graphical fidelity up to 11 and next-gen the shit out of the graphics, more delicate steps are being taken to offer an aesthetic experience that won't necessarily date itself as quickly as something like 4 will in the long run. They're also polishing up a lot of things they tried and failed to do in Halo 4 that ultimately help the game flow better, such as adding the aformentioned pregame vignettes and camera pans at the starts of matches rather than using a single stationary camera while the map loads via a countdown letting you pick your loadout.
+ Sound design is pretty snappy. In particular, the low shields / shield recharge noises are my favorites in the franchise. They sound crisp. To me, Bungie's shield recharge audio cue struck me as another "Bungie gonna Bungie" sort of thing where they started out using it as a placeholder audio effect and it just kind of stuck. The new shield recharging cue sounds like some actual thought and time was put into it.
Cons
- Like with Halo 4, there is just soooooo much shit going on. From sounds, to visuals, to gameplay. If the Xbox One controller had more bumpers it'd be a different story, but they really need to dial back all the features they're trying to cram into the sandbox because they've got way too many abilities to comfortably map to a single controller.
- Spartan Abilities. I'm not talking the concept, I'm talking the implementation. I like that the abilities are standardized across the board now, but I'm already not a fan of most of
them.
- Slide seems extremely superfluous and will likely stay that way until fanmade Forge maps start creating small accessways that only sliding Spartans can use to escape and whatnot.
- Shoulder charge is basically sprint-melee turned into a game mechanic, though I am glad it at least only knocks out shields from the front.
- Ground Pound is basically the bad parts of Armor Lock and Jetpack duct taped into a single feature. It completely screws with the vertical flow of combat, gives players an extremely easy out in situations where they have high ground but not the skill to use that as an advantage (recall the whole "best weapon's found in the worst place to use it" philosophy of games prior) and essentially gives them a free instakill at elevation once they get the hang of it. If it were just a movement option and was nondamaging, I'd be fine with it, but I'm really against surface-level, on-spawn abilities being able to instakill other players regardless of circumstance. The only real cases otherwise are the Boltshot and backsmacking, and even then you actually have to get behind the enemy player to beat them down.
- I'm mixed on Clamber. It's a step in the right direction, for sure, but I don't like that it takes away your ability to use your weapons or grenades, similarly to Sprint. I think for now it's essentially a poor man's double jump that can only be used on surfaces. I absolutely think it'll revolutionize map movement, but I'd really rather them either go all the way and give us a double jump or let us retain weapon / melee / grenade / action options and have the Clamber animation be players using their retro-rockets to propel themselves in an arc onto the Clambered surface or something.
- Not at all a fan of Sprint. I covered the big reasons why earlier today. From conceptualization to implementation (including those dumbass whooshy lines when you're at "peak speed"), everything about it just reeks of not Halo.
- Smart Scope. It's absolutely possible to add modern elements to dinosaurs like Halo without going full interactive cinematic vignette blockbuster GOTY territory. I will say that it has pretty good implementation so far and admittedly has done things to balance H5G's range game (see AR ADS in the pros above), but again, that's not really anything that couldn't be achieved with a traditional zoom. Smart Scope conflicts with just about every design philosophy of traditional Halo from sandbox to gameplay to even lore, which is weird considering "contextualizing our universe" was apparently a big bullet point in shaping Halo 4. It ultimately turns Halo, which is at its core a run-and-gun game, to a run-or-gun game, stripping out some of the pretty important core facets of the traditional (infantry-based) design philosophy of "you can do anything at any time." It also completely blocks parts of your view with an opaque obstruction, rather than just darkening screen real estate as was the case in every prior title. I don't care how it actually feels - again, I've stressed its implementation has already done its job well enough - but it ultimately feels superfluous and strikes me as evocative of the "chasing the CoD crowd" complaints of Halo 4.
- As an addendum to the above, it's pretty damn clear Smart Scope is now the "standard" and no amount of customization is really going to repair the damage done to the actual maps or sandbox by offering traditional zooming options. Second-level zooming (as in 10x Sniper scoping) actually requires a different button than ADS now!
- While this issue has been pretty substantially minimized since Halo 4, there are still trace amounts of "restrictive sandbox band-aiding." That is, originally, how Halo 4's red Xs were only available as a progression-based unlockable perk, and so on. It ultimately seems like 343 had to design a lot of the gameplay around the implementation of certain features - particularly Smart Scope - have, as I said above, done irreparable damage to core parts of the sandbox and map design, and offering classic zooming as an option isn't really going to undo those changes.
- Adding to the above, while I think it's great that aim assist is at an all-time low unscoped, it's pretty clear this is a "restrictive sandbox bandaid" side-effect that's starting to make headlines as an intentional emergent feature. Aim assist is only so low because ADS is clearly being incentivized as a superior option. Automatic weapons capable of Smart Scope have tighter spreads while in ADS, and aim assist is incrementally improved. This isn't how aim assist should be where it's extremes on either side - aim assist should be near-identical on weapons scoped and unscoped save for particularly touchy weapons that see most of their use scoped in like the Sniper Rifle. But now, with it being an addition across the board, there's an inherent advantage to using ADS which is absolutely not what it was clarified to be earlier on before the pre-Beta.
- Art direction so far is extremely noisy and hazy. It's a more refined version of what Halo 4 was going for, and while the refinements are a notable improvement, everything's so visually busy now. I understand the weird haze / fog of war effect reducing clarity throughout maps is likely going to be toned down before release, but I just don't gel with the art style at all. I'd love to see these out-of-game renders be evident of what the actual game looked like. I know Halo's never been completely minimalist, but something along the lines of Halo 2 Anniversary's level of detail with more polys and reflective mapping thrown in would be perfect, imo. I really wish Combat Evolved's weirder, more alien style of bright pearlescent hues and reflective metals all over transferred more faithfully to the sequels. This isn't an issue that was started by 343, per se, but it has been more than a little exacerbated by them. On a positive note, I do like the aesthetic of the Breakout maps and apparently Forge is going to be more of a minimalist / reductive sort of aesthetic, at least.
- Music seems a little more standardized, but the multiplayer music does overstay its welcome a little bit. Especially the "Who Wants To Be a Killionaire?" killcam music.
- Speaking of that, I don't like the killcams, either. Just goes to busy things up and sort of pull back the curtains regarding networking. Turns out that dude that just killed you even though his bullets were a solid meter or two off course were missing you - at least on your box.
- The UNSC weapons are starting to get wayyyy too populous. I like all of the weird alien weaponry in Halo even if they don't exactly have completely alien functions. So what if the Plasma Rifle is basically "machine gun but also good at tearing apart shields" or the Fuel Rod is "rocket launcher but alien." We need more alien representation! The thing that gets me the most, though, is the implementation of the Hydra - the new Rocket Launcher. It's a multi-shot RPG that fires homing explosives. Wait, it's a...
new rocket launcher
with notably more rounds per clip than traditional rockets
that fulfills an alternative role as a heavy weapon, predominantly useful against infantry, in a more balanced fashion than the laser
manufactured by a faction debatably at the height of their power giving them the freedom to employ emergent new high-yield munitions weapons
initially surrounded by mystery and rampant speculation only to reveal it's a welcome addition to the Halo sandbox?
You mean they brought the Plasma Launcher back?
wait a minute what
Customization - allowing certain things to be toggled in custom games and the like - are absolutely going to either make or break my purchase here. Now that the MCC is relatively stable and CE has a dedicated multiplayer playlist, and the campaigns are significantly less buggy than the multiplayer, I'll be more than content playing those in 1080p60 this gen if new Halo titles don't put availability for a traditional experience on the table. Sure, some of the new features like "Even Bigger Team Battle" and exploring new protagonists are neat novelties, but it's ultimately the smaller-scale intimate art of circumnavigating encounters with high speed and high-yield weapons that's always brought me back to Halo. My outright wishlist would be something to the effect of:
- can all the Spartan Abilities including Smart Scope save for Stabilizers and Thruster
- replace Clamber with an actual double jump
- give all players a hologram to use as a spartan ability
- can Sprint
- increase player speed to compensate, improve strafing speed, add separate move / strafe speed player traits and add separate X / Y-axis aim sensitivities
- dial down level of detail to Halo 2 Anniversary levels, opt for smoother (minimal) textures, glossy finishes, make Spartan bipeds nearly textureless like pristine sports cars
- use evocative art design and tasteful lighting for a lasting art direction that won't look dated in a couple years (months?)
- give weapon roles to non-UNSC devices, for example transfer over the Hydra's functionality to the Plasma Launcher, cite it as being some kind of modified variant
- PRECISION RIFLE STARTS AT LAUNCH
- PRECISION RIFLE STARTS AT LAUNCH
- PRECISION RIFLE STARTS AT LAUNCH
Now, if options to disable Smart Scope and Sprint are in, that would probably be enough to get me to buy a copy. The rest is really more pipe dreaming. As-is it's looking pretty evident that Smart Scope is the "new standard" and with how strong of a lynchpin it is on the rest of the sandbox that was built around it, it's not looking like they're backing down in this iteration just like they wouldn't back down on certain "features" with Halo 4 - no visible secondary weapon in the HUD, tac-pacs and sup-ups, etc. The whole "not [gameplay element borrowed from neighboring "competing" franchise]" such as "not perks," "not ADS," etc. is really tiresome too. I mean, if it's there, it might as well be owned up to, it's not fooling anybody. Watch here - the voice of Grif and several of his coworkers are playing the Halo 5 Guardians pre-Beta, in over the course of ten minutes they make direct, namedropped comparisons to Advanced Warfare, Call of Duty, Destiny, and they even call Smart Scope "ADS" directly. I mean, ADS isn't a copyrighted concept. Why bother trying to spin it as anything else?
Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that Halo 5 Guardians is very much a "step in the right direction" game, but after Halo 4 they really don't have me at launch this time around. Once reviews from journalists and halogaffers start coming in, I'll see how I feel, and if options to disable / toggle Sprint and Smart Scope are there I'm absolutely on board. If not, it's possible modders will be able to play with the gametypes the way they did with 4. If not? Like I said, it's a step. I'm a patient man. I'm more than wiling to wait until Halo 6 or Halo 5: Inheritors or whatever the next game that decides to be the endpoint of going in the right direction is.
I want to make a couple things clear so that I'm not just coming across as "halo is dad, RIP, i'm out" or anything near that level of one-dimensional. Provided the options aren't there, it's really more my personal circumstances combined with Halo's current standing on the Xbox One as a franchise rather than some kind of fervent undying hate of adding new things to Halo. What we've seen of H5G so far has made it abundantly clear to me that Guardians is going to be pretty similar to Halo 2 in that it's going to have some high highs, but low lows. As far as my personal opinions on Guardians itself:
Pros
+ Gameplay looks to be pretty fast-paced.
+ Spartan designs already seem to show marked improvement over Halo 4's attempts at new armor designs.
+ There's a clear emphasis on competitive viability as well as attempting to leave a lasting impression on players e.g. there's fun to be had in a session, not an individual match. Halo 4 got a little overboard and convoluted and as a result I'd usually just hop in, play a single game and be reminded of why I don't play Halo 4.
+ Alternative movement options are being explored, including some that don't even bottleneck player control! Stabilizers, namely.
+ Debatably a first for the series, 343's looking to keep a relatively high weapon count but have the sandbox roles operate more as a spectrum rather than a checklist. That is, precision rifles all have their own individual ins and outs, offering the same primary function (shoot enemy in head to kill) but still having enough variety per weapon that there's overlap, but not too much. Definitely an improvement over 4 in this regard. So far it's looking to have the most cohesive sandbox since the Reach Beta.
+ For arguably the first time since CE, every weapon is viable. I think the SMG is ultimately going to end up being the new Combat Evolved Pistol of Halo 5 in that it's an innocuous-looking sidearm but ends up having a whole bunch of bite. Will probably be met with "they should have just made it look like an LMG" analyses in the long run.
+ Balancing the range game is a priority, albeit I'm not 100% keen on their actual methods of doing so. ADS on AR can be used to ping people out of scope, while the Magnum is basically everything I wanted to be improved with Halo 4's Magnum: it looks, handles and sounds beefier, while still retaining the basic sandbox function of 4's in that it's essentially Diet Precision Rifle Pepsi.
+ Despite all of the weapons, layouts on map look to be pretty reductionist - it's certainly a breath of fresh air after a bunch of Certain Affinity's maps just peppered the entire frontier with power weapons. Let us spawn with a precision rifle, and we'll be in business.
+ Definitely has potential for an increased skill gap while offering tastes of fun to new players - sprinting after a Bane versus nading it to you and yielding a Combat Evolved medal, etc.
+ Making big strides in terms of attempting to keep map flow, combat control and player awareness up. Implementation is debatable, again, but ambient contextual Spartan bro banter is absolutely a step in the right direction. Weapon indicators and a separate announcer dedicated to broadcasting power weapon spawns are completely welcome additions to the Halo formula.
+ Steps (precautions?) are being taken to keep player incentivization sustainable, from a strong and replayable core sandbox to all sorts of cosmetic goodies that could become customizable in the retail release. It's a little fratty combined with all the "bro banter," but I actually like the pregame / postgame vignettes with your team all posing and lauding one another. Absolutely seems like it'd be worth adding unlockable pregame / postgame vignettes to make your Spartan do such as brandishing certain weapons, dancing, etc. Not to mention unlockable bro banter voices since we've already got Nathan Fillion and Mike Colter in there.
+ Rather than turn the graphical fidelity up to 11 and next-gen the shit out of the graphics, more delicate steps are being taken to offer an aesthetic experience that won't necessarily date itself as quickly as something like 4 will in the long run. They're also polishing up a lot of things they tried and failed to do in Halo 4 that ultimately help the game flow better, such as adding the aformentioned pregame vignettes and camera pans at the starts of matches rather than using a single stationary camera while the map loads via a countdown letting you pick your loadout.
+ Sound design is pretty snappy. In particular, the low shields / shield recharge noises are my favorites in the franchise. They sound crisp. To me, Bungie's shield recharge audio cue struck me as another "Bungie gonna Bungie" sort of thing where they started out using it as a placeholder audio effect and it just kind of stuck. The new shield recharging cue sounds like some actual thought and time was put into it.
Cons
- Like with Halo 4, there is just soooooo much shit going on. From sounds, to visuals, to gameplay. If the Xbox One controller had more bumpers it'd be a different story, but they really need to dial back all the features they're trying to cram into the sandbox because they've got way too many abilities to comfortably map to a single controller.
- Spartan Abilities. I'm not talking the concept, I'm talking the implementation. I like that the abilities are standardized across the board now, but I'm already not a fan of most of
them.
- Slide seems extremely superfluous and will likely stay that way until fanmade Forge maps start creating small accessways that only sliding Spartans can use to escape and whatnot.
- Shoulder charge is basically sprint-melee turned into a game mechanic, though I am glad it at least only knocks out shields from the front.
- Ground Pound is basically the bad parts of Armor Lock and Jetpack duct taped into a single feature. It completely screws with the vertical flow of combat, gives players an extremely easy out in situations where they have high ground but not the skill to use that as an advantage (recall the whole "best weapon's found in the worst place to use it" philosophy of games prior) and essentially gives them a free instakill at elevation once they get the hang of it. If it were just a movement option and was nondamaging, I'd be fine with it, but I'm really against surface-level, on-spawn abilities being able to instakill other players regardless of circumstance. The only real cases otherwise are the Boltshot and backsmacking, and even then you actually have to get behind the enemy player to beat them down.
- I'm mixed on Clamber. It's a step in the right direction, for sure, but I don't like that it takes away your ability to use your weapons or grenades, similarly to Sprint. I think for now it's essentially a poor man's double jump that can only be used on surfaces. I absolutely think it'll revolutionize map movement, but I'd really rather them either go all the way and give us a double jump or let us retain weapon / melee / grenade / action options and have the Clamber animation be players using their retro-rockets to propel themselves in an arc onto the Clambered surface or something.
- Not at all a fan of Sprint. I covered the big reasons why earlier today. From conceptualization to implementation (including those dumbass whooshy lines when you're at "peak speed"), everything about it just reeks of not Halo.
- Smart Scope. It's absolutely possible to add modern elements to dinosaurs like Halo without going full interactive cinematic vignette blockbuster GOTY territory. I will say that it has pretty good implementation so far and admittedly has done things to balance H5G's range game (see AR ADS in the pros above), but again, that's not really anything that couldn't be achieved with a traditional zoom. Smart Scope conflicts with just about every design philosophy of traditional Halo from sandbox to gameplay to even lore, which is weird considering "contextualizing our universe" was apparently a big bullet point in shaping Halo 4. It ultimately turns Halo, which is at its core a run-and-gun game, to a run-or-gun game, stripping out some of the pretty important core facets of the traditional (infantry-based) design philosophy of "you can do anything at any time." It also completely blocks parts of your view with an opaque obstruction, rather than just darkening screen real estate as was the case in every prior title. I don't care how it actually feels - again, I've stressed its implementation has already done its job well enough - but it ultimately feels superfluous and strikes me as evocative of the "chasing the CoD crowd" complaints of Halo 4.
- As an addendum to the above, it's pretty damn clear Smart Scope is now the "standard" and no amount of customization is really going to repair the damage done to the actual maps or sandbox by offering traditional zooming options. Second-level zooming (as in 10x Sniper scoping) actually requires a different button than ADS now!
- While this issue has been pretty substantially minimized since Halo 4, there are still trace amounts of "restrictive sandbox band-aiding." That is, originally, how Halo 4's red Xs were only available as a progression-based unlockable perk, and so on. It ultimately seems like 343 had to design a lot of the gameplay around the implementation of certain features - particularly Smart Scope - have, as I said above, done irreparable damage to core parts of the sandbox and map design, and offering classic zooming as an option isn't really going to undo those changes.
- Adding to the above, while I think it's great that aim assist is at an all-time low unscoped, it's pretty clear this is a "restrictive sandbox bandaid" side-effect that's starting to make headlines as an intentional emergent feature. Aim assist is only so low because ADS is clearly being incentivized as a superior option. Automatic weapons capable of Smart Scope have tighter spreads while in ADS, and aim assist is incrementally improved. This isn't how aim assist should be where it's extremes on either side - aim assist should be near-identical on weapons scoped and unscoped save for particularly touchy weapons that see most of their use scoped in like the Sniper Rifle. But now, with it being an addition across the board, there's an inherent advantage to using ADS which is absolutely not what it was clarified to be earlier on before the pre-Beta.
- Art direction so far is extremely noisy and hazy. It's a more refined version of what Halo 4 was going for, and while the refinements are a notable improvement, everything's so visually busy now. I understand the weird haze / fog of war effect reducing clarity throughout maps is likely going to be toned down before release, but I just don't gel with the art style at all. I'd love to see these out-of-game renders be evident of what the actual game looked like. I know Halo's never been completely minimalist, but something along the lines of Halo 2 Anniversary's level of detail with more polys and reflective mapping thrown in would be perfect, imo. I really wish Combat Evolved's weirder, more alien style of bright pearlescent hues and reflective metals all over transferred more faithfully to the sequels. This isn't an issue that was started by 343, per se, but it has been more than a little exacerbated by them. On a positive note, I do like the aesthetic of the Breakout maps and apparently Forge is going to be more of a minimalist / reductive sort of aesthetic, at least.
- Music seems a little more standardized, but the multiplayer music does overstay its welcome a little bit. Especially the "Who Wants To Be a Killionaire?" killcam music.
- Speaking of that, I don't like the killcams, either. Just goes to busy things up and sort of pull back the curtains regarding networking. Turns out that dude that just killed you even though his bullets were a solid meter or two off course were missing you - at least on your box.
- The UNSC weapons are starting to get wayyyy too populous. I like all of the weird alien weaponry in Halo even if they don't exactly have completely alien functions. So what if the Plasma Rifle is basically "machine gun but also good at tearing apart shields" or the Fuel Rod is "rocket launcher but alien." We need more alien representation! The thing that gets me the most, though, is the implementation of the Hydra - the new Rocket Launcher. It's a multi-shot RPG that fires homing explosives. Wait, it's a...
new rocket launcher
with notably more rounds per clip than traditional rockets
that fulfills an alternative role as a heavy weapon, predominantly useful against infantry, in a more balanced fashion than the laser
manufactured by a faction debatably at the height of their power giving them the freedom to employ emergent new high-yield munitions weapons
initially surrounded by mystery and rampant speculation only to reveal it's a welcome addition to the Halo sandbox?
You mean they brought the Plasma Launcher back?
wait a minute what
Customization - allowing certain things to be toggled in custom games and the like - are absolutely going to either make or break my purchase here. Now that the MCC is relatively stable and CE has a dedicated multiplayer playlist, and the campaigns are significantly less buggy than the multiplayer, I'll be more than content playing those in 1080p60 this gen if new Halo titles don't put availability for a traditional experience on the table. Sure, some of the new features like "Even Bigger Team Battle" and exploring new protagonists are neat novelties, but it's ultimately the smaller-scale intimate art of circumnavigating encounters with high speed and high-yield weapons that's always brought me back to Halo. My outright wishlist would be something to the effect of:
- can all the Spartan Abilities including Smart Scope save for Stabilizers and Thruster
- replace Clamber with an actual double jump
- give all players a hologram to use as a spartan ability
- can Sprint
- increase player speed to compensate, improve strafing speed, add separate move / strafe speed player traits and add separate X / Y-axis aim sensitivities
- dial down level of detail to Halo 2 Anniversary levels, opt for smoother (minimal) textures, glossy finishes, make Spartan bipeds nearly textureless like pristine sports cars
- use evocative art design and tasteful lighting for a lasting art direction that won't look dated in a couple years (months?)
- give weapon roles to non-UNSC devices, for example transfer over the Hydra's functionality to the Plasma Launcher, cite it as being some kind of modified variant
- PRECISION RIFLE STARTS AT LAUNCH
- PRECISION RIFLE STARTS AT LAUNCH
- PRECISION RIFLE STARTS AT LAUNCH
Now, if options to disable Smart Scope and Sprint are in, that would probably be enough to get me to buy a copy. The rest is really more pipe dreaming. As-is it's looking pretty evident that Smart Scope is the "new standard" and with how strong of a lynchpin it is on the rest of the sandbox that was built around it, it's not looking like they're backing down in this iteration just like they wouldn't back down on certain "features" with Halo 4 - no visible secondary weapon in the HUD, tac-pacs and sup-ups, etc. The whole "not [gameplay element borrowed from neighboring "competing" franchise]" such as "not perks," "not ADS," etc. is really tiresome too. I mean, if it's there, it might as well be owned up to, it's not fooling anybody. Watch here - the voice of Grif and several of his coworkers are playing the Halo 5 Guardians pre-Beta, in over the course of ten minutes they make direct, namedropped comparisons to Advanced Warfare, Call of Duty, Destiny, and they even call Smart Scope "ADS" directly. I mean, ADS isn't a copyrighted concept. Why bother trying to spin it as anything else?
Ultimately, I've come to the conclusion that Halo 5 Guardians is very much a "step in the right direction" game, but after Halo 4 they really don't have me at launch this time around. Once reviews from journalists and halogaffers start coming in, I'll see how I feel, and if options to disable / toggle Sprint and Smart Scope are there I'm absolutely on board. If not, it's possible modders will be able to play with the gametypes the way they did with 4. If not? Like I said, it's a step. I'm a patient man. I'm more than wiling to wait until Halo 6 or Halo 5: Inheritors or whatever the next game that decides to be the endpoint of going in the right direction is.
- Status