I have been playing first person shooters for what seems like forever. I was an avid Call of Duty player well into Modern Warfare 2. I initially shunned Halo for my dislike of the shields, and lack of instant kills when your reticle meets their head. What I didn't quite grasp was that Halo’s gameplay was different at its core. After I rented Halo 3 (and inevitably got it for Christmas when I wouldn't stop playing it) I found out how much I could enjoy this type of gameplay. I have played and owned severa Halo titles since. This includes Halo 3, ODST, Halo Reach (Though not owned), Halo 4, and most recently Halo 5 Guardians.
I have sunk more hours into the Halo franchise than I have in any other first person shooter, and only second most to all genres (It’ll take a lot to out-do the hours I put into World of Warcraft.) I have been estatic about almost every aspect of each new game, so much so that I have abandoned the Call of Duty franchise alltogether. Part of the reason is the broken nature of many CoD titles and how infuriating they were. Several headsets and controllers have been thrown over their repetedly flawed spawn systems. Halo, fortunately, has never had this problem.
I played an unhealthy amount of Halo 4. When it came out, the time spent up all night instead of studying for college classes the next day probably impacted my GPA. The amount of sleep deprevation, pop, and general junk good I consumed almost certainly has taken a few hours off my total lifespan. However, given the chance, I would probably do it all over again. Halo 4 was one of the best gaming experiences of my life, and part of this was that it didn’t make me rage nearly as much as other games. This was a common trend and a reason for me to stick with these games, their ragelessness if you will, attracted me. I don’t enjoy being upset, and rage quitting a game will put me off it longer each time I do, no matter how addictive the gameplay is.
Halo 5 Guardians, on the other hand, has not followed this trend. I have raged at Halo 5 more times already than all of the hours of all of the previous Halo games combined. It is no secret to how lackluster the story was, but a poor storyline would never upset me. Even still, an incredibly difficult campaign experience makes for sweaty palm gameplay. If the story is more difficult than it needs to be, it isn’t upsetting, it might be frustrating, but it’s certainly never rage-inducing. On the other hand, the multiplayer experience is where the real rage lies.
Before I inundate this post with negatives, let me first report on what I enjoy about the Halo 5 multiplayer experience.
The Good
- The variety of weapons, vehicles, and cosmetic items.
The redesign of the forerunner pistol and assault rifle are a very welcomed change that makes them legitimately useful. Vehicle variety has exploded. Cosmetic item variety is getting more ridiculous with every expansion on the content. We see new armor pieces and weapon skins constantly.
- Some parts of the REQ/energy system.
I’ll get to the parts I don’t like, but what I do enjoy is the as-needed ability to use weapons in warzone. I think the REQ system as it exists now could use some tweaks. The concept is sound and has a good foundation, this is a must-have for how long-living Halo games can be.
- The aesthetics. Halo has always been a very pretty game.
The graphics ability of the engine has great detail, as well as satisfying special effects. The aesthetics of the game also work quite well, though some maps are better than others. Even the worst case scenarios it’s hard to find an ugly looking art combination, and at most it would just seem alien, which is perfectly acceptable.
- Playing online with friends is fantastic.
If you can manage to get a good group of people to play with the online experience is absolutely brillient. Unfortunately nobody on my friends list plays Halo 5. This means that this last one doesn’t apply to me, and the lack of this is the seed of hate that becomes the rage I have.
Now that we got that out of the way, if you want to bury your head in the sand and pretend that Halo 5 Guardians is a flawless gameplay experience I suggest you stop reading now.
The Bad
- Vehicle controls.
343i has made some tweaks and improvements more recently, but I still feel like the controls are lackluster (the warthog in particular.) Also, some vehicles are far too slow, the wraith comes to mind. This compounds itself with one of the infuriating things I’ll mention later.
- Spawns.
The primary reason I left CoD was for flawed spawns. This happens differently in slayer and warzone. In warzone I sometimes spawn right in front of a tank, or the most inconveniently far-from-the-action location possible. In slayer the instances of CoD-like, “oh the guy I just killed spawned RIGHT behind me!?” are far too familiar and not at all welcomed. This isn’t as infuriating because I understand that a spawning system is complicated, and some slayer maps are quite small.
- Warzone late game high-energy items.
The REQ/energy system goes pretty high, and in almost every game I play by the time I get to the really good stuff, I’m talking 6+ energy, the game is quickly approaching its end. Now most games I have ever been in are so one-sided that you had might as well not use them because you’ll either not make any game-changing difference, or you’ll instantly be destroyed.
More on this in the rage list. This can easily be fixed by just having everything give more points. Having it max out faster doesn’t impede the gameplay or hurt either team. Simply multiplying every point-providing system by 1.25 or 1.5 times would do wonders to really enjoying those late game items.
- User interface.
I feel like this has been beaten to death. It is no mystery that the Halo 5 UI leaves something to be wanted. I’m glad that they finally added a lobby mute-all button for those mouth-breathers and wannabe DJs. Unfortunately I would prefer to see the Halo Reach or Halo 4 lobby UI return. I want to SEE that awesome character I have. I want everyone else to see how awesome it is. I’d rather not my entire representation be that of a single, simple, rectangular symbol. I’ve more an idea of how my armor looks by my in-game corpse (of which I see uncomfortably often) than I do from the lobby.
Also, the REQ management UI could use some work. It doesn’t take 5 google searches to find a story of someone with such a ridiculous amount of REQ cards that just opening the menu causes lag. A sell-all or sell 1,10,100x would be a godsend.
The Ugly
Now that the gripes are out of the way, I want to spell out the blood boilers. This is not going to be a short list, and I cannot promise that these will be fair. This is as much analytics as it is therapy.
- First and foremost, the matchmaking system.
Remember #4 from the first list? Well if you’re a solo player, with other solo players, playing against a group of friends then you’re most likely going to be demolished. Matching groups of the same skill level against solos of the same skill level is still a huge flux in the balance of a game.
The difference that working together makes in a team-based game is ridiculously important. If I want to play by myself (and I don’t always have a choice) then at least 50% of games end up disgustingly one-sided. It can become painfully obvious if you’re in one of those matches in slayer. In warzones that small difference grows with time and you’ll consider yourself lucky to have your core destroyed instead of being farmed for kills.
Suffice it to say this is not an enjoyable experience. Make no mistake that while this is what I have the least to put to text about, it is in my opinion the most infuriating. I would forgo every other improvement I’ve even mentioned here if it meant that warzone and slayer matches were perfectly matched with skill levels. Being on the other side of the imbalance is less maddening, but it’s not nearly as fun as a truly even game. Close games are what I love, and if I were guarenteed it every game then I would need to be surgically removed from my couch.
- The fragility of high-cost vehicles.
This goes hand-in-hand with my comment on how slow some of the more costly vehicles are. These are seperate because I can see a tank being slow, that’s sort of in their job description. Unfortunately they’re also fragile. These two things just cannot exist side-by-side without the thing in question being ridiculously capable of obliterating everything in sight. This is the epitome of the phrase “glass tank.” Only a good one would be very deadly. The tank, wraith, and mantis I do not feel exemplify this.
It is far too easy to have a grenade planted and your 5 energy vehicle destroyed long before you get to do anything with it. The sluggishness of these vehicles is partly to blame. If they were faster this would be much less of an issue. Alternatively if they were sturdier this would be more reasonable. My idea solution would be a high-skill maneuver to swat off those pesky spartans attached to one’s backside. I don’t count getting out, because the animation takes so long all you’re doing is saving yourself from this ridiculous death. This doesn’t put you in any better situation against this one other person.
I think one of the culprits is actually in the form of a double-edged sword. In Halo 5 we have gotten what we asked for, and have clambered for extra mobility for a while. In previous installments we felt unreasonably sluggish. 343i has seen fit to grace us with mobility functions such as the, gasp, clamber and spartan charge. We were given sprinting and thruster packs as well. These are all blessings as it makes us feel and move in a way we find more attractive. Now more than ever we feel like a combat-enhanced super-soldier. We are sturdy, yet agile. We were buffed.
Our tanks, on the other hand, were not. We are now faster, but our tanks are just as slow. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that any game mechanic made slower is worse, and while they weren’t made slower, we were made faster and this might as well be equatable. I would argue that tanks and wraiths should take at least 3 grenades to completely destroy. It’s far too easy to always have 2 greanades on you since that’s how many you spawn with. It’s arguable that 3 is pretty easy as well, but I think that’s a bit much. One of the good things I listed was that there were more varieties in weapons. Unfortunately this also means there are more power weapons capable of utterly devastating a tank.
On the same subject of fragile vehicles, it seems ridiculous that a few people poking at me with their BRs can render my ghost inoperable. This is less important as it’s only 3 energy, so they can be seen as disposable.
- Hijacking.
I’m not saying throw the mechanic out, but it seems ridiculously easy to hijack a vehicle, particularly a ghost. The hitbox to take away someone’s hard-earned item seems massive. Hijacking is a huge swing in the displacement of power. Not only does the person that spent the energy and card getting it have it taken away, but the person that spent no energy it granted it. Whatever the cost of the thing is, double that and that’s approximately the swing of value that hijacking brings. Hijacking a ghost is a 6 energy swing, which is the same value as a mantis. Just make the hitbox for the hijack smaller so that you can’t blindly mash x to win.
Few things in gaming is as frustrating as spending your last ghost ultra card only to have a plasma pistol render you completely useless as someone takes your precious vehicle of devistation and proceeds to frollick around the map destroying you and your team.
I feel like someone walks up to me as I’m showing off this precious thing of mine, and just says it’s theirs now and not only can you do nothing about it, but they are going to slap you in the face with it as well.
There are plenty of things that I could nit-pick about, but those aren’t the things that really upset me AS I’m playing. Also I would sound like a broken record with respect to all the other online forums and sites that have done exactly the same or better analysis. These issues are by no means original or inventive, merely the opinion of one player and what keeps me from playing it more. If these were all fixed I might need Haloers Anonymous meetings to tear myself away. In any case I still love the game, but I know it can be better. I can see so much more potential with Halo 5 and I’m more than eager for firefight to come eventually.
