My Halo 5 Review (No Spoilers)

I always said to myself that I’d do a review of Halo 4, and it never happened. So I’m making up for that by doing a review of Halo 5! I’ve had one play through on Heroic, and then sat on it for a few days to let it digest. I feel now the time is right to shamefully voice my opinions!

It’s important to note that all of the below applies to campaign only, as I have no real desire to play Halo multiplayer any more.

GAMEPLAY

Leading up to Halo 5 I was concerned about things like clamber, aim down sights, and the thruster pack. I’ve always been one to like the core Halo gameplay trifecta of weapon, melee, and grenade. Halo Reach and Halo 4 felt a little bit too inspired by the likes of Call of Duty, introducing sprint and loadouts, and I’ve never enjoyed the armour abilities or equipment.

Halo 5 finally feels like Halo again. I’m glad that the additional abilities like armour lock, hologram, shield etc are gone. Having a small, pre-defined set of abilities to play with creates the challenge of having to apply the tools you have to the scenario in front of you. To me this much more fun than finding an ability on the battlefield that moves the goalposts. Aim down sights, clamber and the thruster pack felt like they were natural additions to the Halo experience, instead of an attempt to shoe horn in things that have appeared in other games. These became second nature so quickly that when I returned to Halo 2 Anniversary, I found myself missing them. The ground pound and wall-breaking manoeuvre seemed to require too much lead in time for me to make much use of them, so I quickly gave up on them. I didn’t ever feel like not using them detracted anything from the gameplay experience though.

Not too much to say about the weapons, other than the ability to aim down sights made using things like the battle rifle and carbine easier. I liked the homing rounds of the suppressor… I think that’s new but I could be wrong. The new weapons were easy to pick up and use, although none really stood out as being essential additions. I’m not sure Halo’s weaponry is something that needs much tinkering with at this point though, there are so many that you’re rarely left with a weapon that’s inappropriate for your current situation. The same can be said of the vehicles, although I was disappointed with the lack of time in the Warthog. That said, having three AI-controlled vehicle buddies was a blast, and made the vehicle sections a lot more enjoyable that I was expecting.

In fact, I could probably say that for having four AI companions in general. I know the real reason they’re there is for co-op, but with no Cortana whispering in my ear I was afraid there would be too much silence. As it is there is just the right amount of chatter from the AI menagerie, both interesting and humorous, and it makes you feel more like you’re a part of a team. No AI is ever going to be completely competent in ways that highly trained soldiers should be, but I didn’t particularly notice any drastically stupid decisions made by my companions. They performed well in battle, and I could rely on them to follow and fight and enact my squad commands effectively. That’s all I think you can ever ask for when it comes to AI buddies.

I enjoyed the new dynamic to fighting the Prometheans - knights and crawlers were fine for Halo 4 but the new soldier classes give a much needed third angle. The teleporting ability was a nice feature, tricky to combat but never truly annoying as you could see where they were going. Having them use different weaponry made them much more exciting to fight, because even though those same weapons existed in the hands of knights and crawlers in H4, they were utilised in different ways. There’s a lot of variety now in fighting the Prometheans, although perhaps still not as much as fighting the Covenant.

I liked the idea of fighting the same boss multiple times through the campaign. It makes him a real nemesis, and each battle is tough enough that you not only dread the next one, but you feel like you’ve accomplished something afterward. My only problem here is that the battles are so repetitive; he uses the exact same tactics in each fight, and you have to use the exact same tactics to beat him. The only difficulty scale is in how many of him you face, and that just seems lazy.

In summary, I think Halo 5 is a fantastic step forward in the gameplay department (at least as far as campaign is concerned). It’s a real evolution of the franchise, in a way that feels faithful to the previous instalments and promising in terms of where the gameplay might go next. The key is to keep things simple, so I hope that not too many unnecessary extras get added going forward.

DESIGN

343i seem to get a lot of flak for their artistic interpretation of the Halo universe. As far as I’m concerned, because they are the ones that realise the universe for us, their interpretation is the only interpretation. Unfortunately, yes, that means that a lot of the colours in Halo 5 are as muted as they were in Halo 4. The Bungie games have brighter, more vibrant palettes across the range of enemies and vehicles but at times I felt that made Halo feel a lot more cartoony than other aspects of the game suggested it was supposed to be. Halo 4 was visually a lot darker than Halo 5 is, which was part of the problem for me. Even if the enemies have not changed much, the landscapes and environments have.

They are beautiful. The extra power of the Xbox One has clearly gone into creating more intricate and detailed level designs, from the extra lines and shapes in the Forerunner geometry, to the carvings and murals on the walls of Sanghelios. It definitely looks and feels like a new generation experience. Not only this, but everything is so much more vivid; mainly due to a lot the levels being outdoors during the day, but also due to some exceptional use of lighting in night time and indoor environments.

One other thing to note about the levels is that they are enormous, not just in scale but in play area too. I can think of several areas in the game that I never actually discovered the limits of; which is not only good because of how large they are, but because the game kept me focused enough that I didn’t wander off the beaten path to ruin the immersion of discovering a box canyon. Most of the game is as linear as we’ve come to expect from a Halo game, but it never feels that way. The open areas and the encounters within them give you plenty of freedom and variety in how you approach them. The only slight downside is that there are a few easy to find invisible walls, but you do have to go out of your way to locate them.

The biggest disappoint of the entire game for me was probably actually the music. The sound effects were big, and bold, and much more visceral than in previous games, which I like. But the actual music was very forgettable, and this is the first Halo game that I can say that about. I’m not sure why the lead composer was changed between H4 and H5, but it’s a mistake in my eyes. H4 had a great score, one that felt much like Halo but also sad and mysterious which was a great fit with the story they were telling. H5 seems almost directionless, and although the music fits the action on the screen as you’d expect it would, it doesn’t really enhance what’s going on or make you feel more engaged in it.

OVERALL

I really enjoyed playing Halo 5, it’s something I would definitely return to playing again and again like I would Halo CE back in the day. Once you look deeper than just playing the game however, it appears to be rougher around the edges. As a Halo fan, I can appreciate how the story has set the scene for the continuation of the universe, and none of the gripes I have are major nor do they take away from how fun this game actually is.

That’s a shame about the soundtrack, I always thought the Halo series had some of the best music in video games. The reduction of abilities sounds good though. It’s easy for games to become the kitchen sink to the point where they lack central, defining mechanics. When I first played Halo: Combat Evolved I was impressed by the simplicity of the controls compared to many PC first person shooters of the time. Just two weapons at a time (plus grenades), rather than a series of complicated menus and hotkeys, for example. Strategy was less about configuration, and more about embracing your limitations.

I was a really big fan of the original Halo CE, but ever since I’ve grown tired of the sequels (and perhaps the FPS genre altogether). Halo 5 didn’t recapture the magic for me. It’s by all means a good game but it doesn’t surprise me anymore, and I really expected more from the story. I really didn’t feel like I was playing something radically different or better than Halo 4. I quickly grew tired of having to fight the same boss over and over again and was just waiting for the game to end. I also hate the concept of bosses in Halo to begin with. Their absence is exactly what I liked about the first Halo. No boss fight in any Halo ever managed to rivaled the escape from the Pillar of Autumn for me.

I guess this just isn’t my kind of game anymore.

Totally agree on those points, and the “boss” thing was one of the particular disappointments in H4. Along with QTE bullshit in general as well, but since it only bookends the game, literally right at the beginning and right at the end I was able to forgive and forget.

But the feeling of alarm and respect when you simply see a gold Elite is so much more authentic than the cynical anticipation all gamers probably feel for a set piece “boss fight.”