Through the HUD of a Spartan: Halo’s Homecoming

A Review of The Bad and The Good of Halo 5: Guardians

On Tuesday, Oct. 27th 343 Industries released the next entry of Microsoft’s Halo franchise continuing the legacy started by developer Bungie. However, 343 had a bigger challenge than just releasing a successful entry into the franchise. They are now faced with a dwindling community of Halo gamers, as well as bringing the franchise back home from the style of gameplay introduced in Halo: Reach and expanded on in Halo 4.

In terms of bringing Halo back home, they have succeed by introducing a gameplay style that not only honors the original Halo Trilogy, but evolves it into a new and unique experience. The campaign tells a story that is friendly to fans who have only played the games and fans who have read the books in the series alike. The story appropriately touches on the theme of returning home.

Halo 5: Guardians is a game that captures the spirit and heart of the Halo franchise honoring the series’ roots. However no game is perfect and with the good must come the bad.

The Bad:

Halo 5: Guardians’ story, while introducing interesting concepts and characters to the franchise, has very little happening for it in terms of plot development. Any development that does happen in the game is mostly trying to setup the franchise’s next entry. Part of the stagnation of the plot comes from levels that should have been cut all together, or series of levels that should have been condensed. Though the campaign already has 15 missions, adding more unique missions could of helped the story progress.

While Halo 5 introduces new and interesting characters, they suffer in terms of execution. The most notable is the lack of motive for Spartan Locke, the new main character. For the most part Locke acts more cold and machine-like than Master Chief and Blue Team — super-soldiers who have been trained since age 6, that go AWOL in order to deal with a situation they feel responsible for.

Two of Locke’s teammates on Fireteam Osiris, Spartans Tanaka and Vale, are wasted in the story by having no character development. Spartans Tanaka and Vale, who are given interesting backstories hinted at throughout the campaign, serve little more than human encyclopedias on colonial and alien life respectively in the campaign’s story.

The main issue in terms of multiplayer is a lack of classic game modes that utilizes larger and open maps. The games multiplayer portion is split into arena — which focuses on close-quarter combat on small maps, and Warzone — which focuses on the game mode of the same name on three larger maps. 343 however has promised to add 15 new maps and the classic game mode Big-Team Battle in future updates which will hopefully allow for a more diverse selection of game modes on the Warzone maps.

The game also lacks the community created game modes Grifball and Infection which were made official in previous games in the series. While Infection can return to the old community honor rules in custom games there is no available option to recreate Grifball in Halo 5. While we can hope these will be added in future updates there has been no official word at this time. The last issue with Halo 5 is the lack of the community map creator, Forge, at the time of the game’s release. Forge, however, will be added in a future update as a release date is already planned for this December.

While it may seem like Halo 5 has a lot of issues overall, they are small issues with some that may not even matter to most players. But despite these issues, Halo 5 does have some redeeming qualities.

The Good

Overall, Halo 5 is a fast-paced high action game that will keep you addicted for sometime. While Halo 5 does have a small selection of game modes compared to past entries in the series, they’re all entirely fun and will keep you happy until 343 adds in more through updates.

Halo 5's two new game modes, Breakout and Warzone, are instant fun that give gamers new experiences in the series. Breakout is a four on four fast-paced mode where teams must win five rounds by capturing the flag or having at least one of their team members be the last-man standing. Warzone is a 12-on-12 all out battle that requires players to rack up points by requisitioning powerful weapons and vehicles to beat the enemy team. To do so, teams must capture bases, kill both player and A.I. enemies, and by destroying the other team’s home-base. Both modes offer fun experiences with multiple ways to win.

Overall the best addition to the game is Halo 5’s gameplay. The fast-paced game style makes it so that thumping skulls together is as important shooting enemies and throwing grenades. The changes to the gameplay make Halo 5 a unique experience among a franchise that remains nostalgic for those with fond memories of the original Halo trilogy.

Check-Point:

While those loyal to Halo’s lore may be disappointed in the game’s story, there is honestly nothing in Halo 5 that will prevent gamers from having a fun experience. While it does lack game modes from past entries, they may be added by 343 later down the road, hopefully with the free map packs. Halo 5 launched with a smooth online experience and a fun, fast-paced gaming style. Halo 5 is one of the best shooters in the past years and as of now is the one to beat when it comes to being the shooter of the year.

You can watch the Launch Gameplay Trailer down below.