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farfromdaylight · 9 years

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halo 5: the good, the bad, and the ugly

There's a lot to digest with Halo 5. This post is my way of doing that.

Please note that this post has full spoilers for Halo 5. There are also spoilers for other parts of the extended Halo universe, including Halo: Escalation, the Forerunner trilogy, the Kilo-5 books, and both seasons of Hunt the Truth. Basically, if it's in the extended universe released up this point it may be spoiled here.

Let's get into it. As a warning this post kinda jumps around in places.

the good

The game plays really well. I honestly have no idea how I'm going to go back to the rest of the series without the ability to climb up on everything and anything. All of the new Spartan Abilities feel completely natural and slot in perfectly to the gameplay.

I'm still getting to know how the weapons work, but so far I'm liking most of the changes. The DMR and the Battle Rifle are different now in a way they really weren't in Halo 4 -- DMR is precision and long-range, Battle Rifle is for quicker shots. The Light Rifle got a huge boost and I fucking hate it when the enemies have it, but it's a blast when I've got one. I really like what they did with the Suppressor, too, and the Bolt Shot is actually usable now.

I haven't had too much time with the Hydra yet and I'm not sure how it compares to the Rocket Launcher but I like having it there. I've also not have the opportunity to use the Splinter Turret in any real capacity yet. Same goes with the new Plasma Charge gun (I think that's what it's called? The one from the E3 demo). All in all though so far I'm finding the weapon changes all really good. I haven't found anything depowered that shouldn't have been.

The Storm Rifle remains a piece of shit, although now all the enemies can actually kill me with it, which I think is bullshit. I swear that thing is fucking useless every time I pick it up.

Arena is great so far. I've only jumped into SWAT (my go-to gametype) and Breakout so far, but they both play great. I played a bit of the beta last year but not extensively, so I can't comment on changes. However, I'm really surprised by the lack of voting/veto. The voting/veto system has its flaws (I say, as I get stuck on fucking Valhalla for the 18th fucking time), but I had no idea that it had been removed entirely. So far it's left me stuck playing lots of SWAT with Magnums, which, well, it could be worse. Can't make too many comments about multiplayer though as I've spent most of my time in campaign. Can't comment on Warzone yet as I've only played one match.

It's really different having an actual team around. I've only played 2p co-op so far (and then at the speed of goddamn light) so I need more time with that, but I like that in 2p you can still order the AI around. (Only the party leader can do it, but still.) It's great that you can get picked up by the AI, but you're still going to spend a lot of time on the floor on solo legendary. The AI do respawn, though, just like co-op partners do, so on legendary you can basically sit back and wait for them to come back and give you a hand. (See: how I got through that fucking room yesterday.)

Anyway, it really adds a lot to the experience? Halos 1, 2, and 4 are a very solitary experience. 3 isn't only because Arbiter is there the whole time, but he doesn't really talk outside of cutscenes. In the rest of the games, it's just Chief against an endless amount of enemies. It's a really different experience having a full team. ODST had this to an extent, but you really do feel like you've got a full team around you the whole way through in 5.

I also think that the levels in Halo 5 are much less linear than the previous games. You have so many more options to approach the areas on these levels. I've only gone through the first two on solo legendary so far but I've already found a ton of different ways that I didn't use the first time through. I'm really looking forward to playing through it again on co-op and figuring out different ways to approach the same areas.

Jumping around somewhat, but one of my absolute favorite areas in the entire game is mission 4, when you walk into Meridian and your entire objective is to walk around and talk to people. It was so completely jarring, after four missions of firefighting, that I kept saying (out loud, to Kiwi) "wait, is this-- is this really what we're doing? This is a Halo game!" But it was 100% in a good way. That mission took me right back to the best parts of ODST -- where half the game was just walking around and finding out what I could from the environment.

There were buttons to push. There were people to talk to. There were consoles to interact with and stores to look at. That one mission did more to immerse me in the world of Halo than the entire firefight leading up to the colony. What struck me, too, was how despite the stated tensions between the colonists and the UNSC and how weird it was to have Spartans actually walking around, here we were actually seeing what life is like on the Outer Colonies. It's something that's been part of Halo canon since the very beginning, but the actual gameplay of Halo has always been so far removed from it.

Honestly, there's a lot more I could dig into of that one level. Mostly, it made me want an entire Halo game where all I do is soak up the environment. Because if nothing else, they fucking nailed that.

the bad

One comment about multiplayer: all armor customizations appear to be random drops via REQ packs. REQs are pretty easy to get, via commendations and level-ups, but still, the fuck? Completely random? I got hit with a fleet of Mongeese in one of mine so I'm not thrilled with the REQ system, and I sure as fuck won't be buying any, because seriously. Microtransactions. What the fuck. I don't care how fun Warzone ends up being, the whole thing is just stupid.

Anyway, I play a decent amount of multiplayer but I'm not here to talk about it, so let's dig into the plot.

Here's the short version: it's fucking terrible.

The long version is that it's really fucking terrible.

Honestly, the only way to say it is that they Mass Effected it. Which is actually painfully funny: the guy who wrote Halo 4, Chris Schlerf, is now writing the next Mass Effect. Good luck, buddy.

Anyway, let's just roll through it. Halo 5 starts with a mission where we go pick up Halsey, because for some reason, after an extended arc in Halo: Escalations where she confirms that no, she's cut ties to the UNSC and is going after the Absolute Record and fuck you guys, she has now called for a pickup. Makes total sense. So Osiris shimmies down to the planet they're on and faces off against the Covenant and some Forerunners who are Just There For Some Reason, They Don't Really Explain It Because Why Bother, Oh Look New Enemy Type! Have Fun Killing These! and clears them all out.

And then Jul M'dama, a character who has appeared across books, comics, and the games, gets killed in a cutscene. Because, you know, it's fun to watch a fight instead of play it yourself.

WELL, THIS IS STARTING OFF STRONG.

Then we jump over to Blue Team and run through a mission, with absolutely no background as to who Blue Team is for anyone who hasn't read the books -- which, sure, at this point (and given the way the rest of this goddamn game goes) I get they clearly aren't pandering to, but I have to agree with comments I've seen elsewhere: for people going straight into Halo 5 from 4, it's a pretty bizarre jump. Chief loses Cortana, gets back to Earth, and then he's back with These Other Spartans Who He Knows I Guess??? and is back doing missions and shit. I mean, seriously, what did exposition ever do to this game?

Anyway Chief sees a ~~~vision~~~ of Cortana and that's enough to give him pause so Blue Team decides well let's go figure that out. And, unlike the great moment in Halo 4, where Chief stands up to Del Rio and disobeys orders, here we have Blue Team deciding for him: let's go figure this out before anyone else does. I realize that Chief sends his denial first, but my point is that it's very abrupt and Blue Team basically goes along with hardly any protest, because who the fuck needs characterization?

Meanwhile back on the Infinity, Halsey gets back and Palmer is straight-up cordial with her, which again, makes perfect sense given their relationshp in Halo: Esclations. Oh, wait. No it doesn't. Remind me again what the point of a tie-in comic is if you're just going to ignore all of it?

Also, uh, how does Halsey know about Cortana ahead of time. How did the plot of this game get set up. WHERE DID ANY OF IT COME FROM. AGAIN, EXPOSITION. WHAT. WHERE. None of it was in Hunt the Truth!! There was talk about galaxy-wide fluctuations but that was it! The Guardians appeared in season 2, but aside from that there's almost no connection between Hunt the Truth and Halo 5.

The disconnect between Halo 5 and the marketing is so utterly bizarre that I can't help but wonder what was going on behind the scenes. Again, I can't help but look to Mass Effect -- it seems like the case of "well, we lost our writer and we got a new one SO LET'S JUST SCRAP EVERYTHING LOL" and holy shit, it did not work out. At all. So much of this game makes no fucking sense. None. Nada. Zilch.

And I say this as someone who is deeply invested in the lore, who knew a lot of these things were coming. Cortana survived the fight with the Didact by going into slipspace -- that much we could glean from the end of Halo 4 if you looked closely, as some fans did. (Shout out to @cortnan and @harupsis in particular, but many others along with them.) But what they did with that plotline is just. Baffling. Fucking baffling.

I'm not as well-versed in Forerunner lore as I could be -- I've only read the trilogy once and it was a good while back -- but Halo 5 basically feels like a case of establishing their lore, putting it out there, and then using it badly. I don't think this was a case of "this is how they always meant it and we're just looking at it wrong!" No, it's all just really lousy. Like, Cortana suddenly believes in the Mantle of Responsiblity and wants to uphold it at the cost of millions of human lives? Fuck the what?

Now -- this is important -- I am really glad that the Mantle is very explicitly in this game. I think it's a great, fascinating concept that was touched on some in Halo 4, but is really brought forth in Halo 5. It could (and should) have been done a lot better, but there's a lot of potential with the plotline. We have, for years, been told that humanity were Reclaimers, and that they would uphold the Mantle. The idea that they're not? That's fucking fantastic, and worthy of a lot of discussion.

Turning Cortana into the bad guy to do it? Yeah, no.

The thing about this game is that almost nothing in it logically follows from any other piece of the extended universe. Halsey sends her coordinates to the Infinity -- why? Cortana goes from sacrificing herself for Chief to accepting the Forerunners' way of thinking -- why?

Why in the hell did they not just use the Didact for these plotlines? He was there! He was ambiguously killed at the end of Halo 4, and then done away with in the comics -- why in the fuck didn't they use him for all of this?

And what in the goddamn good hell was that entire last level (last few levels, honestly) where they give up on the "oh we're going to hunt down Master Chief at all costs NEVER MIND WE ARE BFFS AND WE'RE GOING TO SAVE HIM"

i don't even

the ugly

This has gone from coherent post to full-on ranting but tbh that's what I expected. Anyway, I do have some things for this category:

- The Warden Eternal is goddamn terrible in every sense. At no point does the character make any reasonable sense and you fight him too many times. Million bodies my ass. Again, no real reason given here. Remind me again why Cortana - if she is so intent on this - couldn't defend herself? Goddamn.

- I honestly have no idea what the point of the cutscene at the beginning of the game was. It never comes back in any way.

Spartan Locke. I have spent enough years with ONI to know the truth. Once this is over, after all I have done... They'll order you to kill us both.

YEAH OK, SURE HALSEY, THAT TOTALLY HAPPENED. TOTALLY.

- There are multiple points in the game where I said to Kiwi "Why the fuck are we fighting these enemies here?"

Honestly, this broke immersion for me a lot. At several points it literally makes no sense that you're fighting certain enemies. Like the last level. Why in the goddamn fuck are you fighting the Covenant? What the fuck? "They got pulled in by the Guardians." No, that's bullshit and bad level design. WHY AREN'T THERE ANY HUMANS ON GENESIS THEN?

Seriously, the level of gameplay and story segregation when it came to enemy placement was fucking absurd. Also a serious lack of driving levels in this game, and only two flying parts, I think? Seriously, what.

- Team Osiris has a problem and their names are Vale and Tanaka.

Here's the thing. Locke and Buck are played by the two well-known actors. Locke is the star, Mike Colter, and Buck is Nathan Fillion. By default they get the highest billing.

Doing that completely sidelines your two female characters, to the point that they barely get any fucking time in cutscnes.

I don't think Vale gets a single moment with her helmet off in cutscenes. Tanaka gets one. Aside from that, every important moment is between Buck and Locke for no other reason than that they're the highest paid actors.

Guess what? That's noticeable. That's very noticeable. That makes it look like the other two aren't important, and implies a gender disparity that doesn't exist in-universe. Here's some food for thought, 343: if your female Spartans are important enough to be on the fireteam, to have valuable roles and skills on the team, why don't they ever get shown in cutscenes to talk and voice their opinions? Why aren't they in the spotlight?

Let me sum this up for you: there's no such disparity during the level -- as far as I can tell, all of Osiris talks about equally on the radio during the levels. But once it hops over to a cutscene, it's the Buck and Locke show.

I'll leave you with those implications. And you can take your highly paid actors with you.

#haloblogging #halo 5 #this is a Long Post and there are a lot of opinions in it #halo spoilers #halo 5 spoilers

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