Halo 5: Guardians

The halo franchise has been great throughout the years but halo 5 has been really disappointing in advancing the franchise and it looks bad compared to the other titles. I see why halo 5 was made though, because Bungie wanted to make a halo game with a lot of multiplayer options and it succeeded but the campaign felt short and customization options were not very great to customize your character. Overall it's honestly a great game.

A poorly executed storyline finds itself awkwardly lodged in a very short and uninspired series of missions that exist for nothing more than to include content at the games 2015 launch; because there sure wasn't any to be found in the multiplayer at the time. However, credit where it's due, over the course of a year, free updates (unfortunately a rarity in the modern game industry) gradually added to the variety of the matchmaking and it became a pretty fun and addicting side-attraction to whatever other game you might've been playing. The unbalanced and unappreciated in game micro transactions took away from the fulfillment of getting new gear for your multiplayer spartan that can be found in the pre-2012 titles in the series. 6/10. Only slightly above average.

As much as I really don't care for the multiplayer game type selection, armor customization and rank progression, it's probably the only redeeming aspect to this game. I do enjoy the big team battle, warzone and firefight modes when the servers can actually stay populated- which just seems to stop after being several minutes into a match.

Been running through the Halo games in preparation for Infinite and my excitement has now been stomped into cautious optimism after this stark reminder of a campaign.

The story relies heavily on details never mentioned in the games, flat and meaningless dialog and just piss poor choreography. Seriously though, what was that intro? The entire campaign doesn't even make a single reference to a Halo ring. Even 4 managed to do that. By comparison, this makes 4 look like a masterpiece. The over the top abilities of Locke's team devalues all the crazy stunts Master Chief pulled off in previous games and insults the audience that's old enough to remember the original trilogy when they were new. They then become completely useless when Master Chief is standing right in front of them. I hope the lead writers never touch a Halo project again because they're simply an incompetent group.

A few final constructive criticisms are the music is easily the worst of any Halo game, the T rating and lack of any blood is not a good trade-off just so kids can have easier access to it (I played CE when I was 7, I wonder how?) and finally- and I completely forgot this prior to replaying it, but you only play as Master Chief for 3 missions. If Locke was as well written as the Arbiter back in Halo 2 I could forgive this point, but I literally couldn't care in the slightest for him or his team. I don't remember the names of the two females (promise I'm not sexist) but their involvement in the game meant nothing to me. At least Buck didn't come out of left field with meaningless details sprinkled here and there. Don't get me started on the Chief's team, they simply should NOT have been in the game.

Here's to hoping Infinite doesn't suffer from several of the same mistakes- and believe me, there are many more..

Halo is a great franchise and all the other games are good to great, however, Halo 5 is the outlier, the game is ok, with some boring bits in between, however, the story is weird. Some sections are fun, most are Okish, and then there is the boring 10% of the game where you just run around and here dialogue. As a PC gamer who had beaten all other Halo installments (on Master Chief Collection), and was excited for the upcoming (at the time) Halo Infinite, but to my surprise, Halo 5 is an Xbox console exclusive. Luckily I had just acquired Game Pass Ultimate, so picking it up was a breeze. The game is controller only, beware PC gamers. TL;DR: Get it, only if you have game pass.

Infinite is great.

Making a halo campaign with master chief not being the main character should be a sin!