Topic: Halo 5

With Halo 5 just around the corner is anyone picking it up? Because I certainly am!

No Xbox One, but the campaign looks great. No split screen is a little bit of a turn off though.

Yeah if I had an xbox one and there was split screen it would be an instabuy for me. I played every single one of them so far with my Dad (he's quite good at sniping for his age) and it just turned me off it.Apart from that I look forward to seeing how it does and hope it sells well.

@Vincent294 @IrishGamer97 The lack of split screen is disappointing to some but as I have a console in my room it's not so bad and when I have a friend over I'll play the halo master chief collection. Also the campaign does look awesome especially as Halo 4 was a bit of a disappointment compared to reach!

@DoctorOverbuild: I suppose the Chief Collection is fixed up now but it's still a damn shame. I'd still get it if I had a One, just that the One's a little lower on my priorities list now. I'll have to wait and see the NX before I make up my mind.

@Vincent294: It's a great game now! Definitely get a one if you can!

My friend got this four days early - completed it in 7 and a half hours - and told me that Master Chief is only playable for THREE out of fifteen missions!

It's like Halo 2 all over again.

The reviews are a lot lower than expected too: currently sitting at 85 on Metacritic.

As for the Master Chief Collection, the single player campaigns are fine, but the multiplayer is still broken in some aspects. It will never be 'perfect'.

I used to really like playing Halo 1 and 2 in split screen on the original Xbox however, it seems that it is no longer a priority for the developers, which is a great shame. Playing online isn't quite the same as having a friend sitting besides you.

Ryan McCaffrey on IGN, who is arguably their biggest Halo fan, has come out to say this:

@Peek-a-boo: Wow I read the spoiler I love little ones but that's mad! He's the main guy! Honestly I've been getting serious Halo 2 vibes all over with the arbiter returning and split campaign's! 85 isn't too bad but not as high as expected! Nice to see the multiplayer is good because at the end of the day that's why everyone will play for years! Shame about the campaign they've made it look great so far! Still I'll give me thoughts after I've played it tomorrow!

Considering Ryan McCaffrey is a huge Halo fanboy that is a little concerning. I'm getting it mainly for the campaign so I hope I'm not massively disappointed but I probably will be. I was a little worried about 343 after what happened with the Master Chief Collection.

@Gamer83: Nice to see a fellow Nintendo/Xbox fan be sure to add me same as my user name I read some spoiler free reviews and people say the lack of chief isn't too bad and the missions are fun also apparently multiplayer is good but needs infection!

@DoctorOverbuild:
I'll add you next time I'm on Xbox Live. As far as the reviews, I've read a lot too and opinions are all over the pace regarding the game. As usual, I'll just have to play it and make up my own mind. I don't really put as much stock into reviews as I did when I was a kid. I wasn't going to skip this one anyway so whatever.

@Gamer83: Awesome I look forward to playing! And yep I've played every halo so I wasn't going o miss out on finally getting a new hall on new gen hardware! I have a feeling it'll be fun but I'm one of the fans who didn't enjoy 4 as much as the others as if just lacked the halo feel! But I'll support the series till the end!

@DoctorOverbuild:
I actually liked 4 so there's a chance I'll like 5 as well. I'm just disappointed that since 343 took over the games seem to have dipped in quality. An 85 is still good but the Bungie-made Halos were routinely scoring 9s and 10s. The only exception from Bungie was ODST but that was really just an expansion and it still averaged an 83. I don't know what to think about the future of this series under 343 but I'll stick with it and hope for the best as well.

@Gamer83: don't get me wrong halo 4 wasn't bad it just wasn't as like the other halo's! 5 will be good but maybe one the good I want it to be!

@DoctorOverbuild:
Halo 4 multiplayer was definitely different. I thought the campaign, which is why I usually play Halo, was a pretty typical Halo game though. I did think the direction they went with some story elements was weird, however.

@Gamer83: Yeah they kinda axed out the whole one Spartan thing and completely ignored the whole alliance with the covenant/humans and changed up the covenant completely

MGS2 was the best version of that spoiler mentioned above. Lol

@bezerker99: Considering MGS2 came out before the advent of the internet being the dominating force it is today, that spoiler, in that you only play as Solid Snake on the tanker part of the game, was genuinely mind blowing and was an extremely well kept secret!

Metal Gear Solid 2 isn't my favourite in the series, but it had more memorable twists and turns than any of the others to this day.

My friend has asked me over to play multiplayer with him this weekend, but truth be told, I haven't enjoyed Halo quite the same since Reach, which I thought offered the most consistent campaign in that there were no duds amongst the dozen or so levels/missions.

343i are never going to recapture Bungie's work, no matter how hard they try.

I'll get this at some point next year. I'm put off by the lack of split screen as I like to play Halo in local co-op and split-screen online multiplayer on the same console.

@Peek-a-boo: Reach is my favourite campaign. I agree with how consistent it is. Good grief that ending.

Yeah halo 5 didn't live up to expectations..

I'll admit, halo 5 did improve everywhere that halo 4 utterly failed on, the promethians are actually fun to fight rather than absolutely annoying with knights every 2 minutes.. and the story does make a bit more sense with a ton of epic moments (halo 4 you kinda felt like the whole plot was meaningless... halo 5 brings back the "oh everybody in the universe is screwed" vibe).

The gameplay is pretty fun, it's definitly something to keep replaying over and over.. however halo 5 has waaaaay too many "take em all out before proceeding" firefights that make a speedrunner want to scream. It can get repetitive very fast.. it's like replaying the library from halo CE every mission, except rather than waiting for a door to open you have to actually take the flood out (or in this case promethians/covenant) atleast 20 times in the campaign... landscapes look beautiful but there are so many ledges sometimes it's hard to figure out where to go (thankfully there is a view objective option, so you're not completely lost). The pace felt very much like spartan ops instead of an actual campaign. The new "medic" mechanic I feel just took difficulty out of the game, you can just run out there and melee everybody while getting shot at and not even care since allies with heal you anyway.. this isn't online which is a good thing, but it does feel like I'm playing a lego game with forever lives and no respawns while in campaign. Now I can kill hunters by just meleeing them, because my allies will just heal me as I fall... oh btw hunters got much stronger, they can take a LOT more hits. Knights are ridiculous as well but they're as common as hunters, they become more of a boss enemy and like I said, you'll just get healed everytime you die rushing after them.. it just takes the skill out of the campaign and discourages players from realisticly taking cover or anything, 0 drawbacks to doing anything. Although you're dead if you fall and I think if your vehicle explodes your dead, however those situations rarely came as mantises are twice a fast now, banshees got shields, and wraiths aren't really drivable anywhere.. basically you're over powered the majority of the time.

...once again the covenant looks ugly and stupid. Jackals still look like lizardmen and this time THEY TALK which goes against the actual lore of halo with their voice boxes, grunts still don't look like grunts, but their actions, voices, and quotes bring back the halo 3 grunt profile. The elite's still look eh, and the arbiter doesn't look like the arbiter at all.. I actually was wondering "is that really the same arbiter? it can't be that armor isn't even close of a resemblance.."

Basically the covenant was completely reimaged still and ignored most of their lore... just like in halo 4 which really bothered me since 343 is making the halo universe their own instead of building off of the already established lore.

Vehicles look pretty decent.. the wraith is taking time to get used to as it looks nothing like a wraith.. but it isn't terrible I guess (looks like a starwars tank though), banshees now have shields which as a banshee pilot in previous halos, I love the buff, but I haven't fought enough banshees to see how ridiculous this decision may have been... perhaps my instant improvement with the banshee is enough validation of how borked it got, but who knows.

Only one new vehicle was added, which is the Phaeton, it's actually pretty cool.. it's literaly like the hornet from halo 3, not too different. Still no sign of any scarabs and the harvester I guess they didn't care enough about to actually make useful outside spartan ops from halo 4... Mongeese are still useless, and I actually haven't seen a gungoose yet... literaly, I thought they were scrapped until I researched and apparently they are in the game.

That's pretty much it.. it's a fun game overall but as a halo title, it improve from halo 4 but still didn't recover the damage halo 4 brought to the franchise.