HALO 5: GUARDIANS - CAMPAIGN RE-REVIEW

jackcooper98
Feb 3, 2016
3 min read

I miss the good old days.

Do you ever look at a game series you used to love, and wonder what the f**k happened? In 2001, Halo was released, and because of it and it’s first sequel, gaming was changed forever. After all, Halo 2 is the reason Xbox Live exists. A few years back, Microsoft bought the series from it’s creators, Bungie. Shortly after, they released Halo 4. Or, as I like to call it, the beginning of the end.

Now, we have Halo 5. Sorry, Halo 5: Guardians. I cannot tell you how much I wanted this to be good. Halo 4 put me off the series for a really long time, and Microsoft promised us a better second attempt. Unfortunately, it appears the word ‘better’, in their minds at least, means completely ruin a formerly great game.

I’ll say it now, so I can get the praise, minimal as it is, out of the way. The only thing Halo 5 has going for it is the graphics. I won’t deny it, they’re great. The use of motion capture in the cutscenes works brilliantly, and the in-game graphics look great too.

That’s pretty much where the good stuff ends.

Master Chief, play the games or not, is one of the most recognisable game characters. He’s awesome. That’s a given. With Halo 5, it seems Microsoft went in a new direction when it comes to character development: Boot out the awesome super soldier in the green mega-armour, and bring in a collection of new characters no-one will care for. Unsurprisingly, it really, really doesn’t pay off. Yes, Buck is back. That’s where the novelty ends. Locke, whilst he may have some ok moments, is boring. I don’t even remember much about the rest of his team, because all they do is get shot when I needed them alive most.

Chief gets his own team too. Luckily, I had done some expanded universe reading before playing the game, so I was fully aware of who Blue Team was. But most people didn’t. That means that these guys show up out of nowhere, and don’t mean much. It’s a shame, because they grew up with Chief, and they’re all awesome in their own right.

Onto the main story, it’s really, really not what anyone was expecting. The trailers promised an epic clash of heroes as Locke hunted Chief across the galaxy. Yeah…no. Instead, we’re given Chief searching for Cortana, and Locke and his team politely asking them to come home. Oh, and Cortana wants to save humanity by destroying them. But that’s made sub-story pretty quickly. Why they lied in every trailer, I don’t know. Why they chose a crap story instead of another great Chief game, I don’t know. It’s funny how far they missed the mark.

Even the missions are boring. The landscapes are just mixes between Halo 3’s Earth missions and Halo 4’s Requiem mission. Nothing feels new. Yes, Legendary is as challenging as it should be, but even when you’re playing the missions on normal, there’s no fun there. No Warthog runs like the ending of Halo 3. The layouts are just…dull.

Other than Cortana, the only returns to the series from the good old days is the Arbiter. He’s leading his own group of warriors and has some pretty cool new armour. Beyond that, he’s been ruined too.

Other than team gameplay, which is basically point, click and attack, there are a few new additions, such as clamber, thruster packs and ground pound. In normal these things might actually be helpful. In higher difficulties…not so much.

Oh, and they’ve taken something away. Something quite important. It’s no secret than most Halo fans started playing through co-op with their friends. That’s how I got into it. Split screen co-op on Halo 3 was always fun. But, with Microsoft being the b******s they are, have taken split screen away. What the hell are these guys thinking?!

I’m going to stop here, before this goes on forever. Halo 5 might have some great graphics and some awesome cutscenes, but a shoddy story, bad additions to characters and too much focus on new players instead of the old make it by far the weakest entry into the series. And the thing is, I’m very quickly losing hope for the next game.

5/10

All images are from my own, stretched out Legendary difficulty experience: