Okay, so maybe not that late night, but considering I woke up at 5:20 a.m to get some quality Halo 5: Guardians time in before my class, 11:30 was late. There will be (maybe?) minor spoilers below but if you can handle it, read on! But don’t worry; I won’t give away any narrative elements in my write up. You’ll have to either watch the stream, or wait for its release. And as a side note, I apologize for my camera. I was using the Kinect and for some reason it basked me in an eerie yellow-greenish glow.
I only streamed the first two missions, Osiris and Blue Team, but you can already get the feel for what you’re going to get once the game hits on October 27th. And what to expect is *Spoiler Alert* fucking awesome. There was a pretty good question asked during the stream last night on whether or not the Halo universe will exhaust it’s creative output eventually leading to the demise of the franchise. While I will go more in-depth in my official review, my quick answer is no, and this is hinged on the fact that even though it’s only two missions previewed, innovation is ample. On a purely mechanical standpoint, the gameplay has shifted in the latest game. Not only do you get to play as two main characters (similar to Halo 2), you have an entire fire team who fights alongside either Master Chief or Spartan Locke. Every time I’d go down due to absolute carelessness, or the over-abuse of being a jumping Spartan, you’ll have a short window where your team can revive you without having to return to your previous checkpoint. But fear not! I still died a few times; death hasn’t entirely disappeared. I’ve played it on Normal and Heroic and both have this feature. I’m assuming on the hardest difficulty (LASO) may disable this, but I’ll have to get back to you on that one. The only problem I see is that by virtue of having a fire team by your side, you’ll want to play co-op. You can’t. Yes, this is annoying. Yes, I will probably shell out money for that new, sexy Halo 5: Guardians Bundle (which I saw in real life, and damn!) so I can play with my SO. But at its obvious 1080p, 60fps, it’s worth it.
Your Spartan’s movements are also more fluid and mobile, in it’s evolution since Halo: Combat Evolved. The latter seems quite fitting for what you can do now. You bodyslam through walls, you use the thruster pack to avoid enemies and projectiles and ground pound when need be. While these additions can be seen as removing from the simplicity of Halo mechanics, it doesn’t really; the essence of what makes Halo combat wonderful remains.
So yeah – so far, so good on Halo 5: Guardians’ front. Due to rules and regulations, I can only stream/talk about two more missions, numbers 3 and 8 which I will get to this week for y’all. Also, I will be streaming a snippet of the multiplayer soon which if it’s anything like the beta, I am so damn excited.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for exact date and times and I’ll see you guys there! Until then, you can live vicariously through the internet.