12/4/2023 0 Comments Halo infinite rating![]() ![]() ![]() The problem, as has been widely reported, is the progression system, which is absolutely horrible. The fun comes from not only the quality of the action but it’s accessibility, with the unusually long TTK (time to kill) meaning that it’s easier for new players to learn and harder for veterans to take advantage of their experience. Not even aiming down sight is essential, which is a pleasing change of pace not just for Halo but first person shooters in general. What’s there is great fun, and it’s no wonder it’s been an instant hit as it’s a welcome alternative to the predictability of Call Of Duty: Vanguard and the weird aloofness of Battlefield 2042.Ĭharacters move faster than classic Halo but the action still feels enjoyably old school, with no loadouts or directional boosts (unless you pick them up as a power-up) and straightforward weapons with only cosmetic customisation. If we were reviewing the campaign as a standalone game, it’d get a 7/10 at best but the multiplayer is harder to pin down. ![]() There’s surprisingly little vehicle combat, the artificial intelligence is a few steps above the norm but never stands out as much as it did in the early games, and while there are fun sandbox moments – we literally died laughing at one moment, where we shot a Grunt and their backpack exploded, killing the Brute next to them – they’re too few and far between. Instead, the main failing is that the campaign never takes enough advantage of the things Halo is best known for. It’s easily the best new idea in the game and has no limitation on what it can hook onto, including reeling yourself towards enemies to give them an extra hard sock in the face when you get there. It’s actually much more fun to use your new grappling hook gadget, which while a collectible in multiplayer is with you from the start in the campaign. The open world design is okay but it always feels strangely cramped, with too little room for vehicles to run free and no way to destroy the trees that are always in the way. There are secrets to be found but almost all of them are highlighted on your map as soon as you get close to them, so there’s rarely any surprise as you reclaim enemy bases, blow up propaganda towers, rescue squads of soldiers, and collect Spartan cores to unlock new equipment abilities. In the campaign it becomes more noticeable simply because there’s not anything else to do. There are other modern shooters that do both things better, but Halo Infinite is not that far behind, and the failings barely register in multiplayer. And yet for better or worse the weird control system and unconvincing physics for vehicles is the same as always. The gunplay is very good, but it does lack the same distinct physicality of Bungie’s work. In Halo Infinite you’re playing as Master Chief all the time and while you’re technically not fighting the Covenant the alien species are the same as the original games, with only one rarely seen, and not especially interesting, addition. Of course, that is largely the point maybe not in terms of the low-tech visuals but while this is not a soft reboot in terms of story it is when it comes to the back-to-basics gameplay. ![]() As such, you only get to return to the open world again after you’ve beaten the story (at which point everything has become trivially easy and you’re ticking off icons from the map in a manner that makes the worst Ubisoft games seem organic and unpredictable). What they’re getting at is that after the two intro levels the game becomes fully open world until about the halfway point in the plot and then goes back to being just straight, linear levels right up until the very end. Although developer 343 Industries has been careful not to describe the campaign as open world, we think most people assumed that was just meant in the same manner as Sony’s insistence that God Of War wasn’t fully open world either. Halo Infinite won’t be winning any storytelling awards, but the strange inaccessibility of the plot is nothing compared to the peculiar structure of the campaign itself. The laconic Master Chief has always been something of a blank slate but this time round his AI companion is literally that, which means the only individual with any proper characterisation is an annoying pilot who is clearly meant to be sympathetic and, unlike the other two leads, very human, but he just comes across as an annoying whiner. Given Halo 5 was six years ago the lack of context, or even something as simple as a ‘Previously on Halo’ summary, is absolutely bizarre. There’s no clue as to who or what Master Chief is, who he’s fighting and what they want, who Cortana was and what she did, what a Halo is or… anything really. While the multiplayer has a whole separate section dedicated to explaining every element of its design, the campaign makes zero attempt to explain anything. ![]()
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