Halo 5 Review

When it comes to first person shooters many gamers sometimes forget the campaign (single player) or co-op aspects. The player base has become even more divisive in recent years with non-competitive components to games such as Destiny and Call of Duty Zombies. So the need for a solid campaign experience is there. There is an audience for it, and it is large. 

Hardline single-player campaign gamers tend to favor quantity over quality however. And in this regard, Halo 5 largely misses the mark. If you're looking for a distraction or immersion or escape from your usual grind in life, Halo 5 is not for you. There are better games for that purpose at the moment. Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Witcher 3 come to mind. At the heart of this judgement are two factors. First, the game offers no more than 7-8 hours of gameplay in campaign. Second, the narrative is decidedly weak, and is a blatant stab in the back to fans of at least one key character of the series and extended Halo universe, and ends on a cliffhanger. 

That said, within that 7-8 hours is simply one of the highest quality single player experiences of all time. Both in terms of tried-and-true classic gameplay mechanics and stunning visuals. On another front, for those of you who enjoy speed running, this game is bound to produce another golden game within that community. There are many areas of the game where simply blowing through sections and ignoring conflict are a valid strategy, as the alternative would exhaust both your personal time and your ammo and leave you defenseless in boss battles that would otherwise be cake. 

So are there any negatives? Yes. This campaign absolutely predicts the longevity of the platform. The game is clearly not running at 1080p resolution, although it does run at a silky smooth 60fps. What it does to obtain that performance however is a technological tragedy. 

The field of view in campaign is terrible. I'd estimate about 65 degrees horizontally and likely worse vertically. This isn't realistic, but is cinematic and a matter of taste. I don't like cinematic anything in my video games. Additionally, the game scales the animation frames of enemies on-the-fly, obtaining frame rate by producing some of the most unnatural looking movement seen in a video game since Enemy Territory:Quake Wars locked player model animation at 30fps. But to be honest, the gameplay is so true to the first person genre in Halo 5, I did not care. Nonetheless, given how much Halo 5 is held back by the Xbox One hardware, I don't see the life of this system going as long as the Xbox 360, and that's a damn shame. 

But I'm not here to rate the system, and while I wouldn't recommend purchasing an Xbox One to continue playing the Halo series, if you already have the Xbox One, Halo 5's campaign is worth playing. 

Is Halo 5 worth $60, however? Sadly, no. And I'd like to explain that decision, which is in the heart of the abysmally terrible competitive Arena mode multiplayer, which is well behind the times. It's slow paced and boring and unnecessarily replaces skill-based gameplay to favor strategy. It's not something I'd ever recommend. And it didn't get any better as I continued to play it. 

Likewise I'd never recommend the format of Warzone mode, which is essentially a first person MOBA (think League of Legends) that allows you to gain the upper hand through leveling and weapon upgrades. It's fun, but leaves me feeling unfulfilled in my competitive soul. Too bad, so sad. At least I got some value out of the game in the campaign.