Gaming

Halo 5: The pro review

Epsilon's Halo pro Snipedrone delivers his verdict on Guardians.

Written by Tom East

4 min readPublished on 10.12.2016 · 15:55 UTC

Halo is back! Three years after the release of Halo 4, 343 Industries have released their first all-new Halo game for Xbox One, and not only can fans get stuck into a fresh campaign and multiplayer action, but they can look forward to watching some incredible competitive play when the best players in the world compete in the Halo World Championships.

Epsilon's Snipedrone has already won a Halo 5 championship at Gamescom earlier this year, and he'll be hoping to follow this up with impressive performances now that the game is out. To get ready for the season, he's been getting stuck into Halo 5's campaign and multiplayer. Here's his review.

What's the story?

After Master Chief ignores his orders in order to find Cortana, Locke, another Spartan, is assigned to hunt down Chief. You play as both Chief and Locke throughout the game, although you play more missions as Locke, which was slightly disappointing as Halo is and always has been about the Chief in my opinion, but it felt like they focused more on the new character.

That said, the storyline and cutscenes are great. It makes you want to keep playing to find out what happens to Master Chief and Cortana, even though the campaign does get repetitive when you're killing entourages of aliens. Of course, that is what Halo is about, but it is good when you get to drive some sweet vehicles as well, such as The Banshee and Scorpion. The locations are remarkable to look at, too.

New vehicles and weapons

The only new vehicle is the Gungoose, which is basically a Mongoose with a rocket-like gun attached to it. It's good fun to use, and I can see casual players enjoying using it as well as pro gamers. It gives players more of a reason to use Mongooses.

As for weapons, the new ones are the Hydra and Plasma Caster, both very powerful weapons if used correctly. The Hydra is missile projected, which can lock onto opponents, whereas the Plasma Caster fires plasma grenades at the opponent, something that requires a bit more skill to use as you have to predict where your opponent will move. It's my favourite as getting a kill with it is very satisfying.

It's all very smooth and crisp. There is a lot less aimbot in certain weapons, which makes it a lot harder to use them, essentially making the game more competitive.

How hard is Halo 5?

I played the campaign on Legendary and, even though I play competitively, I had to keep on retrying missions as I kept dying! The toughest enemies you face are the Hunter and the Warden. Both are incredibly hard to take down, and at the same time, hard to avoid being killed by!

Maps and multiplayer

The maps are all beautifully designed and there is a selection for both the casual players and the competitive players. My favourite is Coliseum.

However, of the 18 maps, some of them are very similar to others. All 343 have done is change a few things on a map that they've already have created, and then decided to call it a different name. More variety is needed.

As for modes, there is a new gametype called Stronghold which is going to be very big in the competitive scene. It's all about map control and positioning, and knowing when to give a position up to the enemy. Its very enjoyable and very fast paced.

Also, Warzone is a completely new gametype which is mostly aimed at the casual players. It's a big team-based mode with bigger maps than what you would see in Arena (Arena being the playlist for the competitive scene).

The thing I really like about multiplayer is the new ranking system. If it works properly, every game you play will be against players of the same skill, meaning it will drive you to get better at the game.

Halo 5 will be a good eSport and I really enjoyed it, but there are things that could have been better. As well as a greater variety of maps, I'd like more gametypes as there is hardly any compared to previous Halo games. 343 have taken out modes which have been around in Halo since the beginning, like Oddball and King of the Hill.

However, more gametypes could be added in the future, but they should have released more at launch.

Snipedrone's Score

8/10

Do you agree with Snipedrone? Tell him on Twitter @Snipedrone

This way for more Halo action!

Snipedrone was talking to Tom East.