2.5/5 ★ – THRILLSON's review of Halo 5: Guardians.

343 tried to do too many things here. The biggest crime is have 3 levels dedicated to walking around. Talk to person A, they tell you to talk to person B, person B says go back to person A, then next mission starts. There are too many guns, so there isn’t a very good sandbox. The UNSC weapons got some redesigns that I am indifferent to, but their weapons are kind of the best and you almost never get to use them. Your loadout is reset every level, and all weapons can do headshot kills on unarmoured targets. The plasma pistol BR combo is still supreme, but now it just feels like you can use whatever gun you want, instead of having to utilize the weapon sandbox to fight effectively. You have 3 squadmates at all times, but they are barely better than the Marine AI from 2. They constantly run ahead and die, or stand there instead of reviving you or each other. I played on heroic and most of my deaths were because the controls are awful - the auto aim is atrocious, and the look acceleration is too extreme - or i die because my squadmates did something stupid. The gameplay also feels much easier playing as Chief. The squadmates suck a bit less, and the enemies seem to have less health. I played on Heroic because that is usually what the games are most balanced for and it just felt easy. You get knocked down instead of dying, your teammates can gan up on one enemy, and there are a lot of vehicles. There is also little variety, the missuons are just like COD shooting gallaries. There is no steal sniper mission, or grand vehicle battle. Locke and his teammates other than Buck just suck. They should have made Buck the player character honestly. Locke is even more wooden than the Chief. He is basically the same as Noble 6, an ex ONI assassin and allegedly the best of the best. The marketing billed some Chief Vs Locke, Old Vs New story and they interact once, and Chief just pile-drives Locke. The sense of humour from the original trilogy is absent too. Buck tries to be comic relief but he doesn’t have many lines. I’m also tired of the covenant, but the Prometheans arent fun to fight. There is 3 enemy types, and one of them is just a jackal clone. The banished are more interesting and plot friendly, but I guess 343 weren’t there yet. I don’t care for the art direction, but the graphical fidelity is extremely impressive, especially considering it was released in 2015. I also appreciate 343 trying something new, then realizing it didn’t work. Because Infinite sounds like a step in the right direction. I like the story implications and exploration of AI, but we needed more time with Blue Team. I’m glad it was short, because this was the first halo where I didn’t feel compelled to find all the collectibles.