{"id":23161,"date":"2015-09-23T06:33:23","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T11:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/?p=23161"},"modified":"2015-09-23T06:33:23","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T11:33:23","slug":"halo-5-first-impressions-game-informer-coming-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/?p=23161","title":{"rendered":"Halo 5 First Impressions: game informer -Coming to Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a reblog from gameinformer:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Halo 5: Guardians\u2019 Campaign Feels Like A Series Coming To Life<\/strong>
\nby Mike Futter<\/p>\n

\"H5CampaignSept-610\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying the power of Microsoft\u2019s Halo franchise. The series has been synonymous with the Xbox since the original hulking black and green console launched in 2001.<\/p>\n

And as much as I\u2019ve enjoyed past outings, something about the two Halo 5: Guardians campaign missions makes me feel like the series is coming alive in a new way<\/strong>. Past adventures with the Master Chief and Halo ODST\u2019s Rookie have felt solitary to the point of loneliness. Even with Cortana\u2019s infrequent chatter, Halo made its bones pitting one man against an army of absurdly powerful adversaries. \u00a0<\/p>\n

In the bits that I played, it seems that Halo 5 is shifting away from that elegantly. I experienced a mission with Chief, Frederic, Linda, and Kelly (the fabled Blue Team) and one with Spartan Locke (played by Halo: Nightfall\u2019s Mike Colter), ODST\u2019s Buck (voiced by quipster Nathan Fillion), and newly minted Spartans Tanaka and Vale.<\/p>\n

Not only does this enhance four-player cooperative play (each Spartan has a different design applied to the first-person view), but being able to direct your team (en masse, not individually unfortunately) to flank enemies or focus fire on a specific target. The command options are thinner than you\u2019ll find in recent games, especially compared to titles like Mass Effect, in which you can position individual members of your three-person squad.<\/p>\n

\"H5CampaignBSept-610\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to having four additional guns firing on Covenant and Forerunner forces, the battlefield felt more alive with chatter among the teams. Blue Team seems more stoic (though not without humor). Fireteam Osiris is dominated by Buck\u2019s joking.<\/p>\n

The two missions take place at very different points in the campaign. Blue Team\u2019s excursion to a former UNSC base held by Covenant forces takes place quite early in the game. Fireteam Osiris\u2019 landfall on the Elite homeworld of Sanghelios occurs much later (and features the giant Kraken walker seen above).<\/p>\n

While the settings of these two levels were impressive, and the game seems to be running smoothly so far, I took notice of the more subtle changes. Enemy AI has received an overhaul, with new animations that will likely keep even seasoned Halo fans on their toes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a while since Hunter pairs felt imposing. I remember my first run-in with them in Combat Evolved, and it was a terrifying encounter.<\/p>\n

When they come on the scene during Blue Team\u2019s mission, they don\u2019t do so softly. What makes things more interesting is that the old tricks don\u2019t work. Watching a Hunter swat away an incoming grenade was a signal that I needed to change my tactics, and quickly.<\/p>\n

Ordering my team to draw fire while I worked my way around the back set up a good situation to pelt the exposed squishy parts of the wormy mass with hot lead and plasma. With two of the beasts stomping around the area, it was a good thing that teammates can now revive down-but-not-out Spartans (under most circumstances). However, that doesn\u2019t mean your teammates can\u2019t be entirely incapacitated until the next checkpoint, just that you won\u2019t be reloading quite so often.<\/p>\n

While Halo 5: Guardians feels a bit different so far from past installments, it comes across as more of an evolution.<\/strong> The same can be said for the multiplayer modes, which will be able to talk about starting on Friday.<\/p>\n

HFFL:<\/strong> There we go! I like that comment. ‘comes across as more of an evolution”. THAT is what we need to see for Halo. Hmm, can’t wait until Friday’s news of multiplayer!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a reblog from gameinformer: Halo 5: Guardians\u2019 Campaign Feels Like A Series Coming To Life by Mike Futter There\u2019s no denying the power of Microsoft\u2019s Halo franchise. The series has been synonymous with the Xbox since the original … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halo-5-guardians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23163,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23161\/revisions\/23163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halofanforlife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}