I rather famously don’t get on with Halo games. Or to put that more accurately, I used to not get on with Halo games. So my review of Halo 5: Guardians was always going to be a little… interesting.
When the original Xbox launched, all the way back in 2001… damn, it’s been fourteen years. It doesn’t feel like it. Anyway, back in those dim and distant days, Halo was just about all anybody raved about with regards to what was seen as a rather upstart move from Microsoft into the gaming arena.
I could see the technical merit in Halo, which looked stunning for its time, but somehow it never really “clicked” with me. Other gamers raved about both the single and multiplayer aspects, but I could never quite get the spirit right. Frankly, in the Xbox generation, I played a lot more Star Wars Battlefront than either Halo or Halo 2. For the Xbox 360 generation, you’d probably find me playing Red Dead Redemption, Earth Defense Force 2015 or Earth Defense Force 2025 (https://www.alexkidman.com/reviews/earth-defense-force-2025-review/) or Borderlands/2/Pre-Sequel than Halo 3 or Halo 4, or Halo Wars, or Halo ODST. My, but Microsoft’s been behind quite a few Halo games, now that I think about it.
That meant that the Master Chief Collection, which I understand was something of a masterclass in bugs and glitches, also sailed right past me.
Then a review offer turned up for Halo 5: Guardians, right about when I had some personal changes that freed up a chunk of time. Just about enough time to plough through the single player campaign. I’d tried for a while to revisit the Halo games, but still never managed to click as I’d want to with a game that might demand hours or days of my attention.
There’s an implicit danger with jumping into the “fifth” game in a series, and it’s the fact that the vast majority of the scripting and plot sailed right over me like it wasn’t entirely there. The plus for you as the reader is that I’m not going to spoil anything about the campaign plot, because it didn’t have the same depth for me as it would for a Halo stalwart. Maybe complete heresy on Bungie’s fine vision was doled out by 343 industries, or perhaps some long hanging plot threads were tied up nicely.
I really couldn’t say, but I will say that I was easily grabbed by the simpler nature of what is in essence a story of duelling protagonists; Master Chief and Spartan Locke, and the AI-enhanced allies that come along for the ride. Including Nathan Fillion doing his best Nathan Fillion impersonation. Sure, he’s meant to be “Buck”, but there’s no denying exactly who’s playing the role, and exactly which skies you can’t take away from him. Although my better half did note that while the facial animation for Fillion was uncanny, they didn’t have his walk “quite right”. Her words, not mine. Draw your own conclusions.
As should befit an Xbox One title, Halo 5: Guardians is a lush looking effort, with a mix of high space opera settings and dusty planets to traverse over, meeting strange and interesting new races, and generally shooting them in the face several times until either they fall over, or you do. Team AI means that revival is a distinct possibility, although it does somewhat show its slightly clunky sides when this happens. It’s neat that your AI teammates will revive you on command, but all too often they’ll stand in open sniper traps to do so, which you just wouldn’t do on the battlefield.
What’s odd about Halo 5: Guardians is that while it’s long rested on the formula of having around 30 seconds or so of frantic action, short pauses and then another 30 seconds of action — repeat until campaign finishes or your controller batteries run out — is that finally I seem to be rather hooked. It may be the change in protagonists, or maybe it’s the way the campaign unfolds (again, I won’t spoil that for the Halo faithful who may be in for surprises, shocks or boredom), but I’ve been putting some solid time into Halo 5: Guardians in a way that I haven’t done with too many first person shooters of late.
There are a few new tweaks to the gameplay, mostly revolving around using the dash ability, and the fact that you have proper iron sights on all weapons now. I suspect the Halo faithful might find that a little jarring, but I found it nicely inclusive, as well as a good shorthand way to remember which weapons were really effective at range.
Yeah, there’s a multiplayer mode, but for preview purposes that only went live online last Friday. Nowhere near enough time to properly assess it, not to mention my own general lack of ability in this area. I’m sure the Halo community will judge it far better than I could. If nothing else, it’s refreshing to have a FPS with a campaign mode worth playing rather than just another tacked-on solo experience that relies entirely on online play to sell itself.
What I can do with some expertise is comment on it from a much longer view of first person shooters (why, yes, I was an adult when Wolfenstein 3D came out), and from the perspective of a relatively “new” Halo player, in that the previous games haven’t really grabbed me. That classic moment when you realise that the dawn light is breaking and you’ve been slaying digital foes all night long even though you had work the next day? I’ve never had that with a Halo game, although I have tried over and over again to make it happen.
Halo 5: Guardians has made that happen (almost), and in the context of every other competing game around right now, that’s a rare achievement. No doubt Microsoft will be pouring every marketing dollar they’ve got into getting Halo to take on everything from the inevitable next Call of Duty to Star Wars Battlefield, although going “first” against both in terms of release dates will probably help as well. I’m already on the record regarding both franchises, but I’d heartily recommend Halo 5: Guardians to fans of sci-fi shooters, even if (like me) you don’t really know the franchise history all that well. You don’t really need to, because at its heart, Halo 5: Guardians is every epic battle you ever had as a kid with your toys, with the added benefit of lasers.