Halo 5 : Guardians Review

Halo 5: Guardians is an upcoming first-person shooter video game developed by 343 Industries and published by Microsoft Studios. Part of the Halo franchise, the game is scheduled to be released worldwide for the Xbox One on October 27, 2015. 

The basic story this time around is this :- Master Chief is missing, Jameson Locke is sent to find him, and the Forerunners are still the big bad of the franchise. Everything else in-between is kind of a blur. The campaign features 15 missions in all, and is heavily built around the concept of fireteams -- which means you'll have three other characters following you around at all times, ready to take orders by way of AI constructs, or as player characters. As Halo 5 opens, you're introduced to two Spartan squads: Blue Team, which is composed of the Master Chief and three surviving Spartan-IIs — Linda, Kelly and Frederic; and Fireteam Osiris, led by former ONI assassin Jameson Locke (if you played last year's Halo 2 Anniversary, you'll recognize Locke from the new Blur-produced bookend cutscenes) along with former ODST Edward Buck and new characters Olympia Vale and Holly Tanaka. As Osiris is dispatched on a secret mission to rescue Dr. Halsey, the creator of the Spartan program, Blue Team is assigned to secure a derelict research vessel in danger of being discovered by the Covenant. From there, the Chief defies orders and sets off to investigate a mysterious message from a familiar voice, and Locke and Osiris are ordered to bring him in by whatever means necessary. Halo 5's story is less scattered and confused than Halo 4's, and 343 has wisely ditched hiding important backstory in terminals scattered throughout the game.

The campaign is structured a lot like previous Halo games, though the game has a couple of combat-free areas that show up between a few missions. This gives you the opportunity to walk around an area and listen in on conversations before walking up to the person who sends you on your next mission, but there isn't much to do in these areas other than, you know, walk up to the person who sends you on your next mission. It feels like something that should have either been a larger, more meaningful inclusion or something that should've just been cut out and replaced with two lines of dialogue at the start of the next area. The game has its trademark vehicle sequences, but these areas don't feel as large and expansive as they have in the past.  Beyond that, you make your way from one objective to the next, shooting Covenant and Prometheans as you go. The meaningful campaign difference this time around comes from your comrades. If you're going the solo route, you can order your team to move to certain locations, or attack specific targets. It's rudimentary at best, as the only command you have is a single d-pad stroke that does either of those two options, but it's very cool to see your team banter and blow enemies away by your side. What's more, your Spartan chums come equipped to get you back on your feet. If your shield is depleted and your health run down, nearby Spartans can revive you. If there isn't one nearby, pressing X will alert them and bring them to your side. This changes the nature of Halo a little, in that you rarely find yourself dying more than once or twice in any given section, but it gives 343 a little lassitude to throw in enemies or situations that might previously have been too difficult. Best of all, you're not forced as a solo player to nanny the AI yourself, as downed Spartans will either be revived by your team-mates or will eventually respawn at the next checkpoint – though a risky revival is occasionally worth it if it turns the tide of battle.Yet the most important role of your Spartan squad-mates is that they add so much character to the game. 

The constant chatter of the team during battle adds energy to every situation, just as the presence of Cortana did in the Halo games that came before. Weirdly enough, it's Spartan Locke's missions that benefit most, partly because Team Osiris benefits from another game-stealing performance from Nathan Fillion as Buck; a cynical, wise-cracking smartass who vies with the grunts for the script's best laugh-out-loud lines.  Levels feel much larger than in previous games, taller, with more enemies to shoot and more angles to approach and attack from before, likely in deference to your now-always-present Spartan teammates. The inadvertent traffic jams that would result during co-op sessions in games past from too many players trying to move through too-tight corridors are gone, and every player has something to do all the time. The online co-op, as you might expect, makes the whole experience a bit more exciting, since you're working together with other living creatures. Players have to choose a character before the session begins, and only the player playing as the leader (Locke or the Master Chief) can give squad orders. Wherever you go and whomever you’re playing, you’ll always find battle raging, and 343 has pretty much mastered Bungie’s core routine of delivering a string of action bubbles that’s always keeping you moving forward, facing different foes in different situations, working out which approach will work out best. Not only do you have the Covenant to contend with but also the Prometheans, giving you two sets of enemies, each with distinctive ranks, weapons, styles and behaviours.

Halo is always at its best when it's forcing you to improvise, making the most of the space available and the weapons you have to hand to rip through the enemy as effectively and spectacularly as possible. Halo 5 is full of those moments, giving you what's evolved into a superb set of USNC, Covenant and Promethean weapons, with some wonderful new additions, and encounters where you're pushed to make the most of them. Fans will also be glad to know that there are more large-scale, vehicle-ready sections this time around. Halo 5 allows zoomed-in aim on every weapon for the first time. 343 has also added a wrinkle of its own to the mechanic. Aiming while in the air invokes your Spartan's stabilizers, allowing you to hover for a short time. Meanwhile, taking fire while aiming will snap you out of the zoom. It's a smart interpretation of an industry standard the Halo series has, until now, stubbornly avoided, and this goes for sprinting as well. The game feels improved for these additions, not polluted. All of these changes are keenly felt in the campaign, where the game feels very explicitly designed to leverage your new capabilities. But they're likely to make a bigger difference in Halo 5's competitive multiplayer component, Arena.

Yet, if there's anything that lets Halo 5 down, it's its most cinematic qualities and, specifically, its storytelling. Small but significant scenes seem to have been dropped, while revelations that should have been world-shattering seem to be absorbed by the characters as if they knew all about them already, but couldn't be bothered to explain them properly to you. There's both too much exposition and, paradoxically, not enough where it counts. And even when the tale is being told with real skill, a strong script and good acting, I'm not sure I buy the direction that Halo 5 takes the series in. Not Withstanding, Halo 5 presents itself quite well. The game runs at a great frame rate that smooths out the action and helps make it look great. There's some "adaptive resolution" trickery happening behind the scenes to make that frame rate stick up around 60 frames per second. It's a great-looking game, and certainly one of the best in the series. The audio is also quite good, with explosions and gunfire that make you feel like you're in the middle of a battle though, the storyline doesn't convince me 100%, it's still a great game!.