H5 MP Beta review

After having played a few hours of the H5 beta I have some thoughts. I have played Halo since the very first day, and have only ever skipped 1 game – Halo 4. That will affect some of what I say here as I have not played the 343 stuff before.

Anyway, this is clearly Halo. If you still like the game play it has everything you like, if you are an anti-Halo guy this game probably won’t convince you. The same frantic game play is there and all the same tricks exist, for better or worse. It’s run
up shooting someone and then melee them. It’s jump and shoot and control the high points on the map to get lucky headshots.

The 2 maps are both great. 1 is the remake and one is a brand new but it feels like a combination of old maps. Either way they are great and perfect for Halo.

The weapons feel fantastic. Even the **** rifle feels advanced and hi-tech. The battle rifle and DMR are just awesome. The sword is of course prominent. The sword, imo, is the best and worst thing to ever happen to Halo multiplayer. It’s still the all powerful
weapon it has been in the past. You either love it or hate it I think, and if you control it in a game you win. The biggest issue now is there is no hammer or shotty to counterbalance it. Personally it is one of the biggest reasons I stopped playing Halo
or only play Swat – the mad rush for the sword over and over just got old. I don’t think the gameplay ahs changed enough to make a difference.

The armor abilities are cool. Some seem a bit overpowered, like the basic flight abilities. However even the little dash that you start with is nice and seems a bit more natural than the armor abilities in 3. However it still feels like they are Titanfall
Lite. Spartans are just not as maneuverable as Pilots, and that’s okay.

As far as game types the slayer is still slayer. I think that making "power weapons" part of the game type though just exacerbates and highlights the problem of weapons over skill. I think the intro is kind of cool, but seeing the winning team posing at
the end is silly, cheesy and immature. I don't know if Halo 4 did this or not but I want this removed right away. I like that there isn't time for the immature **** of the past, but watching the winners celebrate is totally not necessary - even as a winner
in most of my matches.

Basically after a few hours of marveling over the feel of the weapons and smoothness of the weapons I decided I was sick of either running from the sword or protecting the guy with the sword and turned it off. I will probably play some more later, but I
don’t feel the pull like I did with Titanfall or any of the newer shooters. I will most likely buy the game simply for the single player and to have the option, but the beta so far has not wowed me. I love it like an old friend, but I just don't know if we
will hang out 24/7 like we did in the days past.

:)

 

Problem downloading latest update.

I spoke a little too soon. This update didn't go without a hitch. When I went into my games section, I noticed on my internal drive that both my MCC and H5 MP Beta games tiles were missing. I popped in my MCC disc, which loaded up and brought back the tile
(the data was all still there). The bad news now was that the H5 MP Beta was all digital info that I got through the MCC PI Menu and has been greyed out since it ended almost 10 whole months ago and removed from being able to download ever again. With no game
tile for it, the data is completely inaccessible; I can't see it, use it, nor move it, etc. I know it's still there because the HD shows the amount of space used/left. I've had this experience before where I had the ACIV:BF free DLC, but I didn't have the
actual game to make the game tile - until months later when the game was free with gold, which fixed this issue.

The H5 MP Beta was one of the items that I really hoped to always keep, that I feared this update would screw with, and it did. All my other games on my external HD were completely fine. I learned my lesson from this and began transferring all my other games/data
on my internal to external except MCC because it has a tiny link to the H5 MP Beta. I really hope that somehow one day I may be able make it work again. Here's to hoping.

 

Halo 5's "new" features

I mostly only play Swat. Bare bones and head shots. I like the look of H5 MP ground pound looks/sounds sweet!

 

I played several games of Halo 5 beta - although I'm not sure of the number my guess would be around 50. The SMG got a major boost but appears to be two handed now. The BR seems to be the weapon of choice, thought none of the maps featured much long range
so DMR was a bit hard to compare. The DMR seemed less accurate and with a greater kick than previous incarnation. I had a hard time gaugeing sniper riflie but it also seemed to have more kick and also much easier to be descoped. I really am not a fan of
the aim down sight Smart-link. Ground-Pound and sliding seems to be pulled from Destiny. I am glad it is not easy to pull off though. The only reason I can see using GP is to get a double kill and I''m sure if you can do a triple kill with it that would
be cool. GP seems to be more of a style point thing. I don't care for GP and it seems gimmicky and hard to justiify in Halo universe. Maybe it is supposed to be incorporation of the Grav Hammer tech.

I wish they had brought back dual weilding as it added a lot of variety. I'd like to have a better feel for weapon balance. BR seems to be the best all around weapon, as opposed to DMR which seemed the best all around weapon in H4. I am unsure of how
SMG balances against shotgun. I'd think in close shotgun rules, but with a bit of distance I'd expect the SMG to have a decent chance. Of course with Spint, slide, and thrusters that may not be the case.

I wish the thrusters worked more like a mini-jet pack when air borne but that's not the case. On the ground thrusters are pretty cool. They were never the favorite armor ability in the past but with everyone having them now we'll see how people get to
use them. I like that the game feels faster with sprint and thruster. I'm not a fan of the aim-down sights and especially not while running, but I don't view it as a deal breaker.

The grenades seem pretty good, not wimpy and not over powered. I don't care for the way the new rocket launcher looks but didn't get much of a chance to use it. Renaming the sword is silly but it seems as effective as always. I didn't get a lot of chance
to use it and didn't do anything fancy like Sprint/Thrust/slide combos. That might be cool.