I liked how you said Master Chief kind of viewed everyone as tools “Weapon” and “Pilot” and how he finally views them as friends at the end when their names are revealed. And how Cortana’s passing was an analogy to 343 saying goodbye to the past and welcoming the new era of halo. Can’t wait to see what 343 has in store for us for the next decade :D
It lacked the grand moments that I feel make up a lot of the best Halo games, I love 3 for the sense of scale of everything from the joint assault in The Covenant with One Final Effort playing, to the Scarab fights and even when a f***ing UNSC frigate flies into atmosphere to drop you off an armored battlegroup. Infinite was fun in gameplay but the story lacked anything memorable imo.
this was my huge issue with the game. Sure, there's a lot of space to roam free but we don't get any of those massive and cinematic setpieces that we did with the previous games, like the scarabs in 2 and 3, or the frigates, and the giant covenant ships zooming over your head like in odst/ reach and glassing a city right before your eyes, or the mammoth in four and the guardians in 5. For a game that's supposed to be the biggest halo ever, it sure did feel small.
To me, it felt like that complimented the isolated, lone wolf, "on your own" feeling the campaign was delivering. You're not backed up by the entire UNSC. You're not fighting the vast Covenant. You're the scraps of the UNSC after a heavy loss fighting the remnants of the Banished after their main fleet left. I feel that the grandiose flare is gone because Chief, and by extension the player/343,has been humbled by Halo 5.
@@TaeruAlethea The grandiose flare is gone because 343 is a shambles and the development of the game was a mess. Keep telling yourself not having that stuff is a creative decision though if that helps.
My problem with the open world is that some of the bases you need to destroy are exactly the same: expose the pylons, destroy the pylons, destroy the recycle machine eating a warthog, enjoy success. And the tings you need to destroy/activate to get into the buildings are really hard to find sometimes, or at least for me
@@nunya_bizniz yeah, but my only problem is that there's often a cluster of things in the way and it takes a long time to find, and I end up getting frustrated, but I do use that feature
That's the issue with a combat-oriented/FPS open world. This is war. Just about any mission will devolve into one of the following: capture the thing, blow up the thing, protect the thing, kill the thing. Would you rather blow up pylons or negotiate with a monitor to get more bullets? Besides, you can always just ignore those side missions. Sure, it shortens the campaign, but Halo campaigns have generally been on the shorter side.
@@samuelzuleger5134 Although I somewhat agree, I believe that it could have been done better. I suspect that the lack of variety comes from Joe Staten deleting a huge chunk of the game, because it's very easy to think of hundreds of different tasks other than open pylon and shoot at it. I'm not saying to invent a whole different system, but to make the encounters different. At one point you can be destroying pylons, next you can be destroying a super important base with high explosives, and next you can be boarding and taking down a banished ship, and next you can be assaulting a super liniar and we'll defended base. And those are just a couple of examples that I thought of in 3 minutes. And for ignoring them, I think that without them the campaign is too short, even for a halo game. If you don't do them, you spend most of your time going from mission to mission, and it turns into a walking game.
Also the fact that fast travel is really instantaneous they could have made brohammer come to pick you up and you could get to see the landscape as you fast travel but instead of that it’s just instantaneous
I think the problem is that it's all hinged on how much you like halos combat. It IS like a scaled back open world with not much to "do", but that's actually GOOD as a Halo game. The game side content are just outposts and HVT's but that's because they are side content that gets you still to playing halo and doing halo combat. It would have been halo 5 all over again if the open world lead to side content that has nothing to do with halo like talking to marine captains or some shit, but it doesn't. I'm glad 343, while doing something new with the open world, finally had faith in halo being fun in simply playing it's sandbox based content. But if Halos combat loop wasn't something that you cared about enough, Infinite is not going to win you over.
I feel like a few more Halo style objectives would have been a nice way to shake things up. More dynamic encounters like an invasion or maybe a Scarab being deployed somewhere would add more flare. It's a shame they haven't introduced any new vehicles because that would definitely make things more interesting. Maybe we can get that stuff in the future.
@@gabethebabe3337 yeah those are good points, but I'm actually exited that they still could add all those things like how BOTW added the guardian trials
I liked the gameplay in infinite but the open world and mediocre narrative are making it impossible for me to finish the campaign. I’m absolutely bored out of my mind due to those elements.
I like GmanLives and sometimes he's right (TLOU2) and sometimes he's wrong. He's wrong about Infinite. I am a supporter on Patreon, but I am not going to deepthroat his boot for being 100% right. God forbid some of us have our own opinions.
Solid video man, been looking forward to it. I'm with you on a good amount of it, and some things not, simply because of having different experiences or not having a connection to the story myself personally. I think the one area where we split the most is the point on exploration because we're emphasizing different things. You really like the open world because of the freedom of exploration, I don't like it because when you're exploring there doesn't feel like much to discover. I definitely agree that it's a good things the map isn't bloated with hundreds of ubisoft objectives and side quests and collectables. The last thing I wanted was a 50 hour list of tasks. And I'm glad that it has the side missions that it does have. But on top of those, I'm really dying for SOME, even if just 5 or 6, side missions that are grander in scale. That contribute to my understanding of the world. That could possibly affect the main story in a way. That required going to multiple points of the map to complete. Etc. If it had some of that mixed in (optional of course), this game would have gone from a "decent" to "good" for me. Anyways, cheers!
@@heftymagic4814 I know all the lore and am a huge halo fan. He is completely right about what he said. This game took what was one of the most important places in halo canon, and did absolutely jack shit with it. If you consider listening to audio logs as good lore instead of actually exploring and piecing apart the lore yourself, you have terribly low standards. Also the combat is fantastic, but keep in mind like 75% of the combat mechanics were introduced 22 YEARS AGO in combat evolved. Kind of diminishes the accomplishment.
I felt that halo infinite lacked a "oh shit" or WoW moment. Like in halo reach when the unsc frigate gets destroyed by a cov cruiser that makes you think " Damn, we're fucked" or "that thing is massive!" Every halo game had this except for halo ce, the first game. The campaign was good, but I personally missed those bigger than life moments. To me halo Infinite was just all flashbacks and mystery. I also felt that the villains had little to no development. Escharum was super annoying in my opinion. All he seemed to do was monologs.
@@shouryajaiswal124 it was a 5 second fight where like 4 blows were delt. Don't get me wrong it was cool, my favorite custcene of the whole game, but it just didn't have the same affect as the other games did. It didn't blow me away. I am talking about huge, jaw dropping moments. Imagine if you were on the mission The Road, storming your way past enemies in your tank to save the pilot and break into Escharum's base. You break past all the enemy's and arrive at the bridge, only for one of those banished ships to enter the area and pass right above you like the unsc frigate on the Ark in H3. Shadows take over the land and a red glow emits from the ship above. As you look up a banished scarab descends down, landing between you and the bridge to the tower. THIS is the kind of moment I am referring to. A jaw dropping moment where you are dumbstruck. Yeah, the cutscene at the beginning of the game was cool, but not mind blowing.
The atriox fight also wasn't huge in scale. In the halo reach cutscene we see a unsc frigate, which seems huge to use arrive. Moments later we see it destroyed, the camera pans up to show a covenant cruiser that is to big to fit on screen and makes that unsc cruiser we just saw look small. This scene showed SCALE. Atriox vs Master Cheif didn't do this.
Ok, so I'll probly catch shit for this from several different parties. Did I enjoy infinite? Yes. Did I appreciate and see the value in what 343 was going for with this open world halo? Yes. However... If it meant that the piss-poor multiplayer launch would have been more in line with halo standards, I would have preferred getting a more standard halo campaign. If the campaign was the payoff and everything else wrong with this game was the cost... I don't feel it was worth the cost. If I could snap my fingers and magically turn the campaign back into a mission based, more linear halo campaign and had all those dev resources go back into making sure we had: Forge, coop, firefight [or equivalent], working customs, working theater, a true progression system, ALL staple halo gametypes and playlists, commendations and career, all on launch day for the regular halo standard 60$ with none of the F2P garbage- If that meant sacrificing this campaign, I would do that with no hesitation. As it currently stands for me, the cost was just too high. Interesting thoughts as always Nerd.
100% And then all the "trust me" moments in the story felt like 343 was straight up lamp shading the game and asking for blind faith. Congrats to them for making another halo game, but it is not unreasonable to hold a dev like this to a higher standard. Nothing wrong with thinking "what would Total Biscuit say about this?"
As much i like linear mission in older halo, i want open world halo. Halo infinite has its own linear mission, but it suffers from "the library" from CE syndrome. Open world could have more enemies roaming arround and more outpost and mor point of intrest on this part of zeta halo. For the biomes save that for the other part of the ring which is Campaign DLC. Now for multiplayer, F2P is not wrong. But, how 343 do it is wrong, store are overpriced, battlepass is lacking content. Lacking features on multiplayer and so.. on. Not to mention they restart/recycled their development 2 years ago or when joeseph staten joined 343.
I really like the open world. I feel like it could be used better though. I think it would feel a lot better if they used semi open world "levels" to break up the more traditional linear levels. Instead of the other way around like we had here. I think the open world should be the thing that is exciting and looked forward to if you know you have an open level coming up. I think that would be more effective in all aspects especially in terms of time management and polish in development
My main issue with the campaign is that the environments lack visual variety. It's a fairly long game and just giving more fauna or making the more linear segments more visually varied would have made the game more interesting looking. But man the last 3 hour or so of the game was just boring outside of the bossfights.
I didn't really like the open world but that's just because I don't feel its compatible with Halo's pacing. Do you think Halo 2, 3 and even Reach's campaign would of been as good if they were confined to one biom/20 square KM?
It’s not compatible with those game’s pacing. Halo Infinite isn’t trying to be Halo 2, 3, or Reach. It’s not telling the entirety of the story of Chief on Zeta Halo right now. They’ll be adding onto it, and so it’s ok that we haven’t explored different areas of the ring yet, or taken a trip to another planet.
@@tyjones9864 Its not okay, for full price, it better tell the whole story of Chief and Zeta Halo, otherwise why are you paying for a $60 prologue when the $40 story DLC wont even be half as long? And why are we agreeing to pay extra for the same variety and level of story that used to come right out of the box day one? How does that make sense from a consumer perspective? ODST had an amazing openworld that had variety and didnt detract from the story. In Infinite, you cant even repeat missions and the entire story is either hologram based cutscenes that are criminally under explained and poorly executed, or audio logs like its Fallout 76 or something. You wouldnt even know it was called "Zeta Halo" unless the advertisements told you, because they never even mention it in game.
I can't believe Gman said the music was not memorable. Charging up onto the house of reckoning with "don't tell me the odds" playing was one of the most powerful moments in a halo game. Also the hunter fight before the spire where "Know my legend" plays was amazing.
I'm so glad you brought up halo CEs banshee hijack. When me and my friend first saw that thing sitting on the ground (we were 10 btw) we were both super excited at the prospect of snagging one for ourselves and flying around for the FIRST time in a video game. We did indeed feel very smart
Yeah, critics reviews are very much confusing me… you hit it on the head describing how they are playing different games. Some people say it’s bland and too big, some people say it’s the og combat evolved magnified. Wtf is happening
Who tf says it’s like ce? I’ll say personally that resembles 3 in the combat abilities to a certain extent but, where is the comparison on ce? In ce warthog was indestructible, it had an actual shotgun, and a lot of things that were ambitious in their time due to being new and evolved
the game felt very checklist-y to me funny grunts? check wisecracking marines? check bungie artstyle? check references to past games? check sniper jackals? check a lot of things felt forced together (no cohesion) and given the development of the game i think some of the devs would be inclined to agree
how else do you organize a production lmao You try making a game without a checklist. I have! It's impossible. Scrapped and re-built three times. Never making that mistake again. Also are they just supposed to not do any of that shit? Again? For a third fucking game? Piss me off even more?
@@xalener yep dev teams do scrap a lot of content (extreme example: bioshock infinite) because the devs didn't think it was good enough. There's a difference between connecting the many parts of a story together and making a checklist like "we need a warthog run, we need a giant boss fight, etc. etc. and done"
Thank you for surgically, precisely, and brutally destroying Gman for his Doom bias. It was extra sweet knowing this game did the polar opposite of everything I hated about Doom Eternal, and took the best part of that game and made it even better, all while paying homage to Doom 2016 with Chief smashing a control panel. Thanks you content stealing hack. I love you.
I understand now why 343i refrained from calling it an open world and yet I understand those who do call it an open world. You can play the entire game and get nearly the full experience without back tracking. I think it is my favorite iteration of an open world next to Metro Exodus's sandbox chapters.
It's funny because I played both and Exodus absolutely destroys this game when it comes to open world. Far more immersive than Halo Infinite. You actually feel the danger when roaming.
@@nightdriver7216 Metro is a fucking boots-in-the-mud horror drama lmao why the fuck should Halo, an ego shooter space opera, have the same emotional goals? This take fucking reeks.
Man, I wish I had enjoyed the open world as much as you. I really enjoyed my time with the campaign and I think it's easily the best since Reach, but I did not enjoy anything about the open world gameplay. I enjoyed the copy-pasted hallways more than being forced to roam around the world. I thought the open world was shallow, uninteresting, and tedious
I don't know if I'd say that any vehicle other than the Banshee or Wasp provide a advantage over the grapple hook, in fact the ground vehicles seem to be an absolute PAIN to drive as they flip over the smallest obstacle (343 really dropped the ball with how most vehicles handle in Infinite) and most of the map is just giant cliffs and gorges that cannot be traversed quickly with a wheeled vehicle anyway so the fastest point from A to B is still the grapple shot that you start the game with. The Mongoose therefore becomes pretty much completely obsolete from the get go and, since the marines armed with power weapons on a Razorback meta is so good, so is the regular Warthog and rocket Hog. And don't even get me started on the handling of the Scorpion, arguably worse than that of the CE iteration. Plus a Razorback filled with Rocket Launcher marines seems to blow up even Phantoms faster than a Scorpion anyway, so why would I ever use anything else? Also, I can't help thinking that the main reason why people never fast traveled in Infinite is because the map is so small. Far Cry's maps are orders of magnitude bigger than Infinite's, so fast travel in those games are more or less mandatory.
non-aerial vehicle traversal outside the Ghost is absolute annoyance for the majority of the time, exasperated further by marines not being able to drive anything themselves, or not having a playable multiperson aerial vehicle like the Falcon to basically get past the difficult terrain issue. You're forced to take the Razorback or the Warthog if you want marines to come along with you, but to do that, you'd have to traverse terrains and elevations obviously not built for these vehicles so you just end up going alone anyway.
@@RuthwikRao Honestly it seems like flying is hit or miss as well, I cannot even begin to count how many times I've been EMPd out of the air by enemies using cheap, unavoidable hitscan shock weapons and the Banshee and Wasp seem to be made of wet tissue paper in the singleplayer as well so you end up swaping vehicles constantly. Unlike what ShredderNerd says, I definitely WANT my flying vehicle to be overpowered, especially if capturing it proves to be something difficult to do. The CE and Halo 3 Banshees were strong, the Reach falcon was an aerial tank, the Infinite flying vehicles are...subpar. I'd go for the grapple even if I had a chance to use an aerial vehicle, it is just way too good compared to the rest of the sandbox.
The marines being quippy is the same as its always been, only its LESS good... Doesn't anyone remember how the cast of marines in Halo 3 were like 50% Firefly actors? The marine dialogue used to be so good, and a knockoff of Whedon... the guy who made Marvel dialogue.
The music, atmosphere, characters, enemies, locations, and story were all Amazing! It was a fun ride, and I hope to see more variation and biomes later on for the world. I love chief being a big bulky spartan! He has that weight and mighty presence a spartan II should have! Having no fall damage and jumping down from a mountain to then quickly eviscerate a squad of banished in seconds is so damn badass, and really adds to that power fantasy! He also has some great human characterization going through the story. Him so confused to being hugged is great and shows how emotionally disconnected and socially awkward the early spartan IIs are. Good stuff on this review! It's like some people reviewed it and just pretend like they know halo. Great overall analysis! 😁👍🏻
I think this story is worse than Halo 5's. There's so little there and it's so simplistic and it makes no effort to connect to the events of previous games. It sloppily throws them away to pander to the fans who just want to feel nostalgia.
I wish that there were more outposts to do. I think that they should do something a bit similar destiny's public events alongside the outposts, in which its a event that can be replayed in the world and isn't a one and done sort of thing.
Escharum deserved a better game with a better story. “The endless” is a bad attempt at recapturing the flood threat (which doesn’t work because it’s really difficult to match what was an eldritch abomination that would have effectively killed the universe) and really should have just focused on the Banished entirely. There’s potential in the Banished as a proper enemy faction and Infinite actually does fairly well at establishing how much more efficient they are than the covenant. Genuinely a shame. What makes it worse is that this is the enemy Halo 4 and 5 needed, but we are probably never going to reset to that point
I’ve come to terms with the fact that 343i’s vision of Halo is just not for me. Superficially, Infinite is a return to its roots, but gameplay wise it just doesn’t do it for me. To me, the campaign was repetitive and same-y throughout. I never felt inclined to try new weapons because they either came with minuscule amounts of ammo, or were so niche as to not feel useful most of the time. I agree 100% about the ammo boxes. I would have happily used other weapons, but when I’m literally putting myself at a disadvantage by dropping my BR to do so it doesn’t feel great. The open world is an empty gimmick. Not that gimmicks are bad, but this one is. There is not enough there to make it interesting, and getting a Wasp or Banshee feels great because I just get to ignore it, which isn’t a good thing. I really just find 343i’s brand of gameplay super dull. I literally play the Halo 3 campaign weekly to complete challenges in MCC, and I don’t think that it’s only nostalgia making me have fun every time. There is a magic to those original Halo games that 343i just cannot capture. And that’s not saying that Infinite is bad. It’s a fine game. But this is the last time that 343i have burned me. I’m over it. I’m a classic Halo fan now, through and through.
Halo Infinite is the Doom Eternal of 2021. When it came out I saw a mixed bag with really big doom and boomer shooters loving it while more casual gamers liking or even disliking the game since it wasn't 2016. Both games are "hard", have a "controversial story", good enemy design and thought out level design, unique weapons that serve as tools in their respective game, good graphics on a new engine, in game cutscenes, and of course a grappling hook with a big green bad ass whose only purpose is to kill bad guys. Both games aren't perfect but to me they are basically close to masterpieces a FPS can get
Ehhhh, idk. If Doom eternal was open world, it would crush Halo in terms of gameplay. We’ve been fighting the same 4 enemies for 20 years and to me, Infinite just doesn’t bring as much to the table as Doom.
@@RomeHam nah i think doom eternal open world would be a very bad idea. Doom eternal was so well balanced from the start to finish (except for TAG2, which was developed during corona) with maximum 3 optional fights each level top. And each of them are doable but very hard at the point you are supposed to play them. An open world would be 80% filler with very little sense of surprise or escalation.
"Did you know you could fast travel during your first playthrough?" Lmao after capturing the first fob it literally fucking does a whole tutorial sequence about fast traveling, you absolute nob (I love you)
agree more than I disagree, but there are some obvious underpolished parts of the open world that you didn't touch on. the environment being non-destructible makes the Scorpion frustrating to use when you can't crunch over a small tree stump (or blow it up.) so much more could have been done with the marines, but every aspect of them seems unfinished from being unable to drive vehicles to their clone-like appearance. if some of the marines were given actual character design, they could have dispensed some fun optional side-quests to make the world feel less empty
I do feel like what you said about BOTW possibly being the missing link is true. It has a similar approach to how it handles side-objectives, although it's on a much larger scale. And the world navigation feels similar too, with it's mountainous terrain and mix of on foot and vehicular movement.
Yeah Cortana apologizing to the players as 343 was too much for me. We get it 343 you finally wised up just a little bit to what fans want. Deliver! instead of making a story out of an apology.
I despise the grappling hook. It takes away from the gunplay part of the game and the traversal part of the game, which are stellar as long as you don't use the grapple
When I played Infinite, I did 2 different playthroughs; first on legendary while trying to do everything, and a second on normal just trying to speed through the game as quickly as possible, and ignoring most of the open world stuff. I ended up having a lot of fun with both playthroughs. I think it's a testament to how well designed the game is that I can enjoy it playing it however I want to.
I'm fascinated with everyone's opinions on this game. The experience that I had and continue to have as I repeated playthroughs solidifies my initial thoughts on this game being one of my favorite shooters to date.
@@toddhoward1133 Same tbh. Just out of curiosity, were either you or OP on controller or KB+M? Among my friends the KB+M users like me seem to have enjoyed the campaign significantly more than the controller folks. It would be interesting to see how platform and control choices correlate with opinions on the campaign.
@@Cheezmonka I literally just got a new keyboard and havent used it yet because I always play halo with a controller. Interesting analysis but I think it's just a coincidence. I think its fantastic on controller but I'm also a fan of KB+M on alot of other shooters like half life and metro.
Much agreed Splinterborn, I have completed the infinite campaign and was severely disappointed. Though I guess I should've expected from 343's track record in the franchise so far, at best infinite displays an "Ok" game Story 3/10 LevelDesign 3/10 Combat 8/10 Campaign replayability 5/10 Is how I would rate infinite.
I don't think Infinite will ever match the OG Halos but it is fun. That being said their servers are attrociously bad, and considering Microaoft has trillions of $$$ there is no excuse for them not prioritize that issue. I would also like an option to disable cat ears... I miss the weeb armor of Halo 3 already...
“The game was long and boring” aka “I wanted to get this review out fast and quick for that sweet RU-vid algorithm money so I ignored most of the game”
the open world in Halo Infinite is dead! Nothing outside the Missions (generic side mission garbage is also nothing). You got a FOB and can infinite spawn supplies...fail! You wiped out all enemies...enemies spawn infinite after you leave the section...fail! If a dev the concept of a open world doesnt understand you get garbage like Halo Infinite. A level based or more open level are better for games like Halo. Tell a story (epic) with interesting levels and cutscenes (epic music) and you have a good halo. An OW fails everytime on games like Halo, Mass Effect....
I felt like halo 1,2,3 had way better gameplay feature. They feel like that the marines always had your back. It felt like a team game and you ( master chief) are the captain of the team. Halo 1 was like guerilla warfare Halo 2 was like defense ops Halo 3 was full scale war Halo infinite's open world suffers from AI problem and repetitiveness. They could have added different maps ( like witcher 3 ) like jungle, forest, winter land etc . They could have upgraded the Ai for both the mariens and enemies. Make the mariens more important. Sorry for my bad english.
The Gameplay was Awesome, but the Story Really Disappointed Me. The Banished don’t Make Sense as a Faction, the Endless Crap Really Reeked of Fanfic Vibes, Escharum was Consistently Stupid, etc…
The marvel quips kinda suck in the story, but Halo has always had funny dialogue in the AI since CE with the grunts, and Halo 2 introduced all the AI having funny dialogue.
The one thing I really cant accept is the weapon changes. I loved weapons like the DMR and shotgun, and even further back the plasma rifle, and I hate to see them be erased from Halo. It's not like i hate their replacements like the bulldog or pulse carbine, but I feel that they dont deserve to be just cast aside.
These RU-vid critics play games to criticize them. It's a grift that holds very little value; they either validate an established consensus, or tell people who do not know how to think, what they should be thinking. Imo it is the ultimate waste of time to play a game for the sole purpose of comparing it to the ideal of what a fun game 'should' be.
Further proving your point, I completed the game with only a fully upgraded grapple, and 1 or 2 upgrades to my shields on heroic. I knew there was a fast travel, but I didn't use it until after I completed the main story when I was finding the Spartan cores and Mjolnir armories and whatnot. All the reviewers in this game are what we halo players call "modern gamers" where they need sprint, fast travel, navigation, and all those "quality of life" features that modern games have, and they haven't seen the masterclass that is bungie's level design, and how halo infinite is the closest thing 343 have gotten to. Instead of comparing halo to other games, compare it to what it's trying to replicate: the original trilogy. edit: when I say "we halo fans" i dont mean that in a "we are better than the rest" kind of way, it's just that I can't find the right terminology
My problem is that the Covenant shouldn't still be the enemy. They lost like 15 years ago now but they keep getting brought back and its getting boring. Not only is it getting repetetive fighting these guys over and over but its also a massive wasted potential in the narrative. Spartans were originally meant to be colonial enforcers, so why not make that the subject of a game? It's the logical progression for the story. Have Master Chief be ordered to put down a rebellion on a planet or something and work from there, either he can destroy the rebels or defect to them, either way it would make for a great and deep story, whilst still building off of things present in the franchise. Human enemies could be a good change for a game or two, especially when Master Chief has to face rebel spartans... or what if you play as a rebel and face Chief at the end as an ultra-tough final boss? I just think it would make for an interesting departure from how the franchise has been going so far, idk maybe Halo 5 does this but I haven't played that one and I don't think the core Halo gameplay should be changed like I've heard Halo 5 does.
i hate that because Halo Infinite has an open map that people compare it to open world games.... like no, Halo Infinite should not have "skyrim" like features with side quests and dungeons. It's a Halo game, it's a first person shooter and not an RPG.
Coming back over a year later, and there is nothing to bring me back to play the campaign again like other Halos. It all feels like a big blur of outpost and same-same interior level design. It's a shame, because the open world had so much expansion potential, and we were all holding out for campaign DLC that we know isn't going to happen. I would have also loved to have seen more classic set piece levels akin to classic halos that take place all around the ring. The gameplay is a hell of a lot of fun, and more structured sandbox arenas with challenges like scarabs, would have allowed to tools given to the player to shine even more. Ultimately it was a fun campaign, but in the end it was left out to dry with unfulfilled promises of DLC.
I played halo 3 and halo reach for years after they released. I only played halo infinite for a week and haven been back since. Something is just missing....
The problem with halo infinite's open world imo is that it didn't really add anything of value to the game for me what I mean is that even if the game was just a sequence of missions like in previous games its quality would have remained the same not to mention the side missions are repetitive and get boring once you've completed a couple of them, instead of having a 100 things if they only had a few side missions but had worked to make them all unique that would've been a better open world experience you can look at metro exodus or deus ex mankind divided for example both these games do small open worlds and all the side missions are different in some way from one another.
"YOU NEVER NEED TO FAST TRAVEL" Clearly you aren't a 1337 g4m3r yet 1. Spawn the best weapons 2. Spawn Flying Vehicle 3. Fly to objective 4. Kill/liberate objective 5. Fast travel back 6. Go to 1 Seriously? How have you not discovered this loop yet?
You think this Open-World is magnificent? Jesus christ okay... I disagree at 100%. For me, this campaign don't feel like Halo, lot of stuff we do are repetitive, there're so sens of urgency, the villain is stupid and talk way too much, the one-man army for this game make no sens. I'm happy you liked the campaign and men, i'm a bit jealous, I waited 6 years for a new Halo campaign and at the end, I asked my friends to force me to finish this boring campaign.
14:38 ok, I will say, my brother from another mother and I beat it on normal , then heroic , then legendary twice . And the importance of the side stuff goes up not just exponentially but to an almost necessary degree when playing on legendary. You will NEED certain toys / weapons and so on as you attempt the latter half on legendary. The game felt to us as if it is meant to be played on legendary. OR heroic solo (as most halo games solo) . But you will find these side things / missions much more fun and enjoyable with a buddy on legendary. They change the entire scope of the game and your experience and your understanding of strategy within. This was our observation through 4 play throughs .
Sup ShreddedNerd, I'm the aforementioned brother from another mother he's referring to lol. So, not only do I agree with Corey here, but I'm a bit surprised that you said that certain toys / weapons aren't necessary. Corey and I have played Infinite 4 times now together and having the upgraded spartan core abilities are an absolute must in harder difficulties. Playing it with someone else or even three people (well, at least if said third person doesn't quit and have a temper tantrum after smoking weed 😂), abilities make it that much more smoother. We also found that the extra bosses with said weapons really help build upon some strategies that are needed later on into Infinite's campaign.
I hate Not-Cortana. She wouldn’t stop talking about going to the bloody dig site. I DONT WANT TO GO TO THE DIGSITE YET NOT CORTANA! Also Brohammer is terrible. The Sidekick is also a terrible design.
The open world wasn’t well curated. If you think of RDR2, the open world is designed around movie- grade curated linear story missions & then stitched together into a seamless whole. In infinite, the open world feels very copy & paste, lacks immersion & lacks depth. Sometimes literally- the lakes in infinite are never deeper than knee height. They are little more than flat puddles. Every FOB is carbon copy identical & hence lack any character. Where are the barracks? Where do the marines go to eat, sleep, take a dump?
Good review. Like most people here, I’ve been playing the franchise since the beginning. And I still believe Infinite provided the best story of the entire series. That moment when the pilot breaks down about at the half way point in the game and Master Chief comforts him by saying failure is what makes us human. That moment was when 343 completed the Chief’s character arc they started in Halo 4 - Chief finally accepted that he was human. That was the moment when the game clicked for me. I’m a little sad in that I have not seen a single reviewer mention this.
The story drama between the trio main unsc characters was really the best aspects of the campaign. I gained spine chills for the pilot and started loving his character more and more, same for the weapon as they both get fleshed out. The chief too. I loved all the halo throwbacks and quotes mentioned in gameplay and cutscenes during the story missions. They were goose-bumps inducing. What I am sad about though is that the antagonists didn't get their characteristics fleshed out enough, they were mostly cannon-fodders from the story cutscenes. I think Escharum and Harbinger were the most fleshed out antagonists but I don't think it was enough. Jega was a side-antagonist who lurked around, very cryptic but showed really good potential. I'm glad he wasn't killed off from the game entirely. I am anticipating his DLC greatly.
I don't think there is a bad story in the franchise (other than Halo 5). I think Bungie had a way they told their stories and 343 currently have a different way they tell theirs. I think it comes down to preference about which games edge the others out. I think Infinite has the best story followed by Halo 4 because of the arc of Master Chief accepting his humanity. However, I think the original trilogy is still a masterpiece. I'm about to get nerdy here for a moment. At one point a decade ago, I was in game design school. (I never finished that major and eventually got a degree in journalism.) We learned there were two major ways to present a main protagonist. First: His character is stagnate but he changes the world around him. This is how Master Chief is portrayed in the first trilogy. For similar characters, think Luffy from One Piece or Goku from Dragon Ball. Their characters almost never evolve but their actions change the world around them. Second: You have characters who change due to the events occurring around them. This is how Master Chief is portrayed in 343's trilogy. His character adapts and changes due to the surrounding events. For an outside example, think of Walter White from Breaking Bad. The events surrounding his life changes him completely. Bungie used the first form of storytelling while 343 used the second. Both can lead to great stories and both have been used in Halo now to great effect. I slightly prefer 343's form of storytelling but still love what Bungie managed to produce with the original games.
My favourite strategy in the entire game was basically being a squad leader leading my hand picked marines with am assortment of weapons I chose for them, I messed around with many possible combinations, in some places marines were optimal but the main reason I did it was because I felt cool, I hope in the coming dlc’s that are going to come out they add some rudimentary squad commands because that would be really cool. My only criticism about the weapon sandbox aside from my complaints about the ravager os the disruptor needs more telegraphing, at the end game where I unlock the wasp it is hard to use when one grunt is shooting practically hitscan shock damage at my vehicle which I have no problem as a concept merely the fact I had no idea they were shooting at me nor did I know where they were; aside from that the open world almost never frustrated me. All the other times I got frustrated was with certain bosses but anger in a good way because every time they beat my arse on heroic the more I want to t-bag them when the job is done, Harbingers best move was to bring out a chieftain when I was desperately low on ammo it took me a while to beat the chieftain and then her but I was overcome with a sense of pride and accomplishment, how did 343 make boss battles good, I thought Halo was doomed to have bad ones.
What you're really missing to understand the open world genre is not zelda, but space sims. Elite was the first open world game ever made, and it spawned a genre.
Great review man. You really summed up my thoughts perfectly. Infinite's "open world",for me at least is perfectly designed. You unlock the whole map throughout the story,you don't have it there ready to be explored from the start like most open world games. It's really fascinating to see that the game allows u to play it however u want. For some the "open world" is just a tool to complete the story. For me it's a well crafted world, with well thought encounters and Easter eggs u can find. The FOB and the bases in general serve as something totally optional. Yes the objectives are repetitive but the process of completing those objectives is fun. The best way to describe this "open world" is old halo levels that u can access even after u complete the specific mission. Something else I wanted to mention is that although this whole area is the same biome,it didn't get boring. It's not like it's just mountains or smth but the world has a variety from lakes to canyons to mountainous terrains and even after a good amount spent just roaming free I didn't get bored. The story is very misunderstood imo. Many people expected something else (myself included). I certainly didn't expect the story to be a character driven one but it's still great. The way its written, I feel like they wanted to wave goodbye to the old halo stories and create room for other halos to come and the potential is crazy.
Aww man, Where did you guys get your copy of halo infinite ? i wish i had gotten the same halo infinite you and the people in the comments played, i got the bland, empty and boring open world halo infinite with a forgettable and awful story.
3:15 I completed the campaign on normal and I'm now replaying it on legendary and I'm really enjoying it all. So far I haven't even considered using the fast travel in fact I couldn't tell you exactly how to fast travel other than knowing that you have to do it from FOBs. I just love the open world so much. 343 really did a great job making zeta halo interesting and beautiful. My only concern is the disappointing lack of awesome, memorable and badass moments, other than when chief jumps into the pelican's bay. Even halo 5 had that sick opening scene.
