Having played a bunch of infinite, I’m really not sure I’d call it a “triumph” yet. The networking/desync problems are frequent and severe, the customisation is severely lacking, uninspired and far too greedy. The lack of matchmaking for certain modes is a strange choice, and there’s some really boring game modes (the energy seeds mode, just why?)
Maybe the campaign is good? But if they’re launched as 2 separate games, I don’t think the campaign being good should give the multiplayer a pass.
Indeed. I spent 2+ hours today repeatedly trying to get into a games only to run into disconnections and loading issues. I ended up being able to play maybe 3 games.
Bit of a cognitive dissonance between journalists and Halo fans. Shocker.
I've played Halo since Combat Evolved on Xbox, and played in the test flights of Infinite and was playing more last night. The core of Halo Infinite is good. But the release is not a triumph. Pretty much everything outside of the core game loop, in my opinion, feels half thought out. From the incredibly limited number of maps considering the 6 year development cycle (a greater duration than between Halo 2 and Halo Reach), to the universally hated battle pass progression system (even amongst players who were new to the franchise whom I watched on Twitch), unreasonably expensive armour customizations, three launch playlists, very buggy campaign experience, no Forge. The list goes on.
They had a lot of time to get this right, and as far as the feeling when you play multiplayer goes, they nailed it for the most part. But only if you happen to like any of the 6 maps and don't mind being forced into an incredibly narrow selection of game modes.
The feeling is the most important thing. So long as the core is Halo, it’s OK if they bolt on everything else after release, IMO.
Launching with 10 maps is disappointing but understandable given the depth of modeling resources that were required for the open world campaign. Halo 2 had 12 and Halo 3 had 11, with much more onerous ways to add maps compared to today. I don’t think the limited number of maps will overly limited Infinite.
Limited game modes sucks but at least they will get us more in early Jan. I’m sure maps will be a quick follower as well. Forge is scheduled for May, which is unforgivably late but at least they are including it. I can’t think of many games with a Forge-like feature.
"BOTTOM LINE - Microsoft wanted to release the latest “Halo” with the new Xbox, but avoided disaster by putting the release off to fix serious issues with the game."
Judging from about 20 hours in the multiplayer (As well as the reviews that have started to roll in), It's a bit early to say they "avoided disaster". There's a lot of glitches and an unbearable amount of server desync on the online front, and many reviews for the campaign cite it being repetitive, with an uninspired story. I'll still check it out to see if the criticisms are accurate or just an over-exaggeration.
I’ve had really strange bugs in multiplayer (clipping into walls on spawn and can’t move, bizarre visual glitches, and yeah bad desync), but the campaign so far is visually gorgeous. Given how atrocious the original launch trailers were for gameplay 1+ years ago, and how gawd awful Halo 5 was, had Microsoft launched on the original timeline it would’ve been a franchise killing disaster.
There’s also serious problems with the monetization scheme that has the potential to alienate players (it’s already doing that). If 343 is going to treat the Halo franchise as a GAAS that’s both depressing and a “well I guess that’s the state of gaming now” moment.
I can’t play multiplayer on PC anymore at all. The game desyncs at all times and it is unplayable. I submitted at ticket and received a reply that they have no solution for me at this time.
The campaign is awesome; and same with Mulitplayer. The only issue with multiplayer for me, is that there are only a couple maps, and pretty much no PUG's really play the objectives.
Otherwise, it's doing Halo type stuff in an open world + grappling hook is elicits the same type of fun we all had playing Halo CE at lans.
I'm not the biggest Halo fan by any stretch; the last Halo I completed was Halo3; only playing a couple hours of 4, Guardians, Reach, and never touching ODST and HaloWars(1 & 2), but I'm hooked on playing the campaign on Legendary.
The negativity with this game is ridiculous. I have experienced 0 glitches in the multiplayer and the campaign is excellent. The issues everyone is having is with the multiplayer monetization which i dont care about since i dont spend money on cosmetics.
If you are spreading fud about glitches and the game being “broken” then find me one reputable news source reporting on these issues.
This seems well timed given the actively raging fans in /r/halo that are upset over the monetization scheme, lack of Playlist customization, already rampant online cheating, and the myriad of other technical issues.
I think they managed to avoid cyberpunk levels of disaster.. but it's a bit early to call victory.
There will be loud complainers for every major game that will ever be released at this point.
I've been playing it quite a bit, and sure I'd love more maps and at first the experience seemed to be given too slowly, but the gameplay itself is pretty rock solid and it's the most time I've put into any multiplayer shooter in a long time.
Easily played it more than the last few Call of Duties, Valorant, and Fortnite combined, and more than I played any Halo game since Halo Reach.
Also, if I had to pay $60 for it, I might not have tried it for quite some time, since I haven't really gotten into the past couple of Halo games. It being free made me go "sure what the hell, let's try it."
I even paid the ~$10 for the battle pass, something I never usually do, but I felt like I had enough fun with it it was worth tossing them $10.
Oh I agree, to be clear I am not one of said raging fans.
I am a big fan of the series and think they've done a fantastic job with the game, aside from some rough edges. The open world campaign especially has been a really cool experience so far.
What bothered me though is I don't think those raging fans are totally off point. And the 343 and MS response rubs me the wrong way. Not only on Twitter, but this article is (to me) a naked PR attempt to control the narrative and do some damage control. As much as I enjoy the game, there are still flaws, it was massively delayed, they haven't released forge, and calling it a "triumph" without first establishing a record of success comes off as pompous.
Exact same experience for me (though I probably would have bought it either way). My sense is that the reddit vitriol is from a vocal but small minority.
I think Cyberpunk might have faired a little better on criticism if it hadn't been teased along to the public for most of a decade. That level of buildup set expectations pretty high. Combine that with a few things they weren't able to deliver and an extremely buggy launch... Well, I don't think people would have been quite so vocal. The PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn was highly anticipated but as far as I was following things Sony kept it low key. When the launch flopped with graphical glitches, unplayable bugs etc., I didn't see the same level of vitriol.
As a casual player (i.e. someone who doesn't even know what desync means) the experience has been perfectly fine for me. The only gripe I have is occasionally the servers go down and the game can't find a match. But that's a small temporary issue that's to be expected from their big launch.
Infinite is amazing if you’re a fan. Campaign is unreal. I feel like I’m playing a Halo RPG.
Halo 5 was The Last Jedi of the franchise.
Halo Infinite saves the property.
Anyone can make a laundry list of complaints but seriously, after 2 weeks of multiplayer and 24 hours of campaign, I don’t care. At my age it’s just not that big a deal.
Just yesterday I read a Reddit post which I can't find now with a very long list of issues with the game. Some of them quite serious and most commenters apparently would prefer to pay for the game instead of getting this unfinished monetized product.
> most commenters apparently would prefer to pay for the game
I think, at this point, this is known - but it's limited to certain segments of the audience. A lot of gamers have happily dropped hundreds of dollars on Paradox titles (keeping up with the DLCs) without ever feeling that gut wrenching guilt you get from interacting with freemium systems - even while outspending the average user by a large margin.
Freemium games have several really big flaws that have come to prominence lately - one of the biggest comes into play with competitive games. If the game has no acquisition cost then bans are really hard to enforce so cheating can be extremely common.
The biggest flaw with freemium games is that they become infested with cheaters, because there's no economic cost to starting over with a new account.
That's assuming anyone is even doing anything about them cheating in the first place. Most publishers seem to only react when streamers draw attention to someone cheating.
I saw a COD: warzone youtube video where the streamer got someone banned by messaging an activision employee; the player was riding around on an ATV, instantly shooting every player. They get bounced mid-game.
It's a "fuck yaeaaaa, activision!" moment...until the streamer goes and looks at their game stats and sees that they had a lifetime K/D ratio of something like 20, where TWO is practically world-class...and that they'd played dozens of games. The streamer asks: why weren't they bounced (or at least subject to account review) simply by having wildly off-the-chart stats alone?
Because Activision doesn't care. Cheaters don't really impact their bottom line.
Halo Combat Evolved is how I got into software development. It only had LAN multiplayer, but tunneling software on your PC enabled you to play over the internet. That blew my mind in high school and I got heavily involved in the community, writing mIRC scripts, chat bots, forum plugins, application skins, and so much more.
Man I spent endless hours playing and coding back then. But I never could get into the later Halos. The gameplay was so drastically different. The CE pistol was the ultimate weapon. It was always available and had the potential to bail you out of any scenario. But you can’t solely rely on it to win competitive games. Powerup timing is king. Everyone knew the exact second overshield/rockets would spawn, so there was a natural flow to the maps as teams pushed to gain these items. Halo 2 and beyond removed all of this.
I played the game for the first time today (free on XBox Pass), and was very surprised. It positively feels like a game from the late 2000s, in every aspect, and especially in multiplayer. Boring graphics, stiff movement, cobbled together audio... I'm puzzled how it has any appeal.
Funny, mine and my friends experience is the exact opposite. For Halo, the movement feels better than ever, like what you'd expect a truly "20s" Halo should feel like. The game just felt a bit fun.
I'm not in any way a halo snob either, tried it cause it was free and found my expectations were exceeded.
Halo has always been a very slow (and therefore kind of boring) FPS. I guess its real claim to fame was that it was the best one could do without a mouse. Super overrated game IMO.
Your criticisms about the gameplay are very unique given criticisms of this game in general are almost always qualified by saying the core gameplay loop is good. Why dont you give a comparison of a gameplay you think plays better.
CSGO, even though it’s still essentially the same game released in 1879, has much more interesting gameplay. The maps are designed for interesting combat and not just piles of boxes scattered at random. The Halo maps look the same from every angle.
Apex, Overwatch have much more natural movement and better graphics. Even PUBG with the worlds most terrible engine/movement/physics has more fun to offer.
Dropping in to point out that Halo Infinite is way too unoptimized/resource-hungry for a PvP/Arena shooter game that loads (mostly, in user experience) simple maps with simple objects. I didn't see a significant difference in terms of graphics quality between this game and the Doom reboots, but Doom can push up to 200+ FPS on Ultra settings in my laptop while Infinite barely manages to scrape 50FPS in its open maps on the lowest possible settings.
They definitely rescued the campaign IMO. Multiplayer is missing quite a few features, though it is a load of fun as is and feels distinctly like Halo.
> a load of fun as is and feels distinctly like Halo.
Which is no small feat making a game that feels fun like Halo (as we remember it), without just retreading on the same themes. 343 could have made "another Halo game" and I don't it would have felt like Halo fun.
How are we to be certain that this isn't already happening?
I have a sneaking suspicion that most of Reddit top posts, whatever Google news recommends, and any media / Hollywood / game blog is astroturfed and paid for.
Huge fan of infinite's multiplayer. They knocked it out of the park in my book. Need splitscreen support to seal the deal though — Splitscreen multiplayer is the ultimate halo experience, in my mind.
Halo (particularly Halo 2, 3, and Reach) defined the modern multiplayer FPS.
Halo Infinite is the worst multiplayer FPS game I've played in years. To sum it up in a sentence, it isn't fun to play. My friends and I, who have been playing for decades now (yeesh, I'm getting old) are still on the Master Chief Collection because it's at least a good time. Infinite just feels like a grind, and I'm sad this is how kids experience video games today.
Can you elaborate on what exactly took the fun away from you? I have had the whole MCC co-op experience too, and Infinite feels like a breath of fresh air to me with its faster-paced high-thrill gameplay as against the old slow and sluggish movements in the classic games. The new guns and tools feel great as well, there's always something new to try when you drop in a map (especially in the campaign); it never felt like a grind to me.
While I don't agree with the OP that Infinite took all the fun away, there are certain minor inconsistencies in the sandbox implementation as compared to previous Halo games that keep it from being as great as it could be. That said I've always thought Halo was the best fps implementation, in agreement with the OP.
-No friendly fire changes the dynamics and risk assessment of throwing grenades, one of the primary combat 'tripod' legs. No longer do you have to weigh the option of throwing a grenade to aid a teammate for fear of also killing them. Are they in a capture zone? Throw everything to got to help keep pressure off of them.
-Melee hit detection is wonky, as is the lunge. To be fair the range and stickyness of the lunge seems to change with every iteration and it takes some time to get used to it. But, there is something off with the hit detection. I've gotten, and been victim of, one-hit melee kills to the front, as if it was an assassination from the rear.
-I greatly feel the loss of Reach's 'shield threshold' mechanic. For the unfamiliar, there were few instances (1hko weapons primarily) where damage would 'bleed through' shields and into health. When the shield popped, so did any overkill damage from the attack that took the shields down. What this boiled down to was a very binary point, if shields are up a melee attack will only take down their shields, if their shields are down, it'll finish them off. Coupled with a very clear visual indication when someone's shields went down, it became an instinctive part of the flow of battle, to me.
-No collision with teammates is pretty awkward. Several times already I've had someone walk through me right as I fire a rocket, which explodes on the back of their head, killing me. At least with friendly fire they'd die as well and maybe learn to stay clear of the guy holding a damn rocket launcher.
-The battle rifle feels wrong. I can't expand on that, it just hasn't gelled with me yet.
I haven't had a chance to play the campaign yet, so my experience is all multiplayer. The biggest complaint I have is that there is no reward for playing well. It ruins the online experience and is the root cause of all the issues people have had so far, imo.
Strongly disagree. How do you release halo without slayer? That's all i care about. 90% of the ranked matches are oddball for me. I'd rather player Halo 5
The problem with Halo 5 is that you can't actually play it on a PC so it doesn't matter if it's better if you don't play on a gamepad/console.
I do wonder what the numbers would be like if it was available, then we'd have something to compare and if it turns out the MP in Halo 5 was pretty good and Infinite was mostly a 'side grade' or just marginally different that would have been very interesting.
So I played #HaloInfinite campaign last night and the night before. As a former Halo/Halo 2 player (I've played sequels as well) I'm ok with new campaign but it just makes you realize how much of a masterpiece and how great Halo 2 was. I have no way to demonstrate this but I was at one time one of the top Halo 2 players globally (top 200 or so) so I know the franchise well enough.
In Halo 2, you were fighting to save the world. That's awesome. From the moment the game started you felt like you were in a race against time to stop the Covenant. It was epic and the story progressed linearly.
The main issue with the new campaign is that you find yourself in an "open world". But unlike other games like Assassin's Creed or Skyrim, the open world doesn't add any value. You don't level up and the special weapons don't make sense.
Like ok I drive around the cramped spaces and then I can get this special “rare” plasma pistol. But I don't always use a plasma pistol. So... cool I guess? I drive or fast travel to get the special weapon? And the same with the mini-bosses. Why am I fighting mini-bosses? Is this Halo or an RPG?
Ultimately the game suffers from someone just not being in charge and lack of clear vision and direction. It has no soul in the design. It's like the developers saw that open world games were popular and said "me too!". You can see this in other choices as well such as the plethora of unbalanced and useless weapons. This can get fixed in the future, but the "kinetic" versus "energy" distinction and how you might be supposed to use both really (and the ammo crates everywhere which make 0 sense) feels forced and not well thought out. Like the plasma carbine.
And this is to say nothing of the Battle Pass system or any of the monetization aspects, map making, or multiplayer in general.
The one thing they definitely got right is the feel of the game. It feels great to play. I wouldn’t be able to tell any difference between it and Halo 2.
The story itself feels cringe. The writing is terrible. Like Hollywood cliche every step of the way. This guy who is always complaining about everything. There’s nothing EPIC about the game. In Halo 2 I felt like I had to rush to save the world and everything made sense. In Infinite I feel like I’m just trying to find a banshee so I can not have to fight through pointless groups of enemies to get to an objective. Ah yes the two hunters Marvin (or whatever) and they're on the UNSC’s most wanted list. Ok? Am I a cop now too? I guess I get an "achievement" for killing them. But what if we just didn't have them and got rid of the achievement? Sometimes when you add things you take away more than you add.
I was really surprised to see all of the positive comments here. Maybe I’m just an old guy yelling at a cloud now and don’t get it. Idk. Like does nobody remember how scary and creepy the flood was from CE? Whatever happened to the mystery and theater?
Christ, Bloomberg's UX is atrocious. As soon as I opened the page, I got hit with 3 separate toast messages, and a subscription modal. I don't understand why companies think this is an effective way to draw eyeballs/subscriptions to their sites.
"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."
So clicked the link, was presented with that useless cookie page. Begrudgingly accepted because really, I go there so rarely I don't really care.
Then it was "Ho, do you want to be notified of..." beeeeeeeep no I don't go the F away. I still haven't READ anything yet mind you....
So I scroll down 2 pixels and a huge neon blue banner invites me to DO SUBSCRIBE FORE MORE COOL STUFF.
Hmm sorry, what was the link I clicked on about, can't remember already - poof delete tab.
Maybe the campaign is good? But if they’re launched as 2 separate games, I don’t think the campaign being good should give the multiplayer a pass.