The controls in Halo were excellent and the game is extremely balanced in multiplayer. I can’t think of another game that is balanced well enough where people are willing to use so many different weapons yet still have a great chance with the default weapons they spawn with.
The campaigns are another story. I still believe the stories are inconsistent trainwrecks and 343 hasn’t figured out the hook from the classic Halo’s. To be fair, I’m not sure Bungie ever figured out what made the campaign in Halo CE so good. In order to avoid the #1 criticism of the first game which was repetitive levels, the game has eliminated backtracking and gone with CODs general level design. Halo 2 and 3 still maintained the general sandbox and varied swings in pacing but 343 has eliminated that as well too. It’s now a traditional stop and pop linear cover shooter.
While the new controls feel great, I’m afraid they’re going to be damned near impossible to balance in campaigns. In order to offset the fact you can now run circles around enemies, they’ve made enemies bullet sponges. The extra CPU needed for 60 fps has resulted in dumbed down AI. If they ever had the horsepower to return the better AI and gave enemies the same sprint ability to keep up witb MC, I think it would alienate the casual gamer. It would be too fast and too hard unless enemy sprint was turned off at lower difficulty levels. I think 343 has painted themselves into a corner. If Spartan abilities stay (and by all accounts they will) campaign needs to be something very different. It can’t be a linear traditional shooter. Might be time for Halo to go all in on reinventing itself. If they fix the MCC, I can live with this.
The campaigns are another story. I still believe the stories are inconsistent trainwrecks and 343 hasn’t figured out the hook from the classic Halo’s. To be fair, I’m not sure Bungie ever figured out what made the campaign in Halo CE so good. In order to avoid the #1 criticism of the first game which was repetitive levels, the game has eliminated backtracking and gone with CODs general level design. Halo 2 and 3 still maintained the general sandbox and varied swings in pacing but 343 has eliminated that as well too. It’s now a traditional stop and pop linear cover shooter.
While the new controls feel great, I’m afraid they’re going to be damned near impossible to balance in campaigns. In order to offset the fact you can now run circles around enemies, they’ve made enemies bullet sponges. The extra CPU needed for 60 fps has resulted in dumbed down AI. If they ever had the horsepower to return the better AI and gave enemies the same sprint ability to keep up witb MC, I think it would alienate the casual gamer. It would be too fast and too hard unless enemy sprint was turned off at lower difficulty levels. I think 343 has painted themselves into a corner. If Spartan abilities stay (and by all accounts they will) campaign needs to be something very different. It can’t be a linear traditional shooter. Might be time for Halo to go all in on reinventing itself. If they fix the MCC, I can live with this.
but yeah the series just doesn't have the same magic in it's campaigns that it used to. To be fair it's hard to hold up the quality 7 games in but it just seems like it's going in the wrong direction with 343 at the helm. I still think of the first one as one of my favorite games of all time, waiting for them to give the MCC some One X love and I'll buy it just so I can play through Halo again.
