Halo 5: Guardians Review

It's not terrible nor is it great. I'd say it's a mediocre game not bad but doesn't stand out or do a lot of things that are really interesting. The most interesting things about the game is the parallels to Halo 2. The game introduces a new character and is a 2nd protagonist to Master Chief. Well more he IS the protagonist, and he was never in his the previous entry, it has in universe politics in it's story, brings back the SMG, has the newly introduced character have most of the combat encounters with it's 2nd enemy type, has a multiplayer focus, you fight a giant enemy machine that is controlled by the Covenant, there is faction a civil war within the Covenant, it almost feels like 343 just wants to make their Halo 2.

I always compared Agent Locke to Kira Yamato from Gundam, and I somewhat stand by it. Both are so hated by their respective fandom but both are just "there" to me. Locke has kind of interesting backstory from what I got everyone in Fireteam Osiris does from what I can piece together. Blue Team gets introduced out of nowhere and are suddenly BFF with Chief out of nowhere. Cortana is basically Injustice Superman all though a tad bit more naunced since she doesn't want to kill Chief where the latter just kills anyone disagrees with him. All though she really comes off to me as a yandere despite that Chief and Cortana are friends. They try to make Halsey more sympathetic but the Halo canon has never done a good job at making me think she is anything less than a dick. 

Okay, I am talking about story way too much but gameplay is nothing remarkable. It has new moves which are mostly useless and often get you in trouble. Halo Infinite is better for actually having an addition in the series that you want to use. Promethan Combat is better and I will give 343 credit for trying to improve the combat where Bungie made Flood combat the same. It still isn't all the interesting since it's just really the same shootouts a lot, the arena design is pretty decent but I feel nothing stands out but is functional. The coop is where things get bad, this game was meant to be played with people. The friendly AI is really stupid. They are about as useful as human characters in DBZ against main villains whenever you fight tougher enemies especially in groups. The Warden is like Halo's Nemesis and he sucks every boss fight with him is the same. Just shoot his weak point or keep hitting him until he dies. This game and Halo 2 are toss up for worst campaign for me. Halo 2 has a lot of boring and frustrating parts, Halo 5 is just kind of dull with nothing that stands out.

I'll give this game one thing, I like how it gave the Arbiter agency and gave him his own sub plot, something Halo 3 never did. It's like Attack of the Clones, everyone hates that movie yet no one gives the movie credit for giving Obi Wan agency and his own sub plot.