Halo Infinite |OT| Negative Infinity, I don't like it

[kitler53]

Halo lost a lot by going open world, but it's still pretty good.

Also this might be the biggest shakeup in a AAA series ever. It'd be like if Hyrule Warriors was the main Zelda game.

One thing I love is that the gameplay really makes you feel like the hero. It echos back to Bungie's games where one person can change the tide of war. The plot isn't as good about this.


Early game basic spoilers, first couple hours:

Spoiler for Hidden:

You have a new cortana for your AI. Once again 343 changed her look, but I just act like only new cortana looks this way.

She's child like and it's done pretty well. Only dumb thing is that 343 really wants you to do the main quest. She keeps chiming in to make sure you're not confused about what to do next.

The pilot from the e3 demo makes no sense. He just shows up from time to time, even though gameplay wise there are better marines that could do his job.

No major glitches. Grass is broken but most won't notice. Marines dive in front of cars and go flying for miles while staying in the plank pose.

The brutes still look stupid.

Had my first crash.

epic turn around.

[Legend]

epic turn around.

Still only one crash, but it keeps getting really close.

I have recorded so many bug videos. To be clear it's not super bad, but the game could use a few more updates. Marines have really funny ai.

[kitler53]

Still only one crash, but it keeps getting really close.

I have recorded so many bug videos. To be clear it's not super bad, but the game could use a few more updates. Marines have really funny ai.

jokes on you.  you've been desynched from the server and you're save file will be deleted if you turn your console off.

[Legend]

jokes on you.  you've been desynched from the server and you're save file will be deleted if you turn your console off.

What do you mean joke?

Today I've been getting achievements for "do first X" since apparently every time I did them yesterday didn't count. Wonder what else didn't get saved.



Also the steam chart is interesting. Seems multiplayer is way more popular than the campaign. Very small bump for launch day: Halo Infinite - Steam Charts

[kitler53]

What do you mean joke?

Today I've been getting achievements for "do first X" since apparently every time I did them yesterday didn't count. Wonder what else didn't get saved.



Also the steam chart is interesting. Seems multiplayer is way more popular than the campaign. Very small bump for launch day: Halo Infinite - Steam Charts

multiplayer is free.  campaign costs money.  seems expected to me. 

[Legend]

If it doesn't have any tricks left, I think it's about a 7/10 at most.

Like Halo 4 it has a mix of both great things and trash things. Biggest issue imo is that there is so much repitition. It feels like how a small team would need to handle a game like this.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Almost every cutscene is the same.<br>Only one biome outside and only one design inside.<br>Rooms repeat a lot during main missions.<br>The pilot is the only other human in the story, despite there being large bases during gameplay.<br>They have horrible boss fights that lock you in small rooms.<br>

Also their solution to keep tanks out of combat was to make driving them a pain. Plus they have a lot of "titanium" trees.


Imagine Death Stranding or MGSV with no cutscenes and just their first maps. I enjoy playing it but it feels like a grind.

[kitler53]

If it doesn't have any tricks left, I think it's about a 7/10 at most.

Like Halo 4 it has a mix of both great things and trash things. Biggest issue imo is that there is so much repitition. It feels like how a small team would need to handle a game like this.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Almost every cutscene is the same.
Only one biome outside and only one design inside.
Rooms repeat a lot during main missions.
The pilot is the only other human in the story, despite there being large bases during gameplay.
They have horrible boss fights that lock you in small rooms.

Also their solution to keep tanks out of combat was to make driving them a pain. Plus they have a lot of "titanium" trees.


Imagine Death Stranding or MGSV with no cutscenes and just their first maps. I enjoy playing it but it feels like a grind.

typical open world repetition?  go here and kill XX enemies.  fetch this item.  that kind of crud?

[Legend]

I am done.

Great foundation in many ways, but this is a ~3 game stretched into a ~30 game. For the first time though I'm looking forward to the next Halo from 343. It just needs to be improved and expanded, unlike 4 and 5 which sent them back to the drawing board.


Will post spoiler stuff later.

typical open world repetition?  go here and kill XX enemies.  fetch this item.  that kind of crud?

Yeah gameplay repeats but the worst is that it all looks and feels the same.

The entire game is homogenous. The E3 gameplay from 2020 was the most unique part lol.

[Legend]

This was my first Forerunner Artifact, took me a second to realise this *WASN'T* supposed to happen : XboxSeriesX

[Legend]

Gonna do a full breakdown without spoilers.

The Amazing:
-Great job moving on from Halo 5. They looped everything around to make it work shockingly well, although fans of Halo 5 are pretty upset.

The Good:
-Combat is really fun.
-Grapple is great. Sometimes is finnicky and magically stops working when the devs don't want you doing something.
-It really feels like you're fighting a war, and that Chief is a hero. Most map objectives are fun and feel like you're building towards a bigger goal. Large numbers of marines can dynamically group up.
-Great lighting, and great visuals at times. Brutes look really bad.
-Great acting, again outside of the brutes. Even behind his helmet Chief was able to deliver a lot of emotion. NPCs have great banter during gameplay.
-The ring felt believable, outside of all the dumb hexagons and floating islands. Stars realistically rotate in the sky as the ring produces spin gravity. Native wild life is fun to see.
-Ammo crates allow you to keep rare weapons longer, making fights feel more unique.
-Marines don't easily die from cars flipping.
-One boss is fun to fight.
-343 didn't assassinate anyone's character.

The Bad:
-Less enemy variety than Halo 2, 3, 4, and 5.
-Marines have bad ai. They dive in front of vehicles and cannot drive their own.
-Players are encouraged to use the same 2 guns over and over. Fewer reasons to experiment or mix it up.
-So many audio logs and most are boring.
-Abilities outside of the grapple hook seem forced.
-The Far Cry like open world and the linear main story missions feel like 2 separate games. Their stories don't work together and they play differently.
-Most boss fights just lock you in a small room and force you to shoot a bullet sponge.
-The cast is too small. Even Halo Combat Evolved had more.

The Horrible:
-Lack of "stuff" in the story.
-Lack of variety in the world and gameplay.
-Scorpion driving mechanics.


There is a reason every trailer for this game shows the same things. There literally isn't more.

I enjoyed the open world gameplay and I enjoyed the voice acting, but my opinion on the game is really souring. I think this one will end up with a similar reputation as Halo 4's campaign. Some will view it as their favorite game and some will view it as trash. I think there is a legit possibility that the negativity will be strong enough that once again 343 has to rethink the next game.

[the-pi-guy]

The Bad:
-Less enemy variety than Halo 2, 3, 4, and 5.
-The cast is too small. Even Halo Combat Evolved had more.
There is a reason every trailer for this game shows the same things. There literally isn't more.

Making me wonder what they've been doing, and what state would this game have launched in, a year ago.

Kind of seems like they've mostly been working on MCC the past 6 years.

[kitler53]

-Grapple is great. Sometimes is finnicky and magically stops working when the devs don't want you doing something.

to me that's basically an unforgivable sin in games.

 i just wrapped up ni no kuni 2 and you can jump except in a couple spots where they don't want you to jump to the next platform.  its like an invisible wall excpet sooooo much worse.  with an invisible wall you can figure it out reasonably quickly.  when abilities are locked at random locations you can spend 5 min thinking you are to blame for not doing it right before you finally conceed the ability is locked. 

horrible game design.

[Legend]

Making me wonder what they've been doing, and what state would this game have launched in, a year ago.

Kind of seems like they've mostly been working on MCC the past 6 years.

I don't think anything major changed in the last year. The game was definitely finished and could have came out back then, but probably would have had sucky gameplay too. For example the final director that came on is the reason marines are fun. Previously they'd be hard coded to stay wherever they spawned.


I think a huge amount of work went into making Halo open world. I'd imagine that's the big reason it took so long. Previous games have had massive areas but they never had to deal with open world streaming, dynamic check points, open world saving, open world ai, etc. If they used Unreal they probably could have saved years in hindsight. They also went through a few iterations for the story I'd bet. Could have easily had more characters and more content that was cut yet still used dev resources.

I wish there was more variety for inside levels. It's not an exaggeration to say Skyrim's dungeons are better at times. I imagine if they had another year those would have been the biggest focus.

to me that's basically an unforgivable sin in games.

 i just wrapped up ni no kuni 2 and you can jump except in a couple spots where they don't want you to jump to the next platform.  its like an invisible wall excpet sooooo much worse.  with an invisible wall you can figure it out reasonably quickly.  when abilities are locked at random locations you can spend 5 min thinking you are to blame for not doing it right before you finally conceed the ability is locked.  

horrible game design.

Once it was because I was in a room with powerful enemies and they didn't want me in the ceiling. They should have just not had a spot up there to crouch on.

Other time was with jumping from map section to map section. This was really really stupid since as far as I can tell, the devs wanted you to grapple to one specific island. Maybe I just didn't try it enough; I'll have to wait for speedruns.

[Legend]

@nnodley

Have you played it?


Also it's interesting seeing opinions online. There is a pretty strong consensus that the gunplay and acting are good while the story and repetitiveness are bad. Depending on how people personally value things, they'll of course give the game a different overall rating.

There are two main defenses though and they are very amusing. Some people defend the game's issues by saying the first Halo had the same issues. First off of course standards have changed in 20 years. Secondly, it's not even true. Halo Combat Evolved has more unique content than Infinite. Combat Evolved even has a small open world section on an island.

The other defense is that this game is just the foundation for future dlc/sequels and expecting it to be great is asking too much. I get that kinda, they really screwed themselves over hyping this as the biggest Halo ever, but imo 343 should have pulled a ground zeroes and built it that way. Sell it for $30 and remove all the padding so it's a ~3 hour game, and then be open that it's just a primer.


I'm pretty frustrated with the fanboys because a sequel with the correct improvements could be all around amazing, but I fear this will just push 343's execs to say "this is fine" and the next decade of Halo will be a repetitive grind.

[the-pi-guy]

I heard the game cost $500m, and that gamepass can sustain a $500m game.