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Halo Fest 2020 – Guardians

With my decision to skip out on the Xbox One meaning I’d likely never play Halo 5, I stayed oblivious to both the considerable amount of pre-release hype and the immediate post-release criticism around the game. That’s not to say I don’t know anything about it as these days it’s difficult to find yourself in any sort of Halo community without stumbling across a ridiculous meme bashing Spartan Locke. Indeed, the game has a remarkably terrible reputation, often slated for having the worst campaign of any of the mainline Halo games. This means I was totally intrigued to finally play it, but my expectations weren’t exactly high.

“Guns down in Sanghelios.”

Graphically, the Halo franchise’s entry into the 8th generation definitely didn’t disappoint and of course Halo 5 continues the tradition of featuring levels that span across diverse environments which helps showcase this, the awesome “glassed” moon Meridian and the beautiful Elite homeworld Sanghelios being particular standouts. Quite a nice looking game with all of the little touches and polish you’d expect from the series. Technical fidelity aside, 343 Industries continued the stylistic overhaul they started with Halo 4, bringing more of an overall cohesion to the designs of the UNSC. Some of these changes, such as with my beloved Scorpion tank, were perhaps the biggest departures from Halo: CE yet, while still quite respectful of their classic designs. The Covenant and particularly the Prometheans were similarly given a fresh coat of paint.

Things fare a little worse when it comes to gameplay. For the first time in Halo Fest 2020, I was struck by how different Halo 5 felt to play. It’s hard to describe, but it didn’t quite feel like Halo anymore. It was as if the series was moved to a new engine without much care being put into trying to replicate the feel of the previous one. On top of that, the overhauls I mentioned above didn’t stop with the graphics, with many weapons being heavily reworked as well. The classic Assault Rifle / melee combo I’d used as my crutch in literally every game since Halo: CE no longer felt quite as effective. Of course, I quickly got used to all of this and adapted, but I have to imagine that this is a big part of why fans heaped so much praise on how Halo Infinite feels to control.

“Atomizing a Promethean Soldier with a Splinter Turret.”

Gone are the armor abilities that had been evolving since Halo 3, replaced instead with some inherent “Spartan Abilities”. You can now sprint at will, have built in thrusters to propel you directionally, and you can also perform special charge and ground pound attacks. The charge in particular is used a lot in the campaign to break through walls, unlocking secret stashes or alternate routes. There’s also a new ledge grab, which improves jumping and climbing quite a bit. I’m honestly not sure how “Halo” it all feels, but you’ve definitely got dramatically more maneuverability than ever before. Not technically a Spartan Ability but “assassination” melee moves are also a prominent part of the game now too. Another core change is that all weapons have an “aim down sight”-like system of zooming which is helpful without going all the way into Call of Duty territory.

Speaking of weapons, new to Halo 5 we have the tracking UNSC mini rocket launcher, the Hydra, the Covenant Plasma Caster, which is kind of a combination of the old Concussion Rifle with an alt-fire mode that charges up to fire a high damage projectile, and the Promethean Splinter Turret, which feels like some sort of cannon, and I absolutely grabbed it every time I had the opportunity. They also replaced our beloved SPNKR missile launcher with a totally new model that tracks like in Halo 2. On the vehicle front, the most notable additions are the UNSC Wasp, yet another Hornet and Falcon like aircraft, and the Phaeton, something of a Promethean equivalent. As mentioned, quite a lot of the weapons were tweaked and adjusted, with the Promethean weapons in particular being heavily altered. While I might prefer the old Suppressor, at least it feels like a distinct weapon now.

“Chief finally meets the Warden.”

Oddly, the difficulty struck me as a bit more brutal than the last few games. Playing on “Heroic” as usual, I felt like I could be killed in only a few shots, encouraging further engagement distances and a bit less aggressive play than usual for me. When things did go pear-shaped, my squadmates could usually be trusted to save the day and revive me. That is, for the first time in the Halo series, every single mission has you running as part of a four person fireteam. You have a single context sensitive button, being able to order them to go to a particular location, get in a vehicle, pick up a weapon, engage an enemy, etc. This works reasonably well, but is a far cry from the highly tactical experience I first dreamed of when hearing about Halo: Reach, largely thanks to the AI squadmates being absolute blithering idiots. At least they give us plenty of banter during missions…

The missions themselves are quite quick. If I hadn’t been obsessively scouring every map for hidden intel and skulls I think I would have wrapped up Halo 5’s campaign in record time. This wasn’t an issue for me though; the game was paced with a momentum that never left me ever stopping to wonder if I was bored, even with the addition of a few new “guns down” areas where all you’re expected to do is wander around and talk to other characters. Really, my only major complaint around the campaign structure and level design is with the repeated Warden Eternal boss fights, and even if it was a bit repetitive running into this goon over and over again, the fights were at least a fun challenge.

“Filling a Promethean Knight full of lead.”

Since I griped about them quite a bit during my Halo 4 post, I should mention that the Prometheans have been pretty thoroughly reworked. Knights are now mini-bosses, complete with a “shoot parts off their armor” mechanic for taking them down, and they, along with the Watchers, appear a lot less frequently. Crawlers also appear a lot less, and in much smaller groups when they do. Instead, the Promethean roster now includes a new type of humanoid robot called a “Soldier”. Soldiers can teleport, though not as a frustrating way of fleeing from firefights as with Halo 4’s Knights, and they can wield a variety of weapons, including the above mentioned Splinter Turret. All in all, this version of the Prometheans is far less of a chore to fight and personally, I’m pretty damn happy about that.

So, by now I must have mentioned at least half a dozen things that you might imagine could be responsible for the derision this game constantly gets from the Halo community, but not so fast! I think it’s time for us to talk about Halo 5’s story. Since I feel the need to nitpick it, and from Halo 4 on the games are only loosely connected anyway, I’m going to go ahead and summarize the plot right here. As usual I’ll keep it somewhat vague, but this, as well as the two paragraphs after it, will definitely contain spoilers. Skip the next three paragraphs if you want to avoid them!

“Fireteam Osiris heading towards a distant Forerunner Guardian.”

The Story: Spartan Fireteam Osiris, led by Spartan Jameson Locke, is dispatched from the UNSC Infinity to rescue Dr. Halsey from Covenant faction leader Jul’Mdama. Once planetside, the Spartans find that the Promethean and Covenant forces have turned on each other. Taking advantage of the chaos, Osiris eliminates Jul’Mdama and his retinue and successfully extracts Halsey. Meanwhile, the Master Chief and his fireteam “Blue Team” are conducting a routine mission when the Chief sees a vision of Cortana, who gives him a cryptic message about the planet Meridian. Deciding to investigate instead of returning to the Infinity, Blue Team are listed as AWOL. Arriving on Meridian, Osiris tracks Blue Team to a Forerunner structure housing a Guardian, massive Forerunner ancilla built to police entire systems. Soon after, Osiris catches up to and briefly confronts Blue Team, but they’re able to escape onto the Guardian, leaving Osiris to hastily flee the structure and later the Meridian itself as the Guardian activates and jumps away to devastating effect. Blue Team arrives on an unknown Forerunner planet where Guardians from all over the galaxy are gathering. There Master Chief reunites with Cortana, who shares that when the Didact was defeated his ship performed an emergency jump to this planet, Genesis, where she was able to join the Forerunner data network, the Domain, curing her of her rampancy. She also reveals her plan to take up the Forerunner’s “Mantle of Responsibility” herself, enforcing a new era of peace across the galaxy, seemingly accepting the death and destruction this will inevitably cause. Eager to show Master Chief that her plan will work, she places Blue Team in stasis. Aboard the Infinity, Halsey hatches a plan to hijack a dormant Guardian located on Sanghelios, the Sangheili homeworld. Despite being embroiled in a civil war against the remnants of Jul’Mdama’s Covenant, the Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios get Osiris to the Guardian just as it is about to jump away. On Genesis, Osiris, with the help of the planet’s caretaker AI, 031 Exuberant Witness, is able to wrest control of the planet’s systems away from Cortana, freeing Blue Team in the process. Cortana and her fleet of Guardians jump away to continue with their plan. Some time later, with innumerable AIs joining her cause, Cortana and her “Created” begin disabling ships and other technology all over the galaxy, sending the UNSC Infinity on the run.

From the cutscene at the beginning, which is the most over the top depiction of Spartans I’ve seen since “The Package” in Legends, I was bracing for the worst, but thankfully I found most of the claims of the story being a train wreck to be hyperbole. I think my aforementioned low expectations helped a lot, but, despite so much of the story between Halo 4 and Spartan Ops as well as other crucial background information (like who the hell Blue Team actually is, for one) being left to the most dedicated Halo fans to discover via novels and comics, I was able to follow the plot reasonably well. I admit, I was disappointed that the events of Spartan Ops were wrapped up in such an unceremonious way, but I’d probably be even more bummed out to have never played through Spartan Ops and have no idea why Halsey was hanging out with the Covenant and missing an arm, if I even knew who she was in the first place. Regardless, while there are many signs that maybe the game had been rewritten perhaps one too many times and I’m absolutely certain that a closer examination of the game’s plot would reveal it to be a swiss cheese of much more disconcerting plot holes, there are some very cool ideas here.

“That actual main character of Halo 5, Spartan Locke.”

A much more immediate issue is Halo 5’s dialog. I can generously interpret that 343 intended to depict Blue Team as “quiet professionals” but Master Chief hardly says anything and half of the little he does say is, well, just kind of stupid. It’s easy to imagine that after the traumatic loss of his only companion after so many months fighting the Covenant on his own he’s chosen to lose himself in his work, but the game doesn’t make any effort to show us that, and that is an example of what people really mean when they say Halo 5’s writing is bad. Cortana is the real standout to me though, as her physical depiction, voice acting, and even her behavior (like cruelly mocking the members of Osiris towards the end of the game) barely resemble the Cortana we know. Sure, this could be explained by everything that happened to her since Halo 4, but it just feels… off. Speaking of Osiris, it’s absolutely mind boggling that, after the well-known fan backlash over playing the Arbiter for a third of the game in Halo 2, 343 would have us playing Locke and Fireteam Osiris for all but three of the 15 missions in Halo 5. *facepalm*

While I could go much, much further, this is already getting too long. I actually enjoyed the game quite a bit more than I was anticipating. Still, it fails to continue Halo 4’s character development of either Master Chief or Cortana and it fails to wrap up the events Spartan Ops set up in any meaningful way. Indeed, it also sounds like, despite introducing a huge new threat and ending on somewhat of a cliffhanger, it doesn’t connect in an important way to the story of Halo Infinite either. So, while maybe Halo 5 might not deserve every bit of the ridicule it gets online (and indeed, much of the community was quite fond of its multiplayer, and its Forge is supposedly incredible) that doesn’t exactly make it an impressive entry into the series either.

To briefly carry on the tradition of talking about live action media around the series, the “Hunt the Truth” campaign advertisements The Hunt Begins, All Hail / The Cost, and A Hero Falls set up a seriously epic showdown between the Chief and Locke, which, yeah, isn’t even close to what happened. Ooops! What was it I said about too many rewrites again?

Halo Fest 2020 – Spartan Strike

I bet you thought this was going to be about Halo 5, didn’t you? Nope! We’re talking about the 2015 sequel to Spartan Assault, Halo: Spartan Strike! As with Spartan Assault, I didn’t know much about Spartan Strike before starting Halo Fest. Less so, in fact, given that it’s not even available for Xbox, sadly having never managed to make the leap from its original Windows and mobile versions. I honestly wasn’t even sure I was going to cover it because of that, but given how relatively small of a time commitment these games are coupled with the fact that both of them frequently go on sale on Steam for literally only a couple of bucks, I decided just to go for it.

“Point holding in the steamy jungles of Gamma Halo.”

So, this is the first time I played a game on PC for this series. That wouldn’t be too notable, but given that it’s a twin stick shooter and I’m playing with keyboard and mouse instead of, you know, twin sticks, it seems pertinent. Actually, the keyboard and mouse control scheme is totally fine; you move, change weapons and grenades, and interact with your keyboard, and target and fire with your mouse. The limited directional movement is a little awkward, but other than the lack of an analog stick for speed (which occasionally resulted in what I assume is a bug where my character would get stuck walking despite there being no way to make him move that slowly on purpose) it’s simple and intuitive enough. In fact, I think I might have preferred it – I felt more like I was playing a hybrid RTS, something like Dawn of War 2, than a twin stick shooter. My only real complaint was an inability to shoot for a few seconds after throwing a grenade most of the time. I don’t know if this was intentional or a bug, but it was jarring in either case.

Graphically, relatively little has changed since the previous game. I think the it looks just a bit more detailed than Spartan Assault, but that may have to do with the more interesting locations these operations are set in than anything technical. Outside of the action, Spartan Strike keeps the combination of motion comic style cutscenes narrated by the Infinity’s AI Roland for each operation while each mission is presented by a map and a text blurb that describes the scenario. While the mission briefings are somehow a step back, losing much of their flavor, the artwork used in the cutscenes this time around is pretty damn awesome. See the Promethean Knight screenshot below for an example. The soundtrack receives an upgrade too. It’s almost like the developers realized they actually hired a competent composer in Tom Salta after the first game’s reviews (and his excellent work on Halo 2: Anniversary) and decided to turn him up in the mix a bit. I found myself really noticing and appreciating a lot of the music here, perhaps a first since 343 took over the franchise.

“Turrets and vehicle weapons no longer overheat. Great for me but not so much for these Covies.”

Gameplay wise, Spartan Strike doesn’t veer too far from what its predecessor did. Only, between the mysterious Lt. Kwon keeping us company Cortana style (seriously, who is this person?) to the missions feeling both a bit more varied and a bit closer to a mainline Halo game in complexity, I actually enjoyed Spartan Strike just a bit more. The only downside to this added complexity is that without any way to save your progress during these missions, despite their relatively short length, dying near the end of one can be frustrating. Of course, there are the conventional changes too: more weapons, armor abilities, and vehicles, not to mention more enemies with the introduction of Prometheans to the mix. Despite all of the complaining I did about them in Halo 4, I actually really like the way the Prometheans and their gear were implemented here. It’s not all good news though. While they addressed something I complained about last time by finally introducing the Warthog to the game, the poor thing feels uncharacteristically slow and handles like a cinder block. Come to think of it, the Ghost is rather slow too, so perhaps this is some kind of a limitation of the engine?

Like Spartan Assault before it, Spartan Strike’s story takes place sometime after the end of the Requiem Campaign from Halo 4’s Spartan Ops and is framed around Spartans aboard the UNSC Infinity using a TACSIM training simulator to experience historical battles, only this time they’re extra secretive ones. OooOOooh! The first episode takes place during the events of Halo 2 while the rest take place around the events of Halo 4. In a big departure from the first game, you’re playing an anonymous SPARTAN-IV rather than a named character. In fact, in the first operation your character is standing-in for the squad of ODST who actually originally took part in the mission. Well, it is a simulation, I guess?

“Guess whose back!”

That being said, given that the story we’re actually focused on (the one being told via these simulations) takes place out of chronological order, I’ll go over the plot here. While I try to be somewhat vague with these summaries they do still contain spoilers, so skip the next paragraph if you want to avoid them.

The Story: In 2552 during the Battle of New Mombasa ODST squad Alpha-Five recovered a Covenant datapad containing details about a Forerunner artifact called the Conduit. Using the information on the datapad to track down the location of the Conduit, the team were able to eliminate a Sangheili Field Master and his retinue and acquire it. In the process of Alpha-Five transporting the artifact to safety, the Prophet of Regret’s carrier, the Solemn Penance, executed a low orbit slipspace jump over the city to devastating effect with the squad lost and the Conduit presumed destroyed. Five years later, researchers aboard Ivanoff Station detect what appears to be the Conduit’s signal on the surface of Gamma Halo. In response, the UNSC dispatches a SPARTAN-IV Headhunter to investigate. Discovering that Jul’Mdama’s Covenant faction is also on Installation 03, the Headhunter tracks the Conduit to a Forerunner facility called the Altar where the Covenant are using it to open slipspace portals to allow their Promethean allies to invade the ring. After a number of fierce skirmishes, the Headhunter is able to recover the Conduit and safely transport it off of the ring. Not long after, an urgent message is relayed from scientists at an ONI research facility in New Phoenix. The Covenant had activated the dormant slipspace portal the research facility was built around, with Covenant and Prometheans now pouring into the facility and surrounding city. Researchers believe that by using the Conduit they may be able to force the portal closed. Rushing back to Earth, the Headhunter is able to work with UNSC forces on the ground to secure access into the facility and ultimately halt the invasion, although the Conduit was once again lost in the effort.

I don’t have too much feedback to give about the story this time around. It’s fine. While there are aspects I don’t love (such as the Conduit’s all too convenient ability to teleport itself) I personally like that they’re trying to wedge the story into the existing events we know and love from the mainline campaigns, even if it does feel a little contrived at times. I mean, after enjoying Spartan Ops I’m definitely up for any inclusion of Jul’Mdama’s Covenant faction! I also believe this is the first time we’ve seen Spartan Headhunters featured in a game. Neat. As with Spartan Assault’s story, it’s really nothing too groundbreaking and while it might not do much to expand the Halo universe, it at least feels appropriately Halo-y and (as far as I know) doesn’t wreak havoc with the existing canon.

“Obligatory tank screenshot. This time, starring the voluptuous M850 Grizzly.”

Finally, I have to mention Operation E: Brother’s Keeper. This the last operation in the campaign but it can only be unlocked by beating every mission in the game with a gold star rating. As with Spartan Assault, there is no difficulty level in Spartan Strike, rather you’re awarded a different star rating at the end of each mission depending on your score. The easiest way to ensure a good score is by earning medals, and the main way to earn medals is by chaining kills. Considering this is a game all about mowing down masses of enemies, that’s not a huge ask. The first time through the campaign I got gold stars on probably 65% of the missions, and half of the ones I didn’t, I was extremely close to. Irritated by needing to replay missions to progress, I almost didn’t bother with the last operation at all, but not focusing so much on the “Assault Ops” challenges I found that most of them were a cakewalk to get gold on the second time around. Those that weren’t, I just spent my pool of otherwise unused credits on “score boosters” for. The operation itself though? The action was fine, but instead of a “real ending” or some kind of epilogue, the story was an odd, pointless retread of the rest of the campaign. Maybe if it were a hidden bonus rather than taunting you from the mission select menu I wouldn’t have cared quite so much.

So despite enjoying my time with the game slightly more than with Spartan Assault, I’d ultimately have to come to the exact same conclusion about it. That is, Spartan Strike is a decently executed, reasonably fun game that isn’t a bad way to spend 5 or 6 hours, especially if you particularly enjoy twin stick shooters and/or are a big Halo fan. However, at the end of the day it and its predecessor were more like experiments than an essential parts of the franchise. Now, at long last we move on to Halo 5…

Halo Fest 2020 – Nightfall

Halo: Nightfall is a live action digital series that was released as part of the Master Chief Collection in late 2014 as a promotional tie-in with Halo 5. I’d never seen Halo: Nightfall and knew only the scantest details about it before watching the feature length movie version for this post. While the parallels with the previously covered Halo: Forward Unto Dawn should be obvious, Nightfall feels a lot more like a legitimate movie that was chopped up to make a series than a series of separate shorts that were edited together to make a movie and, despite having similar budgets, Nightfall also features a lot more effects, more notable actors, and was produced by legendary filmmaker Ridley Scott’s production company. It’s certainly equally as ineffective as a tie-in to the game it is associated with, though!

“Alpha Halo, a little worse for wear after Master Chief’s visit.”

That is, Halo: Nightfall was supposed to be something of an origin story for Jameson Locke who we’d come to know as Spartan Locke, one of the main characters featured in Halo 5. The problem is that by the time we meet Locke in Nightfall he’s already pretty much the same character we get to know in-game, and while it’s not a bad introduction to him, we definitely learn a lot about who he is in the sense of his personality and values, there’s not much else there, nor is the overall story significant to the plot of the game either. That said, since it is a side story let’s just dive right into spoiler land! Skip next two paragraphs if you want to avoid a somewhat vague plot summary and some random but specific nitpicks.

The Story: Lieutenant Commander Jameson Locke and his four-man Office of Naval Intelligence team operating on the colony world Sedra track an Elite Zealot to the center of Sedra City where it detonates an unknown device. The device unleashes a never-before-seen element deadly to humans, resulting in a large number of casualties. Investigating, the ONI team discovers that the Elite acquired this element from smugglers who harvested it from a semi-intact fragment of Installation 04. Orbiting close to a sun, the ring fragment’s surface reaches extreme temperatures when directly facing it, making only short visits during its night cycle possible. Locke and his team devise a plan to head to the fragment, arrest any smugglers they locate, and, as it’s believed to be the sole source of the element, destroy it with a Havok nuclear warhead. The team is granted use of a slipspace capable Sedran Colonial Guard ship to make the journey, but only under the condition that they’re accompanied by members of the Sedran military. Arriving at the fragment, the joint team quickly locates the smugglers but are attacked by a swarm of Lekgolo, killing several of them and downing their ship before they can extract. With no way to call for help and only the smugglers’ small ship left intact, the team decides to complete their mission and journeys on foot to retrieve the warhead. With their numbers dwindling as they’re pursued by the Lekgolo, the group eventually has to shed most of their technology when they learn that the Lekgolo can track them by it. With time running out of time and desperation setting in, Locke’s remaining two agents take the rest of the team by surprise, taking a hostage and making their way back to the ship to save themselves. With few options left, the commander of the Sedran team, Colonel Aiken, a former SPARTAN-II who lost his only child to the terrorist attack, volunteers to manually detonate the warhead while Locke and Macer, the only other surviving Sedran soldier, attempt to intercept them. The pair reach the smugglers’ ship just in time to witness the Lekgolo finish off the last of them and swarm the now powered-up ship. Aiken begins to activate the warhead, drawing the Lekgolo away and giving Locke and Macer the window they need to board the ship and escape the fragment before it is obliterated.

“Locke, James Locke. Our protagonist.”

While we’re told Sedra is surrounded by conflict and that the Sedrans have this archaic warrior culture (err, they still believe in Valhalla?!) we’re shown exactly none of this. Maybe this was a budget thing, but then why mention it at all? The almost constant tension between the ONI agents and the Sedran soldiers felt more than a little contrived and I found Colonel Aiken’s over-the-top combativeness to be especially unbelievable, even if it is explained by his backstory. Speaking of which, I really don’t buy him as an ex-Spartan. Furthermore, even knowing his backstory, Aiken wanting to sacrifice himself due to losing his daughter is a little lame for reasons I feel best described towards the bottom of this lengthy (and otherwise much more positive) article by Haruspis. Also, why in the hell was getting the Havok right then and there so damn critical? Why not just get out of dodge now and destroy the fragment later? The sad part is that I think the premise of the story actually works on paper, and while it might not have been an amazing Halo movie, it could have at least been much more entertaining if executed differently.

Thankfully most of my issues with the execution are wrapped up in those kinds of details. While some of the CGI is pretty bad, the majority of the practical effects, costumes, and props are quite excellent. The actors are all also mostly good despite being betrayed by the script a bit, with a pre-Luke Cage Mike Colter giving a typically solid performance as Locke. Another likely budget related letdown is the rather boring filming location in the latter part of the movie. While I get that the place they’re at is supposed to be destroyed, I can’t help but imagine how cool it would be if it resembled the games more closely. Speaking of the games, the soundtrack is another letdown. I’m sure it’s fine, but I literally remember nothing about it, and that really isn’t good enough for a game franchise whose soundtrack has always been a huge part of the formula.

“The combined team on the fragment. Love those ODST helmets!”

I feel like I’m being quite negative here, but Halo: Nightfall isn’t that bad. It’s entertaining enough to watch through once, sure, but it earns the “entirely skippable” I tagged Spartan Assault with and then some. In fact, unless you’re really curious about it and/or just have to consume everything Halo related, I’d suggest skipping it. At least I still liked Locke by the end of it so maybe that at least bodes well for my playthrough of Halo 5 when I eventually arrive there. Maybe? In any case, like Forward Unto Dawn before it, Nightfall still fails to deliver on a strong effort to make Halo a crossover success. At this point our only remaining hope is the 2022 series, and skepticism already abounds about that one.

A quick extra mention goes to the “Second Stories” bonus content that was released on the Halo Channel as something of an in-universe version of the after-episode shows that have been popularized with some of the bigger television series in recent years. While these shorts do contain interesting details that help fill in some gaps in the story, I can’t say they impressed me much. Still, they’re definitely a very notable but easily missed part of Nightfall.