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Halo Fest 2020 Wrap-up

I started this journey around two and a half years ago, and given the meager amount of time I devote to gaming these days, it was definitely, errm… overly optimistic of me to think I could play through even the 5 main Halo campaigns by the time Halo Infinite was to be released a year later. It doesn’t help that I almost immediately decided to include more games and some other media. Totaling it up, as of this, fittingly the 20th Halo Fest 2020 post, I’ve beaten 12 games, not counting Halo 4’s lengthy Spartan Ops campaign, and watched 3 movies and a season of television. I also played a lot of Halo Infinite multiplayer during this time.

“Funnily, I don’t own a physical copy of the release I played the most for this, Halo: The Master Chief Collection.”

I’ve almost certainly already made some semi-controversial statements about many of these games, and as one last controversial act, here’s my final, personal ranking of the series:

#7 Halo 5: Guardians. The most obvious choice for last place, but I really wanted to give Halo 5 a fair shake, and I definitely didn’t hate it. Rather, in numerous ways, it simply felt the least like Halo out of all of these games, and because of that, it always ends up falling to the bottom of the list no matter how I decide to weigh the criteria.
#6 Halo 4, on the other hand, does feel like a Halo game. An unnecessary Halo game, with some questionable writing and some incredibly annoying enemies, but a Halo game.
#5 I mean, this one is definitely going to get me some flak, but hear me out. Halo 2 is a great game, and playing through the Anniversary version of it made me appreciate it so much more, but it’s hard for me to completely drop the weird baggage I brought to it when coming from Halo: Combat Evolved back in 2004.
#4 Halo Infinite, above Halo 2? Blasphemy! In fact, I’d considered having them tied for 4th place, but the undeniable truth is that when I compare the two campaigns in terms of the fun I had playing through them, Halo Infinite wins out. Interestingly, I realized while writing my Halo Infinite post that my biggest overall complaint about Halo Infinite was how much it held back in almost every area, while inversely, Halo 2 was perhaps too ambitious as a follow-up to Halo: Combat Evolved.
#3 For the longest time I’d ranked Halo: Reach as my favorite Halo game. I still think it holds up quite well to this day. Fantastic game!
#2 I’m kind of surprised that I’m ranking Halo 3 above Reach, but upon playing through it again, it’s impossible to deny just how damn good it is, especially if you cheekily treat the excellent Halo 3: ODST as part of the overall package. Halo 3 almost feels like a do-over of Halo 2, incorporating most of its best changes and features while pulling them all back just a bit, more in-line with Halo: Combat Evolved, and polishing the whole thing to a mirror sheen.
#1 Objectively, Halo: Combat Evolved might not be the best Halo game, but in terms of how unique it is, even amongst the series it spawned, its impact on console gaming and the FPS genre as a whole, and my personal nostalgia for it, it’s not even a debate.

As for the other games covered here, I’d probably say Halo Wars 2 is the best of the bunch. I never expected it to feel like such a proper sequel to the original, and the Banished were fun. As far as what wasn’t covered, well, I don’t have the hardware to experience Microsoft’s weird VR tech demo Halo: Recruit, nor did I want to track down an arcade where I could attempt to play through Halo: Fireteam Raven. I don’t consider either of these massive omissions, despite the fact that I bothered to include Spartan Assault and Spartan Strike.

Wrapping up the series with the controversial Halo Infinite, it’s reasonable to ponder where the franchise is going next. There have been some major changes at 343 Industries and it seems like most of the plans (vague ideas?) for further major developments on Infinite have been scrapped. There are also some odd rumors about a shift from the Slipspace engine to Unreal, possibly in conjunction with the long rumored Halo Infinite battle royale mode (or whatever Project Tatanka turns out to be.) It’s hard to imagine there won’t be another attempt at a Halo game, but who knows if 343 will be developing it. In short, Halo’s future is unclear, though in some ways, that’s all the more exciting.

Despite how long this took, I actually really enjoyed having to commit to a theme, and I’ve already started thinking about another series I’d like to dive into in a similar way. With Diablo IV‘s recent release, I was thinking about replaying the Diablo series, but given how massive my backlog is, it’ll likely be a series I haven’t played much of next time around though. I tossed around The Witcher, Darksiders, and Dragon Age, all games I hope to play more of in the future, but I think the winner is going to be the Metal Gear Solid series. With 7 games on that list, most of which are quite lengthy, that isn’t going to be easy, but I’m really looking forward to it.

Allied Races

With the recent reveal of World of Warcraft: Dragonflight I started thinking about how much I missed WoW. As many MMOs as I’ve played, I still love the high standard of polish that, until relatively recently, I associated with Blizzard games, I still love how buttery smooth the game feels, and most of all, I still love the core lore of the Warcraft franchise.

“Raining hell with Gallywix’s G.M.O.D.”

Against my better judgment, I hopped back into “retail” restarting an unfortunate cycle that I’ve been stuck on for quite a few years now. That is, when a new expansion is announced I get hyped up for it, reactivate my account, and try to catch up on the previous expansion’s content until I get burnt out again, usually just before (or just after) the new expansion actually launches. Case in point, I logged in to discover my “main” still where I left him when I got burnt out at the end of the Battle for Azeroth Alliance campaign, and my new Horde “alt” that I created when Shadowlands was announced that I had created to familiarize myself with the changes to the game before diving back in with my main, left in the middle of a zone less than half way through the Battle for Azeroth Horde campaign. Doh.

This time would be different though. This time I had a goal: allied races. Allied races are a feature that was added to the game with the Battle for Azeroth expansion. Essentially, Blizzard added what would eventually become 5 new races per faction. Most of these new races were more or less reskins of existing races, but alas, as someone who likes to stand out in my online games, I was very interested. Unfortunately these races needed to be individually unlocked through achievements which almost all included lengthy quest lines and/or reputation grinds. Still, I figured I could focus on a few of the ones I was most interested in. That never happened.

With Shadowlands, the reputation grinds were removed and the option was added to simply skip quests that required dungeon content. Nice! I decided I would make it my goal with this return to Azeroth to not unlock one, but all of the allied races.

I wish I had kept a more detailed journal of my progress, as it occurs to me now that this could actually be pretty helpful to a lot of people. I can at least recount the journey in general. First, one small tip. The addon BtWQuests can be extremely useful for keeping track of the multiple questlines required to unlock each races. Even using it, things still got a little confusing for certain quest lines and achievements, so I can’t recommend it enough. You’ll need both the Battle for Azeroth and Legion versions. Anyway, here’s how it went…

“All allied races unlocked! A Mag’har Shaman on display.”

First I returned to my main Horde alt. I picked a Hunter for this class specifically because of how easy yet capable they are to play, so this character was the logical selection for getting re-reacquainted with the game without rolling yet another new character. First, I realized that I was already eligible to unlock the Highmountain Tauren due to questing in that zone in Legion with my main. Next I finished off my questing in Nazmir and then headed to Vuldun and more or less finished off the base Horde campaign. The Vulpera were unlocked from that alone. Then I finished the base Horde war campaign plus some of the later war campaigns to complete Tides of Vengeance, and then completed the final Zuldazar quests, unlocking the Zandalari Trolls. I’d already completed Ready for War on my main, and finishing it off for my Horde character meant I also unlocked the Mag’har Orcs.

Finally, the most grueling part of this was heading back to the Broken Isles from Legion to unlock the Nightborne. I had never played through Suramar back when Legion was current, nor had this character ever set foot in the Broken Isles, so I had to essentially start from the beginning and go through innumerable quests with sometimes little to no “breadcrumbing” to follow. I did encounter one reputation gate, which was with the quest “Uniting the Isles” which requires you to get to friendly with all of the major factions of the Legion campaign. Luckily with flying unlocked, it was quite quick to head to each zone and grind quests for just long enough to hit friendly, with only Stormheim giving me any issues. Despite how much effort the “Insurrection” achievement took, I actually really enjoyed the lore behind the Suramar questlines, never mind the unique city itself.

Victorious, I headed back to my old main and went with a similar strategy. I’d go ahead and finish off the base Alliance campaign by completing the last little bits of Stormsong Valley. I’d already earned Ready for War on this character, so the Dark Iron Dwarves were available without any real work. I then finished off the war campaign and portions of the later war campaigns for Tides of Vengeance, then completed the final Tiragarde Sound quest lines to at last unlock the Kul Tiran Humans. Next I learned I needed to play through a good part of Nazjatar in order to unlock the quest to get me to Mechagon Island. I’d never seen either of these zones when originally playing Battle for Azeroth so this was an interesting diversion and I’m tempted to return to finish both zone’s quests, but it didn’t take too long before I had Mechagnomes unlocked.

“The Kul Tiran druid forms are some of the coolest.”

As with the Nightborne, I now had to head back to Dalaran to start the Legion Argus quest lines. At least this time between having played much of Legion previously on this character and having just completed some related quests on my Horde alt, I was able to head to Argus without too much effort. I hadn’t been to Argus before now, and always being intrigued by the Draenei, the Naaru, and the Light in general, I was looking forward to this, but found myself rushing to grind through these quests without too much investment in the story, unfortunately. Finally, completing most of this story granted the You Are Now Prepared! Achievement, unlocking both the Lightforged Draenei and the Void Elves.

Once you meet the requirements to unlock an allied race, you still need to do a questline associated with each one kicked off in the embassy in the capital cities of each faction. In some cases these are quite quick, while in some others they’re fairly involved, but none are difficult. Some, like the Vulpera’s for example, were quite fun, while others will be essential for lore nerds. Once completed you’ll unlock the race, their associated achievement, and be given their race specific mount. With that…

Success! So, what will I actually do with my new found power? Well, more alts of course! I actually had vague plans to play through some old campaigns a second time with some variety of Mag’har Orc, and a Lightforged or Dark Iron Paladin could be fun, but my immediate plans were for a Kul Tiran Druid and a Mechagnome Monk. In fact, I already started my Kul Tiran Druid and headed into the Legion campaign so I could jump right into the Druid class hall, which I’ve been enjoying immensely so far. When it comes to my Monk, I’ll likely bring him through the classic Catalyst zones since that particular ridiculous race and class combination seems hilariously incongruous there.

One thing is for sure, over a year and a half later and I still haven’t even stepped foot into Shadowlands yet. Maybe I’ll keep up with tradition and wait until just before Dragonflight is released. *shrug*

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…