Halo 5 Launch Impressions

Finally Halo has made it to the Xbox One! Unless you want to count last year’s failed attempt. Halo master chief collection had one of the worst launches by a mainstream title of all time. Pretty much anything that could go wrong or be broken was at launch and for several months following. So let’s just act like that didn’t happen. Ok? Cool.

The widely anticipated Halo 5: Guardians is finally here and guess what, it works. I’ll be working on a full review for you but in the meantime I wanted to let you know how I feel about the game after the first 12 hrs with it.

First of all am pleased to say I’ve not encountered any issues whatsoever. Multiplayer works extreme well and shockingly quick. The servers withstood the launch day onslaught. I have not been booted from a match at all. Joining friend games and sending invites are also quick and easy.

Next,  it’s flat out gorgeous. The simple menus are a breeze to navigate. All around the game is visually stunning.

There were 2 things that I was extremely worried about and prepared to hate. One was the addition of micro transactions and the other was the squad based play of the campaign.  I absolutely despise the whole micro transaction wave in full priced games. However 343 has found a decent balance of how quickly you can just earn the in-game currency to spend rather than real life dollars. Also, the squad based combat is actually pretty good as the AI isn’t worthless and actually helps.

The game has a ton of customization options and feels like I won’t get tired of it anytime soon. So, if you’re still on the fence about getting Halo 5 because the MCC was such a disappointment, don’t worry and go ahead and acquire Halo 5: Guardians.

I’ll have a full review for you next week.