Review: Halo 5 Guardians

G'day there guys and gals!

Shortly before the year of 2002, I happened to win a competition from an Australian tv show called Cheez TV. The prize? A brand new Xbox. I received the console a few weeks before the Australian release date, and one of the games inside was Halo: CE, which I still have today. In my entire country, I was the first to play Halo publicly.
By now you are most definitely asking yourself "Why are you talking about this? Review the damn game!" and to that, I will reply to you with all you need to know: the gameplay, the musical score, the multiplayer, all of these things are improved dramatically and if these are all you need to buy this game, go for it. But the fancy graphics and the choppy and the lack-there-of in depth story is definitely a major turn off for long time fans. 

For those unfamiliar with the upcoming plot, Halo 5 Guardians takes place a year after the events of Halo 4 and begins with Fireteam Osiris taking place on a rescue and assassination mission, which somewhat wraps up the events of the Spartan Ops (I say loosely because if you don't read the books, didn't play Spartan Ops or anything else secondary to the main games, you will be immediately lost). Soon after we also finally meet Blue Team and take control of Master Chief attempting to retake a facility, and it's here that the entire story takes over.
(SPOILER ALERT)
But it's in this that the massive faults begin to show; in playing as Chief, you discover that Cortana is alive and kicking and you being Chief, naturally, you go off in attempt to find her. In the game itself, the reason to why she's alive is barely glossed over further on in the gameplay. What makes this worse is that you'll have a total of THREE missions as Chief. I'm all for new characters and storyline but if you're going to advertise for a two sided story, make it half and half! Also worth mentioning is that a further three missions with Fireteam Osiris are nothing but two minute talking missions! You begin, you run to your objective, talk to a person, talk to another person and get on a Pelican. This happens three times (two in the same area!) followed by either a cut to black or a short cutscene.
Another major annoyance is the advertisements of the game itself have very little affect to the actual gameplay and story. Do you want a showdown between Loche and Chief? Well, I hope you like a cutscene cause that's all you'll get. ALL other moments between them are cutscenes; their conflict begins in a cutscene and is over in a cutscene? The advertisements of Chief or Locke bleeding out in front of their opponent? Never happens. Chief supposedly killing civillians? Never happens. The CLOSEST you'll get to that actually happening is due to another force entirely, one outside the Chief's control, which is irrelevantly obvious from the start. To see the advertisements for this major conflict, for Chief to be the bad guy, now it's clear that it was to hide who the real antagonist is.
And for your sake, I will save you from that spoiler.
(SPOILER END)

What does this all mean for the storyline itself? Well you're going to get lost. A lot. Many things are glossed over or barely explained, to the point where you'll be doing some major research to to understand what exactly is going on. All previous story development from Halo 4 and the Spartan Ops are dropped and basically ignored except for the pivotal plotpoint from the previous game and in classic Halo sequels, the game ends in a cliffhanger.
Gameplay itself is excellent, despite it's brand new elements. Halo 5 introduces many new elements into the gameplay such as advanced melee and ground pounds, zoom in for all weapons, etc. The four player based co-op is also an incredibly nice touch, playing with friends is a definite bonus to breezing through the main campaign missions (15 in total) in ease. If you prefer the lone wolf style, you can still play on your own with AIs helping you out. Their movement and recovery can be a bit off at times (often getting stuck or killed, they have no sense of self preservation), but otherwise provide a decent amount of damage or distraction. Musical score and sound effects are typically what you'd expect out of a Halo game, the score definitely outshines the sound effects themselves, sometimes to the point of what's happening on screen. It does lack in a few areas but it is otherwise appealing. Voice acting for the most part...is acceptable. The main cast had strengths and weaknesses; Jen Taylor and Steven Downes are once more brilliantly done and add an incredible atmosphere into the game, while many of the additional characters tend to sound a little forced or out of place at times.
Graphics are stunning, simply said. The world and scenery are especially breathtaking, while all character models look incredibly detailed. Spartans in armor do tend to look like a spotlight is constantly shining on them, but this helps show the added detail into the game. Finally, onto multiplayer; for anyone who read my Beta notes, you know I had a LOT of issues with the Beta and I'm happy to report many of them has been fixed! Players dying doesn't equal a killcam and a swell of music every time and no longer trap players in them, I've had very few issues with connectivity and playing overall and what is presented is well polished and maintained. I would be remiss to ignore my slight disappointment in the lack of many, many options for multiplayer (With most being variations of Team Deathmatch and Free For All), but I will admit the new mode Warzone (Where two teams of 18 people battling over a large area for control) is incredibly fun and addictive! Multiplayer also introduces the usage of bonuses, boosts and equipment for Warzone, some which you can unlock by furthering your experience or completing tasks, but the option to outright buy these boosts are there for those who wish to indulge.

Overall, what the game presents is good from a technical standpoint; the game play beautifully, it runs excellently and overall it's had a smooth launch. However, while the campaign itself is fun to play, the storyline and the lack of plot movement is truly a massive disappointment.
I've been struggling to give it an accurate scoring based on my experience, but I've manage to come to this conclusion: if you love multiplayer type games and can waste days playing them, you'll find little fault in this game. If you're wanting a deeper story for Chief, Locke and the continuation from Halo 4, what you'll get is a cut and dry, need-to-know only basis story to advance the plot with nothing explained and everything open ended, especially if you don't read the books, listen to the audio "Hunt The Truth" clips or anything else outside the main games.

A good, although unsatisfying, addition to the Halo series.

Out of 10, I give Halo 5: Guardians a 7/10