Just completed the story campaign with all FOB’s and HVT’s completed. Also, rescued all the Marines. Total completion was around 75% as I was missing all the skulls, some recordings, some towers that needed to be destroyed and a few of those Forerunner rings. Wish they would have put all that stuff on the map. Oh well. All skills were maxed out. Had 7 Spartan Cores left over and at least 5 on the map that I didn’t bother going after. Estimated total play time was 35 hours on normal difficulty. Posting my review here due to the story section having spoilers in it.
My overall impressions and ratings for the story campaign -
- Visuals - 9.0/10 (excellent)
Overall, the visuals weren’t as impressive as a few other games that I have played this year but considering how the game looked in July 2020, I would say that being a 9.0/10 on my rating scale is pretty impressive. The art style looked great as were all the character and enemy models. Animations were solid but could be better in some aspects. The world itself was definitely bright, colorful and popped throughout. Structures while repeating the layout at times looked crisp and clean. All in all, no real major issues with the visuals. More nitpicks than anything.
- Audio - 10/10 (superb)
The music right from the title screen just gets you hyped to play and I left that on for like 5 minutes the first time I put the game on. Music was simply superb as was the voice acting and sound effects. All the audio files that I collected were also real good to where I stopped and listened to each one that I collected. Extremely impressed with the audio and the Grunts, oh my goodness!! Excellent banter and hilarious. Definitely added immersion to the world. Simply superb all around.
- Gameplay/Combat - 9.0/10 (excellent)
The shooting mechanics and all the guns that I used felt great. Controlled great and no issues whatsoever in this regard. The grapple shot was amazing and adds a whole new element of verticality to the game that other wise wouldn’t be there. The enemy AI was excellent and very intelligent. All the boss fights were real good, a few frustrating but still damn good as were the HVT’s.
The upgrades were good but the enemy detection I didn’t use at all because they’re on the radar so I didn’t see the benefit to it especially at the expense of sacrificing the grapple shot or having to constantly switch back and forth. The defensive shield I used maybe a few times. The “dash” would have been helpful but again, the grapple shot is simply more valuable. All the grenades were fine. I would honestly prefer a grenade/equipment wheel instead of using the left and right directional buttons to select what you want to use. You can’t even see the arrows that tell you which direction to push on the directional pad because they’re so small when you bring up the menu for either.
My biggest issue was with the vehicles except for one. Sorry but driving them simply sucked and wasn’t satisfying or fun at all except for the vehicle that hovers and can be compared to strafing in the Batmobile in Arkham Knight. That for whatever reason, I didn’t have any major trouble with but everything else was just bad. Don’t understand why both analog sticks were used to maneuver the vehicles. Going forward/back with the left analog and turning with the right analog wasn’t good for me at all. This would be my biggest disappointment/negative in the entire game because I really wanted to drive around and especially fly around and have some dogfights but didn’t happen. What makes this even worse for me is that it’s all in third person and yet, still didn’t work for me. Oh well.
The only other issue I had was the difficulty spike on normal. I would say around halfway, this shit started to get much more difficult than it previously was and enemies can shoot you from blocks away with pinpoint accuracy and shoot to where you’re going instead of where you’re at. It’s like how would the enemies know/see that from a few blocks away?
Exploration is also excellent and I found a few caves with enemies as well as one or two underground bunkers I guess you could say . The first one I found had an enemy that cloaked himself. I was like WTF? Wasn’t expecting that. I like how majority of side activities are on the map but I wish that the collectibles, radio towers and forerunner rings were on the map or at least marked with a “?” symbol because I would have completed everything in that case where as having to look for every audio file and whatnot after the first two regions just simply tired me out.
All in all, despite my complaints, Halo Infinite has an excellent combat loop that is very addictive, very satisfying and very fun to play.
- Story/Characters - 10/10 (superb)
As someone who has literally no history with the Halo franchise until Infinite, I must say that I loved and enjoyed the story and all the characters. Liked them all. Master Chief is excellent as was Escharum as the antagonist. Enjoyed the overall plot and everything as it kept me engaged, interested and entertained.
I enjoyed the ending and setup for what I would assume will be an expansion down the line. I was very happy to see Atriox at the end as I was always expecting him to be the antagonist in Infinite but knowing that I will be fighting him down the line in an expansion makes me happy as Chief will get his rematch.
Correct me if im wrong but Cortana is basically bad for the entire game until the end right? Or am I just misunderstanding that? I enjoyed all the cut scenes and the one shot camera worked extremely well. One thing I don’t agree with is anyone saying that the game ended abruptly. That’s just not true. It has the final boss fight, an ending and a happy ending at that with them all in the Pelican so I don’t agree with or understand that complaint at all.
Finally for this section, I would say that nearly if not all the story missions were excellent. Loved the opening two linear interior missions followed by setting up the wide-linear open world as well as the last several missions and in general, I liked how the story missions take you to every region/area on the entire map. I love it when games do that instead of just repeating missions in the same area. One other thing that I really liked was the overall presentation especially for a few missions where you come outside and see the world but yet, you’re in a new area of the map.
- Overall - 9.5/10 and yes, Halo Infinite is my 2021 GAME OF THE YEAR!!!
Outside of driving vehicles, no other major issues, complaints or negatives for me. All other issues were minor and in some cases, like the collectibles such as the audio files not being on the map are more nitpicks/personal preference. For what was the very first Halo game that I have ever played, I can say that 343 Industries did an excellent job and won me over as I will be buying/playing all the future story expansions for Infinite from here on out. From the beautiful looking world to the amazing soundtrack and voice acting to the addictive, satisfying and fun combat/gameplay loop to a superb story with characters that I simply loved and enjoyed from beginning to end, Halo Infinite was one hell of a superb game and I can’t wait to see what 343 Industries do with the story expansions as im very much looking forward to playing them.
.