Forum:Halo 5 Guardians Beta First Impressions

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First Impressions

Not real sure if this is the appropriate place for this and if anyone knows where I should put this let me know.

So, we've gotten the first videos showcasing the Halo 5 Guardians Beta, and boy, it looks promising. Looks amazing, and from what've I've seen they've balanced the game so that casual and competitive players will equally have fun.

First off, the weapons. As I stated in a few posts back, we've got the Assault Rifle, Battle Rifle, DMR, Sniper Rifle, Shotgun, Pistol, SMG, Frag Grenades and what has been identified as a six shot rocket/grenade launcher based on the few little snippets of it. Lets break them down.

>The Assault Rifle appears to have a lower rate of fire than the last incarnations, but has more damage per bullet, more range and more accurate.

>The Battle Rifle appears to function much like its H2/H3 incarnation, with the aesthetic of the H4 version, and has the scope replaced with a reflex sight (more on that later).

>The DMR, I didn't see much of, so anyone who knows more please elaborate.

>Sniper Rifle appears to be much the same, not much to comment on.

>Shotgun, same as H4 version so far.

>Pistol, appears to be a combination of the MCS and M6H, as far as I can tell.

>The six shot rocket/grenade hybrid I have much hopes for. It appears to function like a grenade launcher, but fires small, high explosive rockets. When you use the scope (or Smart Scope, as its now called) your can lock onto other Spartans, giving it a mix of fuel rod cannon and the plasma launcher, being able to rapidly fire 6 small rockets, but you can lock onto targets (I'm assuming you can also lock onto vehicles, but that has not been shown). I'm assuming that this is the UNSC equivalent to the Plasma Launcher, and I'm assuming we'll have the normal Rocket Launcher for anti vehicle use. One other thing to note is that when it was being reloaded, it was reloaded one round at a time, much like the M32 Semi-Auto grenade Launcher.

Next up, Spartan abilities, which each and every player will have access to.

>Thruster Pack, which is functional similar to the AA from H4, but you get two uses out of it before recharge, you can go any direction with it, and when your use it, you stay in first person. It will also allow you to stay in the air for a split second longer than normal, allowing those good with snipers and the like to get mid air kills otherwise impossible.

>Ground Pound, which allows a Spartan to, well, pound the ground? Basically, you use the thruster pack to slam into the ground and kill anything you land on. Given that a Spartan weighs 1000 pounds, this makes sense.

>Clamber, which is basically throwing out crouch jumping for good. Allows Spartans to "clamber" over different obstacles, and the like.

>Sprint. Yes, its back, but much more balanced this time. Instead of a stamina meter determining how long you can sprint, you can sprint forever, but at the cost of your shield not recharging while sprinting. Which means that if your in a fire fight, and your losing, even if you sprint away, you won't recharge your shields until you stop and stand still for a second. this now makes it risky to use sprint, and nicely balances it in my opinion.

>Slide, which is tied to Sprinting. When you reach top speed, you can slide across the ground, in first person view, and slide into cover, or shoot someone at close range. The shotgun will reign supreme with this ability.

>Charge, which will allow American Football to be played in halo. At full speed, you can press the melee button to do a charge, and kill anyone in front of you. Neat.

>Smart Scope: The big one, the one thing that sent everybody into a frenzy at the beginning, but has been accepted for the most part by the community. in essence, its the same scoping mechanic that has always been in Halo, but they've updated it and I personally think that it look awesome. Now all weapons have some sort of zoom, even it its just to slightly improve a guns accuracy a bit, such as with the AR. One thing that people went crazy over was that it look like ADS at first, but after watching every different videos, it functions just like the Classic halo scope view, just now you can see the gun.

that the most if what I wanted to talk about. What are your thoughts, views, opinions, etc. --Siphon 117 18:45, 11 November 2014 (EST)

I just don't understand why your Spartan needs to look down a reflex sight when he has a HUD that can project that zoom anywhere. The reflex sight on the BR just looks tacky, IMO. The AR's zoom function seems really cool, though. It turns it into an actual assault rifle with high accuracy but high recoil. And apparently, the ADS/zoom is activated with left trigger now. Blech. Hopefully there's a control scheme that puts it on the right stick click.--FluffyEmoPenguin^{(ice quack!)} 11:31, 13 November 2014 (EST)

@FluffyEmoPenquinYeah, the reflex sight does look a little weird, but functionaly its the same as the original scope. And as far as the trigger zoom, that's just one of the controller options that you can use. And you can toggle wether you push once to zoom, or have to hold it down, which has been in all of the FPS Halo games. I'm personally going to use Recon, as I always have. Anyway, still looks amazing, can't wait for it.--Siphon 117 16:18, 13 November 2014 (EST)

I'm with Fluffy Emo Penquin here. I just don't see the point of the "smart scope". the scopes in H1-4 made a lot of sense, and looked pretty good. This does neither. --Weeping Angel (talk) 00:00, 15 November 2014 (EST)

@ Weeping Angel Yeah, but we can't really complain to much until we actually test it ourselves, now can we? Siphon 117 00:28, 15 November 2014 (EST)

Before I get started with what I have to say, is the "smart scope" replacing the regular zoom?? I looked at the controller layout (to the right) and it appears that you don't have the regular zoom available - and to me that is a Baddddd thing.

Anyway, Testing the game out yourself may seem like the most plausible thing to do to be able to judge this feature, but based on these gameplay videos I've seen, I have to side with Weeping Angel & FluffyEmoPenquin on this re-branded "aim-down-sight". Just like Fluffy said, there's no reason for a Spartan to have to look down a sight. In the previous games your HUD projects what your scope sees. As for accuracy from firing from the hip, your hud still got the job down without needing extra accuracy. Now all of a sudden you have the "smart" scope. I noticed several flaws with it. First, it's "un-Halo-like". COD, battlefield, and whatever modern shooter utilizes it to make shooting accurate and a lil more realistic. That's fine but now Halo wants to use it? Why? Halo never needed it. Plus this is a futuristic domain where ADS is replaced by a wireless "smart link" to your gun's scope where ADS is rendered pointless. And that brings me to the next flaw that I noticed when watching the beta gameplay videos. Now with this "new" feature, your gun/reflex sight becomes a HUGE distraction or in the case of the pistol, an obstruction. Before when you zoomed in you had a completely unobstructed view of your target. Now all of a sudden, with his "smart scope", you have the distraction & obstruction of your gun. I noticed a lot of "missed" kills from using it, as well as the gun getting in the way of your target. The smart scope may be a nice lil "cool" feature to help Halo keep up with the other shooters but from my perspective, it doesn't make any logical sense to have it in this game. The only guns I see truly benefiting from this feature are the assault weapons. But even then, all they would need is a smart link scope and you can get the exact same results. So overall, I'm not feelin this smart scope feature. The only way I'm going to like it is if it's an optional feature in the game but from the looks of it, that doesn't appear to be the case.--Killamin7 [Comm|Files] 14:04, 27 December 2014 (EST)

Okay it looks like after viewing this video at around the 43:00 mark, it appears that default zoom is still available w/ the option of using smart scope. That's great but I would have to change my control scheme so that I don't find myself using ss.--Killamin7 [Comm|Files] 15:59, 27 December 2014 (EST)