Halo 5: Guardians - The gift that doesn't give - Xbox One Review

Let's get straight to the point, I'm no Halo fanatic. In fact, I didn't care very much for him. I picked up the series from 3 and just enjoyed shooting stuff. Even more so when I probably paid £20 for the lot making it worth the investment. Now I thought I'd change that and jump onto the pre-order bandwagon for Halo 5. Was it worth it? Hell nah

For anyone who has read previous articles, you'll be well aware that I enjoy story. Halo's trailers depicted a rogue Master Chief being chased down by another Spartan called Locke; a hench dude with a a beard that looks like he's drawn it on with a whiteboard marker. Surrounded by rubble, the 2 variants features both characters in vice versa roles drawing their weapon to shoot the restrained one. The whole world appeared to be mourning the death of Chief and the whole thing looked very distopian. Jump into the game and its dramatically different. There is only one confrontation between the characters and this is just over the halfway mark in the game, so about 3-4 hours in and lasts a mere 30 seconds. Chief isn't dead and the world has a far different threat to deal with. SPOILERS - Its Cortana. She's gone batshit crazy and is now planning to police all of the known worlds with some crazy machines. Here is the problem, after 6-8 hours of gameplay, the story isn't actually finished. The credits roll, the game is over and you're left wondering why you spent a fortune for something that wasn't even complete and drags a story so dull and lacklustre on for another instalment. I've played indie games for longer that were cheaper and far more enjoyable. It's the perfect depiction of a cash cow and it'll become another yearly game that bleeds money from its consumers because some mechanics are slightly different and the multiplayer maps have changed - aka Call of Duty.


Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed my experience of shooting stuff on platforms, moving on and rinse and repeat a hundred times, but I'm a different kettle of fish. I'm not there for multiplayer, I'm here for lots of fun and I didn't get that. We've established that the story was pulled from the inner rim of a public toilet but lets talk about everything else wrong with it.

• Its recycled
• Characters and Voice acting were rather dull (Sorry Nathan Fillion, you don't sell it)
• Weapons lack diversity, power and ammo. Seriously, how the fuck does it take a full magazine to kill one enemy!?
• No diversity in enemies. They're dropped in from the beginning and they never change so levels don't ramp up in difficulty, they just add more
• Repetitive zones and boss - Literally, its all the same
• God awful boost mechanic which moves you about 3ft at a time

Its not a long list, sure. Yet its a big list when the only things I can draw from it that are actually good are the visual cut scenes,general graphics and the sound effects. Many people worry about triple A games and the reviewers who cover them for the big publications and so far, these big guys have talked up and marketed these titles as some of the best games ever. I simply cannot agree and with complaints and rumours of paid promotions and reviews by these publications, its not looking good.
I'm currently debating selling or returning this item because it was honestly a bleed on an already tight purse that didn't give its customers what they really deserved - A game for the people, not for the bank account.

6/10 - Tune in next time to see the gradual decline of triple A games in record time