McTuckey Fried Apocalypse

So Halo Infinite’s first flight was fantastic. On top of just being excited to play a new Halo for the first time in 6 years, this also just FEELS like Halo.

First off, thanks to readers Eric and Nathan who both hopped on and played with me over the weekend! You guys rock. And a thanks to anyone who joined in on the stream on Twitch! I don’t stream often but it’s fun to do from time to time.

So, the flight was focused on testing out the bots. PVP was only hosted for about 2 hours, and those were mostly the only matches I lost. The bots were fun but I was surprised they weren’t as challenging. The Marine level bots were easy, which was expected. The ODST’s put up a decent fight but were usually always beaten within a 20 point lead. Surprisingly, Spartans were easier than ODSTs, which should not have been the case. Lack of challenge aside, this looks like a fun way for someone to have a chill time playing multiplayer without the pressure of some 12-year-old screaming at you for being a failure at Halo and, by extension, life.

The gameplay was fantastic. The addition of sprint was alarming, but overall the matches felt like they went at that slower pace that old-school Halo is supposed to go at. Needler was life. Grapple shot was fun. The default sensitivity was a little cray and I had to tone it down, and even then it was pretty hard to keep a shot focused. But beyond that everything felt really solid and playing the same gametype on the same three levels all weekend was immensely enjoyable. I remember for Halo 5’s beta I just kind sampled it a bit for an hour or two and moved on. For this flight, I couldn’t put it down.

Speaking of the levels, I was definitely enjoying the three we were playing on. Sgt. Johnson’s academy was a smaller scale arena map. And returning to Old Mombasa was nostalgic, and that map was just plain fun. The indoors hydro-plant was maybe my least enjoyed. It felt a lot more like something we would play in Halo 4 or 5. It wasn’t terrible but at times was a bit confusing to navigate even after I got to know it.

The color skins are still super annoying. I want to just be able to go in and pick my orange and blue color scheme, and I can’t. Not even within the starting battlepass is that an option. That said, the customizability beyond that is amazing and I love having an AI. My favorite was either CIRC who had a supportive mom voice or PYRAMID who was more like an excited kid brother. I was a bit hesitant about them removing the red vs blue tradition that goes back to Halo CE, but it’s pretty cool that the way you want your spartan to look is the way they appear in every match! Also into the fact you can customize what color outline your allies and enemies have (which is also a win for accessibility, since color blind folks have had trouble with the red vs blue system for years).

Overall my final thoughts are HALO INFINITE GOOD and MOAR.

MOAR.