We have the great luck to test the new Blockbuster-Ego-Shooter Halo 5: Guardians for you. In the new Halo game, the Master Chief is not playing the main role anymore, but this review will show you that this is not so bad as it sounds.

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We wanted to focus the singleplayer in this review. We noticed that we need a little bit more time to test the multiplayer as it deserves. We need a little bit more time to test the modes Warzone, Arena and the REQ-System.

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The multiplayer is a huge and traditionally important part of the Halo games. That is the reason why we can not say too much about the balancing, the stability of the servers and the gameplay fun in multiplayer mode.

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It has take only a few seconds Until we get the first goosebumps in Halo 5: Guardians. When the main menu appears out of the darkness on the screen, you can hear the famous and world wide known Halo theme music. At this moment it was clear for us – Halo is finally back!

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The biggest question is: Does this game, which is the first real Halo game developed by 343 Industries fulfills the high expectations? We have been really excited after we pushed the start button to play the main campagne.

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The game’s story takes place a few month after Halo 4. The humanity is shaken about brutal attacks on the outer colonies. And there is more. After the well known Master Chief disappear the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) has no other opportunity than to interfere into this. Spartan Jameson Locke and his team called Team-Osiris, which includes the Spartan-Soldiers Olympia Vale, Holly Tanaka and Edward Buck, be commissioned to find the Master Chief and to bring him back. What we love is that we play the game not only from the view of the Master Chief and his Team Blue which includes the Master Chief, Frederic, Linda and Kelly. We also play the game from the view of Team-Osiris, too.

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Unfortunately, this story isn’t made for Gamers that play Halo for the first time. You have to know a lot about the things that happens before. Player that did not know anything about characters like Catherine Halsey or Cortana or about terms like Oni, Forerunners or the Alliance will be quite overwhelmed. We do not want to tell you more about the story, because we do not like Spoilers and the Halo universe is fantastic. But there is a grandiose solution. Not long ago 343 Industries and Microsoft have released a remake collection of all four Halo games that tell the story of the Master Chief. This are not all Halo games but they are even as great as the new one. We think, that all Xbox One owners should have in addition to Halo 5 the Master Chief Collection in the cabinet.

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What we love is that this game and the look of their levels are more varied than the games before. For example, you have to fight your way through a lot of enemies on the snow-planet Kamchatka, fly above the destroyed surface of Meridian and visit Sanghelios.

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What we also like is that there are clear differences between the two teams. Team-Osiris appear more fresh and dynamic in their look as Team Blue. Team Blue acts more routinely and clarified in their movement. What we also like is that some of the Team-Osiris characters are ge-motion-captured and spoken by well known actors for example like Buck which is played by the Firefly-Legend Nathan Fillion. What we also like is that the new Halo game invites us more into the Halo-Universe. We can find more Datapads that gives us more informations about the background and we can also talk with resistance on Meridian.

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What we have to say is that this Halo game focuses more on Team Osiris than on the Master Chief.  You play 12 of the 15 missions as Locke together with his team. We think that players with the experience will finish the game in 7 up to 8 hours. We wished there would be more, because the story is great and we had a lot of fun to play the game.

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We noticed that 343 Industries has created a huge feat with Halo 5: Guardians. We love it that they did not change the traditional basics of the Halo Franchise but they add some little and careful implemented changes that raises the gameplay to a higher level.

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We love the controls of this game which are very direct and it is very safe to hit enemies. We love it to hit some enemies, to take cover and then give enemies the rest with a grenade or a precise headshot. The feeling of the weapons is fantastic and the human and alien weapons have a lot of power. What we also love is that there are a lot of different weapons in this game that have been great updated.

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Especially the upgraded Promethean-Enemies are great to fight against with because sometimes you need a strategy to kill them. Not only the new soldiers but also the new Jumpers show their vulnerability with light-points. It is a feeling if you hit them at the right place of their body and they disappear in a beautiful light show. We love that the developers add the Thrusters and especially the new climbing function. This features give the gameplay a special touch. Players can now boost in every direction by only pressing a button what is very helpful if you do not have much ‘health’. What we especially like is the new Revive-System. We like it that if your energy bar is empty you do not have to restart the level. It is possible to be revived in a certain time. We like this system because the gameplay is rarer interrupted.

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We like it that the linearly built levels supports the new Clamber-Function. This gives players the opportunity to run smoother through the levels and also supports the tactical superiority that that it is much easier to flank enemies. We noticed that 343 gives with this level desgin players the opportunity for different attack-strategies.

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We also noticed that the levels have a much higher Elevations and also sometimes several floors than the last Halo games. That means that players also have to watchwhat happens below and above of them but it is also possible to use this for your own strategy. Overall, we love it that Halo 5 is very fast, pleasant and directly to play. One tradition thing in this game franchise is the variation of levels. That means that you have to go through some of them on foot and in others you have to use vehicles. We love it that they have known vehicles of this series like the Warthog, the Ghost,  the Scorpion-Tank, the Mantis-Mech and the Mongoose. In this game you can also take a flight in the new Phaeton-vehicle.

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We think that the old proven halo-recipe works also in this game. Unfortunately, we think that this game could have more of new enemies or vehicles. We also think that the boss-fights are too often similar and after the first one you know how you have do beat them.

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What we like is that Halo 5: Guardians’ singleplayer is completely designed for teamwork and this is something new in this franchise. We are never alone on our way through the Halo 5 universe. It is also possible to play the singleplayer with three other friends or the AI controls the other characters. If you play with bots it is possible to give our companions orders. We can give them commands like ‘Attack’ or ‘Move to this position’. What we like is that the game does not force us to do so. We like it that the AI solves most situations really good alone in the most times. We can also confirm, that the enemies Halo 5 are very clever, too. They are really hard to beat at the normal difficult level but in ‘Heroic’ and ‘Legendary’ they are extremely dangerous. In this difficult levels you have to pay attention if you have enough ammunition and stay in cover.

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Unfortunately there are some bad new for friends of the multiplayer-mode. It is the first time in this series that it is not possible to play the game in split-screen, neither the co-op-singleplayer or the regular multiplayer mode. There is also no Lan-Functions. Everybody who wants to play the multiplayer mode needs a internet-connection. This is really sad, because Halo was the game franchise that supported the co-op-gameplay, the great nights you sitting with your friends on the couch, get some pizza and beer and have a nice evening together.

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Let’s talk about the multiplayer. The Arena-Mode is the classic Halo-Multiplayer in which you play in teams 4 vs. 4 on small maps. The new Warzone-Mode offers 24-Player-Matches on huge maps with AI-Enemies.

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The thrusters offer some dynamic matches, the hunts are excited, the design of the maps exemplary. We like that every Spartan now starts with the same conditions. On the other side, Warzone is so large that a match can take more than 30 minutes because every team have to get more than 1000 points to win. It is a lot of fun to fight against enemies and AI-Boses and conquer bases. New in Halo 5 is the REQ-System, which allows you to get new weapons or skins with card-packs. We also can modify our characters with new helmets, visors or armor. This also works with the help of the REQ-System.

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We can definitely say that Halo 5: Guardians is a prime example for how great Xbox One games can look like. The game runs with 60 frames per second, the battles running smooth, we have not seen any stuttering even with a lot of enemies and many large objectives that moving in the background.

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The variad levels are rich of details and the objective’s textures are very sharp. A lot of things happen at the same time. We can not remember that so much enemies and air battles happened at the same time in the Halo games before. We also love that 343 Industries included in this game a firework of light effects. Great looking Sunrays, muzzle flashes and some of the weapons have also a flashlight, illuminate courses. All in all we can say that Halo 5 is a bombastic good looking game. This combined with the music gives us the great feeling like we would once again land on the Ring-Planet. The game is also rich of lovely details. For example, the red glowing barrel of the Warthog-Machinegun or the huge ammunition shells which the Scorpion-Tank drops after a shot.

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What we also can confirm is that the weapons and other effect sounds never better than in this game before. Lovely. We also like that the game is not so quiet. That means that you can hear how Team Blue ar Team Osiris talk with their companions through the Team-Chat The enemies’ some voice samples are also great. This not bad because it creates a great battle atmosphere. This is completed with the great sound of the orchestral soundtracks. We love it that the composer Kazuma Jinnouchi combines expertly new tracks with the old and well known Halo-Classic-Sounds.

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We never thought that 343 Industries could create such a great Halo game. We think that this is one of the best Halo games that has been ever made. They did almost everything right: Bombastic moments, variety and especially the gameplay feeling does exactly the correct evolutionary step forward. Especially the cool thrusters and the climbing function supports the strategic elements. We have to confirm that they used the old Halo-Recipe, linear levels in which you have to fight alternately on foot or by using vehicles and full packed with action. This sounds simple and old, but it still works and 343 Industries converted it superbly. Unfortunately, we think that 343 made some mistakes with the story. It is very hard for beginners to get into it if they did not have played the other Halo games before. The story about Team Osiris and that they hunt the best soldier in the universe is great. We only missed some surprising turns in this storyline. We think that you get with Halo 5 Guardians the best Xbox shooter that has been ever made for this console that did not forget where he come from. That means that real Halo fans will have a lot of fun with it.

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If we would descripe Halo 5 Guardians with only one world it would be ‘amazing’. 343 released a game with a bombastic campaign and wonderful look. The soundtrack is as good as in high level hollywood-blockbuster movies and the sequences are so great directed that we would like to watch them again and again. What we love is that 343 Industries do not only focussed the look of this game. They also developed and refined the game’s gameplay: The great action filled battles which offers a lot of tactical opportunities thanks to the new movement functions. What we love is that the game is still clear and controllable even with this high number of enemies, the explosions, vehicles and the huge battles and things that happens in the background. We never had the feeling that it is too chaotic. We love to play the game in co-op and the multiplayer is once again extremely great.

We think that not only every Xbox One owner should have this game at home. We can also go so far and say that we think that every shooter fans should buy a Xbox One to have the opportunity to play Halo. 343 Industries, thank you for this great experience.

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