Brandon Contreras

I’m giving a 4 out of 5 star because I believe in today’s gaming world a true 5 star game is a extraordinary rare. However Halo Infinite rounds that corner and leans heavily in the 4.8 star category. The game is fresh, it’s new, it’s exciting and emotional all in one. The campaign starts off swinging with excitement. No build up or lead up you jump right into the action. While at the time of writing this review it’s unclear how we got the where we are in the opening cutscene. I do hope they explain how everyone was able to get together and connect with the Infinity after the event of Halo 5. But moving on. The campaign immediately thrusts you into what feels like an open world Sandbox. Personally the map size ended up being much smaller than originally thought but 343 does manage to make it also feel incredibly large when your exploring. The story feels very easy to follow for both veteran and new players in the universe. A lot of lore and small hints can be found on audio devices which give a large insight into the events leading up to the infinity’s disappearance. I do wish they hadn’t done it that way but rather shown us just because I know there’s going to be players who ignore those audio tapes and just get to the objectives and I feel like they’re missing out on some crucial story info. I really like how they did master chief this time around. They really show you his size from having him stand next to other characters or when he drops down seeing the ground shake. But mostly they started to show his emotional cracks and showed the humanity in him. Whether it be the way he talks to the weapon or the way he kneels down to try and sympathize with the pilot. You can tell he truly doesn’t understand simple human emotion but he tries. But also you can see the hurt that’s eating him up when he reflects on Cortona, it’s an interesting perspective and it makes then Spartans but John specifically much more fascinating as characters. Overall the mechanics of the game feel smooth, the mini bosses are exciting and get you pumped. Seeing fallen Spartans gets the emotions moving and the overall mystery of the game is both exciting and interesting. The way they’ve developed the story allows it to be opened to many forms of interpretation and theories but hard to predict the ending. The small objects are pretty easy to move through and repetitive which was kind of exhausting and deterring. I wish there was more to do with the FOB system like customizations or have a large scale buildable base with equipment unlocking as you complete side missions. So far I’m roughly 15hours into the campaign and loving every minute of it. Surprisingly normal difficulty is more difficult than usual and I can’t imagine soloing half the bosses in this game on legendary. I think 343 finally got it right with Infinite and I’m excited to see the rest of this campaign story though and see what more 343 has in store for us.