You have, from memory, about six or seven free armour colour palettes, which apply to the whole outfit - a far cry from the three or so different colour channels you got to choose freely in 3 and Reach, the option of choosing an emblem to show on the chestplate, with about six palette options total (most of which don’t suit any of the designs at all), and again, no option to choose individual colours for the palette, absolutely no armour options aside from the default, and then a handful of options for your AI companion (which dictates which set of irritating commentary you get in games), and, a distracting floppy keychain you can put on your guns? lmao
EDIT: You do get a choice of eight character voices, three hip shapes, and the option to swap in prostheses for your limbs, weird that this is the most extensive bit of customisation you get
these are conspicuously the same options you get for free in Forza Horizon 5 so I’m guessing it’s an Xbox-wide D&I thing (which, good, but weird next to the season pass)
They’re in a weird spot - design-wise they’ve done a lot on the non-cosmetic side to be traditional (no loadouts, weapons on maps on timers, aforementioned movement, etc.) but that means they can’t do crowd-pleasing CoD4 unlock progression, only cosmetic progression that’s presumably non-negotiable mtx.
But then they made the progression tied to using those non-loadout map-spawning weapons. Apex occasionally asks you to use a rare drop weapon but rarely one particular weapon and RNG prevents camping.
Halo 3 and a little bit Reach/4 style, you have a sprint and items but it’s pretty restrained. I feel like you’re less mobile unaided than 4 which works for me but yeah, pretty solid Halo gamefeel really
I’ve had multiple games where people drive a vehicle into the enemy base and leave it there in the hopes the opposition boards it so they can blow it up for the purposes of challenges. Also seen people camp turrets, weapon and item spawns throughout whole games. Or people going AFK or outright quitting when they’re put into a gametype they clearly weren’t hoping for.
They were warned about this during both flights, it’s unreal.
I am more bothered by the weekly rewards being unclear. Like the weekly goals are bad enough but I wish it would tell me how many more I have to do until I unlock the visor for this week.
is the BTB good at least? Like i said earlier, given up any hope of 4v4 ever being good, the fratbro culture and community just militate against it. BTB at least you get to do stupid shit with vehicles, which is really what halo mp is about to me. driving the halo car off a grav lift and squishing a guy who was gonna rocket launch you.
cannot overemphasize how amazing this is. i congratulated goatrope on discord yday. these “teleports” are literally the 3d equivalent of “zips” in 2d speedruns like megaman - you intersect yourself with geometry in such a way that the physics engine’s attempt to spit you out puts you meters away.
the shade launches are truly unbelievable, i remember being a little 15 year old just trying to do the simplest bridge fall on Assault on the Control Room with the shade. (there was eventually a much better strategy that just walked off the side of the bridge, and then that progressed to the banshee grab.)
from this:
to this launch at 22:47:
I was interviewed for this article a few years back. It’s about the history of Halo Speedrunning, and how far we came.
yeah i was enjoying it alright. mostly just goofy chaos, which is what i want from btb. loved taking out guys in banshees and vtols that were overconfident that nobody could find the little lock-on missile rifle lol
