Halo Infinite, we tried the Xbox Shooter Campaign!
Halo Infinite
Stop everyone, we tried the Halo Infinite campaign! The same one that in 2020 and in two minutes of trailer managed to generate millions of memes, among which the figure of Craig the Brute stands out, a character strong enough to be able to sweep away even the unwavering trust of the fans who hoped in a return to the series at the height of its original fame.For many, a disaster foretold, but will it really be like this?
Gameplay in exchange
More beautiful and mysterious Halo Infinite We immediately said that those graphics that were not exactly exciting hid something else, that not being beautiful would bring benefits to the gameplay. There are those who believed it, who did not and who as usual took it personally, but in the end it went just like that: what Halo Infinite loses in terms of visual spectacularity, it recovers thanks to its very solid game system . We don't want to say that Halo Infinite is ugly, on the contrary, but it certainly cannot compete with the heavyweights who make graphics one of their greatest strengths, let alone with a more linear and structurally rigid action like so many we have seen in the past. .How does this affect playing the Halo Infinite campaign? Zero. Partly because often and willingly this too knows how to reserve you screaming glimpses and then because in return we are provided with a dynamic battlefield like never before, able to acquire life and credibility through the game mechanism.
Few precious ingredients
Zeta Halo is a place full of charm and surprises, some more striking than others. Let's try to explain ourselves better. The open world of Halo Infinite works through three elements that alone represent half the game: its immense spaces, applied physics and the AI that lives within it. The other half is what most closely concerns us and the Master Chief: the combat system, the gunplay and the displacement system.Halo Infinite can be summarized in these six points: it is a game made up of very few ingredients, but very well cooked, capable of making a profound difference, of always creating new situations, when they work together. The campaign begins with more linear levels, yet always able to offer the right breath even to the smallest battles, and this is a very important element on which we will return later. It doesn't take long to leave these first introductory areas behind, all in all very good, and reach what we could define as the first open world area of the Halo Infinite campaign, which is the heart of the game and the place where we would finally find out what it is. this latest effort 343 Industries is really done.
Combat Evolved
How much fun did we have in the very first level of the very first Halo? Infinite has chosen precisely to make us relive those moments ... A certain fear emerges at this moment for a Halo that, in its open world evolution, could dramatically recall the worst of Far Cry. Fortunately, the final result is more reminiscent of another game, profoundly different, but not so far away: Crysis, to be precise the best Crysis you can imagine. The great Crytek game was more destructive, that of the 343 Industries more refined, compact and elegant, as well as offering unique and somewhat precious features. But of course the real inspiration is always Halo, to be precise the first Halo: Combat Evolved.Amazon Halo Offer Infinite Collector's Steelbook Edition - Xbox Series X and Xbox One - PREORDER € 69.99
View Offer
I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who would not have preferred a first part, the more open one, the double longer one, and the following one dominated by the infinite and uninspired Halved Library. The Halo Infinite campaign does just that: it takes that iconic level and transforms it into one massive battlefield, and in between it inserts missions that recall the most sacred and close-up features of the series.
Zeta Halo
Zeta Halo is collapsing in on itself, and part of the large game map will be separated by creepy sidereal crevasses. Halo Infinite is set on Zeta Halo, a highly unstable and multipart shattered orbiting and habitable ring. Among these cracks, a structure of glittering hexagons emerges that forms the foundation of American nature that dominates the inner surface of the ring, and distinguishes the visual character of the game.As in any open world, activities of different importance will start to pop up on the Halo Infinite map, but it is the way in which these work and the apparent progress of the game that makes the experience different and much more exciting . Instead of spoiling the surprise, risking not to respect the embargo rules that speak in English of a game we tried in Italian, we will try to remain vague: in Halo Infinite almost everything happens as an excuse to fight once more, and that's great because we landed on Zeta Halo for that very reason: to fight and possibly win.
Artificial Intelligence
Halo Infinite's Grunts are fun, and far from harmless. During the fights they chat without stopping, in Italian of course, with a truly impressive number of sentences There are fights everywhere, the secondary activities are set up as if they were organic events, the NPCs do not give the idea of waiting for us to stand still and when we reach, for example, you see a team of marines in distress already there, firing on the enemy, using everything they have at hand in a credible and compelling way.When we have helped them, the survivors will join us, they will follow us for a more or less short journey, willingly accepting the invitation to get on a warthog and joining the subsequent battles. And all of this is extremely exhilarating, imagine with the Halo soundtrack pumping in the ears, with a scenario so vast and full of secrets all around. Halo Infinite is one of those games where AI really seems to think in real time, make decisions based on what's going on around it.
To face such a threat we are provided with an arsenal that is as essential as it is perfect, among which the inevitable grappling hook that will allow us the most advanced maneuvers, such as collecting out-of-hand weapons or explosive elements that we can then throw at the enemies. The combination of a highly refined combat system and gunplay with the agile enemy AI, makes the battles of Halo Infinite some of the most fun we have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, clashes of such fluidity that we would never stop. .
Impossible to Stop
Installation 07, also known as Zeta Halo and originally called Gyre 11, is one of the seven rings in the Halo vector, positioned in the Sagittarius constellation of the Milky Way The first time that we turned on the Xbox for the Halo Infinite campaign we did it with the intention of spending a maximum of two hours and then going back to doing more urgent things. Despite all good intentions, we only managed to shut down the console ten hours later (with several pauses in between, of course). It's just too much fun to step into the picture and start fighting with the AI, see her jostle for a seat on a Banshee, bounce all over the place after an explosion, shyly try to get around you. It's fun to hear her talk, slurp, scream, shit like Grunts usually do, and you can't even imagine how many they say in Halo Infinite.And when the game is so dynamic, even dying becomes fun, after all the same battle will be different with each attempt. Furthermore, from what we have seen, the game also appears to have a very high quality auto save system. The Halo Infinite campaign doesn't even seem to lack a rich dose of exploration, but the general structure seems more aimed at a long ride towards the credits, rather than getting lost in a myriad of useless activities: in the very first hours we found only some rare audio files and a locker where a cosmetic element for multiplayer was hidden.
Pure and visceral
Not only open world, Halo Infinite should also include several levels that will not make us regret the most mystical moments of the past We still don't know if the quality will be so high until the end, Halo Infinite could run out of ideas prematurely, turn out to be too short or too long, inconclusive if not downright boring, which is the worst thing for an action video game. We are not yet in a position to express an opinion on the complete product also because we have not yet seen, tried, tested it.But we can tell you one thing right away, these first few hours have been incredible, a return to the intelligent and profound FPS, where it is the AI and the gameplay to give life to the game, the purest and most visceral interaction . In some ways, the 343 Industries operation is reminiscent of what id Software did with its 2016 Doom: reinventing while respecting.
Did you understand, in short, what happened? We started off waving a possible disaster and came to an end with an incredibly promising game. Would you have expected this?
The Halo Infinite campaign is proving to be revolutionary in the right place, as well as being graphically improved quite substantially. We do not yet know if the open world structure will be able to withstand the vision of the developers until the end, but the beginning bodes well. For the uninitiated, the Halo Infinite campaign will arrive on December 8 and will be downloadable at a price of 59.99 euros within the same client used for multiplayer and already available on Xbox and PC consoles. Of course it will be available at no additional cost to Game Pass subscribers.
