Recent reviews by Slothy

Fantastic expansions.

Highly recommended.

An exceptional DLC.

Highly recommended.

A masterpiece DLC for a masterpiece game.

A fantastic conclusion to Geralt's story.

Highly recommended

The depth and immersion of the Witcher 3 is astounding.

Quite possibly one of the greatest games ever made.

Highly recommended.

A fantastic VR adaption mod.

Highly recommended.

A very good survival /horror immersive sim. The aesthetic, gameplay and level feel is great, even at this early point. Gloomwood has huge potential throughout early access. I'm looking forward to exploring the new areas as development continues.

The gritty, gothic, and dreary atmosphere is quite unique and all encompassing.

7/10.

Highly recommended.

Absolutely glorious!

Near infinite replay-ability with custom community maps, alongside a great official campaign. The aesthetics, audio design, level flow, and general game-feel are top notch.

Highly Recommended.

Halo Infinite's campaign is probably the best 343 made Halo campaign so far, although it has its issues.

A more cohesive narrative than the last 2 games. The story is connected to events occurring in the last 2 343 titles (Halo 4 and 5) whilst also having callbacks and cues from the previous classic trilogy. (The campaign wasn't a total narrative failure and I'm counting that as a good thing)

I have some criticisms concerning the open world section and general combat encounters which is detailed further below, as well as other more minor things.

A mix of Halo 4 and Halo CE is how I best describe its overall narrative feel. It's not as surface level as CE, and has some deeper layers of character development occurring to the main and supporting characters (Pilot, Chief and The Weapon)

It is an overall simpler and more "localised" story, akin to CE, but has some of the narrative development and depth of Halo 4, as opposed to Halo 5's rapid, hard to follow and all over the place story. I was glad that they kept a somewhat talkative Chief throughout the gameplay, which contributes to immersion.

Having just finished the campaign on Heroic difficulty, here are some thoughts.

> The campaign starts out really strong, and had me mostly hooked in the first 2 missions. I was intrigued and immersed. The cinematography in general is very good throughout.

It had a definite classic halo vibe I had not experienced since halo 2 and 3. At times, even the wonder and mystery of Halo CE re-emerged during some of the indoor forerunner sections.

> Gameplay is good. All the weapons are usable, can serve specific tactics and complement the new mechanics and equipment well. It feels great during moment to moment gameplay.

> The open world section is when it starts to lose its place a bit.

> The open world section is generally fun in bits and pieces, but can be tiring to traverse across and repetitive at times. It's not as bad as the far cry checklist gameplay, but still a bit of a chore at times to play through. I'm not entirely convinced that an open world works for a Halo game.

It feels as if the enemies encountered in the open world section are there just "because", waiting in yet another identical combat area/camp just waiting for you to show up and do a "Halo" thing. This is in contrast to earlier title's more open sections that were structured for a specific encounters and gameplay sequences, which resulted in more memorable gameplay sections

The open world section feels artificial and hollow. Everything just merges together in one big blob, as opposed to, for example, the tank sections, the on foot sections, the warthog sections ETC ETC of previous game's campaigns.

There is also just one open world area theme / biome, a forest and plains area. The same looking areas can get tiring to look at, with no distinct snow/desert/swamp themes areas to give some visual diversity as encountered in previous entries.

I don't feel the open world style of enemy encounters in Halo Infinite are as unique and memorable compared to the more structured encounters experienced in the previous games. It feels like an MMO "mob" area as opposed to an actual combat encounter.

Halo 3: ODST felt more organic and immersive with its enemy placement in its very small "open world" area, with more interesting combat encounters occurring when traversing from objective to objective.

This may not bother people who are used to this type of gameplay from other open world games. Infinite's campaign is structured very differently from most other Halo games. There are little to no large scale encounters found in the previous games involving enemy vehicles.

However, I overall mostly enjoyed the open world section and the new equipment, mechanics and objectives that came with it, but prefer the more constrained wide but linear classic Halo levels.

Some of the main missions occurring in the outside open areas were also great, with a more structured feel (The pelican down mission and the mining laser area come to mind)

> Inside sections are more structured and familiar to classic halo levels, if a bit samey after a while. The forerunner architecture is visually stunning and has strong Halo CE and 3 design inspirations. Seeing these classic designs modernised but still recognisable is magnificent. Inside levels are very well lit and the material design is outstanding. Infinite can be a very good looking game.

I found the inside levels more interesting combat wise, but repeated areas were noticeable. However, this didn't bother me as it became more interesting due to more structured and organic combat occurring, akin to the classic trilogy.

> Boss battles were good at first, but became overused and somewhat predictable near the middle to end of the game, when the shine wore off.

I feel boss battles were used too much and I believe that these types of combat encounters should be reserved for the peak of gameplay and narrative points. It was nowhere near as bad Halo 5's boss battles, which are repeated to comical amounts. Halo Infinite's bosses felt somewhat unique, but were ultimately overused, with only a few standing out to.

For example, Halo 2's boss battles were unique, spaced apart and were used to further the narrative in meaningful ways, something Infinite somewhat did but with some extra "fluff" battles sprinkled throughout.


> PC performance is quite poor currently, especially in the open world section.
40 to 50 FPS with shaky frame pacing on lowest settings at 1440p, with a 1070ti, 16GB DDR4 and i5 8600. Turn on dynamic resolution (Min FPS) if you want a smoother but blurrier experience. During indoor levels, performance is more solid, with locked 60fps on mid to high settings at 1440p with min fps off.

>Audio adds to the immersion considerably. The soundtrack is an absolute return to form for the series. The composers and everyone involved did a great job. SFX and general audio is very good.

Even with some criticisms outlined, overall, Halo Infinite's campaign is the best 343i Halo campaign so far, story and execution wise. Gameplay is smooth and enjoyable. The new equipment, especially the grappleshot, merges perfectly with the classic halo feel. Paired with upgrade progression elements, the equipment system comfortably expands upon the game's verb-set

I overall enjoyed playing Halo Infinite's campaign, and cant wait to see what comes next for the series. After playing Halo for 15 years, I feel that Infinite's campaign is a breath of fresh air compared to Halo 4 and especially 5.

Campaign: 7/10

A tremendous remake!

Absolutely blown away. A brand new, yet so familiar experience. The definitive, "modern" version of Half Life.

The Xen section completely solidified this as the ultimate Half Life remake.

Highly recommended.

Although not as good as the other games from a gameplay perspective, Halo 4 definitely expanded the universe/lore and the master chief himself from a husk for the player to occupy, to an actual character. Environments a quite small and more hallway shooter like, with less of the larger combat sandbox areas as found in many other previous titles.

However, I found the story more immersive than most other halo games, second only to halo 2. A different take on halo, for a new chapter.

Recommended, even if it is one of the weaker entries.