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Halo 3 came out when I was 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:seven years old. At that point in my life, it was my dad shaping my gaming taste. We played Ratchet & Clank, God of War, Half-Life, Prince of Persia, Battlefield, Fable, but never Halo. Instead, I’d find brief snippets of experience at a friend’s house after school, slumped on the bean bags in custom forge maps - it was great, but my foray into was over before it ever really began. I’d loved to have dived in again sooner, to get a taste of Master Chief’s glorious endeavors on the front lines, but there has never been an entry enticing enough to give it another go - that’s until Infinite cropped up.
Marketing Infinite as a spiritual reboot, ditching the numbered suffix, launching on PC at the same time, and having the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:multiplayer be free-to-play is what makes Infinite the most appealing Halo game yet. It’s even a live-service game meaning that it will have longevity, fine-tuning the experience over the years rather than pushing annual releases with tinkered mechanics. Picking up ♛this new Halo is seemingly a one-time deal - you’re in and you don’t have to worry about falling off the train and finding four more games have cropped up since you last played. It could become Microsoft’s♋ answer to the live-service shooter formula, it’s very own Counter-Strike or Rainbow Six Siege: that’s fitting for such a prestigious Xbox hallmark.
I played a little over the weekend thanks to its beta and it was a blast from the past like I’d just stepped back into Halo 3 as I remember it. That’s no doubt thanks to all the modern advancements Infinite is taking advantage of. My last experience with Halo is Reach and so it’s been 11 years - sorry to make you feel old. Yet, opening Infinite, hearing the bellowing, angelic music, and then actually getting into the thick of the gunfights, all unlocked a haven of nostalgia I didn’t know was there. Still, I didn’t remember how to play. It’s an FPS but is there more to Halo? Is there a learning curve unique to it? My mind was racing but no, Infinite is intuitive. Any modern FPS player can pick it up anꦺd be at home
I’d liken it most to in movement with swift speed and maps catered to vertical and horizontal traversal whether you’re climbing around a path to get behind enemies or sliding into cover to avoid a barrage of gunfire. From 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:grappling hooks to vehicle chases to jump pads to rocket boosting, Infinite is a game that emphasises movement. Given that the genre as a whole has finally caught up with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Titanfall 2, Infinite feels right at home, serving as a neat interim between the likes of Team Fortress 2 and Doom Eternal. Bouncing from these other shooters to 343 Industries' was like slipping on a new pair of trainers and going for the same jog you’ve taken countless times. You know💎 this trek even if it feels a bit different, even if there are some teething issues and blisters to fight through.
There’s also a nice choice between playstyles - you have the smaller maps that we’re used to in the FPS genre that are tight-knit, cramming friend and foe together so you’re always bumping heads, and then you have the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:big, sprawling open maps that let you drive around in all these flagship vehicles while sniping and firing off rocket launchers. There’s even that familiarity in the dynamic between primary and secondary as I’d often find myself swapping to my pistol through sheer instinct, firing off a few shots before reloading, nabbing a kill. All the lessons learned from other FPS games come into play with Infinite because Halo is what started and propelled so many of these basic ideas and concept▨s, but now it has ref🐷ined them and updated them to fit into the modern landscape.
Anyone can get into it, now. The series seemingly dropped out of the limelight over the years, overshadowed by the new kids on the block, but Infinite is what Doom (2016) was to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:id Software’s ‘90s classic - a fresh coat of paint that can rejuvenate the series. I let out an audible sigh when I realised that the beta had ended, an even bigger one when I clocked it wouldn’t be until December tꦏhat I can play again. But I’m glad I gave it a shot because Infinite will no doubt be what brings me back into the fold, making me a Halo fan even more so than when I was a little kid at my mate’s house on the beanbags, not realizing my controller wasn’t plugged in.
