Video Gamers Podcast - Deep Dive: Halo Infinite Multiplayer - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: November 22, 2021

Gaming spartan Josh and Gaming host Paul are bringing you an incredible episode made possible by the early release of Halo Infinite Multiplayer. A gift from 343 Studios, this free to play multiplayer game is one you don’t want to miss. We break down all you’d want to know about this years gaming surprise before we play Make Love, Marry or Murder and see where it lands on the gaming leaderboard.  Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad  Thanks to Razer for sponsoring the show. Use code: Multiplayer at checkout for your free gift! Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen up, Spartans. Your mission is to go acquire the best high-tech gear that you can, and there's one place that you can obtain all that, and that's Razer Headquarters. Check out their line of amazing wireless products, headsets, mice, keyboards, and all the gear a Spartan needs to win on the battlegrounds. You can pick up your gear at multiplayerpodcast.com slash Razer. Make sure you enter code MULTIPLAYER to get that sweet free gift to go along with it. Now on to Halo Infinite. Hello squad mates, welcome back to the Multiplayer Gaming Podcast.

If you are new to the show, we break down the world of gaming in a family-friendly format. Please make sure to rate our podcast five stars and leave a review if your podcast app allows. Also, if you'd like to help support the show and get exclusive access to two extra QuickTake episodes every week, you can subscribe in Apple Podcasts or on Patreon by visiting MultiplayerSquad.com. I'd like to think it's well worth a couple of bucks every month to get the extra episodes, and it really does mean a lot to us here.

I am your host, Paul, and then joining me, he's as happy as a Spartan in mud because Christmas came early this year, it's master josh i was apparently a very very good spartan this year paul because i got the best early christmas present this was a good one and the funny thing is we did even mention this a little bit on our last episode saying that there were some rumors halo infinite might be coming out a little early and so for those of

you who've been listening to our show for a while, you know that we do a deep dive episode every other week. And normally we would be due for a bonus round episode. But Josh, I mean, Halo Infinite just came out. How do we not jump right into Halo? We do jump right into Halo, Paul. As soon as the news came out, we started playing instantly. All of our friends were excited. We started playing this, and then you and I were like, dude, I know we're scheduled for a bonus round, but we can't not talk about Halo Infinite as soon as possible. Yeah, we really just had to jump at the chance. And we've just been waiting for a new Halo game for so much time. We were so excited to jump into this one all right now before we deep dive halo infinite here we do have a

little bit of housekeeping we do want to say thank you to three of our favorite supporters they have been supporting us on patreon for a little while now at the epic level so we want to say thank you so much to Red Letter, Michael the Butler, and Yoda! We gotta do it every time, right? I know I can't do a Yoda, but it doesn't matter. I'm still gonna do it every time. It was not bad. Yeah, so we

want to say thank you so much to them, along with all of our other supporters, and everyone who just listens to the show. We really do appreciate it. And then Josh, I think you've got a review or two to read for the show here. I do. We've got to make up for a little bit of lost time.

And so I've got two more reviews from users, man. We've had some new ones rolling in. If you have not left us a review yet, please do that. You can do that on Apple podcasts. That's really where reviews are most important. If you don't have an Apple phone, borrow your friends. It's very easy. They're automatically loaded with podcast app. You can just go in there, search for multiplayer gaming

podcast, and then write us up a review. And there's a good chance we're going to read it on the show. But I've got two really good ones here. The first one is from Flaming Muffin Toilets. It's a great name. And it's titled Love the Podcast. And it says, you guys make my day. I listened to your podcast on the way home from school, and you've gotten me into playing more games than I can count. Keep up the great work. Oh, thank you, Flaming Muffin Toilets.

By the way, is that just one of those names where you just come up with three random words and just mash them together? No way. That's been his gamer handle for ages, I'm sure. Oh, dude, I love stories about crazy gamer handles. Our friend Andrew, back in the day, hated Brett brett farve i don't think i've told this story on the podcast maybe i have but he hated the brett farve love so much because farve just threw so many interceptions and everything he made his xbox name die farve die and then later

on down the road at some point he had he had to call Microsoft customer support because he got billed for Xbox Live and he had to cancel it. And they asked him, what is your Xbox Live handle? And he's like, die, farve, die. That's where I'd make it sound different. It'd be like, defave, refive. DA, farve, DA. DA Farve DA. Yeah. Uh,

all right. And then what's, what's the other one comes in from Sam Salat and it's titled love, love, love this podcast. So they outdid flaming muffin toilets there for the title, but I, and this one says,

these guys are so relatable. I happen to be the Todd in my friend group, so I really miss his interactions. But Paul and Josh's banter is very lovable. I especially appreciate the family-friendly nature. It's great to hear more than just the one adjective to describe everything. Keep it up, guys. Can't believe it, but they actually made me subscribe just to hear Paul describe not playing Wolfenstein and still somehow think it was worth it. P.S. Destiny 2 is so overrated. I don't know why Josh loves it so much.

Yeah, Josh, you have just been behind Destiny 2 since day one. I don't know when you're going to give it up. A huge proponent of Destiny 2. It's my secret love in gaming right next to Fortnite. Oh, well, thank you so much, Sam Salat. I like that that kind of hits on a couple of long-running jokes, right? Your love of Destiny 2, me talking about Wolfenstein. Oh, man.

I love when listeners just know the show, man. That really makes me happy. And I'm so sorry that you're the Todd of your group. I mean, every group's got to have one. We all need a show, man. That really makes me happy. And I'm so sorry that you're the Todd of your group. You know, I mean, every group's got to have one. But, you know, we all need a Todd, man. Yeah. All right. Well, I think that's all that we have by way of housekeeping.

Oh, actually, I guess I should say one thing. Normally, we record at night when my children are in bed. However, right now, my four-year-old is running around the house screaming like a banshee with her friends. So it's possible you might hear some of this in the background. I won't know until I edit the podcast. So if you do hear some kids having fun,

we'll just have to deal with it. It's not the worst problem in the world. They're used to my dogs barking at this point, Paul. Between my daughter, Anna, your dog, Paul. Between my daughter Anna, your dog Atlas. We've got it covered. This is what happens when you record during COVID and everything was done in our houses, right? I mean, let's be honest, Paul. The reason that we're recording this early is so we can play Halo tonight. It really is. It might be 4pm.m. in the afternoon when we are supposed to be doing

our day jobs. And just don't tell our bosses. We're going to squeeze this in early. We want to have all the time that we can to play Halo, which might be a little bit of a spoiler to tell you whether or not we have been enjoying it. All right. Well, that's all that we have for housekeeping. Let's jump in. Let's deep dive Halo Infinite. All right, Josh, that's all that we have for housekeeping. Let's jump in. Let's deep dive Halo Infinite. All right, Josh, I've got a description here on Halo Infinite from Wikipedia. Halo Infinite is a first-person shooter game developed by 343 Industries and published by Xbox Game Studios. The sixth main entry in the Halo series, it continues the story of the Master Chief following Halo 5 Guardians from 2015. Unlike previous installments in the series, the multiplayer portion of the game is free to play.

I think that's the big news about this one. This is the first one that's free to play. So all of you out there who are listening to the show, download it. Give it a try. Even if you think your PC can't run it or if you are on a laptop, at least give it a try. Totally free. That's something that needs to be reiterated because there is a lot of people that think that it is only free because they're beta testing it, or stress testing or something like that. The Halo multiplayer in its entirety is free and will remain free to play. And that is

huge because Halo's never done that before. And so if you're out there thinking like, oh, it's just a limited time period because it's a beta or something like that, no, it is free to play and it's going to stay that way. Now, obviously, they have some monetization things going on there, but this is a huge change for Halo to release this aspect and say, hey, here you go. This is just, you know, here you go, people. We want you to enjoy this game. Yeah, it's just dropped out here for everybody. All right. Now, before we specifically talk about the infinite entry in the series, let's just talk a little bit about our history with Halo. If you are a very long-term listener of the show, we did record an

episode on Halo Reach well over a year ago. And so I know that we talked a little bit about it back then, but I thought it would be fun to revisit a little bit. Have you always been a fan of the Halo series? What are some of your favorite Halo memories as you kind of reflect back? Dude, for me, the initial Halo was the reason that I bought an Xbox. I remember being so hyped that they had this game called Halo Combat Evolved. I remember seeing the gameplay trailers for it and just thinking, this is the most amazing looking game in the world. Yes, I'm buying an Xbox to be able to play this.

It lived up to all of the hype. This was back in the day when games could actually live up to the hype sometimes. It's rare now. I don't know why that is. There's this push to get games out. We've got to announce it. We've got to hype it. Then we've got to release it, even if it's a buggy mess. And they didn't used to do that back in the day. It's because you couldn't download patches well this is even like pre-internet days for you and me going back to our early days of gaming you you you had to release a finished product and nowadays it's like oh we'll fix it in post yeah get it out there yeah it's true so when halo came out i remember being blown away

that the campaign was epic and then there was the multiplayer aspect. And people back... I mean, multiplayer wasn't as big of a thing, especially in first-person shooters back then. I mean, there was a few, but it was PC. There wasn't really that many on console. I mean, I guess you had GoldenEye and stuff. GoldenEye. Yeah.

Perfect art. It's not like they didn't exist. But I feel like Halo really launched that into the mainstream with the LAN parties and stuff like that that people were doing. There was nothing more fun than getting together with a bunch of buddies and just having a Halo night or something like that. So I was instantly hooked. In all honesty, I've played Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3. I played Halo 4. I don't think I ever played Halo 5, to be honest with you. As much as I love Halo, I've not been this mega fanboy about the Halo

series. I think it's phenomenal. And it's been game-changing in that aspect. But I was just never like, I have to play every single one of them. And so I don't think I actually ever played Halo 5. There's a few of the weird ones, ODST. I don't think I ever played that. So I'm very familiar with the series, but I don't pretend to be a Halo expert on every Halo game that's ever released. Yeah, I have somewhat of a similar story. I definitely played Halo 1, and it is also the reason why I bought an Xbox. So my very first console was a Nintendo 64, and then when the Xboxes came out, I did not have any interest in it initially, but then as the word of mouth grew about Halo, I had to get my hands on one.

So this came out in 2001, which could not have been a better year in the history of Paul. This is when I was 16 years old, turning 17. I was a junior in high school. So this means that I was working but had all the time in the world as just a teenager. And so I played Halo every day for hours and hours on end. And I think the one thing that maybe people don't quite understand anymore, since we've had so few Halo games over the last 10 years, is just the overall cultural impact.

I mean, I don't know about you, Josh. Every person I knew played Halo. Everybody I knew played Halo. Everybody I knew loved it. It was not even difficult to get a group of eight people and hook up your two Xboxes through a network switch and you would play and do custom matches 4v4. I mean, you could even end up with more than eight people. I remember on a couple of occasions, we would have 10, 11, 12 people at once. I mean, everybody loved Halo. It literally took over the world. I kind of feel like Halo and the Xbox are synonymous.

I don't know if the Xbox would have really been successful if it wasn't for Halo. I agree with you 100%. Because like I said, the entire reason that I purchased an Xbox initially, and let's be honest, when Xbox came out, they were not cheap. You know, this was like, you know, you saved up or you begged your parents or you worked all summer long to be able to afford this thing. Like you really planned ahead for this. And you did that because you wanted to play Halo.

Like, yes, they were going to have other games. You own the console once you buy it. But Halo was legitimately the reason that you bought an Xbox at the time. I mean, I know it was that way for me. And you're right that there is... I think what sets it apart was exactly what you said. There was a cultural impact. We talk about the glory days of playing Goldeneye with buddies. Well, Halo was that next iteration of that. It was the more modern version of that. I still have many, many memories of sitting on my buddy's couch playing Halo with six to eight different people or something like that, switching up teams, trying to balance them out, an insane kill streak and everybody's

cheering. Like, oh, you don't want that one friend on your team because he's terrible. Like talking trash to your buddies, teabagging them, that kind of stuff. It was not only that the game was so groundbreaking at the time, but what it brought to the social aspect and the cultural aspect of gaming at that time frame is hard to quantify. Yeah, it's very hard to think about a game taking over the way Halo did at the time. I remember this kind of starting the mantra at the time, which was, if you wanted to play great multiplayer games, you bought an Xbox or an Xbox 360. And if you wanted to play the great single player exclusive titles, you would go with PlayStation. And in my circles, it was just a lot of Xbox because everyone wanted to play the Halo games. I played the heck out of Halo 1 and 2. I went through a very brief period

of playing a lot of Halo 3, and then that was the last one for me for quite some time, until Todd made us play Halo Reach in the Master Chief Collection, which we famously hated. It's why people thought we hated Halo for the last year and a half, and we just kept saying, no, we need a brand new Halo. I feel like we have been waiting for this day since we started the podcast. We finally have new Halo content I feel like we have been waiting for this day since we started the podcast. We finally have new Halo content. We don't have to review a 15-year-old entry like Halo Reach, and we couldn't be happier. I mean, I'm so excited to talk about Halo Infinite. I am too. I love the fact that we're doing this without any sort of warning. We talked about the

rumors about them surprise releasing it. This is how you treat gamers. Honestly, again, we referenced Apex. It came out of nowhere. It took the world by storm. Here's Halo Infinite multiplayer, free to play, completely polished, well, well done game. They just drop it to the world and they say,

here you go, look what we got for you. We hope you enjoy it. And that's a huge risk. If you think about the development that goes into something like that... No, I know that they're going to release the campaign. And the campaign is a $60 game. I know I'll be playing the campaign because Halo campaigns are great. But you could, in theory, say we're losing money because people are just going to be happy with this, and now they're not going to buy the campaign. So there's some risk involved there, although I think this is going to pay off in spades. If the multiplayer experience is any indication, I think it's a very, very smart decision. Yeah. Now, let's talk a little bit about the development of halo infinite because i feel

like this is the first game that's come out that we have just really been talking about since day one and infinite has a famously long and troubled history of development i went back and just found our old twig episodes where we talked about halo infinite and it is nothing but you and me saying i am so worried about this game i can't wait to play it but i am so worried we poked so much fun at updates about volumetric lighting like as if that was supposed to get us in a tizzy over this game i mean we dunked on every piece of news about development because it was disastrous. Like, I went back. And in a one-year period, Josh, during the time that we were running our podcast,

okay, here are some things that happened. From August 2019 to August 2020, here are a couple of highlights. Creative director Tim Longo quits 343. Ouch. And they name Mary olsen as the new lead less than two months later mary olsen leaves 343 okay so we were we were running through game directors left and right in july of 2020 we got an eight minute demo that you might remember josh which really highlighted the grappling hook oh we trolled that demo so hard, Paul. So I remember all of this stuff, man. It's funny because I was really hoping that you would bring this up because Halo Infinite did not look good when they first

showed it to the world. I mean, you've had a ton of Halo fans. If you, I mean, they, the reason they dropped this is it's the 20th anniversary of Halo. So 20 years, my kids were not alive back then. You know what I mean? So it's like, you have all these people that are now adults, you know, that if you were playing Halo back in your childhood, you're, you're an adult now approaching probably your late twenties, early thirties, you know, like somewhere around there at this point. And it's like, you better not mess this up. That's kind of the thing is everybody was saying is you cannot screw up Halo if you've gone this long without releasing one.

And they showed off the gameplay and everybody went, uh, that's not good. Yeah. And it's not even that it looked terrible. I feel like everyone just went, meh. Like, just no one cared. There was nothing to get excited about, but it didn't look awful. It just didn't look next-gen. And I think that was the big thing, is that they kept telling us, this is going to launch with the next-gen consoles. This is a next-gen game, and it just didn't really deliver with that demo. And so then the next month, in August of 2020, we get word Halo's not coming out this year, which was like a huge gut punch because everyone was expecting it to release with consoles. But the word of mouth was just so bad that they just kind of delayed it.

And then we thought that hopefully it would come out in 2021. I mean, you see, it got delayed over a year. And we weren't even terribly sure for a good portion of 2021 if it would even come out before the end of the year. And so it's very funny how Halo could not have handled this wrong. They could not have handled it more wrong in the beginning, bragging about the wrong things, delivering a subpar product, really getting bad word of mouth, and then totally redeem themselves here where they release it early. It's free. And now the word of mouth is fantastic. Almost everyone we know is playing Halo Infinite and having a good time. Dude, this is the best lesson right now that we need in the gaming world right now,

is if your game is not ready, don't release it. Like, hands down, they delayed it a year. I remember us talking about going, man, that really sucks. We have to wait an entire year before we're going to see this game. And it was the best decision they ever made. Like, honestly, it's don't release it buggy and say, oh, well, we'll fix it with patches. Just say, hey, guys, it's not ready. We heard you. That's the main thing that gamers want to be able to do is say, hey, developers, we don't like this. And then have a developer listen and say, okay, you know what? We're going

to pause it. We're going to take a year and we're going to make it something that you guys want. And I mean, the campaign is not out yet, but in regards to multiplayer, it was a phenomenal decision that they made. Yeah. Now, let me ask you, Josh, because we've done a lot of deep dive episodes. We have played a lot of new games. out of all the multiplayer games that have come out recently do you think this one was the best release yes hands down because it would be very easy to make a list of like the worst oh and that's really exactly and that's the thing that's crazy right is like i remember when the news broke there was there was the rumors that this game was maybe going to surprise release.

And the rumor hype train was just a rolling. And when they came out and they said, hey, guess what? You guys can play Halo Infinite Multiplayer for free right now. We're releasing it to the world. If you went to social media, it was absolutely every single post that people were making. We were chatting in our Discord servers. People that were at work were like, wait, what? What?

I get to play Halo when I get home? People were downloading it on their phones, remoting into their PCs so that they could start the downloads so when they got home, they could play it. This is huge news. And I get, hey, not everybody out there likes first-person shooters. Maybe people haven't played Halo. They know what it is, but they don't understand the phenomenon behind it and that kind of stuff. And we have talked to a few people that are not super familiar with Halo that have picked up the multiplayer and started playing it and then gone, wow, this is really fun, guys. And this game looks really good. It runs good.

It's just crazy to me that we're so surprised when a game releases and actually works. I know. It is a little sad. This should not be the exception but it totally is and you already mentioned earlier the release of apex legends so apex dropped out of nowhere and it was such a good polished product that the word of mouth was great next thing you knew everyone was playing apex now halo however i don't remember a game at this level releasing early like this and that's such a great marketing move it could not be anything better than to to beat battlefield 2042 to the punch to come out and be free to come out early everyone is so excited about that that you just got i don't know five billion dollars of free

marketing like i i don't know a better way to release the game than to just give it to people early and have it be free you can't do this better it's not something that happens very often and it's one of those things that's goofy right because we get impatient i don't want to wait to play this game and you know what you hear about games going gold, right? Like, hey, the game's done. We're putting it on CDs or whatever. The code is solid. We're good to go. We're just waiting at this point. And it's like, dude, if it's ready to play, let me play it. Why do I have to wait three more weeks? You've set its goal. Why? Just let me play the game. And it's such an easy thing to do, to look at it and say, hey,

you know what, this game's ready. Like, sure, we're going to have some patches and we're going to need to tweak things, but it's ready to go. And then I could just see some guy going like, well, why don't we let people play it? And then somebody else going like, huh, yeah, I guess we could. It's just like, I love you, man. i like whoever decided that thank you yeah they really managed expectations well by pushing the release date out enough that they could not only fix it but then release it early like i one of my favorite jokes in one of the star trek movies because you know it's it's like one of the funnier tropes is they're always in the middle of some kind of battle scotty we need warp drive.

How long will it take you? It'll take an hour, Captain. I need it in 15 minutes. And he always does it, right? Yeah, he gets it in 15 minutes, right. And they make fun of that in Star Trek 3 where Kirk says to Scotty, do you always multiply your repair time by a factor of four? And he says, how else am I going to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker? But that's how you should approach game release, right? You're only going to let us down if you overhype your game. If anything, just give yourself time, finish the game, release it early,

if anything, instead of delaying it. And then this is how you release the game. All right. Now, you and I did get some time in with the last technical flight. We've been putting in hours here now with infinite. What are some things that stand out about this century? Like compared to the technical flight? Well, just like in general, compared to like any other multiplayer shooter right now, are you enjoying infinite? What do you like about it? It is so well done right now that like everything is just super polished. There,

there are a few complaints that people with high end rigs are not getting like the performance, like they feel like they should be getting out of it. Like there's people that are saying like, Hey, I have a top of the line, like $3,000 PC, and I'm not pulling 140 frames per second. And it's like, I have a pretty good PC. I have a really good graphics card. I play at 4K. And I'm pulling about 73 to 75 frames per second with almost everything maxed out. And that's plenty fine, man. My monitor is 120 hertz monitor. Do I want to play at 120 frames a second? Yes, I do. Can I tell the difference between 75 and 120? No. Probably not. I'm telling you right now. As nice as it is to see 120 up there, it's like, I can't tell the difference, man. And so the game plays super, super well. It's well polished. I don't think I've encountered any bugs in the actual gameplay.

Now, there's been a few bugs in the menus where it's like, hey, somebody joined your fire team and I can't see them yet. Or it starts a match and then it dumps you out of a match and stuff like that. But from a bug standpoint, I've not encountered anything that I've noticed at least. Yeah. It's not like we're getting stuck in the ground or falling through and dying. Right. You know, right.

Exactly. And I'll tell you what, I, the one comment that I hear from so many people is the sound design in this game is absolutely top notch. Like everybody that hops in there says dude the gun sounds so good like the grenades like everything is just amazing with how this sounds and feels the gun play in this game is absolutely incredible like there's a plethora of guns and some of them i

still don't even know what they do and i don't like using them because it's like i don't know what that thing kind of bounces across the ground, then explodes, but it's not a grenade. Heat wave. Right. Yes, exactly. What does this thing do? And so there's some of that figuring out going on still, but everything just looks great. It feels great. It's smooth. There's been some complaints. If you're an old school Halo fan, one of the big complaints is Melee feels different. Back in the day, because you can finish people off with Melee really easy. Old Halo, you would kind of get this lunge when you would Melee, and you got used to that and the range. And I can't tell you how many times I probably look like an absolute idiot trying to Melee somebody,

and then my guy just whiffs because I'm too far back. You know what I mean? I've done that so many times. Right, exactly. And so they fixed the melee range on this a little bit, and that takes some getting used to. And of course, people will complain about anything. So it's like, well, there's people who melee doesn't feel right and stuff like that. It's like, dude, come on, cut them some slack. But what about you? Is there anything that's standing out to you? Yeah. I mean, they delivered exactly what I have been asking for. I feel a little bit like

a broken record, but I have said 100 times, give me good old Halo, just made modern with modern mechanics and modern graphics. And that's all I'm asking. And that's exactly what they gave us, I mean, Halo Infinite has all of the same bones that we've had over the last 20 years. It's just new and improved. Like, we hated Halo Reach. And one of the reasons why is that not every kit gave you Sprint. Remember that? Like, you had to pick Sprint as your loadout or you didn't have Sprint.

And you walked around like a moron at a crawl, right? Which was fine 15 years ago and it didn't bother you then but nowadays you've got to have sprint and so guess what everyone has sprint the game could not look any better it runs fast it runs smooth it it's exactly what i wanted it feels like you know like if you see a band you want to hear the greatest hits. And I feel like that's what Halo gave us, right? They took everything good with Halo and they kept that the same. They just made it modern, which is exactly what I've been wanting. And that's what they gave us. Yeah. All right.

They fixed the one other thing too. It's not really a fix, but you and I, because we've said this in the past, and we said, give me Aim Down Sights. If you're going to give me a Halo game in 2021, let me aim down sights. And they kind of went, yeah, but that's not really Halo. And so what did they do? They kind of gave us a very good compromise where when you right click, it just zooms the screen a little bit. Yeah. And that's all I needed, man.

I just needed something to happen to where I felt like I was aiming down sights. Now, you're not really. It just zooms in a little bit, but it's perfect. I need that ability to feel like I'm honing my aim or something like that. And they did. They put that in there as well. Yeah. It's too hard to break the muscle memory of not pressing the right mouse button. You know, you're just so used to it. You have to do it. All right. Now, Josh, we did want to take a minute here and we wanted to say thank you to Razer for supporting today's episode. We have been talking about their wireless line of products and there are just so many good ones to choose from. So, you know, we've been able to use

the Viper Ultimate Mouse, which works fantastically. There's also the Black Shark V2 Pro headset. You know, we know that you guys out there are gamers just like us. We know that you want to be able to use good accessories, especially now that Halo Infinite is out. You're going to be wanting to use the best gear. And so this is the best way to do it is, you know, go to Razer.com or if you want to take a link directly from our website, you go to multiplayerpodcast.com slash Razer and then add whatever you want into your shopping cart and use promo code multiplayer and they will give you a free gift as a thank you along with whatever you order. Now, their wireless tech is three times faster than anything else on the market. So not only are you getting good quality gear at a decent price, you're not going to be suffering from any lag. It's not going to hurt your gaming performance whatsoever. So go check that out today.

Razer is for gamers by gamers. Again, just go to multiplayerpodcast.com slash Razer. Use promo code multiplayer. All right. So Josh, we have been able to play quite a bit here. And Halo always has different modes and different ways that you can play. And right now we have the options of 4v4 quick play or 12v12 big team battle. I was kind of curious to get your thoughts. Do you have a favorite out of those two? I am a... I prefer the 4v4. It's just a little more intimate. It's a little bit more reliant on your teammates. The maps are smaller. I kind of like the maps in the 4v4 a little bit better.

But having said that, last night, we had 12 people on playing big team battle because you can actually have 12 people. We've famously said we like Overwatch so much because when we have six people on, it's like the one game that we can all hop into and say, yeah, we have room for six. Well, with Halo Infinite, you can have up to 12 people on your team in the big team battles. And we had that last night and it was an absolute blast, man. Like it was so much fun. So it's one of those things where if you're going to ask me, Hey, which one do you prefer? I prefer the smaller arenas and the four V four, but man, big team battle with, with a group, a large group of friends can be so much fun at the same time. I wouldn't pick big team battle over 4v4. If I was going to just right now hop in and play some Halo Infinite, I would easily just go to the

quick play, the 4v4 mode. But you get some friends involved and big team battle becomes super, super fun. Yeah, I'm 100% with you on that. I definitely prefer the 4v4. I think it's just a better test of your personal skills because it's just a smaller group of people. You can kind of control the flow of battle more. Plus, I just like the smaller, tighter maps. I prefer to do that short to mid-range combat type stuff. Big Team Battle looks great. I love the maps, but you're just so far from the action, and you start off with the assault rifle,

which just is not good at range. And so I kind of feel like for Big Team Battle, I'm just focused more on finding the right gear, but then it's just kind of chaos. Everyone sort of tries to play hero ball. It is chaos. Yeah, it's a little of chaos everyone sort of tries to play hero ball it is chaos yeah it's it's a little too chaotic 12v12 but if you've got a full team on i mean now we're talking because now you can actually play as a group or at least relatively close as a group

and that's gonna work a lot better so the worst thing you can do is have a group of five on because now you have to do big team battle but you you're not even half of the team. So it's kind of like you kind of want either four or you want like six plus. Five is the worst. It's true. And the one thing with big team battle is it can snowball a little bit or it just gets too chaotic because you do have further to run. They're much larger maps. If people aren't working together, it really just kind of falls apart. The one caveat to that is that I absolutely love the vehicles

and you don't get vehicles in the small arenas. Last night, I was having so much fun. I mean, I was giggling like a kid at Christmas morning, man, because I was hopping in the back of a warthog as the gunner. And some of our friends were driving me around. And it was just it was hilarious because it was like, OK, James, like I got three kills with the other guy. Like, let's see how many I can get with you driving me.

And then it just became this like competition, you know, and I was counting off kills and stuff like that. And you don't get the vehicles in the smaller maps. And that's part of Halo, like the warthog, the Wasp, the Banshees, the Scorpion Tank, all that stuff, I think, is part of the Halo DNA. And so I like having that mixed in. But at the same time, it can just be less fun. Because if the other team's good and you're just you know you spend 30 seconds trying to run to get back into the battle and then you just die instantly you know like that's not as much fun whereas in 4v4 you're respawning it's like you're right back in the action right away you know your teammates can carry you a little bit more and stuff like that so there's that

trade-off there so honestly like i think both modes together work very, very well. But yeah, I'm going to play 4v4 if given just the, hey, you have to play one mode for the rest of your life. Which one's it going to be? Yeah. And this is getting a little nitpicky, but for me, it really just comes down to the default weapon being the assault rifle. On 4v4, you can just run with that if you want. I mean, you're going to do better if you know other weapons that are gonna fit the the map and your team better but on big team battle it just seems like you have to find a gun and sometimes you're just kind of stuck waiting but that's getting pretty nitpicky all right so after you choose whether you want to do 4v4 or 12v12 you have a whole bunch of modes that you can choose from. We've got things like

Capture the Flag, Stronghold, Oddball, Slayer, Total Control, Stockpile. Are there any in that list that you particularly like or dislike? Give me Slayer all day, every day, man. Slayer is hands down my favorite mode out of all of them. I just want to shoot people. It's all about getting the kills. It's about not dying. It's a race to see who can kill the other team the fastest. So for me, and I mean, let's be honest, Slayer is the core mode for Halo, right? They branched out with a lot of other modes, and some of them are a lot of fun.

But every time I see Slayer pop up, I am just like, oh yeah, Slayer! Yes, I definitely perk up the most at Slayer. Although I will say I've really grown to enjoy Stockpile because there is nothing funnier than fighting around all these power cells. And then everyone's just grabbing them and chucking them as as high and as far as they can in the air and then shooting their gun while walking backward and then you grab it again and you throw it again i i've really grown to like stockpile a lot that's kind of the dark horse one for me me too i didn't like maybe this mode existed in halo 5 or i don't know if it's brand new for infinite i'll be honest with you i've never played this mode before, but when it came up, I remember going like, what is this?

And somebody had played it before. Like, oh yeah, you got to grab batteries or something and bring them back to your base. And I'm like, okay, well that's, that's weird.

I've never played this mode. And then it's like you said, it almost reminds me of like dodge ball where both teams have to run into the middle to try to grab the balls. And so it's this like mad chaotic dash. And then people are just, you know, obviously you're getting beamed with the ball right away.

And that's what this mode is. But it's so fun to sit there and, like you said, try to get these batteries back to your base. I love trying to infiltrate the other base because you can steal the batteries out of their base as well. Yeah, because they got to hook up five. Yeah. And so this mode... I'm with you, man. This is like the Dark Horse mode that I'm legit really enjoying, man.

Yeah, I'm 100% with you on that. I would say at this point, Capture the Flag. Oh, I don't like Capture the Flag. It's always my least favorite. That's why I wrote in my notes. I wrote in my notes, Slayer will always be my favorite. Capture the Flag will always be my least favorite. Yes, even Oddball.

There's some people that just really hate Oddball. Oddball is fine to me. I think it's fun. It's fine. It changes the play style because anywhere on the map can be the hot point, I guess. Capture the Flag, I feel like it's a tug of war that is so close that it just winds up being boring and it looks like nothing's happening do you know what i mean like it's you'll get those zero to zero matches yeah exactly it's like what

are we doing kills don't really really matter i mean they do but they don't it's so hard to get the other team like we played one the other day where the other team just played defense like they'd never even tried to get our flag but because their whole team was playing defense like we couldn't really ever get to their flag and i was just like dude this kind of sucks man like i'd never been a fan of capture the flag it it's just deeply flawed it and i feel like stockpile is like capture the flag except there's 20 flags so if you do go off on your own a little bit you can still do something there's nothing worse than playing capture the flag hitting the tab button to look at the scoreboard and you see the one dude who's got 22 kills zero captures zero returns and he's got the most points meanwhile

here's me down in the bottom third but i've got two returns and one capture and i've got six kills because i'm actually playing the mode and it's like dude you just need to go queue for slayer clearly that's what you want to play so i think that's also part of the problem is you end up with people who don't seem to really understand it's the same with overwatch how many times did you have fighting nowhere near the overwatch where it's like what do you realize there is a goal like there is an objective here yes exactly all right so what about the gadgets what do you think about them here in infinite i'll be honest like they're okay i you know i've gotten all of them and i have them i almost forget to use them is the problem like the firefights are so like tight and on point that it's very

rare that i think about dropping down the little portable shield or the, I will say the repulsor is super cool when it works. Like you can get this, this, you know, thing that repulses grenades and rockets and stuff like that. I saw a super cool highlight video yesterday where a guy threw a grenade up in the air, like his own grenade and then repulsed it. So it went flying across the map because you can throw it like really, repulsed it. So it went flying across the map. Oh, that's cool. Because you can throw it really, really far that way. And it skipped across a ledge and then doinked on top of an enemy's head. The guy had no clue. He was like,

this is the greatest highlight I've ever seen. And I was just laughing. So the repulsor is kind of neat. Everybody made such a huge deal about the grappling hook. Every time I have used the grappling hook, I get killed. Oh, I was going to say the grapple hook is my favorite. It's a lot of fun. It is. You can cross the map fast. You can. And you can get up to ledges and stuff like that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to trash the grapple hook, but I tend to grapple people just for the fun of it. But then it's like, okay, well, here I am flying directly in a straight line at you. And if you move in a straight line in a game like Halo, guess what? You're going to die.

And it's like every single time I just die before I get to the guy or something like that. I almost had an amazing play last night where I had a gravity hammer and I grapple hooked into a group of guys. And I was like, this is going to be the best highlight ever. And then I died before I got there. So you did a Reaper. Oh man. Yeah.

I will say I, there's only one gadget that I wish was not in the game and it's active camo because I hate the active camo. I hate being in big team battle someone pops out of stealth and just may leaves me in the back of the head it's it to me it just feels like okay like that's that's a cheap there's no counter play to it yeah he did not out play me i have zero chance to counter it so that's the only one that I just wish was not in the game whatsoever. It's fun if you have it yourself, sure. I don't like the dash. The dash feels so useless to me.

Dude, that was literally my next question was going to be, am I missing something with the thruster? What good does it do? None. It kind of just makes you twice as fast for the next six feet, and that's it. I feel like I move three feet like this is supposed to be in my mind my brain goes when i when i use this i'm gonna lunge like you know three meters to the side or forward or up in the air or something like that and i remember picking it up and using it and i could barely tell that my guy moved you should call it a hop yeah it really should just be like yes exactly and so i i hate I hate it. I don't either. I don't know

how to use it properly, or it's just that meh kind of thing where they threw it in there. The one thing I'll say is it is a little bit better if you are jumping. So you can kind of use it in the air. It feels a little bit stronger. Maybe that's in my brain. I don't know. But that piece of gear feels completely useless to me. I should be able to hold it down and use it like a jetpack. That would be really cool. Or just accentuate it more. Make it to where I can dash to the side further than I am. Because right now, it's not anything of any importance whatsoever. All right. So a couple last questions and then we'll jump into our regular segments here to end out the show.

First of all, we have three huge first-person shooter franchises that are all releasing right around the same time. We've got Call of Duty Vanguard. We've got Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite. What game do you think is going to be the most successful not necessarily the most fun but which one do you think is going to come out as being like the culture mover that people remember and they kind of held the crown of christmas 2021 it's gonna it's gonna be halo infinite like honestly if you had asked me this last week i would have said battlefield 2042 in a heartbeat Christmas 2021? It's going to be Halo Infinite. I think so too. If you had asked me this last week, I would have said Battlefield 2042 in a heartbeat. And we're going to cover 2042. Don't get us wrong. I know we said that.

That'll be the next deep dive. Yeah, it will be the next deep dive. But we had to cover this one. And I have been hearing not great things about 2042. And I've been hearing very great things about halo like the this is almost night and day now take this with a grain of salt because it's social media right and and people that don't like something are the ones that complain the loudest right and so it's like and and battlefields always release super buggy they wind up becoming good games but they never release as good games and And that's just part of being a Battlefield fan. But then lo and behold, here comes Halo Infinite. And it's like,

hey, guess what? You can release a game that works. You can release a game that's not buggy. You can release a game that doesn't cost $60 and it's just a reskin of a previous game that's in this franchise. We've been talking about this a lot. So it's like Call of Duty Vanguard came out. You and I had zero interest in that. We went, you know what? It's just a reskin. There's nothing new about it. We even trolled it because they started talking about destructible environments and all that. And it's like, dude, that stuff's existed for years. I know people that are playing Vanguard. Some of them say, hey, it's a lot of fun.

But even the ones that enjoy it, which are few and far between, just kind of go, it's just Call of Duty. There's nothing new here. Yeah. Well, and the problem with COD is that there's just too many releases. There's no longing. You flooded the market, right? There's no buildup. Yeah.

The supply and demand is kind of out of whack right i feel like there's twice as much supply maybe even five times as much supply as we need i mean honestly i feel like the last entry gosh well uh black ops cold war i feel like it just came out it did just come out it hasn't been that long so i feel like with cod there's too many entries battlefield never releases right the final product might be fine but you only get one chance at a first impression and they always swing and miss and here for halo you know we've been waiting since 2015 or longer because like you i did not play halo 5 so you're talking about a longer waiting period and it's the only

one that's free i mean the other entries might make more money that would not shock me at all but i think as far as what's going to have the best reputation what is everyone going to remember it'll be halo infinite so i really do hope that people buy the campaign i hope they buy the cosmetics this is the kind of game you want to reward for releasing well and recognizing what the people need and giving it to us. So I really do hope that it's really successful. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, they've done everything right from delaying the game, which I know upset a lot of people, but that's a good trend.

We've got to start encouraging that as gamers to say, hey, if it's not ready, don't put it out there. Like, yes, we don't like waiting, but we get it. Releasing a game that is really just technically sound, everything works. The game is fun. There's nothing that's distracting in that aspect. And I'm going to get into a few reviews here. And you can't please everybody. I'm looking through these Steam reviews, and there's people that are complaining, going, Ah, this doesn't feel like Halo to me. Look, I've played a lot of Halo back in the day. And I may not be a Halo expert, but a lot of our friends are.

And you just can't please everybody. To me, this feels very, very much like the way Halo should be in 2021. Yeah, I think Halo 5 was the one that did have full ADS. So if that was your first Halo, this one probably would feel fairly different. But yeah, it definitely feels like Halo through and through. All right. So you mentioned those reviews, Josh.

You ready to read some for us? Yep. So this, you know, like we always do, we've kind of given some of our impressions on the game. We'll rate it here in a little bit. But we always like to dig into the Steam reviews and say, hey, look, this is how other people feel about it. Maybe we get it right. Maybe we got it wrong.

But it's good to get some different perspectives on things, too. So I always go in and pull a few Steam reviews. I always look for good ones and bad ones just to give kind of both sides of the coin there. So this first one is recommended not a ton of time on record 1.7 hours so you know they played a little bit but not a ton uh and the review is it's like split gate but without portals okay that's a very funny way to review it in there yeah yes i get that's not super helpful but we've always joked that split gate hearkens to old school halo but with portals and so this

one really made me laugh it would be like saying this game's an awful lot like that destiny game you know when it worked right the other way right exactly. Halo's the OG in this regard. That one was pretty funny. So, okay, here we go. This is a not recommended four hours on record. It's okay. The gunplay is fun, but being unable to choose specifically

what types of game modes you want to play is really annoying and sucks a lot of fun out of the game. However, I hate the Battle Pass system. It is unapologetically caters to whales who want to dump a bunch of fun out of the game. However, I hate the Battle Pass system. It is unapologetically caters to whales who want to dump a bunch of money in for a far less robust customization system

than in the Master Chief Collection. It feels like 343 is saying, the game is free. That's the most important part, right? You don't really care that we lock all cosmetics behind a paywall, do you? 100%. Yes. That review should be positive. The game is free. And if you want cosmetics, you go pay for it. And guess what? You don't see yourself in this game. It's first person.

You see yourself for one second when they do the intro, when you see the name of everyone on your team, and then you jump into the action where all you see is your crosshair i don't i cannot imagine complaining that your biggest beef is that you level too slow with the battle pass i mean and that that's true right it is true i've played hours and hours and hours of halo infinite and i'm level two so you don't level quickly. But at the same time, the game's free. They have to make money somehow. They're going to charge for cosmetics. Yeah, that's to be expected. That's how it works.

And you gave us a great game. Charge for cosmetics. Yes. Please do. You know what I mean? You gave us a game that we can play for free. Now, you and I don't care about cosmetics, but we have a lot of friends that do. And some of our close friends cannot wait to make their Spartan look the way that they want them to make. They've already bought the Battle Pass. They're actively working towards that.

If that's your thing, it exists. It's there. Now, I will say this. The Battle Pass system kind of sucks right now. There's a lot of people that are unhappy about it. And that may change. But that is the one vocal majority as to people that don't like the game, don't like the Battle Pass. Now, the reason I picked this review is because it also mentions one of the

few complaints that I have, and that's that you cannot pick your game mode. As of right now, now they're saying that this game is still in beta, right? And so there is already whispers that once it's out of beta, that they will allow that because they've done that in previous Halo games. But as of right now, you just click multiplayer, and whether you're 4v4 or big team battle, and then surprise, you get a game mode. And unfortunately, I keep getting capture the flag, which it's still fun, but give me more Slayer, right?

So it's like you can't do that right now. That does bug some people. I get it. I'm with you, but it's still fun either way you know so they'll add it i'm sure in the future we're gonna vote on maps they're gonna let you choose the modes that stuff will come and even if it doesn't if that's the worst thing you can say about the game yeah i mean the variety is still nice i don't always get the game mode i want but it's nice to have that variety thrown at me sometimes too. So, okay. This next one is not recommended. 5.6 hours on record. This is good, but with a few fixes, it could be great. I only downvote because there are aspects about the XP earning system that

are extremely greedy and far above the likes of Halo 343 and Microsoft to pull. They're so greedy with this free game. You know, we need XP earned per match, not just via completing weird challenges. This is the biggest problem with the game that they expect you to pay for a battle pass, which is $10. And then the XP you earn is so sparse and insignificant that you barely earn a darn thing. Get out of town.

Now, to clarify for the people that may not know and saying, why are people complaining about this? Because you pay $10 for the Battle Pass. Now, the Battle Pass never goes away. So there is not this fear of missing out thing where season two is going to roll around. And if you didn't finish season one, you're out of luck, right?

There's a lot of Battle Passes that work that way. What they have done is just said, look, if you buy the pass, you can try to work on it anytime you want. If it's season 10 and you want to go back to season one and work on that season one battle pass, you can. It never expires. Now, the problem that people are running into is the only way to really get XP in this game

is to complete challenges. Now, that challenge might be, hey, kill a Spartan with a needler or plant the flag and capture the flag or save an ally from a long distance away. Like, there's just these weird random challenges. That's the way that you earn XP. Playing the game and killing people earns you very, very minimal XP. Like you said, I think you're level two. It's like you're not going to level up that way.

You know how many challenges I've done intentionally? Zero, probably. I just don't pay attention zero probably zero I just don't pay attention to it I just don't care and just play the game have fun exactly and that's the thing but people want to play the game and then get XP for just playing I get it I mean this is one of those things where it's like we're gonna kind of artificially slow down progression on this battle pass like I understand the frustration there but it's such a minor, minimal thing. And I'll tell you this, because this is the last negative review.

Overwhelmingly, the negative reviews all focused on the Battle Pass. And people that are just saying, hey, I don't like the Battle Pass. I want to earn more XP for playing the game. I get it. That is an argument that people are making. But it's like, dude, the game is free. You don't have to, like, you get a piece of armor, like you get a shoulder plate, you know? And it's like, I, I know you and I are different. We don't care about that stuff. And I know for some people, it is very important. We have good friends that, like I said, they're focusing on that stuff.

And so I try to be like conscious of it, But at the same time, it's like, you got a free game, man. Like, who cares? I would even understand it more if the complaint was about the final cosmetics, right? Because we've played other games like Splitgate where the cosmetics are not really anything worth seeking after. And so we're literally arguing about the rate that you earn XP. I mean, look, there are going to be people who play Halo Infinite for 5,000 hours. And you want to be able to give them something to work toward also.

And if you could earn all of these cosmetics within 20 hours, then what are you left? I see it as like a long-term perk that is really just considered a bonus. It's not a central part of the game so i don't know that those criticisms are rough they are because gamers are so used to just chewing through content that if you if you see something like you're hearing this with battlefield 2042 right where there's like oh well i gotta play you know 50 hours to unlock these attachments and it's like but you can still play the game without them, you know, but I got to grind.

And it's like, but then don't worry about the attachment. Well, I want the attachment. Well, if you want it, then earn it. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, so it's just one of those things. You can't make everybody happy. So, all right. Last review here.

This one is recommended 5.4 hours on record. Think a lot of the reviews on here are very nitpicky, which isn't surprising in the gaming community. Played the game for an hour and a half and had a lot of fun, way more so than I did on Battlefield 2042 over the weekend. Gameplay is solid, fast, frantic, and competitive. The guns feel great. Haven't used them all.

The Bulldog shotgun felt a bit flimsy, but the rest I did manage to get my hands on were awesome. I've forgotten how satisfying landing headshots with a sniper rifle is in Halo. Good variety of game modes with different team sizes. Had a lot of fun playing big team total control, which ended up being way more chaotic than other game modes in the best way possible.

One minor note on the Bulldog. Did you know that it fires full auto? No, it does not i learned that no literally 10 minutes before we recorded like so loud i don't know what it is with a shotgun but i had like extra hard click my mouse button click click click click yeah it fires full auto so once i learned that i was like oh i'm gonna have to actually maybe play around because i picked up the bulldog a few times during the technical flight and it was so weak i haven't picked it up since yeah but i was like oh it's full auto so some of these weapons i think work a little differently and you might not know like plasma pistols reduce shield and

then they suck on hp so there is a little bit of a learning curve with some of these guns yeah that's for sure and some of them do feel a little different than what people are used to. You know, like Oddball, it used to be that if you had the Oddball, which is a skull, if you melee'd somebody with it, it was an insta-kill. And so they've changed that

to now it's two hits to kill people. And of course, there's old-school Halo guys that are like, well, this ain't Oddball, then this mode sucks. Unplayable. Yeah, I can't one-shot people with the skull. And it's just like, come on, man. Give them a break. All right, Paul. So that's the community reviews.

We've kind of hinted at our thoughts on it, but now we've got to try to guess what the overall rating for Halo Infinite multiplayer is as of this recording. On a scale of 1 to 100, we use the Steam scale on this. What do you think? Well, you won the last time. So I think you get, you get to go first. Okay. I think that there is an awful lot to enjoy about this. I know that it's still fairly new. We don't have a thousand hours in this. Obviously opinions can change, but we've got a pretty decent bit of play time. We have played all of the modes, all of the maps. We've used all the weapons and the vehicles and stuff like that. I think people are really going to like it. If you listen to the general vibe on this,

it's very positive. So I went fairly high. It's still in its infancy, so I guess 92%. Okay. See, my gut reaction is to think that almost everyone who's playing it is enjoying it. The thing that makes me nervous is that since it is free, you get so many more people willing to try it who wouldn't necessarily go out of their way to play Halo. But it's, well, it's free. I'll check it out. Oh, it's not for me. I'll leave a negative review and move on. I'm still going to take the over. Okay. Initially, I was thinking 95, but if you're going to say 92, I'm going to say 93. And I'm going to say it's

93 or above. Okay. The actual, and this breaks my heart a little bit, the actual is 72%. Okay. Now, I'm going to... That's dumb. I'll tell you this right now for people that are listening. That's bull. Okay? Yeah.

That's preposterous. It's honestly preposterous. There's no way that this game ranks at a 72%. I was chatting with you before recording saying, dude, these negative reviews are terrible. I can't tell you how many of them had 0.1 hours on record and were just things like, this isn't Halo. It doesn't feel like Halo. Gunplay is garbage. That kind of stuff. And it's like, that's literally the opposite of what this game is right now. And then the rest of the negative reviews were all about the battle

pass takes me too long to earn XP. It was very, very rare. I couldn't find hardly any of them where people were like, hey, I tried it. It's just weird. The time to kill is definitely a lot longer. It does take a long time to kill somebody in Halo because you got to get their shields down. It's just a different pacing than what people were used to with Call of Duty. And I think that throws some people off but then it's like you can't review bomb a game just because it's not something you're used to at the same time you know what i mean so that's such a minor issue you can't say

it has to be the absolute perfect custom-made halo to my taste and then i'll give you a positive and anything short of that is a negative review. That's kind of wild. It is. I think you and I are spot on with the low to mid-90s range on this, to be honest with you. It'll end up there, I think. I think it will, too, to be honest with you. One negative review, just to give you an idea, said, I can't believe they released multiplayer before the campaign. And they gave it a negative... And I'm like, they're giving it to you for free!

It's like, yeah, but I don't want it for free. I'm still loving the guy who called them greedy. Oh, yes. The game's literally free. And you're calling them greedy over the Battle Pass. All right, Paul, well, that means I win again. Is that my third in a row? Dude, you and I, we just were streakers, Paul.

We've gone streaks. Yeah. So not that kind of streaker, but you know. Family friend. We're going through the quad down into the gymnasium. Oh man. Alright, well I guess it's time for this next segment's intro, huh? Yeah, let's hit that music.

Hey Cortana, I know I lost you, but I'm trying to find you and that's all i gotta say about that i know i told you i'm not prepared for these paul oh man i suck at this it's a wonder you landed a wife yeah it's really true but you know thankfully all right well this is where we do make love, marry or murder. This is how Paul and I are going to rank the game on our scale of make love. Hey, we think that this is a super fun game for maybe a short period of time. Mary is I can see playing this game for a long, long time. It's just the cream of the crop. It's going to be enjoyable

to a lot of people. Murder is, ooh, this really wasn't that fun. Or maybe it's super overpriced for what you get. You know, stay away, caution, whatever you want to go with on that one. This one's easy for me, Paul. I don't know if it's easy for you. I know it's easy. I know it's in its infancy right now. But this game has given me everything that I want from Halo multiplayer.

And honestly, it's crazy to say, but I think it's better than what I was hoping it would be. And that is about as high of a praise as you and I can give for a little game coming out because all those people are like, why do you guys hate Halo? Like we just hate the master chief collection. Like it was like a real old,

yeah, it played like a 20 year old game for me this is an easy easy mary i can see playing this game with friends a year from now two years from now i had so much fun playing last night with 12 a 12 man team that legitimately my wife and kids when i got up up today said, daddy, you sound like you were having a lot of fun last night. And I just went, I did. Yeah. You know? And so it's hands down for the multiplayer aspect. It's a Mary easy, easy Mary. Yeah. Easy Mary. Absolutely. Josh and I give it two thumbs up. I, if I was going to be super nitpicky, I'm just not crazy about

the default AR and also the time to kill is a bit high for my personal taste. I think that Call of Duty is a little bit too fast. I think Halo is a little too slow. Splitgate, ironically, for being a Halo knockoff, I thought had pitch perfect time to kill. So I feel like if the shields were cut in half in Halo Infinite, it would be a perfect multiplayer game. I mean, honestly, this is all I have to complain about. It's a little goofy when you have a shotgun at point blank range and you got to shoot someone like three times in the face to kill them. But at the same time, I'm just taking it as a challenge to learn the new weapons and just recalibrate. I mean, really, that's what it comes down to.

It's funny, too, because myself included, but just having chatted with people, Halo pacing is very different than a lot of other first-person shooters. And so when I log in, my first round, I'm going to be absolute garbage like it's just gonna happen you know like i'm gonna get like two kills i'm gonna die 15 times and i'm gonna feel like i'm just terrible and then i play another round and by the third round i'm starting to like pop off and really kind of get that pacing down but it definitely is a very jarring transition if you are used to games like battlefield and over Overwatch and Call of Duty and things like that, where you can kill people pretty quickly, because Halo is just vastly

different in that regard. Yeah, 100%. It is a little goofy that I can melee someone twice and kill them, or three shotguns. Which is worse. That's a little goofy i mean you are getting punched by master chief technically so you know we're a spartan i guess but yeah yeah so that's a little funny but you know whatever all right josh let's go to the leaderboard and see where this game stacks up all right so those of you who are not familiar with the leaderboard, every time we do a deep dive, Josh and I will decide where it belongs on the leaderboard. It's basically a list of what games do we like the most up at the top and the least at the bottom. It is very subjective to our personal tastes. We also consider things like price and how much bang for your buck

do you get from it. So for example, touching base in a couple of spots on the leaderboard, we've got Rocket League at three, Satisfactory at six, Call of Duty Warzone at 10, Splitgate at 14, Forgotten City at 17, Tribes of Midgard at 20. And then we go all the way down to 60 games that we have done a deep dive on. Josh, I would have to imagine this is going to be in our top 20. So I don't think I really need to list any other games lower than that. What's your gut shot of where you might want to put this? I'm going to place this caveat because we are human and we do suffer from recency bias. And so occasionally we will go through and

we'll audit the leaderboard to say, hey, look, we were in love with this game while we were playing it, but here it is three months later. And in hindsight, maybe it's ranked a little too high or something like that. I am fully in the recency bias zone right now. It's the shiny new toy. It's the shiny new toy. It could not have come at a better time. I love the fact that it was free. I love the surprise drop. I'm loving literally just about everything about this. For me, I would easily put this above Call of Duty Warzone, you know, which is going to put it in the top 10 for me. You know, I know I have more playtime than you do, so maybe I'm just coming off a really

fun night last night. But for me, I'd rather play this than Warzone any day. Yeah, I do think it should be in the top 10. I don't think it belongs in our top four. I think those games are still very well set. Yeah. Overwatch, Apex, Rocket League, Rust.

I think that's a killer Mount Rushmore on the leaderboard. I, I am not too sure. I kind of feel like putting it above warzone and Divinity and Outriders is fine. I feel a little bit... Outriders was my thing, and I didn't want to shoot for the moon because it's like, Outriders was a ton of fun, but it was a buggy, buggy mess. Like, that game could have been absolutely incredible,

but the technical aspects kind of ruined it a little bit. Outriders has the higher ceiling. Yes. When Outriders was cooking and working good, there was no funner experience than that. I would say my favorite gaming moments of the last year were in Outriders. But it was just running around with cast iron boots that were just holding it to the ground because of all the other problems. So, yeah, I kind of think maybe between Satisfactory and Outriders. I think putting it somewhere really close to number seven is kind of what I'm thinking.

I would put it at seven, to be honest with you. Outriders, funny enough, I know we're going super long here, but they just announced an expansion and a free DLC to Outriders. And I was like, ooh, I started looking into it. And the people were like, yeah, but it's still really buggy. And then I kind of went, dang it, man. Yeah, I think we will see a lot more from Outriders in the future. I mean, it was just such a success. Yeah.

Okay, so you're okay keeping it below Satisfactory? Because that for me was like, you could kind of talk me either way but they're both so freaking good i i would say this may change when the campaign releases and we can judge infinite as a whole because if the campaign comes in and knocks it out of the park this i mean oh boy because there's gonna be co-op campaign now that's not gonna release on december 8th they've even said hey it's coming a little bit later because we got to make sure we get it right. But if you take Halo Infinite multiplayer and you combine that with a really, really good campaign, I could see this moving up even further on the leaderboard. But as a multiplayer experience with friends,

it's hard to beat what Halo Infinite is offering right now. And so I think 7 is perfect. Again, trying to be cognizant of people that maybe don't like first-person shooters, that would love games like Satisfactory and Valheim and stuff like that. I think Seven's a really good landing spot for it. Yeah, I agree. And I'll tell you one of the reasons why, at least for me. Valheim and Satisfactory are just more three-dimensional games. There's more to do. Halo ultimately comes down to clicking on heads. Yes, there is strategy in how you're going to do that, but ultimately that's the extent of it. With Valheim and Satisfactory, there's exploration,

there is the aspect of building bases and things of that nature. The Halo campaign I know is going to be more open world, more exploration. It'll bring some of that. So I would say for now, let's lock it in at seven. And then maybe in the future, it might end up cracking that top five. Yeah, it might. All right. We'll lock it in. So man, what a great time this year, man.

We get to play Halo. We just got to play the cave. We get to play Battlefield starting in a couple days because we did not shell out $100 for the fancy pre-order. I mean, there's just so much around the corner. Are you a little worried that this is going to sour us on Battlefield a little bit?

It already has. I already hear us. I already hear us saying, man, if we didn't play Halo, maybe Battlefield would have just seemed better but we just got this fantastic game in halo that's free why would i pay 60 for battlefield if i didn't do this podcast i wouldn't have i can kind of already hear us making those i want to love battlefield i'm telling you right now but i i've been thinking about this where it's like

this halo is so good, man. And if any of the complaints about battlefield are true, like, is it going to sour me on that a little bit more than I normally would be? Like you said, if you would have asked us a month ago, what are you going to put money on being the better game and the better release?

It would have been no question battlefield. But now that we've seen Halo, I mean, granted, it took them six years to make, but they did it. Yeah, they did it. And kudos to them because they did it well. Yeah, well done. I was very nervous about this.

So it really just shows, you know, you and I are willing to give any game a try. And if it's good, you know, we're not going to stick to our guns out of pride and say, you know, it's a great game. So I hope all of you out there are able to check it out and try it and uh you know come join our discord server it's free there's a link in the episode description

you can come game with us i missed out on the 12 person group last night uh i've played with groups of seven and eight that's the most i've played with so far, but it's such a blast. Come join us. You can come game with us. And I think you'll find a good group of people on there as well. It's cross-play. Xbox and PC can play together as well.

So if you're like, oh, I don't have a PC and I know you guys play it, guess what? It's cross-play. We were playing with Xbox guys last night. Well, for you Battlefield fans out there, that will be the next deep dive in two weeks i believe is when that one will release and we will come out with a bonus round episode next monday we just really needed to get halo out there because i know so many people want to talk about

it uh so just as a reminder leave a review for the podcast rate us five stars subscribe in apple podcasts subscribe on patreon through multiplayer squad.com come hit us up on social media at multiplayer pod and i think that's it so i hope you're all having a great time gaming and having a good holiday season we'll see you guys on thursday all right see you everybody