Halo 5: Guardians (2015)

Best: The movement. Before Halo 5, the Halo games felt sluggish, like you were walking through a foot of powdered snow. Even the entries that had more “modernized” movement—Halo: Reach and Halo 4—weren’t exactly up to snuff in regards to the era’s competition. But Halo 5: Guardians brought the series into modernity and then some. The game didn’t just make it so you could sprint without breaks and clamber up ledges. You also had a miniature booster pack. And, obviously, the best-feeling movement innovation of the last console generation: sci-fi ground pounds. Halo 5 may not have “felt like Halo,” but man, zipping around the game’s tight arenas never got old.

Worst: Uh, where the fuck was Master Chief? Like Halo 2 before it, Halo 5 moved the spotlight, largely focusing on a team of Spartans who were not named Mr. John Halo, led by a guy named Locke, but also including other known characters, like Halo 3: ODST’s Buck. It took the directional shift a bit too far, though. This isn’t to say that Locke and company were insufferable, per se (a debate for another day); it’s more that Halo 5 seemed to entirely forget about its longtime hero, with barely any time spent on the main character many had grown attached to over the course of four mainline entries.