Here's some information and tips about the game :)

(I originally shared this on Reddit here but wanted to share with all of you as well.)

So, as I shared yesterday, Halo: Fireteam Raven is now available in Dave & Busters locations nationwide in the US.
My wife and I have been eager to play and were super excited when we had confirmation over the phone that our store had gotten the machine in. Before yesterday, it was extremely hard to get details on the game including campaign length, difficulty, cost per play and so on. So if you're like me and live 40+ minutes away from your local D&B and want to be prepared, here's everything you need to know!

The Story

The story of Halo: Firteteam Raven is relatively short compared to other titles but a decent length for an on-rails arcade shooter. As everyone knows, it takes place during the events of Halo: Combat Evolved and fans of the first title will be happy with the locations the 6 levels take place on.

The game took roughly 40 - 50 minutes for us to beat.

The Cost

For each play, we paid 4.4 credits. However, this was on Wednesday, which is 1/2 priced games at D&B. So it's safe to assume the normal play cost is 8.8 credits. We swiped our card around 6-7 times each from start to finish of the game.

When we arrived, we purchased the $29 load amount for our play card and still had a significant amount left after finishing the game.

The Difficulty

This game is surprisingly forgiving. Banshee's are by far the most powerful enemy (as you can see on my stats page where they were the 'deadliest enemy' on 3/6 missions) but getting hit by a suicide grunt only takes around 5% of the players health and being smacked by a sword elite is around the same.

My wife played as Ava Lang (Purple Player) and I played as Victor Ramos (Green Player) so we were both on the right side of the machine.

Something we quickly noticed is that we didn't have to worry about the left side of the machine at all when the AI was active. The bots were extremely accurate, taking down big enemies like wraiths before we could, and we noticed that the enemies on the left side of the screen did not damage us when attacking the bots.

Four different groups of two jumped on the machine during our run and on occasion, we'd have to help them clean up but it seems like this game may actually be easier with the bots, so solo players do not fear, you can beat it just as easily as anyone else!

Tips

1. Only use your grenades on big enemies. They can one shot most of them, but feel very weak and useless on large crowds. For example, I tossed a nade at a group of grunts and killed one, a little later I tossed one at a massive flood unit and took him down without a shot.
2. Reload Often. Some enemies have to be hit a certain amount of times to stop their attacks. Reloading just as you knock the bar down, regardless of how much is left in your clip, helps you prevent being hit and may save you a few bucks on your playthrough.
3. Lean Back. This may not be the same for all locations, but it was very hard to hear the game in our crowded D&B. Leaning back in the seat amplified the music and dialogue tenfold and blocked out a lot of the surrounding noise.
4. Hold the trigger. As Halo players, our brains are kind of pre-programmed to tap the trigger with weapons like rockets, shotguns and magnums but that's not needed here. You can hold the trigger and just keep blasting with every single weapon.
5. Ask random players to not hit reload during cutscenes. This skips the cutscenes. Very excited kids and adults alike seem to enjoy spamming the reload button. I kind of wish it was a 3/4 players have to hit it before it skips or something :P

Opinion

I've been excited to play Fireteam Raven since it was revealed at E3. For the past month, I've been calling my local store about twice a week to see if they had any idea when they'd be getting the machine and would stop in anytime we found ourselves out that way. For me, the wait was worth it.

The light gun is super responsive and feels very accurate. The 'kick back' when firing weapons is awesome, particularly with the rocket launcher which provides a nice big UMPH whenever you fire. The story, the tiny story it is, is awesome. For CE fans, you will likely get a lot of nostalgia in certain segments of the game that are ripped directly from the first game.

Some guns don't feel right. Like, for some reason the shotgun shoots incredibly fast and the CE pistol is pretty weak, like, the plasma pistol felt stronger. But the ones that do feel good, feel amazing.

My wife, who finds normal Halo boring, loved Fireteam Raven. So feel free to ask your friends and family to give it a shot with you.

Overall, I really liked the game and could see myself spending some time playing through it again in the near future. Don't forget to generate your QR code on your smart phone from Waypoint to track your stats and earn a nifty little forum badge. You only need to scan it once before starting the game and then don't let the 30 second continue timer run out.

Lastly, be sure to glance up above you during the final cut scene. It's awesome!

I hope this helps at least one person get a better understanding for the game and answers some questions they may have. If I didn't, feel free to ask and I'll try to answer to the best of my ability.

Thanks for reading and have fun!

Regice554 wrote:

A tip from me, is that you can swipe your card multiple times in a row to stack up lives. So when you die you can just quickly press the start button to keep killing. In edition you can steal other player skills while they fumble with their card trying to get back into the game.

Can the player beside you not steal your swipes on accident with this?

CaptainSlayer wrote:

Regice554 wrote:

A tip from me, is that you can swipe your card multiple times in a row to stack up lives. So when you die you can just quickly press the start button to keep killing. In edition you can steal other player skills while they fumble with their card trying to get back into the game.

Can the player beside you not steal your swipes on accident with this?

Yeah i noticed about a day after i posted that. People tend to swioe too much and quit while they have more plays. Or give their friends plays for various reasons. Some one also left thier card in and just had to slap start when they died, it was like some weird mode where your card is allways pluged in. Like, his card was set in place and the screen on the scaner was diferent.

Paventare wrote:

This is awesome information, thank you! I’m looking forward to playing this. Why can’t you let the 30 second timer run out? Do you not get the rewards once that happens?

And yes you get your rewards when your loged in and the timer runs out

This is a great post. Having went my first I had several questions that you answered for my second trip.

One big thing I would like to point out though is there is a very easy way to verify the QR code worked. If you look at the name of your character it will state your gamertag. Took me a moment to realize but too late for the first play through where my wife and I thought it wasn't working so we tried both readers... Sadly, I tracked her stats since hers was the last we tried haha.

it was helpful to know cost and little things like lean back. it was loud and we didn't help yelling out to each other but it was fun. It's any shooter arcade game but it was fun to have the halo feeling. Cool show at the end. Now to go back and play as the other players

My pro advice, is called “take the hit”. This tactic involves killing background enemis while you are being atacked my the enemies in front if you. The bonus enemies that run away will stay put as long as you dont progress to the next stage, as dont kill the last enemy untill to get the kills in the background.