Wishlist: Halo 5

       Halo is one of my favorite game franchises of all time, and Halo 4 pushed the envelope of the series, but that being said there are some things that could have been done better.  Here is my list of things I would like to see in the next installment of the game.

1) More Promethians, less Coventant

       Lets start off this list with something people won't agree with, I feel that the series needs to do away with the covenant as enemies, hear me out, the covenant have been the enemy since the beginning, but the war ended in Halo 3.  Halo 4 was supposed to be the beginning of a new chapter, and I feel 343 should embrace that and have fun with it.  The covenant are supposed to be our allies now, I know there is a fringe group out there, but if they just end that plot in Spartan Ops season 2 then the series can move on.  Plus this could lead to team-ups that lead into my next item.

2)Playable Elites

       We already had these, sure they weren't overly popular, but I have friends who were disappointed when they could no longer play as a custom elite.  And again, with the Human-Covenant war over, why not bring elites into UNSC, Imagine a Spartan Ops fire team consisting of both races.

3) Return of Equipment (As armor abilities)

       This could also be posted as simply more abilities, but specifically I want the return of some old favorites, such as the radar jammer, the flare, and power drainer.  These could easily be done since the mechanics are already finished for them, and I feel they would be a welcomed edition, particularly the jammer.

4) Return of Duel Wielding, and classic weapons

       Thus fare most of my list is simply bringing back stuff we already had, duel wielding was removed in order to make room on the controller for abilities, so why not bring it back as one?  Then you have those who never really use their abilities, such as myself, able to carry a second small arms weapon.  For that matter why not bring back the weapons that made this fun like the Mauler, Spiker, and the SMG.  Hell why not bring back other weapons like the needle rifle, missile pod, sentinel beam, and flamethrower?

5) more Multiplayer modes

       This may sound greedy considering just how many modes Halo already offers, but they took out some of the more creative modes like firefight and invasion.  But I also want to see a space battle mode.  Reach had a level where you flew around in space shooting down enemies, I sort felt cheated that it wasn't offered again, and then I realized that there aren't a whole lot of space combat games like this anymore, hell Star Fox is rarely in space anymore.  And for a series most famous for how much new and creative stuff goes into the multiplayer why not add space combat.

6) Voices

       Halo Reach gave the option to give your custom spartan a custom voice.  I liked this and wanted it to bleed into standard multiplayer, not vanish completely.  Halo has some fantastic voice actors in its 11 year history, including Keith David, Nathan Fillion, Julie Benz, and Steven Blum to name a few, so why can't a player's custom character have a custom voice?  Think how much better Spartan Ops would be if you could answer your handler in say Adam Baldwin's voice, or after a kill streak hear Alan Tudyk's voice make a comment.  This may just be me on this one, but I think it would be cool.

7) Boss battles

       Yet another thing that was taken out of the series, sure you fight the Moniter at the end of Halo 3, and the Didact in Halo 4, but I'm talking Halo 2  style.  One of my favorite moments in the Halo franchise was fighting the Prophet of Regret, he was the guy that led the attack on Earth, and was one of the 3 leaders of the Covenant in general.  I loved being ably to jump up on his chair and beat the living crap out of him.  Basically what I'm asking for here is more unique enemy battles, ones that need more than the standard shoot them until they drop.  Enemies like Tartarus who had a gravity shield you had to destroy first, and regenerated, or the heretic who used holograms to confuse you.  Mix things up a bit, so that beating the big bads feels fore satisfying than killing a standard enemy.

8) Offline XP

       I don't have a graphic for this, but I'm sure most of you know what I mean.  If you play offline you only get about half the XP you would from an online game.  This is stupid, I travel a lot and bring my Xbox with me, and sometimes I simply don't have an internet connection.  So why should I be penalized because of this?  Plus I am a huge supporter of the classic LAN party, for the youngsters out there, this is when we actually traveled to our friends houses with multiple televisions and XBoxes, and made a night of it.  These were far more enjoyable than playing with strangers online, especially when you have access to multiple projectors and very expensive sound systems, throw in pizza, chips, and drinks and this is how I spent most weekends in middle school, just thinking about it makes me want to plan another one.

9) More in depth Spartan Ops

       Spartan Ops was a great addition to Halo, and by implementing the voices idea I mentioned earlier, and the cutscene style from Reach where your custom spartan is featured, you could have yourself a more complete experience.  With the new consoles on their way, it feels fair that I can ask for a bit more here.  It would make the player feel more connected to the story by putting focus on the character they spent time and effort personalizing, rather than a fire team that you never even meet in the game.  You could even go further and make this its own game, like Reach.

10) Kinect Support

       I personally like the Kinect, and feel it needs to be used more.  Mostly because I spent roughly $200 on the stupid thing and there are no games for it.  I'm mostly looking for voice commands, or better yet gesture commands, which could free up buttons, and video chat.  The Halo 4 HUD has video chat with in game characters, so why not player to player?  not a huge innovation, I just think it would be cool.

       So there you have it, 10 things that I would like to see in the future of Halo, or at least the shooter games, I'm also kinda interested in seeing a new Halo Wars with new factions, units, and heroes.  But mostly I want the shooters to move forward, mostly by bringing back features that already existed.  So if you have any opinions about my list, or have any ideas of your own, feel free to comment.