ARMOR UNLOCK

For the first time, Master Chief has to earn his toys, by collecting Spartan Cores from around the map and spending them in a skill-tree menu. Although ‘tree’ implies branches; rather, this is five independent rows of upgrades, one for each of the abilities accessed during the campaign. Expanding the Grappleshot’s functions feels right, the new capabilities opening up in step with our growing dexterity, but we’re less enamoured of the 15 per cent boosts in shield capacity. These aren’t tangible in play, and worse still, having stubbornly refused to push a single point in their direction, we’re left wondering whether failures are our fault or a result of the game being unable to balance its encounters for varying amounts of health.