A Legendary Trip

Last weekend, two of my friends and I traveled to Chicago to check out Halo Outpost Discovery. We had a fantastic weekend filled to the brim with fun and unique experiences. Today I’m going to be talking about my experience at Halo Outpost Discovery.

The first day was easily my favorite day. The Friday that we got there, the first thing that my friends and I did was wait in a line for two hours to meet Steve Downes and Jen Taylor (the voice actors for Master Chief and Cortana respectively). It was a great experience and it totally energized us for what was to come.

The first formal part of Halo Outpost Discovery that we experienced was the Hall of History. The Hall of History was a circular area consisting of a few walls encircling a large open area. Each wall chronicled some aspect of Halo lore, such as the history of the Human-Covenant War so prominently featured in the games or the discovery of slipspace travel and its impact on humanity. And in addition to the walls displaying this history, if you used the official companion app, you could scan codes scattered throughout the event to either see really cool augmented reality images or complete challenges (I’ll get to why this was both great and terrible later). The Hall of History also featured a few life-sized models–one of a Warthog, one of a needler, one of Master Chief, and one of an Elite. All of the models were really cool, and between the models and the wall that showed off the sizes of the different Covenant species, it really put the scale of the Halo universe into perspective. Overall, I would have to say that the Hall of History is tied with another exhibit as my second favorite activity.

The other activity that’s equal to the Hall of History in my eyes was the Ring Experience. The Ring Experience was an audiovisual tour that took you through a few different rooms where you learned about the Halo rings. The Ring Experience concluded with a really cool 360* virtual tour of both the inside and outside of a Halo ring. The Hall of History and the Ring Experience were both really cool because of how they presented and explored the Halo universe.

As for my favorite activity, that would have to go the virtual reality Combat Simulator. I have never played VR before, but after playing 3v3 team deathmatch Halo VR I really, really want to play VR again. The attraction itself was incredibly straightforward but holy crap was it cool. The VR itself looked incredible graphically and it played really smoothly. It was such a cool experience, but it unfortunately had by far the longest line of any attraction, especially on Saturday and Sunday.

As for my least favorite activity, that would have to got to the combat deck located downstairs. The combat deck was 15v15 laser tag and it was…underwhelming. Normally, I enjoy laser tag, especially when playing with friends, but this laser tag was different. In order to score a point and “eliminate” another player, you had to shoot a sensor attached to a headband. There were no backpacks or chest sensors, only a headband. In addition, each player had a shield that had to be broken before the “kill” could be registered. For me, this aspect felt very inconsistent. I would be completely behind cover, but my equipment would beep and make sounds as if I had been shot. Each player was given a laser gun modeled after a Halo battle rifle, but it fired fully automatic as opposed to the expected three round burst. You also had to reload periodically. Once you were “killed”, you had to return to one of your team’s corners, point your laser gun at a sensor, then respawn. The laser tag here felt ambitious, but in my opinion it was ultimately lacking. I feel that it could definitely have used some more polish, but the novelty of it was fun I guess.

Another rather irritating attraction was the shooting range. At the shooting range, you would use either a BOOMco (basically NERF) submachine gun or magnum to hit various digital targets that appeared on a screen. Conceptually it was cool, but painfully inconsistent. Darts would sometimes fly erratically and the hit detection was pretty off (my friend said he hit a target three times in a row but the machine never counted it). Overall, the target range was entertaining albeit in an infuriating way.

The last major attraction that I experienced was the Pelican Dropship Training. For this activity, groups of eight would have to work together to follow directions and land a simulated pelican. The inside of the simulation was really cool and the simulation itself was fun, albeit pretty difficult. However, the biggest issue with this attraction was the line. Every attraction had lines, but it was easier to wait in line for laser tag, then leave to either do something or get back in line again. For the pelican drop ship training, the line was very long and the nature of the attraction more or less required you to know what you were doing if you were going to finish it. These two things naturally conflicted. But in the end, I found the Pelican Dropship Training to be really cool.

The only other major attraction was the Covenant escape room, but I never experienced it myself. One of my friends did, and he said that it was cool but kind of underwhelming, and definitely not worth a 90 minute wait.

Halo Outpost Discovery also featured local multiplayer where you could either play as a team or by yourself against other attendees. It was incredibly fun using game chat to talk with the strangers sitting next you while playing against the people across from you. There was also an area where you could play Halo: Reach on PC and my friends and I had a blast doing that.

However, the absolute worst thing about Halo Outpost Discovery was how glitchy the app was. Sometimes I would scan something with the app, and the app’s screen would just go black. The app also did a terrible job keeping track of some of the challenges. When you completed certain challenges, you would get rewarded with special dog tags. However, most of the activities with challenges never actually recorded your data, so even if you reached a score threshold that would reward you with a challenge, there was a good chance your progress wouldn’t get tracked by the app. Another major inconvenience of the app was that it drained phone battery painfully quickly.

I for one enjoyed Halo Outpost Discovery. It had a lot to offer, and I feel that three days was more than enough to experience it all. If anything, I was starting to get a little bored by the end of the third day. But overall, it was a great experience filled with awesome memories. If anyone is interested in the upcoming one in Houston, Texas, or Anaheim, California, I’d definitely recommend going.