Your thoughts on Halo 4?

[Bvenged]

My opinion of the game is bipolar.

One moment I'm finding it really fun and enjoying the new features, laughing when I die, getting emotional at the story, getting awe-struck with the new dynamic lighting in Forge mode...

Then the next moment, I'm swearing at the game and cursing 343 for making a crap UI, removing features that were borderline-required to make a Halo game, changing up the HuD and making the playlists awkward, stuffing too many heavy vehicles in the maps and firing angry messages at players exploiting such issues for a win (such as camping bolt pistol & active camo, or grabbing tank and sitting in maps' corner).

The game has teething problems and only 343 can fix it. They've got a choice, they can take the game to where Halo 4 should be, or they can take it to where CoD: Halo 4 is. Right now they're resting on the borderline and it's not a great place to be.

I don't mean changing perks, sprint, instant respawn and stuff; just simple changes like more spawn points, less vehicles, some simple stats in the service record (K/D, W/L, total games played) and in-game scoreboard (deaths, for instance, are not shown). Some indication that players in the lobby are together or not is also pretty crucial for Halo, and a decent matchmaking system needs to come into play pitting similar-ranked teams against each other, and singles v singles; right now it's simply not working as in previous Halo games. I also miss the diversity of the Big Team Objective and Team Objective playlists. I hope to see them return.

[hr]

But like I said, the game has teething problems and has potential to be a great Halo game, but right now I'm failing to see beyond immoral players, poor map layouts and spawns, hidden statistics, "Windows - My Documents" UI and bland playlists with little voting diversity.

 

[StylinBones]

My thoughts on Halo 4? It dominates butts. I was a fan of H1 and H2 and I liked the MP from H3. I never played ODST or Reach and I hated the campaign from 3, but 4 is right back on par with H1 and H2. I love it.

 

[recruit00]

Guh, this is making me kind of worried about playing the multiplayer. I was worried when I first heard some changes and it sounds like some of those fears are coming true. One of the reasons why people liked Halo was because it was not like all the others: you don't die after three hits, weapons are interesting, and multiplayer is more akin to classic quake style fighting. Man, now I'm depressing myself.

 

[I-Protest-I]

So far it's shaping up to be my least favorite Halo game.

Campaign- The interactions between Chief and Cortana were good, but holy balls that ending sucked. When you tack that onto the relative shortness of it all, and the fact that the whole thing was more about questions than answers....well I was not a happy dude when I finished it.

Multiplayer- This is the one that really bothers me. It feels like they're imitating Call of Duty and Battlefield way way way too much. Jumping into the middle of games (I lost my first 5 games because I was dropped into games onto losing teams that had no chance of coming back), the stupid scoring system (what was wrong with just using kills as the score?), and the stupid ordances, which means the multiplayer isn't about learning the map and where the weapons are anymore. Plus the loadouts are silly too. I was placed into games with guys who had DMR's and BR's as their starting weapons, and I was stuck with an Assault Rifle and a Magnum, I was at a huge disadvantage because I hadn't started the same time as everyone else.

I mean the basic Halo gameplay is there, but the stuff I don't like far outweighs the stuff I like

You get a DMR/Battle Rifle like 2 games in, and I had such a hatred of big team battle because of being put into a losing team until I realised it's the exception not the rule.

 

[T_ConX]

I'll let Youtube express my opinions...

 

[SayHelloToMrBullet]

I haven't actually played the game myself (me being a PC gamer) but I gotta say that out of all the videos I've watched, the QTE's are really out of place. Halo has always been a cinematic experience, almost like a movie. The quick time events just feel really un-Halo-ey. Especially during the
finale with the Didact. Honestly QTE's with bosses are just stupid and should never occur. Why not allow the player to fight the Didact while Cortana has him weakened? Or if that's not an option, why not just keep that entire fight as one cutscene? At least then it would've felt like Halo.

Apart from that though, everything seems alright campaign-wise. Hopefully I'll get round to playing it myself one day.

 

[BoredWalker]

I've played the campaign through, and a really only have a few complaints:

- The length: It's about 6 1/2 hours long (on normal). I wouldn't have so much of an issue with this if the game didn't come on two discs, or if I hadn't recalled a prerelease statement that it would be longer than the previous games. I'm just left a bit disappointed here.

- The unconciousness: It seems like the Master Chief ends half the missions getting knocked out, and starting the next one waking up. I feels out of character and cliched, and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

- Pacing/coherence: Overall, I feel that there are too many cutscenes interrupting the gameplay mid-mission. It ruins the flow for me, and I don't think that I'll be replaying the campaign anywhere near as much as I did Reach's (especially now that campaign scoring is gone...why, 343, why? D. A lot of the missions and setpieces feel disjointed, with little context that I could discern for why I was there or how I got there. Also, a lot of the stuff in Halo 4 won't make much sense to people who haven't been following the books. They'll probably be explaining all this stuff in Halo 5, but I don't think it's fair to just suddenly dump this stuff on those who haven't been doing their reading.

- The QTE's: Why are these even here? They break flow worse than the abundant cutscenes, and aren't even something that belongs in a Halo game.

Just playing the game in general:

- No Firefight: Firefight was my go-to gamemode in Reach when I got bored of competitive multiplayer, and, while Spartan Ops are good, they don't have the same replayability. I really hope they add it back at some point, maybe as DLC or something.

- Binary Rifle: Go back to COD, you one-hit-bodyshot piece of sniping bullshit tripe.

- Locked emblems: It pisses me off how most of the emblems are locked from the start. I've used the same one for the past five -possibly six, if Halo Wars had them- games, and it's sort of become a trademark for me. Now I'm stuck with some shitty little thing and no idea how to unlock my old emblem components. Yes, this is a petty complaint, but it's the small things that piss me off the most.

Other than those, I like it. It's nice how they managed to bring back the BR without it making 90% of the weapons redundant, and the Forerunner guns are fun to play with, if a bit difficult to use. My reservations about ordinance drops were completely unfounded (although, the "pick one of 3 random 'rewards'" can be a ***** at times; once, it offered me pulse grenades, a sniper rifle, or a speed boost. Yaaaay.), it's nice to not live in fear for half the match because I wasn't on the team that spawns closer to the rocket launcher. Most of the stuff they ripped off of COD is put in competently, and has been tweaked to be more balanced/ Halo-ish. The Promethian enemies mix combat up nicely, even if it is unfair when they start spamming Watchers and Crawlers at you. Oh, and having players able to join games in progress is awesome. That was always an issue with Halo until now, where if one or two teammates quit, you could say goodbye to having any fun for the next 10 minutes. Thank fuck that was fixed.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

Spoiler

At first glance, it seems like they changed the focus of the multiplayer. Movement seems faster, and everyone has sprint which lasts a long time. Worse, the players go down more quickly then in previous entries. That means there is a lot less room for tactical play. A quick spray with the assault rifle is all it takes to put them down. I really don't like that at all, and it may hurt the longevity of the game for me. I think it was kind of inevitable for the series to go in that direction though, because that kind of fast-paced twitchy gameplay is very popular.

I may be totally wrong. That's only a first impression.

I take my post back. The pace is good. Playing smart is still important, not just running around spraying or camping.

 

[Otaku World Order]

I've only played a bit of the game so far, but so far... It's another Halo game. It looks better then ever and the storyline of Master Chief trying to save Cortana's degrading program is actually pretty good.

Other then that, not much to say.

 

[bullet_sandw1ch]

Halo 4 isn't Halo anymore.

343i took what made Halo multiplayer great, and just kind of tossed that out the window. (The ting is the phrase, "A well-coordinated team can always beat better individual players.")

while many others have the same opinion as you, i think this is more of a case of "oh noes, change!!". also, a team will ALWAYS beat a solo group of players in halo 4.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Hate the multi-player. Too fast paced, too much emulating Call of Duty, especially with perks like "faster reload speed" and, "carry a second primary weapon".

The problem I have with the system is that the perks and armor abilities have to be worked for to get them.

What made Halo multiplayer good was that other than skill, everybody started on an equal playing field in that everybody had all abilities and weapons(when found) to choose from.

The only thing that was worked for was rank and the cosmetic armor pieces.

I would be fine with the perks if they were all available for use from the start.

Too many options in Loadouts. Battle Rifle, DMR, Carbine, Light Rifle. Assault Rifle, Storm Rifle, Suppressor. Why the hell do we need 3 variations of each gun?

In some respects, you act like somebody that is familiar with the Halo franchise, but then I see this comment.

In the Halo franchise, there has always been a fair amount of equality in the weapons in that if the UNSC had a certain weapon, the Covenant had something similar in alien looking form.

It always came down to which you liked the look of better. When there was a different weapon that one side had that the other didn't, there was an equally different weapon that the other side got.

Forerunner guns are either pointless re-skins, like the Suppressor and Light Rifle. Or overpowered, like the Boltshot and Incinerator Cannon. The Scattershot is just a terrible gun.

See above. Really, it is all in the name of balance, and I'm fine with that. Though I do agree about the Scattershot.

There are times that the thing kills in one shot at point blank, but then at other times with the exact same conditions that it doesn't work. That doesn't make sense because that is what that gun is suppose to be, a Promethean form of a shotgun, so it is suppose to be used a close range.

Armour Abilities have gotten more pointless, there is little reason to use something other than Promethean Vision.

I couldn't care less about PV. Right now I use the camouflage ability. PV might be the last thing I buy. I for one will never us my points to buy that energy riot shield thing. It is a poor excuse for a replacement power over Reach's armor-lock.

Removing armor-lock was stupid. Other than camo, armor-lock was really one of the only useful abilities in Reach. It properly leveled the playing field between a player and another player in a small vehicle like a ghost, or good for surviving being hit by enemy warthogs(or stupid friendly ones for that matter) and flipping them, not to mention the EMP power it had when coming out of it.

It gave players a means of combating vehicles other than weapons. That riot shield thing is crap, it is basically a "I'm going to put this up to live a few more seconds before I die" thing. Heck, armor-lock let you survive rockets and lasers, that shield doesn't. So power weapons are too over powered again.

Guns are unsatisfying, and their recognizable sounds have been removed.

Also, Ordinance has lead to less knowledge of the map and less structuring around choke points. On vehicle based maps, vehicles are sometimes impossible to take down with normal guns, and the lack of guaranteed spawns can leave a team defenseless.

The sounds are close enough for me. My new favorite weapon is the Saw. Other than being an awesome mini-gun style weapon, the thing sounds like a old style gangster tommy gun.

I have tested vehicle survivability in past Halo games. It was never easy to kill vehicles with normal guns. That is what power weapons are for.

If anything with Halo 4, vehicles are weaker against normal guns. At least the banshee is. I was playing on normal in campaign, I grabbed a new banshee and only got hit about three or for times by some grunts firing "pea-shooters" and the banshee was already had black smoke pouring out of it. The same goes for ghosts.

The spawn point thing I agree with. As well as the maps, the only maps that are good are the old maps they brought back, all the new maps feel like the designers took all the design assets and clicked randomize or threw them up in the air and wherever they landed is where they stayed.

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My own gripes:

As I said, perks shouldn't be an unlockable, all game changing abilities should be unlocked from the start.

Also while cosmetic, making the personal symbols locked until certain levels was a damn stupid thing to do. Right now I'm stuck with a mutant green and yellow chicken until I unlock the symbol sets I used in the past games, if they are still even in the game.

Spartan IV armor doesn't look good. Compared to Spartan II's and III's, Spartan IV armor looks like plastic toy connected parts. The most of the different pieces don't look entirely different from each other.

I also hate that they removed proper military ranks like Sergeant and Captain and such.

Person: What rank are you man?

Person 2: SR-17.... blargh this ranking system is stupid.

Person: Agreed.

 

[Buizel91]

Hate the multi-player. Too fast paced, too much emulating Call of Duty, especially with perks like "faster reload speed" and, "carry a second primary weapon".

The problem I have with the system is that the perks and armor abilities have to be worked for to get them.

What made Halo multiplayer good was that other than skill, everybody started on an equal playing field in that everybody had all abilities and weapons(when found) to choose from.

The only thing that was worked for was rank and the cosmetic armor pieces.

I would be fine with the perks if they were all available for use from the start.

You don't have to work for them that much, you get Spartan Points each time you rank up, and for the first 8/10 ranks, you will be ranking up easily, armour doesn't cost anything, you unlock it and can use it, all you pay for are new weapons, abilities etc. which cost at max, 3SP. I think the system is hugely improved, a nice blend of Reach and Halo 3.

 

[RadioactiveMicrobe]

The more I read people's account of Halo 4's multiplayer, the more I know I am happy with not playing it.

If I wanted to played Battlefield, where I had to unlock all my weapons, I'd play Battlefield. I want an even playing field, were if I want to use a gun, I just go pick it up at its location.

What Halo 4 did is artificial replayability. (For lack of a better term) Yes, you could unlock stuff in other Halos, but it wasn't necessary for gameplay. Now people will be playing more for unlocking all of the stupid perks and weapons. Halo 3 didn't need that to keep people playing. You had your rank, and some armor, and that was it. You didn't need that feeling that you HAVE to play.

 

[Terminate421]

Its just me but the Halo music doesn't "feel" halo. Sometimes it does, and it is good. But it has a much different feeling as to any other halo game.

Also I miss the sounds on some of the other things (NO WARTHOG ENGINE?!)

BUT

This is a microcosm amidst the great love I have for it. The mech is hella fun to use (While still being balanced) The SAW is just amazing as a gun in general. The Hologram (With hidden T-bagging capabilities) is entertaining. And the list just keeps adding up.

 

[Buizel91]

The more I read people's account of Halo 4's multiplayer, the more I know I am happy with not playing it.

If I wanted to played Battlefield, where I had to unlock all my weapons, I'd play Battlefield. I want an even playing field, were if I want to use a gun, I just go pick it up at its location.

What Halo 4 did is artificial replayability. (For lack of a better term) Yes, you could unlock stuff in other Halos, but it wasn't necessary for gameplay. Now people will be playing more for unlocking all of the stupid perks and weapons. Halo 3 didn't need that to keep people playing. You had your rank, and some armor, and that was it. You didn't need that feeling that you HAVE to play.

To be honest, MP is fine, sure you need to unlock stuff, but each time you rank up you get your Spartan points and can easily get everything by rank 20ish (remembering there are about 50 ranks) it doesn't matter how well you play, you always get the same number, so its not as if someone will have a lot more stuff than you on the same level, you will have near enough the same. Also, you don;t really need to buy the weapons, i had the assault rifle for my first few ranks, and was bossing people who had the carbine/Light rifle, it just depends on your game style, like single shots? get the single shots, if not, just get the automatics. no need to get all of them.

 

[Buizel91]

Its just me but the Halo music doesn't "feel" halo. Sometimes it does, and it is good. But it has a much different feeling as to any other halo game.

Also I miss the sounds on some of the other things (NO WARTHOG ENGINE?!)

BUT

This is a microcosm amidst the great love I have for it. The mech is hella fun to use (While still being balanced) The SAW is just amazing as a gun in general. The Hologram (With hidden T-bagging capabilities) is entertaining. And the list just keeps adding up.

I was shocked at the Warthog sound to, same with the Ghost and Banshee, those were defining sounds of the game pretty much, hopefully in 5 this will be corrected, or at least in a patch, GIVE US THOSE SOUNDS BACK 343!

 

[FunGuy155]

Halo 4 was pretty short. A 6 hour campaign on a single disc is pretty bad. I mean, Halos 2,3 and Reach at least lasted me 10-12 hours and they shared their disc space with the multi-player bits. Promethean weapons are re-skins

Music in Halo 4 doesn't pop up as well. It leaves combat a little dry, especially in the Tank section. Could have been better.

Character wise, not too good but not bad as well. Captain Del Rio is a complete idiot and in one scene, over the top and hilarious for doing so. Chief and Cortana's relationship is also fleshed out well. Wish we could have seen more of the Spartan 4s. Also, why didn't Chief ask about his Spartans? Are they just saving that for the next game?

MP wise, I dislike the Spartans not having proper ranks. Armor has been getting progressively worse throughout the games. I'm not a great judge of MP but it works and its fun.

Overall, Halo 4 is short, fun and above average.

 

[Zealous]

It's good. The campaign was a bit short, there was a lack of secondary character development and it could have had a few less QTEs, but on the whole I was pleased with it. They did go for graphics over gameplay a bit though which is a bit of a piss off... Also, there were a few plot points that just assumed that you had a decent comprehension of the extended universe and they could have just added in a line or two at these parts to give older fans who haven't caught up on the fiction or newer players a better understanding of what's going on.

Spartan Ops seems interesting. The cut scenes seem to be adding some of the secondary character development that was lacking in the campaign and way it's released in weekly episodic content is nice. Much like the campaign, the missions are usually pretty quick on anything but legendary and even then, they pass by pretty quick.

Forge mode is definitely improved. they didn't really change anything in regards to the materials you can use to build, but the tools you can use to build have been drastically updated. Plus the shadows on user created maps look awesome.

I like the multiplayer. They went in a different direction than the previous titles, but it's still definitely Halo at it's core. It hasn't turned into a twitch shooter (no matter how many idiots wail about how 343 got cod in their halo). It is a lot more fast paced and hectic as everyone can use sprint but once I got used to the rhythm of the matches it was easy to keep up.

The loadouts had me concerned initially, but not so much any more. The tactical packages are passive enough that they don't drastically impact gameplay, while still providing minor bonuses in certain areas to either make you slighly better at stuff you were already good at or to give yourself a little handicap. The new armour abilities integrate nicely with the old ones and the ones they removed will not be missed in my opinion (I'm looking at you armour lock). None of them are overpowered (except maybe the regeneration field) so pretty much everything looks good on that front.

The progression system was well designed too. You unlock the majority of your equipment before you hit level twenty (and it's easy to get to that point fairly fast, say twenty five to fourty matches if your decent at the game with the majority of them spend getting you from around level fifteen up to twenty). After that, pretty much everything is just cosmetics. The purchase system is nice, although you'll often find yourself lagging one point behind what you want to unlock next for a few games until you level up again.

Everything is well balanced as long as you use the weapons and armour abilities as they should be used (I'm looking at you people asking for buffs for the autoturret and thruster pack while demanding a nerf on the precision weapons) and despite the fact that the Covenant and Promethean weapons are "like the blank gun, but" weapons, their quirks are all interesting and the aforementioned quirks are actually useful.

The ordnance drops do remove one aspect of Halo that's been around for a while which is map control (for the purpose of weapon control, there's still plenty of fighting over high ground, or center spaces). However, these ordnance drops only happen in a few gametypes by default and even then, only in certain variants. In my opinion it's just not as big a deal as some people are making it out to be. It's just another way to play the game much like swat, snipers or MLG. If you really don't like ordnance drops, then play in a playlist that doesn't include them.

So yeah, on the whole I think it's a good game. It has it's faults (most of which are pretty small in my opinion) but I think the improvements vastly outweigh the defects. It's definitely not the exact same as any previous Halo game by any stretch and it's certainly changed up the formula quite a bit, but it's still definitely a Halo game and a good one at that.

 

[Souplex]

As a moderate Halo fan, I haven't picked it up as I felt that the series had come to a pretty satisfying close, and having other people working on it felt cheap.

 

[klaynexas3]

As someone who hasn't played Halo much and has only played the numbered ones and online on the first one, I'll say I'm disappointed with what I have played so far. While playing with my brother online(he bought it) I couldn't help but feel it was a lot like these stupid modern shooters. Not to mention the health regeneration is complete bullshit if you ask me. The first one had it right, a regeneration type thing to allow some chance if you got fucked up in one fire fight, but not walking around like brand new after only just crawling behind some cover only using your nipples. Though, that's been gone for a while, so I guess it's too little too late to complain about that. Anyway, my full thoughts are that these people at 343 probably cared less for Halo than they did just making money, but I can still get behind it more than any modern shooter because it at least tries to carry on a story and not just release a $60 multiplayer weapon and map pack every year.