Your thoughts on Halo 4?

[Ticonderoga117]

Overall, a very excellent game. Not perfect by any means, but it's just small things really. The music, while having some very awesome tracks, doesn't have one that yells "Halo" to me like the theme we all know and love does. The SP is a bit thin on some details, but that's fine as we have 2 more games to flesh that out. MP is fun, but sometimes I just RAGE over DMR's and BR's wrecking me. Love the armor choices though and Spartan Ops is AWESOME.

 

[Grape_Bullion]

Personally I've only played multiplayer, seen the all of single player.

As for multiplayer, it sucks to see Halo turned into Call of Duty: Deep Space edition. That's all I'll say about that.

Single player is okay I guess. Graphically it's your typical Halo game. Gorgeous, but uninspired. One thing I always enjoyed about Halo was this strange mix of "human" technology being deeply involved in an alien setting, I feel that was really lacking. You seem to only be using Promethian weapons. Story-wise, I didn't get the feeling I was in the extraordinary events that have happened in previous Halo games. Nothing about the game is overwhelming, or even eye catching to be honest. Personally I wasn't disappointed, I set the bar fairly low. And that being said, the bar wasn't surpassed in any way.

 

[ZehMadScientist]

I'm still working my way through the campaign on Heroic, so I'll get to that some other time. I got stuck somewhere in the sixth mission and couldn't bother to try again. So I've been spending my time with Wargames in the meantime.

So... Multiplayer. I love it, it works just fine. Here are a few points that caught my attention.

- Like the dude with Master of Puppets avatar already said, the starting weapons' range is equal to that of a sniper rifle's. I'm afraid to even set foot outside of whatever building I'm in.

- The Binary rifle is an overpowered piece of scrap. Unless I'm using it myself. (but seriously, it's really damn overpowered.)

- I don't have the foggiest about how I'm supposed to use Pulse grenades.

- I was shocked about how powerful the Assault rifle (or its two alien sisters) has become. It's actually a weapon of choice now!

- I loathe the Abandon multiplayer map.

- Ordnance drops can either give you gold or shit. You've got three guesses as to what I usually get.

Despite that, the game is awesome.

 

[Rule Britannia]

Going to try out hologram then I'll come to a conclusion. (I refuse to use active camoflage and the Autosentry was bearly helpful in campaign to me)

Now I'm a bit curious, as active camo is my go-to armor ability. And the reason that it's my go-to armor ability is because I agree with you on all the other armor abilities: they're useless outside of key situations. But active camo allows you to crouch-skirt around the edge of major firing fields and get the drop on people with a precision weapon.

Is it some sort of moral high-ground thing? Because when it comes to how hectic the multiplayer can get, I'll take pragmatics and cunning over a straight fight any day.

It's a moral high ground thing :/
Personally, I find it frustrating to fight somebody who's partially visible or completely invisible when crouching.

I'm thinking I might just always use Promethean Vison, so I don't have to keep re-adapting to new armour abilities. That or stick to me "*****" tactic of shooting someone long range and using regeneration field if they shoot back and I then start to lose; in conjunction with the AA perk the aforementioned tactic is overpowered (kinda overpowered anyway).

 

[Gone Rampant]

Loved the campaign despite it being rather short. My Xbox Live connection is playing up at the moment though so I haven't had the chance to delve into War Games or Spartan Ops yet.

You can play Spartan Ops in single player

You need to be connected to LIVE, though. Kind of annoying- even Halo's losing its split-screen routes.

And I loved the game- got it on Saturday and waded through on Normal, then went online and tried some Team Slayer- and trust me that when I say it's better than Halo 3, it's REALLY good.

Campaign's awesome too, but it could have been longer. And I wanted to drive the Mammoth!

And one final niggle- no Theatre for Campaign. *Skyward Scream*

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

That is actually one thing I am curious about. Will there still only be one sniper or one rocket per level in a regular match or will the drops bring multiples?

Power weapons are MUCH more common now with ordinance drops. Especially in BTB. I've seen matches with 5 rocket launchers, 4-5 snipers, and a couple spartan lasers all at the same time.

 

[recruit00]

That is actually one thing I am curious about. Will there still only be one sniper or one rocket per level in a regular match or will the drops bring multiples?

Power weapons are MUCH more common now with ordinance drops. Especially in BTB. I've seen matches with 5 rocket launchers, 4-5 snipers, and a couple spartan lasers all at the same time.

That sucks. That was great where if you knew who had the power weapon, you knew what you had to do. You don't know who has a power weapon now and it is dumb. Man, they better get to adding classic playlists and what not or people are gonna be pissed.

 

[Rooster Cogburn]

- I don't have the foggiest about how I'm supposed to use Pulse grenades.

In Campaign/Spartan Ops? It really does wonders on enemy's shields, allowing you to aim for the head for a quick kill. Specifically against Elites and Knights.

In Wargames? Area denial. That's one use all grenades have. But while a frag does it's damage once and is gone, the advantage of the pulse grenade is it's duration. While the grenade is deployed, the space it occupies is a no-mans land where shields are useless and death comes swiftly. The drawback is they don't have the killing power of frag and plasma grenades. They are generally more useful in objective games and in tight hallways.

...

I'm pretty disappointed about the unlock system, the loadout system, and the ordnance drop system just like everyone else. It's a clear shift in focus for the series from a game designed around multiplayer to the lone-wolfing-it-against-other-people-to-grind-out-points style championed by Call of Duty.

But let's try to keep some perspective, too. In spite of that, the Halo style we know and love is still very much intact. The gameplay is still about bringing the right tool for the job, choosing your shots carefully, reacting to the changing situation, and outplaying your opponent just as much as it is about being quick on the draw. It's about knowing when to melee and when to backpedal and shoot, when to push the attack and when to let your shield recharge, when to throw that frag and when to chip away at their shields, when to reload and when to switch to your secondary. It's about planning how to break your opponents shields and then how to get the headshot after.

When it turns into whoever puts the enemy in their sight first gets the kill, that will be the time to abandon ship.

 

[Eddy-16]

I like the game and the multiplayer is awesome as per usual. My one gripe is with the ending which I'm hoping someone can explain to me, cause I'm pretty sure they didn't explain it.

Spoiler

John (Master Chief)activates a nuke with his hands, then Cortana who has become rapant some how saves him by transporting him into some blue matrix type thing

 

[Theo Rob]

I've got a buddy who reads the novels, so most of the questions i have will be answered my him

As for the multiplayer, my only gripe is vehicles. I have no desire to be splattered by a ghost every kill i get.

 

[Brendan Stepladder]

I love the multiplayer, and find it very balanced. But, the File Share system is utterly broken, which will kill the long-term success of the game. Also, Promethean Vision is just about the best thing ever.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Based on what (very) little I've seen (and played) of it:

-The environments are noticeably improved; both in their layout and aesthetic design.
-Voice acting isn't so "tin drum, hut-hut" dull military anymore.
-Gameplay: It's Halo. What else can I say about it?

Can't really comment beyond a glance.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

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

Personally, I found it to be more or less the same thing as the Sniper Rifle, requiring a hit to the head to kill. I have not played enough to confirm this but I do know that it often seems to take 2 shots and when it doesn't, I'm nearly certain I hit them in he head.

On an unrelated note, there are things I like and things I don't about the game. But the things that most stand out is the overwhelming number of vehicles on maps that are actually quite small. The relatively narrow spaces in these maps means that ghosts are apparently nothing but cruise missiles that happen to be armed. The second is that I like that weapons both spawn on the battlefield and get called in. Given how powerful the game makes certain weapons like the shotgun and rocket launcher, being given the option to simply have one delivered is a fundamental change to the pace of games. I'm not sure if this is a good change in the long run; it will take time with the game to determine.

The last change that stands out is that for all the new weapons, it doesn't really feel like there are new ones. Some changes were made that make weapons more generally useful - that assault rifle for example. In other cases, it really feels like you just get two or three versions of the same thing. The DMR/Battle Rifle/Covenant Carbine for example. Again, I've not played enough to really determine anything beyond that they do different damages but having three weapons that fill that mid range slot of "fairly high single trigger pull damage" seems odd for halo. But then, Reach had the DMR and Carbine and they seemed almost identical there.

 

[MisterGobbles]

I don't have much to say about single player, it was fun enough and it holds up to the other ones well enough. I won't draw comparisons.

It's pretty hard to deny that the multiplayer is heavily influenced by Call of Duty, right down to the loading screen before matches with the developer name displayed in the corner, right down to the way the game tells you what team you're on before you start play, the way you unlock weapons, of course the loadouts, grenade indicator, built-in sprint, killcam, perks (some of which are taken directly from CoD), ordinance drops as a stand in for care packages, etc, etc.

The thing is, this isn't intrinsically a bad thing. It actually works amazingly and makes the game more fun than either CoD or past Halos, and it still plays exactly like Halo should. The elements that were taken from Call of Duty are actually extremely good ideas, and since the problems with them were worked out over the course of the various CoD installments, they're here fully balanced and not broken. Same thing with the armor abilities, which have been balanced and expanded on from their Reach counterparts. It just feels polished. And though the playlists haven't fleshed out at ALL yet and there are some annoying glitch-into-wall bugs that have yet to be fixed, I'm having more fun with this Halo then I've had since I got live and started playing Halo 3 five years ago.

 

[crimson sickle2]

One of the final indications, to me, about Halo 4's crap level is how they offer co-op multiplayer that completely breaks the game's difficulty and dodges explaining how Master Chief just completed Mitosis. Adding multiplayer in itself is harmless, but the details point to the overall level of the cash-in produced. Also unlocking in multiplayer sucks, unless you have complete control over what unlocks when, like getting the laser cannon that can kill three dudes in a straight line by level 2; freedom to choose unlocking paths is what makes some games so addicting.

 

[C F]

I like the game and the multiplayer is awesome as per usual. My one gripe is with the ending which I'm hoping someone can explain to me, cause I'm pretty sure they didn't explain it.

Spoiler

John (Master Chief)activates a nuke with his hands, then Cortana who has become rapant some how saves him by transporting him into some blue matrix type thing

I'm an avid fan of the Halo series, so I'll take a shot.

Spoiler

It's been established that the Forerunners built some pretty logic-defying crap over the years, what with solid light, floating structures, and artificially controlled nature being representative of their casual tech level, so it's not at all hard to believe a number of things could have happened aboard a Forerunner Super-Soldier's Ship-of-the-Line.

Cortana herself was designed for the sole purpose of being a cyber-intrusion specialist with alien technology, and she's had 4 Halo games to become familiar with Covenant and Forerunner computer systems. Even fighting off the Didact's influence as well as struggling with her decaying self, she could still open and close functional spatial rifts for the Chief to transport around the level.

At the end, her split personalities seemed to reconcile with themselves when faced with a unified threat (the Didact) harming the one who she's most fond of (the Master Chief). Working in harmony, it's likely she can now effortlessly command much more advanced Forerunner technology at this point, especially since self-preservation takes back-seat to stopping the Didact and saving the Chief and Earth.

Are you familiar with what Slipspace is? You've heard it mentioned a couple times in-game; it's the Halo universe's wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. The humans discovered it by accident in the late 23rd century, and halfway through the 26th, we're still fumbling around with it. It can transport you to locations faster than light, but that's only scratching the surface. The covenant have decent Slipspace mastery, but only because they bootlegged it from the Forerunners. Despite how scientifically vague and hyper-advanced it is, the Forerunners had that crap nailed down like it was their morning breakfast cereal.

A key thing Forerunners have been known to do is fold time and space into smaller shapes and sizes. The shield worlds are an example of this; one has been specified to be about Earth-sized on the outside, and have a radius of 1 AU (the radius of earth's orbit around the sun) on the inside. It also had a sun in the center (which could presumably be turned off if convenient).
Another example is their slipspace stasis pods, which are the Forerunner counterpart to the UNSC cryo pods. Except instead of just sticking the guy on ice, it forms an isolated dimensional pocket which keeps the subject in one point in time independent from the rest of the world (though still visible through the pod). While appearing to be right there in the pod, it can be proven they actually aren't (A sniper scope's range-finder read "∞" when pointed at a sealed pod's insides).

TL;DR: With all this in mind, Cortana may have just sent the chief into dimensional isolation for the duration of the nuclear explosion, and then send him back to where he was a few seconds later while the debris rains around him. But since time and space are malleable in this instant, Cortana could also have her private moment with Chief.
Her body is just a projection of Hard Light, which is an easy enough concept to believe considering all the glow-y bridges we've ran across and driven over.

If you cared about the Halo lore, it was kind of assumed you would know all this by know. Which is a big shout-out to the fans, but it leaves casual players with little to go by except "space magic". But with Promethean Knights teleporting around the battlefield (with a noticeable time delay between disappearing and reappearing), maybe you're expected to roll with this kind of space-time manipulation stuff by now. I don't know.
Maybe they'll handle things a bit more carefully next time.

 

[VeryOddGamer]

Okay, now I've played a few War Games and the first level of the campaign on Heroic.
-The campaign is pretty damn hard, at least on Heroic.
-It has a lot of bloom. Too much, in my opinion.
-In War Games, combat seems to take place at a longer range, in general.
-At least in War Games, the game seems really fuzzy, but that might just be because of my shitty TV.

So generally, it feels kind of off, but I hope I'll get used to it.

 

[BoredWalker]

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

Personally, I found it to be more or less the same thing as the Sniper Rifle, requiring a hit to the head to kill. I have not played enough to confirm this but I do know that it often seems to take 2 shots and when it doesn't, I'm nearly certain I hit them in he head.

From the experiences of both myself and a friend; both shooting with it, and getting shot with it; we both agree that it's a one-shot kill. I can't snipe for shit- a sniper headshot for me is very rare- but I always get a kill when I line the crosshairs of the binary rifle over any part of an enemy's body.

 

[Chunga the Great]

-No Forge World (SERIOUS downside here)

-Lack of Promethian weapon and enemy variety

-Terrible multiplayer maps (Big Team has 1 good map, 2 mediocre maps, and 1 absolutely godawful one that gets played constantly *cough* Ragnarok *cough*)

-The absolutely fucking terrible last ~1 hour of the campaign leaves me wanting to just get the game over with instead of wanting to see the ending.

-No firefight

-Ordnance drops and Loadouts

-Binary Rifle. Fuck. That. Gun.

-The Mantis is completely unnecessary and serves no purpose other than being another immensely powerful game changer, though not quite as good as the Scorpion.

It could have been better, but overall I'd give it an 8. Reach was a 9.5 in my book, largely due to Forge World.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

-Ordnance drops and Loadouts

Why's that a bad thing?

On the note of the Binary rifle, it seems like the logic here is; it's A-OKAY for it to 1-shot anyone because you can see when it's being aimed at you, and exactly where the person aiming it is currently located.

.....It still really fucking annoying though. Even with all that, I do think the gun is still too powerful.