- A Dumb Door
- |
- Fabled Mythic Member
Now that Halo 4 is out, and I've finally played through it, I have decided to share my thoughts on the game. WARNING: This is spoiler heavy, so read at your own risk.
Now, the first thing that we need to get out of the way is that this game ripped off the Halo franchise so much. Similar characters, similar aliens, similar weapons, similar story canon, etc. It REALLY ripped off the Halo franchise. For a game that isn't Halo, it really ripped it off. Heck, even the TITLE copied the Halo games. However, because this is such a rip off of the Halo series, we have to compare it to some extent.
1. Story:
The beginning of this game really sold me on it at first. The Master Chief adrift in space, found a strange world, and is instantly called back into action by Cortana to try and survive. The opening is SO much fun. It really feels like you're trying to survive, and there is a real sense of urgency. Then, after arriving, that sense of survival is enforced even more, and the game truly shines with the feeling that instead of fighting a war, you're simply trying to fight to survive and get home. A really good plot for this point in the series.
However, this gets completely thrown out the window when the humans come in. If the human ship had either been destroyed or was simply the ultimate goal in order to leave the planet, this plot would have been fine. However, instead, we get more human characters. This removes the feeling of survival and brings us right back to the standard and deteriorated Halo formula of taking the fight to the Covenant. Except now there are Prometheans, too. Huh.
Either way, The Chief gets his rear in gear to clear the gravity well and free the human ship. On the way, however, he runs into The Didact, a still living Forerunner who has survived this long and still harbors a grudge against humankind for some odd reason. After committing super villain sin #23, monologuing and not finishing off the hero when you have them in your grasp, he goes off in search of The Composer in order to digitize humanity. Instead of trying to fight The Covenant, who are a much more invasive and devastating threat, his target is humans, and he's willing to ally himself with The Covenant in order to kill the humans. A great big "wat" was stamped onto my forehead at this point.
Now you team up with humans and go to fight him and stop his plot. So far so standard. However, we get a curve ball in a tried and true formula in that we learn that The Master Chief is really the culmination of thousands of generations of planning. Any and all seriousness or ability to take this series seriously is completely thrown out the window. I can accept The Didact surviving. I can accept the Reclaimer subplots. Heck, I can even accept that Cortana is becoming more unstable and seems to be more lovey-dovey over the Master Chief. Not even the Forerunners' appearance looking like Lord Voldemort even COMPARES to this! The absurdity of this claim is absolutely ridiculous!
More fighting the Didact, we get to an asteroid, meet some annoying characters, then he gets the composer and fires on Earth. Oh dang! -blam!- just got SERIOUS! However, through a VERY pathetic fight scene, The Master Chief kills The Didact and sets off a nuke to destroy the Composer and the ship it's on.
My thoughts on the story? It started VERY strong. They should have continued with Chief just fighting for survival and to get back home. His war is OVER. He is NOT the soldier he once was, so why is he still operating in this manner? Heck, they should have exemplified how old he is with making him weaker and adding more of a stealth focus and strategy rather than the all-too-common run and gun set up with linear point-to-point encounters.
2. Gameplay:
The game is your standard Halo affair. Slight changes like Sprint have been added, but do not break the game. Armor abilities are back, but armor lock is not, so everything is good. Heck, we even get a few new cool armor abilities like the Sentry Gun and Hardlight Shield. Not a bad trade if you ask me. Armor lock was a bit overpowered anyway. However, as for actual MULTIPLAYER, there are a lot of problems if you ask me.
1. Ordinance needs to be activated before assuming direct control of the grenade changing buttons. Can't tell you how many times I tried to shift to a plasma grenade and got a drop instead.
2. The Valhalla remake needs to be fixed. I don't know how, but it needs it desperately.
3. There needs to be more appreciable difference between the BR and DMR. Thus far, the BR is far superior, and the DMR is just redundant.
4. The railgun has too much delay between firing and the projectile hitting the target in multiplayer. This issue was not present in single player, but reared its ugly head in multiplayer. FIX IT.
5. Sticky bombs need to fly faster and further.
6. The weapon drop system is pretty silly. I've faced a team where EVERYONE had rocket launchers. EVERYONE. That's just absurd.
7. The assassinations have glitched a couple of times on me and just not happened. Might just be a simple software glitch, but it needs fixing.
8. There is WAY too much emphasis on rank progression. Ranks need to be applied ONLY to armor, and MAYBE a few emblems, if at all. Otherwise, NO RANKS. It creates a gap between skilled players and new players that shouldn't be present.
9. Grenades need more pushing power against vehicles. They don't do hardly anything to warthogs anymore outside of a wee bit of damage.
3. Sound:
I'll put it frankly. The sound design in this game is just silly. What happened to the entire sound library of any of the past games? Could you not get the rights to those? All the guns sound essentially the same with slight modifications here and there, and they don't sound like what they're supposed to be. They don't exude the power that they're supposed to have. Also, the music sounds like Star Wars more than it does Halo at some parts. Just saiyan.
Overall, this game was a step backward. There are a lot of steps forward, and a lot of good ideas which are well-executed, but it really truly lacks a lot as well. If I can make a comparison: This game was like Duke Nukem Forever. We expected so much, and it just didn't deliver. Sure, it's nowhere near a BAD as Duke Nukem Forever, but that feeling of "What have you done to the series?" is quite apparent. I really wanted to like this game. I was fighting for people to stop arguing about how bad it was and wait for it to come out before making their opinions. However, upon finally playing it, I must say that I'm concerned more than I am changed. 343, do you really expect this to live up to the Halo franchise name? Each Halo brought something new and innovative to the table. Outside of better graphics and Lord Voldemort aliens, what is new and innovative in this game?
Overall, the game is underwhelming, rips off Halo like crazy, and is worth the multiplayer at a reduced cost.
-My two bits.
[Edited on 11.10.2012 1:28 AM PST]