Why Bungie, why would you do this?! - Halo Community
Posted by: Captain Richards
Okay, this may be a little bit late, but I finally got Halo 4 a couple days ago for Christmas and I just beat the campaign today and played matchmaking excessively. Upon careful inspection, I have come to a conclusion in regards to my review--and surprisingly, it is MUCH more positive than I assumed.
Halo 4 blew me out of the water. The campaign was MASSIVE and amazing. Lots of new weapons and enemies, cool vehicles, it wasn't too short like Halo 3, and it didn't lack the exploration element like Reach. But it had it all. It was the full package. Cool fighting and combat, intense storyline with a lot of emotional depth and plot development, really detailed and long levels with the element of exploration, and some new twists by all the new vehicles. All in all, this was GREAT. A perfect 9.1/10 in my opinion. The campaign was on a level comparable to the campaign of Halo 2 and Halo CE. This was probably the game's strongest point.
I really have a lot of faith in 343i--they outdid themselves with the campaign, they delved deeper into the Halo lore found in the books and the whole forerunners thing and incorporated it into gameplay, really expanding the storyline and opening up a whole new world.
For me, the first half of the game of OK, then they moved into something of a fanfiction between Cortana and Chief, in which it was simply too cheesy to bare. There are canon inconsistencies, some understandable, others, like putting a SAW on the Forward Unto Dawn, and Chief surviving a HAVOC nuke with "hardlight" was also a little hard to swallow. While it played OK, the story was a bit shallow at times. While I especially admire the bits with the Didact's ship, the writing was only superb. However, it was way better than Reach's campaign.
If I have to hear one more character kiss ass to the Infinity, I'm going to throw up. Its like they worship the thing.
Posted by: Captain Richards
Now moving onto matchmaking. While Halo 4's multiplayer was not as good as Halo 3's was, it was still better than Reach's matchmaking by a LONG shot, and arguably even better than Halo 2--which, as much as you 20-something-year-olds will deny, wasn't actually that good. The only reason we liked Halo 2 so much was because of the nostalgia we have of it, seeing that for most of us, it was the first FPS game that we really delved into. But in reality, it was highly unbalanced, full of glitches and choppy as hell. Halo 4's multiplayer highly impressed me--especially since I was initially doubting how good it would be.
Contrary to what most of us speculated, the system of weapons spawning on different places of the map did not ruin it or cause the game to become unbalanced, but actually balanced the game more so in my opinion. Weapons spawning--to my surprise--was a success. It wasn't "too COD" like many of you complained, but was pure classic Halo, combined with some successful new tweeks that really enhanced it and gave it a new fun edge, all the while preserving the original feel.
My ONLY complaint in regards to matchmaking is that I believe some vehicles are overpowered. The Ghost is WAAAY overpowered and too hard to stop, people can just get on a Ghost and splatter everyone until the game is over, over and over again until someone gets a heavy weapon. Other than this though, matchmaking was a perfect success that surprised me. I was originally doubting it but it really blew me away.
All in all, 343i really outdid themselves and I feel truly satisfied and impressed with their game. I think that if they keep up the good work, and focus on fixing some of the few slight errors they made in this game, then the rest of their trilogy will be perfect. I have faith in them.
ROFL. The new system is incredibly broken. Really, try playing CTF on Adrift with players of the same general skill level. You notice how easy it is to camp in your base with DMR's, and know there's nothing your enemy can do about it because power weapons won't even spawn.
All anyone can get on Halo 2 was its glitches, and for one of the first console shooters to pioneer the idea of matchmaking, that was expected. And if for one second you can even believe the idea Infinity Slayer is more balanced than anything in H2, you must be really high on the Halo 2 hate train.
And as for Ghosts, jump over them, board them, shoot the driver, stick it, EMP it...