Geoff
Sir "Let's Play"
Halo 4: Greatest Halo or Massive Letdown?
I always admit this upfront, I'm a proud Halo fanboy. I've played every game (excluding Wars) and loved them all. Anyone who has been on these forums (ffn and VF4) will know that I've been excited for Halo 4. Hell, excited doesn't even describe it. I bought the Limited Edition, I took a couple days off work for the game. With that in mind, I was still open to judging this game on how good or bad it truly was. I can set aside my fanboyism enough for that.
Campaign - Halo 3 ended with us in half a ship, floating in space. We now awaken, 4 years (almost 5) later and we have Covenant attacking. The campaign is done wonderfully. It's based around Cortana basically dying. AI's start to "die" and go crazy after 7 years, she has been in service now for 8. We also have floated towards a Forerunner planet, Requiem. Throughout the Campaign, we see Cortana get a bit crazier, we have a UNSC ship pop in and help and we face a new threat. The Forerunners returning. The Didact himself appears, along with the Librarian.
The weapons have really all changed with new sounds and they are amazing, especially the Promethean weapons. All the Covenant have been kind of redesigned. I mean, they are all just ugly as all fuck and really detailed. We also have a new HUD, so we see the helmet a bit on the corners of our screen making it look really cool. And anyone who has enjoyed the story will most likely love the ending. I was co-oping with a friend and I was in tears when it happened. I won't spoil it for anyone who is interested, even if this topic will have spoilers. Campaign is probably the best one I've played.
Spartan Ops - This mode is a continuation of Campaign, set 6 months after the campaign IIRC. I went through it all today with my friend and it is just pure awesome. If anything, it takes over as the "firefight" of Halo 4. You get 6 missions with the first chapter. Truly a lot of fun and I will easily go back and try to do it on Legendary. I know we are getting more Chapters later, I just don't know when, and then we get Season 2 and so on. So, it just keeps going.
Multiplayer (War Games) - So a big thing with Multiplayer is that it now is "tied in" with the story. We are Spartan 4's onboard the Infinity ship. the Red VS Blue is all a training simulator. Within Multiplayer we get things like Infinity Slayer, Big Team version of that as well, Odd Ball and Capture the Flag of course. Flood, the new Infection Mode. it's all a lot of fun. And this is easily the best Multiplayer I've played in awhile, especially when you are playing modes that give you Ordinance drops. Greatest thing ever.
The biggest thing with all of this is ranking up. You rank up by playing the game obviously, and you get more XP when you get kills, killing spress, multi kills ect.. To get things like the Battle Rifle or DMR or Light Rifle, or to use Armor Abiliies, you now have to BUY them using Spartan Points, which you get 1 (sometimes 2 but I don't know the intervals) each time you rank up. Personally, I like this system. Like I said, multiplayer is awesome. All annoyances will be posted at the bottom. =P
Forge - To be honest, I haven't touched Forge yet. I never plan on doing it, but I may give it a shot later tonight if I get bored. So, sadly, nothing more can be put here.
Theater - Can still only view by yourself, which sucks but again, I haven't watched any of my videos yet in this mode so I will update this part when I give it a try.
Music - The music in this game is amazing. Just play through campaign and you will understand. But hey, the music has ALWAYS been great in the Halo series, so it was no surprise here.
Gameplay - It all feels pretty damn good. And one of the biggest things I hated in Reach was TRADING KILLS. That happens very rarely in this game, thank God for that.
Annoyances - XP cap. That is the biggest fucking thing. I had 130 games or so of 2x XP. I hit the XP cap my first day at about 3PM or so. I had played Campaign till 6 AM, then some Multiplayer till 10 AM and got back up at 12PM. Once I hit the cap, I set my time forward to gain more for the next day. I stayed on for maybe an hour, then turned the time back and today, I hit the cap for today and tomorrow. The cap is very tiny. I'm only rank 32. Ugh.
Join in Progress can be annoying because I have had a few games where we joined in on Oddball, the enemy team was half way there and our team had zero. Fucking great. But otherwise, not that bad.
Matchmaking lobby - This is very annoying. I liked Reach's. With this one, I dunno. It just feels strange, you can't see how far someone is into a game like you could with Reach.
Overall - Get this game if you own a 360. Yes, there are minor annoyance and obviously on launch day, they had server issues. But hey, I've hit the cap for 3 days worth and the game has been out for less than 2. That should tell you how great it is. I'm glad I got the Limited Edition and I'm glad all my friends have gotten the game as well, because they make it all the more enjoyable.
An easy 10/10
I always admit this upfront, I'm a proud Halo fanboy. I've played every game (excluding Wars) and loved them all. Anyone who has been on these forums (ffn and VF4) will know that I've been excited for Halo 4. Hell, excited doesn't even describe it. I bought the Limited Edition, I took a couple days off work for the game. With that in mind, I was still open to judging this game on how good or bad it truly was. I can set aside my fanboyism enough for that.
Campaign - Halo 3 ended with us in half a ship, floating in space. We now awaken, 4 years (almost 5) later and we have Covenant attacking. The campaign is done wonderfully. It's based around Cortana basically dying. AI's start to "die" and go crazy after 7 years, she has been in service now for 8. We also have floated towards a Forerunner planet, Requiem. Throughout the Campaign, we see Cortana get a bit crazier, we have a UNSC ship pop in and help and we face a new threat. The Forerunners returning. The Didact himself appears, along with the Librarian.
The weapons have really all changed with new sounds and they are amazing, especially the Promethean weapons. All the Covenant have been kind of redesigned. I mean, they are all just ugly as all fuck and really detailed. We also have a new HUD, so we see the helmet a bit on the corners of our screen making it look really cool. And anyone who has enjoyed the story will most likely love the ending. I was co-oping with a friend and I was in tears when it happened. I won't spoil it for anyone who is interested, even if this topic will have spoilers. Campaign is probably the best one I've played.
Spartan Ops - This mode is a continuation of Campaign, set 6 months after the campaign IIRC. I went through it all today with my friend and it is just pure awesome. If anything, it takes over as the "firefight" of Halo 4. You get 6 missions with the first chapter. Truly a lot of fun and I will easily go back and try to do it on Legendary. I know we are getting more Chapters later, I just don't know when, and then we get Season 2 and so on. So, it just keeps going.
Multiplayer (War Games) - So a big thing with Multiplayer is that it now is "tied in" with the story. We are Spartan 4's onboard the Infinity ship. the Red VS Blue is all a training simulator. Within Multiplayer we get things like Infinity Slayer, Big Team version of that as well, Odd Ball and Capture the Flag of course. Flood, the new Infection Mode. it's all a lot of fun. And this is easily the best Multiplayer I've played in awhile, especially when you are playing modes that give you Ordinance drops. Greatest thing ever.
The biggest thing with all of this is ranking up. You rank up by playing the game obviously, and you get more XP when you get kills, killing spress, multi kills ect.. To get things like the Battle Rifle or DMR or Light Rifle, or to use Armor Abiliies, you now have to BUY them using Spartan Points, which you get 1 (sometimes 2 but I don't know the intervals) each time you rank up. Personally, I like this system. Like I said, multiplayer is awesome. All annoyances will be posted at the bottom. =P
Forge - To be honest, I haven't touched Forge yet. I never plan on doing it, but I may give it a shot later tonight if I get bored. So, sadly, nothing more can be put here.
Theater - Can still only view by yourself, which sucks but again, I haven't watched any of my videos yet in this mode so I will update this part when I give it a try.
Music - The music in this game is amazing. Just play through campaign and you will understand. But hey, the music has ALWAYS been great in the Halo series, so it was no surprise here.
Gameplay - It all feels pretty damn good. And one of the biggest things I hated in Reach was TRADING KILLS. That happens very rarely in this game, thank God for that.
Annoyances - XP cap. That is the biggest fucking thing. I had 130 games or so of 2x XP. I hit the XP cap my first day at about 3PM or so. I had played Campaign till 6 AM, then some Multiplayer till 10 AM and got back up at 12PM. Once I hit the cap, I set my time forward to gain more for the next day. I stayed on for maybe an hour, then turned the time back and today, I hit the cap for today and tomorrow. The cap is very tiny. I'm only rank 32. Ugh.
Join in Progress can be annoying because I have had a few games where we joined in on Oddball, the enemy team was half way there and our team had zero. Fucking great. But otherwise, not that bad.
Matchmaking lobby - This is very annoying. I liked Reach's. With this one, I dunno. It just feels strange, you can't see how far someone is into a game like you could with Reach.
Overall - Get this game if you own a 360. Yes, there are minor annoyance and obviously on launch day, they had server issues. But hey, I've hit the cap for 3 days worth and the game has been out for less than 2. That should tell you how great it is. I'm glad I got the Limited Edition and I'm glad all my friends have gotten the game as well, because they make it all the more enjoyable.
An easy 10/10