Ok so I have chosen to review this game so late because I believe reviewing a game right when it comes out is not a legit review. One needs to really experience the game and see how it holds up through out a period of time. I will not be praising halo 4 like ign but instead state my opinion on the game game and explain why.
First up is campaign.
Overall I thought the campaign and by I mean campaign I mean story, was pretty good. Not amazing but good. This is because the campaign suffered from one major flaw. It expected that the gamers had read the novels. Now this is both good and bad. The good thing was it stuck surprisingly well with the cannon of the universe but if one did not read the novels they would have been lost from the get go. I read the novels and they were both good literary works and extra gaming info. If 343 added a little bit of extra info either in the cut scenes or the actual gameplay they could have made up for the mistake. The terminals do help a lot but not every one looks for the terminals so it didn’t really fix the problem.
Yes the game was shorter than the other 3 but it did IMO add much more story and emotion. Halo 1 had a lot of story to tell because it had to introduce you to the universe. Halo 2 had just had the covenant story really. And halo 3 had the most generic basically go blow this up. Halo 4 had to introduce you to requiem, the didect,the promethians and the reason why they are fighting the player.
I give the campaign a 4.5/5 because of the lack of background info on the important characters and features.
Music.
The music overall was again good. Like Marty’s it was percussion and vocal oriented. Neil’s though did have a symbiotic mixture of the classical and electric. It was though mostly classical. The biggest problem was that in campaign the music was almost silent. It was extremely hard to hear. Thisis why I believe people didn’t like the music because they could not hear how it matched the levels very well or the mood, much like Marty’s did. I have the soundtrack so I have been able to listen to all the tracks and see how they fit with the game. They did have times were the music didn’t really match the setting but that was rare and spread out.
I give the music a 4.5/5 for the inability of being able to hear it in game.
Gameplay.
If you have played halo 1,2, or 3 you knw how halo 4 will play. Huge jumps, hip firing, and tough ai at times. The addition to sprint does not ruin the gameplay overall. Yes when people run in multiplayer it can get annoying but the maps are big and walking across them would suck. The armour abilities overall are both a negative and a positive. For instance thruster pack is useful for getting out of the way but may throw you right I to a grenade or another vehicle. One can easily get around armour abilities if one knows there counter. Camos counter is PV. Hard light shield is grenades and so on and so forth.
I give game play a 4.8/5 for not changing me handicap but the occasional OP armour ability.
Graphics.
Probably the best graphics I have seen on a console for this years games.This is for both the game and the cinematics. Thereis lighting flair but this is a minor flaw.
I give graphics a 5/5.
Spartan Ops.
Spartan ops is the new mode that replaces firefight. It is much like a second campaign. Since I have been able to play more than the first episode I have been able to really tell how this mode will turn out. They are fun little mission that one can do with their friends and is now starting to really pic up in its separate story. The missions come out every week for 10 weeks, but much like a weekly tv series it lacks replay ability. They are quick mission that are more action oriented than the campaign ever was.
I give SO a 4/5 for being new and creative but lacking replayability.
Multiplayer.
Multiplayer is a mixture of halo 2 and 3 but with a hint of reach. Now this is a faster paced halo so it does feel different at first but after a week or so I felt like I was playing for awhile. The maps are a little lopsided in the spartan system. Exile for example, blue spawns right next to a gauss hog while red has to run a little to the tank. Hopefully once the map packs start to come out these problems might be improved on. The customization is bigger than ever and the idea of custom load outs to increase one individuality is good. But once one makes their ideal load out that will be the one they use all the time. Experimentation goes right out the window. There are abused weapons available mostly the bolt shot which is basically a mini shotgun.
Random weapon drops do make it almost impossible to completely dominate the game from one area. IMO having power weapons and camping in one area is not using skill. Since every one has the ability to get the upper hand the game becomes more of a game of cat and mouse that goes back and forth. The absence of a unsc air vehicle does not bother me because the maps really were not built for air vehicles.
343 is now doing a rotation system for their game modes. This is smart in the fact that now they won’t have to create so much bandwidth and they can try to bring people back each week to play their fab game mode. So SWAT was first than team snipes and now a FFA oddball and king of the hill. Next week might be Grifball or a new game mode.
I give halo 4 multilayer a 4.6/5 for functional and fresh games. Even though there is some balancement issues in both the maps and load outs.
All together with all totals added up I give Halo 4 a 4.56/5