A Podtacular co-host's thoughts on Halo 4

Games Other Halo
1

My credibility: I’m DaftLink, co-host extraordinaire on the Unofficial Halo Universe Podcast, Podtacular!

I’m not going to bore you all with a wall of text so here’s my thoughts:

Campaign
Fantastic.
-Great story
-Humanized John 117
-Good mission design and length
-Covies done well and Prometheans are an awesome new enemy
-Great CGI in cutscenes

I really have no complaints about Campaign. Good job, 343.

Spartan Ops
I haven’t played past Episode 1 but here goes
-Good cutscene
-I like how they use modified environments from Campaign AND new areas!
-Short but sweet missions
-Continues the story without writing a whole novel

I like it so far and am looking forward to future Episodes

War Games
Sigh.

Good:
-good maps
-good armor
-Dominion is fun
-Regicide is better than VIP
-Pistol while holding flag is nice touch
-Can’t think of much else, might as well post all the bad

Bad:
-The pace is way too fast, needs to be slowed down. You get killed too fast.
-Guns like BR and DMR are too powerful
-Boltshot’s charge-up is ridiculous, especially with campers around corners
-Instant respawn makes little punishment for dying, overcrowds maps way too fast
-Damage boost from ordnance drop is OP
-Killcam needs to be fixed or removed altogether, has no place in Team Snipers and SWAT
-Kills don’t need to be in increments of 10, that’s for CoD. Big Team Slayer is up to 100, not 1000
-Ordnance drops give power weapons out too much, eliminates need for map control because there’s not power weapons on locations on maps
-Banshee is awkward to fly
-No UNSC flying vehicle
-Join in progress puts you in games almost over
-Games often start with uneven teams
-Roster with big squares is kind of stupid, just use the H3/Reach setup
-no Race gametype
-Lack of Custom game options
-Being shot while scoped should take you out of scope, this is OP for snipers
-Needs a real ranking system
-Shotgun sound effect is WEAK
-Each gametype does NOT need its own playlist. Just combine Oddball, CTF and King of the Hill into a Team Objective playlist!
-Needs social and ranked playlists
-Has bad lag and delay with both matchmaking apparatus and in-game matches
-File share, the WHOLE system(like searching), is a broken joke
-Why are there never any Waypoint Challenges?

Basically, it feels like we’re playing a beta. Like 343 is pulling a Medal of Honor: Warfighter and trying to patch everything later on. And yes, MS is also probably to blame for rushing and money desires and such. There SHOULD’VE been an open beta for Halo 4 to address these issues before release. I really hope 343 is paying attention to all the feedback and will clean up this game in the coming weeks and it will be an amazing experience soon.

I’m not totally bashing Halo 4. 343 has a great game here, it just needs a lot of fine-tuning to reach its full potential. It’s possible, just get started.

2

Gee, where’s the firestorm?

3

Maybe I just oughta play Reach until Halo 4 gets patched to the point of playability.

4

No one? :frowning:

5

Either no one gives a -Yoink-, or they’re too busy starting firestorms in all the other topics.

6

Yes, one more thing:
-The three premade maps on Erosion, Impact and Ravine should be put into the pool of maps in War Games. They’re pretty decent and would add a little more variety to the map selection.

I don’t know why no one is talking about that.

7

I thought about making a similar post, but there are just SO many things (negative). Everytime I find 10, I find another 5 before I get around to writing it down.

8

Lack of posts might be because the majority of these complaints are what everyone else has been complaining about for the past three weeks. It’s like beating a dead horse now. I do agree with most of your points though.

9

Dead horse or not, we should keep bringing this stuff up until it’s fixed.

10

I agree with the map rotations. I really don’t understand why they weren’t put in at launch. Current maps are getting a bit old.

11

> Dead horse or not, we should keep bringing this stuff up until it’s fixed.

I was going to say that people should still voice their opinion so 343 doesn’t forget, but I forgot since I’m tired from being up all day and eating.

12

Just something I wanted to say about the campaign.

I think the campaign was too short. There were 8 levels(the least amount of any Halo game) and in reality not much happend. I understand he is pretty disliked but how about the Arbiter? We didn’t hear about his status and his Elites(and followers from the civil war). I was really hoping for a Lord Hood cameo as well. Heres just a few more things: Covenant civil war status, Earths status. Chief basically has no reaction to seeing his Spartan IV bretheren as well, nor does Cortana.

For instance Shutdown is a really long level but really nothing much happens. I feel like some levels could have been compressed and others expanded.

As for enemies I liked what we got but again, where were the Drones? Also, speaking of the Covenant, they got taken over way too quickly, they should have been shown battling longer, we needed more evidence of a struggle before being conquered. How about 2 Hunters attacking 2 Battlewagons?

I enjoyed the campaign and I can’t wait for more, I just hope we spend more time doing big things in key locations. Installation 03 was hanging around us like a beatiful teasing gem.

13

Nah, play Campaign on Legendary solo and it feels plenty long, trust me. A lot of the levels had multiple parts like Infinity’s jungle and then Scorpion segment and THEN Mantis segment.

I think a lot of that info is gone over in current books like Thursday War and future books. MAYBE the Arbiter will be back in Spartan Ops sometime down the road but more likely Halo 5. I don’t know what you mean about the Arbiter being disliked, watching Arby n the Chief for years has really made me fond of him.

I think the Covies were easy to follow the Prometheans because they probably see them as the servants of their Forerunner gods or something. And I think Drones were skipped because they’re kind of stupid and esoteric. The classic line-up of Grunts, Jackals, Elites and Hunters does just fine.

And yes, Installation 03 was quite exciting to discover. Perhaps we’ll visit it in Spartan Ops or Halo 5.

14

I agree completely with this list. Nice job OP.

15

Thanks!

16

This is a good list, I agree with almost all of it.

17

Thanks!

18

I guess I’ll take a break from War Games until they patch/update it to the point of enjoyable playability. I’ve heard speculation that this is essentially the beta and they’ll have it at its full potential by Christmas for the kiddies. Then we’ll get a real ranking system in January. Hopefully by then they’ll also have the 3 Forge World premade maps in matchmaking and missing gametypes like Race added. So basically we’ll get the War Games we should’ve had at launch by the end of January, by my estimation. I hope 343i learns to run open betas and polish their multiplayer more in future Halos.

In the meantime, there’s always my remaining achievements, new Spartan Ops and Campaign Challenges.