Let me preface this by saying that I’ve been playing Halo since the demo for CE came out on the original xbox. I consider myself a loyal and consistent fan of the franchise, competitively and recreationally, and I bought H4 because I thought 343 deserved a chance to deliver a good Halo game. I’ll approach it from the multiplayer standpoint because that’s where I spend the most of my time. Not all my points are intimately related but I only have the energy for one post … so my apologies.
In my humble opinion, H4 is fun but on the whole unremarkable. I don’t find it to be exhilarating or earth-shaking in any way. I don’t find myself caring about matches the way I did in H2 or H3. I have a few minor but specific complaints that I think should be addressed either via title updates or in the next game.
The major thing for me (multiplayer-wise, that’s where I spent the most time) is the lack of a skill curve. There are FAR too many one-hit kill weapons, and the sandbox is so big that the weapons are pretty redundant. The gun-grenade-melee trifecta that made Halo multiplayer so iconic has been buried beneath the massive sandbox and a glut of nearly-useless, CoD-imported tactical packages, armour abilities, support upgrades and perks. It’s too easy to kill people and much too easy to pinpoint the exact location of your enemies (kill cam, expanded motion sensor WITH DIRECTIONAL ARROWS, promethean vision, instant respawn). Communication isn’t really necessary or terribly effective. The higher-level play isn’t there, and for that I predict that MLG will continue to suffer during the H4 era.
The instant respawn really has to go … I hate that you can respawn and finish your DMR battle before your body even hits the floor, much less before your opponent’s shield can recharge. And as for the kill cam … if you can’t fix it, get rid of it. It’s been months since launch and this still hasn’t been addressed. I would also really appreciate it if you could get a headshot medal with a sniper rifle. It’s ridiculous that a sniper headshot only registers as a sniper kill, and plus it’s nice to get the visual validation that your shot was well-placed.
I know people are talking a lot about sprint, but I want to throw in my two cents: sprint is useless if you compensate for it by stretching out all of the maps (Ragnarok, anyone?). Now sprint is REQUIRED to get anywhere in any kind of time, and to me that makes it useless. And on the subject of map design … whatever happened to the idea of simple, fun spaces? In H4 every wall is riddled with nooks and crannies and passageways. Haven is one of the stronger maps in the game, but I find the others sorely lacking. I miss Wizard, Construct and The Pit. But for some reason the multiplayer designers are now obsessed with giving every multiplayer space some sort of narrative context and a firm grounding in reality. Wizard didn’t have either, it was just a really fun space to play games in. And I think that’s what everyone in the community, competitive or no, wants from a map. H4’s launch set was flat out disappointing.
Graphically, characters now have so many polygons that we’ve blown past detail and into outright noise. Just look at the player cards in the lobby (which, may I say, is the clunkiest and least streamlined multiplayer interface thus far). You can’t even see the emblems of other players. I prefer clean and polished models like we had in H3, even if the graphics weren’t as “high quality,” to the grungy, indistinct visuals we have in H4.
Mechanically, multiplayer is now all about the meta-game. Play forever to rank up instead of ranking up by skill … play forever to unlock a particular piece of armour with no function other than aesthetics or to change your visor colour or to gain a perk … it’s designed to be addictive, and it’s so transparent that I’m offended and a bit hurt. If your game is fun, we’ll play it. I’d play months of long nights to get a 50 in every playlist because I felt a sense of accomplishment when I managed it. But just to unlock a meaningless helmet? I’ve never conceived of Halo as a platformer, but it’s beginning to feel like one. I don’t care if I can customise the “stance” my spartan takes on his/her “player card.” I’d rather have a streamlined interface with fewer holes in it. In H4, the interface and all those needless features get in the way of the actual gameplay, which is what should be all-important.
Which leads me to my final, undoutedly incendiary point: Halo and Call of Duty are not distinct games anymore. There is WAY too much overlap. It’s much harder to come up with a feature of H4 that isn’t in CoD than one that is. Please, 343. I know you want to sell games, and I’m sure in your heart of hearts you made the decisions you did for legitimate reasons. But I play Halo because I want to play Halo – if I wanted to play CoD I would have bought it instead. It’s ok to ask gamers to develop different skills for different games.
If you made it this far, cheers and thanks for listening. Sometimes I feel old and jaded, but really I just have a lot of love and care for Halo (and its community). See you all on the virtual battlefield.
- mh.