Now I want to first preface this by saying I love Halo and have since Halo CE. Halo 4, in many ways, has pushed the franchise forward and I honestly respect 343’s efforts to put forth a quality game. I enjoy Halo 4, but I find myself wanting; pining for something intangible that, until recently, I could not put my finger on until it hit me.
I’m a self proclaimed audiophile. Now I couldn’t pick out a perfect pitch from simply listening to it and I don’t hold any music or production degrees, but I am (1) a DJ, (2) a musician, and (3) feel I have an intimate knowledge of what moves people; what provokes them emotionally by what they hear. I’ve spent hours perfecting my craft.
Now I’m not here to rag on Neil Davidge. His work on the musical score of this game is exemplary. I loved the music from the moment I popped the disc in. The music is not what I felt was lacking. I was moved by his music and, dare I say it, even more so than in past Halo games.
But it’s in the past where I find the contrasts to explain my emptiness I feel Halo 4, in its current form, is sorely unable to fill. From the first time I picked up the controller to play a Halo game, you were instantly immersed into a universe where you portray a living killing machine. You’re handed a gun and storm off to, well… kill! All the 3D rendering and graphics wouldn’t have amounted to much had it not been for one thing: the satisfaction you received from killing.
This emotional response, in my experience, was intense. More so than in any other FPS game. What Halo delivered was a visceral, almost primal, experience because of how the enemy sounded. The jittery, sometimes hilarious, cackle of the Grunts and the legendary WORT WORT of the Elites imbued character to the little more than polygons dancing in front of our eyes, but what was most satisfying was to hear these characters scream and cry, even wail, when you killed them. It was rewarding at an intangible level to hear your enemies squeal their last dying breath. Even into matchmaking, Jeff Steitzer’s cynical announcement of a Slayer Match, “SSSlayer” enticed you and invited you to go on a killing spree. There was an edginess and Halo, at it’s core, rewarded you imperceptibly for being a ruthless and efficient killing machine.
Even in later games, when you splattered an enemy in matchmaking in Halo 3, you’d feel empowered with their overly loud cries. In Reach, the assassination was that more satisfying when you heard the blood gurgling in your opponent’s throat, and head shots felt devastatingly good when your heard your enemy cry out. But this is where Halo 4 has lost its edge.
Assassinations are silent. The sounds of the guns, while they sound excellent in first person, become laughable in third person (have you played SWAT in Halo 4?) The character of the Covenant and even Prometheans are gone. You can’t relate to their gibberish. The grunts have been muffled, the elites have been muzzled, which takes everything satisfying about being this killing machine away. No longer are you rewarded with a hearty wail when you demolish your enemy. And you no longer relate to your enemy, making it feel as if you’re simply going through the motions.
In contrast, Halo 4 embodies the antithesis of this audio darkness I crave. Jeff Steitzer’s announcing has gone from this deep, chilling guide, ushering you into death matches to a jovial and bright annoyance (have you heard him say “Road Trip”, anyone?). War Games is eerily silent, void of loud cries that you’d imagine would riddle a battlefield. The only impotent cries are your own, whispered as you sometimes die.
Halo 4, for all its grand visuals and epic soundtrack, in my opinion, is hobbled by its inability to speak to that primal killer in all of us. It’s been sanitized and replaced with what I can only describe as a car accident that has no sound; and thus void of emotion and anything that would audibly compel people to respond.
I first noticed this when gameplay was shown at E3 and PAX. I hoped these early builds were missing this critical component and would surely be included in the final product. But my hopes were dashed when in the first mission of the campaign, the grunts fell silently to my headshots. The sound of the bullets passing through flesh was little consolation. This same sound gives equally low consolation in SWAT.
I still play Halo 4 and enjoy it for the most part. But it feels like a non-alcoholic beer, lacking what I feel I really want. The bite is gone, and the complete satisfaction is missing. And while I still go on killing sprees, this killing machine finds little to no reward for his dark bloodlust.
