H4's Campaign and Overall Success

Games Other Halo
#1

So much is being made of population counts and the things that 343i needs to do to make Halo 4 a success.

As a person that bought Halo for primarily the single player campaign I have to say that the game is already a success.

I know, some chap is going to say that the campaign was mediocre etc… I have no choice but to respect the opinion.

However, 4 million copies have been sold and whenever the number is 400,000 or 40,000, the number of people playing online is small.

I think that it is only fair that we delineate the success of Halo into campaign and MP.

Those calling Halo 4 a failure because of low online population counts need to be more precise and fair, and call Halo 4’s MP a failure.

But to call the entire game a failure is simply false because the critics and the sales prove otherwise.

Halo 4 told a good story and expanded on the character. Reading the Forerunner trilogy furthers the positive experience.

It is money well spent for me.

EDIT: Just before someone claims that this should go to the population count thread, I want to say that I am focused more on the campaign end, rather than MP.

#2

I agree! Thoroughly enjoyed campaign and still intend to do a LASO run through.

#3

I just finished campaign of legendary…

I think that this is the way that Halo 4 should be played.

I am considering the LASO run… Scary though!!!

#4

> I just finished campaign of legendary…
>
> I think that this is the way that Halo 4 should be played.
>
> I am considering the LASO run… Scary though!!!

Hah make sure you use the LASO guides, me and my friend did it co op, but we were so dumb that we forgot to look up the level skips, so besides the skip on Shutdown, we did every level legitimately, and killed every enemy, so it took aaagggeeesssss.

#5

The campaign was great, but I was a little disappointed with the storytelling and cutscenes.

But yea I agree, anyone calling the game a failure probably hasn’t made it past middle school yet, so they don’t really understand what a failure means in real life.

I’m only one level into my legendary run… it’s not as difficult as i thought it would be, but I’m only one level in… I wager I’ll be crying by the end of the game.

#6

> > I just finished campaign of legendary…
> >
> > I think that this is the way that Halo 4 should be played.
> >
> > I am considering the LASO run… Scary though!!!
>
> Hah make sure you use the LASO guides, me and my friend did it co op, but we were so dumb that we forgot to look up the level skips, so besides the skip on Shutdown, we did every level legitimately, and killed every enemy, so it took aaagggeeesssss.

I salute you…

:slight_smile:

#7

> The campaign was great, but I was a little disappointed with the storytelling and cutscenes.
>
> But yea I agree, anyone calling the game a failure probably hasn’t made it past middle school yet, so they don’t really understand what a failure means in real life.
>
> I’m only one level into my legendary run… it’s not as difficult as i thought it would be, but I’m only one level in… I wager I’ll be crying by the end of the game.

I have never loved the Needler more than when facing a Promethean knight with it!

#8

> I just finished campaign of legendary…
>
> I think that this is the way that Halo 4 should be played.
>
> I am considering the LASO run… Scary though!!!

yeah I did my first playthrough on legendary without looking at any guides to try and get the full experience out of it. smashed it on in full on coop as well after that.

now I want to abuse every skip possible to get it done on LASO. its a shame that doing it solo LASO (with save+quit/resume) messes with waypoint stats so much.

#9

Well, I suppose I’ll be that chap. For reasons I’ve gone into previously, I just can’t see the Campaign as a success. You’ve got a villain with flimsy motivations unless you read Silentium 5 months after the game came out, a lot of concepts that went unexplained and characters that could’ve been good, but either are there to make Chief look good, Del Rio, or just became annoying, ie Palmer. A thing I didn’t touch on much though would be the levels themselves. Only on Requiem did it feel like I was playing a Halo game, alone on a mysterious world filled with hostiles and secrets…but when the Infinity starts trying to contact Chief is when that immersion left. All of the other missions were just dull, especially Composer and its huge tease with a Halo. Would’ve been sweet to play on that again after 5 years, not the boring, generic space station.

Still, it does try to make the story more engaging than previous Halos by trying to mix the games with the books, but transmedia storytelling needs to be done right and 343i haven’t quite found their mark yet.

#10

Yep. Halo 4 has gone down as one of the greatest games of 2012 and thats how it’ll proberly stay.

I just love the infinant opinions of these forums.

#11

> Well, I suppose I’ll be that chap. For reasons I’ve gone into previously, I just can’t see the Campaign as a success. You’ve got a villain with flimsy motivations unless you read Silentium 5 months after the game came out, a lot of concepts that went unexplained and characters that could’ve been good, but either are there to make Chief look good, Del Rio, or just became annoying, ie Palmer. A thing I didn’t touch on much though would be the levels themselves. Only on Requiem did it feel like I was playing a Halo game, alone on a mysterious world filled with hostiles and secrets…but when the Infinity starts trying to contact Chief is when that immersion left. All of the other missions were just dull, especially Composer and its huge tease with a Halo. Would’ve been sweet to play on that again after 5 years, not the boring, generic space station.
>
> Still, it does try to make the story more engaging than previous Halos by trying to mix the games with the books, but transmedia storytelling needs to be done right and 343i haven’t quite found their mark yet.

I can see that,

I think that the terminals flesh out the Didact and the Librarian some more. But after playing Halo Anniversary, I have to say that the repetition kills the momentum of the campaign. Also, we do not have any details on the Flood (mindless) or the religious motivations of the Covenant. Those ideas were expanded upon in the second game.

I do think however with Halo 4, the universe has been built up to a point where more fleshed out back-stories would be appreciated.

I did not care for Palmer until the end of Spartan Ops. But in all honestly, I could not care less for Sargent Johnson in the first game.

Regardless, problems aside, I still cannot view Halo campaign as a failure.

#12

> I can see that,
>
> I think that the terminals flesh out the Didact and the Librarian some more. But after playing Halo Anniversary, I have to say that the repetition kills the momentum of the campaign. Also, we do not have any details on the Flood (mindless) or the religious motivations of the Covenant. Those ideas were expanded upon in the second game.

The thing is, when 343i over the years said reading the books wouldn’t and shouldn’t be required, you’d think they mean it. Even at GDC they admitted that players felt like they were denied information. Things only get worse when you know those Terminals in Halo 4 aren’t even canonically accurate. And yeah, previous Halo games didn’t delve much into the motivations or backgrounds of their factions and such, but 343i was making some bold claims about making a better Campaign experience.

#13

> > I can see that,
> >
> > I think that the terminals flesh out the Didact and the Librarian some more. But after playing Halo Anniversary, I have to say that the repetition kills the momentum of the campaign. Also, we do not have any details on the Flood (mindless) or the religious motivations of the Covenant. Those ideas were expanded upon in the second game.
>
> The thing is, when 343i over the years said reading the books wouldn’t and shouldn’t be required, you’d think they mean it. Even at GDC they admitted that players felt like they were denied information. Things only get worse when you know those Terminals in Halo 4 aren’t even canonically accurate. And yeah, previous Halo games didn’t delve much into the motivations or backgrounds of their factions and such, but 343i was making some bold claims about making a better Campaign experience.

Yeah, I think that it was a learning experience for them in terms of story pacing and assumed reader pre-knowledge of the universe. The story still got told though. I don’t think that we are looking at Prometheus (movie) levels of confusion and lack of information.

#14

> Yeah, I think that it was a learning experience for them in terms of story pacing and assumed reader pre-knowledge of the universe. The story still got told though. <mark>I don’t think that we are looking at Prometheus (movie) levels of confusion and lack of information.</mark>

I don’t know. When you start talking, “genetic memories” and “gene songs” and war between man and Forerunners and you don’t explain any of it or reference is later on…you are on the border.

#15

I get what you are saying, but I have a problem with it, in that I paid a truckload of money to get two copies of LE. That package was supposed to include a bunch of stuff. I own everything from Halo 3 onwards, including Halo Wars, and actually play pretty much all of the parts of the games, and I’m not all that happy with Halo 4.

Campaign - yes, parts were good, but I dislike the forced linear completion. Too many narrow halls and small rooms make it hard to have much variety in gameplay.

FUD - when/where do I get the DVD I was promised?

Spartan Ops - OK - this got better as they went along, but the first episodes stunk, and I wish the level curve was a little flatter. Easy is a complete joke, but Legendary is often a matter of hoping to kill one enemy before you die, and chipping away at the population until you can finally take out the last of the clustered/extra-healthed/one-shot-kill-weapon-equiped enemies.

Theater - delayed and limited. I want to save the clips where I get one alien to shoot another in the back with an FRG. Hilarious!

Forge - Pass. I admit I am not a huge Forger, but the one map I wanted to make could not be done until now, so I am leaning towards a slight minus here.

Advancement/perks/unlockables/Achievements - road to 130 was ridiculously short. Some Achievements/Commendations are still not realistic, and will have to be ground out with friends. Personal opinion is that the helmets are ugly as can be.

MP - too many game types missing at the start, and the UI is turrible, but since you conceded MP was bad, I will not go further.

Overall, my grade would be “pretty, but not great - nice story-line and great visuals, but actual gameplay is lacking.” I think the whole thing was rushed and I feel like I was taken advantage of. Will I buy a new gaming station and Halo 5? Defiance and Destiny on my existing gaming platform sure look more appealing than trusting -Yoink!- to get it right the next time…

#16

But in all fairness we saw a cut scene with Man vs. Forerunner War. We also know that Humans were running away from the Flood. We also saw the Lord of Admirals in the Terminals.

That part with the Chief getting upgraded my Librarian ancilla needed to be longer to explain stuff like the geas etc…

But we may still have had issues with that idea fully fleshed out. After enduring 60 cut scenes with MGS4, I did not mind getting back into the action.

I can see where you are coming from though :slight_smile:

#17

> But in all fairness we saw a cut scene with Man vs. Forerunner War. We also know that Humans were running away from the Flood. We also saw the Lord of Admirals in the Terminals.

We did see all of that, but the cutscene in question was blurry and pretty vague and is never referenced again, not even by the Didact. Considering how a lot of the fanbase and people who don’t really get into the story likely have no idea about that war, don’t you see how it could come off as confusing? Same goes for the idea of the Flood going after humanity first when throughout the franchise it had only been said to be a Forerunner enemy. Also, they got the Lord of Admirals appearance wrong in the Terminals, but that’s a minor point. Still, the Terminals should complement the story, not be needed to further explain it. Spark’s and Halo 3’s terminals followed this idea perfectly, Halo 4’s did not.

#18

> I get what you are saying, but I have a problem with it, in that I paid a truckload of money to get two copies of LE. That package was supposed to include a bunch of stuff. I own everything from Halo 3 onwards, including Halo Wars, and actually play pretty much all of the parts of the games, and I’m not all that happy with Halo 4.
>
> Campaign - yes, parts were good, but I dislike the forced linear completion. Too many narrow halls and small rooms make it hard to have much variety in gameplay.
>
> FUD - when/where do I get the DVD I was promised?
>
> Spartan Ops - OK - this got better as they went along, but the first episodes stunk, and I wish the level curve was a little flatter. Easy is a complete joke, but Legendary is often a matter of hoping to kill one enemy before you die, and chipping away at the population until you can finally take out the last of the clustered/extra-healthed/one-shot-kill-weapon-equiped enemies.
>
> Theater - delayed and limited. I want to save the clips where I get one alien to shoot another in the back with an FRG. Hilarious!
>
> Forge - Pass. I admit I am not a huge Forger, but the one map I wanted to make could not be done until now, so I am leaning towards a slight minus here.
>
> Advancement/perks/unlockables/Achievements - road to 130 was ridiculously short. Some Achievements/Commendations are still not realistic, and will have to be ground out with friends. Personal opinion is that the helmets are ugly as can be.
>
> MP - too many game types missing at the start, and the UI is turrible, but since you conceded MP was bad, I will not go further.
>
>
>
> Overall, my grade would be “pretty, but not great - nice story-line and great visuals, but actual gameplay is lacking.” I think the whole thing was rushed and I feel like I was taken advantage of. Will I buy a new gaming station and Halo 5? Defiance and Destiny on my existing gaming platform sure look more appealing than trusting -Yoink!- to get it right the next time…

I cannot disagree with a lot of your points.

-I was disappointed with FUD sans disk also.

In terms of the narrow confines as such, I think that I accepted that 7 year old hardware is being pushed to the max. In terms of my expectations for Halo 5 on new hardware… It will ratchet up gameplay-wise.

It might sound silly,

But simply seeing the interaction and relationship of the Chief and Cortana made this worthwhile.

That is just the English teacher in me :slight_smile:

Seeing the universe expand. Del Rio getting canned. UNSC Infinity caning Covenant ships. Palmer spazzing out after failing to kill Halsey…

Good stuff for me at least :slight_smile:

#19

Chief and Cortana interaction - the STORY was great. The campaign GAMEPLAY disappointed me a lot.

RE: the new platform. I get that the gear is getting pushed, but I don’t want “pretty” to overshadow the logic and gametypes. Not sure that I have much trust right now.

#20

> Chief and Cortana interaction - the STORY was great. The campaign GAMEPLAY disappointed me a lot.
>
>
> RE: the new platform. I get that the gear is getting pushed, but I don’t want “pretty” to overshadow the logic and gametypes. Not sure that I have much trust right now.

Fair enough :slight_smile: