Honestly, over all I’m very pleased with Halo 4 as a game.
Graphics are good, environments okay, weapons, enemies, even vehicles.
But…
One thing made go “WTF?” as the game started… the absurd changes to the human Marines uniforms.
To sum up: For me, they no longer look like they’re in a Halo game.
It looks like somebody went through the trash bins outside the studios where they create the Call of Duty and Gears of War games, instead of using the well documented history of the Halo franchise.
I understand 343 wanted to do their “own take” on Halo.
I understand they wanted to “freshen things up” a bit.
But the art design for the Halo Marines and ODST was thrown completely out the window.
The officer’s uniforms LOOK like a logical progression from the early Halo games.
I can accept them easily.
With the advances in graphics power we’ve seen amazing advances in detail from Halo CE to Halo Reach.
But somewhere along the line, somebody got too involved with trying to be “new” and forgot… what Halo looked like.
Look back 4 years at the real US military. Have the uniforms changed so much that you don’t know what branch of service the troops are in? The kevlar Helmets look basically the same. The uniform cut and body armor is basically the same. Slightly refined perhaps, with a different camouflage pattern maybe, but still recognizable as being the same military.
Reach gave us a greatly detailed Marine and ODST uniform.
I was playing with a friend last night (he just got Halo 4 after payday) and he asked me during our game, “Are those guys ODST?”
If a long term Halo player of 10 years jumps into Halo 4 AND THEY CAN’T TELL WHO THE ODST ARE… something is broken. The ODST are a mainstay of the Halo franchise. They even received their own stand alone game (which, incidentally, I loved). One of the ODST characters in the franchise has a bio that read “If he was any better he’d be a Spartan,” which suggests something special.
And yet, they’ve been marginalized as a support element in Halo 4 so that we can’t even identify them on the battlefield. Sad.
If you look at the “new” armor (I can’t bring myself to call it “Marine armor”) you see some details that are completely new.
One of my main points of contention is this: Molle webbing.
Seriously? Molle?
Okay, let me put it this way: It’s 500+ years in the future.
Mankind has mastered space travel.
We’ve created artificial intelligence that can do everything for us except take the dog for a walk.
We’ve colonized the stars and discovered technology left behind 10,000 years ago by aliens.
We have high tech magnetic systems that remove the need for us to use holsters and slings on our weapons…
…and we’ve returned to using MOLLE WEBBING on our armor?
Seriously?
I would hope 343 would take my criticism about this aspect of the art direction to heart. As a whole, I quite like the game, the story, the Spartan Ops and armor abilities expand on what I enjoyed about Halo Reach.
I just wish that the art department wasn’t rushing so fast to create their own “new” look that they forgot that which came before.
We want “our” Marines back. Even if the design is slightly updated.
The Marine helmets and armor are as distinctive as the Spartans.
We want “our” ODST back. Even if the design is slightly updated.
The ODST helmets and armor are EASILY as distinctive as the Spartans.
Please send the Modern Warfare Marines back where they came from in the 21st century. The 26th Century needs it’s heroes back.