Halo 4 is disappointing in every aspect

Why I disliked the campaign

Story:
-Often made no sense overall, making me feel alienated throughout the game.

-You have to read the books to understand the story more. (it’s a video game, it should be able stand on it’s own).

-New elements added to the plot which where not explained at all. Such as the return of the Covenant. They returned simply because cortana said “alot happens in 4 years”, as an explination in the campaign.

-‘Just because we feel like it’-343. Covenant return ‘just because’, Chief’s armour changes dramaticly ‘just because’, the Didact has a grudge against humans ‘just because’. You can’t just change major plot or physical features of characters, otherwise it won’t even feel like a sequel, a small leap like Halo 2 to 3 would have been sufficient.

-Antagonist was a dead boring average evil character with a motivation which wasn’t even explained in the game. He wants revenge from a war with humans a long time ago apparently. This war wasnt even explained. You can’t have an enemy with no explained motivation, it’s terrible story telling.

-Overall, the story of Halo 4 feels tacked onto the Halo story arc.

Gameplay

-The levels and battles were repetitive, and lacked anything new or interesting. Even Reach had some interesting parts, such as the part where you gun on the side of a falcon, even the last battle scene with the Mac cannon was fairly interesting and new. The most interesting part of the whole Halo 4 campaign was standing on top of an elephant.

-Basicly, the campaign suffers from ‘go to this area and kill these guys then go to the next area’, which is a plague in modern shooters.

-Half finished ideas: Such as where you pilot the pelican, it feels barely fleshed out.

-Quick time events, enough said.

-Objectives remained generic.

-New enemies where good to bring into the game, but the combat versing the knights and watchers came down to ‘spam bullets at the watchers first then shoot the knights in the face’.

-The AI was alright, but it would be better if they were more aggressive. Knights teleporting right in front of me wile I hide behind a wall, instead of standing there waiting for me to pop straight out.

-Less AI on screen than Reach.

Visuals

-Best graphics to date, real time shadows, best shaders, no doubt. But this was achieve by replacing real world objects such as mountains with paper cut outs in the background.

-Prometheans just look terrible visualy. The knights looks like a triangle body, with a face on it, with floating extremities; in fact it is. But, what the hell is up with that? Why the hell would it need floating legs? It looks rediculous and sounds rediculous. I feel like I’m fighting some low budget sci fi horror enemies when I fight the knights. In an interview, the artist said that it was a good idea to combine the floating architecture with the knights, obviously it’s not a good idea. Living entities are not architecture. The watchers and crawlers look just as bad.

Characters

-I was extremely appauled that no additional characters returned from the previous games. This cannot be a good sequel if characters are not re-united.

-I thought I was going to see more going on between Lasky and Cheif after watching Halo 4 forward onto dawn. Chief saved his -Yoink- so badly, Lasky had barely anything to say for it. The most interesting thing that went on between Lasky and Chief was right at the end, they actually have a deep conversation.

-The highlight of all of the campaign was the exploration of the Chief.

–Yoink- characters, such as the commander of the infinity.

Music

-Not made by Marty.

-Barely noticed it.

-Missing the Halo theme, and not including any of the iconic Halo scores.

Spartan ops

-Repetitive

-Little of anything new

-Bad replacement for firefight

Custom games

-Lacking the majority of game modes from Reach.

-Lacking major customisation options.

Forge

-Rediculous kill barriers around the map, limiting forge by a lot.

-Nothing as good as forge world was.

Multiplayer

-The nerfing of AA’s allow tryhards to camp (lol map control) on high up areas. Jetpacks were one of the best anti camping deturant.

-The game has now become boring with nerfed AA’s. AA’s used to change the gameplay majorly in Reach, mixing up the gameplay, and making it more interesting. Try hards hate AA’s because it makes it harder to camp, or they justify it by saying “it’s a gimmick and saves people when they should have died”.
They should just release two playlists with good AA’s and one with normal AA’s. Like a casual playlist or something.

-Maps often have areas that are too easy to camp in.

-All maps have a circular design for some reason. Giving little variety.

-DMR kills faster at closer ranges than the BR for some reason.

-Multiplayer has barely changed from Reach. The only thing new is the ordinace drops and ‘perks’. They give us new stuff, but I would only be happy if it was more in depth than this. Mabey more AA’s? And what happened to armour affecting the gameplay? I swear I heard that in an interview. That would have made armour less pointless.

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

Multiplayer has barely changed from Reach?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>

I don’t mind that it’s barely changed. They should have went more in depth with the changes if you ask me.

This post has been edited by a moderator. Please refrain from making non-constructive posts.

*Original post. Click at your own discretion.

That’s nice OP

That’s a lot of spaces between your bullet points.

Perhaps you can localize your arguement a bit more for the sake of others.

Go on Halo pedia or read some Halo books and you will see why it’s so alienish.

The main thing I miss from Bungie-era Halo is the fact that the games established new canon the novels followed suit and added the details. With Halo 4, it seems to be the opposite way.

Your argument might be a little more convincing if your service record showed that you at least played the campaign

Yeah I didn’t understand what was going on in the story. Why did the covenant decide to fight again? I don’t know. Had to look it up lol sure it’s easy but I shouldn’t have to.

> That’s a lot of spaces between your bullet points.
>
> Perhaps you can localize your arguement a bit more for the sake of others.

I wanted it to be brief because I have so many points. So I split it up into many small points.

> Your argument might be a little more convincing if your service record showed that you at least played the campaign

I did play the campaign offline.

> -You have to read the books to understand the story more. (it’s a video game, it should be able stand on it’s own).

The same goes for every other Halo game. The story can easily stand on it’s own just like the others did. Like in all the other Halo games, you can read the books to expand on the story if you want.

> -New elements added to the plot which where not explained at all. Such as the return of the Covenant. They returned simply because cortana said “alot happens in 4 years”, as an explination in the campaign.

The “covenant” as we know them did not return. Pay attention to what Cortana says in the game. She tells you that these new covenant are a splinter faction of the covenant (the religious fanatics) and not a representation of the entire covenant race. You then find out later on that they were at Requiem because they were searching for the Didact.

> -‘Just because we feel like it’-343. Covenant return ‘just because’, Chief’s armour changes dramaticly ‘just because’, the Didact has a grudge against humans ‘just because’. You can’t just change major plot or physical features of characters, otherwise it won’t even feel like a sequel, a small leap like Halo 2 to 3 would have been sufficient.

And now to break these down by point.

“Just because we feel like it” - Bungie did the same thing all the time. Go compare Master Chief’s armor in Halo 1/2/3. It always changed. Always. Why? Because they can.

“Covenant return ‘just because’” - Explained it before.

“Chief’s armour changes dramaticly ‘just because’” - It was a reinventing of the armor. His armor also changed quite a bit in Halo 2 and Halo 3, but you probably aren’t going to complain about that.

“the Didact has a grudge against humans ‘just because’” - Go back and listen to the Librarian in the game. She explains that after humanity was cast down after their defeat in the Human-Forerunner War, The Flood began to encroach upon the galaxy, and the Forerunners were divided on how to protect humanity from them. The Didact advocated using a device called the “Composer” to convert humans into digital AIs to power up his loyal Prometheans, some of whom the Chief has already fought, and currently seeks this tool as the means to his conquest. (Got this straight from Wikipedia and it’s pretty accurate). This is why he’s the enemy in the game. He wants to use human’s to power his Prometheans because he has a grudge against us from the first war. Obviously, Chief doesn’t want this happening.

> -Antagonist was a dead boring average evil character with a motivation which wasn’t even explained in the game. He wants revenge from a war with humans a long time ago apparently. This war wasnt even explained. You can’t have an enemy with no explained motivation, it’s terrible story telling.

I will agree that he was a bit lackluster of a character. They could have done much better with the Didact. The war was explained somewhat in the game, but I would have liked more info. His motivation was given to you by the Librarian.

> -Overall, the story of Halo 4 feels tacked onto the Halo story arc.

I disagree. You seem to be so focused on the antagonist part of the story line that you miss a huge component of it. What this story was trying to set in stone was that John is a human. A human that acts like a robot. This game is bringing to light John’s human side and is trying to bring in more emotional turmoil into the game. It’s a stepping stone for Halo 5/6.

Couple points I’d argue with, but for the most part I agree, I think the only thing I’d add that the covenant seemed a lot more… flat, I mean before they looked scary and imposing, and with the covenant-human translation tech you could hear them taunting you and threatening you (or even cowering in some cases) but with this they seem like blithering, oversized, sick frogs.

The Covies fighting are a rebellious sect who still hold great faith in “The Journey”. Cortana explains this in a few throw away lines very early on in Halo 4.

The Didact hates humans because he saw them as being the reason for not being able to get to ‘his’ Librarian before the first firing of the rings (the Librarian was cataloguing the Human genome when she cut off the portal to prevent infected Flood ships from getting to her on Earth.) As well as pre-humans glassing Forerunner planets in an attempt to destroy the Flood (Didact saw this as humans attempting to take up the Mantle on their own accord.)

As explained by another poster, he also wants to exact his revenge on Humans by turning them into a type of mechanical/digital Promethean by firing the Composer.

You’d know this if you read the Terminals in Halo 3.

Mr Arbitrage. You still missed all my other points. Halo 1 to Reach could easily be understood without reading the books. Saying otherwise isn’t true at all.

Cortana did say that the covenant we were seeing was split faction. I dont recall any moment in the game were it was outright said they were religious fanatics that left the covenant.

Bungie didn’t have a ‘just because’ attitude. As I said (if you even read) the jump from Halo 2 to 3 was very very small. This should have followed through in Halo 4. The Cheif’s armour changed dramaticly in Halo 4.

If you understand that the characters and plot points of Halo 3 were not continued (like I said in the OP), then you would agree that Halo 4 is very much tacked onto the story arc. Even if the story does make sense, everything else still falls flat.

Oh, they could Doom?

Tell me, CE without any book references: What’s happening?

I’llt ell you what’s happening.

ERMAGURD WE’RE ON A SHIP. URMAGURD WE’RE BEING ATTACKED BY SHIPS THAT THE GAME ISN’T SHOWING. ERMAGURD ALIENS ON THE SHIP. ERMAGURD A HOOPDY-DOOP RING.

…Halo CE makes absolutely no sense without context. You’ve gotten used to it over the years and even if you don’t read the books you’ve heard the explanations enough that it makes it seem normal.

Halo CE literally has the worst opening in the entire franchise if you don’t look into the extended lore. You get more out of H4 than you do CE.

Ooh, lemme continue to bash on CE since you think Halo 4’s so terrible without the books:

ERMAGURD. ZOMBIEZ IN A WEEPOONZ CACHE. ERMAGURD WHAT’S A COVENANTZ? WHY IZ THEY KILLINGZ US? ERMAGURD THIS CAVE IS NOT A NATURAL FORMATION.

…Seriously, where did you get any idea that Halo CE made sense without outside references? Hell, it even made more sense once H2 was released.

I agree with pretty much everything said.

> Oh, they could Doom?
>
> Tell me, CE without any book references: What’s happening?
>
> I’llt ell you what’s happening.
>
> ERMAGURD WE’RE ON A SHIP. URMAGURD WE’RE BEING ATTACKED BY SHIPS THAT THE GAME ISN’T SHOWING. ERMAGURD ALIENS ON THE SHIP. ERMAGURD A HOOPDY-DOOP RING.
>
>
> …Halo CE makes absolutely no sense without context. You’ve gotten used to it over the years and even if you don’t read the books you’ve heard the explanations enough that it makes it seem normal.
>
> Halo CE literally has the worst opening in the entire franchise if you don’t look into the extended lore. You get more out of H4 than you do CE.

Halo CE didn’t need any context. Simply a UNSC ship fleeing from a planet that was being attacked by the covenant. It was good though, because it dropped you right in the thick of the universe. Everything made sense to me. The main focus of the games was the story of the Halo rings.

UNSC ship ‘accidently’ slip spaces to a Halo ring. Land on ring. Find flood. Find out Halo is to kill the flood by killing it’s food source. Blow up ring because it will kill everyone. And the whole game is based around this. Not hard at all to understand what is happening.

All of the enemies had proper reasons for how they were behaving. The monitor was trying to activate the Halo’s because he was programmed to, in order to get rid of the flood in an outbreak.

> Mr Arbitrage. You still missed all my other points. Halo 1 to Reach could easily be understood without reading the books. Saying otherwise isn’t true at all.
>
> Cortana did say that the covenant we were seeing was split faction. I dont recall any moment in the game were it was outright said they were religious fanatics that left the covenant.
>
> Bungie didn’t have a ‘just because’ attitude. As I said (if you even read) the jump from Halo 2 to 3 was very very small. This should have followed through in Halo 4. The Cheif’s armour changed dramaticly in Halo 4.

Halo 4 could also be understood on its own just fine. I seriously just explained every single problem you had with just things I found out about the game while playing.

“Religious fanatics” is my wording of it. But does it really matter why this section of covenant are fighting humans? It really doesn’t. At this point, you’re just nitpicking. You are clearly told that they are just a rebellious sect of the covenant. If you wish to find out more of them, then read the books, terminals, etc. Just like in every other Halo game, not everything is given to you in the story. There are many examples of this in Halo 1/2/3 where Cortana or another character throws a one-liner to you explaining something. You could find out more if you want, but even if you don’t, it fits well into the story and it is understandable.

A change in armor is still a change in armor. They changed in from Halo 1 to 2, from 2 to 3 and now from 3 to 4. I don’t see what the point of arguing over how big the change was. It’s not like the armor is the only thing that changed. Look at the BR. It’s the same exact BR and it looks completely different as well, but you’re not complaining about that. In the end, he still looks like the Master Chief.

> If you understand that the characters and plot points of Halo 3 were not continued (like I said in the OP), then you would agree that Halo 4 is very much tacked onto the story arc. Even if the story does make sense, everything else still falls flat.

What plot points specifically were not continued? Please do explain these. This story fits quite well into the story arc. It starts off right where Halo 3 left off…