Halo 4 Retrospective

Games Other Halo
1

Alright, so first, a little about me. I’ve been playing Halo since the beginning. I believe I first played Halo:CE when I was around 5 or 6 years old. My friend next door owned an Xbox, and I would come to his house almost everyday to 1v1 him on Blood Gulch, or do yet another campaign run. I didn’t know it at the time, but Halo would soon play a significant and emotional part in my life.

Around a year later, in 2004, I first played Halo 2. I don’t remember much from playing it my first time, though the opening theme would be something that would haunt me for the rest of my life. Something about Halo 2 has this very distinct feel for me, it’s kinda hard to describe. This game, for me, will always be my favorite. I love all of the Halo series, but this game has a special place in my heart, that I don’t even fully understand myself. Halo 2 is what really set me off on my love for Sci-Fi, as well as many other series that I have come to love (Mass Effect, LoTR, Star Trek, Star Wars, Bioshock, Half Life, Dead Space, etc.) and paved the way for many other great experiences. I could not say that I would be the same person I am now without playing Halo.

The next few years would be a gaming dark age for me. My family began to move around a ton. In the 16 years I’ve been alive, I’ve moved 9 times. With all that travel, and never personally owning an Xbox, I rarely had much time to play some Halo 2. But, strangely, I often thought about the adventures of Master Chief, and how I would eventually get myself an Xbox and play to my heart’s content.

It was early 2008 by the time I played Halo 3. I had known it came out, but at the time we had just moved into North Carolina. Finding a friend that owned Halo 3 was not hard at all, practically everybody had it. The excitement I felt when I first popped that Halo 3 disc into that new, advanced Xbox 360 is something I still remember to this day. And that opening. That first level. The whole pulse-pounding, awe-inspiring campaign. Nearly everything about it was perfect. (Unfortunately, I never really played Multiplayer. I would always get my -Yoink- kicked. It was not until Halo: Reach when I began to take Multiplayer seriously.)

I never had the pleasure of playing Halo Wars until 2011. Why? I suppose upon hearing about it, it never appealed to me. Before then, I was not much for strategy games. It was not until later that I found out what a great game Halo Wars was. The same nearly goes for Halo:ODST, I played it when it first came out, but never fully through because (I later found out) that when you are looking for that sniper rifle clue, it’s actually right above you, hanging from a wire. At the time, I got frustrated and went back to Halo 3. It was not until a few months later until I played Halo: ODST full through, which was a fantastic game. It’s funny, I remember feeling so limited when I simply looked up, and there’s the sniper rifle, just freaking sitting there.

Then came Reach. I was completely blown away by Reach. We had finally settled down in good 'ole South Carolina. With Reach, I got myself finally a brand-spankin new Xbox with along with Reach. I when to the mid-night release with 5 other friends, and it was a blast. Free chips and mountain dew, and they had a booth were the hundreds of people that were there tried it. I never had a chance to play the beta, so this was very exciting to me. When we brought it home, my excitement is very much like this video, which I’m sure most of you have seen… http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/549991

Ok, so maybe with out the whole tearing apart the Xbox and turning the disc to -Yoink!- and turning into a monster, but you get the idea. Like I said earlier, Reach is when I finally started to take Halo Multiplayer seriously. It went from Slayer, to Infection, then off to BTB.

It was here when I began to get into the Halo Community outside of my group of friends. As varied as we are, it’s a pretty decent community other than the fact that some of you older Halo players would rather just have Halo 2 remade over and over again with no change whatsoever. Anyway, I began to start looking for a clan to join. At the time, I thought myself worthy enough to star looking for a organized group of people to play with, other than my friends or the army of Warrant Officers on Custom Games. This is here when I met a little group called the Sovereign Guard.

I was on these very forums, when I started looking. Specifically, I was looking for a Sangheili clan of worthy status. I’ve always thought myself as an Elite, they have always fascinated me since I first starting filling them with lead. I saw a recruitment thread for the Sovereign Guard, and thought I would give them a try. Long story short, I changed my name to Rathas Nimalee,(derived from Rathalos, from MH3) and I’ve since been with those guys for the last 3 years. I will always be Sovereign. Long live the Guard!

Halo: CE Anniversary was like a wonderful trip down HD graphics memory lane for me, and it was of course a great game, and I am very thankful to 343i for re-making it.

Now on to the real reason I made this thread.

When Halo 4 was announced, I was super thrilled. Went to the midnight release, with 9 friends this time, and of course had a blast. That morning, I went straight home to play it, equally excited as I was with Reach and the rest of the Halo games. It was a big moment for me. Master Chief, after so long, it finally coming back. The opening menu appears. The music begins to play. It literally brought tears to my eyes. It was beautiful. I was aware that the music was not Marty, and yet the emotion I got with the rest of the Halos was there in a fresh, new feeling. Then I got into that campaign. It was everything I expected Halo 4 to be, and much, much more. It was fantastic. I don’t like comparing Halo games to Halo games, because they are all wonderful, and they all give a certain special feeling that is familiar as well as unique to each-other. Halo 4’s campaign was both emotional and exciting. It actually kinda reminded me much of Halo:CE. They both have that feeling of being in a brand new, alien world as well as that deep, unknown power lurking within.

Halo 4 did have some of it’s ups and downs though. The Storm Covenant’s armor was odd to me, and while it did give a new look to your Covenant enemies, I’m not sure they took it in the right direction. Odd looking angles, lack of arm armor, and my complete revulsion at the Storm Elite Ranger armor. Also, what is with the Grunts? Sure, they might be some sort of sub-species or genetically enhanced version, but they never explained anything about them. They were just there. They looked very reptilian looking, very different from the normal arthropod look of traditional Grunts. And am I the only one who sorta misses the high-pitched squeals that Grunts used to make in the previous Halo Trilogy?

As for the Jackals, I thought they looked pretty cool. Kig-Yar have many different variations (Skirmishers), and it was sweet seeing another type. These ones look more tough, more brutish, but less agile and bird-like then it’s cousins. Still, I wish they had all 3 of the Jackal types, Skirmishers as scouts and commandos, traditional Jackals as snipers, and the new Storm Jackals as infantry. That would have made for a much more interesting combat experience.

-Continued-

2

There was no real difference with the Hunters, so nothing really there. It would have been cool though if they had some sort of different type, similar to the Scarab. (which unfortunately did not make an appearance) That brings me to my next subject. There was a severe lack in diversity with the Covenant races. Sure, we started out in Halo:CE with just Elites, Grunts, Jackals, and Hunters, but this is a new game, and I would expect to see some sort of new species. Unless I’m mistaken, every Halo game (other than Halo 3) has had a new species of Covenant introduced.

Now, you might think, what about the Prometheans? They’re new.They don’t really count. Halo has always had at least 2 different enemies, The Covenant (Main enemy), and some sort of other force (The Flood). And with absence of The Flood, they filled that role. The Prometheans were excellent new enemies, and really spiced up the gameplay. The thing about it though, I HATED facing them. They always are teleporting around, repairing themselves, rushing in, and were generally annoying to fight, but were also a challenge. In fact, they made fighting The Storm Covenant much more fun, because fighting them was almost like a break from the -Yoink- of the Prometheans. In fact, upon completing the campaign, I began to always call them “Prometheafags”.

The overall campaign for Halo 4 was fantastic, and a great addition to the series, and almost a throwback to Halo:CE. That being said, it did not come without it’s problems. The biggest problem I had with Halo 4 was lack of explanation. Sure, Master Chief is back, the UNSC is rearming, Jul ‘Mdama has created a new faction, and The Didact is back, and ONI is back to their regualr faggotries, but you really learn next to nothing about the rest of the Universe. What has happened to the Prophets and the Brutes? How is Arbiter dealing with Sanghelios? Where are the rest of the Spartan II’s that survived? The list goes on. Thursday War explained a little, but it mostly revolved around ONI and the UNSC, rather than what’s left of The Covenant. I’m hoping 343i later explains IN GAME on what going on. Hopefully, a new season of Spartan Ops will answer some of our questions.
Which brings me to yet another subject, Spartan Ops. When I found out Firefight was not going to be in Halo 4, I was dismayed. I hoped they would have some sort of replacement. While not a total replacement, Spartan Ops was fun and kept me coming back for more. I would always be very excited when a new episode would come out. The story was interesting enough, and the missions, while repetitive in the beginning, were fun and had much replayability. And that ending was certainly jaw-dropping.

Though, I could not be slightly disappointed with Spartan Ops. I’m a HUGE Mass Effect fan, and I and many other fans had the idea that our own custom character would make their own choices and maybe even do their own missions. But really, it was just like another, less interesting campaign. I mean, playing solo, they are always calling you “Fire Team Crimson” which annoyed the hell out of me. And the Roland AI and whats-his-face guy are always freaking bickering on the communications. It really loses immersion. And some of the missions weren’t all that crazy either. Push this button, kill these “bad guys” (Whenever that -Yoink!- says that I wish I could just fly up there shove an Energy Sword up his -Yoink-) or wait for evac, etc. And most of the newly introduced characters (Palmer, Majestic, that -Yoink- nerd guy) just were plain annoying and uninteresting. Spartan Ops was a really cool idea, but it should have been handled differently.

Now on to Multiplayer. As I mentioned previously, Reach was my first real Halo Multiplayer experience. Sure, I went back to Halo 3 on several occasions, but it’s not really the same. The mechanics of Halo 4 Multiplayer are generally similar to Reach, but with many significant changes.

Initially, I had a general distaste for Halo 4 Multiplayer. We all know the problems it had. But thankfully, 343i really turned things around, making Multiplayer into a much better experience. Really, with all the great updates we’ve been having, the only real problem I have is the Banshee. It moves like a floating whale. Slow and ineffective, I now never use the Banshee, unlike Halo: Reach, where I loved to use the over-powered flying death machine all the time. In retrospect, it is much like the Halo 3 Banshee. No descoping-when-shot is also something I find annoying.

The lack of UNSC aircraft in Halo 4 is very sad though. In Halo 3, I loved the Hornet, and in Reach, I loved the Falcon. The fact that there is neither of them or any other was very disappointing. Sure, you can drive the Pelican in the campaign, but that never came to multiplayer. Really, the only new drivable vehicle is the Mantis, while amazing, does not fill in for all the vehicles they took out.

DLC maps for Matchmaking are fantastic. I loved them all. They added really interesting gameplay elements that were both new and familiar, as well as new environments and locations in the Halo Universe. Pitfall was cool and all, but I would have much prefered a large version of Sandtrap but with Mammoths instead of the Elephants. The new stances, armor, and weapon skins were also really cool as well.

Forge was somewhat a disappointment. There only UNSC building blocks, small maps, (Until the release of Forge Island) and the countless other problems that it had. It seemed like a step down from Halo:Reach. I’m not much of a Forge artist myself, so there is really not all that much I can say about this subject, but Forge was certainly initially very disappointing. Though, the new community Forge maps are very nice. Keep up the good work guys!

Well, I think I’ll end it here. There is much more that needs to be addressed, and many of you already have. A lot. But I felt like I need to voice my opinion to the community. Feel free to comment on what I said, argue, or ask any sort of questions you might have. Want to play some Halo, Mass Effect 3, GTA 5, BF4 with me? Add me on Xbox Live, the GT is the same as the forum. Thanks for reading!

3

> The Prometheans were excellent new enemies, and really spiced up the gameplay. The thing about it though, I HATED facing them. They always are teleporting around, repairing themselves, rushing in, and were generally annoying to fight, but were also a challenge. In fact, they made fighting The Storm Covenant much more fun, because fighting them was almost like a break from the -Yoink!- of the Prometheans.

I agree soooooo much. I’ve never been so happy to see a grunt after killing a watcher.

4

Yeah, I forgot to mention those watchers are the biggest -Yoink- the Universe has ever seen. The very second you shoot at them they run, and it’s so damn annoying. Especially when there’s like 40 of them at one time shooting at you.

5

Read the whole thing through. Loved it. Just be prepared for the flaming. Most people here are going to tell you you only like halo 4 because you didn’t know/experience the glory days of 1-3.

Some comments on things you have stated in your posts…I sort of agree on the art direction for the covies. At first i was confused why they looked so different (doesn’t really do much explaining) but i grew to like them. The one huge thing that bothered me from campaign was how the elites (and spartans) both look like their armor is a suit and not well…armor. As for the new enemies i like fighting the pro’s. Just wish they wouldn’t teleport every time i popped their shields.

I also want you to look back on halo CE. What exactly did we learn in the campaign? Not much really just that we have aliens to fight. Also learned about the flood. The terminals in halo 4 help a little have you looked them up?

Halo 4-6 is supposed to be about the chief as a person. We have also been promised this story will be darker. I think 343 is doing a great job as far as expanding the universe for games go. Certainly better then bungie did.

As for the MP correct me if i’m wrong but my general assumption was that overall you enjoy it. I’m in that boat as well. I have my own personal quirks with it but overall i’m loving it. Most likely it’s because in reach and 4 i’m feeling more and more like a spartan. 1-3 as far as MP goes was more about a balanced experience.(not saying 4 doesn’t have any balance.) I’ve been with halo since CE and i like the direction we are going.

Random question: Are you buying spartan assault for the 360/one when it launches in december?