what it was like to play a game which genuinely felt like a halo game. Yesterday i put in Reach because i just wouldnt subject myself to the torture that is halo 4 any further and i found reach was a far superior game and let me explain why:
(A)On BTB teams actually move around the map and look to push the opposing team back by controlling the power weapons and gaining vehicle superiority, this doesnt happen in 4 as firstly vehicles because of being abe to spawn with plasma grenades and plasma pistols tend to be viewed by people as death traps. Actually speaking of vehicles this game is lacking in this department as well where is the revenant, falcon, brute chopper, why dont the prometeans have a single vehicle, vehicles were one of the things people loved about big team battle and 343 not only rendemered them useless but made them rare and significantly weakier than previous editions, secondly there are no power weapons on the map so people tend to sit back and pick people off with the dmr instead of pushing to control specific areas and gain map control and then are rewarded for doin so by personal ordinance drops by been handed a sniper or rocket launcher which only reinforces them in sitting back, in reach i felt confident and of pushing up and forcing the enemy team rite back when my team had control of the sniper nd plasma launcher and were on top in the vehicle battle so you coud push up and were rewarded for doing so by being able to rack up the kills in 4 no1 is confident because of persona ordinance so just sit back and play defensively which isnt fun or what the halo experience shoud be. BTB in reach rewarded movement the teams fought tooth and nail to gain superiority in vehicles and power weapons and if they were successful yes they walked to victory and the other team were slaughtered but to get on top in terms of vehices and weapons was a skill that deserved to be rewarded halo 4 has taken away these with ordinance drops in order to try and prevent some teams from being destroyed but in doing so they have ruined btb as all that once made this a great playlist is now gone.
(B)Everyone starts equal with the same grenades and gun so they have to find other weapons such as a shotgun and grenades in particluarly plasma bringing BALANCE to the game. Halo 4’s custom loadouts are not balanced at all. The DMR is like a god gun,the ar seems to killing people from a further distance than it should be able to and virtually every1 has the bolshot and plasmas as their secondary weapons. Think of the last infinity game you played i gaurantee there was 1 ejit just throwing plasma grenades and not even trying to shoot you and think of how frustrated you were when he managed to stick you and run away, this happens all the time in halo 4 and it takes away from the halo experience. Then on top of the people that just throw plasmas we have the boltshot campers who particuary on adrift and abandon just wait for you to walk by then 1 shot kill you. This game actually punishes people who want to play the game they way it should be played. where as in reach where if you died it was a simple matter of being out gunned,out witted or not contoling a power weapon.
(C)there are more playlists, know i dunno if the people at 343 approach is going for a minimilistic approach here i.e less is more but there are way more options in reach than there are in four such as: Multi team, Action sack, Invasion, (dominion not an adequate replacement), BTB objectives firefight, classic halo i.e anniversary, proper infection without the flood, and then there more game variants as well such as headhunter, vip, race and so on. I have a possible explanation for this because halo4’s population is sooooo low 343 are afraid to release more playlists as it wil further fragment their games population and their precious infinity nd btb slayers with personal ordinance may drop in figures.
(D)The grenades in reach were superior as well. The way the spartans throw grenades in h4 seems a little off in comparison to other halos the grenades just dont behave the same way. On top of that h4 introduced a ridiculous feature in terms of perks in which three relate to grenades and of those three two only allow the player to get grenades up to the standard grenades were in previous games ie get them up to their proper strength and being allowed to pick them up off fallen enimies. Now lets focus on not being able to pick up the grenades, WHY IS THIS SO? this means in infinity slayer if i kill a person but have had to use my grenades i am now punished and put at a disadvantage in my next battle by not being able to pick up my opponents unused grenades, you should always be able to pick up whatever your oponents are carrying you know like we were in every single previous halo.
(E) I know this is subjective but the maps in h4 dont stack up in comparison to other halo’s, haven is the only one which stands apart as a great map but you cant always play haven, wheres hemorage, sand trap, zealot, the pit, gaurdian, prisioner, black out,. Halo 4 gave us maps that are either designed for camping (adrift) too big for 4v4 (Complex), an utter mess (abandon) or just plain -Yoink- (Meltdown)
(F) then there are other things which 343 added such as not descoping an oppenent when shot, this is extremly annoying in two different ways (1) is if you are shooting at someone who has a sniper and he isnt descoped when you shoot him he has a serious advantage at being able to pick you off if he is far enough away and (2) and this may be just me but when i use the scope on the br and dmr and amint descoped when i am shot i find it completely disorenting and annoying to have to manually descope for close range shooting. Promethian vision on small maps can bring games to a stand still as it allows oppenents to see how many people are waiting for them and what weapons they have hence you can get mexican stand offs instead of the frantic halo gameplay of old which is what made the franchise so succesful. Reach was far simplier than h4 nd h3 was far simplier than reach, 343 need to understand that a halo game actually has to play like a halo game for the consumer to be satisified halo 4 is a type of horrible hybrid that doesnt satisfy enough of the fan base to succeed.
Now i want to end by saying i dont think reach was an amazing game but it was a good halo game, “it felt like halo” bungie didnt really alter the core gameplay mechanics, the armour abilities with the exception of armour lock didnt really bother me, but halo4’s custom loadouts and personal ordinance drops completely changed the halo experience, there is now an element of luck in every win and people camping are rewarded. Halo was supposed to be an arena shooter where if you lost you were outplayed it is no longer the case as personal ordinace destroys that as 1 person gets a needler d oda a rocket launcher. Bungie encouraged vehicle gameplay 343 destroyed it by allowing people to spawn with plasma grenades and pistol. bungie encouraged map movement 343 encourages camping with personal ordinace. bungie encouraged balance 343 encourages a mess with the boltshot and co. bungie responded to the community 343 does not. so in summary d reason in my personal opinion that h4 is inferior to reach which was inferior to h2 nd h3 is because reach didnt change the core mechanics to the point where halo was barely recogniseable
