Hello Forum, this post is aimed directly at 343–particularly if they have some grunt reading through the forums and adding stuff to an excel spreadsheet somewhere. I have had a few months to think about Halo 4, particularly my experience purchasing the LE.
- Limited Edition Nonsense.
I bought the LE after regretting not getting the Reach one. I wanted some stuff. Some stuff I could hold with my greasy little paws. Overall, I was disappointed.
- The box looks really cool–both the exterior and the interior.
- Unfortunately, most of the content was digital. (Can’t hold it).
- Access to FuD is cool and all, but it’s extremely limited. Can I only watch it on my console? I don’t even know. I tried watching it once and there was an error; I never cared enough to go back. I watched the series faithfully every friday when it was released on YouTube and greatly enjoyed it. Why can’t I just download it? You could have had an authorized download through iTunes or Amazon or something.
- The poster was super lame. I had no idea who Spartan Thorne was and frankly, now I’m only slightly more sure who it is–and I still don’t care. You have the ENTIRE halo universe at your disposal. This poster could have, and should have, been awesome. Think: incredible vistas, the warthog, Master chief, Requiem, the Didact’s weird sphere ship, anything other than some outline of a spartan on a blank blue background.
- The foil packs were cool; the stuff inside the foil was not that cool. (DLC cards and … ?)
- The clip book is poor quality and a weird design.
- Overall, the lack of physical items and the quality of the items were a let down for me. I would rather have one really nice physical item than a bunch of not-that-great items.
- As the release date grew closer, things that were thought to be LE exclusives were revealed… to not be exclusives. As each new item was revealed to not be exclusive, I would read back through all the weekly posts, and I saw that it was never stated that these items were exclusives, but the wording used made eager fans (like me) think that they were exclusive.
- I realize now I don’t even care about the map pass, which leads me to…
- Halo needs to revamp how they handle DLC.
- Like a fool, I bought all the Reach DLC. I didn’t play it much, because who wants to play a playlist with 2% of all the players? Not me, really. I am not the best and so I usually get trounced in such a situation. It was bad overall because I thought the last DLC–the one made by Certain Affinity, was the best batch of maps Reach had, but hardly anyone ever played them.
- Then as far as I can tell, the same thing happened with Halo 4. This is bad. I own the DLC, my cheapskate friend who I play with does not. Guess what happens. I never play them.
- Think about using a DLC system for the next game similar to Mass Effect 3’s Multiplayer. They give you the maps for free, but there are microtransactions. The developer still makes the money, the player base all gets shiny new maps every once in a while which accomplished the twofold goals of retain/exciting players and not splitting the player base into DLC Ghettos.
- The Campaign was cool.
- I liked it the more I played it.
- The AI seems less interesting than Reach. I missed the myriad Elite behaviors.
- Knights seemed OP at first. Instead of being a really smart enemy, they just cause massive damage and have tons of health.
- The story was ridiculous. I am particularly allergic to “ancient aliens end up being humans!” so I wanted to murder someone when I played through Halo 4 and then AssCreed: Revelations only to find out the ancient aliens… were humans… Oh god. That being said, maybe Bungie started it down that path–I wouldn’t know; I’m not a big lore guy. The thing is, Halo involves Earth. Saying humans were planted here by ForeRunners invalidates real-world science too much for me to ignore, and I get pulled out of the experience and drop my suspension of disbelief. I’ll ride along with all kinds of stuff–magic, splasers, invulnerable warthogs, you name it–but you can’t have earth and earth science and fake earth science all mixed up together. Or maybe you can. But it makes me angry.
- The campaign missions were maybe TOO long. I’m not sure what the rest of the community thinks, but playing through each on Legendary takes a while.
- Spartan Ops was pretty cool.
- I understand that it was A Big Deal for a variety of non-game, business decisions, and I congratulate you on trying and am impressed that you guys actually pulled off a season–50 missions.
- The first few weeks were repetitive as far as maps, objectives, & enemies. The second half got a lot better. Nothing new here.
- The storyline–even in the second half–was way to separated from the missions. Why can I play the missions with my friend, but not watch the story? That is crazy. You remember my cheapskate friend from earlier? He watched the first episode, hated it, and never watched another one again. What can you learn from this? 1) Make the first episode awesome. 2) Make it where people can watch in a party. 3) Make it where the episode actually matters compared to what you do in-mission.
- If you continue to do SpOps, perhaps you may think about going a more Half-Life 2 route. Forget about the videos altogether and have all the major events be in-game, even if it is just Palmer telling you stuff is happening on Infinity while you’re down on the ground.
- War Games
- Overall, I like it. I like BTB a lot, I like regicide a lot.
- I don’t play as much MP as I used to, but I think that has to do more with my life now than your game.
- Uh, other people here have much stronger opinions about War Games than I do.
- Ordnance drops are cool, but they create a positive feedback loop: only players that are already doing well get an ordnance so they… can continue to do even better? Perhaps your meter should just fill up over time, and heroic feats help it fill up faster? I don’t know.
Conclusion:
I was very disappointed in the LE, Halo 4’s campaign was great, I salute you for even attempting Spartan Ops and think it turned out pretty well overall, and I like War Games.
At this point, I plan to buy Halo 5 but I am on the fence about getting the LE. Convince me that I want it! I want to want it!