Right so I am going to write my review of the campaign. In terms of time I completed the game in about 4 hours of gameplay, give or take some time due to exploring etc. This was playing through on normal difficulty.
Things I have noticed while playing the game.
Ammo
I don’t know what happened in those 4 years but for some reason there seems to be a real shortage of ammo. Like wtf, every three enemies I kill I have to change the gun to anything that is around, like now for example I am running through legendary single shotting the enemies with a plasma pistol because there is no alternative. The DMR now has a 14 shot clip, I have no idea why they needed to do this but I can let it pass. What I do not seem to understand is why your total ammo capacity is half what it used to be, whereas in Reach you could have 108 bullets in your DMR, now it is significantly reduced, this seems to be the case with several weapons up to the point where they have 1/2 the ammo capacity they used to have. Also most notably with the plasma pistol, I did a charged shot and lost half the clip, perhaps this might be needed in online play but not in the campaign. I found myself having to change out the weapon I had to any weapon I had, whereas in the other halos, generally you could get by with the original weapon or survive with few weapon drops. Then again perhaps there are some mystical weapon caches I am missing out on and this point will be left to ridicule.
Sound
Okay fair enough it does sound very good, all the sounds sound, well excellent. The one complaint I may have is that too many of the guns sound like they are being suppressed. On the whole though I would say this has been the best execution of sound of any halo to date.
Originality
I thought the originality of this game was rather poor. I will explain below however it may contain spoilers.
In no part of the campaign did I simply go “wow”. I honestly felt every idea in the game had been done before. I first noticed this in the gondola scenario. This was virtually the same encounter as had been in halo 2, the gondola goes along, oh wow we gotta jump aboard and kill them to go, oh look it happens again. Perhaps this was intentional but I personally thought this showed a lack of creativity on 343’s part. There were several other examples of this that I noticed, for example the mammoth part was curiously like a mission I remember playing on halo wars where you escort elephants or whatever. The funniest part was where I became luke skywalker on a mission to blow up the main reactor…Oh wait it’s not the death star but some big ship. I enjoyed the mission but then again I am a star wars fan. I thought this was a bit of a cheap copy but at the end of the day I did enjoy the mission and thought it was a different kind of halo that’s not been done before, even if it did have striking similarities to the death star.Music
Ehh, the music in this game is good, not awesome good. I know lots will disagree with me but I thought that no music in this game really captured the master chief. What happened to the traditional halo song that followed through the original three games. I felt like that was master chief’s song and hence understood why it was not included in Reach. However, when it was not done I was deeply disappointed. The other music was adequate and at some points better but on the whole it was ruined by not including the chief’s signature song. Similarly with how there was no warthog run at the end which could have been easily executed. (As the ship exploded.) This in my opinion was the kind of running theme which I think adds to the story.
Length
Short. 8 missions I thought they may be excessively long but I finished this game on the first run noticeably quicker than the other halos. Even the god awful ODST took me longer (although I was lost half the time).
Difficulty
I can at least say it is more difficult than the other halo games. However, I think the difficulty has been exacerbated by the fact that I have no gun and have the punch everyone. Ok that’s a little unfair, although it seems to be one of the reasons why it is harder. The prometheans I a pain and in all honesty were a little disappointing to fight. I prefered the covenant combat that you faced throughout the game, which contrary to my belief was quite frequent and were in my opinion just as present as the prometheans which I was led to believe were like the only enemies apart from a few covenant scouts at the beginning. (If anyone could highlight why they are against us now I would be interested.)
Graphics
Best yet, I like the cutscenes and loved having watched forward unto dawn understanding the story and lasky’s decisions. Felt there could have been a bit more on Halsey.
Story
I liked the story but I felt that cortana did not have to die. I hope that 343 can rectify this in a similar way to how bungie saved her from 2-3, but it seems harder to see how. I thought it was alright but would have preferred a fully covenant centered experience and completely missed out on the prometheans and their jedi leader. I will be interested in how the trilogy continues and hope cortana returns. Multiplayer
I found the multiplayer to be fun. I have played only several games so far but it appears to be ok. Not a fan of the drop-in/out system as I feel this detracts from the skill element and the determination to win. I like ordnance drops to be honest but feel they may become annoying when the “new toy” mentality ends. I will look more into the multiplayer when the ranking system comes out but as of now I see it as a halo/cod hybrid. Forgive me for making that comparison but I feel at this point in time it is the best description. If you like halo and cod then this is the game for you.
Spartan Ops
[Not played yet, to be added later]
If I have missed a certain area please inform me so I can add it.