Now to start this off I would like to say that I thought the campaign was alright, but it just did not stand up to halo 1-3 campaigns. And do not tell me that the campaign does not matter, because halo began as much of a story based game as a multiplayer game. Here are my reasons-
I did not find Prometheans to be a memorable enemy. They were difficult at first but then once you got used to their abilities they just kind of died and it became a job to kill them rather than an excitement. Their teleporating ability became predictable. It seemed to be that there were specific nodes that the prometheans teleported to. Also I found it really hard to distinguish between the different types of prometheans because they all looked the same. The only way I could tell which ones were the “gold elite” of the prometheans was by their weaponry. And the incineration cannon was ridiculous, dieing to an unavoidable shot is not that much fun. The fuel rod is at least a slow moving projectile so you can try and dodge it.
The way that the NPCs treated the chief was very unrealistic in my opinion. They come across a war hero who has saved Earth on many occasions, and the captain’s response is to call the chief an outdated piece of machinery. I know some people will say that his response is meant to exemplify the ending sequence where polaski tells him he isn’t a machine. Or maybe it is meant to be there to create an emotional response and get mad at the captain, but for me it just makes me annoyed at the game. The master chief is supposed to be the ultimate soldier and war hero, a commanding officer and ally treating him with disrespect breaks that image down a bit. Now if 343 had to have the relationship between the captain and the chief then so be it, but I think it could have been altered to make it better. Instead of the ship’s crew just going about their duties, I think it might have added to the chief’s image if a lot of the crew or spartans followed the chief because they knew he was doing the right thing. I don’t know, these are just ideas.
The plane sequence meant to be reminiscent of the warthog races during halo 1 and 3 was really boring. In halo 1’s warthog race there are explosions all around you and enemies to get in your way. Your warthog flips a couple times and you have to respond to that. The unpredictably of the warthog race makes it interesting and different every time you play it. The plane race or whatever you want to call it, lacked luster. You moved right and left, up and down dodging architecture and shooting some beams that are meant to make it interesting. But you can just slow the ship down, shoot the beams and rocket forward. I actually just accelerated through the whole thing because the beams weren’t hard to shoot and the architecture not hard to dodge.
Now I have read the first 3-4 halo books, I viewed all the terminals from halo 1, and halo 4. With this information I still found the whole sequence between the Didact, Librarian, and the chief confusing and forced. The whole idea that the librarian implanted genetics to make the chief possible is strange and far fetched. Even though the game is science fiction, it has to be grounded in reality. The fact that the chief’s suit and his abilities are from the librarian takes away from humanity’s achievements. The chief is supposed to be the best humanity has to offer, and you can not just come in during the fourth installment of the game and tell us that humans did not come up with the chief or his abilities.
This is a short one, the music. I thought the music was alright but it had lost that memorable halo music. It became more background music but music can make some of the most memorable impressions for games and movies. So just having background music to an epic series of events does not really do that much.
6.That mission where you have that giant elephant type vehicle that seems like the mother ship would not have been able to carry it. Being given a targeting device that just allows you to lock the MAC cannon onto those forerunner turrets is not that interesting. It could have been done in a much more memorable way. In halo 3 they didn’t use a MAC cannon from a nearby ship to destroy the scarab, the chief had to improvise. The targeting device seems to be an excuse to get the chief along with the story because they did not want to think of an interesting way of destroying the turrets. This was also terribly added in Halo reach. IT just became an easy mode to get through encounters you did not want to spend the time doing.
The DMR, the BR,the light rifle, and the carbine generally speaking accomplish the same task as a weapon. Having four weapons that accomplish generally the same thing makes each weapon boring because it can easily be replaced by a similar weapon. It would be like having the halo 1 pistol and the new pistol in halo 4. They are too similar. It also makes it so that you almost always have one of the four. There was almost no time in the campaign when I had to scrounge for weapons and just go with it. I did not have to experiment with different weapons because there was always one of those four weapons above.
The covenant and why they are there. Even with the terminals them being at the fortress world is sketchy. They found some map that told them that forerunner technology is there. Beyond that I do not think we are given much more information. If I am wrong let me know but I am going to talk about that as if we do not. We do not know why the covenant are attacking mankind after they have ended the war and we do not know why they now serve the forerunner. Yes we can assume that it is some kind of mind control that the didact uses, or that they were allied with him the entire time. If they were allied with him the entire time then why would they try and delay the master chief in releasing him. If they were mind controlled then why wouldn’t the didact use that ability n his previous war with the humans. It was already established that his character hated the human race so I do not think he would have a problem with mind controlling the human race to serve him rather than spending forerunner lives to defeat them. The logic of this is just lost on me.
These are the points that I can think of off the top of my head. Please let me know how you feel, cause I know some of this is opinion based but I think it really mattered when judging how good of a campaign halo 4 really was.
I totally agree with point 6. The campaign is very dull, and had the potential to be extremely action pact. You have to feel like a champ when you’re the Master Chief. I just didn’t get that feeling without exploding Phantoms, killing Scarabs from within, or simply just decking a whole oncoming highway of covenant. I also agree with the warthog run analysis. Campaign was a drag the whole way through. In fact the only interesting parts were the prerendered cinematic cut scenes.
Agreed, at least in Reach we were able to use the Target Locator. In Halo 4, it’s just a plot device (just like the beacons in ODST).
I think the 2 Covenant terminals on the level Requiem add a little more info. Though I don’t know why Cortana is able to translate the transmission yet won’t translate the in-game dialogue during combat…
> 6. Agreed, at least in Reach we were able to use the Target Locator. In Halo 4, it’s just a plot device (just like the beacons in ODST).
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> 8. I think the 2 Covenant terminals on the level Requiem add a little more info. Though I don’t know why Cortana is able to translate the transmission yet won’t translate the in-game dialogue during combat…
I totally agree with your points i also think they could go more in depth with it if they made the campaign much longer than 8 missions. I kinda miss the older day campaigns cause boss fights are not as good as they use to be.
I respect your opinion, but I actually really enjoyed the campaign. The only thing that I can agree with you on is the fact that they didn’t explain a lot of the background to the players.
Leaving all these loop-holes was also a really bad idea because for someone who doesn’t know the fiction/lore of Halo, the story is actually really generic and stale.
Master Chief is a super soldier.
Has to save some one (Cortana).
Fights aliens that were supposebly friendlies, but their hostility was unexplained.
Introduced to an all powerful alien who’s story was left unexplained.
Fights more bad guys.
Librarian scene that I can guarentee made no sense to people who haven’t read the books.
STAR WARS SCENE
BOOM Iconic Halo ring appears, it’s prescence in this game was only vaguely explained, making it a weaker standpoint
Generic Nuke plot; I gotta blow up this bomb myself
Suddenly, the Didact, who we barely got to know in the game, is now presumably dead
The Covenant fought in Halo 4 are a splinter faction called the Storm, who still believe in Truth’s original claim that the Forerunners were gods. This is why the Chief remarks in the first mission that they seem more fanatical than the Covenant they fought in the past, while Cortana says that their armor and tactics don’t match those of standard Covenant. The fact that they obey the Didact is because, again, they believe that he is a god. That’s why when he first emerges from his ship, we see an Elite drop to one knee and bow to him. They worship the Didact and his Prometheans, and so will obey them without question. Perfectly well explained in the game, if you paid attention.
I completely disagree with you, OP. I felt that Halo 4 had an amazing Campaign that lived up to its predecessors.
The Promethians are certainly a “memorable” enemy. Your point about them becoming dull or stale to kill after you got used to their abilities is moot. The Covenant have behaved and died in the exact same way for the last 10 years. Nobody complains about that. The Promethians present a new kind of challenge due to their warping, wall crawling, grenade catching, shielding, and revival abilities. Killing the Promethians requires you to apply different techniques than killing the Covenant. This differentiates them as an enemy class.
Captain Del Rio is a jerk. You are supposed to hate him. The UNSC as a whole has a huge amount of respect for Master Chief. Didn’t you notice that not one person moved to obey Del Rio’s order to “arrest that man!” Heck, Lasky gives Master Chief a fully loaded Pelican and makes no attempt to take him into custody. Also, if you bother to explore the Infinity at all before you leave on the Pelican, all the soldiers that you encounter will salute you and say things like “We all believe in what you are doing Chief.” I even heard some Spartan IVs muttering about Del Rio being a terrible captain because of the way he treated Chief.
The “plane sequence” when you pilot the Broadsword was fun for me. I can’t really refute anything you said here because this is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I personally found this sequence to be enjoyable. I felt that it succeeded as both a nod to the classic warthog sequences and as a new vehicle experience of its own. I played it on Legendary the first time and was very gratified to make it through without dieing on my first try. It was challenging, but not frustrating.
I’ll admit that I had some difficulty grasping the events described in the Librarian sequence, but I attribute that to the fact that I have not yet read the Greg Bear Halo novels. Still, I didn’t find the concept of the Librarian meddling with human evolution in order to make them Reclaimers of the Forerunner Mantle to be too far fetched. If the Forerunners can make the Halo array, I’m pretty sure they can do this too.
I agree with you here OP. Marty’s music was better. Neil had his moments, but I still miss Marty. My favorite piece of music in the whole game was when they played “Never Forget” on the end credits.
Again, this is all your opinion. I thought that using a Laser Designator to paint targets was a nice nod to Reach and a cool way for you as a player to interact with the Mammoth. It was certainly a new way to blow something up. I’m not really sure what your problem was here.
Its true that the DMR, BR, LR, and Carbine all serve the same general purpose, but each weapon functions in a unique way. Each has its own feel. I don’t see how having similar weapons makes them boring. If anything, having different variations on precision weapons keeps the game interesting by mixing up the weapons that you are using. The fact that they were (for the most part) readily available is the only thing that made this game doable on Legendary. Every now and then I still had to scavenge for weapons though.
I’d like to point out something here. Yes, the Covenant are not thoroughly explored in the Campaign, but I think this was deliberate. Halo 4 parallels Halo 1. In Halo 1, Master Chief is attacked on board a ship by the Covenant, he crashes onto an ancient Forerunner world, begins unraveling the mysteries of that world, meets a Forerunner AI construct, encounters an ancient threat, and all the while he battles the Covenant. But the Covenant themselves are never explored. Sound familiar? If you recall, the Covenant were not developed as characters until Halo 2. I suspect that 343 intends for their new trilogy to parallel the path of the first trilogy, meaning that the Covenant will not be fully explored until Halo 5. This is likely how they will reintroduce Thel’Vadam (The Arbiter) into the story, but that is speculation. However, in regards to how the Covenant came to serve the Didact, that information is obvious. They were not allied with him the entire time and no mind control was involved. The Covenant worship the Forerunners as gods. We already knew this from the previous games. The Covenant came to Requiem to find the Didact. Remember in the first mission when you find the Covenant radio transmitter that just keeps calling “Diiiiidaaaaact”? Cortana tells you that they’ve been broadcasting that at regular intervals for the past three years. They were trying to reach him. When he is revealed to them, they all bow down before him in reverence. The Didact didn’t have to do anything to control the Covenant. They were only too wiling to serve.
To conclude, I felt that Halo 4 had an amazing Campaign. It followed in the footsteps of what was established with previous Halo games while still adding new, unique features of its own that were a blast to experience. It developed its characters better than any previous Halo game and delivered an emotional story without compromising its integrity as shooter.
The problem with all the attention on multiplayer these days they need to make generic campaigns. Which is kinda sad cause i enjoy halo campaigns the most. If they starting making campaigns more than 8 missions long again they could go into more depth.