To begin, since this is going to be a long post and most of you who will just tell me to go play Halo 3 or COD aren’t going to read this, I would like for those of you who elect to be a contrarian to simply mark the begining of your reply with the characters “ABC.”
As a disclaimer, I have been a devout halo fan from the series’ beginning, playing all of the games except for Wars. I played the multiplayer components of Halo PC, Halo 3, ODST, Reach and halo 4 extensively. I am in no means trying to brag here, this is just a way to demonstrate I know what I am talking about. (if anything it’s sad how much I’ve played). Finally, when I say “casuals” I do not mean it in a derogatory sense. It is merely a descriptor. Casuals have been crucial to the success of many halo games, and the first trilogy did an excellent job of balancing accessability to casuals with competitiveness for more experienced players.
Now to actually begin:
I have come to see halo very much the same way I see the star wars movies. A fantastic original trilogy followed by some major shark-jumping and loss of identity. For halo, I think this happened due to, but not limited to, the following reasons: extreme pressure to appeal to casual (read COD) crowd (say what you will, but those games make $$$), a entirely new target audience/generation with vastly different tastes from those which the original trilogy captured, money and more money.
Based on this, I will make some assumptions. First, for those of you for whom halo 4 is an introduction to the series, I will assume that IN GENERAL you are younger, let’s say under 18 (this game is rated M FYI). Microsoft is looking for you to be the primary purchasers of halos 5 and 6 and beyond. Second, because of this new target audience, future halos WILL NOT see any sort of return to roots. I believe that 343 and microsoft are trying to establish an entirely new ground work, that thus far looks to have not really caught on with most of the people who bought the game. Lastly, an assumption I believe we all need to see as fact is that these games are being made to MAKE MONEY. If a game sells, it does not matter if it is unchanged from a predecessor or simply total poop. While halo 4 is pretty different from earlier halos, the changes mad unfortunately put the game in the latter category for me and a lot of other people.
To discuss the faults of the game itself, we must look back to Halo Reach, enigma of enigmas. I call reach this because I still can’t fully understand what Bungie was trying to produce. Was it a swam song? A cash-in? What I’ve mostly settled on is that Reach was a somewhat of a showcase full of all the great ideas bungie had and had not implemented in past halos. I believe its guiding principle was that of pure fun, and for the large part it succeeded. All aspects of the game–forge, theater, customs, etc–were direct improvements over previous halos. Except for its multiplayer (as far as campaign goes, story was nice, but I didn’t appreciate the missions that simply tried to demonstrate new mechanics). Reach’s multiplayer was a big melting pot of good ideas that conglomerated into what could be a fun, but ultimately unbalanced and poor experience. At this point, bungie stopped trying to appeal to the older halo crowd and tried to bring in more casuals to the experience. With casuals, as we all know, comes a low skill level. As bungie handed the reigns over to 343, probably chuckling as they did so, 343 listened to casuals, thinking them to be the the “halo fans” and implemented lots of changes to the multiplayer side of things. What reach truly brought to the halo series was a massively lessened skill gap.
Now jump forward a few years to halo 4. we see that it has used reach’s engine, and retained several of the features of reach with casual appeal (purely exp based rank, unnecessary armor customization, AA’s weapon imbalance…this is not noticed by players w/ low skill level). On top of this, halo 4 expanded upon what many fans of the original trilogy saw as the less desirable features of reach by adding ordinance, all class sprint and big maps. Many of these newly added features seem to draw heavy parallels to features of call of duty. It is too bad then, that 343 both failed in drawing in enough of the casual people by trying to do COD but not succeeding, while at the same time alienating the vast majority of their existing fanbase by creating a game so different from the original trilogy. I find then, that the people I know who enjoy halo 4, and in particular its multiplpayer, are those who play halo mostly for the campaign and don’t play enough MM to know the difference, and those like my 14 year old brother who think that Attack of the Clones is the best star wars.
So what does this mean? halo is in a bad spot. by forking its fanbase, the franchise is no longer what many considered THE premier FPS. The reason to buy an xbox. Not too much of a hit with the casual crowd, who appear to buy it and move on, nor with the competitive folks…MLG drops halo 4. Of course microsoft doesn’t care about all this, so long as the game sells. I only see future halo games being defiled by superfluous and gimmicky features that only serve to further send the series on its downward spiral.
What I originally intended to a be simple list of my complaints with halo 4 has unexpectedly turned into a full blown rant, so the remainder of this post will simply list some of those complaints. I would like to hear from people who truly enjoy halo 4 how what I see as negatives ACTUALLY contribute to the game. remember: THESE ARE ALL OPINION (but an opinion that seems to be shared the 100’s of thousands of people who stopped playing.) please don’t call me dumb. use reason. thanks. I apologize if my tone seems angry.
Multiplayer:
In my opinion: THE CORE PRINCIPLE OF HALO MULTIPLAYER IS THAT OF AN ARENA SHOOTER WHERE ALL PLAYERS SPAWN AT PARITY AND THEN MUST USE SKIIL TO WIN. it is a given that this must be fun. If you disagree with this, then we have fundamentally different opinions on how halo’s multiplayer should be structured and it will be difficult to effectively debate anything.
Specific points: Ordinance and loadouts are the single worst things to happen to halo 4…introduce randomness, violates core principles, promote poor gameplay, rewards bad players. Maps are too big and poorly designed (even this majestic map pack has around 1000 people in it tops…what does that tell you). This is due mostly to sprint and armor abilities like jet pack. horrendous weapon imbalance. DMR fundamentally changes gameplay. vehicles are dead. too many/poor playlists. small skill gap. no skill system.
Campaign:
I might just be getting older, but I found the story to be incredibly trite and uninteresting. If they are indeed trying to appeal to new audience, they actaully need to develop the dynamic between chief and cortana before she dies. uninventive levels seemingly designed to showcase mantis/pelican/other dumb stuff. too easy. very little replayability.
Theater:
no campaign theater. wth is going on with file system.
Forge:
“generating lighting,” junk maps, clunkyness
Custom Games:
small amount of options, considering how many reach had. they basically lost an entire part of the community
Misc.:
junk UI, “misguidedness” of entire game