After playing halo 4 for a few days (post delay meant I only received it Thursday) I have decided I now have significant information to give it a fair and honest judgement.
At first I really disliked this game; it was everything I knew it would be, and everything I knew it isn’t, and I so desperately want it to be (but I fear that even halo 5 and 6 onwards will be iterations of this game, rather than a return to the core gameplay of halo 2 and 3 that I feel are the pinnacle of the fps genre, although this is another debate entirely).
However despite the fast gameplay, and the millions of thoughts I have had about how I might have improved this game, I have carried on playing. And whilst the longevity of this game is definitely questionable (I feel it will get played heavily by many for a few months before being ditched for another game, similar to games like COD) I have to say that I am quite enjoying various aspects of the game.
Therefore I thought I would pose to the community the idea of a compliment Sandwich. Whether it be in the style of a compliment/complaint/compliment or vice versa, I think anyone should be able to pick out some positives and negatives, and I’d be interested to see what people think.
If people have a complaint, maybe a suggestion on how to improve it would be a constructive way of displaying your thoughts in a non-flameable way.
So I’ll probably post more later on if this catches on, but here is my first ‘Compliment Sandwich’:
Complaint: One of the first things that I would definitely say has made this game feel ‘un-halo’ like is the Sound Effects in game. Things such as the battle rifle to me sound like they have less of a punch, and in a way it could be possible that in attempts to make the weapons sound more realistic, it has actually spoiled weapons; especially covenant ones. I can’t suggest anything to improve this in this game, but I feel it should be looked at for future iterations.
I also feel like poor Jeff is being given more and more lines, and whilst I love his voice, and think it is something that makes halo multiplayer what it is, I’ve found I tune out many things he says, as it is not of interest to me (which is the same case with many of the medals you receive during gameplay). Finally the soundtrack. I feel like generally for a game the soundtrack is very good (it was always going to be difficult to emulate marty’s scores in previous halo’s) However I have found it is quite limited in it’s size, especially in the menus, where after hearing the same track so much already I’m beginning to prefer it not being there at all. A suggestion here would be to incorporate the rest of the score into the menu. For one it would get heard more, as the re-playability of the campaign compared to previous halo games isn’t there I feel.
Compliment: I think what 343i did with the graphics is mightily impressive. Whilst graphics never concerned me with previous halo games, and I don’t think worse graphics would have had an impact on my overall view of this game, you can’t deny they are impressive. Especially in the cutscenes; the facial detail and animations are unrivalled in this genre. I do have a slight complaint in the graphic direction of the covenant; Grunts look like mini urdnot wrex’s (from mass effect) and jackals also look highly strange, but for what 343i wanted to achieve with that direction they have done it very well.
Complaint: My second complaint is for weapon placements on maps. Whether you like ordinance drops or loadouts (personally I think for general halo gameplay they are bad, but for specific playlists they are perfect) I am constantly finding that I am running out of ammo. Whilst 343 wanted faster gameplay, and staying alive for significant periods is harder (too hard for my liking) that inability to find ammo when I’ve managed to stay alive is a bit disappointing. It is one of the biggest reasons I, and probably many other people feel halo 4 does not play like other halo’s, and that is that in most instances map control has gone. A suggestion here (apart from a custom playlist) is for more weapon spawns on the map. Not power weapons, just normal starting weapons.
TLDR; post a ‘compliment sandwich’ (compliment/complaint (with suggestion of way to improve this)/compliment or vice versa, of your thoughts/opinions on halo 4