Halo 4 stands between “traditional” Halo and “traditional” shooters. CoD has perks, and so a lot of other new multiplayer shooters do too, but that’s not an excuse to say Halo 4 copies a lot of other games, not CoD. Halo: Combat Evolved created the best sci-fi shooter known as Halo. Guess the greatest thing it innovated:
[Bungie had no idea gamers would be willing to bring their TVs over to other people’s homes just to play them in multiplayer over System Link. They figured that the only people who would play it were college students who already had Local Area Networks (LANs) installed in their dorm rooms. That’s why, even though System Link supports 16 players, you can only network four Xbox consoles together. When System Link became Halo’s most popular feature, and Bungie discovered people were willing to bring over equipment to other people’s homes to have LAN parties, this was changed in Halo 2.]
Halo 2 innovated with skillful multiplayer, a feature which games in our generation no longer wish to strive toward, making Halo unique.
My Halo history is rusty, so correct me if I’m wrong. Halo 3 had a huge amount of custom gametypes making it awesome. The most meorable things of Halo 3 was that it introduced Forge and Theater Modes, a first for any game(again, correct me if I’m wrong). Also, Fileshare!
Halo 3 ODST: Haven’t even played this. Did this game even innovate? EDIT: It introduced Firefight.
Halo: Reach: Took away traditional Halo roots. Sprint, AAs and a plethora of new features.
Halo 4: An average amount of Halo is left. Master Chief back, Cortana gone in this game alone. Multiplayer isn’t Halo, the physics have Sprint implemented. Multiplayer is what made Halo the number one game on Xbox LIVE. We indulged far too much in this victory, and this is where our anger, jealously, lack of hope, and expectations originate. The Reclaimer Trilogy might lack proper multiplayer(I find it fun, my personal opinion) but story is why this game is Halo. We got Covvies, the MC, Cortana, and back to creepy Forerunner roots(see Gravemind/Cortana moments).
Also Spartan Ops in implemented.
All in all, every Halo innovates in its own special way. The Reclaimer Trilogy is here to tell a story, which is its greatest strength.