To 343i, a veteran's review of Halo 4

Games Other Halo
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Hello everyone,

After almost one and a half year of H4 and considering the fact that the next Halo game is in preparation, I think it is time to look back and write a review about it.
As 343i usually asks for the players’ feedback in the forum, I believe this is the right place to write this down. I don’t believe my opinion matters more than the opinions from the other players, but I want to give you an honest and, hopefully, constructive, feedback. Before I start with my review, let me introduce myself properly.

I have been playing Halo since the very begining, when I bought my XBOX back in 2001. I played the campaign a tremendous amount of times and enjoyed a lot of local multiplayer games with my very good friends, with whom I still play online currently. When Halo 2 arrived, we started to play the multiplayer (still local) even more often, almost every week-end, and we also played the campaign a lot of times (especially the first few missions, in New Mumbasa.). The campaign of Halo 2 is, in my opinion, still the best Halo campaign ever made.
In 2006, I finally subscribed to XBOX live on my brand new XBOX 360 and started to play online on Halo 2 (back then, I went by the gamertag Doctor Fight). I found it very tough, but I played it quite often until the release of Halo 3. When it was finally released, I became a multiplayer machine, spending a lot of my free time on it. I played it for a good two years quite intensively (6000+ games), and then reduced the pace for some time, for some personnal reasons. I was never a great player on H3, but I was definitely above average.
Things got to an entirely new level with the release of Halo:Reach. This is the moment where I became H de Guerre. To this day, it is the Halo game that I played the most (7500+ games, 120000+ Kills). This game was totally awesome and the introduction of new game mechanics like Armor Abilities brought some fresh air into the serie. I also played some firefight back in those days. I never had the presumption to be professional or anything like it, but I believe I became quite a decent casual gamer.
The reason why I am telling you this here is because I really want you to know that I am a gamer who really cares about the Halo franchise and knows it very well. I think is it important that you know that I believe such reviews can help you to make the best Halo game ever. Now, shall we start?

HALO 4 - A VETERAN’S REVIEW

Before I start to describe some specifics on the different faces of this game, let me make clear that Halo 4 is, in my opinion, the best game of the franchise, so far. I’m talking here about an overall review. Of course, there are some things that are not as good as in previous games, but there are also so many good things. So, I want to warmly thank all of the people at 343i who participated in the creation of this excellent game, and also for caring for their community.

This review will be split in three parts, namely about the Campaign, the War Games and the Spartan Ops.

Campaign [Warning: contains spoilers!]

I played the campaign a few times and I really enjoyed it. The new universe in which this new trilogy is going is very nice and interesting. The design of the new foes is great and the gameplay associated with them is refreshing. The plot is pretty good (even though, since I’m quite a fan of Cortana, I cannot be totally sure about my opinion on it before I see what happens next :wink: ). The realization, in terms of visual rendering, is very impressive, as are the new musical themes. Taking over the work of O’Donnell and Salvatori was quite a tour de force by Davidge. Of course, the campaign could have been a little longer, but I prefer a good campaign of such a length than a artificially streched campaign that has to make use of odd twists to become longer.
In conclusion, I really liked H4’s campaign and I can’t wait to see what you guys will come up with in the next game. All I can say is: “Please bring Cortana back ;-)!”

War Games

This is of course the place where I spent the more time (4500+ games,ongoing). For this part, I’ll start to list first the things I really like, and then the things that I believe could be improved.

Good

  • The custom loadout system is, in my opinion, the best improvement in the multiplayer gameplay since the addition of Armor Abilities. It allows for role-based tactics in objective-based gametypes and taylor-made gameplays in general, which polarizes the game in a good way. People choose their armor mods, weapon and abilities based on their gaming style and preferences, bringing a better experience for everyone. The balance is relatively well set, so that nothing is actually overkill.
  • I have always been a big fan of infection gametypes, and I have to admit that the new Flood gametype is pretty impressive. The balance between the human and flood states is really good. Playing the flood is actually very enjoyable, unlike in Reach.
  • The new Extraction gametype is really well thought and works very well.
  • The fact that, now, every rifle has its range of domination is very nice, because you need to choose you rifle wisely and you should be able to master all of them.
  • Instant respawns and increased speed brings faster paced games and improve the overall dynamics of the war games.

Bad

  • The join in progress (JIP) system is broken, in many aspects. First, the networking between player is not good enough, which makes the quitting of the host a real pain in the -Yoink- for everyone else (several minutes long black screens…). The fact that there is no sanction for quitting gives an incentive for players to cowardly quit games or rage-quit. This cannot be good. I believe you should either make the JIP much more efficient (by this, I mean almost no black screen.) or simply come back to the old system, were player were sanctionned for quitting to much (I suggest severe temporary ban (like 1 hour, for instance) after three subsequent quits, or negative exp. points., etc…)
  • The matchmaking is not always very fair, and the system should be reviewed. I understand that, when there are not enough player in a playlist, it is difficult to match players in a decent time. Why not merger a few playlists, for instance?
  • Even though there were nice improvement recently thanks to the Husky Raid, the Action Sack playlist never reached the level of Reach’s, let alone H3’s.
  • The total disappearance of excellent gametypes from Reach, like Headhunter or Stockpile.
  • This is more of a personnal preference, but I think multi-team is best with 3v3v3v3 and Rocket Hog Race, and should be available at any time, as it is the best way to enjoy the game while being a party of 3, which happens quite often (at least, to me).
  • The progression system was really too fast. I have to admit that I played a lot in the first few months, but that was my very first disappointement. I mean, the game was out on November 6, and I got stuck at SR 130 on January 8. Compared to Halo Reach, where it took me almost two years (07/2012) to become an Inheritor, it is really short. You could have add some very high level limit after all the speciallizations were cleared, say 1-50 base training, 51-130 specialization and 131-500 Veteran ranks.

[…] Need a 2nd post to finish[…

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Very interesting posts

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Others

  • I don’t know what to make of ordnance drops. On the one hand, I like the idea of getting the chance to do a comeback thanks to a good weapon, but on the other hand it kills all the “weapons/map control” gameplay. I believe that, now, the balance between gametypes that include it or not is pretty good.

  • Also, I understand that the graphic engine works a lot throughout the game, but the fact that split-screen multiplayer is so difficult on certain maps (forge maps, Complex, …) is unacceptable. I don’t know how you could solve this problem.

Spartan Ops

I have to admit that I was pretty excited by the novelty of the spartan ops program. Then, in practice, it is not as bright.

Bad

  • The maps are too often the same. It kills a little the idea of a “secondary campaign”.
  • I don’t feel the impression that I am actually making the story progress. It feels more like a bunch of firefight missions…
  • Some of the characters lack depth, but that is very personnal.

Good

  • The overall plot is quite interesting and the cutscenes are very nice.
  • Even though the maps are not diverse, they are very nice and the level design is quite good, like in the rest of the game.

Side note

I was as disappointed to see the disappearance of firefight as I was glad to see the appeareance of spartan ops. I think firefight was a very nice feature of the previous games and it is a shame that it just vanished like that. I mean, it could have been easy to implement it on the spartan ops maps, I believe. The very deep level of customization of firefight is something I miss.

In conclusion to that part, I would just ask you to bring back firefight in the sequel and to involve the player a little more in the spartan ops campaign.

Conclusion

I hope you made it to this point :wink:
As previously stated, I think Halo 4 is an excellent game that exhibits both an ambitious spirit of renewal and some refreshing ideas. The realization is fantastic and I think that some of the new game mechanics are great. I believe there are a few mistakes that could be learned from this game, which, if suppressed, could bring an even better Halo experience in the next opus.

That’s it for me! I hope the reading of this review was not too tedious and that some of those comments were constructive enough for you to be able to take advantage of them. Please keep delivering such good games!

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Good post. You were not biased to point only the good or the bad.

I agree with most of your points, specially about Spartan Ops. Very repetitive and lame dialogue. I still like playing it ocassionaly. And a few days ago I was talking to a friend of mine about how changin how the maps look like a bit would have made it a little better (Example: Last time I was here it was sunny, now it is dark/rainy/night)

JIP annoyed me when I used to play for commendations. Now that I finished those, I mostly play for fun now.

As for features of the Infinity settings. In the next Halo, I wouldn’t mind if Infinity turned into Social. Ranked/Competitive playlists should remain equal.

And again, good post.

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There is a punishment for quitting much games on a short time, but I don’t know how much quits it needs to get punished. I once got a hour matchmaking ban from quitting. I don’t remember why I had quit that much but was my own fault. Maybe it could be more strict.

Good post.

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excellent post very well thought out and constructed and its solid to hear an old school fan who likes the newness of Reach and and H4. What i miss most about Reach was the variety of gamemodes and in BTB. i loved assault, 1 flag, headhunter and sorely miss the falcon. Invasion could not be replaced by dominon although i do very much so like dominon. Spartan ops biggest downfall is the horrable connection online and the fact you cant see your DLC armor kills the feeling of your spartan, not chief or palmer, completing the mission and getting the job done. That same thing is what crippled multiplayer is the bad connection and lack luster execution online. 130 deffinetly isnt a high enough rank either especially considering this will be the last Major Halo on the 360! i popped in reach just yesterday and noticed theres still people trying to climb through the ranks to inheritor and on that note i prefer the way ranks and spartans were shown in the lobby. having stances in H4 was a clever addition but the rest of the lobby was a step backwards

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I really like your post and glad it isn’t bias, It’s also good to see another long term halo fan who enjoys the new and old. Halo 4 wasn’t the greatest but for me one of the best.

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HALO REACH FOREVER

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If I could just put in my two cents, I strongly disagree with your characterization of Flood vs Infection. Reach’s infection was far more enjoyable in matchmaking overall due to a lack of extremely overpowered lunge and thrusters, and had one huge advantage outside of matchmaking, which brings me to my next point; Forge and Custom Games. I cannot even explain how much 343i messed up here. I will not go into a huge rant here, but if you would like to see just some of the many reasons that it has been essentially ruined, just look up some forge channels on Youtube, I.E. Mr Pokephile, THFE, etc.

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Excellent post OP. As a fellow casual I can’t really disagree with anything.

The problem I see with Halo 4 is that A- the networking/settings/coding seems a little wonky, messing with updates and preventing good connections and such, and B- the content is a little lacking. Too many demographics of Halo were starved, in particular the competitive community.

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Great post mate! Couple of things I’d also like to point out while we’re at the topic:

First, I too really enjoyed the campaign of H4 but the ending sequence left me a little bit empty handed, I really had wished for a final showdown with the didact! I guess im just an old school fan who loved the H2 ending where you get an actual boss fight. ^^

And second, the abandoned game modes from reach. Stockpile and headhunter were great! The arena mode was also really fun and competitive. You really felt awesome when you got placed in a high division! And oh how I craved for invasion in H4…
Anyone agrees?

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Thank you all for the supporting comments!

I have to admit that I didn’t use the Forge a lot, so I didn’t feel in the position to review it.
As for the Flood gametype, I agree that the old living dead playlist on Reach brought more fun while playing the human, as you could easily get to 20+ kills in a round and get the chance to obtain high multi-kill medals. But the rounds as a zombie were really hard to enjoy, in my opinion.

One small detail that I forgot: I miss some of the medals from previous games, such as all the specific sprees (sniper spree, shotgun spree, …). Those ones were tricky to get, and gave a nice challenge into every game. On a personnal matter, I prefered the more cartoonish style of the medals in the previous game, too (especially the multi-kills).

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I honestly had more fun, even as a zombie, in reach, but that’s just me. At the very least, one shot head shots need to return. Without them, the pistol simply isn’t a viable weapon at any range. But allow me to elaborate on why I enjoyed Reach zombies. Evade, in my eyes, was much more fun to use. You felt much more in control, and due to the duck and roll maneuver, it was nearly impossible to be killed by a lone human until you came back up, unless you got too close before using it. Also, having the ability to essentially fly is simply overwhelming in H4, and while I can’t quite put my finger on it, lunge seems far too powerful as is for some reason. Infection should play as follows: 1-2 humans fall behind and get picked off at start - larger horde overwhelms small encampments - horde overruns main holdout OR Humans survive through good communication and teamwork. I would even go so far as to say many camping spots in Reach (I.E. Pinnacle Tower/Cage Roof) we’re balanced by the fact that zombies could trick jump with evade if they were good enough. But they couldn’t just fly up or across the map.

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> Good post. You were not biased to point only the good or the bad.
>
> I agree with most of your points, specially about Spartan Ops. Very repetitive and lame dialogue. I still like playing it ocassionaly. And a few days ago I was talking to a friend of mine about how changin how the maps look like a bit would have made it a little better (Example: Last time I was here it was sunny, now it is dark/rainy/night)

^Yeah Siul I do remember you telling me that, LOL.

To OP: I agree with most of your points as well and love how you wrote this as un-biased as possible.

I too absolutely love Halo 4’s campain, the new story and music/graphics are great. However, the gameplay of H4’s campain is not particularly the best for replayability like for example Halo: CE or Halo 2. Also the AI are kinda at their dumbest as far as intelligence goes, IMO.

I really like how Halo 4 significantly improved on Reach’s ideas with the loadout system, its much more fun and balanced IMO but I do agree it would work better as a social thing while Ranked/Competitve works much better with equal starts and such.

JIP is rather annoying, but when I go back to previous games and my whole team quits I’ve begun to appreciate it much more.

I also love how well balanced the loadout weapons are in H4 since the TU. No longer are the Automatics useless… However H4 also has WAY too many 1-hit kill weapons that flood the sandbox IE: Incin, Rail, Binary, Sticky Det, etc. Also the SAW creates a redundancy with the way it is as portable as an AR but just as deadly as a Mounted Machine Gun Turret. Why use the AR or Turret when you can have a SAW?

As for quitting, there NEEDS to be a big penalty of some sort for doing so as it sucks either way wether YOUR team quits and leaves you by yourself or the ENEMY quits and your team is left having to seek out that ONE guy. Thats no fun for anyone.

As for Flood/Infection, I like how in H4 the infected actually LOOK somewhat like Flood but being a competitive-minded gamer I NEVER liked those gamemodes regardless.

I also miss Headhunter. I loved the idea behind the gametype and as such I love the idea behind Regicide as well.

I can’t stand instant respawn in 8-player Rumble Pit in particular. Always someone spawning right behind you after you JUST KILLED THEM…

I really love the new Magnets in forge, although I do not actually forge much myself.

As for Spartan Ops, I like the idea behind it, but it was executed very, VERY poorly. Since the idea is to have Sp OPs be like extra mini-campain levels, the enemies should have been spaced out better and instead of infinite lives the levels should have used the checkpoint system that the campains always have. It would have also been nice if you would see more of your Spartan(including DLC!) in cutscenes like in Halo: Reach.

And I sorely miss surviving in Firefight.

Anyway nice to see another Halo Veteran who can apreciate Reach and H4.

-SMARTAN 427

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Now, I understand you point about zombie gametypes. I agree on some of your comments, but I think some of them depend on your vision of what is a good zombie game. Tastes and colors…

Otherwise, as it appeared a few times, it seems that a split between social and ranked games like in H3 would be welcome. And yes, I totally agree that the social ones would be suited for the more Infinity-oriented settings. I really believe that this kind of orientation for the next Halo game would make the community very happy.

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> > As for quitting, there NEEDS to be a big penalty of some sort for doing so as it sucks either way wether YOUR team quits and leaves you by yourself or the ENEMY quits and your team is left having to seek out that ONE guy. Thats no fun for anyone.
> >
> > -SMARTAN 427
>
> I completely agree. Quitting needs to have a VERY hefty penalty. It’s usually the hardcores that quit for stuff like not getting their map or gametype or having bad teammates.
>
> If that hurt xp progression and CSR, heavily, they would stay for the game most likely. Could they still leave? Of course, but it stops penalizing the people that stick it out (Simply by making it happen less often).
>
> Really everyone wins. Even if it’s a lopsided match. Shoot… especially if it’s a lopsided match. The winning team gets more action and a quicker game and the losing team gets more even deaths and a quicker game.
>
> Also, if half the people or more quit, the game should be resign-able for the short handed team. In this case, the winners get their win and XP / CSR as if the game finished, the quitters get the quit and harsh penalty, and the shorthanded people get the loss / CSR down without the BS that comes with finishing the game (but NOT a quit).
>
> Harsh penalties for quitting is not to be hardcore at all. And if you have a real life thing or are really hot… quit. You’ll lose a chunk of XP and CSR of 2-3 losses… but it’s just a game. Nobody is saying you can never quit. If you think about it, the harsher the penalties, the less hardcore the system is (think about full circle) and the more happy everyone is.
>
> Also, limit JIP to first minute or so. Make JIP an option that can be turned off in search options. If everyone turned it off, well then, there would be no JIP. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But if someone like myself who just wants to play good games leaves JIP on… more power to me for helping try to even matches.
>
> That’s my vote anyway.

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> I really love the new Magnets in forge, although I do not actually forge much myself.

Although I generally agree with most of your other points, this really bugs me. I really hate to pull this card, but as you openly admit, you do not forge much. As any forger can tell you, however, magnets simply cater to less skilled forgers creating simplistic, boring maps, in 343i’s image of what forge should be. In reality, precision editing was far more useful, and magnets are nearly useless due to the fact that there are only certain specific points that can be connected on any block, which is completely counterproductive to creative uses of different pieces. On top of this, while it isn’t an easy thing to explain, the main building pieces are actually TOO detailed. For more info on forge from a forger’s perspective, see below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPoo7lZcqVY
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This would also make skill matching more accurate over time.

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> This would also make skill matching more accurate over time.

Could you please give that some context? What would?

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> > This would also make skill matching more accurate over time.
>
> Could you please give that some context? What would?

Yeah, I botched it with a double post. I was referring to my above post about implementing tougher quit penalties. Over time, that would create more accurate CSR matching.

Less people would be quitting and therefore more matches would be played out. This makes the scoring more accurate and ultimately cleans up CSR accuracy. Of course, greater population helps this MORE, but I’m just pointing out another ‘little thing’ that less quitting helps assist.