Halo 4 is a game with amazing potential, the story is well written, and the matchmaking has been improved in bits in pieces. Although many fans like myself are unhappy with some of the changes in Halo 4, you can’t help but appreciate many of the games they actually brought us.
//Campaign// The introduction to the story was really exciting. They quickly overviewed who master chief was, how he became to be a spartan, and the fate of Doctor Halsey after the Human-Covenant war. The CG cinematic was incredible, showing how in a desperate time the spartans come to the rescue. They came from the skies and showed the covenant who’s boss.
At the start of the campaign, you go through a traditional “look up and down” like in the first three Halo games, with each one being slightly different. Running around on the ship was a cool experience, and a time for Master Chief to talk to Cortana on what had happened and how they got there. The fight against the covenant again wasn’t bland, there was a reason they were on the ship and also a reason to why you fight them.
The theme is quickly established, the man-machine thing, and gives you the objective to stop the Ur-Didact while Cortana deals with her own mortality. The introduction of spartan IV’s in the game are a pleasant surprise, and actually act like how Spartans should act. They are professional, lean, mean, killing machines. They act differently from the marines, and are an upgrade from the old intelligence. A spartan or marine with a heavy weapon (rocket launcher) will enter the passenger seat instead of entering a gunner seat, so this lets you do maximum damage. It has many themes and key points from the previous Halo games, and you can’t beat driving a tank and demolishing your enemies.
Master Chief realizes that he has his own choice, his own options, and realizes he is human like everyone else. He disobeys orders, which a Spartan would never do. He understood that if they were to ditch Infinity and not attack the Didact in his vulnerable phase, Earth would be at risk.
John is also shown to fail for the first time. In the first trilogy, Master Chief was always portrayed as this badass who comes to save the day, and walks away from any situation by only scraping off jackal parts off his boots. Honestly it was a cool theme, but the portrayal in Halo 4 was definitely a step up from the previous games. He failed to destroy the composer on the station, and he failed to evacuate all the civilians on the station. It was a great loss. When Cortana was talking to the Chief after all had been enslaved by the composer, Master Chief tries to keep his Spartan tone and tries to move on like nothing had happened. It was different however, Master Chief paused for a moment and thought about all the lives lost, about the failure, and how they were just regular people. He reassures Cortana that it isn’t over yet, and that the Didact could be stopped and she could be saved.
In the final moments of the game, Cortana has just about lost it, she was failing, and the Didact had directed the composer on Earth. After Cortana was thought to be destroyed, we heard a cry of pain from John. He had finally been broken, he had lost something near and dear to him even though he never admitted a strong connection between them. John hears the tantalizing whispers of Cortana as he progresses with his mission to destroy the composer. The Didact stops him and planned to crush him, before Cortana, still alive within the light bridge, managed to attack the Didact through his armor which was AI controlled. Master Chief attempted to kill the Didact with a grenade, and was so unbelievably weak that he had to crawl torwards the nuke. You could hear the pain in his voice, as he collapsed, inching himself torward the nuke, and then detonating it with a cry, because he was sure this was the end of his life, and that he gave it to save Earth from the Didact’s clutches.
The final departure of Cortana had to be the most emotionally agonizing part of the game. John was determined to bring Cortana to Halsey, and that this wasn’t the end. Cortana assured it was, and as John tried one last time to stop her, she said “welcome home, John” and left Master Chief all alone. His greatest attachment, gone.
I would write more, but the Campaign should be enough to show why I love this game.
A Scorpion just isn’t the same, because passengers are mostly irrelevant unless they have a power weapon (which is extremely hard to retrieve and retain during that section due to how quickly they deload. Only way to get an army of FRG Spartans on Infinity is to avoid spawning enemies then go back and kill 1 Grunt at a time, giving it’s FRG to a Spartan).