Halo 4 (X360)

[Oowoon]

Introduction

In 2007, Halo 3 came out, with a thrilling climax, it is there that Humanity finished the fight against the Covenant, and we last saw the Chief floating in space in the Forward Unto Dawn.

 

Much has happened since that time, Bungie went on to create Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach before handing the series to the fledgling 343 Industries. Since then, 343 has had to live up to the mantle it has been given. Does it live up to previous installments?

 

Background

Just so you do not get lost in some of the events this is what has gone on in the Master Chief's absence. The following will contain spoilers for the books, if you do not intend to read them, read ahead.

 

In the Chief's absence, the circumstances surrounding the Spartan-II project have come to light. At a young age, a select group of children were kidnapped from their homes, and trained to what would eventually become the Spartan-II project. Dr. Halsey, the scientist who spearheaded the project, has been arrested for that reason. The entire story of it is detailed in Glasslands. After the events in Halo 3, the Elite race was also split into a ton of factions, some standing by the Arbiter and Shipmaster Rtas in being in peace with the Humans, some still believing in the Great Journey that the Prophets had come up with, and some just wanting to exterminate what remains of the Human race after the Human-Covenant War. With the Master Chief being MIA, the United Global Space Command had to come up with something to combat and protect the Human race, and this came in the form of the Spartan-IVs.

 

Part One: Campaign

In the campaign, you are once again put in the shoes of the Master Chief. One of the main plotlines in the story is that Cortana is descending into Rampancy, a condition that happens to Smart AIs after seven years of operation. The Chief must face an ancient evil that will threaten the Human race once more. Overall, the campaign is what you have come to expect of Halo campaigns. There is a very interesting world to explore, and more enemies to fight. Not to mention the Chief's famous one-liners we have come to expect from him.

 

 

Part Two: Multiplayer

In the multiplayer, you are a Spartan-IV, that is pitted against other Spartan-IVs for training purposes. There are a few different sections to multiplayer, Which is War Games, Spartan Ops, Forge, and Custom Games.

 

War Games Matchmaking

Overall, the Matchmaking experience is very fun. 343 has decided to take a different approach to matchmaking, instead of making a few playlists that have multiple gametypes to them, each playlist usually tailors to one gametype. This makes what you want to play a ton easier to do, and you are no longer constrained to having to play what everyone else chooses. There is also Join-In-Progress, which effectively fixes the problem associated with teammates that quit. Which makes me very happy, because I no longer have to deal with taking on four people by myself.

 

 

Spartan Ops

Spartan Ops continues the campaign's story six months after the Halo 4 campaign. You are fireteam Crimson, the one team that Commander Sarah Palmer, leader of the Spartan Fireteams, can rely on. This episodic weekly series consists of 5 15-minute chapters, which are 5 chapters per episode. Overall, it is a fun experience. However, they reuse a lot of the same maps in episodes. That is not to say that it hampers the experience, it just becomes a tad tiresome to see the same terrain over and over.

 

Custom Games

This is the part I hate to write. They have done very questionable things to custom games. Race and Assault are absent, along with Headhunter and Invasion from Halo: Reach. The settings have also been severely limited in Flood mode, Infection's successor. Because of the limited gametypes, they have effectively destroyed much of Custom Games potential. They have also obliterated the Race community, under the grounds that the Race mode did not fit in the whole "Simulation theme" of the multiplayer, which, to me, seemed to be the most god awful reasoning to not include one of Halo's best gametypes. Yet, they decide to include Grifball as its own gametype. Where does that fit, Kevin Franklin?

 

Forge

Forge once again returns in Halo 4 as the map making tool. Overall, it is unchanged. They have added magnets, which help align forge pieces in a much cleaner fashion. However, they seem to have put some of the magnets in the wrong places, making some pieces very difficult to align properly. In addition, some of the preportions of the forge pieces have made the coordinate system a very difficult thing to work with. (as in, if you use coordinates, the forge pieces overlap just a bit) To top it off, precision editting has been taking out, making it impossible to align those pieces exactly in a accurate fashion.

 

That is not to say that Forge does not make huge strides. They have now added Dynamic Lighting to Forge. Which allows the forge pieces to project shadows on objects. This alone makes it the best Forge to work with, despite its downfalls. This is not to say that Dynamic Lighting itself doesn't have drawbacks. Splitscreen gameplay is very laggy on Forge Maps. The reason being the high polygon count of the Forge pieces and the Dynamic Lighting. This has yet to be addressed in a patch. They have also added three smaller Forge Worlds to build on, instead of one huge Forge World like in Halo: Reach.

 

 

 

 

Verdict

I'm a huge Halo fan, so it's hard for me not to like one. But overall, this game is a 4/5. The gameplay is solid, and the sandbox is the best in the series. I cannot however, ignore the serious damage that has been done to Custom Games. I still recommend this game to anyone who loves shooters, however.