343's first Halo game, Halo 4, has been out for over six months now and it's impact on the Community has been profound in both the negative and positive impacts. In this review, however, it'll be from my point of view. What did 343 do wrong, what did they do right? Actually, you know what? No. This review is going to be mostly what pissed me off about Halo 4. If you want a positive one, go read IGN or something. 1) User Interface Design This is the absolute worse aspect of Halo 4. It's User Interface is a complete, disjointed mess that follows the Windows 8 design mantra of making things as difficult as possible for users to actually use. It abandon's Reach's excellent UI in exchange for a weird, player card based interface that requires more clicks just to do basic things. It also is painfully blue. It's stomaching flipping bad design. In addition, music always plays. I'm fine with Reach's or Halo 3's ambient/white noise that plays but Halo 4's constant barrage of bass, wailing monks and mass effect/battlefield-esque techno/radio buzz. 2) Story/Characters 343, I expected better of you. I expected a group of people like yourselves, self-proclaimed fans of the Halo franchise, to actually give a damn about the story. Instead, you are aiming to simplify it even more. Sure, Halo 4's campaign had some excellent moments and it was tightly written compared to the disjointed mess that was Halo: Reach, but it still pales in comparison to other franchises. The Halo franchise has such depth, such personality and you squander itâ"instead of giving us something new, powerful and impacting, we are 'treated' to a simple story that seemed rushed at best in many parts. You rushed the interaction between characters, made Lasky a one-dimensional officer incapable of rational thinking, Andrew Del Rio simply exists to get knocked down by John-117 and Commander Palmer is a pathetic excuse for a character, much less a military "professional". To further the complete mess of characterization occasionally inherent in the narrative, the MAIN VILLIAN isn't even explained past 'ok, bad guy, did bad stuff, go shoot shoot'. It's only revealed almost six months later what his motivations were and what happened to him to the main populace. This is NOT how you write a story. Most of the players of Halo aren't super-nerds like myself who know everything to Halo's universe, be it Vice Admiral Preston Jeremiah Cole's birthday to the exact location where James Ackerson was executed by a Brute. Most gamers aren't going to invest the 1000+ dollars I have in Expanded Universe material, they are going to play campaign, get the achievements and go off to play multiplayer. The story needs to be concise, well explained, and one that can stand on its own. In addition, it needs to be able to have atmosphere and replayability...something that even the mess known as Halo: Reach had. Halo 4's campaign lacks atmosphere and replayability. NONE of the levels except for perhaps Composer have the same atmosphere and diversified environments that Reach or Halo 3 had. The final level in Halo 3 and The Pillar of Autumn in Reach are excellent and are what levels should be based off of in terms of design, atmosphere and overall impact. Instead of increasing and improving the strong gameplay mechanics, we are instead given the same corridor shooter with hilariously incompetent hostile and allied AI. 343, you said you were investing heavily in the Campaign, but I'm not seeing it. I've defended you guys from the rabid hate occasionally spewed against the company on sites, but right now, I can see where it lies. You guys seem incapable of actually addressing issues and instead close your eyes, cover your ears and whistle. Simplifying the story isn't the proper way to tell one, actually explaining stuff and making full 3 dimensional characters with a tight, concise plot with smart events and character interactions, IS. 3)Multiplayer Some parts are really good, some parts are absolutely horrid. The Maps are absolute crap. Honestly, they aren't high-grade at ALL. I'd bring up in balances but that has been neutralized semi-effectively via the recent patches and back-end tuning. 4) Forge Halo 4's forge is somewhere between Halo 3's and Halo Reach's. Overall, it feels like a step backwards. 5) Graphics. Nothing, they're fine except for close-up, they are Halo 2 quality. 6) Net Code It's a hell of a lot better than Reach's. 7)Spartan Ops: Hard Men Making Hard Decisions In A Hard World Spartan Ops is the absolute WORSE STORY EVER TOLD IN HALO'S HISTORY. Why? Its characters are one-dimensional, incompetent twats incapable of actually doing anything logical. Sarah Palmer is a hot-headed, sloppy bitch that isn't fit to be enlisted into the military. Instead of using actual, military tactics, this UNSC seems...and especially ms. Palmer...to resort to Zapp Branigan's rules of war. Even then, they are missing about half the book which covers how a military exercise is to be done. Halsey is vilified even more by 343, the writing is a sloppy, repetition-prone mess not fit to even be in a fan-fic, gameplay is a repetitive mess, maps are over used, the actions of characters are idiotic, the UNSC seems to have hired a bunch of idiotic undergrads to study the Forerunner tech. I could go on and on and on about the idiocy of SpOps but I'll just sum it up as a disjointed, sloppily written mess that is an abomination to the written, spoken and visual word. 7) Music Some pieces, mainly by 343's in-house guy are excellent while Neil Davidge's are hit-and-miss. Some are really impactful and emotional (Green and Blue, Solace) while some are absolutely horrid (Awakening and the SpOps main theme). 8) Sound Effects They're good. 9) Prometheans Reskinned Covenant. When I heard about the Promethean Knights, I thought 343 was going to make them an actual difficulty to fight instead of a bunch of bionicle-rip off mooks. I thought these were going to be horrifying beasts that would take a lot of cunning, skill, and well-timed execution to neutralize that soak up innumberable amounts of fire power and munitions. The only way to take them down is by outsmarting them. unfortunately, that's not what we got. We got a bunch of reskinned covenant with reskinned human weapons. That kind of defines Halo 4. A reskinning without any actual improvements. How sad and unfortunate that 343 decided to take the easy route. submitted by OrionSB to halo link 1 comment
ipad electronica with jazzy and ambient overtones.
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