Overview and the Campaign
Here we go again!
I had some serious doubts about 343 Industries taking over the Halo saga after Bungie, but those doubts vanished really quickly once I started playing Halo 4. In fact, it only needed the simple yet elegant start screen =D With the image of the Forerunner planet Requiem and just plain space with awesome piece of music, I was feeling really excited already.
First thing you'll notice is that the game is beautiful, really really beautiful! It took me few minutes just to move to the next room because I was gazing at the details and the super rich light effects Halo 4 has. It's amazing how smooth the game still runs, I mean it's still the same old Xbox 360 hardware! The controls are little re-arranged, there's more armor capabilities and weapons, but overall it feels very familiar.
I'm not going to go into the details of the story of Halo 4, except that it's actually a love story! Yes, believe it or not. One epic love story, starring Master Chief and Cortana, who after 8 years of service is starting to deteriorate since artificial intelligences' "best-before" date is at 7 years. Sure, there is a super villain Forerunner called Didact on the Requiem (where MC ended up in the Legendary ending of Halo 3). Didact is on a mission to destroy mankind and Earth, but preventing that has been made a second-in-line concern over the health of Cortana. Rescuing her is the priority for Master Chief. We've all used to seeing them together over the course of 10 years so emotionally it works so that the player too wants to keep Cortana alive. We've seen Master Chief save the world quite some times already, so it's good he has new priorities - to keep his lady Cortana alive. Awesome!
Cortana looks better than ever even though her mind is troubled!
On the minus side of the campaign are the usual things: It's too short and frankly, I think it was way too easy. Playing a game on a skill level called Legendary should be like pain all the way through, having to repeat each and every scene a million times. But in Halo 4 there were only few places where that occurred. Oh, and another complaint is the variety of the maps. I liked it that there were maps for all vechiles and stuff, but to me it felt like too much time inside Forerunner or human constructions ( = boring environment). So kind of repetitive levels in that sense, would've liked more nature themed maps etc.
Multiplayer games
I'll put it simple: Halo 4 has the most advanced multiplayer games of any Halos, in my opinion. There are plenty of new things, e.g. showing vechiles and special weapons on the HUD radar and having all kinds of tactical set ups for your armor. All this makes it seemingly easier for the player, but the variety of different armor combinations creates many many strategies each player can follow. However, this is also a downside and some people might not like the extended complexity. For instance I'm stuck to the very basic: having infinite speed boost, grenade damage boost, Promethean vision (see through walls) and long distance guns. I admit, should try all other options too, but I'm too lazy... Despite the changes, the gameplay still feels familiar and you can get into it pretty quickly.
Classic game types are there too, but with new twists. In capture the flag, for example, the flag carrier can now also use his Magnum while carrying the flag!
There is a nice amount of game types, one of the new ones is Regicide where top scorer is the King and the rest of the players try to kill him, fun! There's two really big new concepts in Halo 4, first is Spartan Ops which is like a continuing Campaign Add-On, chapters that you can play either solo or online. Second thing is the Infinity slayer that is enabled in many gamelists. The game gives you bonuses for good tricks and kills you make in the game. Once a certain point level is reached, you can pick a weapon/armor ability out of three choices. And I like it that there is much more medals and things you get awarded on, like driving the flag carrier back to your home base is something you previously had to do with no personal benefit.
One thing that is much better in Halo 4 compared to Reach is the multiplayer maps that come out of box. They've been specifically made to suit multiplayer games and they're not just campaign map rip-offs like in Reach. The maps are really beautiful, like big team slayer map Exile (see video below). Also, I like the fact that there's no mechanical Forge maps in the multiplayer game, at least not yet.
Full HD gameplay sample from big team multiplayer map Exile. (My nick is AliquisNJ and as you can see, I'm not very pro =D But say hi if you bump into me in a game!)
Concolusion
I'd say Halo 4 continues the tradition of epic storylines, beautiful graphics and music with the greatest feature being the multiplayer games that simply rock!
Oh, and Happy New Year folks! =)
