Some thoughts on Halo 4

Ok, now after having Halo 4 for about two months, I'll post a few of my opinions on the game!

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!

I think the campaign is more cinematic than before, well, maybe in Halo 2 they had as much of cutscenes and spoken lines. At least that's how it felt like. In Halo 4 there is a lot of in-game talk between Cortana and MC, which is great. Also the facial animations are much much better and realistic than what they were in Reach.

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! =)

Xbox 360 Halo 4 Limited Edition

For quite some time I've considered buying a new Xbox console because the old one was quite noisy and lacking with some ports and built-in wireless. So when Halo 4 was announced Microsoft also announced a special edition Xbox 360 console to be released simultaneously with the game on November 6th 2012. As a Halo franchise fan, that was the perfect time and excuse to finally buy the new console.

Even though the Xbox Halo 4 Limited Edition console is quite expensive and everyone is expecting a totally new Xbox hardware next year (rumored to be Xbox 720 or something), I thought what the heck! It looks great and unique, ships with two cool controllers, Halo 4 bundle copy and has huge hard drive. And yes, it's very quiet. No sound at all if you've installed the game, at least. On my old Xbox 360 Elite the humming was still quite loud even when game had been installed.

So here's just a few pics of the console and controllers. It has a mechanical looking, Forerunner-ish stripes in cyan and silver and the plastic cover is transparent both on the console and the controllers. Also all the lights are blue instead of the classic Xbox green. I'll write more about my impressions of Halo 4 on another post =)

6609 games later - Halo: Reach

Wohooo! On Friday 23 March 2012 I finally reached the max rank of Inheritor in Halo: Reach, after a whopping 6609 games! =D Reward: the haunted helmet. Price: weeks and weeks of time sacrificed for the cause. Since the game has played a big role in my life for the last years I figured achieving the max rank was worth a little sparkling wine!

Becoming Inheritor doesn't actually mean I'd be among the top skilled players, not at all. If anything it only tells that I've spent ALOT of time playing the game =) I can honestly say I'm only about average+ player by my skills, perhaps party because of my playing style - I just want to rush into battle (foolishly) and have fun instead of hiding in distance and sniping the enemy players.

Reaching the end of the line is something I never believed I could achieve when I started playing the game over 1,5 years ago. But now I'm there, the journey is finished and new challenges await - not in Halo: Reach, but in Halo 4 that is coming out later this year. Looking forward to that!

Thank you Bungie and 343 Industries for the great moments I've had over the thousands and thousands of games played!

If you're interested, you can see my Halo: Reach stats page

Bungie t-shirts - a nerdy fashion report

A week ago I finally received a Bungie branded t-shirt all the way from the USA! It's good quality, simplistically stylish and has a bit of kick-ass attitude. Bungie is the company behind the now much popular Halo game series. Its Myth II was one of the last games I liked to play on computer until a decade of pause from video games. Then, Bungie's Halo 3 brought me back into gaming, this time on Xbox 360.

The new shirt will join my collection of two t-shirts from Bungie that date back all the way to the late 90's, when I was in my golden nerd years, so to speak. Back then Bungie games like Marathon and Myth were my top favorites because of their great storytelling and throughout quality.

The Bungie t-shirt would've been even cooler if they had put their slogan in Latin, as they did in their old coat of arms stickies "Non facete nobis calcitrare vestrum perineum" (I love Latin stuff because I studied the language myself in high school). On the back of Marathon 2 shirt there's this hilarious, perhaps bit naughty pic of the AI controlled friendly BOB units of the Marathon games.

I got the Marathon 2 shirt with Marathon Trilogy Box set (one of the greatest product packings too, imho) and Myth II shirt along with Myth II. Sadly though those shirts are XL-sized so I haven't wore them much. The new Bungie t-shirt, however, is my size S and fits perfectly! Can't wait for the summer to arrive so I can wear the shirt with pride. I honestly think Americans produce great everyday clothes. In addition to the Bungie shirts, I've got a couple of Hawaii shirts that may be unfashionable, but excellent in quality =)

Back in mid-late 90's I actually had my first penpal/internet-friend working at Bungie, who sent me all sorts of cool Bungie collectibles and even the autograph of then-Bungie-CEO Alex Seropian. But that's another story to tell!

For a funny closing here's a pic from the days of glory:

Me (on the left) and two of my friends holding Myth products circa 1997. Notice: I also wear Chicago Bulls cap (Bungie was founded in Chicago) and the cap has a Myth stickie attached to it as well =D

PS. Sorry I didn't iron the Marathon 2 and Myth II shirts for their photoshoots!

Happy 10th Anniversary Master Chief!

Ok, I'm few days late with this, but better late than never, right? =)

Anyway, so it's been 10 years since the launch of the original Xbox from Microsoft, along with Halo, it's launch title and what one might call the console's "killer app".

I was thrilled about the original Halo since it was to be released on Mac by Bungie who had made the outstanding Marathon game trilogy (indeed, Marathon is the spiritual predecessor of Halo). I kept watching this video of the initial Halo announcement by Steve Jobs over and over again.. But then Microsoft bought Bungie to port the game for their upcoming console. It was such a sad moment and I lost interest in Halo - until the summer of 2010.

It was my little brother who introduced me to Xbox 360 and two titles in specific: Dirt 2 and Halo 3 (in multiplayer). I was so impressed about the games and the thrilling atmosphere in Halo 3 multiplayer that very soon I bought my own Xbox 360 and Halo 3 alongside it (before playing the campaign I also bought and played through the original Halo: CE and Halo 2 so I wouldn't miss anything from the story!). Later on I also got my hands on Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST.

Now, I will have the opportunity to play the original Halo completely refined to match the look of modern games. The original Halo: CE I bought and played on my Xbox 360 was already 9 years old, in 4:3 ratio and with laggy frame rate and old graphics.

So it's time for me to finally experience Halo: CE as a new game just like the others had enjoyed it 10 years ago. I also look forward on the new multiplayer map experience over Halo: Reach. See you on Xbox Live!

My gamer tag: AliquisNJ