|
Post by Blade Runner 07 on Feb 26, 2013 14:40:54 GMT -5
How NOT to make a sequel to an iconic franchise. vol. 1
Presentation: 7/10 How do you continue the story to a highly successful franchise that over a ten year span, has revolutionized it's genre by creating iconic characters and innovative gameplay? You just write up a sequel. Halo 4 answers that age old question "What happens next?" and does it while leaving us with more questions than answers. Questioning not just the reason for Halo 4 but the very future of the Halo franchise. Gameplay: 8/10 Halo 4 is using the Reach engine and it's apparent the minute the Master Chief awakes from his 5 year nap. There is no duel wielding, fall damage is back, and now sprinting is a natural ability. The game justifies these changes by telling us right away that Cortana, the main characters blue A.I. friend, has updated his suit. This explains the new HUD but why our main characters iconic armor looks radically different is never explained. Purists will say that everything is explained in the expanded universe of books, and other content but it is no explanation is present in the game. Needles to say this alienates a good chunk of the audience that has been fallowing the games and only the games from Combat Evolved to Reach. It just doesn't make sense to the casual. See? In short, the way the game is played feels like a step sideways. There are tough new enemies that feel a bit too tough at times, and never enough ammo. While advances borrowed from today's popular shooters like hit detection and grenade awareness meters are a nice touch, they feel completely out of place in this franchise. Graphics: 8/10 The next Halo game is going to need a new engine. I have no faith that the Reach engine can be polished any further as it's presented as mixed bag of beautiful lighting and texture effects bogged down by pixilated details and graphical anomaly's. You will be presented with a picturesque landscape one moment that almost looks next-gen just to kill an Elite the next moment and realize that up close, these enemies look about as good as they did in Halo 3. That, and the bland barren surfaces of everything forerunner has worn out it's welcome. These are the finer points that bring this other wise beautiful, if not aged, engine down. Oh, I have to mention the pre-rendered cut-scenes. They hold the best graphics I have ever seen in anything, ever. Why they didn't just shoot live action is beyond me because it looks just as good. While they are fun to watch, they are so cryptic in story that you end up not really knowing what you have seen by the end, other than great graphics. Sound: 9/10 This is where Halo 4 got it right. I'm talking about the sound effects in particular. Every weapon sounds as a weapon should. Powerful and dangerous. Your armor sounds heavy, vehicles have engines now, I mean they sound the way they would sound in reality and in general the sound effects are top notch and better than they have been in any Halo title to date. I can't say the same for the music. While it is fully orchestrated, original, and good quality, I found it to be forgettable. I have played Halo 4 for just over 40 hours, through the campaign on Legendary three times and I can't hum a single tune from the game. The music at times feels just plain out of place. My best example is the main menu where if I close my eyes I'm sure I'm about to press start on a Final Fantasy title screen. Value: 8/10 After the 6-8 hour Campaign, you have multiplayer and Spartan Ops which is a feature that essentially replaces Firefight and tells a story that takes place 6 months after the events of Halo 4. That was a mistake on 343's part. It is not customizable, very repetitive, and tells a story that much like the campaign, leaves with more questions than answers. The multiplayer borrows alot form COD. Their is no rhyme or reason to randomly spawned weapons on the battlefield and rather depends on a scorestreak/loadout system. This is not your daddies Halo. I personally feel that while this style is functional, it detracts from the Halo experience. Frankly, it makes me want to go play COD because COD does it better. I am not happy to be saying this. Trust me. I guess I have to mention Theatre and Forge as they are both in the game but at the time of writing this the file share system is all but broken so map making is pointless and the theatre only records your most recent multiplayer match. No campaign or Spartan Ops missions are recorded which is a shame when I've grown so used to doing something awesome in campaign and watching/recording it to put in my file share in past games. There are no skulls to collect, terminals you can only view by going to a separate application, Halo Waypoint and multiplayer modes that seem to lack focus in all the places that count. Overall: I'm stuck wondering what went wrong. I mean I guess Halo 3 never needed a sequel but 343i promised so much. They said they had former Bungie employees working for them and that they were planning a new trilogy with new enemies. Coming off of Halo: Reach and Modern Warfare 3 I'm presented with an amalgamation of the two. I'm confused and bewildered that for once "Halo" on the game case doesn't translate to "Buy this game!". I'm faced with the conclusion that for me, Halo was over at Reach. How can anything ever be the same? I was still very into Goldeneye 007 when the first Halo came out but I gradually grew to really enjoy Team Snipers on Zanzibar on a saturday night with friends as I did with Pistols Only on Facility just a few short years prior. In Bungie's Halo games we felt powerful but challenged, small but important. Halo 4 makes us just another Spartan in a sea of Spartans and where Halo: Reach proved that idea could work, Halo 4 is just feels like another modern FPS in a sea of modern combat. That's all. I give it a 8/10
|
|
|
Post by Darksim007 on Apr 1, 2013 16:55:58 GMT -5
Well said. I agree on most everything but in Halos defense, I think it can still be enjoyed with a group of decent players in mm
|
|
Xargen
Metal Gear
Kickin' names, taking ass.
Posts: 1,651
Now Playing: I PLAY THA VIDJA GAMES!
|
Post by Xargen on Apr 2, 2013 5:15:11 GMT -5
I find that lag makes itself a LOT more apparent in Halo 4 than it ever has done when it comes to multiplayer... Never have I seen such moving and jerking and teleporting from a Spartan
|
|
|
Post by Blade Runner 07 on Apr 2, 2013 11:39:41 GMT -5
Well said. I agree on most everything but in Halos defense, I think it can still be enjoyed with a group of decent players in mm As proven to myself this last weekend. Thought I would mess around with a new map 343 had released for free and a freind ended up joining in, before I knew it, it was just like ole times and we were having a blast just playing around with the sandbox. Most of the general gameplay, at least when I'm playing with friends is so similar to Reach that I can still have a good time. Still that is barely 1/3 or the game and it really sucks that my friends seem to burn out on it so fast that we play it for 3 hours straight one weekend, and then not again for months. The Campaign was not enjoyable from a gameplay stand-point, Spartan Ops is repeatative to say the least, Theater still only records/saves your most recent multiplayer game and nothing else, and forge is a carbon copy of Halo: Reach with a few new features that don't do a whole lot to change how you build a map. I still can't hum a single tune from the game, and not once have the graphics really impressed me.
|
|
|
Post by JMMREVIEW on Apr 2, 2013 12:10:31 GMT -5
I have been meaning to post this in the review part of the website, sorry I didnt get around to it but I am glad people have pick up on it anyway.
Yesterday I was playing the last few levels co-op with some friends and I was so bored! run here press a button, run there press a button rinse and repeat.... but not only that I was getting deja vu, and so were my friends "havent we already been here?"
After that we played some online and the lag made it really annoying!
|
|
|
Post by Blade Runner 07 on Apr 2, 2013 12:52:23 GMT -5
I have been meaning to post this in the review part of the website, sorry I didnt get around to it but I am glad people have pick up on it anyway. Yesterday I was playing the last few levels co-op with some friends and I was so bored! run here press a button, run there press a button rinse and repeat.... but not only that I was getting deja vu, and so were my friends "havent we already been here?" After that we played some online and the lag made it really annoying! Lag is never the issue with me in multiplayer. The issue is that killstreaks reward you now. This means that I can never dominate the way I did in previous Halo games because as soon as some lucky bastard on the other side of the map racks up enough kills, he gets a power weapon to aid in knocking me off my perch. You know it's bad when you have to resort to COD tactics just to rack up a decent K/D ratio. I don't care about such things as mine is never good but the analogy is being a C+ student and feeling I have been cheated out of my C+ is game breaking.
|
|
|
Post by JMMREVIEW on Apr 2, 2013 13:29:36 GMT -5
Oh yeah the power weapons are a game changer for sure, that LMG type gun and any of the shotguns are way over powered.
|
|
|
Post by Blade Runner 07 on Apr 2, 2013 13:44:22 GMT -5
I just don't think I'll never get used to it when I was so used to previous Halo's where the power weapons would spawn at places on the map. If you got it then you have the power until your very limited ammo ran out.
It was also much clearer who had it so you knew who to avoid and use different strategy with. Now not only do power weapons spawn on the map at random, but half the time I can't tell what kind of weapon it is until I'm close enough to be killed with it.
A prime example of the differance between ballanced and fair. Ballances sake had cheated me.
|
|
Lenrat117
A Hind D!?
I may have the body of a weak and feeble man but I have the Heart and Stomach of a Queen.
Posts: 557
Now Playing: probably Fallout New Vegas
Favorite Game: probably Europa Universalis 4
|
Post by Lenrat117 on Apr 4, 2013 17:43:49 GMT -5
halo 3 will always be my fave. fond memories
|
|
|
Post by Blade Runner 07 on Apr 4, 2013 18:47:20 GMT -5
Gameplay is always very important and while I like the sprint to get me where I need to go faster, everything else in Halo 4 seems like one step forward and two steps back. I could say the same for Reach but it had it's reasons.
In Halo 3 there was NO fall dammage, duel weilding was present, SMG's, flashlight etc. Then in Halo 4 they take all that away with no explaination when there clearly needs to be one. Yes, I know the AR and M6D (zoom in) pistol was no where to be found in Halo 2 but I think it was all justified in Halo 3, the series peaked there when the AR was back and ballanced and all the features were carried over and improved. A sequal should add more than it subtracts and expand on ideas that worked in previous games.
I once said that once a franchise has ended it's story (usually in trilogy) it sould be retired. This theory of course doesnt apply to games that are very light on story as long as the gameplay and features improve.
Can't be mad at Nintendo franchises when they found what worked on the N64, a platue, and just stayed on the platue and never made any effort to build higher.
|
|
|
Post by Greenfire32 on Apr 6, 2013 22:30:13 GMT -5
I disagree with pretty much all of this. Minus forge, I think this is one of the best if not THE best Halo's out there. They could have done slightly better on the back story (like further explaining who and what the Didact is), but if you've read the books and found a lot of the terminals in Halo 3, you kind of already knew what Halo 4 was going to be about.
But even then, forge doesn't hold a candle to Far Cry 2's Map editor so the fact that 343 screwed forge over majorly doesn't really bother me that much. FC2's editor is kind of the "can it run Crysis" of the console editors.
I have yet to see another game come close to it's amazingness.
|
|
Xargen
Metal Gear
Kickin' names, taking ass.
Posts: 1,651
Now Playing: I PLAY THA VIDJA GAMES!
|
Post by Xargen on Apr 7, 2013 11:18:52 GMT -5
Personally I find myself very "unhooked" when it comes to Halo 4... Any of the other games in the series I played and played and played... Halo 4 just didn't grab me, I played it, cleared it, put it aside pretty much... I didn't even complete all of the Spartan Ops missions, and the multiplayer wasn't as fun for me as it's predecessors
|
|
|
Post by JMMREVIEW on Apr 7, 2013 14:16:40 GMT -5
Personally I find myself very "unhooked" when it comes to Halo 4... Any of the other games in the series I played and played and played... Halo 4 just didn't grab me, I played it, cleared it, put it aside pretty much... I didn't even complete all of the Spartan Ops missions, and the multiplayer wasn't as fun for me as it's predecessors Oh the Spartan Ops missions dont get me started! I thought the campaign was repetitive. Spartan Ops was so much worse! Run here press a button kill some guys X 25 no joke it does change it up at all!! Now the timesplitters challenges they were really fun and different from the campaign.
|
|
|
Post by Blade Runner 07 on Apr 7, 2013 16:29:47 GMT -5
I disagree with pretty much all of this. Minus forge, I think this is one of the best if not THE best Halo's out there. They could have done slightly better on the back story (like further explaining who and what the Didact is), but if you've read the books and found a lot of the terminals in Halo 3, you kind of already knew what Halo 4 was going to be about. The campaign had good story when it focused on things from the orignal trilogy, namely MC and Cortana. Even if a person that only played the games would be confused as hell, the ending had me sad in a good way. Ill give it that. The gameplay ranged from draging to frustrating with either never having enough ammo, pushing button after button, or enemies feeling down-right cheap at times and more annoying than any other Halo to date. I can't beleive I'm saying this but I miss the flood, and the brutes. At least they were straight forward enemies. Talk about pushing buttons. You had to push a button in the form of killing a watcher just to kill the Knights. "Want to do this? You have to do this first. Over and over and over and over and over again!" Spartan ops was the repeatative button pushing without the realevent cut-scenes we gave but two shits about in campaign. Multiplayer today, is your standard fare and is more or less a carbon copy or Halo: Reach, more of the same. Forge is really a carbon copy of Halo:Reach with a few extra toys like dynamic lighting generator, magnets, and gravity fields. IT's Halo: Reach forge with a few add ons for easier building. Theater still only records your ONE latest multiplayer game (multiplayer only) and it is then overwriten by the next game unless saved before hand. On top of that the editing mechanics are copy and pasted from Halo: Reach. Halo 4 is two parts Halo: Reach. One part Halo 3. With a dash of COD thrown in for variety. The issue is Halo: Reach did the Reach parts better, Halo 3 did the Halo 3 parts better, and you see that COD mechanics do work, but ultimatly don't belong in a true Halo game.
|
|
|
Post by JMMREVIEW on Apr 7, 2013 16:58:58 GMT -5
Theater still only records your ONE latest multiplayer game This was very strange I couldnt understand why there was only one game showing up I thought mine was broken.
|
|