Halo 4

Halo 4, 343i’s first venture into Microsoft’s wildly successful, billion-dollar franchise, came out a week after Assassin’s Creed III, and it could not have come sooner.  I was more than willing to take a break from the glitch-ridden and nonsensical monotony that was most of Assassin’s Creed III to happily welcome Halo 4 into my home.

I was worried with the direction Halo games were going.  Halo: Reach, Halo creator/developer Bungie’s final contribution to the franchise, was just that: a reach.  The game lacked the sense of wonder and mystery that other Halo games had done so well.  It had canon problems as well, going against previously written novels that outlined this particular part of Halo lore.  And the gameplay, while doing some things well, just didn’t quite feel right.

Let me preface what comes next with this:  I am a huge Halo fan.  I try not to let any sort of favorable bias I may have towards one of my favorite franchises cloud my objective judgment when picking apart the issues.

With that said, Halo 4 blew me away.

As soon as I was controlling Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, I knew they’d done it.  Everything looked and sounded amazing.  Graphics were stunning.  The sound effects quite remarkable – they’d totally revisited how everything should sound in the Halo universe.

But even beyond that, it felt amazing.  I couldn’t describe it any other way – no game I had ever played felt so authentic.

I had read in reviews how it really felt like you were controlling a bio-modified super-soldier in a hulking suit of armor, but I didn’t realize how much it felt like it until playing. 

Images and even video do no justice to the authentic feel you get
as you play Halo 4.

The story, too, was clearly a big focal point in 343i’s development.  Microsoft has done well to extend this transmedia story through two new novel trilogies, both which point directly to this game.  It’s no small wonder that this, unlike Reach, would have to be right on point as far as story goes.

And it was well done, fleshing out Master Chief and Cortana like we had never seen before (in one of the games). 

My only serious campaign story gripe (aside from the number of missions, which has been in steady decline since Halo 2's peak) requires I look at the game through someone else’s eyes.  Having read all the books, the background for many of the things happening in this game were clear to me.  Had I not read them though, I can see ample cause for confusion.  Many things were not explained well enough for someone who may only play the Halo games and not read any of the novels.

Multiplayer gets a big gold star from me as well.  I wasn’t a huge fan of Reach’s multiplayer.  I liked some of the game modes, but for some reason, it never felt as good as Halo 2 or Halo 3 felt. This feels again like I’m playing a Halo game.  So much of it feels like Halo 3 to me.

But the unlockable abilities and weapons had me worried.  In Reach, everything you earned was purely cosmetic.  I liked how they still wanted to keep multiplayer on a level playing field.  I have always championed that Halo multiplayer differed from others in that it’s so much more balanced, and doesn’t reward players by providing additional skills or weapons because they play more.  I was skeptical of Halo 4’s unlockable abilities and weapons, but they did not take much at all to unlock, meaning there is still no serious gap between newcomers and veterans, so that skill is once again the deciding factor.

Multiplayer feels so right again, especially on Ragnarok,
the remake of Halo 3's Valhalla map.

What did bother me about unlockables, though, was the emblems.  As far back as Halo 2, I’ve used a unique emblem as an identifier.  Now, all emblems are not available immediately – they have to be unlocked.  What results is a constant changing of emblems, which to me just looks like a brand always changing itself.   Then again, we don’t see them immediately on the battlefield like we used to, so it’s not like they’re as conspicuous as before when they were used to identify our teammates.  The unfortunate replacement for battlefield recognition has become the callsign, which has unfortunately regressed to half of my team going by YOLO and the other half as NOOB.

Spartan Ops, a new episodic game mode, was a bit of a let down for me.  If you’re playing alone, it’s not really worth it.  These are designed to be co-op, and you really feel like you miss something if you play it alone.  The story that’s connecting all of the episodes, and connecting it back to the main story, just doesn’t have the same draw to me as the single player did, especially as the missions all start to feel somewhat the same.  I believe the plan is for 343i to start charging for additional episodes as they’re produced, so we’ll see how much people will pay for more, or if they’re content with co-op fun and don’t care about where the story goes.

Bring your friends for Spartan Ops.  Otherwise it's just not really worth it.

With all of these, though, Halo 4 can be exceedingly frustrating.  But that’s not a bad thing here.  Most of my frustration came with how difficult the game could be at times, especially on Legendary difficulty.  It’s the right kind of frustration – the challenge.  The challenge made it so much better once you finally made it through that awful stretch that had made you feel as if you were in your own personal version of Groundhog Day.

It’s not to say Halo 4 is not without its faults and blunders.  For all its splendor, there are a couple serious polish issues. 

Vehicle explosions really get me.  I love seeing all the bits and pieces go flying.  Except they’re not there in this game.   In one particular scene where a ship blows up (let’s not discuss how convenient it was that disabling its power core meant it would drift slowly away until you’re out of the explosion’s radius), it’s as if they copied George Lucas’s approach to the Death Star explosion – HUGE explosion, nothing left.  Just lost that authenticity feel for a few moments when this happened.  Same thing when you blow up any Phantom.

Lip syncing seemed to be a terrible issue, and I’m assuming they just couldn’t get it right and eventually gave up on it.  Which is too bad, because the facial animations and mouth animations are incredible.  Some scenes it seemed spot on, and look amazing with how the mouths fit the words, and then suddenly in others it was so terribly off that the fourth wall was broken.  I suddenly remembered that this is a coded piece of software I’m interacting with, and there are problems.

Incredible cut scenes.  The facial animations were amazing.  Unfortunate issues every now and then with the sound syncing to the visuals.

Maybe some of the cosmetic issues are a sign of the Xbox 360’s age – it can’t handle the full scope of these games coming out seven years after it was created.  Some things may have to be sacrificed, and it’s possibly some of the smaller cosmetic things that get pulled first.

I would also talk about Forge mode, but there's not much to say.  It's very much like it was in Reach.  The only issue I have with it is the size of the open maps to build on - they're much smaller than the Forge world was in Reach.  However, I get the feeling this is an Xbox limitation again, so I can't put too much fault here, especially since 343i seemed to manage it pretty well.

Score: 1 Flying Controller

Yes, I gave it only one controller.  Yes, I’m a Halo fan.  But this game did everything it sought to accomplish, and did it well.  The harder difficulties in campaign mode are the right kind of frustrating, multiplayer doesn’t have any maddening imbalance to it, and Spartan Ops is a fun third option to pass the time with friends.  When the only really frustrating things are some minor cosmetic issues that take a nitpicking, critical eye to really find fault in, then you’ve done it right.

Well done, 343i, on your first Halo game.  I'm looking forward to more.

(The one controller is really for the lack of background provided at many key moments in the story.  And for the time I threw my controller for the RIGHT reasons.  If a game truly has so little to frustrate you that it deserves zero controllers, it probably wasn't trying to do much to begin with, and more than likely doesn't merit much play time or conversation.)