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Edited by Makeshyft: 1/12/2013 11:49:06 AM
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I've had some experience with H4. (3-4 days MP playtime. Some rather intense forging) [b]Verdict: 4/10[/b] It's not a -bad- game. It's a -meh- game. My history with it's release was both varied and... well... emotional. I've been a hardcore Halo fan since it's release and I WANTED (PRAYED) Halo 4 would live up to my expectations. Admittedly, my first reaction to it's announcement was very skeptical. I'd been playing Reach rather religiously and had just undergone the rather jarring half-transition, take-backsies "Title Update" that was released alongside Halo:CE Anniversary. (Which I admit I never actually finished a full playthrough of the revamped SP) Thus, my predisposition was already against 343i's gameplay ideologies. My initial skepticisms were fueled by a few factors: 1.343i was a nascent studio. This was their first attempt at a full major title. All studios undergo some difficulties when new, even those who benefit from ex-Bungie veterens. It takes a while to hammer out the pipeline, get the talent all moving in one direction. 2. Halo:Reach's Title Update. The mechanical changes felt... half-assed. (As show by the weird 'take-backsies' of the vote to change some playlists back to original mechanics) It was my first experience with inexperience of some of 343i's design. I'd become so used to Bungie polish it really felt jarring. 3. My own crushing nostalgia. The Halo Trilogy really defined my early gaming career. Begun when I was 11 and concluding shortly after my 17th birthday, it was truly my defining trilogy in gaming. I'd grown up with Master Chief, shared his victories and his pains. Had a hint of a romantic crush on Cortana. To see this trilogy, my trilogy, in the hands of anyone but the studio I'd come to know and love worried me to no end. However, as the ad campaign for H4 shifted into overdrive, the hype shunted my fears into a dark little corner. The story looked compelling, the MP fast and fresh. So what if they took some ideas from CoD? That's a popular series right. (I admit to buying MW1 on the PC to check it out and not hating it) I -wanted- to believe it could be every that was promised. Spartan Ops? Sure. But then, as November '12 neared... I began to doubt again. Wait, how can they promise so many features? Isn't Spartan Ops a HUGE amount of content? What about... the polish? I was sadly, proven right. My first few days with the game were as any with a big title release: Blissful. I slaughtered noobs, I saved the galaxy once more. I sniffed a bit at the character reveals. I reveled in the new Forge Maps and the new MP maps. But then... I stopped. For a month I didn't pick up the title again. I'd played Reach non-stop with my friends for nearly 3 years... And yet... after two weeks... I stopped. It just wasn't... Halo. Here's why: 1. Instant Respawn Good in theory. Terrible in execution. THere's no rest between fights. No break in the action. No time to let your mind and frustration reset. I ended up yelling at the screen more times in H4 than in any other Halo title to date. It was like being smothered in a snuggy. It's so warm, so familiar... yet you still die of asphyxiation. 2. Boltshot/Power Weapons I couldn't believe it when I unlocked the Boltshot and tried it out for the first time. A pocket shotgun... in a starting loadout. It had as much damage as a close-range power weapon, didn't take much skill to charge, and could outrange some ordinance. What? Who thought that was a good idea? My favorite power weapons were back... yet... everyone had them. All the time. Everywhere. Got a shotgun? Too bad, he has a Incineration Cannon. Sniping? Naw, they've got 3. And don't even get me started on Dominion. (Hint: It's like competitive Arcadefight) The balancing mentality seemed to have been: Power weapons define games. Give them... to everyone. All the time. Very frustrating. 3. Menus/Matchmaking All the subtle nuances that make me love the Halo matchmaking systems/menus are gone. I can no longer see when I'm against a pre-made four man team. I can't CHANGE MY VOTE ONCE I'VE SELECTED A MAP. OR CHOOSE NONE OF THE ABOVE. Also, half the games you'll get matched into are already 1/2 to 3/4s complete, usually with you on the losing side. (Those people left for a reason right?) I've also had some SERIOUS menu glitches that bounce me between screens faster than a man with parkinson's attempting to use a touchscreen device. (This joke approved by my grandfather afflicted with aforementioned disease) Also, FILE BROWSER anyone? Also, Matchmaking Aborted? 20 times in a row? 4. Splitscreen (Or lack thereof) H4 proved to me that Graphics should never EVER come above gameplay. In an FPS, it's important to optimize your content to run at a constant 60 FPS. Twitch games practically require this. H4 splitscreen knocks me down to 20-30. Why? Lights, particles, shaders. I dare you to play H4 to Reach back to back sometime. Compare the lighting in the two. Reach's is both utilitarian and effective while maintaining proper and interesting lighting. It also SERVES THE GAMEPLAY. Nothing in a Reach level distracts you from the fact that you are these to put holes in someone else's armor. In H4, I'm constantly blinded by the dynamic rays of the dying sun reflecting off some sod's codpiece half the level away. It's... almost painful. Bungie has always known friends like to play games together in the same room. For us poor folks, that means manning up and sharing a screen. That is and will always been some of the appeal of MP games. 343i needs to realize that. I could go on, but I feel I've covered enough GLARING HOLES in the design to justify giving this game a low score. I don't hate 343i, but I severely hope they learn their lesson and put out a good/great title with Halo 5. Kudos and sorry for the wall of text. I tend to ramble when it comes to design talk. -Euphorius
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  • Halo 4 runs at 30 FPS, not 60 FPS.

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  • Edited by Kickimanjaro: 1/15/2013 10:44:30 PM
    (link explanation in last paragraph) Wow! You're a mind reader, right? I agree with everything you have written, hell, some I had not even thought of before but now realize. I was optimistic about Halo 4, but I didn't buy into the hype. I didn't get it at midnight, rather on my lunch break the next day, got home that evening and started playing the campaign. I spent a few days playing through it and thoroughly enjoyed the story and the game in general. It felt different, but I liked it. Then I started playing some multiplayer and it just wasn't the same. It was frustrating, and I found myself more than once standing up and walking out of the room simply too frustrated to want to keep playing. Then I started playing Spartan Ops with some good friends and that was a blast. We played for a good week or two, and then I felt drawn back to other games like Battlefield, Call of Duty, and Halo: Reach. I never went back. Only a few times did I pick it back up, and that was only to play through the story splitscreen with two friends who had beaten all the other Halo games with me on splitscreen. It wasn't the same. I don't know if it was me or the game... I can't get over how much I wanted to like it. I tried to familiarize myself with the UI, I tried to learn how to change all my settings, I tried to get used to multiplayer playing quite differently, but in the end I couldn't. It felt too much like...well, you know those ads on TV for that TV with WiFi? No? Well that's what I linked. I felt like they compiled a list of things from popular games, added them in, but didn't have that one person to run it by to say, "No! Put the longevity of Bungie's Halo into this game!" ...now it's just some Halo that I used to know.

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  • Can we call ourselves triplets? Because his thoughts are mine as well. Two weeks is all we made it, to the letter, two weeks.

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  • I've been sick for a while and finally had the energy to sit and read through your post. I entirely agree with you. I couldn't go past 2 weeks, it wasn't the Halo I grew up loving. It is some weird hybrid of COD and Halo. I had thought it would work, but in the end it didn't. Not to mention the visual filer that is on par with the crapiness of BF3. That combined with the overall Michael Bay style campaign with a thin story made me a sad Eagle.

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  • It's sensationalist game design. They catered too hard to the public demand instead of crafting a game that people would want. It's like Steve Jobs always said when it comes to design and marketing: "People don't know what they want until you tell them." YOU as the professional have a responsibility to interpret market demand into new and interesting products that you MAKE people want to buy. I didn't know I loved FPS' until Halo:CE came out. That was all Bungie, creating a product they wanted to play and by extension, something I wanted to play. Come to think of it, 343i just needs to take a play from the Bungie Handbook. "We make the games we want to play." Amen.

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  • Yup. It's like Reach all over again, we are all insane babbling idiot. In fact it's exactly what happened with Bungie.Next as far as I'm concerned.

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  • Unlike most people, I don't actually hate Reach. I agree it has flaws, but something about it has kept me playing it for 2+ years. So I have to respect it for that.

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  • That is true, I played Reach for a long while, I can't say the same about Halo 4. Regardless it is where the flaws began, and Halo 4 continued them.

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  • Out of curiosity, what do you consider the flaws of Reach? I've had a difficult time quantifying it's differences from 3 and really pulling out what bugged me. Perhaps getting a fresh opinion could help me.

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  • I just dislike armor abilities as a whole, while equipment wasn't perfect, all it needed was fine tuning. That combined with the paper vehicles made for a badly effected Halo. Those were the only real glaring flaws in my opinion. Otherwise the game was great! And really, with an option to turn off armor abilities it was next to perfect. Just, those vehicles.

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  • I do agree with you on the vehicles. I found myself hoofing it across map a lot more than I'd like. And hearing you say that made me realize how much less I used the Warthog in Reach v. H3 or H2. :( I kinda miss that. I enjoyed walloping around in a Hog.

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  • Yeah, it's one of the reasons I really am hoping for both a Halo 2 and 3 reboot with multiplayer. I need some real BTB back in my life.

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  • [quote]In an FPS, it's important to optimize your content to run at a constant 60 FPS. Twitch games practically require this. H4 splitscreen knocks me down to 20-30.[/quote] Halo has ALWAYS run at 30hz - so your statement here is a knock against the entire series.

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  • Then again, the last Halo game was made in 2010. Strive to beat the predecessor right?

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  • If that's the case, I stand corrected. I've never noticed jitter prior to H4 in splitscreen though.

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  • The sad truth is they don't even deserve that "first game" boost. 343i is made up entirely of industry veterans, the best they could get. On top of that they outsourced most of the actual work on the game to other companies. This is their fault entirely, regardless of it being a first game.

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  • The problem with the matchmaking is that every playlist is a fiesta fight.

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  • :) Halo 4 The Fiesta Saga begins. "Has anyone seen my Freshmex Victory Hat? I can't find it -anywhere-!"

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