streamlock

Most dissapointing? Ah, c'mon man. Not sure if your just trolling, or serious. There are far, FAR more dissapointing titles on the 360.... The argument could be made that it is a dissapointing Halo game, and perhaps it is (I think so, but it has some good to it as well). Taken out of context, it is a very good console FPS. But, it does not live in a vacuum, it exists along with the other Halo games. And in that respect, I think it falls short in many areas. It is still a 'good' game though. I will say this though- (and might make a seperate post), I don't think I've ever played as much MP since the 1st halo. But that is a function of a lack of replayability (and bevity) in the main campaign more then anything else. Even taken in the context of the other halo games, I 'still' would not rank it as most dissapointing 360 release of even the year. (ME3 would probably take that crown). Then again, I haven't played Warfighter yet.......

Actually, I think the one of the two worst things they could do at this point would be a "Halo Trek 3/5 : The Search for Cortona" sequal. Would just sully one of the few readiming qualities of Halo 4' s main campaign, the Chief/Cortona story arc. (Again, before you flame me, Halo 4 is a good-great game in absolute terms, just it's main campaign is middling as a Halo game, beyond the above stated) The other would be the seemingly inevitable Master Chief vs. Spartan IV's story arc-but that is another topic entirely.

Well, I think there are good and bad with the new Halo, to respond to the original post, I am also highly dissapointed, but also think it is very good in many respects. I posted this on another thread, but to sum things up, I'll repost it here.... Okay, here is some critique...Before I start, I want to say overall I consider it a good-great game in abolute terms, but a fairly middling Halo game. Visuals. Probably the best looking "graphics fidelity" game of the series. It's actually suprising to see the 360 pump out visuals like that considering it's age. Visual design was largely good. Without getting to spoilerish, at some point the game turned "Tron". I don't know if this was done to show off the new lighting engine, or what-but it just didn't fit with me. No joke, had someone stop by and asked if I was playing a Tron Legacy game... Gameplay. Overall good, but I have some very serious concerns. There is a section at the start of the game that essentially boils down to a quick time event. I did a literal facepalm, but my fears were largely unfounded as (iirc) it only appeared again toward the end of the game. QTE, have never been Halo, beyond the 'hold X to enter pelican or whatever" they largely avoided it. QTE takes you out of the action. It stops being "combat evolved' and becomes "press a button to see next cutscene/enviroment/whatever". It was not employed heavely enough for me to knock down my overall view of the game-but the fact that it is included at all is cause for concern. Halo is about the combat sandbox, don't go down the modern military shooter hole of turning the game into a glorified Space Ace or Dragon's Lair. Also, the new weapons (outside the new heavy weapon) fail to overly impress. I understand the need to incude new weapons considering the location/new enemies-just would have liked to see some more creativity (in tactical weapon use, visual design was good). Speaking of combat sandbox....While I would not label H4 as a coorider shooter (all Halo games had sections like this), the sandbox felt....alot more 'constrained'. There where a couple times I went to backtrack to pick up a weapon and found that the door had shut and locked behind me for no reason-the one right behind me. Also, several areas felt really limited in what my tactical options were. The combat sandbox is still there, just way more limited. In that manner if felt the least "halo" of all the games I played to date. Tangent to the sandbox-over reliance on 'wave' enounters. Every halo has had these, and I've generally enjoyed them when they pop up. I also enjoyed the MP firefilght missions of Reach. But at some point during H4, I wondered outloud if I had woke up in some alternate universe and was playing some kind of 1st person tower defense game. If done well, they are cool here and there, but over releance on wave encounters is either playing it way to safe, or shows a lack of creativity in enounter design, or maybe a little bit of both. Story. There is a dichotomy here. The story of the main protagonist was fairly generic, and I never found it particularly interesting. This is however offset by the Master Chief/Cortona storyline that runs paralell, which in my opinion is some of the best storytelling/characterization in the series. So it is both good, and mediocre at the same time.....strangely. Characters. Felt that the Main protagonist's were done well, as well as Laskey, the Doc., etc. The antogonist was generaic bad guy, and I was particularly turned off by the Spartian IV's. Brash, arogant, stereotyped, just rubbish. The only reason I can see for this is if it's building to some kind of Sparten IV's go nuts, Master Chief has to fight Sparten IV's in a future installment. That would be obvouis and somewhat cliche', but who knows. From the convenent.....Faceless enemies and cannon fodder. Would have liked to have had a little more context/flavor to them. Also, they always speak alien, I kinda liked as how the MC story evolved you began to understand the speach for whatever reason.... Sound design. Generally good. Some of the weapons sounded a little "off" to me at first, but I grew into them. The musicial score....well this is pretty supjective on my part, but I found it to be generic Sci-Fi that ranged from average to good mostly, and only really resonated with me in a couple spots. But I mostly thought it was well done. That being said, I got used to the deep precussions, and other score idiosyncrasies that (for me anyway) let me know I was playing a Halo game with the MC in it. No matter how well done the new score is done in spots, I really missed that "Halo" sound. The composers are obvouisly skilled, here is hoping that they use the old score and build on top of that while iterjecting there own creativity as opposed to just starting from scratch. MP-I have not played enough MP to really give a solid critique of it. I do miss firefight though......But considering the abundunce of wave combat in the campaign, I guess I can just find a friend to play throug it and get the same effect....... Overall I think it is a good game, just the weakest in the series as far as gameplay goes, and one of the strongest in storytelling (as long as your refereing to the MC/Cortona story arc), and strong in visuals outside some questionable aestitic choice later in the game. I'll cut it off here to avoid "wall-o-text".

Okay, here is some critique...Before I start, I want to say overall I consider it a good-great game in abolute terms, but a fairly middling Halo game. Visuals. Probably the best looking "graphics fidelity" game of the series. It's actually suprising to see the 360 pump out visuals like that considering it's age. Visual design was largely good. Without getting to spoilerish, at some point the game turned "Tron". I don't know if this was done to show off the new lighting engine, or what-but it just didn't fit with me. No joke, had someone stop by and asked if I was playing a Tron Legacy game... Gameplay. Overall good, but I have some very serious concerns. There is a section at the start of the game that essentially boils down to a quick time event. I did a literal facepalm, but my fears were largely unfounded as (iirc) it only appeared again toward the end of the game. QTE, have never been Halo, beyond the 'hold X to enter pelican or whatever" they largely avoided it. QTE takes you out of the action. It stops being "combat evolved' and becomes "press a button to see next cutscene/enviroment/whatever". It was not employed heavely enough for me to knock down my overall view of the game-but the fact that it is included at all is cause for concern. Halo is about the combat sandbox, don't go down the modern military shooter hole of turning the game into a glorified Space Ace or Dragon's Lair. Also, the new weapons (outside the new heavy weapon) fail to overly impress. I understand the need to incude new weapons considering the location/new enemies-just would have liked to see some more creativity (in tactical weapon use, visual design was good). Speaking of combat sandbox....While I would not label H4 as a coorider shooter (all Halo games had sections like this), the sandbox felt....alot more 'constrained'. There where a couple times I went to backtrack to pick up a weapon and found that the door had shut and locked behind me for no reason-the one right behind me. Also, several areas felt really limited in what my tactical options were. The combat sandbox is still there, just way more limited. In that manner if felt the least "halo" of all the games I played to date. Tangent to the sandbox-over reliance on 'wave' enounters. Every halo has had these, and I've generally enjoyed them when they pop up. I also enjoyed the MP firefilght missions of Reach. But at some point during H4, I wondered outloud if I had woke up in some alternate universe and was playing some kind of 1st person tower defense game. If done well, they are cool here and there, but over releance on wave encounters is either playing it way to safe, or shows a lack of creativity in enounter design, or maybe a little bit of both. Story. There is a dichotomy here. The story of the main protagonist was fairly generic, and I never found it particularly interesting. This is however offset by the Master Chief/Cortona storyline that runs paralell, which in my opinion is some of the best storytelling/characterization in the series. So it is both good, and mediocre at the same time.....strangely. Characters. Felt that the Main protagonist's were done well, as well as Laskey, the Doc., etc. The antogonist was generaic bad guy, and I was particularly turned off by the Spartian IV's. Brash, arogant, stereotyped, just rubbish. The only reason I can see for this is if it's building to some kind of Sparten IV's go nuts, Master Chief has to fight Sparten IV's in a future installment. That would be obvouis and somewhat cliche', but who knows. From the convenent.....Faceless enemies and cannon fodder. Would have liked to have had a little more context/flavor to them. Also, they always speak alien, I kinda liked as how the MC story evolved you began to understand the speach for whatever reason.... Sound design. Generally good. Some of the weapons sounded a little "off" to me at first, but I grew into them. The musicial score....well this is pretty supjective on my part, but I found it to be generic Sci-Fi that ranged from average to good mostly, and only really resonated with me in a couple spots. But I mostly thought it was well done. That being said, I got used to the deep precussions, and other score idiosyncrasies that (for me anyway) let me know I was playing a Halo game with the MC in it. No matter how well done the new score is done in spots, I really missed that "Halo" sound. The composers are obvouisly skilled, here is hoping that they use the old score and build on top of that while iterjecting there own creativity as opposed to just starting from scratch. MP-I have not played enough MP to really give a solid critique of it. I do miss firefight though......But considering the abundunce of wave combat in the campaign, I guess I can just find a friend to play throug it and get the same effect....... Overall I think it is a good game, just the weakest in the series as far as gameplay goes, and one of the strongest in storytelling (as long as your refereing to the MC/Cortona story arc), and strong in visuals outside some questionable aestitic choice later in the game. I'll cut it off here to avoid "wall-o-text".