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My name is Steven and I am leaving for the military on Feb. 5th, I write this in the hopes that the story and the game that I love does not become a shadow of its former self. I am not some random noob or person who just wants to complain because he sucks. At the time of me writing this my K/D is 2.12, I have every achievement in every halo game except the 3 in this game for the Spartan-Ops missions that are not out yet and the one for completing the game on co-op (I just have not felt up for it). Please ignore the spelling and grammar mistakes I rushed this, and have not had it edited. Since this game has come out I have talked to people and tried to find out what there take on this game is, and through my talks with random people and my friends I have found problems with the game, dislikes, and a general feel that this game did not live up to the other halo games.” I tolerate this game, its good enough. I have come to the realization that we are not going to get a halo 2 or 3 back. I am just happy all my friends are online playing the same game again. I feel that it’s just above halo reach in quality.” That was a quote from a person I met today. This is supposed to be a critique of this game not to bash it. I have made some of my own opinions about this game since it has come out, and I do not believe that it measured up to the halo franchise. (by the way I don’t write on blogs, I have never gone online and critiqued games or anything, this is the first time for me because usually I take games and entertainment for what they are and what they were meant to be, but halo is different. I have been a fan since the beginning, eleven years ago. I will break up my case into critiquing Halo 4 into three main parts, one for Campaign, Multiplayer, and Spartan-Ops with a follow up at the end. Also keep in mind that these are points of interest that I have discussed with friends, and random players. Feel free to add or argue but do so objectively. CAMPAIGN Throughout the halo games there has always been a feeling of greatness, of mystery and wonder, you were a Titan saving insects from the wrath of Gods, trying to survive against the evils of Pandora’s Box that was opened in the first game… HALO. You had no idea what was going on but it looked cool it felt awesome and you were a badass on a mission. At the end of Halo one you were filled with feelings of accomplishment, wonder, and excitement, armed with the knowledge that you just stopped an entire fleet of alien enemies hell bent on killing you and humanity don’t forget the flood that would have destroyed everything, as well as stopped a weapon that would have wiped out everything in the galaxy and you did it in style and lived. You were jazzed and fired up for the next game and it was delivered. Halo 2 it brought with it new weapons, enemies, new Halo and a story that that rivaled that of its predecessor. At the end of Halo 2 when Lord Hood asked “Master Chief mind telling me what you’re doing on that ship” and the Master Chief responded “Sir finishing this fight”, You were again ecstatic, maybe more so than at the end of Halo 1. I could go into Halo 3, it was a great game especially the campaign and it again the ending made you fired up for the next game, but this is about Halo 4. I just wanted you to remember the feeling of those games and how great they are the feeling you got when you played them, but when you get to Halo 4 before the game even comes out you know who you are fighting, the Forerunners. You know the covenant is back, you know that the “ancient evil” is going to attacking humanity and you know that the Master Chief will stop him and that Spartan 117 will not die. Through the game I felt like I was just going through the motions. Not everyone I have talked to had the same though I did when I went through the game but enough did that I will make mention of it and that is when I saw the game play trailer I had an idea of what this game was going to be like and that was that a human ship would stumble onto a forerunner shield world and Spartan 117 would miraculously come back from the dead and save the ship, I thought it was going to be like going back to Halo 1, the way there was a lost human ship and the chief would be fighting to save everyone and get home. In that way it looked similar, but it did not feel the same. The feeling of mystery, and wonder was gone, the great unknown was gone and you were left directionless. I’ve heard in vidocs that they wanted to make the Master Chief seem more human, less like a machine, but that made no sense to me because the Master Chief since the first Halo game embodied the best of what it meant to be human and that is Courage, Self sacrifice, and a willingness to never give up, the point is moot. It might sound funny but ill say it any ways, Catholics are told to be more like Jesus, to better themselves to be the best human they can be and strive for perfection, but perfection is unattainable to humans as we are not at all perfect. The Master Chief is almost like that as a Character in that he embodies the best of what it means to be human that’s why he is such a great Character. When the Master Chief said its our duty to protect humanity no matter what the cost, that is part of what it means to be a soldier. Soldiers are not just any one, they are people who have dedicated their lives to service to put others ahead of themselves for the greater good. They are trying to turn him into something he is not, I do not need the badass that survived Halo 1,2,3 to have PTSD, to see a shrink daily, or anything else to know he is a human being. At the end of the credits on legendary in Halo 1,2,3, ODST, and even Halo Wars it was a great ending it left you longing for the next game, it left you mystery, it left you something to hope for. At the end of Halo 4 it was like a slap in the face. I don’t want to have to be so uptight about it but YOU NEVER SHOW THE MASTER CHIEF’S FACE, not even a part of his face, that was an insult to all the Halo fans that have been here since the beginning. That is one of the truth’s in Halo. And it was not like the other games where you see a glimpse of something, no it was some random stuff mixed with the DIDACT’S voice, so again thanks for spoiling. I only make mention of this because someone wanted me to and that is, the description in the books does not match what the Didact’s was in the game, and he wants to know why did he look like Voldemort, and a couple people agreed. Also there was the spoiler from the Didact that the librarian is dead. In this game the marines are helpless, it no longer feels like they are humans that will head into a fight with you, they just feel like babysitter for things you find in a game. In the other Halos marines weren’t the greatest assets, but when you loaded up hogs with marines caring snipers, Spartan lasers, and rockets, you were a beast; you made it your mission to make sure all of you marines survived. There was a connection in the fact that they were humans. In the other games they felt like your buddies, guys that fought beside you. They may not have lived long if you hadn’t showed up being the badass that you are humanity laid down the law when you ran through High Charity with a pack of marines taking out everything between you and you objective. Now there are Spartans everywhere joking around and just taking over, what does it mean now to be the Master Chief, What does it mean to be an ODST, or a Marine. It used to be one game ago that ODST’s were complete Badasses that they were about one step away from being Spartans. ODST’ was an amazing game, by far a better campaign, in the way it played, felt, and the comedy; all the characters were top notch. The Master Chief will always be my favorite character (so long as they keep him the man that he is) but Buck and Sergeant Johnson are right on his heels. In this game they have stripped away a lot of what made the Master Chief, ODST’s and Marines special. Damn I miss Johnson. On more than one occasion I walked around a corner and was instantly shot and killed by a crawler with a binary rifle. In halo 2 it sucked squaring off against jackals with sniper rifles because they could shoot you in the eye well over a mile away, through trees, while it was snowing. They did not need to up the ante by giving it to a crawler mixed in with other crawlers and on top of that give him the ability to see through walls. The rate that you are killed in this game is more than any others, and even though Halo 2 had the jackals that never missed it was always doable, and on top of that it was fun. In this game everything rushes you nonstop, it makes it fast pace however I miss the flow that the other games had, to me Halo 2’s and 3’s was the right pace. Over all I believe that this game’s campaign did not live up to the other games, a lot more could have been done and needs to be done. There are a lot of key elements missing from this game that it felt off and wrong. I know the bar is set high with the other Halo games but they had those games as templates, I really needed to feel like this game was the best yet and I wanted it but they tried too hard. Halo 1,2,3, ODST, WARS all felt like a Halo game. As for Halo Reach I believe that the multiplayer felt like a Halo game except that it was not as good as the others(more for noobs), that said the story line in the Halo universe is messed up. In the books the pillar of autumn was already in space. Its was no surprise when the Covenant showed up, in fact the UNSC had time to call ships to defend REACH. It was not Spartan 3’s but Spartan 2’s that defended REACH. Dr. Halsey did not know about Spartan 3’s till after she got to ONYX (a forerunner Shield world), as well as other things. So there are some inconsistencies, and it sucks to have every book and game and then be told that some of the books I bought, there stories don’t mean anything, forget about them we took a different path. However I do feel the story telling in this game was great, the videos were great, and how they told the back story of humanity was great. The relationship between Master Chief and Cortana was done perfectly, as well as the sentiment between Dr. Halsey the Master Chief so said my friend even though there was not much on the subject. I really enjoyed the end of the game, the way you fought the battle combined with the music which provided a sense of urgency, a desperate but noble fight for survival, the way its rhythm made a dance out of every move you made, everything became a song of battle that you composed. It was fight worthy of a Halo game. I do miss the old music, it was very much a part of the Halo experience, and to forsake these things that have been the foundation of this game is to invite destruction. I did like a lot of the campaign and may of the people I have talked to like the campaign even with its flaws or short comings, that said I hope for the game that I love to return from its slumber. MULTIPLAYER Since Halo 1 the creators of this game have strived to make Multiplayer better and better, just like the Campaign, and each time they succeeded Halo 1 was great but they did not have online capability. Then Halo 2 shows up bringing with it enhanced game play, online interaction. It was advanced yet simple it had a rhythm to it that was for many gamers… perfect. When asked today if they could be playing any Halo game with an abundance of players the usual answer I receive is Halo 2 or Halo 3, but mostly 2. It is for many gamers obvious that Halo Reach and Halo 4 are failures. If you are looking for proof just ask random people what Halo game they would rather be playing. I refer back to the quote I took from a person I met the other day “I have come to the realization that we are not going to get a halo 2 or 3 back.”. if that is what people want I ask myself why is it being denied? The only answer I can think of is that 343 has just taken over and they need to make this game their own because no matter what the cost. 343 just inherited the Halo franchise, a story line so rich with back story and success, so they feel they need to make the mark and so the start putting their mark on everything whether it is a mistake or not. Ill start to list the problems I have found with this game as well as dislikes from not just myself but from the gaming community. Grenades don’t do as much damage (you can walk over a plasma grenade and live. Spawns are set up so people spawn all over the place, creating cluster f%*ks. Maps are not as good as pervious halo games leading to the general feel that there are only 3 good maps, and it’s not that they are good but that they are tolerable. No red X on bodies. It was a useful tool and it gave a sense of direction. You slow down when getting shot even when getting shot in the back, which really sucks when you spawn out in the open and you cannot run away. Party details are not able to be views like in the other games, again it was a useful tool. Carbine is underpowered, and not as accurate as it should be. In general there are so many inconsistencies involving the weapons that the only reason people used certain weapons is for the commendations. Again I believe that classes need to be taken out or limited to like 2 game types. When you are joining a game and you know you don’t want to join in the middle of a game you cannot back out of the search. Ordnance disappear sometimes and you can’t find them. Shots seem to be inconsistent when It comes to where a head shot is, people say they now have to aim just above canter mast for a head shot, and that when they are aiming at the head bullets go over. This game has become more about unlocking things and getting items than remaining true to the Halo style game play. Having got the limited addition meant I spent a hundred dollars for a couple weeks of early access to the specializations. Credit caps are more frequent in this game than any other, and I am wondering why have them at all. If you play the game you get credits, easy. If it’s because you don’t want people getting to far ahead of the others, don’t make a game focused on stuff or leveling, take a page out of Halo 2 and that is that rank is just a byproduct of fun. You don’t have to be good at this game anymore because everyone has a sniper rifle, a rocket launcher, a Spartan laser or any other power weapon on speed dial. Everyone spawns with a shotgun (bolt shot) so they can camp around corners, a plasma pistol to take out vehicles, or any number of preset classes for any event. The best way I can describe this game and quite possible the Halo franchise now since Halo Reach is that it is Communism, 343 has put everyone one the same playing field, pros and noobs. Weapons disappear way to fast When playing the Flood game type bulltrues still don’t mean anything because you still die. And this version of zombies, even though it looks cool it is still not as fun as Halo 2’s, Halo 3’s, and even Halo reaches. That said it is close between halo reach’s and Halo 4 but I think that might be because Halo 4 is still so new. A lot of tried and true playlist that have been around since Halo 1 are not in this game and are having to be taken in and out as if for trial and error. This makes no sense because all the other Halo games had them and they worked. Just seams like people who don’t know what they are doing took over. You can get thrown into losing games. I have a bit of experience with this, I have been thrown into a game and as soon as I got in it said game over. That is BS, and because of that win lose ratio really means nothing now. Also it is not fun to join a game half over; I always want to start at the beginning. It is nice to join friends if they are down a guy (and sometimes it won’t let you join, you just sit there waiting for it to be over) but if that is the only positive I would rather have the old system in use. Also another point when people join a losing game and there is no penalty for leaving do you really think they are going to stay? The answer is no. So I just realized that when they bring back the Halo 3 style Ranking system it is going to be really screwed up since you get thrown into losing games. In halo 3 when you lost a game your points got taken away from your rank and when you win points get added to your rank, so if you enter games and instantly lose your rank is going to be terrible unless you always have a team. Again I don’t think they know what they are doing. You can have a game start 5v3 or 4v2 instead of it waiting or mixing it up. The ghost is now a mini tank. The covenant have contracted Volkswagen to make their ghost, seeing that when you shoot the ghost’s fuel tank on the side with a snipe round it won’t blow up, and sticking it won’t kill the driver any more. Its like a mix of the Halo 1 ghost (it being a tank making it hard to kill the driver) and Halo 2’s in which it can boost. Inconsistencies in plasma grenade kills. I have seen the driver of a warthog get stuck while he had a gunner and neither died. I have seen the passenger side of a warthog get stuck with a driver and a gunner in it and the driver dies, and that is just to make a point I have seen a lot more BS. There was no explanation as to what specialization did what, how to use them or even the fact that you could not use it till you got ten more levels, and also that it would take the place of a perk. When did Halo get bought by infinity ward? This game has literally ripped off the Call Of Duty games. That’s one of the biggest things I have heard from people. Perks, weapon drops, weapon skins, classes, mini missions involving the campaign(Spartan-Ops), kill cam, and other random things. THIS IS NOT HALO. This is a poor recreation of COD. I have hear that the reason is for profit, and the reasoning is that they have the halo fans but they want to try and get COD fans. If that is the truth and even if it is not than people will stop playing this game. This game revolves around perks and classes now, my Spartan, my battle hardened futuristic soldier does not understand how to pick up a grenade off the ground unless a perk tells him how to do it, WTF. DMR fire can take out tanks. I don’t know what they are making tanks out of in the future but our tanks today can stop small arms fire. If they were using armor piercing ammo that would go through a tank then Spartans would be dead in a couple shots. My friend brought up a point that I will add for him, and that is the DMR was used in Halo Reach, in the story line that is before Halo 1. The DMR is the old outdated model that the Battle Rifle replaced, and that is not in any game or event after Reach, so then why is the DMR better than the Battle Rifle. What this game needed was just one of those guns to come back, and in my opinion it should have been the Battle Rifle, A. because it makes sense storyline wise, and B. I enjoyed using the old style Battle Rifle more. This new one is a poor remake that just looks flashy. I do not believe a map pack should be coming out this close to launch date. This game like the others should have been stocked with a wide verity of maps, not a few which are basically the same and then bring out a map pack that you make people pay for just after the game comes out. It shows that you do not care about your fans, just money. In certain maps the return to battle areas doesn’t make sense where they are placed. In Ragnarok, near red base there is the water way that has a tunnel, when flying there with the banshee you receive the return to battle message. I believe this is to prevent people from sitting up there, however they missed spots because I’ve been killed from there and have confirmed you can stand up there in certain places. It has been brought to my attention that Sprint needs to be taken out. I like sprint, I’ve used it since reach, in fact that’s mostly all I used but over all its is contributing to the breaks in the game. There is bad lag in this game some times in which it effects who takes the lead, who wins and losses, I thought the 8.8 gig download was supposed fix that. Its either solid or terrible; if you have played this game you have probably experienced it more than a few times. The text in this game is extremely small, if you have a large TV you are ok, but if you have a small or medium chances are you are sitting real close. More often than you think voice communication in this game cuts out. I have noticed that when I am in a party people are asking me “are you gana answer” “did you hear me”. It is very annoying. Emblems are gone. Emblems used to part of peoples identities, a lot of people had emblems since Halo 2 and you might not think it’s a big deal but many people I have talked to are upset that they are no longer allowed to have back that piece of them selves. Medals. There is a medal for everything. Nothing is special anymore. Also the medal for head shot is gone. People are telling me that they want it to be like Halo 2, 3, and reach where they can review medals and care that they got things. I believe that when you get shot you should back out of zoom, it took skill to be a sniper, and a real sniper would not stay zoomed in when getting shot. Also I don’t know if I mad mention of this and that is that most of the Forerunner weapons are over powered, yes when you have it is good for you but again when you give it to everyone it breaks the game, and there should not be a one shot one kill anywhere on the body sniper rifle. There are a lot of cool ideas in this game, but they should have been the exception not the norm exclusive to a few playlists, and I think that 343 is figuring that out judging by the way they are taking playlists in and out. Again it is disappointing to find out the new people in charge of the game you love don’t know what they are doing and won’t admit to it. What I see happening since Halo Reach is when they make mistakes they cannot admit to it, they bulldoze through hoping something will take off and that people will forget about all the crap they put us through. Again since Reach the community has been saying what they want but the call to be more like Halo 2 and 3 has been ignored. These are just the ones I have been able to think of and get written down, I know there are other problems that I am currently forgetting and I am hoping that they are brought to the table and discussed so that the Halo franchise can get back on track to being the best game that it can be, instead of a game that you don’t need skill to play, a game that just feels like nothing matters, and the only reason you play is to remember the good old days before it started taking a nose dive. I love the Halo story and games, and the multiplayer is a big part of it. I do like that they have new weapons and tried to up the ante, but I believe that 343 was so caught up in trying to up it that they lost sight of what they were supposed to be creating. There were a lot of good ideas in Halo 4 but there are a lot of places this game should never have gone, because where having a sniper rifle that will kill a person if they get shot in the pinky tow is good for the person using it is bad for the game as a whole because it breaks it. That is not the only thing that has led to this game being subpar and not a Halo game, again giving everything to everyone all the time in not good, the way everyone has power weapon on maps where you run around in circles is not the makings of a great game, and defiantly nowhere near a Halo game. 343 tried too hard, put too much in, they were to caught up in trying to make it there’s that they made something other than an Amazing Halo game. What they have at the moment is NEW and DIFFERENT, and soon that will where off and my thinking is that people will not play as much as they did in the other halo games. I am not trying to bash on this game, I wanted this game to be the best game yet. But I don’t believe it is and I think that unless 343 listens to the community and brings back the way it used to be, Halo might end up a sinking ship. SPARTAN-OPS I have mixed feelings about Spartan-Ops, on one hand I like the fact that the story progresses even after the campaign has ended. I love the videos, the way they are done is excellent. On the other hand actually playing them is not that great. The Idea of Spartan-ops is great but I think that people had something else in mind when they heard what it was before it came out. When I heard about it I was ecstatic, it was supposed to be a way to keep the story line alive long after I had finished the Campaign, it was going to be new missions, new stories, new places all the time, but after it came out I had a completely different feel for it. I am coming back to write this after I just played a few Spartan ops on legendary by myself and I am going say that I am really pissed off right now. I was spawned in front of gold elites with fuel rod cannons and a bunch of jackals and grunts about 9 times, there was no cover and they all kept advancing without fear for there lives. BS. I did not get screwed on spawns like this in Fire Fight. When I went to play Spartan-Ops I was disappointed to find out I could not play it offline, it also disappointed me when Spartan-Ops episode 2 came out that they had just recycled the same maps and changed some stuff around. What also ticks me off is that they are super short and even if you are doing an objection all it amounts to is getting charged all the time by enemies. Granted that’s what Fire Fight used to be was just wave after wave of enemies, but at least you could control it, change weapons, how many enemies you fought, what types, maps. But when you get down to Spartan-Ops they are short and kind of annoying. an example is the Spartan-Ops where you get thrown out of a portal into a bunch of enemies and you are dead in a couple of seconds. I have also been respawned 8 times in front of 3 elites with fuel rod cannons, 2 elites with plasma rifles, and 4 invis elites with swords, and when I say in front of I meant I was 3 ft away from them, o and I spawned behind them with no cover and no way to get back to my weapons. I asked friends and random people what they would rather have as far as Spartan-Ops and Fire Fight, many tell me that they would want both, when asked to choose most tell me Fire Fight and those that said Spartan-Ops really just want it for the videos and story, and they wanted me to make a point of saying that if the videos were just something online that would come out without Spartan-Ops that they would take Fire Fight. I would like to have both as well. Again I will side with what others have said and that Is that it is mostly for the videos, as far as game play I would much rather have Fire Fight. Halo ODST had one of the best Horde modes I have ever played hands down, I still like to go back and play it. I believe that Spartan-Ops was 343’s way of trying to put another stamp on the Halo franchise, but what they should have done is keep Fire Fight make it to where you can use forge on certain maps to create a Fire Fight level how you want and make it to where you can have multiple Races on the map fighting each other, like Covenant, Prometheans, Flood, and humans in a box you made fighting it out. Now that would be something new and note worthy, plus you could make Spartan-Ops missions as they are now with such a tool, and in my opinion that’s exactly what they should have done, to me that was the evolutionary path that, Fire Fight was supposed to take. Follow Up So overall for the three parts of this game I felt that the Campaign was good, but it was not great, it did not come close to Halo 1,2,3, or ODST. It was better than Reach’s Campaign only because Reach’s has so many discrepancies from the Halo story that already existed in the form of book’s that it felt like a slap in the face, and that the creators of Halo did not care about the people that have invested a lot of time and passion into the storyline. I really felt that this game could have been much better, especially if they spent more time in some areas, and did not try to make problems and issues out of things that were insignificant, things that were never an object of concern or interest. The constant fighting between the captain of the Infinity was very cliché, it made you feel like a bad guy and seemed like a poor way get 343’s point across that the Master Chief is human and not a machine. Which I again dispute that there was never a question as to whether the Master Chief appeared human, he embodies the best qualities of humanity, courage, self sacrifice, and a willingness to never give up. The cinematic videos in this game are the best yet. But again I am angry and very adamant that the Master Chiefs face should never be seen. Even showing him as a child is pushing it, and I would just rather not go there in general. Leave it to the imagination as it were. By doing nothing in that area you create mystery and intrigue, and that is by far one of the best assets you can have, In my opinion it is the elusive free sandwich. What do you know, in this critique we have found something that was thought not to have existed the fabled free sandwich. I miss Sergeant Johnson when he talked I listened. I loved hearing Johnsons jokes and comments. In this game I have noticed that when palmer is talking or any other character is talking while I am killing things I tune them out, why because most of what they say are lines that too much effort was put into and it sounds corny. Also I don’t listen because it does not matter, I know that there is a waypoint telling me where to go, if it’s not a button I’m pressing it’s just killing everything in sight, and depending on what you are playing getting killed many times in the process. It is annoying how hard they try in some areas that didn’t need to be and, usually those areas I am just irritated they exist or were made the way they were. Sergeant Johnson was right there with the Master Chief since Halo 1 going through the challenges of saving humanity, bringing heart, soul, laughter, friendship, brotherhood, swagger, and the same determination to never give up. Any attempts to replace Sergeant Johnson that have taken place or might take place are futile. Sergeant Johnson was a beast, and he is sorely missed. I believe that Multiplayer has a great many problems and that 343 did not do its job by beta testing it. I have heard from people that this is the beta and if that is true I am very angry. I did not pay a hundred dollars for a beta filled with problems. I have heard conspiracy theories that Microsoft has a backdoor deal with play station to purposely make the Halo games less entertaining, and all around not as good as the previous games because they want to make Call Of Duty more popular. I am an open minded person and I kind of thought the guy was pulling my leg when he first said it, but he sounded really sure. To me it sounds crazy and I do not pay it much attention but as I said I am an open minded so I am entertaining the idea that it is possible, mostly on the grounds that Halo Reach took a lot out of what these games used to be, the fun and skill factor have shot way down. Now that Halo 4 has come out it feels like the Halo games are in a spiral downwards and the game makers don’t seem to be listening. Again I still feel that the theory is farfetched but I put it in on his behalf. I have to say I was looking for a Halo game in this and found a Call Of Duty game, and I know many are in agreement. As far as Spartan-Ops goes it was just a way for 343 to try and put another stamp on this game no matter what the cost. I love the videos and wish them to stay, in fact I would like to have both Fire Fight and Spartan-Ops, but when forced to choose I would rather have Fire Fight back, no questions. The game play is better in my opinion, and again if they needed to have something new they could make it so you could use forge on Fire Fight maps as well as being able to customize a war for yourself by being able to put more than one race on the map, have a war between Flood and the Covenant, then have the Prometheans show up, then humanity, or all at once for a free for all and see who wins. Add objectives, and have fun with it, like capture the flag with the Covenant for the fun of it, or more serious ones like destroying strongholds. With that tool you could make Spartan-Ops missions and still have Fire Fight, not to mention the best Hoard mode in any game. Again I am looking for people to discuss these issues and hopefully we can one day say that the current Halo is the best instead of reminiscing about the good old days of Halo 2 and Halo 3 which were (from the conversations I have had with people and my own feelings) AMAZING! I believe I know why Sergeant Johnson allowed himself to be killed in Halo 3, because he couldn't bear to face Halo 4. Jokes aside I want any that read this to make your own honest opinions and conclusions, do not listen to what others say, because deep down you will know that others made your decisions and that deep down you are a follower. Even if what you believe is not popular stand up for it, think clearly, list your reasons, and be open to the possibility that you might be wrong….. or right. Hell you might be both. Again please ignore the spelling and grammar mistakes I rushed this, and have not had it edited.

Hey all, Ive been playing Halo for about 8 years now (since the end of H1) and have loved the multiplayer aspect of the series since the very beginning. This is just a quick thread on my minor (hopefully constructive) complaints on Halo 4 at the moment, and where I can see it potentially heading with the proper attention. First off, thanks to 343 for taking the time to listen to a lot of the community's feedback and making the core of H4 so enjoyable. Despite all my minor gripes with the game, I stil am enjoying myself tremendously. However, having said that, there are a few key things that I would love to see implemented going forward, that could make this game have tremendous staying power. -The division of competitive and social playlists. I really love playing competitive Halo (MLG settings, snipers, etc...), but I don't always feel like trying so hard. Sometimes I love just signing on and joking around with friends while playing. I had a ton of fun doing both in Halo 3 because the weapons were so varied. It was amazingly fun to give ourselves handicaps (stickies only, beatdowns only, spikers only, or some other) upon realizing our opponents were far less skilled, and making the game interesting and close. This wasn't possible in Reach because of the lack of variety in the weapons, but is now back with H4. So my hope is to have playlists where TrueSkill is not weighed as heavily, so that those of us who do not always feel like playing with 100% intensity can have that option. -Option to turn off instant spawns. To me, Halo has always been a game of momentum and control. Typically after a shootout, one player has died and the other is weakened. Normally this is not an issue, the player who died has to wait a few seconds before coming back into the game, giving the player who won the encounter time to recover (as it should be). However with the newly implemented instant spawns, a player who lost an encounter has the ability to quickly jump back into the fray, and possibly finish off the fight he just lost. In my opinion, being given two chances to another player's one is never fair. While the instant spawns are great for continuous action and have their place in social play, playlists like "Slayer Pro" would benefit immensely from a more traditional timed re-spawn. At the very least this should be an option for custom games. -Set location and times for power weapons spawns. This also relates to Halo always having been about momentum and control. Having power weapons put in precise locations, away from choke-points and "power positions", encourages map movement and makes gameplay more dynamic and continuous. Without powerful weapons to entice players into moving, a power position can be established early and (possibly) never given up. Random weapon drops (and random ordinances), along with the previously mentioned instant spawns, have their place in casual playlists, but are borderline game-breaking for those looking for a balanced competitive experience. One team getting needlers on ordinance while the other is given 2 or more snipers makes for an unfair game. -Visible marker above teammates recent death. This has been in all the previous Halo games, and is an extremely useful aid in map awareness. When you see a teammates red X, you have an idea of where the enemy team is on the map. Granted that you can develop the awareness needed to not rely on this aid, but I miss it. These are my primary concerns at the moment! I realize map packs are already scheduled for release, supposedly with a competitive slant, so that wasn't brought up. Thanks again to 343 for working hard and doing their best. I only provide these criticisms with the hope that they are somehow considered for the continuous revision of the game that I love.