I'm about done with 343.

[Raedeoh]

Many people, myself included had a huge hype for the release of Halo 4. If only then I knew what I had known now I could have saved myself $60 and a trip to a midnight release. Before flaming immediately after seeing the title, please, at least here me out.

 

Flashback to November, 15, 2011. Microsoft and 343i had just released its first Halo game (with 343i being a separate company, respectively). Halo: CEA was released in North America and was sold on the shelves for a mere $40. But the price had nothing on game itself, right? The original Halo, just with better graphics and sound quality. Sounded great to me. But as a gamer, I wouldn't be doing my job if I hadn't poked out the flaws. And please, let me take a minute to explain. Hating and nitpicking flaws are COMPLETELY different. Don't know the difference? Google it. Back to the matter at hand. I remember playing the first Halo as a kid, I only played at my cousins place, because my parents had refused to buy me an Xbox (they thought the games were too violent, so I showed them Madhouse on the Wii when it came out years later). Nonetheless, I went from Banjo Kazooie, Mario 64, and the LoZ series (which are GREAT games, by the way) to shooting my way through any situation I saw fit. Halo ALONE stood above as the mighty grandeur of most of my gaming experiences. This led on to me playing Halo 3, CoD 4 and WaW (I did play Halo 2, just not online). All of which I highly regard to as great games to a modern era. You know what all of these games have in common? If you guessed 'A player progression system' then step up to get your prize. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING could compare to the feeling that I got once I hit General in Halo 3 or when I prestiged in CoD 4. I just had this sense of accomplishment where I knew that I had something that few people had. I don't really remember CE having any online capabilities (I may be wrong), but I do know it had Custom Games. CEA; however, failed to deliver an online experience, let alone Custom Games. To save myself a few words, I'll say this: The same can be said for Halo 4. Like I previously stated, I enjoy ranking up and proving my worth, which would explain why I love games like WoW and GW2. I'm getting sidetracked. Now onto Halo 4, or should I say the burden of my Halo experience.

 

Flashforward to November 6, 2012. I'm standing in a line at Gamestop waiting to get my copy of Halo 4. Line number, 122. Not too bad I guess. After driving home and changing my pants, I popped Halo 4 into the disc tray of my 360 and ran it from the dashboard. Let's start with the Campaign. I played this first as it is simply my tradition to experience the story line before anything else. Let me be the first to say, HOLY MOTHER OF GOD this was purely amazing! Campaign was probably my favorite aspect, I beat it twice. Once to test the waters and a second time for Legendary Solo. Only I have a few problems. 343, to my dismay had lied in saying that Halo 4's legendary mode would be the hardest yet. I beat it; solo, mind you, in less than a day. I'm not that great at Campaign, especially Halo. I expected this to make me break a controller, not sit through in boredom as the derpy AI wandered around like nothing happened after I clearly assassinated a Promethean Knight. On the plus side, being able to see a little bit of Master Chief's face was MORE than promising. The game felt like a Sci-Fi shooter, like it should. However, this shouldn't give 343 the right to take the humor out of Halo. Even playing through the entire Campaign with IWHBYD on, I found no humorous remarks from the Covenant (I expected no real humor out of the Prometheans, mind you). Just growling most of the time. I also find myself running out of ammunition when it's most needed. Anyway, enough with Campaign (I gave it a 9/10).

 

Onto the prominent Spartan Ops. A replacement for the classic Firefight experience, you play as the infamous Crimson team while playing through multiple missions, each with their own chapters and objectives. It's an interesting change; however, I would like to have seen a separate custom loadouts for Spartan Ops. Having to change constantly for Spartan Ops and War Games is a chore that should never have to be done. Here's an idea, have different roles for Spartan Ops. Each loadout would express a different role that could be fulfilled be the player. Heavy Weapons, Assault, Sniper, etc. Just a suggestion, of course. Now, herein lies the problem with Spartan Ops. The connectivity between players feels like the Ethernet cords were replaced with licorice. I can connect (with full bars, err, green bar, rather) to people when in Custom Games or Forge, and still lag like crazy when in Spartan Ops. It's like I'm being forced to play on LAN to enjoy the experience. With about a year in Computer Networking and mostly logical thinking, it can only be 343's servers that fail to support anything. Replaying the same map for missions can be a bit annoying too, unless it's like Mission 4 (or 5, I can't really remember) where you're on Ragnarok for 2-3 chapters and it actually follows a decent story pattern to it.

 

War Games. Matchmaking for any fellow Halo vets. I could go on about this for ages, but to sum it up, I hate it. I hate the fact that I HAVE to hate it. This shouldn't exist, and I feel like it's a monstrosity to the competitiveness Halo used to bring. Whine and cry about Reach as it may be, but at least Reach could support an MLG playlist. Or any playlist for that matter. Halo 2, from what I've collected, had a Clan Battle playlist. That's perfect for clans who want to warm up before a GB match or something. For weapons, one precision weapon for UNSC is fine enough, thank you. Not two, is that concept so difficult to understand? Was 343 even thinking about the competitive community? Probably not. Reach brought about the concept of Armor Abilities, which most people hated. Any hate was usually directed for only one reason in particular, Armor Lock. Personally, I always used Sprint. I like to get to objectives and places around the map quickly. AA's were the only thing that really put someone at an edge over the other player (not including weapons, of course. I'm just talking about the traits at spawn). Now, in response to this, Halo 4 added not only Armor Abilities (which I find myself almost never using,) but perks as well. Perks? PERKS? Are you serious 343? If War Games had a CoD label on it, it would be the most balanced CoD out on the market (certainly better than BO:II). But why put a Halo label on this? Spawning with the same thing as everyone else had was just fine. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy change as much as the next guy. Repeating a similar multiplayer pattern gets old and boring. But this is not the way to do it 343! If you want some change that's fine, but don't change the game mechanics! Team Slayer Pro has little to no player base, and changing loadouts simply shouldn't be in Halo. Look at Reach's response to Armor Abilities, it was horrible. And the addition of having everyone have sprint is absolutely fine, I in fact welcome it with open arms. This doesn't give 343 the right to add perks. If they wanted a perk system, they could have made slight, minuscule differences that had a slight impact on the game. Like maybe 105% movement speed, or maybe a slight increase in the duration of sprint, not unlimited. 2 primary weapons in a loadout? No. Get rid of it. Awareness? Leave this game. More grenades? Kill yourself. Increased Explosives radius and less damage received? (Insert sarcastic smile, obviously indicating anger here) Better yet, let's throw in a carbon copy of a CoD perk! Oh, what's it called? Sleight of Hand maybe? Yeah that's the one. 343, grow some originality, or at least fire your multiplayer development team, and make a multiplayer system that makes me not want to throw up.

 

Finally, Forge (I'm not dealing with Theater, that failed after Halo 3 due to no multiplayer viewing options). Forge seems much worse than compared to in Reach. Dynamic lighting and magnets were all that 343 brought to the table as major changes to Forge. That's great, but provide no decent maps to forge on and the whole system falls apart. Not only is the Magnet system feel uncomfortable, but the Coordinate system feels odd too! And precision editing? Nope! Zooming in while in monitor mode? Ha! Nope! In terms of maps, Ravine is horrible. I can't find a place to put anything anywhere. The Promethean structure half shouldn't be there. The moon base is equally full of stupid-syndrome. I just want Forge World back. I'd rather have one large map to forge on rather than 3 dysfunctional maps with no real purpose. Custom Games just feels dull since 343 copied most of what made Reach's custom games a bit derpy. Like the Camo system. That ruined Ghostbusters, my favorite custom game in H3. The jump scares were really fun! Now it's just like "Oh, you're there.." I tried making a paintball-esque Custom Game in Halo 4. It was okay, but there were no good maps to play it on. Why take away the freedom, fun, and creativity from Halo? I forged quite a bit on both H3 and Reach. Both were decent in their own respects. Foundry. Am I right, or am I right? Sandbox was pretty cool, along with the other maps that had skulls on them. Nice touch, Bungie.

 

Above all, I feel like Halo 4 fixed a few of the big mistakes but made a LOT of smaller ones in its path. Graphics only add to the overall atmosphere of a game. And I feel like 343 focused on only that. The appeal to the atmosphere, rather the gameplay. Reach had a sort of grunge look/feel to it. The dirty armor truly made me feel like a war torn Spartan. And that's what Halo is about, right?

 

Hate on me if you will, I've come to accept that my opinion isn't very welcome. At least think of this: Are you defending this game so much because you like it, or because it simply says "Halo" on the cover? I am actually enthralled to hear someone else's opinion on this.

 

I never really addressed my concern with Halo 4's ranking system. After hitting 50 and passing into your first specialization, it's easy to rank up until rank 5-6 of your specialization. It then follows a repeated pattern after hitting 60. Choose the specialization, it's easy then it gets really difficult. There's no sense in that at all. Just wanted to point that out.

[Jeff Hall]

Coolstorybro. Needs more dragons.

 

The Gameplay is amazing. They introduced the Mantis which the gameplay for that is amazing. I loved how everybody has sprint. The flood though needs to be changed back to infection. I can't stand how they ruined custom games by making every infection game a default flood character. But yea, they didn't just focus on the beauty, they added personality.

[Azaxx]

tl;dr

I hate this game, don't like 343 much. And it sucks

 

 

My opinion, don't like it? Don't play it.

[Twisted Oracle]

If you dont like the game no one is going to force your to play it

[OMG Treason]

Lol, perhaps your just not very good at matchmaking..

[Maximum Clutch]

You need to summarize dude. I stopped reading after the third paragraph. That was way too much. but like the ones before me said, if you don't like it, don't play it.

[Vaulting♥Frog]

I am not sure if I care enough to read... Opinions are worthless to everyone else but the person who gives it. If you dont enjoy it then dont play it simple as that.

[screechymon]

What? you have a very long winded biased opinion. maybe simply you don't like change. I like the game, spartan ops/MM. plus 343 was nice enough to give us hit detection. So when I shoot someone in the face they get hit in the face. Go figure, seems to be alot to ask for.

[SykoWolf]

Ok im going to repeat what i've told everyone else..... CHANGE is good

If Halo didn't Change then it would get boring....

And the changes that were made, were good ones, and LOTS of people love it

 

This is another Halo game, to the core and if you think it isn't then im sorry but your wrong in my opinion

[Halogeek99]

I welcome the esthetics, but they made a turd of the game anyway. Throw out everything, bring back 100% Halo 3 rules and setup with this new engine. It would be the best Halo ever made. Simple as that.

[screechymon]

I welcome the esthetics, but they made a turd of the game anyway. Throw out everything, bring back 100% Halo 3 rules and setup with this new engine. It would be the best Halo ever made. Simple as that.

I miss the dual wielding. What were they called the strikers with the shard like projectiles, or the 6 shot close range pistols. Bolt shot maybe, I can't remember but two of them at close range.... Many moons of fun.

[Baeztoberfest]

I disagree.

 

That said I think you made some very good arguing points and you weren't whining like a ten year old with a bad report card.

 

Refreshing.

 

I do see what you're saying in matchmaking. It has its own feel but change isn't always bad. Good post. Even if I do disagree.

[Raedeoh]

In regards to anyone who is stating that I don't like change, look back at the original post. I clearly stated that I do enjoy change, but I just think that 343 took a step in wrong direction. It's a hard belief to imagine, but I see it like this: If something works, then create just enough change to bring back the original appeal, not change the game mechanics entirely.

 

I like change, but I'm debating on whether 343 made too much change or simply refused to acknowledge the competitive community. Look at Ghostayame's opinion on Halo 4. I also believe there's a forum post on here addressing that as well. I played competitively, I like a solid, even game where I know that everyone has the same thing as everyone else. Halo isn't about having a lot of customization, it's about an even, flat, playing ground. Perks and specializations ruin this, it's become a guessing game on what the opponent has. If you're not using a DMR, you get destroyed. I honestly prefer a BR, it just feels more comfortable.

 

Also, to anyone stating that "you don't have to play the game," I'm well aware of this. I'm honestly stating that I'm disappointed in the results of a game which had so much hype built on it. No playlists in War Games appeal to me, which isn't much of a surprise since 343 took out some of my favorite playlists in Reach. This isn't just about competitive things either. 343 took out Action Sack, Squad Slayer, and Anniversary Big Team, just to name a few. These playlists kept the game interesting and alive. If you don't want to play Team Slayer, go play Grifball. Want a break from MLG? Go play Action Sack. In Halo 4, I feel like I'm reduced to Infinity Slayer, CTF, and KoTH. SWAT is still there, but where did Team Sniper's go? It was there for a bit, but now it's gone. This may not be so bad. Sniping is a lot more easier in this game, and it defiantly supports more body-shots. There's no Snipe medal for headshots, only sniper kills. The card system is also a bit odd. If 343 wanted to add Stances (which are pretty cool, I might add), then the player model system would've worked just fine. The lobby's feel barren and dull. I don't want to have to shift through players just to find somebody on my team. The vertical system was perfect, so why change it? It just feels like Halo 4 was rushed, or simply not finished. Say what you may about graphics, but like I said before it adds to the atmosphere, not the gameplay appeal to a game. This is my honest opinion, and I'm entitled to it, as you are to yours.

 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.

[D-38 Boss]

These are all Opinions. While I respect it, I disagree with it Immensely. The "Perks" are a welcome change and CoD did not Pioneer Loadouts and Perks. And while i agree about the Game type cycles, I can't fault 343 for trying to mix it up and see if a new idea works. Also Spartan Ops may recycle maps, but they keep fresh dialogue and challenges coming, and i guarantee we'll see some new maps when 343 starts the next season.

 

I hate Cod. I have since MW2. They have no originality. And I'm glad 343 decided to step up and show that they were their own Company, not Bungie 2.0

 

Thanks for Venting your complaints though. I always enjoy seeing a fresh opinion.

[NJL]

Soooo who's the author of this book?

[Caboose The Ace]

i love the game camapin so cool and i cried at the end i felt like i knew what chief was going throught i felt like the chief

sparten ops i like i like the story is good and i like to play solo and co op as they provide cool and diffrent expirnces and war games i so addicting and beast i cannot get enought of it and forge and customs i was let down i think ah well

[Geoffrey Sims]

Halo 4 is fine. Adapt.

[TornadoFlame]

herp derp don't like it quit or adapt thats what all the people who are good at the game will tell you now.. Pray they fix there broken game this is why cod is so successfull and now halo 4 is failing. this coming from someone who has a 1.8 k/d with 2/3 of my games won.

[SykoWolf]

This isnt a Broken Game...Halo 4 is one of the best Halo's out there...disagree?

Then don't play it...it's up to you

[SatanicBagels]

herp derp don't like it quit or adapt thats what all the people who are good at the game will tell you now.. Pray they fix there broken game this is why cod is so successfull and now halo 4 is failing. this coming from someone who has a 1.8 k/d with 2/3 of my games won.

 

Have you tried adapting yet. I heard that it's quite lovely

[Hippie]

Ill say this. Halo 4 wasnt exactly what I was looking forward to. I like it and all. But there are things I dont like.

 

Am I going to hold it over 343. No. Its their first Halo game. Hating on 343 would be like hating on Bungie when CE came out.

 

Give them time. Things will get better. 343 is trying their best. Im not gonna hate on 343 cause their first Halo game has some flaws.

 

There is some things I would change in H4. But I will wait and see what happens.

 

I do see your point of veiws. Its understandable on how feel about it. But all I can say is wait and see. Im sure they will do things you only thought about on be Halo someday. Its good for change. It just takes some getting used to. But as for the servers I fully agree with you. I cant get a non-laggy game. Some point in the game I lag. It sucks.

 

But Im sure they will fix it someday. Just takes time. I dont know how they do half the stuff they do. So I'm pretty sure time is a big factor. But it will get better. Just wait and see.

[Grif.]

tl;dr

I hate this game, don't like 343 much. And it sucks

 

 

My opinion, don't like it? Don't play it.

exactly

[OMG Treason]

herp derp don't like it quit or adapt thats what all the people who are good at the game will tell you now.. Pray they fix there broken game this is why cod is so successfull and now halo 4 is failing. this coming from someone who has a 1.8 k/d with 2/3 of my games won.

1.8 thats cute.

COD isn't that successful they just appeal to the masses. Most people hate it yet end up buying it. Game isnt even that broken..

Not trying to be an *** but it seems like everyone is nit picking this game to death just for the sake of it. You get out of it what you put into it.

[Baeztoberfest]

All these people saying "adapt"... That's such a panzee out. Why don't you offer up some techniques things he could try to do better? Any sort of advice? Is it against the law now to be a fan of a series and be displeased with one game? That's freaking rude people. For no good reason.

 

OP I disagree with you as well but where others would say adapt I would say this.

 

Utilize DMR and boltshot. Starting with these two super weapons you should instantly give yourself an advantage. Try playing custom games with friends. It doesn't matter what their skill level is its just to improve hand eye game.

 

Start there and practice. If you're still coming up short keep at it. The cool stuff that happens along the way is always more fun than simply reading "victory" or "defeat".

 

Realize that this is a stand alone title. A whole new developer is taking the series in a whole new direction. Even though it brandishes the Halo name, don't assume you're playing a typical Halo game. Start from scratch. Wipe CoD out of your memory and anything else you might compare it too.

 

Giving the guys at 343i their chance at a game isn't a bad idea. Just think. Many people who are displeased at Halo 4 give it the 1/10 or the whole 3/10... I can think of far worse games out there to invest your time then Halo 4.

 

I feel your pain. You desperately want to like a game that you feel like you're supposed to be great at but several of the pieces just don't seem to fit. That doesn't mean it's crap, it just means that it's a little different.

 

Sorry for the short novel. And once again, I share the opinion of many who replied to your thread that its an amazing game with lots of cool new tricks toys and incentives. But I disagree MAJORLY with the whole "adapt" argument. That's just a cop out. Hope this helped man.

[TornadoFlame]

Play more cod that accutaly helps you get better in halo because they are alike. just aim shoot at a person you should be fine in call of halo.