Why Halo 4 sucks.

[PopDeer]

I'm going to start off by saying right off the bat I LOVE the Halo universe and personally see it as more thrilling and entertaining than most other popular xbox games including Activision's Call of Duty cash cow. I own all the games, Halo 3 being my favorite, and the Limited Edition of Halo 4. While I do have a lot of issues with Halo 4, I still do respect 343i's hard work, just not as much as Bungie's. And note this is MY OWN OPINION, respect mine and I will respect YOURS.

To be honest I do no know where to start. I guess i'll tackle the problems in order of the main menu.

Campaign: SPOILERS! While the sounds of Master Chief's armor scraping against rocks and the skulls of elites were fantastic and the visuals were over the top, it was overall kinda of weak. Though 343i did do a fantastic job with the soundtrack. (While it truly isn't quite what were used to, I personally enjoyed it all.) Anyways, the campaign was full of flaws. Within the first few hours of owning the game and playing through the campaign I was frustrated at how I had no idea what was going on. I had to turn on subtitles and totally restart to catch any clue. I also found the Didact's ship being a ball to be totally lame and not something to fear. I remember in a later mission ( i'm not sure which) that a Pelican was sent to pick up Chief. Upon walking up the ramp it just cuts to black and a second later I'm under the crashed Infinity? I just don't get that. And then that ending. You detonate a nuclear bomb with your fist and live? I know that Cortana is one heck of an AI, but how on Earth, did she save you from a point-blank nuclear explosion!? She's code just like the game! If code stopped nukes then..well....i don't know, but it doesn't. I just had trouble getting into this whole thing. I remember sitting in awe as I saw the amazing sights of the first 3 Halos, but I only got that feeling when once in Halo 4 when Chief saw whatever Halo was outside the Composers base. All in all though i just felt that 343i put too much effort into making epic CGI cutscenes and music than story development and it's not even a continuing story. That's just lame. The enemies don't speak English....Moving on...

Infinity - Matchmaking: Overall it is a little enjoyable. The first thing i'm going to stab at is the Custom Loadouts. I don't get why every game has to be like Call of Duty? These are totally unnecessary. We don't need perks and the weapons should be scattered about the map as usual. The ordnance is okay i guess. It just hands everyone a power weapon after five kills, but since there are no weapons lying about it is better than nothing. Next comes the armors. Personally I do like a lot of them and am glad that 343i chose to give some armors a sense of accomplishment by making them unlockable through commendations, but all most are is a bunch of skins which only the trained eye can even tell the difference. I loved earning the katana and other armors in Halo 3 through achievements. I think I would have honestly rather seen a return to the CR system so I can show off of my hardwork. As for the maps I think there are maybe a handful of them I enjoy. Haven is cool, kinda like guardian or blackout. Longbow is my favorite with its snowiness and vehicles. Complex is good too. My main problem with these maps is all the freaking symmetry. I know the maps have to be fair to both teams but half of them are just totally mirrored. Solace especially. With my limited edition I also received all three map packs which are all okay. Though have hardly played them since the current Castle DLC playlist only holds about 100 active players. Although I already expressed myself about weapons I forgot to mention the skins.... Ok, the skins are cool but theres like 1 or 2 for each weapon. And you can only get them though maybe mastery (haven't done it yet so i don't know) and specialization. If there was more and they were varied on how to get them I would love to work for them. Almost at the end here now but why did you have to take away the Falcon? It was the most fun vehicle ever! I throughly, honestly enjoyed getting shot down in it in Reach with all my buddies on the guns. It was great!.. Also my rank is a number now? Im level SR68 as of today and thats just boring. I'm a General Grade 4 in reach and thats cool. The moral of the story is Halo was* in itself a unique game. You don't have to suck ideas from Call of Duty for it to be good. Seeing as there is only about 10,000-20,000 players now from the 400,000 at day one hopefully that is obvious.

Infinity - Custom Games: I'm going to be frank Halo's Custom Games are my favorite part of the entire series. I love playing fun mini-games and competitive matches with my friends. However, 343i you smothered this one in the crib. I know how cool it is to change Infection into your own Flood and I love the zombie skins, but come on! You trashed almost every custom game ever made! Say goodbye to hours of non-stop action and enjoyment. It's like you found a successful man named Custom Games, took him out in the back alley behind the 343i studio, and then beat him relentlessly with a metal pole just because. Quit using the Ghost on Snowbound and fix this already!

Infinity - Spartan Ops: Personally these are pretty cool and I like the story to them, but they are a bit repetitive. I was unaware every sensor array on requiem was located in the same spot. Im sorry, but use different maps including the multiplayer ones to mix it up a little and throw in some new interesting enemies and objectives. Like for instance the shootout in Vallaha (thats right. thats what it is called.) with the mantises was awesome and the covenant cruiser actually worried me a little. Whether firefight is better than Spartan ops I'm not really sure, but i've had more good times surviving the waves of helpless grunts in the end.

Infinity - Forge: I do NOT have a single bad thing to say about Forge. It is spectacular! The magnets are a gift from the gods! And all the aesthetics and scenery! I LOVE it all, especially Forge Island. However it is stifled by weak Custom Games. Fix those and then your in business.

Infinity - Theater: It's theater. How can you mess that up or make it any better?

 

Infinity - THE FREAKING MENUS!: I apologize for ranting about the game thus far, but here comes more. I'm sorry but the menus are just lazy. Don't deny it. The only valid excuse is that you were too busy sacking Custom Games' house and dragging him out into the street and beating him again, relentlessly with a metal pole. Compared to Halo 2, 3, 3:ODST, and Reach these are the plainest yet. It's just a blue card. Everything is blue. It makes me want to stab my eyes out with the fuzzy end of my mic. What happened to the imagination? Couldn't you at least have put in a background like the main menu? AND THE MUSIC OH GOD! The constant thu-doom-doom is the worst part of it all. You composed epic music! USE IT!

So that's pretty much all I have to say about that. I'm sorry for possibly offending anyone, but I felt it was necessary to give a little "constructive" criticism. If your planning on pumping out Halo 5 I would think long and hard about how its going to turn out first. If I made any mistakes on something besides grammar feel free to correct me. And now let any ranting or comments about how inconsiderate I am as a person commence, because frankly I don't care anymore.

Sincerely, PopDeer

[Axilus Prime]

Campaign - Yeah...no. Just no. The only way this story isn't clear and easy to understand is if you weren't paying attention, or have forgotten much of Halo. Now, as for how good it is, I thought it was awesome, the best story so far, but that's just my personal opinion. What I think ruins the campaign is how redundant and similar the weapons are, how dumb the AI is, and how easy the entire Campaign is.

 

You have enemies burst-firing you with 2 second intervals, never following you or hunting you down, repetitive and predictable Prometheans, and enemies trying to move through solid objects.

 

Campaign was good, but falls short of past Halos.

 

Matchmaking - Lag, stupid loadouts, unfair ordnance, poor map design. This one pretty much sucks.

 

Custom Games - Barely any customization, and the maps are as stupid as ever.

 

Forge - No fine editing. It's very awkward and clunky, and with the base maps being what they are, it's hard to build good stuff off of them. Forge Island, however, is good. A friend once made a great SWAT map on it.

 

Theater - It's fine, I guess. But they should really add a function to save things as video files as well as scripted events, and make the videos accessible to computers as well from the Waypoint site.

 

Menu Layout - MAKE FILE SHARING AND SAVING LESS CONFUSING. I mean DAMN! This part took me an hour to completely figure out every inch of. And ALL the menu music sucks, whereas Reach's menu music was all great.

 

Graphics - I did not know we had Promethean Watchers scrubbing and shining everything 24/7. It's all too shiny, which makes it look fake. Texture detail has been achieved to a tremendous measure in Reach, I can't possibly imagine why they would downgrade it. Even if you don't add the realistic wear and tear that Reach had, there is no excuse for the textures being so cheap up close! 

 

Thankfully the complexity and poly count of the models was great in H4.

 

Music - Only like two tracks are awesome. The rest is crap. We need more of this good stuff,  like 117 and Arrival.

 

Well, that's pretty much my response to your thread, even though I put certain topics in a different order.

[Ivesy]

I wont go into most of this as its been covered in many other threads but as for the campaign, the only 2 halo games where i thought the story line didnt have flaws was CE and reach.  My least fav part in the whole saga had to be giving the flood a commanding personality.  I loved the idea of it being some incredibly infectious devastating disease rather than it being spread as part of some grand plan by an evil conciousness. 

 

Obviously perception of story line quality is about as subjective as it gets but wanted to get that one off my chest for ages.

 

As for halo 5 the best thing to do would be to actually finish it before releasing it.

[LordKastle]

1. If the game has various weapons that aren't power weapons then custom load-outs are common sense, not copying anything. Designing the game so multiple weapons can be starting weapons like the LightRifle, BR, DMR, Carbine is not such a bad thing and it lends to more diversity. But without a custom load-out how could you utilize the weapons? You can't have endless amounts of weapons laying around the map and there aren't going to be arsenal rooms placed in maps.

 

2. If you are liking/disliking the game simply because the names of ranks, then you probably aren't contributing much to the community from a competitive standpoint anyway. How about playing in the name of symbolic principle...striving to improve your gameplay and evolve your mind. Keep in mind you aren't saying that you dislike the ranking system because of the way it works. Rather your distain is based on the titles of the rank.

 

3. The main reason why the population dropped is because Call of Duty is the mainstream shooter of the modern day. Maybe this changes come the new generation of consoles but as of today its a reality. People don't like to work to get kills anymore. They just want to point and click and be on to the next. Halo takes the extra bit of effort to accomplish something and the masses have been conditioned to like Call of Duty's style of play. Even if Halo 4 was designed as a Halo 3 replica in its mechanics and style of play, the numbers would still be similar to today. I am not saying 343 did a perfect job....far from it. And maybe a small drop in the population was from disenchanted Halo supporters, but thats not the true reason for the decline in population.

[Victory Element]

I felt that I could relate to many of your arguments, and I really accept the fact that you did bout complain about things like DMR and boltshot. Its nice to see something new for a change

[The Stig]

I was playing Halo Reach the other day and heard some dude with his mic on, (I don't have a mic) say that 343 purposely made Halo 4 bad so that Halo 5 would be able to beat it without even trying... He said that the less of a shadow Halo casts, the bigger the shadow the next one can leave...

[Dawn Wolf]

I have a few gripes with 4, some big, some small. But the bottom line is, despite what people say, the game still plays like Halo. Most of the things that make halo great are present in 4. That's the most important thing, and that's why I think 343 did a good job. Yes, they could have done better. Lets' see how 5 is.

[spartan123]

I wont go into most of this as its been covered in many other threads but as for the campaign, the only 2 halo games where i thought the story line didnt have flaws was CE and reach.  My least fav part in the whole saga had to be giving the flood a commanding personality.  I loved the idea of it being some incredibly infectious devastating disease rather than it being spread as part of some grand plan by an evil conciousness. 

 

Obviously perception of story line quality is about as subjective as it gets but wanted to get that one off my chest for ages.

 

As for halo 5 the best thing to do would be to actually finish it before releasing it.

Couldn't disagree with you more. The collective consciousness of the flood is what differentiates it from your typical space-zombie trope. Gravemind in Halo 2 creeped me out, because I realized that the Flood were actually intelligent, not some horde of disorganized, scattered little infection forms. They used to be VERY powerful originally; they could build entire planets out of flood forms, travel through slipspace, devastate entire cities and worlds. In terms of campaign, Halo Ce and Halo 2 for me were the most exciting story-lines because of the four-way battles, the Covenant civil war in High Charity, and playing as the Arbiter. 

 

Campaign problems: Bad soundtrack, bad villain (Didact aka ugly orc-face), lack of explanation for plot (chief survives nuke, Librarian cutscene), lonely and depressing campaign with no interesting characters and awkwardness with the whole platonic Cortana-Chief "love" thing. 

 

Forge Problems: No large, open maps like forge-world. Lack of new items to forge with. Magnets aren't accurate with certain items like flat building blocks. 

 

Theater: Fine. No problems. 

 

Multiplayer Problems: Ordinance drops (ruin gameplay), lack of competitive and social playlists, lack of 1-50 rank displayed in your in-game Spartan profile, terrible maps (all asymmetric, too large, bad spawning, bad vehicle placement, etc. we need more small symmetrical maps with better vehicle and weapon spawning), lack of UNSC air vehicles, lack of cool armor, lack of race/gender customization (no elites), custom loadouts (noobs spawn with power weapons), lack of invasion and territories, sprint (needs to be an armor ability - gameplay is now too-fast paced), BR is completely OP (no one uses the other primaries), vehicles like warthogs and banshees are too weak (two grenades to kill a warthog, a few shots to take down a banshee), boltshot is OP. 

[I_Make_Big_Boom]

In my own opinion I thought the Halo 4 end battle with the Didact was pretty badass. They took a minimal approach and I like that. Not like Call of Duty and their 5 minute button mashing combos to beat and strangle a single person (which I think is still pretty cool. MW2's and 3's endings were the best. Though escaping from the underwater facility in Black Ops, and catching Menendez in Black Ops 2 was still pretty cool. The music playing during the underwater escape in Black ops was SOOO badass.)

 

One of the problems I faced in Campaign was how faint the background music was on some levels. I also liked how they played the Original Halo theme when Chief sees the Halo ring, which made me want it back soo much. I'm not dissing the Halo 4 theme, it's just I would have rather-ed the original / updated Halo theme. I also would have liked at least a couple remake songs from previous Halos, but It'll do I guess. The song that plays during the credits is most definitely from Halo 3 though.

 

Everything about the Multiplayer and Customization to me was grade A. Some of the maps were bland, but others stood out tremendously. I didn't see a problem with Ordnance, it's just that when the whole other team gets Binary Rifles it's extremely hard to even try to do anything. Maybe they can make it where there can only be a set number of the same Power weapon on the map at one time. Like 2 Binary's at once. I really hated how the weapons despawned sooo fast. I can understand since it's Power Weapons galore in Halo 4, but come on at least keep it slower for Loadout weapons!

 

I can't really think of anything else so I'll just leave it at that.

[Vengchi]

i think halo 4 sucks ,   because it followed the footsteps of halo reach and not the better halo games 2 and 3 ,   .....i find armor abilities has recked halo , ..........theirs no ranked and unranked games ,  ......ordinence drops is stupid we should have to work for the weopons not been given to us , .......the loadouts shouldnt be on there expecially giving us weopons like the bolt shot , dmr , br   ...................mybe if they brought the smg in and give us the choice between that or the assult riffle ..............i just cant believe we never got atleast a classic slayer in halo 4 , dissapointing , ive just lost hope in halo,  and if 343 dosent listen to this , than they need to look at how bad halo 4 is doing and how many people has left halo

[Is not JL]

Personally, I think that all of the reasons why the multiplayer (And, by extent, campaign) gameplay in Halo 4 is bad, all tails back to the same reason - 343 wanted to cater to....shall we say, less capable players. They wanted a long lastin game, yet this backfired almost immediately.

 

Too much randomness.

 

Very simply, that.

[WonderWombat]

Couldn't disagree with you more. The collective consciousness of the flood is what differentiates it from your typical space-zombie trope. Gravemind in Halo 2 creeped me out, because I realized that the Flood were actually intelligent, not some horde of disorganized, scattered little infection forms. They used to be VERY powerful originally; they could build entire planets out of flood forms, travel through slipspace, devastate entire cities and worlds. In terms of campaign, Halo Ce and Halo 2 for me were the most exciting story-lines because of the four-way battles, the Covenant civil war in High Charity, and playing as the Arbiter. 

...That is usually how space zombies work. Them being a mindless infection probably would have been more original for the genre.

 

Tons of games in the past 10-15 years have copied the Starcraft formula of Terran (UNSC), Protoss (Covenant), and Zerg (The Flood).

 

With Halo 4 they basically added a super protoss into the mix.

Edited June 28, 2013 by WonderWombat

[Frost Blade]

Halo 4's multiplayer went DOWN. They made the maps much smaller, and like you said, symmetrical. This creates lame, repetitive gameplay. They also took out aerial combat. And yes, I know that banshees are still in the game, but you can't honestly say that banshee vs. banshee battles are half as fun as the aerial wars you experienced in Reach! Why would they do that?! And half the time your in a banshee, you're firing at ground infantry. I'm just saying that Halo 4 doesn't deserve to be called Halo, and that in my book, it's just Halo 5 Beta.

 

But then again, guys, 343 has admitted that their game suck. Maybe we should leave it alone and cross our fingers for Halo 5.

[rwtf Leah]

A major set back to me, is that all of the vehicles are practically made of paper when it comes to Halo 4. Each vehicle I think gets obliterated with one lazer shot, but the Mantis takes two to three? Ookay then. I think most of us can go on about what bothers us, and how similar Halo is trying to be with Call of Duty. (Which, because it WAS NOT C.o.D is why I enjoyed it so much but whatever.)

[playedhalosinceiwasfive]

When people complain about multiplayer they're just stupid super soldiers should be able to sprint i mean they are super soldiers drops should be something more advanced than just weapons that should just be on the ground or unlocked for a loud out for ordnance you should be given a scorpion or mantis or even sentinels to help fight in battle these are real rewards!!! When you are in the ****ing future you should be able to do futuristic things it's only common sense. Now to the important part because multiplayer can suck my balls when it comes to Halo because in all honesty the halo that i know in love since i was five was always about the story i don't know about you but when you hear aliens talking to each other in deep voices in riddles and uphold nothing but honor it gives you a tingle down your spine or atleast it did with me great music and cut scenes you make me laugh the music was horrible it was like some retarded kid got a hold of a phone jack and a recording room. just so much to say so little will listen. I mean in halo 2 wasn't it awesome when arbiter chief and the grave mind together and the conversation goes like this   [A hazy view of an underground area and a circle of red lights. The Master

Chief comes fully awake to see himself held by a tentacle. It's attached to
a creature that seems to be entirely head, neck, and tentacles. The eyeless
head bears a strong resemblance to the mouth structure of an Elite.]
Cortana: What...is that?
Gravemind: I? I am a monument to all your sins.
[Two more tentacles descend holding a struggling Arbiter.]
Chief: Relax. I'd rather not **** this thing off.
Arbiter: Demon!
Gravemind: This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. This one
is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded.
Arbiter: Kill me or release me parasite! But do not waste my time with talk.
Gravemind: There is much talk. And I have listened. Through rock and metal
and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen.
[Another tentacle comes into view, wrapped around a monitor with a red eye.]
2401: Greetings! I am twenty-four-oh-one Penitent Tangent. I am the monitor
of installation zero-five.
[Yet another tentacle. This one is merged with a half-Flood Regret.]
Regret: And I am the Prophet of Regret...counciler most high...Hierarch of the
Covenant!
2401: A Reclaimer? Here? At last! We have much to do. This facility must be
activated if we are to control this outbreak!
Regret: Stay were you are! Nothing can be done until my sermon is complete!
2401: Not true. This installation has a successful utilization record of one-
point-two trillion simulated and one actual. It is ready to fire on demand.
Regret: Of all the objects our Lords left behind, there are none so worthless
as these Oracles! They know nothing of the Great Journey!
2401: And you know nothing about containment! You have demonstrated complete
disregard for even the most basic of protocols!
Gravemind: This one's containment...and this one's Great Journey are the same.
Your Prophets have promised you freedom from a doomed existence. But you will
find no salvation on this ring. Those who built this place knew what they
wrought. Do not mistake their intent, or all will perish as they did before.
Chief: This thing is right. Halo is a weapon. Your Prophets are making a big
mistake.
Arbiter: Your ignorance already destroyed one of the Sacred Rings demon. It
shall not harm another.
Gravemind: If you will not hear the truth, then I will show it to you. There
is still time to keep the key from turning. But first, it must be found. You
will search one likely spot, and you will search another. Fate had us meet as
foes, but this ring will make us brothers!

[High Charity is floating between the planet and Halo. A battle rages around
it as Covenant ships fight each other. Inside, the city isn't better. Brute
guards in their new red and gold armour stand in front of the Council chambers.
A mob of Grunts and Jackals cover the stairs and literally climb the walls.
The Brutes use their spears to smash anyone who gets within range. Inside the
chamber, Truth and Mercy are broadcasting to the Covenant fleet.]
Truth: We are, all of us, greatly concerned...the release of the parisite was
unexpected, unfortunate. But there is no need to panic...In truth, this is a
time to rejoice! A moment that all the Covenant should savor! For the Sacred
Icon has been found. With it, our path is clear-our entry into the Divine
Beyond guaranteed! The Great Journey is nigh, and nothing, not even the Flood,

can stop it!  I mean come on!!!!!!!!!! Halo 4 just sucked at everything!!!!!!    

Edited July 6, 2014 by RedStarRocket91
Thread locked, please do not revive dead threads.