Halo 4

[Stark]

Play wise, Halo4 is much better than Reach. It's pretty skippable, and the story part is bad.

[Zac Naloen]

Halo 4 is a great game. Campaign one of the best shooter campaigns I've played in years. an ACTUAL STORY. With emotional heart strings and themes! A bit of cheese at the end I guess but that's absolutely fine with me when i'm having so much fun. Probably the best Halo actually. 343 have really shown bungie up imo.

Music was spot on, the colours were less painful, sound effects sounded.... like sounds.

And I don't know how they managed to pull those graphics out of the xbox but that must have taken some skill.

I could continue gushing but that's probably enough for now.

[CaptHawkeye]

I completed the campaign so i'll make some notes about my overall impressions.

1. The bits between the Master Chief and Cortana are the most interesting aspect of the story. MC in particular emerges from the game a much different guy than we knew him under Bungie's care. Near the end of the game Lasky even makes a comment about soldiers I really liked. As I feel it plays down all that faceless zero-fault superhero shit Bungie peddled. (lol noble team)

2. The Didact is a more effective villain than the Gravemind and Halo 3 Prophet of Truth. It remains to be seen if they'll squander his potential like they did Truth. One thing I liked about the Didact is that he's consistent with the theme of the man/machine dilemma. His body is composed almost completely of synthetic organics. He's not particularly compelling or unique amongst antagonists, but he's not laughably stupid either.

3. The Prometheans are much better than the Flood. They're more tactical and have actual weapons.

4. 343 is trying new things but is still heavily tied to the base formula in the gameplay and sadly it shows. Many aspects of the campaign are very 2004-ish. Almost every problem can be traced back to Bungie. Ammo limits breaking up the pace and choices, broken balance, shit level design. I guess they wanted to play it safe.

5. It's nice to see they didn't blow up the big ship this time. 343 rather clearly wants Infinity to be Halo's Enterprise.

6. Holy shit the animations were good. The face animations in particular were excellent. Even with in-game rendering you could read face emotions and body language.

7. The Composer is a weak plot devise, and boils down to generic "shoot Earth with a ray gun" shit.

That's all I can say about the campaign for now. Time for some Spahtan Owps.

[Vendetta]

Point of discussion: The Promethean Knights in Halo 4 use cover better than any chest high walls based shooter ever.

They're really good at using the environment to break line of sight to the player (not just preplaced cover objects, but things like backing up from the edge of a ledge if they're above you), and will frequently start doing so when their shields are even low, not depleted, which means that if they've even got a little support to distract you from chasing them down they'll have time to recover and come back good as new (their shields seem to regenerate far faster than the Elites' too). This made fighting any number of them at once a fraught experience on Legendary, especially as you can't just cheese them with a plasma pistol because they usually don't give you one (still works, kinda, you just don't get the PP often when you're fighting them).

Certainly more rewarding combat than Halo has been since, well, the first one, really.

[Stark]

The teleporting and swarms of dakka dogs makes those fights flow way better than 'kill elite while dodging grunts with needlers' business the game has been stuck with for years. Its a bit sad the game includes an extremely poor attempt to redo the Landown assault from Gears 2 however.

[Vendetta]

Yeah. With added laser designating things that you're right bloody next to and are about a mile across, so the thing you're standing on can shoot them, which it's completely unable to do otherwise for no apparent reason. (Seriously, the UNSC has some pretty dumb vehicles, but the Mammoth basically takes the cake, several pies, and a biscuit for afters). Because, y'know, gotta keep the player involved, right? And, of course, the big ass turret you're designating for won't shoot at anything useful because it's too fat and and can't point down.

I mean it's a step up from laser designating things so your big robot mate can walk over and punch them, but not a very big step.

[Stark]

The best part is they deliberately added RIVERS OF IMULSION *AS SEEN IN GEARS OF WAR (TM) that serve no purpose but prevent players driving alongside in a warthog the whole time.

Which is... what the mission is about.

And you only get two and thus inevitably run out. Luckily the huge truck breaks and you have to just go in on foot, right? There's a damn good reason why the Infinity doesn't just nuke the area. Its on the tip of my tongue. It sounds like 'corridor stroller'. :V

[CaptHawkeye]

I was lol'ing at the laser guided missile strike for Infinity...at a target it was hovering right over.

Someone on the development team also really thought the missile needed to be player controlled, even though it starts off pointed right where it's supposed to hit. So what was the point of that?

[Vendetta]

The best part is they deliberately added RIVERS OF IMULSION *AS SEEN IN GEARS OF WAR (TM) that serve no purpose but prevent players driving alongside in a warthog the whole time.

Pfft, at one point I parked my warthog inside the big truck and used it as a glorified door gun (because the missile pods got blown up in seconds).

At which point the game spawned infinity tanks at me until I finally drove out and hit the script trigger.

Infinity doesn't nuke anything because it's still controlled by Captain Pillock, and he doesn't want to get dirty fingerprints on the fire buttons that have just been cleaned dammit soldier.

[Stark]

After all our space cars got blown up, Zak and I spent the DRAMA DRIVING talking about how easy it would have been for the sequence to be amazing (lots of consoles for turrets, huge swarms of enemies, explosions, whole tribe of marines hanging on and blasting at everything, anything at all happening, etc) and door guns were on that list.

Too bad the mammoth closes the front and rear doors constantly??? :V

EDIT - and man, the highlight of the whole game is the UNSC building a huge super powerful hero ship capable of thousands of tiems the speed of light and host to heaps of support craft and super lasers.... and the first trip out it CRASHES INTO THE FUCKING GROUND.

I can see the enquiry now.

'What was the ship doing anywhere near the ground? It's a SPACE ship. Not a GROUND ship. This isn't the ARMY.'

[Vendetta]

EDIT - and man, the highlight of the whole game is the UNSC building a huge super powerful hero ship capable of thousands of tiems the speed of light and host to heaps of support craft and super lasers.... and the first trip out it CRASHES INTO THE FUCKING GROUND.

I can see the enquiry now.

'What was the ship doing anywhere near the ground? It's a SPACE ship. Not a GROUND ship. This isn't the ARMY.'

I think there's a reason why in the five minutes between the Infinity going home first and the Chief catching up, Captain Del Rio is out of a job.

[Stark]

But he was obviously a moron, a disconnected manager, bad with responsibility, a negative drive, etc. What military right out of a super war would put him in charge of the ship of kings?

UNSC!

[aieeegrunt]

That mammoth level had potential but the execution of it was terrible. It should have been full of Marines but it was basically me and two guys that got left behind at the first encounter because the mammoth left them behind.

I'm going to go against the tide here and say that I find the Promethean Knights really boring to fight. The crawlers are fun though.

[Vendetta]

The dogs have the slight disadvantage that their heads explode when you shoot them, which makes dealing with anything but the largest packs pretty trivial.

I liked the Knights because they were actually hard to fight and represent just about the only enemy that can't be killed in one or two hits trivially (except the basic ones, which do go down to two clean headshots with a binary rifle, the king of broken cheese), which means that I actually had to use my abilities (sentry turret really helped) and switch up my weapons to keep pressure on them.

[Stark]

There's an important distinction between 'more interesting' and 'good'. They could be the best enemy in the game and still be pretty boring. Halo has a while to go before it becomes 'interesting', but the precursor guys are a good start.

Count Dracula, not so much. :v

[CaptHawkeye]

Apparently the voice actor who plays the Count in this game was also the voice of Harbinger in Mass Effect. I thought I heard some that "assuming direct control" in his voice. He's pretty much playing the same exact villain too.

[Manus Celer Dei]

Question about the Didact, which I guess ties into a bunch of out-of-game stuff!
Spoiler

When the ass did he get locked up inside Requiem?

I mean, he was the guy who triggered the Halo array, and the log of his firing implied that he was on a Halo when he did it and died in the doing. How'd he end up all fine inside the big ol' sphere? Poking around on the Halo wikia it appears he's come back from the dead or some shit before so uhh what.

Also it seems from the game that the Didact and the Librarian are not the best of chums, whereas there was none of that in the Halo 3 terms which kind of implied the, uh, exact opposite. The wikia says they were apparently married or some shit! What.

I mean the obvious answer is LOL RETCON which is fine I guess, but the log of Didact firing the Halo array is actually one of my favourite bits of the Halo fiction so it's bugging me.

I do, however, really love the idea that Mendicant Bias' last message in the Halo 3 terminal implies he deliberately sent Master Chief to Requiem

Also! How the ass do you view the terminal messages? Apparently after you find them in the game you just unlock them in Waypoint? I'm struggling to actually find them in Waypoint, because like half of Waypoint only ever displays ERROR LOADING.

[Stark]

I can't find the terminals on Smartglass Waypoint. I never thought of looking at them, actually.

Holy shit, I don't know how to look at the intel in Blops2 either. Maybe it's post-gaming and they don't actually matter anymore. :v

[aieeegrunt]

That Didact guy would have been a far more effective character if they'd cut his dialogue by about 2/3rds.

That cut scene where he emerges from his Obvious Ball Of Doom At The Centre of The Giant Metal Planet that Cortana somehow thought was a fucking com relay, all he needed to do was emerge, done his armor, and utter the last part of his Soliloque

"Time was your ally, but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunner, have returned".

Wow, you guys must really love reloading and cheap gameplay gimmicks from the 90's if you like fighting the Prometheans, or as I like to call them, the Pussy Knights. It's a giant ball of health that teleports away from you if it gets an ouchy. Exciting. The crawlers at least try to bring the fight to you.

Getting back to the "story", how many times is Halo going to have us "tricked into releasing doom from the ancient structure".

[Stark]

Can you explain why new forms of movement and AI abilities is a negative thing? How is it even possible to reload with no quicksave button?

[Ford Prefect]

Question about the Didact, which I guess ties into a bunch of out-of-game stuff!
Spoiler

When the ass did he get locked up inside Requiem?

I mean, he was the guy who triggered the Halo array, and the log of his firing implied that he was on a Halo when he did it and died in the doing. How'd he end up all fine inside the big ol' sphere? Poking around on the Halo wikia it appears he's come back from the dead or some shit before so uhh what.

Also it seems from the game that the Didact and the Librarian are not the best of chums, whereas there was none of that in the Halo 3 terms which kind of implied the, uh, exact opposite. The wikia says they were apparently married or some shit! What.

I mean the obvious answer is LOL RETCON which is fine I guess, but the log of Didact firing the Halo array is actually one of my favourite bits of the Halo fiction so it's bugging me.

I do, however, really love the idea that Mendicant Bias' last message in the Halo 3 terminal implies he deliberately sent Master Chief to Requiem

Spoiler

The Greg Bear novels reveal that there are in fact two Didacts. The Didact from the Halo 3 terminals, particularly the one about triggering the array, is actually the consciousness of the Didact inhabiting the body of Bornstellar Makes Forever Lasting, the protagonist of Cryptum. The Didact in Halo 4 is the original, after having been betrayed by the Master Builder and so on.

[Stark]

Is that the Master Builder who faces off against the Trickster in Thief?! He had horns too!

Ford, what's the second ep of Splops like? Is it doing new stuff or is it just more recycled maps and kill 20 wolves stuff?

[aieeegrunt]

By "reload" I meant "reload my gun, because the enemy is a bullet sponge".

Why do I dislike fighting the Pussy Knights? Because their main advantage appears to be Giant Health Bar, which is excacerbated by their tendency to teleport away from me if they take damage. Other than the occasional special guy with a one hit kill weapon like the Incineration Cannon or the Binary Rifle they are'nt really all that dangerous either. They dance around as far away as possible plinking at me with their crappy light rifle. Their grenades are useless and they telegraph the grenade throw in a really obvious way anyways. So it's a slow process of grinding down a coward.

The rare time they do that zig zag rainbow dash at me I actually welcome, because the fucking thing is finally going to face me head on and melee and/or shotgun is the fastest way to kill them.

I find their support element, the Watchers to be far more dangerous and fun when they don't have to hand hold a Pussy Knight because they'll actually come after me and the Death From Above means they can root me out of cover; forcing me out of the pocket and seeing if I can scramble. The Crawlers are fun because by God they're going to fucking chew my balls off or die trying. The Pussy Knights? Tedium.

There are several sections in Spartan Ops where you fight a large number of Watchers and Crawlers without any Pussy Knights around. Those parts were fun!

The fact that they fight differently than the Elites isn't the problem. It's the fact that their fighting style is not only largely ineffective, but it's also boring as fuck. If Halo 4 was on PC or I had a 360 to dedicate to modding I'd give them Elite AI, the hyper aggressiveness combined with the Ball O Health would make them the oshit enemy that was intended.

[Ford Prefect]

Ford, what's the second ep of Splops like? Is it doing new stuff or is it just more recycled maps and kill 20 wolves stuff?

In terms of gameplay it's largely more of the same, ie. waves of dudes on the same maps. We visited the Cartographer entrance from the campaign and got to fight alongside marines, fought some Phantoms etc. I dunno if I'd call that 'new stuff', but I enjoyed the episode more overall and it seems like they could get more creative.

[Vendetta]

By "reload" I meant "reload my gun, because the enemy is a bullet sponge".

Why do I dislike fighting the Pussy Knights? Because their main advantage appears to be Giant Health Bar, which is excacerbated by their tendency to teleport away from me if they take damage.

They have shields. You need to break their shields and then you can kill them, but their shields recharge quite fast, and they're good at hiding. So you have to be more aggressive than you do against enemies that you can trivially headshot (ie. everything else in Halo).

Ironically, if they were more aggressive you'd realise how they aren't giant bullet sponges, but normal shielded enemies with a shorter recharge (and if you have a plasma pistol it does knock their shields down in one go, but mostly the campaign doesn't give you one at the appropriate times).