The point I'm trying to get around to is that I'm not a fan of unnecessary sequels, which is exactly what Halo 4 is, so upon its announcement I had already decide that I would hate it. Even so, I was unable to force myself not to get excited for it after seeing gameplay footage featuring new weaponry from a certain ancient race of dead aliens. I decided that I would give it a chance.
Having finally gotten around to playing it, my response can be summed up as: "Eh."
Translation: "Better than I expected, but not by much."
Halo 4 feels much too small for Master Chief's return after a 5-year absence (1/2-second cameo in Reach not counting.) There are a lot of fantastic new ideas, but I don't feel they were taken as far as they should have been. I get the impression that 343 was afraid to change too much, lest they tempt the wrath of the Bungie fans. As such, there is a distinct lack of variety in Halo 4, especially when compared with what we saw in the jump from Halo 3 to Reach.
This lack of variety very clearly shines through in the enemy designs. Remember how Halo 3 added more advanced forms of the Flood, but used them just sparingly enough that they managed to be terrifying each time you ran into them? There are exactly 3 new enemies in Halo 4 and you fight them over. And over. And over. And over. And over. AND OVER again. To the point where "oh shit! It's those new guys again! Better be careful and strategize a bit before this next fight" becomes "oh, look. It's THESE assholes. Again. I wonder how many I will have to sprint toward and unload 1/4 of a clip of ammo into this time." It's repetitive even by FPS standards.
Also Covenant. Again. All the same ones. Because they're somehow evil again even though we CLEARLY had everyone but the Brutes realizing what assholes the Prophets were in Halo 2 and 3. So why are they suddenly evil again? The game's ONLY line of dialogue relating to the situation is "a lot can happen in 4 years." Supposedly, it's explained in some expanded universe material that it's a different group of Covenant who never got the "HUMANS GOOD, PROPHETS BAD" memo (or did, but told everyone to fuck off anyway), but really the only reason they're here now is because they're iconic enemies.
AND SPEAKING OF LACK OF VARIETY, LET'S TALK ABOUT THOSE FORERUNNER GUNS I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT.
Yeah. They're literally clones of the other guns.
The Light Rifle? It's just the DMR or Carbine. (Incidentally, they added the Battle Rifle back in alongside the DMR, so there are now FOUR guns that do the exact. Same. Thing.)
Scattershot? Shotgun.
Suppressor? Assault Rifle.
Binary Rifle? Sniper/Beam Rifle.
They do the EXACT SAME THINGS as these previous guns. I don't even think there's a difference the damage they inflict! Even the new grenade is literally as easy as stepping 3 feet away from it to avoid getting damaged. The only reason to use these new guns over the ones you start with is because they're a lot easier to find given the environment 85% of the game takes place. (Meaning on a Forerunner planet...thing....)
SO WHAT ABOUT STORY?
Halo 3 ended with Chief and Cortana stranded in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere in the other half of the ship that got cut in half buy the Ark's closing subspace portal. Still not clear on how that worked, what with the exploding Halo ring and their half of the ship NOT going through the portal with the rest of it, but hey. Killing off the main characters would just ruin the prospects for another sequel trilogy,wouldn't it? (Except Halo reach was just fantastic, despite Chief being demoted to Easter Egg and Cortana having exactly 4 seconds of background screentime.)
ANYWAY. Cortana wakes up Chief after some weird scanny-beam passes through the ship, and they soon get boarded by the aforementioned now-evil-again Covenant. After fighting them off, they find out that the Covenant weren't the ones scanning them. So who was it? None other than UNICRON!
Overused joke aside, the gigantic metal planet...thingy (AKA Requiem)...opens up and pulls all the nearby ships inside, where we discover that it's actually a very nice place once Chief escapes the flaming pile of wreckage he arrived in. The sun is shining, the grass is blowing in the wind, the holographic death machines slaughter everything in their path- wait...what? Okay...maybe not such a nice place after all...but still pretty enough to make Bethesda's environment artists jealous, that's for damn sure.
So it turns out that another ship, the UNSC Infinity, is on its way to pick up Chief and Cortana after finally picking up their distress signal. Except...Oh no! If they get too close to Requiem, they'll get sucked in and be trapped too! Cortana tries to warn the Infinity to stay away, but Chief's suit transmitter is being mysteriously jammed. So we're led on a big ol' mission to find and shut down the jammy thingy and stop the Infinity from trying to rescue us.
ONLY IT DOESN'T WORK BECAUSE SPOILERS: CORTANA WAS WRONG AND ALL THE STUFF YOU TURNED OFF ACTUALLY RELEASES A VERY VERY BAD FORERUNNER GUY WHO WANTS TO KILL ALL THE HUMANS BECAUSE HE DIDN'T THINK THEY WERE READY TO INHERIT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE GALAXY AFTER HIS PEOPLE KILLED THEMSELVES TO STOP THE FLOOD.
OR. SOMETHING.
Chief, remember what happened the last time you took instructions from a computer on how to operate machinery left behind by an ancient alien race? Something about almost accidentally wiping out all life in the known galaxy?
Yet somehow 98% of the campaign involves fighting from one terminal to the next to plug in Cortana so she can do whatever it is she needs to do at that particular point, then move on. You fight through jungles to the crash site of the Infinity, you fight through the Infinity to destroy some Covenant ships attacking it, you fight through some more jungle, you fight through Forerunner buildings etc, etc, etc. The game feels extremely linear and almost claustrophobic, as opposed to the much more open areas of the previous Halo games. You could get lost in Halo CE, and 2 and 3 still felt very expansive. Even Reach had some wide nice lengthy vehicle sections. There is ONE level that tries to capture this feel in Halo 4, and it still keeps you pretty much on a straight track and gives you very little to actually explore. It doesn't even let you DRIVE the biggest land vehicle in the game! (Granted, the ONLY place it can go is along the path the game lays out for it, but how can they deny the player the opportunity to control a vehicle easily 8 times the size of the Elephant? It's the human equivalent of the Scarab for fuck's sake!)
BUT YOU DO FINALLY GET TO FLY A PELICAN, WHICH IS SOMETHING EVERYONE'S WANTED TO DO SINCE HALO CE, SO I HAVE TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE, EVEN THOUGH IT'S EXACTLY LIKE FLYING A FALCON ONLY WITH A SPARTAN LASER MOUNTED ON THE FRONT SO IT'S REALLY NOT ALL THAT IMPRESSIVE. (You know that mission in Reach where you fly the Falcon over a city, land at buildings, kill everyone inside, and push a button about 3 or 4 times? It's literally the exact same mission only with Forerunner buildings.)
Not to give too much away, but the entire plot is resolved in the space of this single game and doesn't even ask any new questions that warrant a sequel to answer them. Halo CE ended with the climactic destruction of a Halo ring, but had introduced the Flood, an enemy that would take a further 2 games to finally fully understand and ultimately defeat. The primary villain of Halo 4 is defeated at the end of the first game of what is supposed to be another trilogy, meaning the story isn't supposed to be fully resolved until Halo 6! This could have been another Halo spin-off and been all the better for it instead of branding itself as the Chief's triumphant return!
In short, Halo 4 is crippled right off the bat by its predecessors. 343 had a lot to live up to, and surely did their best, but overall it just doesn't work. The graphics are amazing, though, and the story itself is fairly interesting for those who haven't gotten into the books and other supplementary material. I can't help feeling this rendition of Halo may have been better off as a movie. Or even a multi-part episode of the apparently upcoming Halo TV show. (Yeah, it's a thing.)
For still being reasonably enjoyable, but rather lackluster, I'll give Halo 4 a 6.5/10.
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