Gameitall It’s always a gamble when it comes down to a new company handling a pre-existing property. For example, Silent Hill Homecoming wasn’t as good as the previous Team Silent, but on the other spectrum Downpour was much closer to the Silent Hill feeling that we know and love. It ends up being a matter of perspective and how the team takes the content that they’re given. This is the issue with Halo 4 as the newcomers to the series, 343 Industries, has some big shoes to fill.
They not only do the series justice, they create one of the best shooters you’ll play all year.
Halo 4 starts off four years after the events of 3 leaving Master Chief stranded in space on the wreckage of the UNSC frigate Forward Unto Dawn. Cortana wakes Chief after picking up a signal and finding the Covenant attacking the ship. After a intense battle Chief and Cortana crash land on a Forerunner planet called Requiem, where most of the game takes place. While on Requiem a new species joins the war called the Prometheans, a group of cybernetic constructs who attempt to stop Cheif and Cortana from getting off the world.
This is where Halo 4 throw some twist and turns. It re-introduces a Forerunner from the Halo Legends cartoons and creates an actual villain for the new trilogy. Cortana also centers the story as well as she advises us early in the game that AI such as herself can only live up to 7 years, in her 8th year of service and her exposure to Halo, she fears she is becoming Rampart, the shape of this corruption becomes a central point of the main story.
Halo 4 takes the tried, tested and true to it’s game design, gameplay consists of shooting your opponents until they die, hopping around to avoid damage and shooting mostly everything you see. While the Covenant forces don’t seem to hold too much of a threat this time around, the real trouble comes with the Prometheans; who are able to jump from wall to wall, carry highly advanced weapons and explode on death. This throws some strategy into combating these new opponents, and with the way Chief is able to blow through ammo makes things more interesting.
The Infinity option is the gateway to the multiplayer interface. Allowing you to create your own personalized Spartan and bringing them into battle. Like most new multiplayer games, you gain experience for every match you complete, after you rank up you unlock more armor, weapons and special abilities which can be unlocked using Spartan Points. Every week there are new challenges to complete to give you extra experience, these range from getting kills with specific weapons to winning a certain game mode.
New to the multiplayer is the Spartan Ops. A Co-operative story mode that serves as a replacement to the Firefight mode from ODST and Reach. It connects with the main story of Halo 4 and the web series Forward to Dawn, the mode can be played solo, split-screen and co-op on Xbox Live with 3 other people. It is separated by episodes with a new one coming out every week for ten weeks for free. It’s an interesting take on the Episodic gameplay that we’ve seen in Half-Life and Alan Wake.
Halo 4 is one of the best looking games on the Xbox 360, from the cinematics that rival films to the actual in game graphics. The Characters look well defined, in some cases horrific, and the environments are absolutely stunning to look at.
Honestly when the announcement of a new trilogy happened at E3, we didn’t know what to think. We finished the fight and we were done with Halo, but now that 343 has taken over, we can’t wait to see what the Forerunner trilogy has in store for us.
Halo 4 – 8 out of 10.
Pros: Great Campaign, Spartan Ops is a welcome addition, Graphically amazing.
Cons: Ammo is difficult to find, installing Multiplayer maps can take some time and hard drive space (this is not an option), some weapons are difficult to handle.
