[Dax01]

Part 2

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iSlayer

This is a fun gametype if you’re just looking to have a bunch of nonsensical fun. I’m not too sure the competitive community will use it though. Mopping up kills to get ordnance is a joy. However, when playing the gametype, I wasn’t sure how many kills (is it kills?) it took to get the ordnance. I mean, the bar is handy, but it’s handy to know the precise whatever to get ordnance. I always got the Needler when it came up. The fucking Needler, man, great gun...wait, what was I saying? Oh...yeah...

Oddball

It’s back! Out of the few games of this I got to play, I was enjoying myself thoroughly. I love the new look of the skull.

I wasn’t able to throw the ball, so I can’t comment on that. I remember discussing Oddball with Bravo, though, and he brought up a good point that a player who has the ball could throw it to an opponent, catching that opponent off guard, and allowing player to kill him. I wonder how that dynamic will play out – seems like it’ll be a rarity because it sounds like it’d be hard to pull off. I didn’t see it happen in any of the games I played.

Speaking of the games I played, I did notice a potential problem with Oddball on Complex. There’s this one area that’s kind of like the bathroom area on Powerhouse where, once a team locks it down, it’s hard to get the ball back. It’s back where blue team spawns, the space that goes underground kind of. Umm...it’s hard to describe without any pictures.

Someone brought up a good point, I think it was biggy, that the games go a little too fast. I would agree with that. The games I played had two points being added to a team's score for every second the skull was held. It's a shame the games were so quick because I was having so much fun.

Player Movement

I’ll join the chorus of those who have played the game and say that 343 has nailed player movement in this game. I was jumping, strafing, and fighting other players just like I’ve been doing in Halo 3. It was lovely.

Sprint

As you all know – if you don’t, I’m about to refresh your memory – I’ve never been a huge fan of sprint. I don’t see it as a necessary addition to Halo. After spending some time with it, though, I don’t think I mind it at this point. Whatevs.

HUD Information

I wanted to make this its own section because I don’t think the information the player gets in her HUD* is presented particularly well. It might’ve been just me, but here’s the main problem I was having: Most of the time, there’s simply too much information being relayed to the player. Whether it was Oddball, CTF, or iSlayer, I felt like I was being bombarded by enough information to the point where my brain was forced to tune it all out. I was ignoring everything. Granted, it’s nowhere near as bad as Call of Duty’s, which I also tuned out, but from what I remember there was little clarity. Clarity is a huge part of Halo. Clarity in feedback, clarity in map design, and clarity in game information.

No, you don’t notice the white text. (That begs the following question: If players don’t notice it, why is it there?) For a standard headshot kill, you have the text in the middle with the points, you have X killed X text and the medal showing up at the right of the screen, and on top of all that that you could’ve gotten a triple kill, which will have Steitzer saying that out loud, more text in the middle of the screen, and another medal will pop up, along with who knows what like “Distraction!”.

I understand the need to convey how many points players are receiving given the progression system Halo 4 has, but telling how many points I’m accumulating isn’t critically relevant to the game at hand and would be better served, I feel, by summarizing it all in the post-game carnage report. I can never remember what points I got for what anyway.

Bungie was very good at delivering the most relevant, important information to the player, and doing so in a seemingly sparse way. I paid attention to it all. Putting aside some fun stuff like Steitzer saying "Triple kill!", just give me what I and my teammates need to know.

*As an aside to this, I also think Steitzer says too much. No, he’s not constantly talking in your ear, but there’s definitely a noticeable increase in how much he says, and I think it’s very close to the point of overusing him, if it isn’t already.