[Dax01]

Part 3. I'll post the fourth and final part tomorrow midday.

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Fall Damage and Vehicles

I don’t like fall damage. Everyone knows that. I’ve said this before, but I think fall damage does more to add verticality to the combat – in a way that doesn’t break maps, most importantly – than jetpack does.

There is fall damage in Halo 4. When I played on Ragnarok, I got a Banshee, flew it into the air, and jumped out. David said at one point that there are no jumps you can take in any map that would lead you to experience it, and from what I played, he does appear to be right. (There seems to be a couple of jumps on Complex that look like they might come close). I guess I shouldn’t be bothered by fall damage being in the game if there aren’t any jumps where I’ll experience it. I still rather not see it in there for crazy maneuvers like bailing out of a Banshee in midair and seeing 343 go crazy with some level designs like Avalanche’s bases.

From what I could tell, player health and vehicle are not tied together. I was in the Ghost on...Ragnarok I think, and it was very much damaged. I got hit a couple of times, bringing my shields down by a fourth, and then I exploded. I don’t like this. There’s no clear information telling me I’m about to die other than some vague physical damage. I’d probably be fine with decoupled vehicle and player health if there was some sort of indicator telling me how much health I had in my vehicle, but there isn’t, and I would much prefer linked health over that because it’s more streamlined. I’m worried the decoupling will have a Reach-like influence on the vehicle battles. And when it comes to vehicle battles, I’m more worried about campaign in this regard than multiplayer.

Vehicles handle well for what I was able to drive (Ghost, Warthog, and Mongoose). Probably a really stupid criticism, but I think the silver pipes on the Warthog look incredibly silly. Maybe if they were black?

Grenades

When it was first announced that we could no longer pick up grenades from dead bodies (or dead bodies wouldn’t drop grenades), and that grenade spawns would be limited to ordnance drops and the like, I was skeptical. After playing the game like this, I’m fully behind the decision. I remember remarking to myself in my head during one game that I was now using my grenades more tactically, and that is great.

As for the grenades themselves, I like ‘em. More like Halo 3’s grenades in that they’re more a tool to get a player’s shields down. No more Reach nuke grenades.

I was less than satisfied with the pulse grenades. Didn’t fine much situations in which they were useful. That could be a result of my limited play time, however.

Shield Feedback

Didn’t notice anything wrong here. I was able to tell when I was about to pop a player’s shields, but I think the system isn’t as pronounced as Reach’s.

Armor Abilities

My time with AAs was very short. The most use I got out of them was when I picked Auto Sentry as my AA for my first game at the convention center. Even with my willingness to try out a new AA, the only time I used it was when I hit the wrong button. For my next couple of games (one more at NYCC then a couple Saturday night), I switched to Regenerator to see if I could get some use out of that, but I barely used it.

Then while setting up for one game, I was scrolling through the armor abilities to see if there is any I would be inclined to use then I saw the option “none.” I selected that and from then on it was smooth sailing. I was having a discussion with Tashi about this, and he said I would have to use AAs for maps like Abandoned where the jetpack offers a huge advantage because of the level design. I never, however, felt the need to use jetpack on Swordbase, so I don’t foresee me using AAs because of map design in Halo 4.

The great thing about AAs in Halo 4? You don’t need one. For 85% of the games I played over the weekend I was running around without an AA and at no point did I feel like I was at a disadvantage or on shakier ground. It was positively lovely.