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Halo |OT12| Last One Out, Get the Lights

Fotos

Member
Been off of Gaf for a while but pretty awesome Halo 4 weekend. Played the game for over 40 hours, ranked up to SR46, beat the campaign on Legendary both co-op and solo, and got 46 out of 49 achievements (the last 3 you can only get by laying spartan ops episode 5). I am in love with this game.


Also what is with the XP cap? I have hit the cap 3 days in a row now. Seems like it should be little higher.
I don't know if this has been discussed already but have any of you seen the glitch in Complex where you can get inside of a wall? OddBall games are so fun on that map now. It is just an all out battle of who can grab the ball and bring it in the room. It is game breaking but it is pretty cool.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Just played a match against some known guys and afterwards one goes, "the glitch I know is as big a glitch as BXR in Halo 2"

Calling all cars, calling all cars. We've got glitch abuse in progress.
 
Just played a match against some known guys and afterwards one goes, "the glitch I know is as big a glitch as BXR in Halo 2"

Calling all cars, calling all cars. We've got glitch abuse in progress.

probably the boltshot glitch.

but if not they were probably right about the customizable controls because they couldn't even mangage to keep button glitches out without them.
 
Yes playing solo still blows, especiallyour against full teams. Like that one time earlier tonight I got matched up against tunavi booties capcom and zerofire... I hate you!

Playing solo in any Halo game is horrible. I can't stand playing more than a few matches alone. With a party, I can go all night.

Speaking of parties, I have not played with any Gaffers yet! I would definitely like to... My GT is RebornYeti
 

GhaleonEB

Member
I think Spartan Ops has a lot of potential. But so far there are some issues.

The spawning system has been talked about. It really got to me on the first mission of episode 2. There's just nothing to either discourage death or reward staying alive. With Firefight, if it wasn't the limited lives, then the visible scoring and medal systems encouraged that; I pushed for sprees of certain kinds, point records, flawless no-death games. Halo 4 is tracking that kind of stuff as medals are visible with points attached in post-game and on Waypoint. Medals should be made visible during the game.

The other thing that stands out is the degree to which the missions are relying on respawning enemies to prolong the trek through smallish spaces. This first mission of Episode 2 took me about 22 minutes to clear, solo, on Heroic. And I killed 139 enemies. And it's in a space smaller than Courtyard in Reach. This was only possible because things spawned in waves - about five or six of them.

A Round of Firefight in Reach was five Waves of enemies, the last of which was a boss wave. They took around 15 minutes solo, and had around 110 enemies, give or take, depending on the composition of the squads.

In other words, this Spartan Ops mission was a was a Firefight mission. But without the options, flexibility, scoring, limited lives or other game systems that defined Firefight; it was a scripted Firefight mission. It just wasn't nearly as fun, because it lacked the game systems that made Firefight fun; it also lacked the systems that make Campaign challenging (that would be the spawning system). At one point we even got an ordnance drop, which originated with Reach's Firefight.

My hope is that as this progresses, these kind of missions become more rare, and combat becomes more and more about overcoming interesting encounters, rather than waves of enemies that spawn around us. The mission should have been about 1/2 as long as it was; the 3rd or 4th wave of Prometheans were too much.
 
Just played a match against some known guys and afterwards one goes, "the glitch I know is as big a glitch as BXR in Halo 2"

Calling all cars, calling all cars. We've got glitch abuse in progress.
Honestly, I would feel a heck of a lot better if I found out i was getting beat more often than not because of glitches. There were multiple times tonight where it seemed like i was getting 1-3 shot with full health, and no nade damage. Was really weird, and I don't think it was team fire. I guess I could have gone back and watched the games in theater, but going into theater just means less time playing, especially with no rendering or upload to youtube.
Playing solo in any Halo game is horrible. I can't stand playing more than a few matches alone. With a party, I can go all night.

Speaking of parties, I have not played with any Gaffers yet! I would definitely like to... My GT is RebornYeti
I'm headed off to bed, but I've got Wednesday and Thursday off, so I'll be playing a bunch hopefully tomorrow night. I'll add you.

EDIT:
xxjuicesxx said:
I tried reloading my DMR the other day I picked up some stupid promethean AR gun that was so terrible, I'm like wtf is this garbage gimme my DMR fluid.
Probably the Suppressor. Such an awesome weapon lol.
2822130-mobile_inline.png
 
Boltshot is a great weapon. I'm coming around to the br; at mid range I really prefer it over the dmr. It's all about that shield bleed through and that last second swipe kill. And the more I play with thrusters the more I don't want to use anything else. Good shit.
 

Karl2177

Member
I'm going to write up my initial impressions of the thing I've had the longest regarding Halo 4: the soundtrack. I'll have an overall analysis, an implementation analysis, and an individual track analysis. So long post incoming.

Overall, Davidge has done an amazing work with the soundtrack. It definitely ranks up as one of the best audio experiences I've had in the past 10 years. There is one issue, moderate in size, and one that is incredibly minor. The minor issue is that the tracks don't match up with the game or there isn't a transition from one theme to the next. What I mean by that is that there are certain pieces that simply go together. Awakening matches very well with Arrival, Legacy matches with the end of Solace, Revival and Nemesis go quite well together, etc. It jumps from one track to the next similar to Halo 2 Volume 1 or the Halo CE soundtrack.

The moderate issue is that there isn't a central theme, but 5 or 6 smaller themes. Something that I feel helped the original series was that each game had a central theme and was referenced through different instruments or melodies in each song. In a small way, it makes it feel less "Halo" than the original trilogy did. In Halo: CE the chanting monks were constant throughout until the Flood music, where it changed to represent more scary, fleeing music. In Halo 2, Steve Vai paved the way with the electric guitar, and it is represented through Breaking Benjamin and Incubus. Halo 3 returns with the hauntingly good E Dorian and the piano. ODST and Reach also had central themes, but they were less pronounced as the story transitioned between day and night and the planet falling respectively. Halo 4 has a myriad of themes that don't necessarily connect with each other through any melody or instrument. Some songs have heavy use of electronic elements and some seem to shy away from it completely.

Aside from those two issues, it does stand out in a good way. If I'm coming across as negative, I'm trying not to. There's something about it where I can point out the things I don't like about it, but yet I still have 13 album plays of it and I love it. If I were to change things, I would attempt to integrate more of the themes that Marty established. We hear it once in the game after
the Didact arrives at Installation-03, and Master Chief looks at the ring.
In the Halo 4 announce trailer, the part that sends chills down my spine isn't the pounding drums, but the ominous chorus at the end. Also, the soundtrack is devoid of synth songs like Perilous Journey or Pursuit of Truth from High Charity Suite on the Halo 2 OST2. Honestly, I'm a huge fan of these two pieces and was slightly bummed out to not see Davidge take a shot at it(mostly because I'm sure he could easily blow it out of the water). I also wish we could have more of what the concept art trailer had in it. It sounded very Jack Wall-y and I think it could work very well with the Halo sense of exploration.

As for the implementation in the game, this is where things start to go a bit downhill. I have a couple of theories as to why it was this way, and one is directly related to something Davidge said in the "Making of DVD". The first theory is that the game was coming in hot and so was the music. There wasn't enough time to combine the two in a way that felt natural during gameplay and cutscenes. The second is based off of something that Neil said in the DVD(spoiler tagged in case you haven't seen it and want to see it):
He said something along the lines that because he was in Bristol and 343i was in Seattle, there wasn't a whole lot of visual for him to work off of. He didn't know if the music was going to be played for 3 minutes or 15 minutes.
In that scenario, you need to be like Marty, toting the coffee cup around the studio seeing what everyone is doing. I have the mantra that the music should complement the medium, not overpower it. In some cutscenes it really feels overpowering. In gameplay, I never felt motivated(partly because of the gameplay, but that's a wayyy different tangent) like I did during the dual Scarab battle in Halo 3. Also, audio levels seemed all kinds of jacked up with the Warthog being a loud machine of eardrum killing proportions.

Individually, I like many of the songs. I'll start with the first track and work my way down. Awakening has a very fast paced feel to it. Almost like you are taking power strides to achieve something. Belly of the Beast is one of my least favorites. To me it seems to suffer from an identity crisis, trying to mimic the fleeing feel of Halo CE's Flood songs while trying to add the imposing feel of the main villain. Requiem is a nice piece, very calm at the beginning to match the discovery of Requiem, the planet. It has a neat little synth treble drop that I really enjoy. Legacy is honestly my favorite piece of them all. In the DVD they cover the
Bulgarian
women who did the choral for it. There's something about it that just seemed to strike me in the crisp autumn mornings. Beautiful piece.

Faithless is a good piece. I mean this in the best possible way, but it feels like generic battle music. Haven tries to be what the concept art trailer did. It also reminds me of the First Look trailer we got from 343 back in March. Good stuff. Nemesis is a great piece for something being slightly dark and menacing without being blatant villain music. There's a great bass line around 2:18 that I keep humming. Ascendancy is what Faithless wanted to be for battle music. It's fast paced and nice some nice treble and bass counter-melodies sprinkled all around. The end of Solace sounds like great credits music. Otherwise I don't have much to comment on it. To Galaxy has to be the standout piece of Halo 4. The intro is featured in the Infinity menu, and transitions to the closest thing to a central theme. Definitely my number two on the soundtrack.

Immaterial has some good electronic undertones. I'm not a big fan of it, but that's mostly because it's not my type of Halo music. 117 is the only piece not done by Neil Davidge; it's done by Kazuma Jinnouchi. It's a brilliant piece that ties in well with To Galaxy. Arrival is a very upbeat song that moves along very well. My only dislike of the song is the sudden crescendos starting at 3:47. Revival is a great piece that goes really well with the main villain. The part starting at 5:33 is brilliant. Lastly, Green and Blue is a nice piece to symbolize the journey and relationship of Master Chief and Cortana throughout the game.
Also, I'm going to make another note. The remix album is goddamn brilliant. I think if I were to rate Halo albums in terms of their standalone replay-ability, the remix album takes the cake. Arrival remix by Norin & Rad combines tons of elements into one amazing remix. The whole album is filled with great songs. Dubstep haters would probably disagree, but y'all just bein' mad. If I ever make a Halo montage, chances are it will be set to the Arrival remix.

Objectively, it's tough to give the album a rating. Standalone, it is probably a 9-9.5 out of 10. But when implemented into the game, it drops significantly to a 7 or 8.
 

Havok

Member
Fun fact: If you jetpack up to the (closed) ramp of end-of-mission extraction Pelicans in Spartan Ops. and hold RB/X/whatever your button is, you can hop into an untextured, unlit Pelican seat. Works at least on Hacksaw in this week's Spartan Ops episode.

Ignore if old, etc., been without power most of the night because some moron hit a pole with their car and missed out on a bunch of stuff.
 
Anyone else find that SWAT is full of pathetic campers? The map is usually completely silent.

Welcome to SWAT.


Whatever happened to (campaign-ish spoiler)
the line "Long have I dreamt of this day Reclaimer." That line have me fucking chills and I don't recall it actually being in the game.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
I was one kill away from a perfection and then got assists on the final three kills. :-(
 

Mayyhem

Member
My aim is so fucking off tonight that all the frustrations I have with this game are amplified x10 I felt like going to go pick up this fucking Black Ops at midnight
 
Objectively, it's tough to give the album a rating. Standalone, it is probably a 9-9.5 out of 10. But when implemented into the game, it drops significantly to a 7 or 8.
Yeah, I could see that. When I said Davidge > Marty I really meant that the music he wrote for this game is subtler, more varied, more interesting in its textures, and less baldly bombastic. I did not mean it is necessarily better implemented into the experience in terms of matching the action and transitioning between different kinds of action, and in fact I often wished I could turn the music up in the mix.
 

feel

Member
I know! It was the greatest medal ever when it was implemented!
Seriously, what were 343i thinking on this one?? That little thing was absolutely key to making Halo sniping interesting for me and I bet a lot of people. I'm dumbfounded right now.
 

Tunavi

Banned
Seriously, what were 343i thinking on this one?? That little thing was absolutely key to making Halo sniping interesting for me and I bet a lot of people. I'm dumbfounded right now.
The loss of death X's is even worse. that needs to be patched in
 
I was one kill away from a perfection and then got assists on the final three kills. :-(

Was I in that game? In the future, if you need a kill for a perfection, tell me so I can betray our randoms to keep them from kill-stealing you.

Good Games tonight by the way. I understand that some of you aren't enjoying Halo 4, but aside from the occasional glitch/UI issue/Matchmaking oddity, I've loved my time with it.
 

A Penguin

Member
Seriously, what were 343i thinking on this one?? That little thing was absolutely key to making Halo sniping interesting for me and I bet a lot of people. I'm dumbfounded right now.

Probably reducing the number of medals so they don't fill up the whole screen every time you get a kill. Oh wait...
 
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