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Halo 4 |OT| Spartans Never Die

Man

Member
Just woke up. Played an hour+ on Heroic last night before bunking.
Initial impressions:
The visual assets in this game is absolutely outstanding. The various optical flares etc when inside high tech areas. The highly detailed mountain ranges in the open levels. The forerunner design... really, really beautiful. Gunplay feels really good. Just the most precise controls. The Covenant plays like before with no real surprises (meaning: a lot of personality and a lot of fun). Actually seen a couple of AI glitches which I haven't in previous games (chars keep running against a wall). The Warthog has a way too high sound fx. Overall this feels more Halo than Halo 2/3 so far.

edit: Water animates beautifully but I can't remember if Halo 3 beautifully.
 

Lingitiz

Member
Does anybody care about traditional reviews in 2012?

I fail to see how a single person spouting their opinion in a few hundred words matters.

e: and then arbitrarily assigning a number to express that opinion
The actual content from a review is usually worthwhile if the writer is good, but rating scales need to either be overhauled, or gone completely. I've gotten much more from RPS all text reviews than any other site.
 

ironcreed

Banned
To midnight or not. Hmmmmm. Haven't done one since the Wrath of the Lich King release.

I am still debating on it as well. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that I don't really feel like waiting in a parking lot until midnight, so I may just get it tomorrow morning.
 
A shiny old dog without any new tricks. I got more out of the Halo 1 remake, which at least had the appeal of nostalgia. Playing through an updated version of the original Halo was at times tired or tedious. But it was also a reminder of the raw genius that launched the series. There is none of that in Halo 4, which is a drawn-out retread without any fresh perspective or energy, and furthermore missing a lot of what I need to pull me through a Halo game. Halo 4 demonstrates that if there's one thing worse than more of the same, it's less of the same.

WTF? a 2??? A TWO????
 

remz

Member
Welp. was hoping to spend the day shooting fools in the halo 4 but my 360 is constantly overheated, so looks like I'm sitting it out till i can get a replacement
 

tch

Member
Looks like I'm getting it at midnight after all. And the Walmart I'm going to is located at 9350 Cortana Place. Huh. Hype.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Why did 343 rename Firefight to Spartan Ops?
It's a totally different thing. Firefight is gone. Spartan Ops is a side-campaign consisting of 50 mini-missions, with an episodic release schedule of five missions each week for ten weeks.

Edit : I replaced 'episodes' with 'missions' to be more clear.
 

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
Why did 343 rename Firefight to Spartan Ops?

I was under the impression that SpOps involved traveling from one side of the level to the other via objectives, rather than just standing in an arena fighting off waves.
 
I'll add my 2 cents - I'm really looking forward to Halo 4. While it doesn't have the ONE THING I really wanted (in-game kill menu still doesn't show deaths, only amount of kills), I am super pumped.

Also, list of my favorite campaigns stories (ALL opinion):

1. Halo 1 (CEA specifically; dat terminal)
2. Halo Wars (Awesome narrative and CGI storytelling)
3. Halo 2 (Arbiter TWIST, Prophet of Truth was EVIL)
4. Halo 3 (Wasn't bad, just didn't leave me feeling the way the marketing led me to believe)
5. Reach (Music was awful in parts [not all of it], characters felt forced)
6. ODST (Just not a fan of the narrative style, didn't really feel like an invasion for 80% of the game)
 

MrBig

Member
I was under the impression that SpOps involved traveling from one side of the level to the other via objectives, rather than just standing in an arena fighting off waves.

That's not an accurate description. SpOps and FF aren't really related at all. SpOps is a full campaign split up into mini-missions.
 

Sojgat

Member
WTF? a 2??? A TWO????

Chick's score is ludicrous, there is no way in hell this game is anywhere below a 6. I kind of get where he's coming from with what he writes about the campaign though.

I have to second what was said above about the precise controls. With other Halo titles I've always alternated between 3-4 sensitivity, never quite happy at all times. Halo 4 controls feel perfect as default.

The new increased focus on points over just kills in the MP is really cool. I played a couple hours of Regicide before taking this break, and I had more fun with it than any other free-for-all gametype in a long time.
 
Just bought this game. The first Halo I have bought. Looks about the best game this fall, barring Far Cry 3 actually living up to its promise.
 

Petrichor

Member
1. Halo 1 (CEA specifically; dat terminal)
2. Halo Wars (Awesome narrative and CGI storytelling)
3. Halo 2 (Arbiter TWIST, Prophet of Truth was EVIL)
4. Halo 3 (Wasn't bad, just didn't leave me feeling the way the marketing led me to believe)
5. Reach (Music was awful in parts [not all of it], characters felt forced)
6. ODST (Just not a fan of the narrative style, didn't really feel like an invasion for 80% of the game)

I always do lists in terms of gameplay and story for halo because the quality of both is highly erratic across the series:

Story:

Halo 2 > Halo: CE > Halo 4 > Halo 3: ODST > Halo 3 > Halo: Reach

Gameplay:

Halo 3 > Halo: CE > Halo 4 > Halo 3: ODST > Halo: Reach > Halo 2

So it's a very solid entry in the series imo. I'm hard on halo 4 because I feel like the potential was there for it to be something really special if 343 had just been a little braver. Maybe Halo 5...
 
Awesome!!!! My Amazon LE changed to "Shipping soon".

katy_perryomg_gif.gif
 
Good game, boring at times, seems somewhat unpolished and unsure of its focus during a lot of scenes and the music is incredibly non-descript, might just be because of the god awful mix.

And in the cutscenes, all SFX's are so low-quality it's jarring when the much clearer dialogue and music starts.

I personally don't think it feels like a Halo game, for better or worse.

What made Halo for me, was that it was just a sandbox where everything was sort of structured around the same elements you always had at play, which made it feel very game'y. This time around it tries to hide that, which just makes it kind of jarring when you realize that gameplay-wise, it's still very earnest and simplistic with how all the elements shape the game's structure.

Will probably like the game more and more the more times I play it, but when I was done I just thought "Did they try too much or too little?"

This game is fucking up my mind, can't wrap my head around it. :/

And also sidenote, I've read all Halo books, comics etc, so I would consider myself a Halo-fanboy.
 

Sojgat

Member
Did the earlier games have idle animations?

There's nothing in Halo 4, I keep waiting for the Chief to angle his gun and examine it while I chug down my Diet Mountain Dew. I can't remember if he ever did this stuff though, I'm just so used to it from other games.
 

Redford

aka Cabbie
Paper for Wednesday pushed to Friday evening, fuck yes.

Wonder which map ill be playing on in my first game. Last time it was Spire, which I didn't expect.

I'm on the west coast so I won't be joining you all for another 8 hours, hope you'll still be playing as I'd love to join a party!
 
Did the earlier games have idle animations?

There's nothing in Halo 4, I keep waiting for the Chief to angle his gun and examine it while I chug down my Diet Mountain Dew. I can't remember if he ever did this stuff though, I'm just so used to it from other games.

No, just the gun, the chief acting like the chief xD
 

bitoriginal

Member
Been playing since Saturday, and this has reinvigorated my interest in Halo. I didn't really like 3, ODST, or Reach all that much. I played for a while but other shooters took my interest. Well, Halo is back in my life. Best Halo since 2 without a doubt in my mind.
 

JimiNutz

Banned
Disaster!!!
Was supposed to be picking this up at midnight. Its midnight now and im in A&E!!!

My girlfriend has some strange abscess looking thing on her leg and was starting to run a fever and feel really sick. As a result I've had to run her to the hospital!
 
installing now. Turned up at 9am to Big W in Australia just as the guy was pitting stickers on the Halo 4 stock. probably won't get to play for a bit
 

U2NUMB

Member
I have a bad feeling that anyone that waits till tomorrow to pick up their LE versions might have a very bad day. A couple of my friends were worried about their Best Buy pre orders which have not told them they will be ready in store called and got told.

"just because you pre order does not mean you get it right away, you might have to wait till we get more copies"

Why on earth do companies continue to oversell rare versions of games. I will go nuts tonight if I show up and do not get my copy.
 
There are not sandbox Halos, all have levels "like" sandbox, but all, even CE, are lineal.

With sandbox they mean how you tackle the levels, and not how the levels are geographically designed.

You can restart the same checkpoint over and over again, and every time get a different result by just doing one thing different; that's the 'sandbox'.
 

Redford

aka Cabbie
Disaster!!!
Was supposed to be picking this up at midnight. Its midnight now and im in A&E!!!

My girlfriend has some strange abscess looking thing on her leg and was starting to run a fever and feel really sick. As a result I've had to run her to the hospital!

That sucks, hope she turns out okay..
 

Sanjuro

Member
I have a bad feeling that anyone that waits till tomorrow to pick up their LE versions might have a very bad day. A couple of my friends were worried about their Best Buy pre orders which have not told them they will be ready in store called and got told.

"just because you pre order does not mean you get it right away, you might have to wait till we get more copies"

Why on earth do companies continue to oversell rare versions of games. I will go nuts tonight if I show up and do not get my copy.

Normally they aren't rare. Limited editions normally sit on a shelf collecting dust at a inflated cost.
 
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