Halo 4

well halo 4 I by far the worst halo yet. the campaign is doll and very boring and on the online is the same like every other halo game fall of halo geeks that have no life and real friends. but it look crisp and shiny as far a graphics go. and for some of you out there halo / halo 2 / and halo 3 were and will always be the best halo games anything after that halo has nose dived from there on. don't bye the game rent it as I made the mistake of buying and not renting it. some people will love it and some will love it .

After a long lasting relationship, 'Bungie' passed the Halo series over to '343 Industries'. 343 Industries had a difficult job of meeting the high expectations, yet making some changes to keep things fresh. After many years of being in stasis, Master Chief emerges straight into battle with his new found running ability, but has forgot his skill in duel wielding. Due to these changes, you will need to get used to the new controls. There are also power-ups that you can pick up and activate at the touch of a button, such as a shield, sentry turret, jet-pack, active camouflage. The story was a bit lost on me and seemed bland and partially silly, but initially, Master Chief goes searching for Cortana's creator in order to save her, since as an A. I, she is coming to the end of her life cycle and is becoming 'rampant'. Meanwhile, a Forerunner race known as the Prometheans led by the warrior Didact seem to be teaming up with the Covenant. The Promethean army consist of crawlers, which are wolf-like mechs which can climb walls, Knights which are strong robots with teleporting abilities, and Watchers which fly and offer support. There are new weapons too but they generally feel similar to existing weapons, so the Promethean's have a version of the pistol, machine gun, shotgun, and sniper etc. Graphically, the game is very impressive, and the biggest change is with the cut-scenes which feature amazing facial animations. Gameplay wise, it's pretty familiar stuff, although Cortana likes to make Master Chief hit switches and insert her into the many terminals. The locales don't seem as interesting when compared to Halo 3, and some of the sections feel very copy and paste in the parts where you are hitting multiple switches. The story doesn't seem to have the epic edge that the Halo series usually has, so although it's still a good game, it seems the most boring version yet.

I've loved every Halo game since first playing Halo 3, and hence was looking forward to this. At first it felt just the same as the other Halo games that I loved, but after a while I found that I was just losing interest. I can't even explain why, but I just didn't care for the story, but saw it through to the end. I didn't feel rewarded for my efforts, and didn't want to repeat the campaign after it was finished. Normally I'd be itching to get a 4 player team together to play through on Legendary difficulty, but this time I gave it a miss. The multiplayer seemed to be just a repeat of previous efforts, and mostly turned into DMR battles with distant enemies. Don't get me wrong, this shows quality production values throughout. It just lacks the charm to keep me interested in the long term. This is worth renting, but I don't think it's worth buying.

Though done by a new company the look, feel and quality of Halo 4 is amazingly close to the originals. They have clearly taken their time to produce something that will be loved by all the fanboys. And that, for me, is the problem. I nearly quit playing before the title came up, I just didn't care enough to play through on any difficulty other than normal. It has no autosave so switching off before the end of a chapter can cost you dear. Fire fights can be overwhelming in some areas tying me to an area too long, which lead to me looking for places I could use short cuts just to circumvent a fight. You are constantly swapping guns to try and get a drop on the next alien type and running out of ammo just as you are settling into a good fight. Ultimately if you like Halo this is for you, but if you're not sure, though this is a quality shoot-em up it offers nothing new. And the no auto save thing really ticks me off!

When it comes to the Halo storyline or universe, I feel the same as I do with politics and the economy. I’m sure there are people out there somewhere, who understand it. For me, it just feels way bigger than myself and I feel I have fallen too far behind to catch up to it now. This unfortunately takes something away from my experience of Halo in general, but nonetheless, Halo 4 is a triumphant return for the Chief and a strong effort made by 343 now they have taken the helm from Bungie. Halo 4’s Campaign picks up from where Halo 3 finished (surprisingly), albeit a few years later. Chief is brought out of cryo-sleep by Cortana after some suspicious activity happens above their half of the drifting fuselage. Chief awakens to a very familiar Covenant poking around the ship. After thoroughly fighting them off, he is sucked into a metallic “planet” and discovers an even more deadly enemy than the Covenant. I won’t say any more for the sake of spoilers but to be honest, I couldn’t if I wanted to, because that is pretty much my basic, feeble grasp on the story. In addition to the campaign, there is the brand new Spartan Ops mode. Here you play Crimson, a Spartan who is tasked with clearing Covenant presence over the “planet” that you have discovered. This more leisurely and social mode where it’s Halo but a bit more relaxed. You have unlimited lives, so you don’t have to worry about fighting through a wave of hunters again and again, if you really want to you can whack the difficulty up to legendary and punch them over and over again to kill them. Be warned though, this may take several hours. A nice touch and another nod to the mode being a more casual side story is the inclusion of Red vs Blue voice cast easter eggs, which are activated if you can find the right things to shoot. It has also been confirmed that as time passes, new downloadable episodes will become available to extend the gameplay. Halo fans will rejoice in knowing that 343 have heeded the “If it ain’t broke” proverb and faithfully kept to Bungie’s style and control system, with just a few minor tweeks. If you are one of the people out there who do like to use RB to melee however, feel free to swap the controls around. Graphically, the game is beautiful. Water looks crisp, the interior of gargantuan space stations are finely crafted to accommodate every last control panel switch, the covenant now look more menacing and generally more evil, as opposed to their previous incarnations (Grunts with their Darth Vader like masks and yelps of fear didn’t exactly make people quiver in their Power Armour). The scale of which is also epic. The Master Chief certainly is an intimidating presence, but even he looks ant-like up to some of the landscapes you’ll come across. This does sometimes feel overwhelming, and on rare occasion gave me the sense that I was missing out, seeing a waterfall in the distance and thinking “Awww, I wish I could go over there”. The campaign has more variety than in previous halos, with vehicle sections being more varied and feeling more like they naturally occur rather than being crowbarred in just to mix up the gameplay. The multiplayer has also been given a fresh lick of paint, with the standard slayer and objective game types returning, however with the addition now of class based multiplayer. Players earn unlock tokens to spend on equipment, such as jetpacks or cloaking devices, along with their basic weapons like the standard UNSC assault rifle or the covenant carbine and now tactical perks, allowing two primary weapons to be carried (a la overkill in Call of Duty) and or a larger map radius to detect enemies sooner. It all adds a much more personal touch and allows you to play the online with a greater feeling of control than the older incarnations which always felt for me like a basic level playing field with just an assault rifle, standard overshield and pistol. This simplistic run riot attitude may have appealed to most, but I think the revamped multiplayer allows people to adapt the game to their style, as opposed to just having to deal with what their given. This is first real Halo game in a long time, and the wait has certainly been worth it. A decent and lengthy campaign with beautiful visuals in strange new worlds thrown in with a laid back side story mission mode and finely tuned, personalised multiplayer, it should tick all the boxes for most.