VivaLebowski

Reach's campaign was a huge disappointment for me. If 343 can deliver a campaign which is as good as any of the other Halo campaigns (excluding HWars) and Reach quality multiplayer or better, it will be a good game. I won't call it successful unless both the Campaign and the Multiplayer are original trilogy (or ODST) quality.

@Director Ive got no idea who your arguing with but its worth pointing out with all this that having "Halo 3 with AA's" is hardly like Halo 3, considering AA's are the biggest difference. Another thing, allot of what defines the Halo games is their map design. Reach's maps were lower quality campaign rips as opposed to standalone arenas custom made. That and I personally felt like their human centric nature also really decreased the classic Halo artistic style...its important to have a mix of Forerunner, Human, Covie maps. Sure, Reach had forge World, but a Forge map lacks the stylistic depth and quality of a custom made battlespace, and of course it got pretty monotonous looking at the same blocks time after time. So its hard to say Reach could ever be like Halo 3 (relatively speaking), even if they made every single non-AA aspect of the game play exactly the same. Also, "If Halo becomes COD, it will still be the best damned COD game you've ever even dreamed of playing. You are not psychic, you haven't traveled back in time, you DO NOT KNOW how Halo 4 is going to play, or whether or not it is going to be a good game." You don't know its going to be the "best damn COD game" either. 343 is modernizing Halo 4 in the direction of COD, no point denying it. We simply do not know if 343 is going to modernize it well, or modernize it badly. I don't know if this guy your arguing with has any valid points to make, but people certainly have a right to be apprehensive.

Yeah, but why would the covenants supreme commander be in the field before he was even an arbiter? Regardless, even if it was supposed to be him it wasnt very obvious.

Having customization options do not necessarily make the game...its be expected that there will be small advantages due to certain weapons being OP. Wouldn't surprise me if, for instance, the BR is OP slightly versus the AR or vice versa come launch time... What 343 needs to watch out for is stupid Armor Abilities, like AL, or including power weapons in their loadouts. As long as they confine loadouts to a good set of AA's and keep the possible weapons things like the AR, BR, Magnums, Carbines, etc etc. Now, if 343 starts trying to bring the power weapons into the mix, we have a major MAJOR problem.

Actually rather surprised...dedicated members seem to go out of their ways not to be dicks. Not like what I saw of the Bungie forums...then again, I was only really invested in that in the lead up to Reach. Gotta watch out for an excess of friendliness...telling you all right now, I think its a communist conspiracy.

Ch-ch-ch-changes! But thats what this all comes down to. Its a brave new world, haha.

If they just changed these stupid names that would be like half of peoples objections canceled out right here!

I wish the arbiter had been in Reach as a sympathetic bad-guy...or maybe only appeared at the end. They jump out of slip space and Arby sees the Pillar in the distance and the ring beyond that, through the command deck on his ship. Cut to credits. That would have made for a hell of a legendary ending...(yet another problem with Reach) What do you bet, somewhere along the line, we will be able to play as him once more?

I have issues with these changes, but I can't understand why everyone's terrified of people joining in-game. So now you might have to occasionally play a little stub of a game...well before you had to play entire games with out people. What a nightmare!

I feel your pain here. Makes sense if you want to wait and see to buy it. Safe to say, rather you buy or not buy, we are all just going to have to wait and see. Halo is not going to be the same. Rather thats a good or bad thing? Who knows? all that said, one thing I still have allot of cautious optimism for is the campaign. Reach was missing the kinda weird sense of Alien Wonders that Halo's 1 2 and 3 had. Oddly, ODST completely lacked that, but its probably tied to be my favorite Campaign...Anyway, as DoctorB said, they are going off the books with the campaign. Could be interesting.

Heres the bottom line: 343 is not going back to the past. They aren't being conservative. They are trying to totally reinvent Halo. We are quite justified in being concerned because they run a high risk of failing. But they do not HAVE to fail. Its not set in stone. Who knows...they might be visionaries in their own right... I was initially upset by the GI leak...to a certain extent, I still am...I'm very anxious about Halo now, as opposed to before when I was cautiously optimistic. But its not because I know its going to suck...its because I know 343 is taking a gamble. They might succeed or they might not. All that said, I have to give 343 props. They've got balls. The combination of classic Halo elements (arena map design, shields, power weapons) with modern FPS design (Custom classes, Sprint, SpecOps-esque stuff) is going to make for an interesting and innovative game which may or may not succeed. Unlike Reach, which was a failed effort to introduce a bit of the class system while keeping every element of the classical Halo gameplay intact. With Halo 4, 343 could have done two things and make a good game; keep everything the same and make a classic Halo game but probably lose sales in the modern market OR aggressively move the game forward in an effort to reinvigorate the series and gain sales. 343 has chosen the latter option and that is riskier BUT we can hope.

With Reach, Bungie tried to take H3's equipment and PowerUps (which, when acquired, give you an advantage over your opponents) and adapt them so that everyone could have one at the same time but still be in some sense symmetrical (as in, I have Sprint you have Camo but in Theory we are equal). The problem was in the fact that they were trying to turn something inherently asymetric into symmetric game play and the disconnect resulted in half-ass, pseudo CoD classes which neither had the customizing fun of a CoD/BF game nor Halo's classic symmetric game play. So you gotta remember, whatever 343 is doing, it seems like they are going much farther than Reach ever did. Yes, Halo is being made more CoD esque and BF esque. But please please please PLEASE remember we don't know if that is a good or bad thing yet. You cannot judge any effort to modernize Halo simply because past ones have failed. Im no Reach lover, and I think 343 is taking risks. Safe to say, whatever Halo 4 is, its not going to be a chance for us to indulge in some nostalgia for the Halos that were. For better or for worse, thats the past. We are just going to have to wait and see...maybe 343 is going to fail, maybe they will reinvent Halo.

I didn't care for the Firefight in Reach...I cant say why but it just didn't do it for me. Its hard to define what made the ODST firefight so engaging. If 343 wants to bring back firefight, they should just do Halo ODST 2. Even though I hate the name "Spartan Ops" it actually sounds like a better way for 343 to be spending their time.

Hmmm, I had always heard that the hidden health in the previous Halo's remained damaged after shield recharge. If I were Halo, I would stick with health and shields being rechargeable, like in H2, H3...not that it matters much either way. I was never bothered by having to look for health packs in Reach.

See what I don't understand is, the Game Informer link made it sound like Power Weapons could end up in Loadouts...now maybe those parts of the customization only apply to certain playlists, because there's no way that applies to the general game. 343 has already said that you will have Power Weapon drops. what would be the point of having weapons on the battlefield at all if you could just customize them in? I can really see having things like the BR, AR, carbines, Pistols, etc etc. being customizable, but Power Weapons have always been a huge part of Halo's map design and gameplay flow.

I agree that the post H3 halos are not giving skill its due, but seems to me like you valued being able to say your superior to people just a bit more than rather the game was actually fun or not. Not saying people shouldn't look for a skill system which rewards skill, in fact, what I want is to keep the credits of Reach but throw H3's ranking back in...all that said, what matters most is how fun the game is, for everyone. Halo's biggest value is in the game play for the general population, not how competitive a select few can make it.

Yeah, its looking more and more like this stuff is legit. Thanks for the compliment though, same to you!

You...are an @sshole. Seriously, if no one had hissy fits when things didn't go there way, all hell would break loose...yeah, its fine if some people are mellow and go with the flow. The only reason they are able to is because there are bitchers and complainers making sure their sometimes valid complaints are heard.

On a further note...this player has REACHED a certain level of competency...HAH! man, I'm good. LOLercoaster right there. Just kidding. That joke sucked.

Not a chance in hell that Reach measures Skill...no matter how much you suck you could hypothetically reach the highest rank with enough time invested...its just that simple. Sure, people who play the game more and are thus higher ranks are more likely to be actually good but even still, Reach does not directly measure skill. 3's does...and I'm not uber competitive, hell, I never even reached 50 in Halo 3, but nontheless Its important that at a certain level, ranks actually start to represent something, like "This player has reached a certain level of competency."

I'd envision the DMR being larger caliber, small fire rate, better at Range...probably a better choice versus vehicles as well. Im assuming the DMR will be one of the start weapons we can choose.

Perhaps it should just be optical noob vision? But seriously, you take Firefight...its basically Halo copying Horde Mode or CoD zombies, whatever you prefer...and theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. But what if it had been called "Legion"? Spartan Ops is about as similiar to Spec Ops,

You'd think 343 would have came up with the final names before these things came out...having in game currency is fine (though I hope they bring back skill based ranking as well) as is having separate campaign-esque episodes...is it like CoD? Yeah, but not in bad ways. But Spartan points just sounds clunky, and Spartan Ops just sounds like Spec Ops...I don't know if game companies change the name of announced features that much, but I really hope 343 does. That definitely contributes to my doubts here...if 343 doesnt have the basic sense not to name their features these things, how will they have sense to do more complicated things right?

Its pretty unreasonable for people to say "Oh its going to suck!" AND its pretty unreasonable for people to say "Oh theres no way its going to be like CoD". Well duh, its not going to be completely like CoD but only an idiot would say these things are not CoD or Battle-field esque. We have to bite the bullet and accept the fact that for better or for worse Halo is being modernized in totality and that means its more like its contemporaries. The bottom line is this; Its perfectly fair to say H4 can be good or it can be bad...with all of these features, they could go either way. If badly implemented and imbalanced (and I think there is a high risk for that considering the quantity of major changes) Halo 4 could easily disappoint. Halo and its community (us) is being brought into 2012 kicking and screaming...rather that is a good or a bad thing remains to be seen. But, lets be fair here, Halo is becoming more CoD/BF3 esque and that carries allot of risks. That said, on one hand, I am much more nervous now then I was before the leak, on the other hand, 343's got balls and there is a decent chance that they will pull this off and reinvent and reinvigorate the franchise. So...we shall wait and see. I'm no longer cautiously optimistic but hopefully apprehensive.

The title is a bit of an exaggeration...of course there are some legitimate gameplay gripes to be had in the update BUT nonetheless I think a big part of what is ******** people off is the names. For example, what pisses you off more? Credits? Or "Spartan Points"? How about if it was "Special Optics" instead of "Forerunner vision"? And perhaps the biggest..."Spartan Ops"? Who knows if this will be what these things are named at launched but with the latest link, all the new materials nomenclature either falls under 1) CoD esque or 2) Clunky and Dumb. If these things were just named something more appropriate we would not be having the current (well justified) hissy fit that we are having!