mavox Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 Just wanted to voice my opinion here and get some thoughts. I'm an indie dev myself and everytime I play anyone else's game I try and be as objective and go in with no expectations, but again this is halo and I'm a fan. lol. No spoilers in this btw. First the good. The visuals were much improved over previous iteriations. The clean look that is known for halo games is there, but even better effects in halo 4. I really like the backdrops and texture work, especially the enviroments. The face models are vastly improved as well. Sound FX. The guns and little sound effects are amped to the max. It honestly sounded like battlefield 3's audio FX at some points, very visceral and in your face. Bravo. Armor abilities were an improvement over Reachs to me, their placement and useage seem decent enough. Voice acting. Superb. ZERO complaints, every single voice over was top notch nearly. Now the bad. Level design. In my opinion the level design was poor. The environments seemed smaller than any other halo game with the exception of maybe halo 2, thats a toss up. Lots of corridors and wrap around 1 path enviroments with little space to roam in most cases. Hit a switch, backtrack, rinse and repeat. I did like the pacing for a decent % of the campaign, but overall it seemed very redundant. Scale. Which is connected to level design. In my opinion this game didn't have the sense of scale considering the story. Some of the levels with tank etc came close. Characters. Wheres the dual sworded crazed elite mini boss character, leader of the rogue splinter faction? I wanna see him take out a few spartan 4s and be Master Chief and save the others, showing them all who the real spartan is with the halo drums POUNDING in the background while I kickass. Thats just something I just tossed out, but you get the idea. I understand the focus on cortana and MC, but come on, even then we need experiences to strengthen the bond. AI. To me it seem the AI in combat was really focused on showing you their ability to move laterally, or jump hop. Many times elites will allow you shoot them without moving, even on legendary. Thats not happening on halo 1-3, or even reach. Overall the AI was the least impressive of the series to me. Knights do some interesting things, but their actions seem pretty telegraphed. Friendly AI drivers? Terrible beyond words. Spartan 4s in combat? Basically marines with cool voiceovers and shields. I never once seen them do anything that made me think wow, thats a spartan. I want to see that type of stuff, not pasted over behaviors. I saw them standing around more than anything. Music. Easily the worst in the series in game, where is the music? You can't tell me while testing this game no one brought that up?? The menu music etc isn't bad, but ingame I felt we were missing something constantly. Overall the entire campaign had a vacant feel, lots of great effects and sound, felt very AAA, but just a shell. The discovery element seemed absent still. I liked the attempt, but it was as if a COD producer rolled in with all these tools and designed the campaign, not quite Micheal Bay style, but more of a quick summer popcorn flick halo with some pasted over elements from previous games. Not sure where to rank the campaign, I liked it ok, but the actual game just didn't match the visually fidelity and polish to the senses. I wouldn't mind seeing chief have a shoulder charge while running armor ability, a cyborg stampede of sorts if you will, extra damage smashing enemies into walls etc. Something. The MC is just so large and imposing he should have some incredibly visceral movements, but overall he controls like 90% of the other grunts in other games. In crysis they let you do some of these type of things, but in reality, MC is even more powerful and imposing than that character. He sounds tough, looks badass, but like the rest of the game, it's mostly a bluff. I'm hoping 343i gets a huge whiff of inspiration working with new tech coming up. Not a terrible first take on halo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SatanicBagels Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 Characters. Wheres the dual sworded crazed elite mini boss character, leader of the rogue splinter faction? I wanna see him take out a few spartan 4s and be Master Chief and save the others, showing them all who the real spartan is with the halo drums POUNDING in the background while I kickass. Thats just something I just tossed out, but you get the idea. I understand the focus on cortana and MC, but come on, even then we need experiences to strengthen the bond. You may be interested in this Hand of the Didact Character from the terminal videos and Spartans Ops. His name is Jul 'Mdama and he will likely be playing a very large role in Spartan Ops and or Halo 5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mavox Posted November 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 You may be interested in this Hand of the Didact Character from the terminal videos and Spartans Ops. His name is Jul 'Mdama and he will likely be playing a very large role in Spartan Ops and or Halo 5. I saw him in spartan ops, but my focus here was the campaign for this game. I like that they have the lore down, it just seem incredbly bare bones in halo 4. Its like it was designed for ppl with an attention disorder, like you can't have more than a few characters or ppl will get lost. lol. Especially on the enemy side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snqrls Posted November 26, 2012 Report Share Posted November 26, 2012 YEah, a great deal of the campaign is like that. For instance, at the very beginning of Forerunner, when you go through the teleporter and appear on a deck with a view of the inner surface of a planet, there is abolutely no music to intone awe. On the other hand, some of the level designs were fitting. Dawn for instance had a great atmosphere; Infinity did well despite most of it being a jungle; Requiem's crash site and warthog was very artful, and the latter missions had a sense of awe to them as well. It's just, so much could have been tweeked to make this a great campaign. Like, instead of going through a few forerunner buildings in requiem, make us explore the facility you see as you're picking up a warthog... that'd have given the player perspective, and a sense of accomplishment, much like HAlo 2: regret did. As for the vehicles, they felt gimicky to me. The mantas wasn't needed outside of putting the mission on easy mode, and the pellican could have been swapped with a banshee or hornet, and nothing would have changed, not to mention the mammoth that appeared out of nowhere. A great deal of those few missions, in respect to gameplay, felt unnecessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mavox Posted November 30, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 YEah, a great deal of the campaign is like that. For instance, at the very beginning of Forerunner, when you go through the teleporter and appear on a deck with a view of the inner surface of a planet, there is abolutely no music to intone awe. On the other hand, some of the level designs were fitting. Dawn for instance had a great atmosphere; Infinity did well despite most of it being a jungle; Requiem's crash site and warthog was very artful, and the latter missions had a sense of awe to them as well. It's just, so much could have been tweeked to make this a great campaign. Like, instead of going through a few forerunner buildings in requiem, make us explore the facility you see as you're picking up a warthog... that'd have given the player perspective, and a sense of accomplishment, much like HAlo 2: regret did. As for the vehicles, they felt gimicky to me. The mantas wasn't needed outside of putting the mission on easy mode, and the pellican could have been swapped with a banshee or hornet, and nothing would have changed, not to mention the mammoth that appeared out of nowhere. A great deal of those few missions, in respect to gameplay, felt unnecessary. I enjoyed most of the vehicle combat, but I agree the mantis portions seemed a bit forced. I wanted more boss fights, why not have a vehicle boss fight, you in the matntis vs a special expermental wraith with some badass elite general drving it, something like that. It just seemed VERY safe overall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancer Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 watch the terminal videos, read the books and read halo 3's terminals. They make The Didact that much more interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cocoa Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 My only complaint is the stupid enemies. Not all of them were dumb, some had good AI. Jackal Snipers, grunts with fuel rod or needler. Some Elites. All the Energy sword Elites were morons. Knights were too easy to kill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancer Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 My only complaint is the stupid enemies. Not all of them were dumb, some had good AI. Jackal Snipers, grunts with fuel rod or needler. Some Elites. All the Energy sword Elites were morons. Knights were too easy to kill. Agreed. Too many Sword Elites in 4. It was quite annoying. They're supposed to be rare and hard to kill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cocoa Posted November 30, 2012 Report Share Posted November 30, 2012 Sword elites in CE were the scariest thing ever. Worse than Wraith tanks, rocket wielding flood. I still have flashbacks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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