Am I the only one who thinks the campaign was pure ****?

[moo10032]

I am a hardcore halo fan, I got halo one on xbox 1's launch. Watched every single trailer for every one of the next games, and went to every midnight release. Played them all hundreds of times. Even read several books (planning to read them all). I bought Halo 4, but waited to play it until I re-played every single halo game again in a row in order of release to build up to it. I started 4 and the beginning was amazing, graphics are indeed the best of the halo's. Then I got deeper into the campaign and it begins to turn to ****. For example:

 

****** SPIOLERS ******

 

1. The very first level was awesome, the build up to seeing what were up against was intense, but then o look its the covenant again, rebels or something? I was expecting to start a NEW fight. Which reminds me it was never actually explained who this random rouge group of covenant even is...

 

2. All of the babysitting was on a completely different level from that of all the other halo's. "QUICK WE NEED TO PRESS THIS BUTTON TO TURN THE GUNS ON" happened several times... I think 3 or 4 maybe? First mission aboard the dawn you have to go outside and press a "missile launch" button. Then again on the Infinity you have to push a "Fire mac gun" button... then yet again on the space station you have to also press a "turn on the base defenses" button it got so old, exactly how worthless are the humans in this universe? The thousands of people on board the Infinity couldn't have already turned on the guns? The people inside the space station couldn't have already turned on the defenses? It's just stupid. Every task I had to do in the campaign felt like it should not have needed a Spartans help... which btw there were 4 NEWER Spartans already on board the infinity, FOUR.

 

3. The warthog, I'm so glad Forza got their ready to go modern (21st century) warthog to plug into their engine. What I mean is 343 decided (or was forced) to go back 600 years with the warthog design to coil spring suspension, tie rods, steering bars, drive shafts/universal joints... compared ALL the previous warthog design's of enclosed futuristic independent suspension arms with in-wheel motors... Yeah I really want to be stuck on an alien planet with some modern coil springs and universal joints to break on me... I literally freaked out when I came across the first warthog, not to mention the sound is just horrid, sounds like a lawnmower. Also comes strapped with 5 tanks of water on the back (for its hydrogen engine) so apparently this new version is a water-guzzler-er and all the old ones were not...

 

4. The infinity, largest ship in the human fleet was completely WORTHLESS. Probably thousands of people on board and yet it needed your help to fend off the attacks. It drops off that massive elephant mini mac gun truck for one mission but then you have to laser target the MASSIVE structures for it to even hit them... I guess they cant just point the gun at them? Then the mac gun gets taken out in a single shot from a covenant dropship... More baby sitting and worthless human help. Then after all the fail, the ship leaves you to fight for yourself... The mission where you fly that gunship pelican was just sad, the start of the mission the infinity is like a few hundred feet from the Didac sphere.... couldn't fire a shot at it? or HELP? I don't even understand what took to Didac so long to leave the planet anyways. Over the span of several missions he was just floating around, did I miss that explination? So many of the in-game events are just awful and nonsensical.

 

5. Very similar level designs when you fight against the Prometheans. It felt like a drag fighting the same 3 enemies again and again and again. Never felt this way in any other halo game.

 

6. The ending I still cant even understand what happened. Cortana comes into the physical world through that light bridge (SOMEHOW?) to hold the Didac for you to stick him with a grenade, then he just falls away, and you have to crawl like your critically injured in some mini game to the nuke, which you then detonate with your HAND and LIVE? ok did I miss the cliff hangar that makes me wonder what will happen in halo 5? I guess the Didac we just killed didn't die or something? HOW CREATIVE Maybe he floated off in space to re-build his army for round 2? Then the final cut scene showing this MASSIVE human base as far as you can see with all sorts of troops gearing up for combat, where the hell were they all during the game?

 

Again the visuals in this are 10/10 and all the artists at 343 are INSANE but regardless I have to rate the campaign a 1/10... This game has left me feeling very disappointed in the future of the halo universe, and it is even worse to see so many positive reviews when it just was not good...

[Jay Marcase]

Honestly I came in here ready to shoot you down but all the points you made were so valid and explain exactly how I feel. Eventhough I loved the story, the missions were so dry with all the "push this button" and "hit those three actuators" crap...it's just cheap fluff used to make the game feel longer. In my opinion, one of the biggest issues with Halo is that the actual gameplay and story are too detached, meaning, you get a cutscene that sets the tone for the next round of shooting, rinse, repeat. Eventhough people here hate the game, I think Call of Duty's campaigns have mastered how to tell a story (even if it's crappy) during actual gameplay. You're driving and bombs are dropping, freeways blowing up, you're in a car you hop out neutralize targets, your vehicle gets hit with a missile, you end up walking to the destination, get the macguffin, hop in a helicopter, you man the aerial gun, take the macguffin to bravo point, you get back in the chopper, bravo blows up, and etc. As you play, the story is told to you, if this was Halo you would have watched a cutscene of all of the above and then Cortana would have told you "activate the cannons to fight off the enemy". Then you proceed with the same tired run and gun to get to the actuator and once you get there Cortana says "the actuator is down we need to hit the emergencies generators on the other side of the map and there's three of them". Sometimes I think "can you muh****in call someone and tell to turn on the backup generator please?" Lastly, I also wanna know wtf the didact sat on his ass half of the game...dude was just floating in that energy beam and finally comes out at the end...it doesnt make any sense.

[SaKenMadRaj]

That was a good review.. But i still wouldnt give it a 1/10..

[Admiral Ackbar]

Overall good review. Those things are kind of annoying. But 1/10 is pretty low. It's a pretty good campaign. I enjoyed it.

[KellyAwesome]

Yeah. I can agree with those points. But that all felt like a minor annoyance and a poor game design element than "RUINED MY WOLE EVERYTHING"

 

It's still the best Campaign Ive played, even better than Reach. And IMO Reach's campaign was probably way better designed. Hopefully they'll cut back on the redundant designs in Halo 5.

[snqrls]

I guess I'm influenced by playing legendary. Personally, the campaign felt solid to me cause it took me so god damn long to beat each mission, but after replaying it some, I'm not as certain on how good the campaign was. The story was terrific, but the music was too fast paced, A.D.D. friendly, and lacked the awe-inspiring tracks of halo 1, 2, and 3. As to the gameplay, I felt it was similar to Cod in that you very rarely came across the same place twice, or even knew where you were going before you got there. Nothing was memorable about it until you got to the halo installation, cause nothing stood out. It felt like a spartan-ops expansion pack for the master chief in otherwords, where you pay for new maps and locations.

 

As to the vehicles, they were all gimicky, and didn't fit in well with the campaign. Infinity for instance would have been best explored and fought through on foot.

[KellyAwesome]

I thought the initial landing on Requiem was pretty breath taking, when you land and go a bit in. You can look over the cliffs and see those defense towers cover the whole area.

 

That was the cover of a book even.

[snqrls]

^that part was great. But unfortunately it had nothing to do with the rest of the level.

[Snaggz107]

Well, all good points if they didn't happen in every halo game like ever.. Those are all old points, each game is push this n push that.. But guess what I freaking still love the crap out of it! The 1 true valid point is what the hell are the covenant doing there lol I wud understand it if there were no elites cuz humans have a truce with them, but it was the same old covenant. But I'll let all that slide cuz I know it's all gonna be in the novels to come... I have no prob with any of the games, we'll except for halo 2 (campaign not multiplayer). And I'm gonna enjoy reading em... Remember its been 4yrs in cryo for masterchief. Let's leave alil for the novels to explain.

[snqrls]

actually, most of the mistakes/complaints on his list have either been tactfully handled in past titles, or are not as extensive. For instance, objectives were a blend of saving marines, buying time to evacuate them, destroying generators or AA guns on foot while being confronted with an assortment of vehicles and a scarab, assasinating a prophet, finding cortana, and searching for a commanding officer.

 

THe problem with halo 4, is that a large part of each mission was essentially, fight through a maze and once you're done clearing out enemies, either click on something, or insert cortana into a panel. Dawn and Infinity, and Composer all handled this well enough since it wasn't overdone and fit well with the plot. However, a large part of requiem was fighting through a series of rooms to access the cartographer, and then a portal. Then Forerunner consisted of essentially the same thing. Same with Reclaimer since it was more of a point and press, and that's all you did aside from defending some mammoth that should have been shot down before even firing a single mac round; overall the mission was okay, though a bit repetitive to be honest, but as a continuation from using a mantis to wreck ****, it didn't do so well.

 

Shutdown was... how should I say, aside from gimicky, very dull. You went from pillar to pillar in a pellican destroying defenseless dropships, only to fight through a remake of HAlo 2: regret, except you have to do it twice before you could finally move on to the next objective. There must have been what, 12 different buttons you had to click on this level alone, and to get to each, you had to fight through 2-3 levels of prometheans. Fluff.

[Baeztoberfest]

I loved the campaign. Best part about Halo 4 because they took it where bungie never went before. I.E. Cortana... Delving into who John really is... The forerunners? Yeah. Awesome stuff.

[Cpt Picardo]

The champaign was pure space magic! Cant wait for Halo 5.

[Charlemagne]

On number 6, Cortana comes into the physical world all the time as a hologram, how is this any different?

 

Also, why do you need a cliffhanger for Halo 5?

[LiQuid BioniX]

So I agree with pretty much all of your points. That being said, there were so many good things about the campaign that make it worth the 9/10 rating that it keeps getting. I just posted about how all of the objective-based stuff gets really, really repetitive, which it does. That's my least favorite part of the campaign for sure.

[Hazzardous7]

yes you are the only one, i thought it was a fun and likable campaign. I thinkthe worst campaign was ODST but it had epic firefight to make up to it. And this is coming from another hardcore player.

[Chris Hansen]

My biggest problem with the campaign was the music.

 

And I liked ODST's campaign, the only problem with it was you were a weak slow marine. But the music was solid in that one.

 

I've been playing the halo's since halo 1 launched with xbox consoles. Most of my time has been spent in Halo 1, and halo custon edition on the PC, and Halo 2. It's hard to beleive, but most of my adolescent and adult life has been spent around this series...I'm 24 years old, that means I've been playing halo for 11 years....holy god.

[Bloody Initiate]

I wouldn't go as low as 1/10, just because the game at least WORKED. There wasn't a glitch or anything that kept me from completing it, and I didn't find myself stuck or skewered on geometry. 343 certainly could have programmed the game better, but the campaign didn't seem to have any code weaknesses in the campaign. Since they displayed some technical proficiency but lacked narrative skill of any kind I'd aim more for a 5 or 6/10. You get a 5/10 from me if your campaign works, 5 is average.

 

However I didn't care for it either. I've ranted about its problems in other threads, but I enjoyed your complaints because they were more varied and less coloured by the PTSD I have from MW2's campaign.

[Twisted Oracle]

I loved the story 343 came up with, it was the first time a halo brought tears to my eyes.... bravo 343 bravo

[Vaulting♥Frog]

While the button pressing got annoying after a while it wasnt that big of an issue for me.

 

Also, all the Halo games are linear. They all have set paths that you have to follow through a "maze" in order to go through the game. I found this to be no more apparent than in any other Halo game.

 

Just keep in mind that its all personal opinion.

 

I wont call H4 the best campaign but it is not the worse one out there, at least for me.

[Baeztoberfest]

It was a huge improvement over "The Library". Everyone remembers that nightmare.

[Victory Element]

i thought the general plot of the campaign was very engaging with the forerunners and the composer, but the way they put it all together took a lot away from it. It became way too repetative, and the background story felt like it would seem very unclear for those who may not have followed the halo fiction. But i will say, the scenery in general was breathtaking if you let your eyes wander a bit from the battle

[SternuS]

-snip-

 

I agree with everything you told, except point 3. That didn't ruined my experience.

While the story was great, the development of it was awful. Cortana has to warn you about every enemy you encounter, like as you don't have eyes. "Yes i can see that Phantom in front of me, thanks Corty, now shut up please.". The flight in Pelican was terrible, boring as hell. it lasted two minutes and all you had to do was shooting at some Phantoms.