Halo 4

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Halo 4 has been in development for around three years under newly formed studio: 343 industries. Microsoft has put together the most talented developers at their disposal and given them unlimited resources to continue bungies halo legacy, putting Microsoft's most valuable property in the hands of a new development studio could be considered a huge risk; fortunately they exceeded all of our expectations.

Halo combat evolved is among my top five games of all time. It is as close as a developer has come to producing a perfect first person shooter. In 2001 Halo redefined the genre making console First Person Shooters valid for the first time. Prior to its release existed a myriad of lacklustre console shooters and with PC being hailed as the only platform for hard-core shooter fans, halo changed our preconceptions and moulded the genre in its vision.

The most integral part of the Halo single player experience is the halo combat puzzle. Players are given a sandbox with which to experiment in. situations can be approached in a selection of ways involving a large variety of weapons vehicles and environments. Intelligent AI duck and weave into cover, flanking the player and offering up a real challenge. This system rewards player skill over everything else.

Campaign

This is the most graphically impressive game on the 360, the CGI cut scenes are as close to reality as video games have come in this generation. The motion capture technology rivalling LA noire for uncanny valley visual facial detail. The environments are the most detailed seen in a halo game and the forerunner architecture brings a new complementary art style to the series. Among the traditional blues and purples of old halos comes the striking orange of new species: the forerunners the game incorporates copious levels of lens flare rivalling even that of JJ Abram's.

Halo 4 contains an almost overwhelming level of weaponry at the chief's disposal, as well as all the weapons introduced in the series, there is an entire new set of alien weaponry via the forerunners, they are distinctively alien in their orange glowy and dynamic shape changing design. Forerunners are a new challenge which are far more dependent on a well-placed head shot than the covenant, they are more agile, most specifically the knights which have the ability to teleport at any moment.

Sprint is now default ability; this was by far the most popular power up ability in reach and has now been incorporated from the start. New abilities have been added to the game such as a large centurion style blue glowing shield and floating sentries.

Halo 4 is a more human and personal story involving the degradation of the AI companion Cortana referred to as rampancy as well as exploring the Spartan training programme. how the UNSC treats the missing in action Spartan "John"as well as the dynamic relationship between Master Chief and Cortana it is definitely the most cohesive story told in a halo game. The halo fans that are aware of the wider lore surrounding the halo-verse are rewarded with references throughout.

Sound

It is clear that the sounds for each weapon has been rerecorded, these are the best sounding weapons of any shooter, the orchestral soundtrack is a natural evolution of the original composed by Martin O'Donnell it is effective in creating these large scale scenes and creates a darker tone than its predecessor. There is no thundering score as the original games instead it walks the line between ambiance creating the tone and electro portal esque themes.

multiplayer

Halo 4 has certainly taken a look at the strengths of the core call of duty multiplayer experience and incorporated them into the tried and true halo formula. They have introduced kill cams which have been an oversight of Bungies. A new levelling system is introduced with a cap of 50. Players are rewarded with Spartan points which they can assign to weapon and ability unlocks. Kill Cams, load outs, a perk system as well as weapon and armour unlocks are present, there is also a prestige like system called specialisations which will allow players to unlock special abilities which are otherwise unavailable.

The PVP game mode is incorporated under the umbrella of war games which is explained in the cannon as training grounds for new Spartan soldiers. Slayer matches are now a score based affair instead of the number of kills within a match. The score based modes encourage a more cooperative and team mentality approach to the multiplayer arena, it has a similar feel to a battlefield title, there are no support abilities however you will benefit through communication and strategy.

Spartan Opps takes the place of the score based game mode firefight. It is a cooperative and episodic experience, each week 343 are going to add a new episode to the series, and each of these episodes consists of around five chapters taking around an hour to complete. The episodic story structure of this game mode is sure to discourage trade ins and will keep the fans happy for a number of weeks. The first season is going to be free, with the subsequent seasons incurring a charge.

There are ten maps released at launch, each of them are finely tuned and carefully balanced create the magic halo chaos whether it is in one of the smaller, close quarters maps or the large scale vehicle themed maps.
New game modes dominion and flood have been added. Dominion is a base capture style mode. There will be three capture points on the map, once captured the bases will reward the team with reinforcements in the form of weapons and spawning vehicles. This is the most cooperative dependant game modes and effectively introduces a team based dynamic to the traditional lone wolf modes of the past. With the Flood game type 343 industries have resurrected the zombie mode from reach and incorporated the polarising adversary the flood in their place. This is a tension inducing mode where the human players will be armed with shotguns and attempt to stave off faster and stronger flood opponents.

Summary

Halo 4 is not combat evolved but combat refined.

343 have produced a technically proficient masterpiece of this generation, pushing the seven year old Xbox console to its limits. Although lacking innovation they inject refinement through all elements including sound and level design. Multiplayer is overhauled with new game modes improving the overall package.

Halo 4 has the most cohesive narrative in a halo game it succeeds in delivering an emotional and personal experience. the campaigns pacing is close to perfection there is sufficient variety between each of the eight missions343 industries retained the feel of halo while also injecting new elements to a quickly become stagnant franchise to produce the best halo yet.

I have been a Call of Duty player ever since I have had owned an Xbox 360 3 years ago. I have never been interested in the Halo series in the slightest and have labelled it as a bad, unrealistic game.
I will admit that.
In recent years Call of Duty has taken a dip in quality and I feel that the makers of the series are rushing to get them out every year so by doing the series is suffering badly for it. So I wanted to find a new game/series that would replace it. I was looking at many games and seen that Halo 4 was £25 which I thought that was a bargain considering the game was quite new. I did some research and found out that a new studio did the game but it was very well received by critics. I ordered it straight away.

Since after playing both the single-player and multi-player for a few hours now, I can now admit that Halo 4 is a game that you need to own.

I didn't know much of the story behind the Halo series so I whilst the game was installing onto my Xbox ( because everyone knows that installing a game onto an Xbox takes a while) I watched video explaining the backstory of halo. I found this useful and I will leave a link for anyone else who is in a similar position to me. [...]

Graphics & Sound.

Best looking and sounding game on Xbox I have played. I cannon believe I am playing this on an Xbox 360 at times it looks that good. The sound of the guns can be frightening at times which is a good thing, It makes me want to run away from people. HD is recommended completely.

Single-player.

I have only completed the first few missions on the single-player so I can't review the story in its full. But the story has pulled me in very well considering I haven't played any other Halo title. It revolves around Master Chief and his computerised companion Cortana. Cortana is slipping into rampancy which is basically condition that programmes like herself constructs after they’ve been in service more than seven years. That is all I can really say unfortunately at this time but it seems like a really good play and I am going to play it till the end definitely.

Multiplayer.

This I can most certainly comment on. This being my first online halo experience I was a little worried because I honestly thought I would struggle. I was wrong. Instead of being stricken with people camping or just trying too hard. I was greeted with a nice fair balanced game with a number of even weapons and new game types I have never seen before.
I have levelled up and went on killing sprees and I have been excited at playing the game. There hasn't been a moment when I have been annoyed at the game because I can understand why I am getting killed instead of call of duty when I am head butting my controller in frustration.
I love it so much and it pains me that I am writing this review because I am desperate to get back to it.
My only concern about the game is not the games fault but my own. I currently have friends that are Call of Duty players and I will feel quite lonely after a while without having someone to play with.
The mulit-player is so additive and fun I can't find this being an issue.

Overview.
I don't think I will being going another game anytime soon.
single-player is fantastic and the multi-player is great
I love it and can't recommend this anymore to anyone who has grown tired of the call of duty franchise.

10/10. 'Incredible'

Firstly could I say thank you to everyone who has been clicking like and finding my reviews helpful. I am really keen to add some good quality reviews to this Amazon.co.uk website. I felt that I had to do this as there have clearly been a lot of trolls posting dud biased reviews on various tech products.

Onto Halo 4, does anyone remember making their way through Call of Duty Modern Warfares firing range and thinking to themselves what does this mean? Well Halo 4 is not a rollercoaster / gun range Halo 4 is a real First Person Shooter / Adventure game.

The game is awesome. I was quite worried when I heard that 343 had taken over Halo development but alas I should have had more confidence in them. 343 have done a brilliant job. I won't spoil the story but this exposition into the Chief's Humanity and his relationship with Cortana (his A.I. sidekick make for a landmark adventure). We see the best of the Chief and are left wanting more.

Halo 4 takes the best bits from the trilogy and builds on them, set pieces, planet drops and battles are all epic and you will find that the guns in this Halo feel more powerful than ever. If it wasn't for the fact that this was the fourth game in the series you could argue that this the best Halo ever.

Halo 4's graphics are among some of the best. Guns look great, cut scenes look brilliant and are rendered with the in game engine but sadly some textures suffer when you see them close up equally you will find that many of the enemies disappear if they are at a draw distance which is further than the game can load/process. Nonetheless, the bright open environment are a great showcase for how beautiful Halo 4 is.

The Halo 4 combat engine feels like it truly evolved and the chief handles like a true war machine. You will find yourself hammering the Xbox pad until the very end taking down Prometheans and covenant with your rifle, butt of you gun and then a grenade. Never has the Master Chief felt this bad ass. The controls are perfect and the enemy AI will remind you of how dumbed down some of the recent shooters you've played are, play on Legendary and you will be punished the enemies do not want to die and don't want to run into your bullets you will be challenged and I strongly recommend that you prepare to die. These enemies have their own patterns and the new Promethean Knights feel very much at home and thankfully if you've read any of the Halo novels a lot is explained too.

Halo 4's multiplayer is one word. Halo 2,3 and 4 on steroids. You will love it, the new maps cater for both close-quarters and ranged combat, they've taken out the respawn timer and added ordinance drops. But these changes do make for a better game. My advice is to design a Spartan load up Ragnarok pick up a assault riffle and start blasting. Halo gamers will initially feel out of their depth but will soon feel right at home in Halo 4's multiplayer mode once they get their head around the new scoring system. There is also a new mode called Spartan Ops, its an episodic DLC themed game mode which is an episodic co-op based game mode. The level was set within a huge sandbox and had me killing enemies and pressing through to objectives, this was alot of fun and I cant wait for the next free episode.

Wrap-Up
Should you buy Halo 4?, yes. Halo 4 is new but at the same time its still the same Halo we know and love, the gameplay is brilliant and really marks the return of the first person shooter. The controls are slick and the multiplayer gameplay is as fun as ever. You will enjoy Halo 4.

+ The Master Chief is back
+ Fantastic Multiplayer
+ The story

- Close up textures
- Frame rate on system link drops considerably
- Limited replayability if you haven't got Xbox Live