This review is from: Halo 4 (Xbox 360) (Video Game)
I’m going to be touching a lot of bases on this one, not least because the game has a lot of talking points, (mostly good but occasionally bad) but also because of the widespread lack of objectivity among the one star reviews. I know, I know, that sentence has the whiff of hypocrisy about it given the full on 5 stars I’ve given it, but i wouldn’t give the game that score unless i thought it honestly deserved it, and i will be going over why i think that in a moment. I’am also well aware that many of the one star reviews are, COD + PS3 fanboys, trolls, and people that have made assumptions about the game without actually playing it. I’am also well aware that I shouldn’t be feeding these genius’, but some issues really need to be addressed, and instead of simple descending into a rant, I’ll deal with those issues as i get to them.
Lets kick things off with the campaign. The first thing you’ll notice, though possibly the least important thing, is that this game looks ridiculously gorgeous, to the extent that you wonder how the hell the Xbox is managing to run it. It’s doubly impressive when you note that this game runs liquid smooth, with no frame rate drops or choppiness what so ever. To Halo fans of old this is quite surprising, as previous games in the series have always been a step or two behind the curve in this department. Though somewhat darker in tone than its forbears the game retains the rich colour palette and style that have been characteristic throughout the series.
The sound quality is easily capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with the graphics, with a completely new range of sound effects for weapons, vehicles, and in fact… everything else. Because the sounds have changed so much, some find it hard to relate to their old school equivalents. Me personally, well i found that it added a degree of weight and realism to the weapons, which means the battle rifle, for example, no longer feels like a bb gun. While we’re on the subject of sound we might as well deal with the score. Gone are the anthemic (Is that a word?) tracks of old, in their place are more atmospheric sound tracks that blends into the background and focus’ on underlining the mood of the moment. Which is better? For me personally it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other, the new score suits the games new tone, as did the old for the old.
The game play follows a similar philosophy to reach; keep the open areas and ground vehicle moments, but throw in some little surprises (space combat and such). Even got a bit of good old fashioned rail shooting which had me all nostalgic, though the pelican segment desperately needs more stuff to shoot at. Where the game differs however is in it’s use of the Prometheans; these guys do not mess around, or at least on legendary they don’t. Where as the elites will quite happily take it in the face, the knights will shift around constantly trying to break your line of sight, and will then suddenly teleport behind you, or trap you in a corner so they can have the pleasure of turning you over. If only the friendly A.I was so smart. A box of rocks is smarter, and a quadriplegic antelope receiving a hug from a python has a greater chance of survival than these halfwit, as you’ll find yourself watching old favorites like dodgy driving and walking into walls.
The standout feature of the single player is unquestionably, however, the story, both in it main story arc, and in evolving relationship between the Master Chief and Cortana. It plays out with good flow and builds throughout the game, though it does ask you to swallow a hefty chuck of exposition at one point, and i can’t see it being too accessible to new players. There are a few other little niggles that stop the campaign from being all it can be.
Firstly, of all the things to borrow from call of duty… quick time events… why? Quick time events are the bane of modern games, they are, to all intense and purposes, a cut scene that you can’t skip, or go off and make a cup of tea in the middle of. In halos defence here however, these are the best quick time events you’re likely to see, as the actions use the same button commands normal game play does, they’re short, and you still feel like you’re in control of the character.
The second really is a bit of a non-issue though I’m compelled to mention it; button pushing. A few times in the game you have to bush a button, some gamers see this as repetitiveness gameplay; really? Did life get boring for you after you opened your first five doors, the first few times you went for a dump, having to get dressed every morning. Personally i don’t see the big deal, it’s not like the previous games were any different when viewed without nostalgia goggles. I loved the single player campaign, as the gameplay is good fun, and the story is fantastic, and you can still play the campaign in co-op, which makes it one of a shrinking pool…
This review is from: Halo 4 (Xbox 360) (Video Game)
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
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: Halo 4 (Xbox 360) (Video Game)
I bought black ops 2 and what a waste of money that was…traded it in and bought Halo 4…its a great game…the online multiplayer is very good and seems an even playing feel compared to camp of duty.this is my first halo game.beware though as the online players are very good and the game does take a while to get used to..i havent played the campaign yet and i dont think i will unless the internet goes down…so dont base my review on it…the weapons seem fair and not over or under powered.no cheap kills and rage quitting…btw the graphics are amazing.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
The halo in whom, the old ways have joined the new.,
I’m going to be touching a lot of bases on this one, not least because the game has a lot of talking points, (mostly good but occasionally bad) but also because of the widespread lack of objectivity among the one star reviews. I know, I know, that sentence has the whiff of hypocrisy about it given the full on 5 stars I’ve given it, but i wouldn’t give the game that score unless i thought it honestly deserved it, and i will be going over why i think that in a moment. I’am also well aware that many of the one star reviews are, COD + PS3 fanboys, trolls, and people that have made assumptions about the game without actually playing it. I’am also well aware that I shouldn’t be feeding these genius’, but some issues really need to be addressed, and instead of simple descending into a rant, I’ll deal with those issues as i get to them.
Lets kick things off with the campaign. The first thing you’ll notice, though possibly the least important thing, is that this game looks ridiculously gorgeous, to the extent that you wonder how the hell the Xbox is managing to run it. It’s doubly impressive when you note that this game runs liquid smooth, with no frame rate drops or choppiness what so ever. To Halo fans of old this is quite surprising, as previous games in the series have always been a step or two behind the curve in this department. Though somewhat darker in tone than its forbears the game retains the rich colour palette and style that have been characteristic throughout the series.
The sound quality is easily capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with the graphics, with a completely new range of sound effects for weapons, vehicles, and in fact… everything else. Because the sounds have changed so much, some find it hard to relate to their old school equivalents. Me personally, well i found that it added a degree of weight and realism to the weapons, which means the battle rifle, for example, no longer feels like a bb gun. While we’re on the subject of sound we might as well deal with the score. Gone are the anthemic (Is that a word?) tracks of old, in their place are more atmospheric sound tracks that blends into the background and focus’ on underlining the mood of the moment. Which is better? For me personally it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other, the new score suits the games new tone, as did the old for the old.
The game play follows a similar philosophy to reach; keep the open areas and ground vehicle moments, but throw in some little surprises (space combat and such). Even got a bit of good old fashioned rail shooting which had me all nostalgic, though the pelican segment desperately needs more stuff to shoot at. Where the game differs however is in it’s use of the Prometheans; these guys do not mess around, or at least on legendary they don’t. Where as the elites will quite happily take it in the face, the knights will shift around constantly trying to break your line of sight, and will then suddenly teleport behind you, or trap you in a corner so they can have the pleasure of turning you over. If only the friendly A.I was so smart. A box of rocks is smarter, and a quadriplegic antelope receiving a hug from a python has a greater chance of survival than these halfwit, as you’ll find yourself watching old favorites like dodgy driving and walking into walls.
The standout feature of the single player is unquestionably, however, the story, both in it main story arc, and in evolving relationship between the Master Chief and Cortana. It plays out with good flow and builds throughout the game, though it does ask you to swallow a hefty chuck of exposition at one point, and i can’t see it being too accessible to new players.
There are a few other little niggles that stop the campaign from being all it can be.
Firstly, of all the things to borrow from call of duty… quick time events… why? Quick time events are the bane of modern games, they are, to all intense and purposes, a cut scene that you can’t skip, or go off and make a cup of tea in the middle of. In halos defence here however, these are the best quick time events you’re likely to see, as the actions use the same button commands normal game play does, they’re short, and you still feel like you’re in control of the character.
The second really is a bit of a non-issue though I’m compelled to mention it; button pushing. A few times in the game you have to bush a button, some gamers see this as repetitiveness gameplay; really? Did life get boring for you after you opened your first five doors, the first few times you went for a dump, having to get dressed every morning. Personally i don’t see the big deal, it’s not like the previous games were any different when viewed without nostalgia goggles. I loved the single player campaign, as the gameplay is good fun, and the story is fantastic, and you can still play the campaign in co-op, which makes it one of a shrinking pool…
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|Halo 4 – To Buy or Not to Buy ?,
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
Was this review helpful to you?
|great game!!!,
I bought black ops 2 and what a waste of money that was…traded it in and bought Halo 4…its a great game…the online multiplayer is very good and seems an even playing feel compared to camp of duty.this is my first halo game.beware though as the online players are very good and the game does take a while to get used to..i havent played the campaign yet and i dont think i will unless the internet goes down…so dont base my review on it…the weapons seem fair and not over or under powered.no cheap kills and rage quitting…btw the graphics are amazing.
Was this review helpful to you?
|