Halo 4 - Xbox 360 (Standard Game)

As a fan of Halo since Combat Evolved, I was worried like most fans about Bungie not participating in the development of Halo 4, but after playing it, I can put all concerns to rest. The first three Halos were fantastic achievements that made the Xbox a major console. Halo: Reach was as okay game to me as I strongly disliked the armor abilities and load outs, but still gave it plenty of attention. Halo 4 takes what Reach did, and balances it to a point where at times it may be a bit distant, but still feels like Halo. Halo 4 makes nearly every aspect of Reach better and then adds some. Now I may not be the most organized writer, but I feel I can summarize these aspects pretty well. Graphics The moment you pop Halo 4 in your Xbox, your eyes are treated to stunning visuals. The moment when you step out of the tunnel and see the massive Forerunner architecture on the 2nd level will give anyone goosebumps. The game is superbly designed, with smooth textures and the best facial animation on any game to date; still not perfect, but it certainly shows promise. Weapons look very nice as well, when the Promethean weapons assemble in your hand it is just stunning. Anyone who says the graphics are poor are just looking for a reason to complain. Sound The sounds of Halo 4 are crisp and clean. All weapon sounds have been redone. The assault rifle sounds so badass, compared to before when it sounded like an automatic stapler, in Halo 4 it sounds like an actual gun. All of the guns sound great with the exception of the Battle Rifle. No big deal since it is only one gun. Vehicles also got a major overhaul and sound more like legit engines. I had fun just revving up my engines the first time I drove a warthog. There is even an extreme detail to sound when you hear Master Chief's armor clunking around every so slightly. 343 did a nice job here. Campaign Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of the campaign. It was the first thing I did when I got the game, and I was slightly dissapointed. The storyline was very well done, focusing more on Master Chief and Cortana's relationship as well as stopping some bad guys, but there were some issues. Only three enemies were introduced being the Promethean knights, watchers, and crawlers. That's all. Throughout the whole game you simply fight covenant and those three enemies. The whole campaign seems like one big quest to push as many buttons as possible while gunning down tons of baddies on your way. Most of the objectives were literally push this button, then that button. Got pretty old quickly, but it was saved by excellent story telling and a few missions with some diversity like flying a pelican and a broadsword. Overall, worth playing, but not much replay value here. Multiplayer Oh boy, here we go. The source of all controversy surrounding the game. Personally, I love it. The game has kept armor abilities from Halo: Reach; however, they play a much smaller role. In Reach things like armor-lock were game changing, but in Halo 4 the armor abilities play very small parts in the whole match. None are too overpowered, and all of them are still useful. A Call of Duty style perk system was also added; however, there are only two perk slots and again they are very minor and do not cause any major changes. The big changes are the choice of weapon when spawning, and the ordinance drops. In Halo 4 players can choose from a multitude of weapons to spawn with, but they all are either short-medium range or medium-long range so the player can pick their role and no weapon stands out too greatly. The ordinance drops are also Call of Duty style, being the kill-streaks, but they are not chosen before the game. Halo 4 gives you three choices for your ordinance and you simply pick one. They are not a bad addition as being in a situation when the enemy has all vehicles and power weapons can be very frustrating, and a rocket launcher falling from the sky may turn the tide of the match. Ordinance and sprinting lead to faster paced matches than some Halo fans may be used to, but if there is no change, why make a new game? The multiplayer is extremely addicting and fun, and all of the changes suit Halo 4 just fine. Overall the game is fantastic, and any fans of the previous Halos who may be let down need to stop living in the past. All things change, video games are no exception. The game has a definitive polish on it that separates it from the previous Halos while still keeping it faithful. 343 did a wonderful job designing Halo 4, and it makes the wait for Halo 5 on a next-gen console so much harder.

As a long-time fan of the Halo series, I was excited about what I was hearing before Halo 4 was released. 343 Industries, picking up the reins of the franchise from Bungie Studios, seemed as though they wanted to take everything great about Halo into new and exciting directions. So, now that it is out and half of the civilized world is again leading the Master Chief through an alien battlefield and their own Spartans through on-line multiplayer war games, the question is: Did 343 Industries succeed? The answer depends on what your expectations were. By every measure, Halo 4 is an awesome game. The graphics are among the best I have ever seen on a console game. The gameplay is smooth and, so far, virtually glitch free. The multiplayer games on XBox Live are again fun and addictive. But did 343 Industries break any new ground with Halo 4? I would say not really. But please don't take that as a negative -- what 343 Industries did with an aging franchise is nothing short of extraordinary. The story of Halo 4 is by far the best of the entire series. This is the first time that the story of Master Chief and Cortana feels personal and imperative. Not only is Master Chief fighting to save the galaxy from a new terrifying foe, he is fighting to save his AI companion and friend from rampancy, a sort of computer version of Alzheimer's disease. That story element adds an emotional depth that makes the story seem more immediate and important. As far as gameplay... well, it's Halo. It's a first-person shooter in the best tradition of first-person shooters. If you like first-person shooters, especially previous Halo games, you will love this game. The environments are huge and varied, and the graphics gorgeous. The paths to objectives, as is typical of this type of game, are fairly linear, but that is just the nature of the beast. 343 Industries does not break any new ground here, but they did make it about the best kind of first-person shooter I have played. There are lots of new weapons and vehicles to play around with, but again they do not significantly change the way the game plays. Multi-player matches on XBox Live are, as always, completely fun, addictive, and an easy way to spend many, many hours. It feels smoother than I remember past versions of Halo multi-player being, but the game play doesn't break any new barriers. Halo multi-player, however, is about as good as on-line play gets, so that's not a complaint. One area of Halo 4 that does feel new and innovative to me is called Spartan Ops. As part of the game, 343 Industries is releasing new weekly episodes that expand the storyline of the main game. Each viewable episode includes five new playable chapters that can be played alone or cooperatively with other players. 343 Industries promises 10 episodes comprising a first season. Hopefully, there will be more seasons after the first. But at the very least, these first 10 episodes with 50 playable levels, a free addition to the main game, add great value to Halo 4 and dramatically lengthen the life of the game. Most games charge extra for new levels and added content. That's not to say that Halo 4 will not charge for extra content (in fact there are already extra map packs and add-ons available for purchase), but at least 343 Industries is giving new game content over an extended period of time and not charging extra for it. I applaud them for it and hope that other game makers will take notice and follow suit. So does Halo 4 live up to the hype? I think so. It is by far the best game in the mostly excellent Halo franchise, and everything about it is nearly perfect. It doesn't try to redefine the first-person shooter, and in fact covers very familiar ground. But the story and gameplay are second to none. I haven't had this much fun with a new game in a long time. And with everything that 343 Industries has packed into the game, I'll be having fun for the foreseeable future.

First off: Don't listen to what anyone says about Halo 4 being like Call of Duty. It's not. Sure there are loadouts and perks and support packages, but in my opinion those are not owned by Call of Duty. You can't have rights on a game standard. Now, onto the game. I will start off with the multiplayer because I find it RIDICULOUSLY fun, and the majority of Halo players play multiplayer much more than the campaign. I have never been good at any of the other Halo games' multiplayers, because I never found any weapons or if I did find a weapon spawn point, someone had gotten to it first. In Halo Reach this was a big problem for me. Sure I got a few kills here and there, but it never was... fun. But it has all changed now. There are still hidden weapons around the battlefields, but now there is this thing called ordinance drop. Basically if you get enough kills, you get to pick one of 3 advantages that will be shot down to the ground from an invisible frigate. Usually these choices are either a really exceptional weapon ( Railgun, anyone?) or a new set of grenades or a abilty perk, like superspeed or a health boost. This has changed the game for me, and now I am usually at the top of the leaderboards. Sometimes first, but seldom past 6th. I was skeptical at first because Bungie, the legendary creators of Halo, sold Halo to a new developer, 343 ( it was that and the fact that 343 is a character in the Halo games who is a complete backstabbing bastard). But alas, I was not disappointed with 343. They aren't better than Bungie, but they certainly aren't worse. I loved the new graphics engine and the new armor looks(MUCH better than Halo Reach armor. If you don't believe me, go look at the CQC armor. Bleh). So, Multiplayer concept, check. Multiplayer Maps: The maps on Halo 4 are freaking incredible. Ravine is stunning, filled with forerunner tech mountains and grassy knolls. Impact is just breathtaking, as you are in space. But the most spectacular map by far is RAGNAROK. Ragnarok is a remake of a classic Halo 3 map called Valhalla. It. is. Beautiful. There is a spire on each side of the map, with a sea behind one and a mountain behind the other. Marvelous. I never felt that any f the maps were too small, but I think that Adrift could use some work. Multiplayer Rating 5 Stars Campaign The campaign in Halo 4 was a little iffy in my opinion. When you start out you fight the classic aliens called the covenant. They are about the same. Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, Drones, Elites and the like. I didn't like the elite's new makeover. They look too... pale-ish. Play it and you'll see. But now there is a new alien species. Yep, a whole entire freaking species to worry about. They are called the Prometheans. They are silver and orange robot-alien things. They come in 3 types, Knight(Tall, dark, and incredibly frustrating when they teleport), Crawler(just about as annoying as drones. They are like dogs, fast and agile and like grunts, fun to punch in the face), and Watcher(Watchers fly around like drones and can revive dead Knights. Yeah.). The campaign was iffy because of these new aliens. Oh, and they removed the FLOOD from the campaign. Yep. The missions were okay, but these new alien willt ake awhile to get used to. Campaign rating 3Stars Spartan Ops Various missions that involve Prometheans and covenant. It was okay. 4 Stars. So, overall, Halo 4 is a marvelous game, five stars, if you like both the multiplayer and the campaign. But if you are buying it only for the single player, 3 stars. Thank you for reading.

**** BACKGROUND **** For those that do not know, Halo 4 is the fourth entry into the Halo series. Halo is a first person shooter that has become a staple of the Microsoft world with its main character, Master Chief, being a mascot for the Xbox gaming system as Mario is to Nintendo or Sonic is to Sega. The original three titles in the series were designed by Bungie Studios. The latest addition was designed by 343 studios and is considered the start of a new trilogy to the Halo series. Prior to start on Halo 4, 343 studios gained experience with the Halo series by re-visiting and re-doing Halo: Combat evolved, the first game in the series released on the original Xbox console, as Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary for the current Xbox 360 console. With the switch in developers, many have wondered if this title would live up to the reputation established in previous games. To put it mildly, yes, Halo 4 is a worthy entry into the beautiful world that is Halo 4. ++ Halo: Combat Evolved (Original) ++ Halo 2 ++ Halo 3 ++ Halo 3: ODST ++ Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary **** STORY **** The Halo gaming series is known for deep involving story lines through each entry. Halo 4 is no exception. The Halo story lines are one of the many key aspects that make these games as great as they are. The story picks up five years after the end of Halo 3 with Master Chief, the protagonist of the game, adrift aboard the wreckage of the UNSC frigate with the AI Cortana who is operating past her natural life span. I do not want to give away key plot points but the game is not a straight forward shooter as previous entries could tend to be. The story of Halo 4 attempts to be more exploratory and mysterious in the events as they unfold. The game does set it up to be the first in a three game story arch as it does not quite answer some of the questions are you left with after Halo 3 leaving you hoping that those questions are addressed in future titles. One thing to note is that the story line is not slow paced. You will be up and shooting at the Covenant, the antagonists of the game, in no time. **** GAMEPLAY & COMBAT **** The game has some of the most polished controls I have played on the game never encountering frustrating moments like I have experienced on games part of other series. Your character has the usual assortment of "right gun for the right situation" and ability to carry two at a time, a long established rule of thumb in First Person Shooters for some time now as well as selection of vehicles to of try out. The levels do not feel as constrained or paint by the numbers but feel a little more open ended. They also flow naturally from running on foot to the inclusion of vehicles to operate. The enemies, as I wrote under CHALLENGE, have some of the best AI programming I have seen in a game series. As you set the difficulty on different higher levels you can see how the addition of IQ points to the enemy **** GRAPHICS & PRESENTATION **** The cutscene CG graphics are breathtaking showing that, even though the game system is six years old, there is still limits in which the console can yet still be pushed. This continues onto the actual gameplay itself. This is a must as the Halo series are considered the staple of the Xbox and is what other games should measure up to and strive to be. The game series is a representation of the Xbox and its potential. I have the game hooked up to a 5.1 Home Theater and the sound is incredible. The composed score really creates an atmosphere that draws you into the game. The sound of weapons being fired, explosions, and the chants of the Covenant had my two labradors on the edge of the couch wondering what was going on the entire game time. **** CHALLENGE **** Truthfully, I am not the greatest gamer in the world. I love games, I never claim to be good at them. I played Halo on the Normal difficulty and it gave me a run for my money while still leaving me with the Heroic and Legendary levels to tackle. The enemies still display some of the best AI I have seen. Sometimes fighting the enemy I feel as if I am connected to Xbox Live and am playing against a human opponent who truly is thinking on the fly and not some preprogrammed act/react code. The enemies are that challenging on single player campaign. I never did encounter those moments where you feel like tossing the remote at against the wall. **** MULTIPLAYER **** Online multiplayer was not utilized at this time as I am having issues with my Xbox Live account. My nephew, who is sixteen, picked up the controller prior to taking off for school. For cooperative play, you can have two players sharing a split screen. If we were able to connect to Xbox Live, we could have up to four players playing at one time. **** CONCLUSION **** This game is a worthy addition to the Halo series. This title is a definite "MUST HAVE" for the holiday season and any Xbox 360 console owner who enjoys First Person Shooters or needs a game to show off the potential of what their game machine is capable of. I would even go as far as saying this is in the running for my "Game of the Year."

I believe 343 Industries should be proud of their work on Halo 4. It is currently my favorite release (that I have played) in the year 2012. It's a well made product overall, but there are areas I feel could use some improvements. The single player campaign well told. I've played Halo since the release of Combat Evolved in 2001, but I've never been completely invested in the story. It appears that it was time to change that. In Halo 4 the production values are solid and interesting. The level designs are fairly classic in nature, consisting of sandbox elements that I enjoy over strict linearity. For the most part, the A.I. was solid and reactionary. The graphics are fantastic for a console game, with the odd Gamecube texture here and there. You'll witness some fairly large scale sandbox battles, and with minimal frame rate slow down. If you've enjoyed the past Halo games, I see no reason why you wouldn't here. That being said, here are a few things I believe could help evolve the series. * Enemies in most levels appear to be strictly reactive in design. Apart from a few select, visually stunning missions, you typically see the old fashioned "Group of Elites walking around aimlessly in section X for no given rhyme or reason." I believe this could use some tweaking. For future games, I believe traveling enemies would make sense. We rarely see Grunts working in an area being watched by the Elites. We rarely see Hunters, Hunting anything. I never feel stalked in these games. At this point in the FPS Halo world, I'm starting to feel like (most of the time) I'm merely traveling to zones where enemies are in there to test my precision and combat competency - rather than actually transversing a planet. Don't get me wrong, there are times where they do enemy set up well, but for the sake of spoilers, I'll leave specific details from this review. All in all, I think I'd prefer having to keep an eye out for proactive threats, rather than solely reactive ones. Ask yourself this -- How often do you find enemies just stand around aimlessly in a big field? In a game that heavily emphasizes story, have you ever wondered, "Why?" Call of Duty gets around this by making it linear and full of explosive set pieces, and I don't particularly enjoy feeling on rails, but I think a few little adjustements could be made so that some level areas feel more even natural and dynamic. * The "race time"/make-it-to-the-finish-line levels seem to be a staple in Halo. The first one which in this game I thought was well done (the Ghost one). But then there's a Star Fox 64 style one, that was good fun, but I feel like it could have benefitted by feeling a little more like Star Fox. What do I mean by this? I don't mean we need talking animals warping around you, but while we're traveling, I wouldn't mind seeing enemies intercepting you. We are given the ability to fire a weapon from the craft, but it was very rarly necessary, the level was designed on dodging walls - which would have been fine if surviving was the only intent, but there were clearly turrets set up to combat you. If perhaps in a future game something like it is implemented, but with enemies trying to stop you, and maybe even comrades swinging in and out of view (like we witnessed back in Star Fox 64) lending a hand, needing help, or even just as eye candy wouldn't hurt. It'd make the level seem more exciting. Don't get me wrong though, this was one of my favorite levels on the aspect of being different, it was still fun, but a couple touches would have improved it very much. In fact, a buddy of mine says he was disappointed by the lack of actual enemies trying to stop you - the turrets (I played on Legendary) were unthreatening, I don't think I was hit by more than a single energy bullet. * For those of us who haven't read the books. A little enlightenment or recap would have been nice during the beginning of the game. Maybe I missed something completely at the end of Halo 3, but I couldn't help but wonder why [1]the Elites were back to speaking an odd language and [2]attempting to kill the Chief. It was fantastic watching the Elites take on the Prometheans at times, but then they quickly changed face from a wave of some energy. I couldn't help but wonder how those few Elites who bowed down immediately convinced their entire army to take out the Chief? Either I am missing details or it didn't adequately explain this for me. * Cortana. Do A.I.'s in the Halo Universe apparently have a gender? I know it's modeled after a human female, but seeing a digital A.I. say things like "Don't make a girl a promise you can't keep." threw me off a bit. It isn't that I don't buy advanced A.I.'s having feelings, if the artificial intelligence is intelligent enough, it can make sense. I felt for a few of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica just fine, I even felt for the little kid in the movie A.I., the T-101 in Terminator 2, and the robot (Sam?) in iRobot. But their character concepts were established, and it didn't feel forced. In Halo 4 I felt like the Chief was borderline conflicting with character induced stupidity (CIS). He would constantly utilize Cortana as if she's the only useful application, without ever seeming to ponder his action. Light spoiler here, but she causes Chief more problems throughout the game, at one point she causes his ship to crash. But before you know it he's just inserting her into the next platform without checking in on her condition first. If she's supposed to be an A.I. "female" with feelings, then I'm wondering why he doesn't treat her like one. I don't believe I once witnessed Chief ask Cortana, "Are you sure you are ready?" or "I trust you..." he just, listens to her, despite her constant mishaps. It almost pulled me from my willing suspension of disbelief. * The music at times is very good, then at others it isn't. I enjoy the light "chorus" tones that plague this game. But, these tones are often utilized as heart throbbing or victorious moments. I want to here something that'll get my pulse racing for the big battles, not a soft background, repeating, background tone. For example, Halo 2 stage 1, you reach the room with the bomb and the song "Impend" begins to play. It was a strong song that went with the room full of Elites, causing your screen to shake with each explosion. It put me in the mood to get down, dirty, and to work. Overall this soundtrack is good, but moments missed the mark. * I ran into many situations where the A.I. would be counterproductive. A Banshee would get stuck into a wall and sit there indefinitely. Enemies would sometimes stand still as if you selectively turned their brain off. I'm not sure what caused this, but it's the first time I personally witnessed it in a Halo game. * They removed both the scoring and filming features from single player. I'm not sure why this would be done because it made things interesting in Co-op, and gave players a good reason to play with the difficulty enhancing skulls on. The filming feature was good to screen shots at the very least. * I could benefit from a boss battle at some point in the game. I can't really recall one occuring in Halo 4, despite there being a "boss" figure. * I think all we really did in this game was either [1]reach the end of a level or [2]push button after button. I think a little more diversity would be useful in the future. Will Master Chief ever be directed to protect a target (in-game) other than himself? Will his ultimate goal of a mission be to elimate a specified living target? Will we ever be tasked to take the chief to acquire a weapon, then utilize said weapon to complete a necessary task? Button pushing is fine most of the time, but in Halo 4 I felt like every ground (on foot) mission seemed to consist of constant "Reach point X and hit said button, or click said button to perform 'Y' action." Overall though, for what the game is, I think it's the best in the series yet. That said, in this day and age, I think more could have been done to make it better, and that's the only reason why I cannot give this 5 (perfect) stars. I had a lot of fun, and the multiplayer is almost as exciting as it was during the days of Halo 2. Forge mode is great for what it is, but I never really utilized this feature in the games. It's still awesome for those who like this sort of thing. I wish the Spartan Ops stuff implented a scoring system, and I think the online will get better when skill based ranking is implented next year. For those on the fence about this game, if you've enjoyed the previous games, then it's a no brainer. For me, it has been worth every penny of the purchase price. I'll be looking forward to Halo 5.

Alright, now I have to start off by saying that Halo 2 is in my opinion the best game of the series, because of the amazing multiplayer and the community. Halo 1 was amazing since it was revolutionary. Halo 3 was, average, since the feel of the multiplayer wasn't as great as Halo 2 and the campaign wasn't as exciting for me. Halo Reach was really good as well, and now we got 343's first game, and man did it live up to the expectations I had. The campaign has the Halo feel to it, with a new race and different weapons. The weapons themselves lose your interest after you kill a few enemies with them and the balance of the original weapons is restored [Magnum is not nerfed, and Needler is powerful]. The storytelling of the campaign and the cutscenes were very well done, not innovative or new, but really good. Playing on legendary is as tough as it has ever been as well, since those knights are fierce. Now on to the most important part, multiplayer. Now there are some good things and not so good things about the multiplayer. Something really good is the balance, nobody seems to fight over the power weapons as much, since now there are Ordnance drops [Get some kills, earn a weapon/power-up that you can choose]. And the sprinting is, well it's different, since it mixes up the Halo experience, we all knew this was coming since CoD has imposed itself on every other FPS out there. Sprinting is a noob favorite since you can, sprint away from battles. Something that you could not do in Halo 2 or 3, so you either killed the other person or got killed, now you can run. This balance out a bit with the DMR, since a few headshots and nobody can run, which is great. Also, you have armor abilities, which aren't as important as I thought since you can kill people easily that have them enabled. The loadout system is OK, since you can't get overly powerful weapons in there. And the armor customization is great, especially with the Amazon Pre-Order CIO Webskin, which looks great. The promethean weapons are similar to the human weapons except that the heavier weapons disintegrate you into data, which looks cool for the first 50 kills or so, then you are back to using the DMR. The binary rifle is a source of debate online, since it is overpowered, one-shot one-kill, as long as it hits you. The sniper meanwhile, gives the same satisfaction for a headshot, and a bit of shame for the body shots. The rocket launcher no longer locks on, which is better for vehicles, and the plasma pistol still disables vehicles, which levels out the game. And the assasinations, man they are so great, you feel great when you tackle someone of a rock on ragnarok and stab them with the water still rising around you, and it's extremely humiliating when you get assasinated too. The thing that is missing from thi game is the community, people rarely use headsets and there aren't as many custom matches like in Halo 2, where there were always Zombies, Tower of Power, BXR Duels, Boxing, Cat and Mouse, Superjumps/Map exploration, Troy, and etc. going on with your friends, which made Halo 2 the most fun in an online game. So all in all, this game has a great campaign, a great multiplayer, the only multiplayer that has come close to Halo 2's multiplayer and in my opinion, is still lacking the community [use headsets and have fun people]. I do love this game, since i can't play Halo 2 and it was a great experience that reminded me of some of the things that I loved in Halo 2, but lacks some of the stuff that made it legendary. I recommend this game to anybody that liked Halo 2 and Halo 1. [I for one loved those games and Halo is still my favorite game] So thank you 343 for not letting a fan down!

I will start by saying that I’m a causal Halo fan, I’m hardcore with RPG’s like Skyrim and Mass Effect, but with Halo I’ve always played about once all the way through on normal mode, and sometimes on Heroic on Co-op. That being said, I enjoyed the game-play best in Halo 4. The action and timing was smooth, enemies were tough but not impossible, the graphics were a huge improvement over Halo 3, voice acting was spectacular (Hello Jennifer Hale!) and the new weapons, abilities and stages where a fun new challenge to master. Some of the new vehicles were also a blast to play through. (SPOILERS ‘the second to last level was reminiscent to Star Fox 64 for me. END SPOILERS) However, if you’re looking for a great continuation on the Halo story, you might not to take this game too seriously. A lot of elements didn't add up for me, and bits of the story that connected each act were missing, it’s possible that these are/will be explained in Comics, books, or some other media, but in all honesty, I’d rather it was just addressed straight up in-game. It’s also possible that these inconsistencies are explained by miss-able sound bites on computer terminals or other such thing, like the voice recordings in Halo 3:ODST, it’s still not a good tactic in any case. STORY SPOILERS The biggest detail that I was continually left confused on was why I was fighting the Covenant, AGAIN. Remember, I’m a casual Halo fan, so I might have missed something, but it never seemed to be mentioned in-game, and none of the characters addressed it. After the way Halo 3 ended, this part of the game jarred me quite a bit, and I’m still confused. I also take issue with the redesign of Chief’s armor and Cortana, mostly because it’s physically impossible for Chief’s armor to have changed the way it did while he was in status and total lock down, I don’t care how good Cortana is, she couldn't have upgraded that much. Speaking of Cortana, she looked downright weird, and I know they used a body model this time, but I think they would have been better off just sprucing up the Halo 3 model. MAJOR ENDING SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. The most major turn off for me in this game is that you utterly fail to do the thing you originally set out to do, and Cortana dies. It’s a sacrifice she makes for chief and the last scene between them is touching and heart breaking, but it’s still a shot to the gut. Granted, I saw it coming, but I’m still not pleased, there is no Halo without Cortana, and unless the next games are about bringing her back, I don’t think I’ll be shelling out the money for the next round. End Spoilers So overall. +Fun Game play +Fun Mechanics +Great shooter -Confusing and poorly executed story -Design changes that weren't necessary and didn't make sense -Unpleasant twists that die hard Bungie fans will not appreciate.

Halo is a great series and this is up there with the best of the bunch. The graphics that 343 has managed to produce in this game are truly incredible. The textures, color, and lighting are impressive to say the least. The gameplay is fast and the AI is quite intelligent. The cut scenes are truly amazing...in fact it may trick you into thinking that they are movies instead of CGI rendered scenes. A lot of complaints about this game come from the fact that the gameplay, especially in multiplayer, has changed a bit. However, I feel that this is where the game actually excels. They have taken the suggestions of gamers and incorporated some aspects of COD and Battlefield while keeping the integrity and physics of Halo. People complain when there is change but I look at this as a step up. Remember also, people complained when Halo 2 came out, then they complained when Halo 3 came out, then Reach, etc. The controls are slightly different and the gameplay is tweaked but I look at these changes as upgrades. You may have to change your game a bit, especially if you are a competitive multiplayer person but if you were good playing Halo 3 multiplayer, you can easily make the transition and evolve into the new controls and features. The story is good. It opens up a new chapter in Halo and leaves the story wide open for future releases. The actual gameplay is not lengthy but not short either. The co-op play makes the story fly by. There are definitely some challenges in the campaign with intelligent AI especially in Legendary mode. If you are planning to tackle the campaign solo in legendary, be prepare for some serious re-spawning. This halo does have a new ranking system which allows you to purchase improvements for your Spartan as you level up. These improvements include load-out's, abilities, etc. However, it is much better than the COD system. IN COD, all you have to do to be good is have a lot of time...as you play, your character becomes more and more powerful, leaving those of us with jobs to get assassinated by invisible super hero level characters. In Halo 4, it still has the arcade aspect so even a beginning player with skills can still be competitive. Yes having multiple load-outs and certain powers offers an advantage but not too much of an advantage to make a player dominant simply because of the amount of time spent playing. Another feature added to Halo 4 is the "Spartan Ops," which are mini campaign objective based missions. They are a lot of fun and can be challenging. Additional chapters for Spartan Ops have already been released free of charge so the guys at 343 are keeping the game interesting here in its first month. I have played through the campaign once and will certainly play through at least a couple more times. The multiplayer is fast and competitive. The graphics and gameplay are an evolutionary step up from previous versions of Halo. This is what I call a "system," game. The game is good enough that it is worth buying a system for it. So, if you were holding off buying the Xbox, this game alone may be enough to push you over the edge to buy one.