Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"All flash, no substance"

Likes: Aesthetics, Sticky Pistol, Finally seeing what a Forerunner looks like, The Mantis Dislikes: The story, Retconning Halo Verse Lore for stupid reasons in the story, AI is very rudimentary, Vehicle redesigns, Weapon Nerfing, Forerunner weapons, Combat, Dull Level Design Somewhere along the way, I don't know when, I became a Halo Fan. I couldn't tell you which entry in the series it was that made me this way. Perhaps I was fan from the first game but simply did not know it. Or maybe I was entranced by the time I spent reading the Halo Wikia about universes vast and extremely interesting lore. Either way, no matter when it happened, I became a Halo Fan. I was not saddened by the departure of Bungie. Instead the prospect of someone else taking over stewardship of Halo interested me. I wanted to see how 343 would expand the series and what they would bring to the table. Sadly after playing Halo 4 I have to say 343 Industries chose to use this opportunity to gut what made the series great and replace it with a generic nerfed experience. In the beginning the game will please you with the usual joy that comes with playing a new entry into a beloved series but that joy will pass as the realization of Halo 4's quality dawns on you. The first thing you will or should notice is the appallingly bad AI for all enemies throughout the game. Few will pursue you even on occasion around corners; none will use their abilities to gain a tactical advantage but will use them to run away. The only characteristic that makes any of them difficult would be the sheer amount of ammo it takes to kill them. After that it's the sounds you will come to miss. Guns sound generic, as if the developers had simply taken them from any nondescript military shooter. Covenant no longer posses their famous sounds, most notably the grunts and their voices. But it is quiet sound track that will disappointed you most sound. Gone are the great scores that accompanied, no drove you on while breaking enemy lines, replaced by soft generic background music. Halo at its core has always been a shooter. Instrumental to shooters are their weapons, a shooter cannot be enjoyable without a great arsenal. 343 decided to nerf most of the guns, leaving only a few that pack any real punch. You might think this is so the Forerunner weapons will feel more powerful but older series weapons outshine all but maybe two of them. The event that drove home the poor weapon quality began with my first encounter with my favorite enemy: The Hunter. A near miss with a fuel air rocket, now no longer possessing any relevant splash damage on Hardcore difficulty only cost me a quarter of my health. Needless to say I simply finished off the hunters without a care. Grenades are practically useless as their blast radius has been shrunk. I was left in shock after the first time I saw a plasma grenade bounce. Plasma Grenades should NEVER BOUNCE. Also they've lost their wonderful blue glow and come with a smaller explosion. All the iconic vehicles of Halo 4 have received equal horrible redesign, notably is the banshee being able to run into objects while moving sluggish and the Warthog losing its famous movement style. Nearly all vehicles are indestructible when you pilot them, leaving you with only the worry of being killed rather than your vehicle being blown up with you in it. One glowing example of vehicles was the new Mantis units. Perhaps I simply just love bipedal mechs but the Mantis on the two occasions you get to use it over powered but never the less extremely fun with its rockets, minigun, and area effect stomp. The worst offender in Halo 4 is the story. At one point the story mentions the Human Forerunner War but had retconned the start of the war and the discovery of the flood. Cortana's rampancy despite claims during development is not center focus and is only brought up on occasion except near the end of the game where it creates a god mod moment. For the most part the story is boring or none existent. You're just told to go to a location push a button or insert Cortana into something and then move on to do the same thing again and again direct by flimsy storytelling and Cortana who will happily point out EVERY OBVIOUS THING. In the end there wasn't one thing that ruined Halo 4 and killed the series for me. It was the culmination of the entire experience, of a crappy lore breaking story, boring environments and combat, and the stripping of much of Halo's Soul, all leading to major disappointment and a question of how could anyone mess up a sure fire thing that is a Halo entry. The answer is apparent now, the way you screw up a sure fire thing is by attempting to make it something different with no regard for what made it great. Under the expectation fans will buy it anyway.