Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Surprisingly good"

Halo 4 is a surprise. Since Bungie completely screwed up Halo 2, 3, Wars, ODST, and Reach, no one thought Halo 4 would be any good at all. Luckily Bungie did have enough sense to make a branch company (343) to make Halo and generally do whatever they wanted with the franchise. Halo 4 is quite effectively a restart to the series and starting a new story. This is wonderful since the last story got more confusing and mangled than calculus class. The game play is also spectacular and looks great and for once this game doesn't seem to be completely focused on the multiplayer aspect (which is awesome by the way.) The story greatly focuses on the relationship between Chief and Cortana as kind of a mother-son deal. Many people have complained it's weird because they seem like lovers. This is very odd since that has never been referenced and yet Cortana, who is an AI copy of the creator of the Spartan program, sees them through the same eyes as her human counterpart (Halsey), as her children. Halsey is even referred to as "Mother" and "Mom" by some of the other Spartans. Anyway, it is a terrific game and definitely should be in your library.