Halo 4 Review

A New Fight to Finish

Austen Goslin

With Halo 4, 343 Industries was tasked with a near impossible feat: bring one of the most beloved series in modern gaming into a new age, while still retaining the core fans that put the series where it is today. Against all odds 343i has done all of this, and created one of the years best games in the process.

Halo 4 picks up four years after the third game, with the Master Chief and Cortana still adrift on the Forward Unto Dawn. After an unfriendly reunion with some familiar enemies, Chief finds himself on the Forerunner planet of Requiem, with a very dangerous new foe to contend with.

The first and most striking aspect of Requiem is its beauty. Light streams through deep green forests, and reflects from ancient forerunner architecture to create one of the more visually stunning games of this generation. Halo 4's graphical prowess doesn't stop there, each of the games 8 missions looks varied, unique, and incredible. Not only that, but the audio is some of the best this generation. Every gun has an easily recognizable sound that echoes off walls, and is felt rather than heard.

While past Halo games have lagged behind in the technical department, Halo 4 establishes that 343i will take great care to keep this new trilogy ahead of the curb. The care put in to the environment, however, pails in comparison to the work done on the games two enemy factions.

Gone are the flood of the original trilogy, replaced instead with a group called “Prometheans.” This ancient class of Forerunner warriors presents Master Chief, and in turn the player, with a foe far more difficult than any he has faced before. Prometheans feel impressively different than anything in previous Halo games. They still possess the series trademark brilliant AI, while reacting in a manner that displays tactical prowess and self-preservation, rather than the Covenants self-sacrifice and religious fanaticism.

Prometheans also come with their own set of weaponry, however there is little done to differentiate these weapons from their human equivalent. There is a shotgun, a battle rifle, a sniper rifle, and so on. While there are differences in damage, fire rate, and reload speed, little else speaks to the guns advanced alien nature. That is except its ascetic. Promethean guns look incredible, every part of their design is crafted to feel alien and unique. This is achieved in no small part by the amazing animation of the weapons forming around Master Chief's hand when they are first picked up.

As for the other faction, Halo 4 sees the return of the Covenant for the sixth time in the series. While it stands to reason that the Covenant should feel played out, much as they have for the past several games, they are, instead, given new life in Halo 4. 343i takes the Covenant back to their roots from Halo: Combat Evolved, allowing them to return to the huge, powerful, terrifying creatures they were before. Gone are the days of Elites being jokes, shouting phrases in broken English, they have been replaced by the guttural yells of a violent language, yells that pierce the battle field, even over the roar of gun fire.

That isn't the only place Halo 4 feels reminiscent of the original though, the encounter design also takes it's cues from Combat Evolved. Leaving behind the straightforward fire fights of the past several games, Halo 4 allows the players to take on huge battlefields in any way they see fit. This allows the player to create their own awesome moments, rather then have those moments shown to them through the game. This design choice makes all the difference in the world in terms of fun and interesting missions, both of which Halo 4 possesses in spade.

Despite the fun to be had in combat, Halo 4's greatest moments come in the times between encounters. When the gun fire stops and the environment is allowed to tell its own story. These are also the times that Halo 4's best story steps forward, the story of Master Chief and Cortana. This story holds the most interesting and emotional dialog in the series. It is also the story told most effectively; conveyed only through the script and the voice acting, both of which are at series highs here.

Multiplayer:

From the dorm room LAN parties on Blood Gultch to the battles still being waged in Reach, multiplayer has always been the crux of the Halo series. While it seemed almost impossible for 343i to bring the Halo's multiplayer into the common era, they have come through with remarkable success. Halo 4 holds true enough to the previous titles to feel like a sequel, while changing the things it needed to. The addition of sprint coupled with a slightly quicker death, creates a multiplayer experience more fit for modern players. While dying never feels as quick as Call of Duty, it is fast enough to up the pace of the multiplayer as a whole. 343i works around this speed change by creating larger maps whose sight line makes sprinting from a fight far harder. All this combined with the addition of dominion, a new and exciting twist on King of the Hill, that hasn't yet to be done in any game prior, leads to what we have come to expect from a Halo game: one of the best multiplayer experiences of the year.

While the Chief and Cortana story in Halo 4 excels, it is surrounded by a story that doesn't work particularly well. The main story is marred by pacing issues and plot holes. Many major points go without any explanation, and appear and disappear at seemingly random points. It is sad to see a great side story get covered by a lack luster main story. That being said, the story does fair slightly better if the player is familiar with the extended universe, but it is a problem that there needs to be a prerequisite for enjoying this story.

While the majority of the story is told through the campaign, a small portion is told through weekly installments of the Spartan Ops game mode. 343i is releasing a total of ten episodes of Spartan Ops in this first season. Each episode contains five chapters of about ten to fifteen minutes each. While this is a remarkable and interesting idea in practice the missions are little to no fun. The missions are always heavily combat focused, and trade in the campaigns free and open design in favor of linear encounters with strict paths to victory. It comes off as a poor imitator of the stellar campaign, removing the solemn slow moments in favor of skipping straight to the encounters.

Conclusion:

While many were skeptical of a 343i made Halo game, even the most pessimistic of fans will be hard pressed to find much fault in Halo 4. Despite it's few minor flaws it is an exemplary game; one that stands tall among a field of generic shooters, it is a shining example of the possibilities still to be found in an aging genre. With this being the start of a new trilogy, it is assuring to know that the series is in very capable hands at 343i. Their willingness to dissect the series and find what made it great to begin with, is surely what has helped them to create not only one of the best games of the year, but of the generation as well.