I am just going to come right out and say this, no beating around the bush with this one, Halo 4 is an absolutely amazing, astonishing, and mind blowing accomplishment of gaming. If you did not get it, I love this game. Many people were skeptical of how the new Halo would do without Bungie at the helm but I am here to tell you that 343 industries deserves nothing but praise for what they've done to this classic and much beloved series. The Master Chief returns in a very big way. Floating through space in the half space ship that he escaped the end of Halo 3 in, Cortanna wakes him up as they are gradually crashing into an unknown forerunner planet, not to mention she is kind of losing her mind as she has been active for much longer than an AI ever should and for the past 4 years as she and Chief have been drifting through space she has had nothing to do but think herself to death. Right from the get go as you step out of Chief's cryo chamber you feel that this game has been completely overhauled in the best way.
Never before did I truly feel as though I was this hulking 7 foot wall of nothing but muscles, bravery, and grizzle that is the Master Chief. Every single one of his steps pounded the floor of the space ship you truly felt that with this clanking and shifting body armor on you were this invincible one ton warrior. It was then that, low and behold, the covenant attacked. Why did the covenant attack just as I was starting my new epic journey, well some would say to make it more epic, I say its because they're jerks but it does not much matter because now I had something to shoot, hit and throw grenades at. It was at this point that I had the opportunity to hear the completely re-recorded sounds of the weapons and they sound incredible. The assault rifle no longer spits like a pee shooter it cracks through the air with every shot fired sounding like two huge metal tubes crashing into each other and exploding. It was an absolutely incredible feeling for about two seconds because that was when I died. I am going to mention this right now, Halo 4 is hard, Halo 4 is really hard, really, really, really hard. I played it on heroic and let me tell you those promethean knights are going to destroy you, fair warning.
Moving forward, I found myself on the planet Requiem a beautiful jungle filled planet surrounded by a metal dome in the sky with various Forerunner artifacts covering the ground and sky. I was absolutely blown away by this set piece it was simply beautiful. After a few more run-ins with the covenant I was introduce to Halo's new enemy, the prometheans. I warn you reader do not take the prometheans lightly, they can and will destroy you entirely I promise. While one could call the prometheans and some of their weapons just supped up, repainted version of the covenant, they also have a lot of AI and some interesting abilities that the old familiar enemies have severely been lacking in for quite some time now. The prometheans also have a very interesting past which brings me to the next subject of this review, the story.
The story of Halo 4 is very good but some of the writing could most definitely use work. In fact, this would probably be my biggest gripe about Halo 4, there is a huge lack of context. So many times I would be watching Chief have a conversation with the other NPCs and they would mention something that I had never heard of before yet all of the characters would acknowledge it as something important that they all knew about and then never come back to it again. NO ONE WANTED TO CLUE ME IN, it was so frustrating. It was as though everyone had a secret they were not allowed to tell, some big joke that I was the victim of and I really wanted to know what was going on because they story was very good and relative to the Halo universe it seemed very important. While it probably is an easily fixed issue that does not really take away from the actual game play, this lack of context is actually a really big deal and I can only hope that 343 will reflect on this for Halo 5. With the exception of this issue in writing though, Halo 4 is, as I said before, an absolutely magnificent game and anyone who considers themselves a gamer and owns an Xbox 360 MUST pick up a copy, this is not a choice.
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