Halo 4 is hauled as some sort of disease that put the series to grave bed so I expected the worst. Turns out it's not all bad?
Sure, there is quite a few of unfortunate mechanical problems to name. Covenant AI is noticeably downgraded and there are balance problems with lower tier enemies that make their presence more of a hassle on legendary difficulties than they should be. On the other hand, prometheans are way overtuned. I understand the challenging task of creating a new commando unit that would feel different from elites, brutes and flood, so knights were given a large kit to give them the edge. They have fast recharging shields, they can teleport to get out of danger and screw with your positioning, they use a slew of new promethian weapons and they have strong melee attacks to boot. But this lack of a clear weakness made them the least interesting enemy to fight, making shoot until they die the only applicable approach to deal with them. Also, heavy knights with canons deserve separate fuck you mention as whether you survive the burst from their shots depends entirely on a coin toss – gladly there are like three of them over the course of campaign. Another problem cropped up where I didn't expect with the change of gun sounds, making them sound less distingushiable and messing up the careful soundscape Bungie created for previous games: the audio isn't as much of a trusted source of information on battlefield anymore.
This growing stock of little problems is a bummer since there are things to like in Halo 4. The art direction is enchanting, with massive structures, giant machinery and overwhelming bloom instilling a reminder of how puny your little human presence is compared to the threats you deal with. There are some genuinely cool and memorable missions here with combat scenarios that do stick up in memory. It plays that Halo card masterfully making you enter the flaring up battle between competing enemy sides, giving you the role of a decisive third party that sweeps the field. And lastly, the story achieves levels of emotional complexity you just don't expect a Halo game reach, giving Chief's character more nuance than he's ever gotten. So, underneath many problems there's actually a good game which probably just needed another round of refinement and playtesting in order to get to that degree of a satisfying Halo campaign. Sadly it just isn't quite there yet.
Sure, there is quite a few of unfortunate mechanical problems to name. Covenant AI is noticeably downgraded and there are balance problems with lower tier enemies that make their presence more of a hassle on legendary difficulties than they should be. On the other hand, prometheans are way overtuned. I understand the challenging task of creating a new commando unit that would feel different from elites, brutes and flood, so knights were given a large kit to give them the edge. They have fast recharging shields, they can teleport to get out of danger and screw with your positioning, they use a slew of new promethian weapons and they have strong melee attacks to boot. But this lack of a clear weakness made them the least interesting enemy to fight, making shoot until they die the only applicable approach to deal with them. Also, heavy knights with canons deserve separate fuck you mention as whether you survive the burst from their shots depends entirely on a coin toss – gladly there are like three of them over the course of campaign. Another problem cropped up where I didn't expect with the change of gun sounds, making them sound less distingushiable and messing up the careful soundscape Bungie created for previous games: the audio isn't as much of a trusted source of information on battlefield anymore.
This growing stock of little problems is a bummer since there are things to like in Halo 4. The art direction is enchanting, with massive structures, giant machinery and overwhelming bloom instilling a reminder of how puny your little human presence is compared to the threats you deal with. There are some genuinely cool and memorable missions here with combat scenarios that do stick up in memory. It plays that Halo card masterfully making you enter the flaring up battle between competing enemy sides, giving you the role of a decisive third party that sweeps the field. And lastly, the story achieves levels of emotional complexity you just don't expect a Halo game reach, giving Chief's character more nuance than he's ever gotten. So, underneath many problems there's actually a good game which probably just needed another round of refinement and playtesting in order to get to that degree of a satisfying Halo campaign. Sadly it just isn't quite there yet.