Halo 4 (2012)

I know, I know, I’m way late to be doing this review – a month and a day late, to be precise. But after doing a ton of movie reviews and film-related articles and such, I was really getting a hankering to write about videogames. Then I learned a friend had gotten a hankering for reading about videogames, and well, what can I say? Match made in Heaven. Oh, and I just got the game the week before Thanksgiving, so…

In case you have been living under a rock in a cave on another planet for the last decade, Halo 4 is the latest in a series of ridiculously fun Xbox and Xbox 360 first-person shooters, starting with the 2001 release Halo: Combat Evolved. I don’t feel like going into a summary of the backstory leading up to Halo 4 because IT IS LONG. I mean seriously, this franchise is oozing with mythology, on a scale few others have managed to reach, let alone at its relatively young age (I’d say in terms of what you need to know in order to understand the Halo universe, it’s surpassed the Zelda series in half the time). Novels, spin-off games, movies, you name it. If you really don’t know your Sangheili from your Spartans and feel brave enough for the task, go to the wiki and read up. I’ll wait.

For those of you who are familiar with the Halo universe and haven’t bought the game or played the campaign yet, it takes place about four and a half years after the UNSC’s defeat of the Covenant and the Flood, and the destruction of the Ark. Master Chief is still in cryogenic stasis on the Forward Unto Dawn, and Cortana is still sending out her distress signal when the ship is scanned by a mysterious Forerunner planet. They crash land on the planet, named Requiem, and discover a new threat to the human race in the form of what are known as Prometheans. Master Chief and Cortana have to fight their way through the planet’s surface and underbelly to get themselves home and warn Earth; in the meantime, the aging A.I. Cortana has to deflect the effects of her own age: rampancy, in which her digital persona goes mad and literally unravels.

I will say this: the campaign had a really solid start. The premise was great, the ambience was really cool (I especially loved seeing the Requiem installation early in the second mission), and the first couple missions were a solid case of fun. If you want to know how to get a player excited about starting a single-player game, the introductory mission is pretty much lesson 101 (although still miles apart from the original Halo). As the campaign went on though, I did get a feeling of aimlessness, like the developers had trouble coming up with new things for the player to do so they just sent M.C. and Cortana on random, meaningless killing sprees. I was also disappointed by the lack of weapon diversity. While I understand the idea behind consolidating the choices for equivalency and issues of balance, I got really bored using the same six weapons in every level. That’s probably part of why the beginning felt so fresh: because there was still that “Ooooh” moment when you got to try out the new Promethean gun. Then when I picked up that Promethean Suppressor (the assault rifle equivalent) for the eightieth time, all I said was, “Ohhh.” Also, the campaign never explained why the Covenant is back (apparently this is touched upon in Spartan Ops, but I do think making mention of it in the campaign would’ve made more sense).

Halo 4 programming — (Photo Credit: Game Informer)

I didn’t set out to write this review just to crap on the campaign though; all in all, I actually enjoyed it. I can also understand how many people might feel cheated by what they got in terms of story and plotting, but I think it was ended properly for the start of a new trilogy in the franchise. It felt like a formal declaration that the Reclaimer trilogy was a totally different animal from the Halo trilogy, a way of closing that book. And you know what? I was really sad about the whole deal with Cortana (no spoilers, but it shouldn’t be hard to figure out). I spent the last three games and eleven years getting to know her as a character. She was the character that pulled players into the Halo universe, a part of Master Chief’s life, and I really felt a relationship was built between the two of them and between Cortana and the player as a result. All said and done, I really enjoyed the dynamic between Master Chief and Cortana this time around. They really have been through everything together by this point, and it shows. As a bonus point, I was really interested by how the story directed the player towards thinking of Cortana as a very human character and Master Chief increasingly as the machine. It was an informed idea (Cortana lampshaded it halfway through), but once it was put out there, it really got me thinking.

Most of the supporting cast was pretty bland, but I did like Commander/Captain Lasky. He was just a generally likable character, nothing more to it. Lacking depth maybe, but I’m sure they’ll expand upon him in future games. The Didact wasn’t too bad, and I understand it’s hard to create a new bad guy after having the established Covenant and Flood for so long; it’s like trying to come up with a new Zelda villain after a solid decade of Ganon (and remember, Majora’s Mask didn’t do that; Adventure of Link and Link’s Awakening already provided intervals early in the series lifespan). I loved the ambience and scenery of the early levels as well. Actually, I feel like the look and feel of Requiem, and the general look and nature of the Prometheans were heavily inspired by Mass Effect. Those first two missions especially seemed to lean on five years of the Geth and the like – especially the new weapons – but it’s not really something I can just put my finger on. Let me know below if you got the same feeling, because I just couldn’t shake it, at least in the beginning of the campaign.

I can’t end this post without saying some of the less conventional portions like fighting off Covenant waves with the Mantis – which struck me as a MechWarrior throwback – and the Broadsword trench run taken right out of the Star Wars playbook were really fun. I’d say the Broadsword portions outweigh the Mantis ones by just a smidge, primarily because diving through the narrow trenches was just unexpected and challenging enough to keep me engaged from beginning to end. The Mantis gameplay was definitely challenging, but in those cases it felt more like a crutch than the boon it was for the Broadsword. It’s a really cool moment when you hold X and watch Master Chief activate the Mantis for the first time; you feel powerful, and in the entire tutorial portion of that first go, with the music and the tiny enemies, it really primes you on the unrelenting power of this technological terror you’ve just stepped into. As soon as you step into the real game though, you’re nervously trying to hide your smoking, carbon-scored mech behind the huge nearby turret or the elevator; it doesn’t feel like a hulking mass of firepower. A good challenge is a crucial component to a game; it keeps us engaged and if done right, surging with a competitive spirit. But the proportion of the threat should fit the power of the weapon, or at least make sense in the context. I was being blown apart by Covenant battlecruisers, but only because I was battered down by a million microscopic Elites, Grunts, and Jackals. Maybe that sounds about right to some, but I felt like if I was having a hard time, it should at least have been more an instance of laughing at the tiny running masses of Covenant ground troops, and then fleeing in terror at the sight of the heavier firepower cavalry.

I haven’t had much time to try out the multiplayer half of the game, which is unfortunate because that’s normally where Halo shines. I will say Griffle Ball is pretty awesome, and Flood is interesting but in the end not overly satisfying, not the way Slayer or King of the Hill can be (speaking from previous Halo experiences, I can’t judge Slayer yet for Halo 4). I do wish they’d preserved some of the older maps though; I miss the Blood Gulches and Guardians, both of which were favorites for myself and my friends for a reason (there is a remake of Valhalla, but that is my least favorite Halo map ever).

I know half of the review already makes it seem like I didn’t enjoy myself, but Halo 4 is actually really great. I did miss Martin O’Donnell and the classic Halo theme, but Neil Davidge filled his shoes as well as I could have asked. The composer from Massive Attack really helped round out the atmosphere of the game world, and whether deliberately or not, helped kick off the Reclaimer trilogy with a genuine sense of a separate identity from the preceding one. As you can probably tell, that’s something I feel would do the Reclaimer trilogy some good – after all, it’ll make it harder for players to evaluate future releases solely on the basis of its predecessors. Hit-or-miss as the campaign was, it was still solid gameplay with an interesting story, and the difficulty level finally felt like a good fit (I don’t mean to brag, but in the original Halo I always felt in Normal difficulty, I was just plowing through Elites like they were tissue paper). The cutscene graphics were pretty incredible too, and the gameplay quality not too bad either (not mindblowingly awesome, but not bad). And Jen Taylor and Steve Downes, man, they were at the top of their game (no pun intended…seriously). I’m really excited to see where 343 Industries decides to take us next. Halo 4, the first game in the new Reclaimer Trilogy, has earned itself an 8 out of 10, for a solid experience with some missteps and a couple of missed opportunities. It gets all the Halo ingredients right, so just give 343 some time to learn how they all fit together.

Well, that’ll do for now. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Join me again next week for another Johnny-come-lately videogame post, this time revolving around a game I haven’t played but have watched: Journey by thatgamecompany (it also includes one more point about Halo 4, which I didn’t feel fit into this post). See you next week!