Halo 4

[Revuhlooshun]

It's breathtakingly mediocre in my mind. It does nothing unforgivable (besides Chief and Cortana's shallow, dysfunctional high school relationship, perhaps), but it really does nothing to wow me in any of its portions. The single player is whatever with a few cringeworthy moments; the co-op episodes are short and equally forgettable; and the multiplayer is serviceable with only a few balance issues (like the DMR being a hitscan weapon with no recoil or bloom whatsoever, and there being no maps to accommodate close-quarters/arena-style fighting). Every facet of the game is outdone by a previous installment -- I can't think of any portion of Halo 4 I can hold up and proudly proclaim, "It does this particular thing better than any other installment." Oh, and once again: Fuck the maps.

I really do find rampancy to be the biggest let down. There's a lot of potential to be creative with that idea. Even if the idea of a homicidal AI has been done before, you can still expand upon it and add a fresh twist to it, like having Cortana leading Chief into traps or ambushes and playing them off as accidents, to the point where Chief has to come to terms with the fact that he has to get rid of Cortana before she degrades even further and really tries to pull off some kind of a stunt that'll kill them all. I would have genuinely felt bad for Chief once he reached the conclusion that he would have to put her down against her will. Or if we really must have a romantic element to it (I rather despise romance in stories, since they tend to be a cheap and easy way for writers to garner sympathy for characters without having to work for it), have her try to kill everyone around Chief (again, playing them off as accidents) out of jealousy so she can keep Chief to herself (which then leads to a similar moment where he has to grapple with the need to let her go and destroy her). There's just so much potential, so much room to run with the idea, so many avenues to explore with it, and they phoned the whole thing in with a Twilight romance.

[Hector Garfria]

Take the story out of the game duuuuuuuuuuude, this game sux

[ZombiePlatypus]

Well she was the "person" that released the Prometheans and woke up the Didact. If they'd have made that deliberate you'd have had your wish.

[Mighty Hatman]

The Mammoth part was pretty buggy I found which made for a lot of laughter as the Mammoth slaughtered us. Reminded me of Gears 2 which for me was a good thing. The Pelican part reminded me of Reach with the Falcon going to disable the jammers except each area in that was different and had its own dangers. I don't like the design for the Pelican either which is a shame for me because it had always been one of my favourite fictional vehicles. It was practically a character like the DB5 to James Bond. That's not something I'll blame 343 for though but the individual cockpit thing I thought was lame.

[ZombiePlatypus]

The Mammoth part was pretty buggy I found which made for a lot of laughter as the Mammoth slaughtered us. Reminded me of Gears 2 which for me was a good thing.

I never got killed by it but I did witness a Warthog with a marine in the turret just vanish right in front of me from the completely sealed inside. I was planning on using that Warthog too.

[Sir Legendhead]

Take the story out of the game duuuuuuuuuuude, this game sux

I don't know why they'd even bother with a story in a Halo game. They should have like one cutscene right at the beginning, where Master Chief comes out and gives a little monologue about shooting your friends and having fun. I played the shit out of 3 and I really could not tell you what that game was about.

[Revuhlooshun]

I'm just surprised that the rampant plagiarism* isn't discussed more.





Halo 4 would have been so much better if the Prometheans were giant ants.







*Disclaimer: I'm half joking. Save the angry letters.

[Sir Legendhead]

You mean they went with huge orb in the sky? I hope the sun sues the shit out of both of them.

[Mighty Hatman]

I never got killed by it but I did witness a Warthog with a marine in the turret just vanish right in front of me from the completely sealed inside. I was planning on using that Warthog too.

Making the warthogs disappear seemed pretty arbitrary. Really served no purpose in doing it other than reminding the player they're in a scripted environment they don't have control over.

[nekobun]

I had no problem with the treatment of Cortana's rampancy, aside from how quickly she cycled through the stages thereof. And I feel like there's a good chance that she was able to keep it together more than the average AI due both to her long-running connection with Master Chief and her being cloned from a real human mind, never mind a genius' (Halsey's), thus making her something of an undiscovered country in regards to artificial intelligence. And besides, rampancy does not necessarily mean outright homicidal tendencies; it just refers to an unraveling of whatever an AI considers sanity. Breakdowns occur in all sorts of different ways in living intelligences, so there's no reason it can't be similar for artificial ones.

I can agree with Hatman's issues on the new characters, though. They seem like shells or archetypes at best, with Lasky being the only one with any real backstory. Backstory you need to watch the Forward Unto Dawn series to know about. That's one of the biggest problems, really; there are so many nods to the books, graphic novels, and other expanded universe stuff that it makes the super-fanboys squee, but at the same time, they don't bother explaining much of those extraneous bits at all for those who haven't got a Halo library in their livingroom, thus leaving the better part of their audience out in the cold. Sarah Palmer seems like she could be interesting, and some of the other characters featuring in Spartan Ops, if they bothered giving them more characterization than the occasional order delivery and radio chatter, but there's just no follow-up.

I'm hoping they remedy this in later seasons of Spartan Ops, given this first one's probably due to be all about OMG REQUIEM WOT'S GOING ON, but I'm not getting those hopes too high.

[Revuhlooshun]

rampancy does not necessarily mean outright homicidal tendencies

I'm not speaking of what it is or isn't -- I'm simply speaking of what it could have been. Ultimately, "AI rampancy" is a made-up bullshit concept without any factual precedent, so a writer/creator has ultimate control and final say over what it is or isn't. When presented with this task, the team in charge took the least imaginative route that they could in applying it to the story ("Let's just turn Cortana into a nagging megabitch and call it a day") and wasted a lot of potential fun that they could have had with it instead.

Truth be told, I really just despise Cortana altogether in this game and the personality they grafted onto her. I'd probably take any alternative to these issues besides the ones 343 ended up with.

[Tarvu]

The Mammoth part was pretty buggy I found which made for a lot of laughter as the Mammoth slaughtered us. Reminded me of Gears 2 which for me was a good thing. The Pelican part reminded me of Reach with the Falcon going to disable the jammers except each area in that was different and had its own dangers. I don't like the design for the Pelican either which is a shame for me because it had always been one of my favourite fictional vehicles. It was practically a character like the DB5 to James Bond. That's not something I'll blame 343 for though but the individual cockpit thing I thought was lame.

Also they managed to make finally flying a Pelican boring. That level was horrible.

[Hector Garfria]

Gatsby is onto something here with his gay ass use of his personal opinion like it has any weight whatsoever in this thread.


Or in any thread I post in.


Oh and the last time you had sex it was with a guy who wanted to try out his new twat. We all know the truth, he told us.


His name is N7.

[Sir Legendhead]

de Bloo: An Equal Opportunity Destroyer

[Hector Garfria]

When N7 met Gatsby with his fat PSP and 360 he must've been like "WHOA THIS DUDE'S GOT GAME."

[N7]

My milkshake brings Bloo to all dah threadz. Nobody listen to REv's opinion on 360 games, he's a Sony fun boy

[SephirothX]

I'm just surprised that the rampant plagiarism* isn't discussed more.





Halo 4 would have been so much better if the Prometheans were giant ants.







*Disclaimer: I'm half joking. Save the angry letters.

[Hector Garfria]

Let's just face the facts thread.

When I leave you guys to your own devices y'all be playing like this




But when the ocean parts ways and the Pussy Bandito shows up dudes start putting their ankles in it








I know I'm just a constant reminder of what you will never be, but it's time to get over yourselves and realize I am 100% part of the solution 1000% of the time. That's a 900% increase.

[Mighty Hatman]

I have no idea what you're saying.

[Hector Garfria]

Because you aren't part of the group that matters.


How could you understand