Halo 3 is one of my most played games of all time, right up there with the time sink that is World of Warcraft. I’ve been playing Halo games for quite some time, and while the announcement of a Halo 4 didn’t exactly surprise me, it did intrigue me more than the last few games.
It felt like a whole new beginning for a franchise in need of one. A new development team, a new trilogy, a new location, a new threat, new weapons, and even what feels like a new Master Chief and Cortana.
Master Chief acts as an anchor that helps Halo 4 feel like a classic Halo game amidst all the elements original to the new Reclaimer trilogy, and his relationship with Cortana is the primary emotional arch the game takes the player through.
Cortana is reaching the point in her AI lifespan where she falls into rampancy, which she describes as thinking herself to death. She and Chief make a plan to return to Earth as quickly as possible to talk to the doctor that created and was the model for Cortana, but as they are marooned on a Forerunner planet called Requiem with its own situation, they don’t exactly have any options.
On Requiem, a new race dubbed the Prometheans have made themselves known and are attempting to aid an ancient being known as the Didact in his nefarious plans for humanity. As the game comes to a close, it makes it crystal clear that lives are at stake on a massive scale, and it makes the race to stop the Didact an exciting one.
The meshing of the plight on Requiem as well as Cortana’s rampancy and Chief’s reaction to it make Halo 4’s narrative powerful on an epic and a personal scale, and it drives the game forward at an excellent pace. The game’s comfortable taking breaths every now and again to ensure that it doesn’t burn the player out.
Occasionally, though, the game refuses to divulge too much of the important backstory through secondary means. There are terminals hidden throughout the game’s levels, and they detail the history of Requiem and the forces fighting over it, which is information that is only hinted at in cutscenes or dialogue.
The terminals are treated as collectibles, but they’re also vital to the game’s narrative. If someone doesn’t find any of the terminals, they may come under the impression that the game’s primary conflict isn’t fleshed out at all, when it really is. Relegating backstory to entirely optional hidden collectibles doesn’t just make it skippable for people who don’t care; it just makes it more of a hassle for people who do.
Pacing is one of Halo 4’s strong suits. Combat, vehicle segments, and simple exploration are balanced perfectly, and the plot has its time in the limelight, though it may be less than average for Halo games. The myriad combat options ensure that fighting never gets stale, but it also doesn’t try to fatigue the player through an overabundance of fighting.
The Promethean dynamic, however, is my favorite part of Halo 4. The new enemies, including the dog-like Crawlers and the standard Promethean Knights, are ferocious in a way that the Covenant only occasionally were.
Both enemy types maneuver through environments in cool ways that make fighting them consistently interesting. The Crawlers scale the walls like the Xenomorphs from Aliens, and the Knights can teleport around the battlefield to gain tactical advantages. The Knights can also spawn Watchers, which are flying enemies with the primary goal of defending other Prometheans. They can deploy shields, heal teammates, and catch grenades to lob back at the Chief.
They have a fun combat dynamic on their own, but the missions where Prometheans are pit against Covenant, or both are pit against you, are by far the most interesting. I’ve always seen Halo 4 as a series of very simple combat ideas that become complex as they are mixed together. When Prometheans and Covenant and humans duke it out, the result is nothing but tactical bliss.
I’ve seen the new weapons, both Promethean and otherwise, derided by players, but I really enjoyed them. The range of effectiveness for both shotguns makes more sense now, the Light Rifle is a good middle ground between the Battle Rifle and the DMR, and the Boltshot is a potentially devastating weapon when used properly. All in all, Halo 4 feels rejuvenated and fresh while simultaneously capturing the series’ essence.
Of the things I assumed I’d be praising Halo 4 for, I never imagined it would be visual presentation, but the game is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen on a console. The synthesis between the technical excellence and stunning and varied art direction is unlike anything else in the series. The lighting in particular is really marvelous to look at.
However, the visual design isn’t thematically consistent throughout. Requiem is a Forerunner planet, so the futuristic, technology-centric design of the bookend levels makes perfect sense. However, some of the levels that make up the game’s second act don’t quite jive with the rest of the design. The swamp level is beautiful and dense, and the desert mission is grand in scope, but how did they come to be on a robot planet?
With the move to a new studio, the franchise’s ordinary composer Marty O’Donnell is no longer attached to the project, and has been replaced by Neil Davidge, and while the soundtrack doesn’t contain any new instant classics like Marty’s old stuff, it’s still excellent and fitting.
The multiplayer is, as is standard for the series, great and broad. New modes like Dominion and Flood switch up the standard gameplay dynamic, but the old standbys like Slayer, CTF, and Big Team Battle are still as fun as ever. Character progression and leveling up is handled in a manner similar to the Call of Duty series, but gives players the option to choose the upgrades and weapons they unlock, if not the order they become available.
Spartan Ops is the only aspect of the game I haven’t had a lot of time with, but the word is that while the episodic nature of the content provides an interesting hook, the individual gameplay segments are too short and inconsequential to be totally worth it.
Halo 4 is a high quality game and my favorite shooter this year. It lives up to the other entries in the series and establishes a trilogy I’m dying to see more of.
