Author Topic: Halo IV  (Read 9439 times)

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Offline General Battuta

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This was game was like the anti-Reach in that it had a pretty great story and script, but I'm not convinced the actual gameplay really excited me. It was fine, but it felt a little flat. Even in multi it's not totally grabbing me.

 

Offline crizza

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I miss the firefight mode... I loved it playing with a friend on split screen, drinking beer and killing covenant cannon fooder.
Well, Palmers role in Spartan ops is as of Episode 2 just giving orders and appearing in the...uh...how are the little movies between missions called?^^
Oh.. and Lasky...what Character development? He got saved by the Chief on Corbulu...and now listen closely to his lines in the ending sequence...

 

Offline General Battuta

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I think the absolute biggest issue in the sandbox is that knights are not particularly aggressive. The Halo AI formula of 'primary attack zone' and 'fallback zone', with a clear barrier past which the enemies won't aggress towards you, really incentivizes boring mid-range DMR/BR/LR/carbine combat.

 

Offline Scotty

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Uh, the part where he wrestles with the emotional conflict between losing his brother to the corps while simultaneously being enrolled in one of the UNSC's premier military academies and not knowing whether he actually wants to support the government that took his brother to his death?

If you don't see character development in Forward Unto Dawn, you need to look a bit harder.

This was game was like the anti-Reach in that it had a pretty great story and script, but I'm not convinced the actual gameplay really excited me. It was fine, but it felt a little flat. Even in multi it's not totally grabbing me.

I... well, I enjoyed the gameplay, but I'm not sure I enjoyed the gameplay.  I played through solo on Heroic the first time, and there are only two or three viable ways to deal with enemies consistently at that level.  Light rifle scoped to take out the Watchers before they retreat out of view, unscoped to take out Crawlers with headshots.  Take out Knights last unless they're up in your face, and do it with a whole bunch of bullets.  Auto-sentry is your best friend forever.  The Suppressor is ****ing useless unless you're close enough for melee to work better.  The Boltshot is similarly useless unless you run out of ammo for your Light Rifle.  Scattershot has such pitiful range that it's only useful in niche situations and you shouldn't waste a slot on it unless you're running out of all of your ammo.  Binary Rifle is a sniper rifle with less ammo.

Honestly, what I enjoyed simultaneously the most and the least about Halo 4's gameplay is how little ammo there is compared to previous titles.  While playing, it was frustrating as hell to never be able to have enough Light Rifle ammo, and even more frustrating to use my starting UNSC weapons (which I absolutely loved, for a change) because the odds of finding any kind of ammo for them at all later in the level was slim to none.  That achievement for carrying a human weapon throughout all of mission three on heroic or harder?  It's really a challenge, because you get one useful weapon for the entire level.  On the other hand, it also forced a more dynamic approach to combat.  There's no longer any real way to sit and snipe in one spot until there are no enemies left, move up a few feet, and do it again.  Well, unless the level gives you that kind of ordinance, which only happens four or five times in eight missions.  It imposes challenge without creating too much artificial difficulty.

I think the absolute biggest issue in the sandbox is that knights are not particularly aggressive. The Halo AI formula of 'primary attack zone' and 'fallback zone', with a clear barrier past which the enemies won't aggress towards you, really incentivizes boring mid-range DMR/BR/LR/carbine combat.

This is definitely true for knights, but I know that grunts and jackals (and crawlers, the bastards) will aggressively root you out unless you're entirely beyond range for them.

 

Offline General Battuta

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On heroic the Suppressor is actually the best way to kill knights. They have huge hitboxes and so they get completely destroyed by it.

  

Offline Beskargam

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I managed to find three terminals on my first playthrough.

In order, as near as I can make of it:
Spoiler:
Palmer has a grand total of fifteen minutes of actual screen time (if that) and barely more than that in mission giving your orders.  She really doesn't have time to be developed as a character.  Lasky got the lion's share of his character development in the live action Forward Unto Dawn webseries.

The Lich didn't slag the tires, it disabled the gun, and the Mammoth backed the **** up to avoid getting toasted ther est of the way.  Or possibly the Lich couldn't destroy the Mammoth, just disable it.  Think Plasma Pistol, but "**** you" size.

I personally liked the Mantis.  It's Mjolnir armor XXXL size.

John is good at everything related to combat.  Seriously, that's why he exists.  He can drive scorpions, warthogs, mongeese, ghosts, wraiths, specters, choppers, prowlers, revenants, and can pilot falcons, hornets, banshees, longswords (end of Halo:CE), and obviously Broadswords.

will have to replay the mission with the lich. What I thought happened was it shot the mammoth, and then floated off to drop off ground troops rather than deliver the killing blow. Still doesn't make sense with the mammoth not being able to shoot what it can see/probably read on sensors or something. the mantis was cool, i just don't feel like it fits in with the halo universe. I get your point about him being the master of everything war related. and the tag for the original halo was "build for combat. bred for war. master of any weapon. DRIVER of ANY vehicle." if I remember right. it just seems weird to me to have him be so good at everything. in our military now, i don't think you'd have somebody driving a tank be able to fly a plane and specialize in both. (said without first person knowledge of military). I agree the knights were not aggressive enough. they pretty much let me pick off the floaty ones, then the crawlers with ease before i engaged the knights. gameplay could have been better. the art, visuals, (THE COLOr!) was superb. the use of lighting was pretty cool too.

I hope to see more interaction between chief and the spartan 4s. I wonder what kilo-5 and lord Hood are up to at this point.

Also there was plenty of character development in forward unto dawn. But there wasn't much in the game itself.


 

Offline crizza

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Uh, the part where he wrestles with the emotional conflict between losing his brother to the corps while simultaneously being enrolled in one of the UNSC's premier military academies and not knowing whether he actually wants to support the government that took his brother to his death?

If you don't see character development in Forward Unto Dawn, you need to look a bit harder.
I know that, but ingame? He's commander and the what...captain?
But what I mean was there is no clue that Lasky got his ass saved by the Chief...

 

Offline achtung

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Oh, and uh...

Spoiler:
Cortana's death scene made me want to cry like a little *****. :( I mean I think she's going to be space-magicked back to life at some point, but still.
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Offline crizza

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Oh, and uh...

Spoiler:
Cortana's death scene made me want to cry like a little *****. :( I mean I think she's going to be space-magicked back to life at some point, but still.
Spoiler:
She'll most likely return with the Didact at some point. ;)

 

Offline Scotty

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will have to replay the mission with the lich. What I thought happened was it shot the mammoth, and then floated off to drop off ground troops rather than deliver the killing blow. Still doesn't make sense with the mammoth not being able to shoot what it can see/probably read on sensors or something. the mantis was cool, i just don't feel like it fits in with the halo universe. I get your point about him being the master of everything war related. and the tag for the original halo was "build for combat. bred for war. master of any weapon. DRIVER of ANY vehicle." if I remember right. it just seems weird to me to have him be so good at everything. in our military now, i don't think you'd have somebody driving a tank be able to fly a plane and specialize in both. (said without first person knowledge of military). I agree the knights were not aggressive enough. they pretty much let me pick off the floaty ones, then the crawlers with ease before i engaged the knights. gameplay could have been better. the art, visuals, (THE COLOr!) was superb. the use of lighting was pretty cool too.

I hope to see more interaction between chief and the spartan 4s. I wonder what kilo-5 and lord Hood are up to at this point.

Also there was plenty of character development in forward unto dawn. But there wasn't much in the game itself.

John is hardly a representative sample of what a modern soldier does or can do.  The fact that he can pilot damn near everything might come from the fact that he's spent literally his entire life from age 6 learning how to be the greatest soldier the galaxy had ever seen.  Maybe he's just incredibly good at intuiting the controls.  Maybe it's the augmentations.  Maybe it's Cortana giving him a flash-learning session Matrix-style.

The point is that he's good at everything because he was literally created to be good at everything.  The intro cutscene explains this very nicely, while also giving you a gigantic ****ing neon sign about the huge shortcomings in personal relationship skills and general social tendencies that keep him from being an EverySue.  Or at least less of an EverySue than most Stoic FPS Protagonists.

I think nitpicking that character development wasn't present in the game when it was present in the webseries is missing the point completely.  They're still the same characters, and Forward Unto Dawn is intrinsically linked to Halo 4 in a way very, very few movies ever have been.  It is, in effect, a ninety-minute live-action intro cutscene.

Regarding the Suppressor, I suppose I never got very good with it.  It was honestly my least favorite of the Promethean weapons, hands down.  It didn't help that I was damn near useless with it against anything else, and I hate wasting weapon slots on such a specialist niche to fill when I can use an assault rifle or storm rifle to do what it does and more.

 

Offline achtung

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I went through the vast majority of the campaign with light rifle/suppressor combo. By far the easiest to get ammunition for after the initial bout with the Storm Covenant. Got very good with them. I feel like the suppressor fills a role closer to the SMG from Halo 2 than anything else. Feels very similar, with maybe a touch more stability.
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Offline Scotty

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I finished most of the game with a Light Rifle/Anything other than Suppressor (I really did hate that gun.  It'd be absolutely wonderful if it were hitscan, but the projectiles are so bloody sloooooow).  My hands-down favorite, however, is the Assault Rifle, in a stunning turn of events.  I would pass up literally any other weapon if there's ammo for one of those hanging around somewhere.  It's the weapon I carried through all of Mission 3 to get the achievement, and even then I didn't hate it.

 

Offline General Battuta

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The suppressor is a good gun for killing Knights.

 

Offline TrashMan

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Uh, the part where he wrestles with the emotional conflict between losing his brother to the corps while simultaneously being enrolled in one of the UNSC's premier military academies and not knowing whether he actually wants to support the government that took his brother to his death?

If you don't see character development in Forward Unto Dawn, you need to look a bit harder.


Forward Onto Down was....o.k I guess?

I just found it so utterly predictable and formulaic.
The main character was uninteresting to me. I knew exactly what would happen before it happened.
I called each characters death right.
The 5-second romance and rivalry? Oh that guy and girl are sooo dead.

Adn that "everyone looks at MC who doesn't take off his helemet" moment? I couldnt' tell if the movie was trying to go for an air of mistery or self-refferential humor.
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Offline Beskargam

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Uh, the part where he wrestles with the emotional conflict between losing his brother to the corps while simultaneously being enrolled in one of the UNSC's premier military academies and not knowing whether he actually wants to support the government that took his brother to his death?

If you don't see character development in Forward Unto Dawn, you need to look a bit harder.


Forward Onto Down was....o.k I guess?

I just found it so utterly predictable and formulaic.
The main character was uninteresting to me. I knew exactly what would happen before it happened.
I called each characters death right.
The 5-second romance and rivalry? Oh that guy and girl are sooo dead.

Adn that "everyone looks at MC who doesn't take off his helemet" moment? I couldnt' tell if the movie was trying to go for an air of mistery or self-refferential humor.




:/. I liked FUD. It was predictable, but it did a good job of bring the universe to life in a way that it hadn't been before. It also left most of the sci-fi aspects behind and left something that everybody could relate to. I think they were going for both as to why MC didn't take his helmet off. intro of halo 4 does say that the spartan 2s were sociopaths however. armor feels like home.

 

Offline achtung

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I cracked and bought a Gold account again. :(

Anyone here playing multiplayer?
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Offline crizza

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Nope, I have a week of gold membership left but...I'm in no mood of being called a noob by the hardcore players^^

 

Offline Scotty

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So play Spartan Ops.  That's still multi.

 

Offline crizza

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I do, but my internet connection is a littlebit unstable, so it is frustrating if you do the challenges, but get no rewards...

Edit: So, Episode 3 of Spartanops is out and on the 5th mission something is broken.
Most of the time A grunt appears where I can't reach him or a jackal gets stuck inside a rock and I can't kill him too...
Sometimes it's happening all at once...strange.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2012, 11:52:28 am by crizza »