"Halo 4: I Get a Woman!" - Sgt. Mjr. A.J. Johnson, RIP

[Timo]

Neat. Can't wait to play it this weekend.

[Donut]

well shit, if it gets pooky's seal of approval, i may actually check this out now.

[Bodzilla]

Finished the Campaign 3 times today. This game is fantastic. Massively better than Reach or H3.

kinda miss Halo's feel, but i'll be dammed if i'm going to play a new game on obsolete hardware.
seriously microsoft suck my fucking cock

[ODX]

If anything, this game really feels like a sequel to Halo 3 but with a bit of Reach. The main thing is that bloom isn't awful and stupid like in Reach though, the graphics are fantastic, and the map design is wonderful. The DMR is fucking god, and BR is good (though I just can't stand the origin) and the rest of the weapons are neat to use.

Oh, and to anyone worrying about the "loadouts, insta-spawning" and all those major changes: don't be angry or afraid, they fit Halo well and truthfully they're a welcome addition.

Again, this is still Halo, and a damn good one at that. I urge everyone to pick it up and see past the "wait what" story, and just enjoy how fuck damn good this multiplayer is.

[Arteen]

Beat the game on heroic. Thoughts:

Plot was nonsense.

Elites are much more fun here than in Reach due to less BS on their part. Grunts and jackals are as they always are. Hunters aren't quite as annoying as they are in Reach, but their FRGs/melees still do too much damage for my tastes. They don't appear too often, at least.

Prometheans just aren't fun to fight. They remind me a lot of the Flood in that respect. They're okay in small doses, and during three-way battles, but not when whole sections of the game are just devoted to them. The crawlers are fine. The flyers are annoying (which seems to be their entire purpose). The knights feel like bullet sponges.

I don't like how you lose your last armor ability if you die in co-op. It sucked in Reach, and it sucks here. Most of the game, it feels like the only choices are the shield and the sentry.

The ghost boosting section was silly.

Pelican section was lame, but it didn't overstay its welcome.

The broadsword section was also lame, and the controls suck ass for it. I had to switch the sticks to southpaw for them to make any sense.

The mantis was actually very fun to use (much better than the mech Gears 3 introduced). Lame that there weren't any other new vehicles. I don't like the banshees in this game.

The levels which are mostly covenant (the early ones) are the most fun. The mammoth level is probably my favorite. Or the one where you go inside the Infinity. I'm not much a fan of the level design in this game though.

After one playthough, I'd put the campaign on par with Halo 2 and Reach (which I think have the weakest campaigns). The covenant are more fun to fight in this, but the prometheans aren't, and the level design is lacking. Hopefully future game reintroduce more of the covenant races (brutes, drones, engineers, skirmishers) and add more promethean enemy classes.

Looking forward to playing spartan ops and multi.

[Limited]

Are cutscenes pausable?

Wait, can you tick a box that avoids joining a game in process when matchmaking?

[Pooky]

The main thing I like about this game's campaign over H3 or Reach is the non linear, open ended approach to combat. Rather than the corridor crawls of the last few games, Halo 4 feels like a return to the big open sandboxes of the first game. There were even a few epic 3 way battles.

As for the plot, it may have been silly but I still enjoyed it. Cortana and the Chief actually have some character development for once, and there were a few parts that were really cool because of that. Also the ending made me sad.

I haven't played multiplayer much, so I can't comment too much on that. I still hate the 2-hit melee and I don't like the new weapon spawning system but whatever. Played a bit of infantry-only slayer and didn't care for that, but Dominion was fantastic. It actually felt closer to H1 multiplayer than anything else has in the last few years. Large, open battlefields with lots of players and lots of vehicles. That's what I play Halo for, not the Lockout style clusterfucks. Moreover, the vehicles actually feel useful and not like papier-mâché deathtraps.

So yeah, I think H4 is the best Halo in a while, even if only for the Campaign.

[thehoodedsmack]

Wait, can you tick a box that avoids joining a game in process when matchmaking?

Good question, needs answering. In addition, are you penalized for leaving a game early?

[Tnnaas]

Customs get -Infinity/10. They didn't bring back VIP.

Or Juggernaut, Assault, ect.

That's it. I'm going to begin laying the groundwork for a new multiplayer-only Halo game FOR THE PC! Unfortunately I can't call it a Halo title, but that won't stop me!

[Pooky]

Juggernaut is basically the same thing as Regicide from what I understand. Assault might be doable through custom gametypes, I'd have to look.

Just played some Big Team with Sanctus. It's confirmed, this game shits all over Reach. The ordnance drop system is actually really well suited for casual games on large maps. It keeps one team from rushing the power weapons and proceeding to steam roll the opposition until they run out of ammo. For anything seriously competitive though, we're going to need maps with fixed weapon spawns.