well, I just beat the campaign and I've been playing multiplier for quite a while. The ooh-aah factor has settled and I have some thoughts.
the single player experience is pretty mediocre in my opinion. Most people already know that the campaign is really short; and I cant help but feel that its really rushed too. The story kept throwing in new plot elements in on the fly; with little to no explanation. the covenant being bad again, the didact, the new spartan troops, and so on. Not to mention adding a bunch of characters that really don't matter or I could care less for, or even both. Like the new spartan girl and commander latsky( yes I know he is from the forward onto dawn show.)
there are also two quick time events in the game(one in the beginning and one in the end). I cant help but feel that they just threw those in. they seem so superfluous and dumb.
the story also has some moments where I was just completely taken out of it by how corny or predictable it was(like the ending). other moments were really neat though. (I wont go into them for the sake of spoilers) After all that the game play is pretty much the same. its halo, and I want to like it, but the story just inst very great .
Also, while playing I can't help but feel that this game takes a lot of story info and inspiration from the books and other media from the halo franchise, where as CE-reach inspired the books and comics and whatnot.
not to mention all the other sci fi references that the story has. Star wars, tron, and mass effect to name a few. (again no examples due to spoilers.)
Multi player has changed a lot. Most of it is very irritating for me. they brought back the battle rifle, which I hate( I know most people love it.) reach took out the battle rifle for a reason, and 343 brought it back out of sheer fan service. I feel like they tried to make the multi player more like 3, because a lot of people didn't like the reach multi player.( again more fan service)
The armor abilities are a mixed bag. Evade and jet pack were pretty much ruined( half your jet pack is wasted just getting you off the ground). some armor abilities I do like though, like the promentian vision. I also have mixed feelings about the hard light shield too. I really liked armor lock in reach, but I will admit it was severely abused. the hard light shield fixes the problem, but it also kind of ruins the concept for me.
The load outs, weapon drops, and ordnance are a novel idea, but this is not call of duty:halo edition. I really don't like that weapons spawn randomly, because it leaves a lot of the game to luck, where as in past games whichever team fought the hardest gets the power weapon, and they stayed in the same place.
ordnance drops suffer the luck problem as well. go ahead and ask me how many times I've gotten the needler, speed boost, and a grenade refill. Meanwhile, others are getting really good drops like saws, shotguns, and other stuff. I've heard tell that you can re shuffle w__hat you can get, bu I've never seen it happen.
the other things like load outs and and perks really irk me because it's just not halo. one could argue that reach had load outs, but that was more or less simply choosing an armor ability. the only time it really differed was in firefight; which i can understand.
as far as design wise goes, i hate the new designs. The Spartans look like crysis and halo had an ugly baby.(although I did like that they added a lot more visor colors) The helmets and other armors just don't look very halo at all. the new vehicles stink too; they changed too much of the design. they are still recognizable, they just don't look right.
The covenant barely look like the covenant. In fact, the all look like they have the same skin, with different bodies and armor. the only thing covenant the stayed the same are the vehicles.
the Promethean and forerunner structures really remind me of tron with all the blue and orange.
Also, this game really likes optical flares. Its obsessed with them, and it makes the game really hard to play with how shiny and bright everything is. changing the settings on both the tv and the game do not help. Not to mention the view bobbing of the screen when you jump and the fact the some of the screen is actually cut off from your helmet. its very small, but its enough to be annoying and make everything feel clustered.
So overall, 343 wanted to make the most ambitious halo ever, while still retaining what makes halo halo. Instead, what we got was a game with a shallow and rushed single player story; and a multi player that borrows too many ideas from other games and depends too heavily on luck. I'm serious, I think its that bad. the whole package is just not very halo at all, and that's my main problem with 343i in general. They are trying to make someone else's art, and of course it comes out much different than what I feel bungie would put out. I'm more sad than angry though, because one of my favorite franchisees is being beat to death because Microsoft refuses to let one of their only exclusives end in peace.
The biggest complaint I heard about reach is that it changed to much and it didn't feel like halo. if people though reach was bad for that reason, then this game is an atrocity!
and I could nitpick forever, but I think I made my point. Sorry to all reading this that like halo 4; everyone's entitled to their own opinion. This may be my last halo, just because of how disappointing this one was for me. I'm just glad that I could get all this off my chest somewhere.
I apologize for the ranting; I think i'm gonna go pop in reach now.
