Halo 4

[Sable Dove]

Halo is more of a mature audience kinda game. Nothing like Call of Duty. The fact that it actually takes some effort to learn how to play decently in Halo makes sure of that.

I laughed a little bit.

[Schrodinger]

You're absolutely right Envy, Halo became too much like CoD. Perks, loadouts, sprint, and killstreaks. Everything is geared towards a casual twitch shooter crowd. Now, the sprint function added to everyone is an iffy choice but one I don't disagree with since it was my go to armor ability in Reach. I went back to 3 and sorely missed the added mobility. Looking back, most of the people openly complaining have been the "hardcore" fans and the MLG community. While they are the vocal minority, their criticisms aren't wrong. Halo 4 doesn't look like Halo, doesn't sound like Halo, doesn't feel like Halo, and that's why I can't put money on it. It just seems like an XBLA title stapled onto a Halo story.

Now I actually do have some issues with the story itself. Don't get me wrong 343i did a wonderful job humanizing Chief and Cortana and really explored the relationship, however it was at the expense of a well thought out narrative. Can anyone tell me if, at any point in the game, someone stopped and told the Chief what happened while he was on ice? How the hell does the Librarian "accelerate [John's] evolutionary journey?" Why does she contradict a massive amount of established canon by saying Humanity was the greatest threat to the Forerunners and not the Flood? How can one five minute cutscene dig plot holes the size of Canada and still be allowed into the final release?

[Insomniac]

You're absolutely right Envy, Halo became too much like CoD. Perks, loadouts, sprint, and killstreaks. Everything is geared towards a casual twitch shooter crowd. Now, the sprint function added to everyone is an iffy choice but one I don't disagree with since it was my go to armor ability in Reach. I went back to 3 and sorely missed the added mobility. Looking back, most of the people openly complaining have been the "hardcore" fans and the MLG community. While they are the vocal minority, their criticisms aren't wrong. Halo 4 doesn't look like Halo, doesn't sound like Halo, doesn't feel like Halo, and that's why I can't put money on it. It just seems like an XBLA title stapled onto a Halo story.

Now I actually do have some issues with the story itself. Don't get me wrong 343i did a wonderful job humanizing Chief and Cortana and really explored the relationship, however it was at the expense of a well thought out narrative. Can anyone tell me if, at any point in the game, someone stopped and told the Chief what happened while he was on ice? How the hell does the Librarian "accelerate [John's] evolutionary journey?" Why does she contradict a massive amount of established canon by saying Humanity was the greatest threat to the Forerunners and not the Flood? How can one five minute cutscene dig plot holes the size of Canada and still be allowed into the final release?

I'd never complain about the sprint. Spartans are supposed to be capable of speeds in excess of 30KPH if I recall correctly. As for the weapon drops for killstreaks...That's iffy, but one must remember, oh screw it just have fun. Loadouts...Eh, I don't see why not.

[Envy661]

Halo is more of a mature audience kinda game. Nothing like Call of Duty. The fact that it actually takes some effort to learn how to play decently in Halo makes sure of that.

I laughed a little bit.

The point I was getting at was it takes a little more effort than Call of Duty. Oh, and it doesn't suck either. At least it's not Call of Duty, putting literally the exact same game out with slightly changed features and "Better graphics" year after year. Can you believe the head of Treyarch said "Oh, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this game. It's awesome. It's got the best graphics.We don't need a new engine. Everyone still loves this."

It's because people keep buying their pile of [censored] in a game case that they say stuff like this. At least in the Halo community, they get severe feedback from nearly every branch of the gaming community - from hardcore MLG players #Swag #YOLO #Douchebags, to casual gamers.

[Insomniac]

Halo is more of a mature audience kinda game. Nothing like Call of Duty. The fact that it actually takes some effort to learn how to play decently in Halo makes sure of that.

I laughed a little bit.

The point I was getting at was it takes a little more effort than Call of Duty. Oh, and it doesn't suck either. At least it's not Call of Duty, putting literally the exact same game out with slightly changed features and "Better graphics" year after year. Can you believe the head of Treyarch said "Oh, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this game. It's awesome. It's got the best graphics.We don't need a new engine. Everyone still loves this."

It's because people keep buying their pile of [censored] in a game case that they say stuff like this. At least in the Halo community, they get severe feedback from nearly every branch of the gaming community - from hardcore MLG players #Swag #YOLO #Douchebags, to casual gamers.

Every time someone says Call of Duty is the same game every time, I wanna burn something. Is the multiplayer virtually unchanged? Don't know, don't bloody well care. Is the story the same? Absolutely not. It's the next part of the same story, but you'd be lying if you said it was the same. Now though, that the Modern Warfare trilogy and the Black Ops trilogy are done, I have no idea what to think about Call of Duty Ghosts. Really don't know.

But, that's for another thread. To me, Halo and Call of Duty are just too different to call one better than the other. They're both legitimately good games in their respective sub-genres. They're both flawed, but they're both good.

[Envy661]

Halo is more of a mature audience kinda game. Nothing like Call of Duty. The fact that it actually takes some effort to learn how to play decently in Halo makes sure of that.

I laughed a little bit.

The point I was getting at was it takes a little more effort than Call of Duty. Oh, and it doesn't suck either. At least it's not Call of Duty, putting literally the exact same game out with slightly changed features and "Better graphics" year after year. Can you believe the head of Treyarch said "Oh, there's absolutely nothing wrong with this game. It's awesome. It's got the best graphics.We don't need a new engine. Everyone still loves this."

It's because people keep buying their pile of [censored] in a game case that they say stuff like this. At least in the Halo community, they get severe feedback from nearly every branch of the gaming community - from hardcore MLG players #Swag #YOLO #Douchebags, to casual gamers.

Every time someone says Call of Duty is the same game every time, I wanna burn something. Is the multiplayer virtually unchanged? Don't know, don't bloody well care. Is the story the same? Absolutely not. It's the next part of the same story, but you'd be lying if you said it was the same. Now though, that the Modern Warfare trilogy and the Black Ops trilogy are done, I have no idea what to think about Call of Duty Ghosts. Really don't know.

But, that's for another thread. To me, Halo and Call of Duty are just too different to call one better than the other. They're both legitimately good games in their respective sub-genres. They're both flawed, but they're both good.

When I call Call of Duty the same game, I do refer solely to the multiplayer, as I'm sure everyone else who says that does. And honestly, I can't say I cared for the story personally, but it's not that the story was bad (Actually, the entire plot and story in Modern Warfare 2 was Gawd Awful on every degree. Oh Gods the plot holes. The nightmares I had). I mean, I greatly enjoyed Black Ops 1's story. However the multiplayer experience in all the call of duty games I've played (Literally every Call of Duty game except Black Ops 2) was pretty much the exact same thing on every level with only mild, and I do mean MILD changes. Was it improved upon? Sure. Black Ops was handled much better than Cod 4 (MW2 was crap). But in the end, it was the exact same thing every time.
I loved CoD 4. Hated MW2. Liked Black Ops. And Oh God the horror that was MW3 multiplayer... The point is, it's the same game, every time. Each game is an expansion on the previous one. And a greatly overpriced one, with overpriced DLC (Seriously, Dafuq is up with those ridiculous DLC prices??). The story was the only thing that made it unique, but that 6-8 hour short as a gnome in WoW story really was nothing but enough to fill a DLC expansion in each game. Do you know which Call of Duty game had an amazing story that was WORTH only an 8-hour playthrough? Call of Duty 2: Big Red One. Until I played Black Ops, and even after I played Black Ops (Black Ops had a story better than any Call of Duty game on the next-gen consoles), Big Red One was the greatest Call of Duty game i ever played.

How does this all relate to Halo? The main point of what I'm getting at, is that at least Halo changes it up from game to game. Sure it's not always a loved change, but it's a change. Bungie when they made Reach, and 343 now. Neither of them are afraid to take risks on something new. Something Call of Duty seems to be completely incapable of doing. I used to be a HUGE CoD fanboy. The biggest one I knew at the time. And then I played Modern Warfare 2 and I lost all hope for the franchise within a month and sold the game (Granted, World At War, though the story was good, left me feeling the same way). Black Ops redeemed it a little, but not much. I never HATED Reach. I thought the beta was better, I will admit. I think everyone agrees with that. I HATED Modern Warfare 2. The primary reason was because Reach was a change, and Modern Warfare 2 was not. Reach excited me. MW 2 left me bored and actually wishing to be one of those people caught in "No Russian" just to have the nightmare of that game end.
Low and behold we have Halo 4, and I hate it when people say it's too much like CoD. Because even with pointstreaks (Not killstreaks. People seem ignorant on that one) on a couple (like 2) of the 20ish playlists in Halo 4, the overall gameplay is fundamentally and drastically different. The only CoD-like features they really added were sprint and loadouts. And lets face it: Most gametypes would have had you start with a DMR or BR anyway. Now you can choose which one you want. What's so bad about that? Neither is OP to the other. They're both pretty balanced. In fact, the game itself was amazingly balanced and had no OP aspects at all. A few cheap weapons? Sure. If you knew how to actually use them. But nothing was OP.

[Sable Dove]

It can be different all it wants; that doesn't make it a more mature game than CoD. Both halo and CoD have always been fairly easy games. Point and click, run and gun. There are some strategic occurrences, but the games are mostly running around and having better manual dexterity than whomever you meet.
No planning, no real teamwork required other than having a larger group means having an advantage.

Arguing over which one of the two is more mature is like arguing over whether a cue ball or baseball is more planet-sized. One might be bigger than the other, but neither are really close to being a planet.

[anonfox123]

My two cents on the issue:

My criteria for it being a "Halo" game is that it fits into the same storyline and keeps at least some characters consistent. Multiplayer is just a side-show that puts the weapons into an arena setting that becomes the run-and-gun Sable talks about.

Based on that definition, I still feel that Halo 4 is a Halo game. Could have used some better storytelling, but overall I found nothing to complain about. Coming from a guy who played Halo 3, then skipped ODST, Reach, and went into Halo 4, there are more improvements than detriments. Except one thing: From what I've seen, Reach did the space part better. 4's space section was just an on-rails throwaway level. Starfox did a spacefighter-rail-shooter better way before that junk.

[Flyboy1945]

I pretty much stopped when Spartan Ops finished and I got the armour I wanted.

[SirSlaughter]

If you do get BO2, let me know. Brandon let me borrow his copy while he is in Basic so I can play with you for a while before he gets back.

And I just had a feeling that the new balance patch was gonna mess things up.

[Sable Dove]

The arguable balance of the battlerifle has been tipped, and it is now the cure all weapon.

So... exactly like Halo 3? Sounds like they're just getting the game balance back where it's supposed to be. :p

[Tygron]

I think I remember the BR not being that good in Halo 3. Or at least not for me. I forget what I used (don't bother looking at my stats, I played SWAT 90% of the time) but i'm pretty sure it wasn't the BR. And I did damn good. I haven't played Halo 4 in a while. Don't have Live right now. And i'm not sure i'm going to renew it.
Personally i'd like to see Halo's 5 and 6 end up on the PC so I can enjoy them with controls I want to use (keyboard and mouse FTW) and all that. Wish they didn't kill Halo 2 PC with their stupidity. We'd likely have seen Halo 3 on PC by now along with ODST and Reach.

I agree with Envy on CoD being the same game. Sure the story isn;t the same. But who plays CoD for the story? Not many. Or at least not the majority i'd say, as when you talk to someone about CoD it's pretty much always about the multiplayer. I stopped playing CoD at MW2 when the servers started being [censored] and laggy. Went back to Halo 3 and never went back. Skipped WaW cause I dislike the WW2 theme. Just not my thing. I've played all the other CoD's since 4 and they're all the same with some tweaks here and there.

It could be argued that Halo is also the same game, and really it is to a degree. But they do manage to change it up enough to be different. Honestly I think 3 had one of the better multiplayers.

This all being said, yesterdays video for Halo 5 left me feeling rather... not excited at all. Perhaps it's because they didn't really show anything. Perhaps it's because I dislike sandy areas like that. I dunno why, but I just don't like it. But they really left me feeling uninterested.

[anonfox123]

-snip-
This all being said, yesterdays video for Halo 5 left me feeling rather... not excited at all. Perhaps it's because they didn't really show anything. Perhaps it's because I dislike sandy areas like that. I dunno why, but I just don't like it. But they really left me feeling uninterested.

I just want to know why Chief is wearing a cloak over his armor. I thought it was the Arbiter under there at first...

[Insomniac]

This all being said, yesterdays video for Halo 5 left me feeling rather... not excited at all. Perhaps it's because they didn't really show anything.

Oh hey, it's just like what Microsoft showed about the XDRM itself the last couple times they talked about it before the day before yesterday.

[Schrodinger]

And now you know why I don't play Reach anymore. Fun is a concept lost on these "pro" players.