Halo 4
The first Halo game from 343 Industries catches a lot more flack than it probably deserves. It’s easy to look at how little it does to really change the campaign formula (stick Cortana into one fancy looking USB slot, stick her in all of ’em) and the changes that came with the multiplayer that turn the game from full out Halo to a mix of Unreal Tournament and Call of Duty.
For a lot of people, that multiplayer is the sore point. The core of Halo is still there, but the armor abilities and ordinance drops instantly have people thinking that it’s been reworked completely. The new Promethean weapons are just Transformers-looking versions of the series staples (the Promethean shotgun is just as cheap as the OG one), and the armor abilities are mostly well-balanced to counter each other. The maps may not be among the best that the series has offered, but there are some fun ones in the mix.
And while the story mode may be an endless cycle of putting Cortana into a thing, credit to 343 for picking the rich Forerunner backstory of the prequels to kick off a new series. Yeah, the story can be confusing for newcomers, but the scale is massive and that opening level is pretty killer. The relationship between Cortana and Chief may not click with everyone, but credit to 343 for trying. If nothing else, Halo 4 is a hell of a lot more confident in itself and its ambitions than most of Bungie’s games, and it’s a fun new entry to the series.
