Halo 4 begins where things ended in Halo 3, which is really exciting to long time fans like us, with the return of Master Chief. Bungie has passed the baton and 343 Studios began the task of breathing new life in this series. Has 343 Studios Succeeded? Should you buy Halo 4? Keep reading after the break for answers and more.
During Extra Life I played through the entire campaign of Halo 3. Having that fresh in my mind as I played through Halo 4 gave me greater insight in to the smaller changes in Halo 4. An Example being the audio tracks: Both the soundtrack, voices and especially the FX being way more lively. The sounds of your weapons and warthog and other vehicles all sound better. The weapons, especially UNSC weapons all sound real. The ambience within in moments of playing the campaign just had me hooked.
The characters jump out at you with a stellar performance on the voice actin
g paired with the animation. Cortana has never been portrayed so alive, so human. Master Chief is still a man a few words, but we start to see the humanity within him. All in all the performances were amazing and helped tell this remarkable story.
The story, while picking up where Master Chief and Cortana were drifting away in space, expands on the relationship between the two and takes us on a wild adventure. It truly is an epic story arc and the first chapter in a new trilogy. I don’t want to spoil anything, but you will feel a connection and be surprised at a few twists and turns.
While the campaign is amazing, we still get Multiplayer with improvements. I’ll touch on that in a moment, but let me tell you about the other section of the game. Spartan Ops. These are secondary missions that are released weekly. Each Chapter contains five missions and short episode to watch. The idea here is to get a high score, then shoot for a higher score. Different objectives every week, every mission, every chapter and it tells us a smaller piece of the story that is not directly related to our main characters. Like the campaign, these are challenging and very fun.
Multiplayer returns with the added weapons from the campaign. This time it seems more fluid and faster pace. Mostly, it’s the same old school game play we love. But wait, there is more to that feel. It has a sort of Quake 3 Arena/ Unreal gameplay element to it that was difficult to place. Yet it does have that feel. You’ll get a few more game types and different names for some of the familiar game types. Some weapons on the field of play will show up with a marker on your HUD, giving you a heads up on where to move if you want that sniper rifle.
So I had to ask myself, did 343 Studios do a good job? Yes, they took the helm and I think did a better job than anyone (other than Microsoft) expected. Halo 4 takes us on a fun and exciting adventure that proves to be challenging. The animation and visuals are spot on and better than ever. The sounds exceed my expectations and the voice acting is superb. Yes, you will want to play Halo 4.