Halo 4

Rating: 2 out of 3 Stars (why only 3 possible stars?)

Genre: First Person Shooter

ESRB: M (For firing lots of bullets at weird abstract art)

Estimated hours of gameplay (thorough play/quick play): 16/6 (including Spartan Ops for thorough)

Developer: 343 Industries 

Wiki page

The fight was over only if you don't understand how business works. Microsoft has a top-selling product here, so of course there was going to be another sequel. It's said that video games cost three times that of a movie ticket, so consumers are three times pickier when it comes to buying them. This, in turn, is why publishers are so obsessed with putting out sequels since they know it'll sell. So 343 Industries has been tracing the steps of Bungie in order to prepare themselves for when they would inevitably take the reins. These guys have been pretty humble about it, too. When you beat the game there's a note from the team thanking the player for going through their version of Halo. Imagine my surprise when I find out how superficial their knowledge of Halo is.

By the way, Master Chief's name is apparently "John." John... Spartan?

From what I remember (and what I read on the Halo 3 wiki) the war with the Covenant had ended. Especially of note was that the Elites had dropped out of the Covenant. But wouldn't you know it? They're somehow back and shooting bullets at the space-wandering Master Chief. Not that the lore or story to Halo has ever mattered to me. Master Chief shoots aliens and not much else makes sense about it. Like that Gravemind thing in Halo 2. What was THAT? Anyway, I won't go into any spoilers (as usual) but this game seems to be all about pushing buttons. Basically, the Forerunners and the Covenant make it a point to install "make us lose" buttons all over the damn place. Cortana just keeps telling the player which button needs to be pushed next. And then when you do, a bunch of monsters spawn all around you. It's one thing to make a game a forgettable, plotless action game. But to make it feel redundant and pointless is a problem. The ending of this game is mind-blowingly stupid, too, and it involves this big, bad final boss that you defeat with an incredibly simple and anti-climactic mini-game. Easily as bad as Mass Effect 3's ending. I'd say WORSE. Although it's obvious I'm biased for Mass Effect... come on.

And "Forerunner" sounds like "Foreigner." I don't want to shoot at Foreigner!

Gameplay remains the strongpoint of the franchise. But only because of all the things that were already in place. All the bad guys, vehicles, guns, and physics tuning were designed in previous games by Bungie; the original developer of the series. The new enemies in this game are incomprensible in appearance and story. I can't tell the different Knights apart, I didn't know they had shields until I looked it up, they have a confusing not-dead-yet animation, and they disintegrate when they die. They're supposed to be digital people or something? And there are dogs that bark bullets at you? The guns they use have floating parts that transform for no reason. The new guns in this game are simply other guns in the game but with tweaked stats. For example, the Boltgun is a pistol that can be charged up so it's a combination of the Magnum and the Plasma Pistol. And the Forerunner rocket launcher is jut like the human rocket launcher except it hits HARDER.

Yay loadouts!

What would a Halo game be without multiplayer? For the first time, Halo sports customized loadouts. Unlike Halo Reach, which only pretended to have loadouts. They've also introduced ordinance drops, perks, and kill cams so it's more like Call of Duty. But don't worry, the game is still exactly like Halo; just with more stuff. If I were to rate just this one section of the game, I would have given it three stars. But there's another multiplayer feature that's been introduced: Spartan Ops. And it's inexplicably come at the cost of removing the Firefight mode. It's a cool idea, but the execution is so repetitive, lazy, and badly written that it's not even worth the time to play. It's little missions that play like extensions of the Halo 4 campaign, but guess what it has you do? Push more buttons. Buttons... buttons everywhere. Your commanding officers are bored and disinterested as they yell at you to push the next button, not offering any kind of depth or characterization. I don't know why 343 even bothered with any story at all. And to top it all off the maps used are very limited and are copied from other parts of the game.

Conclusion:

While Halo 4 offers a robust amount of gameplay and endless multiplayer fun featuring triple A polish, so much of the game is a blunder that I can't give it a full recommendation. If you haven't played it already, don't worry too much about it.