My thoughts on Halo 4

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!


I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and are on route to an awesome 2013!

Santa brought me a lovely copy of Halo 4 which I finally got around to completing yesterday so I thought I would tell you a bit about it. I am quite the Halo fan and have played every game realised to date so as you can imagine I was really excited to start playing it. A few of my friends had bought it on release and had really enjoyed it but I had asked them not to spoil it for me so I tried to not get my hopes up! Of course that failed miserably and for most of Christmas Day I was staring longingly at my Xbox while talking to various family members. Finally I got to play it a few days later and I must say I was not disappointed.

The story mainly features around Master Chief and Cortana being sucked into the hollow planet of Requiem and accidentily releasing the forerunner Didact. who back in the time of the original Flood outbreak turned captive humans into Promethean warriors and was later imprisoned by the Librarian. While this happens the ship Infinity who tries to rescue Master Chief and Cortana also gets sucked into Requiem and after saving them the Captain of the ship Del Rio who is your typical power mad asshole orders you to destroy the gravity well that sucked them in and go home instead of going after the Didact who is heading for earth to destroy the human race while is device called the Composer. Another storyline running through the game is based around Cortana our beloved AI system who is suffering from rampancy which she describes as 'thinking herself to death'. If they do not get to earth soon her malfunctions will get worse and she will be shut down.

Overall I was really happy with the story. Cortana and Master Chief's bond is really shown in the game and since she is one of my favourite characters I was really glad to see her get the amount of attention she gets in game. I was also really excited to finally meet the Librarian who we have heard so much about from Guilty Spark since the early days of Halo 1. It was also nice to fight some new enemies in the form of the Prometheans instead of just the Covenant and the Flood. The Prometheans are a really good addition to the game as they do make it a bit harder. The Promthean crawlers climb rocks and trees and can jump out of nowhere if your not paying attention especially since they travel in packs. The Promethean Knights are also pretty tough especially if they sneak up on you. The terrain in Requiem makes it very easy in some levels for them to hide in places where you might not see them so you really have to be aware of the vantage points around you.

Of course with new enemies comes new weapons! :D I wont go through them all but I particularly like the Suppressor which is basically the Promethean machine gun (I'm a big machine gun fan XD ). I also found their shotgun the Scattershot to be the most effective shotgun in the game so far as it far superior to the human equivalent. When fired it can ricochet off nearby surfaces making it deadly in small spaces. Its best you have one as the Promethean Knights sure will! There is also a new grenade in the game called a Pulse Grenade! Its quite good for taking down large groups of enemies who are close together as it takes away health and shields in the area covered by the bubble it creates. It doesn't do a great deal of damage but it makes enemies spread out so they are easier to take down. The weapon I expect to be the most popular amongst players will probably be the Incineration Cannon. First of all the name is awesome but it also combines a rocket launcher, a shot gun and a flame-thrower into the most fun gun ever! But beware! Its explosive damage will take you down if you fire it too close to yourself! The only real downside to this gun though is the fact you wont see it until later in the game but I suppose that's fair I think you would be slightly OP if you could get it early on.

All in all I find very little wrong with this game. If I had to have one complaint it would probably be that the campaign is very short. I completed it in around six hours which really isn't very long. I would have liked it to have been longer and I would have liked to have seen the Didact a bit more but those are things I can easily live without.

Well those are my thoughts on Halo 4. What did you think of the game? Did you like the Prometheans? What is your favourite Halo game? I would love to hear your opinions so please leave a comment below!

-BGG