Halo 4 Review

Yesterday marked the global release of Halo 4 on the Xbox 360 and once again pins our favourite Spartan with the fate of the universe on his shoulders. The Master Chief has been on a hiatus in cryo-freeze for the last 4 years following the events of Halo 3 and needs to muster all of his skills to push back this new enemy.

The integral part of the story this time isn’t just saving everyone from certain annihilation but supporting his long term AI ‘partner’ Cortana. She is slipping into rampancy – a form of AI Alzheimer’s – that typically plagues all UNSC constructs after they’ve been in service for more than seven years – or 8 as is the case here. As their knowledge expands they eventually think themselves to death. It’s an interesting role reversal as John needs to show more humanity than ever before while Cortana suffers with emotional outbursts.

Amazingly I have found that Halo 4 is not just a success, but potentially the best Halo to have graced the Xbox systems – it’s really only pushed for the top spot by the brilliant Halo 2. 343 Industries have really done a great job retaining the feeling of Halo while giving it their own unique characteristics too.

The game starts with a mesmerizing CG cut scene that knocks you back with its LA Noire style facial animations and flawless lighting movements. It’s a welcome surprise to see Commander Lasky (the same one we all saw as a teenager in the Forward Unto Dawn web-series) with his blemished face, his crooked teeth and his individually crafted strands of hair. Welcome to the games sir!

Dropping straight into the game itself you notice straight away that the gunplay we are used to is still in place and fans of all the previous armoury options will be grateful to see the old favourites return. The weapons from each of the different races have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages to help you decide on the best option for each of the enjoyable battle set pieces. It’s more important now than ever for you to bring that knowledge of the weapons over to the multiplayer game too where a wrong choice really is the different between life and death.

After getting my teeth into the campaign I can tell you that fans of the series have nothing to worry about and I’ve found myself admiring the view at least once on each of the superbly realised Halo style sandboxes. There is a real sense of excitement when you first step onto Requiem and it’s close to the first time you see the Halo ring running off into the sky when you touched down in the original Combat Evolved.

I’m going to break all sorts of video game journalism rules in this paragraph but I can’t help but explain how gorgeous the graphics really are. They shimmer in and out of your line of sight as battles take place but also grip you in the sections when you get a chance to relax. There are a couple of well designed vehicle sections too which show off the size of the prize that 343 have created. Everything from the moving Forerunner architecture to the large mountain ranges are fully realised with immersive details. Clouds drift across the skies too which is great to see when you stand back to admire the view. It certainly raised the bar on the 360 and could be a contender for the best graphics award this year.

Of course the view isn’t the only area to admire and I can tell you that the sounds are second to none too. From the subtle rustle of wind in the bushes to the gargantuan gunshots, everything has been put together with a loving touch. The Covenant Elites still ‘wort’ their way through the speakers, giving a sense of their authoritative aggression – they really are testosterone inducing sounds. Battlefields are loud and boisterous while the silence conveys an eerie sense of the unknown.

Fans expressed their concern that the music of Halo was being taken over by British Electronica producer Neil Davidge from their beloved Marty O’Donnell who helmed the Bungie offerings. It’s a bold move by 343 and one that has given mixed results. The trademark chanting is no-where to be seen but the moody tunes on offer compliment the atmosphere brilliantly while never reaching the dizzying heights of the past greats.

The campaigns set pieces are clear identifiers of pushing the game forward and urge you to continue through the cleverly designed campaign. Split second decisions can be the difference between life and death and the increased AI of the enemies means that the legendary difficulty is harder than ever before. In fact I’d go so far as to saying that Heroic feels more like the usual legendary setting and the new version is really something even further up the difficulty scale. Enemies strategically flank you and draw you from cover without the usual ‘increase in enemy volume’ or ‘increase enemy health’ used in most modern shooters. All the enemies need have their own sets of abilities to terrorise you with but none are created to pitch unfair advantages.

The new Prometheans come in several different shapes and sizes. The Watcher units for example act as medics for the Knight brotherhood and show that 343 have really thought about how to test you skills. If you manage to get around their protection shields or their return-to-sender style grenade tosses, you might also find them reviving their allies. Halo 4 is all about efficient prioritization: killing the Watcher first will mean it can’t heal the surround Knights or throw back your grenades while the wall-running Crawlers shoot bursts at you from all around. Interestingly you can almost group these new enemy types against their Covenant rivals. Crawlers are the Grunts of the Promethean army taking a butt to the face or a few well aimed shots will put them down, the Knights are the equivalent Elites and the Watchers post the tactical demands of the Jackal’s. Strangely there are no Brutes this time around.

My only gripe so far is that the Terminals are far more important than ever before and fill in useful information about the campaigns back story. Unfortunately these can be rather difficult to find and require you to exit the campaign in order to view them. It’s an immersion breaker that pulls you out of the game and one that could have easily been amended before release. The only other small announce is that the flip-this-switch, press-that-button objectives seem to always come in threes (much like the other games) and on the higher difficulties these can really drag out the campaign when you want to see a bit more variety. It all just seems like it’s been added in to increase the length of the campaign and doesn’t really serve the story itself.

It’s not a bad review when you realise that paragraph holds the only negatives I can personally find and even they took me some time to think about….

Halo 4 has also implemented a new form of multiplayer in the new Spartan Ops co-op mode. Blending objective based team play with campaign style stories; this narrative is being released in 10 weekly episodes each consisting of 5 chapters – all of which are free of charge. The story drives alongside the main campaign and fills in the gaps on what the UNSC Infinity Spartans have been doing to help the causes on Requiem. The only problem with this is that it lacks the replay of the old Firefight mode. Completing these chapters on Legendary is really as far as it goes and the only reason to come back is to level up your Spartan on his/her own.

Fear not though the War Games multiplayer selections are still available and have hit back in full force. There are 10, most cases, great maps to choose from that range from claustrophobic interiors to grand outdoor battles sustaining all the usual vehicle warfare we have come to enjoy. Ragnarok shines through with its Mantis combat putting a different spin on Halo 3’s popular Valhalla level, while Haven (which I originally played back at the Eurogamer Expo) is one of the finest small symmetrical levels ever. Overall the levels seem to push towards the larger vehicle based warfare that Halo has become famous for but there are gems in all the different variants offered.

The matchmaking playlists are all in place with Spartan customization holing all the bells and whistles you’d expected from a game in the Halo franchise. The lobby screens have changed but you can still see who you are up against, their stats and their ranks. The Theatre also returns a triumphant return alongside Forge, which now features a magnet like tool that allows users to connect pieces together more easily.

Having  played the game almost constantly for the last few days I can tell you that I am more than thrilled to fall back into Halo again. I think every fan of the series was, at least initially, worried by the change in developer but I cannot praise 343 enough for their loving touches. They understand what makes the game so enjoyable and have kept to the aesthetics we have all come to see while blasting their own feeling into the game too – which at no point is a detriment to what we want. Halo has been redesigned, rebuilt and returns to its titular place in the heavens of gaming.

Game of the Year 2012 – you heard it hear first!