Master Chief is back. And you guessed it; the fate of the universe is on his shoulders once more. Man, I wonder how this guy sleeps at night. But this time, Chief isn’t the only one in the limelight. Cortana is the one we should be focusing on.
Yep, the story is about Cortana now. Not completely, but the essence lies with her. Apparently, Cortana has reached a stage in her programming where she is ‘thinking herself to death’. She has emotional outbursts and some programming errors. At points in the campaign, Master Chief is the one who has to think about the situation. The way Master Chief and Cortana work together to achieve their objectives and help each other remain calm is quite emotional and one of the key aspects of the campaign’s story, which begins as Master Chief wakes from his cryogenics sleep which he went into at the end of Halo 3. The story is exciting and keeps you glued to your seat until you’re done with it. There are a few loose ends here and there, but why wouldn’t there be? It’s not like this is the last game in the franchise.
The story is made better by the amazing voice acting of all the characters. It feels incredibly realistic. Furthermore, the character models and designs are astounding. They’re possibly one of the best human designs I’ve seen in video games, and that’s saying a lot. It’s not only the character models that are detailed though. The entire looks gorgeous. Everything is sharp and clear, the environments are radiant and the effects are eye-opening. Master Chief’s armor is highly detailed and has visible scratches and signs of damage on it, which enhances Chief’s image as a hero who has been through a lot. Not only does it look bad-ass, but it reminds us of what Master Chief has done to deserve our respect. All this is so emotionally captivating. Halo fans will not be disappointed by this. Apart from all that, even the weapons look shinier than ever and using them is just heavenly.
Speaking of weapons, there are a lot of them and each one of them has it’s own purpose. You hardly ever run out of ammo because of the abundance of it. Never stop shooting: that’s what I would say to you, and I’m sure that’s what you would do. The enemies just keep on coming, and you just have to keep killing them. It seems repetitive, but it’s not. There are lots of various enemies in the game and there are even more ways to kill them. Perhaps you could kill them with a melee? Or use an assault rifle? Or blow them to bits with a rocket launcher or a grenade? It’s entirely up to you. And the fun never dies.
The enemies are smart and you have to be careful while playing at a higher difficulty, but that simply adds to the fun. Don’t worry, your firefights aren’t restricted to the guns and the ground. Like previous Halo games, you have vehicles, with a few new ones making an entry in this installment. Vehicle battles are fabulous and provide a better source of entertainment when you’re tired of running and shooting all the time.
The weapon effects, both visual and sound effect-wise have been completely redone and are fantastic. Oh and the soundtrack is simply phenomenal. No doubt that all those tracks will be making their way into my iPod soon enough. They bring Halo to a whole new level of Awesome. All these factors work together to bring you the best experience, and 343 Industries has simply outdone itself with these. When the Halo franchise was first handed over to 343, we were all skeptical. After all, how could a new industry create a new installment franchise that has been refined, polished and improved over the years without breaking something? Well, lets not ponder over that. The thing is, 343 has surprised us all. And what a surprise it is.
Well, enough with the single player. If I don’t stop, I’ll simply continue to emphasize on how great it is. So, what about multiplayer? Is it still the fun blood fest that we’ve come to love? Yes.
Like other FPS Multiplayer modes, in Halo, you can either have objective based Multiplayer matches or Deathmatches, which still remains the most popular mode in a multiplayer game. Don’t worry, it’s still a lot of fun. The new maps are excellent and the killing other players never gets old. It’s not Call of Duty, so it’s obviously a lot more fun. There is, however, the introduction of perks in the game, just like in CoD. But there’s no need to worry as these do not interfere with the main focus of Multiplayer, which continues to entertain for hours on end. There are 10 main maps and 3 forge maps for the players to enjoy. Another welcome addition is that of Spartan Ops which has taken the place of Firefights. I personally enjoyed Firefights a lot, and am sad to see them go, but such a thing is insignificant as we now have Spartan Ops.
Spartan Ops mode is basically a downloadable series of missions, broken up into a few chapters. New side missions will be released every week, free for the next ten weeks. However, these missions lack a scoring system which results in the absence of an incentive to come back and repeat a mission. Some people would have gladly taken Firefight in place of this, but we can’t all have what we want. Nonetheless, Spartan Ops is a good addition to Halo 4, albeit being slightly weak than it’s predecessor. But, overall, this was insignificant for me as Halo 4 provided a lot more fun and entertainment that I could have asked for.
For the past few weeks, I was confused over which game would be the Game of the Year of 2012, considering how this year was kind of lacking in triple A games. But now, the answer is clear. Halo 4 is the best Halo game to date. And, without a doubt, it is the best game I’ve played this year.
Techdeville gives Halo 4 a 4.5/5.
