Date played: February 21st
Platform: Xbox One
Session fun rating: 10/10
I played the first half of Halo 4's 10 missions, the only game in the series that I've never played. It starts in the hull of the wrecked Forward Unto Dawn starship as Cortana wakes Master Chief from cryogenic sleep. She detected intruders on the ship which is weird considering they are stranded in deep space after the events of Halo 3.
Chief wakes up and investigates the threat right away. There are major changes that are noticeable right away in this game. For one, Cortana looks completely different, though I kind of like her new look. Also, the game looks very good graphically. It doesn't look old like Halo 3 did, it looks like it fits rather well on Xbox One... The lighting effects are beautiful. There is also a sprint button now, which was in Halo Reach, but not in any game starring Master Chief.
I quickly discovered that the invaders were the Covenant, though they seem to be from a different faction or something. There are no Brutes, but there are Elites, meaning these guys never got the message that humans and Elites are allies now... I fought a bunch of them, some of them during a great sequence outside the hull of the ship. There's a new weapon that I like quite a bit, the Storm Rifle. This thing is a Covenant assault rifle. It's fast, accurate and powerful, making it one of my favorite weapons to use.
On the horizon, an odd looking planet stares down at us and quickly starts pulling all the Covenant ships and the Forward Unto Dawn towards it. This is the first time a Halo game has cinematic first person sequences, similar to what is often seen in Call of Duty and honestly, they pull it off pretty well. For example, Master Chief gets pulled through debris as he crash lands on the planet below in first person view.
On the ground, Master Chief stumbles around the wreckage for a bit until Cortana locates a ship that we could use to escape. Cortana is going rampant due to her age. AI start losing it at 7 years old, but Cortana is 8 years old. This means that she is somewhat inaccurate, slow and sometimes downright scary. Not only does Master Chief want to escape the planet, he wants to save Cortana by getting her to her creator on Earth. Anyway, I fought more Covenant on the surface, trying to find the intact ship.
Eventually, we discovered that the signal from the intact ship was the USNC Infinity. A rescue ship! Unfortunately, we can't communicate with it just yet, though we found a weird portal while attempting to regain communications. We had a glimpse of some robotic entities that seem to be able to teleport at will before rushing out through the portal.
Using a Ghost vehicle, Master Chief escapes a dangerous area and reaches a relatively safe spot. From there, we saw the Infinity lose control of it's systems and crash land in the distance. I fought the new enemy type, Forerunners. These metallic enemies have new forms and behaviors, which is very welcome. Even more interestingly, they carry new weapon types. While there is the usual pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, burst rifle and sniper rifle, all of them feel different and look very very cool. They assemble themselves from pieces with a very awesome animation.
At first, the Covenant the the Forerunner units fought each other, which was nice for me. After a bit more exploration though, a powerful creature named the Didact was awakened. He clearly has malicious intentions, though I didn't quite catch what his objective was. Anyway, he flew to the location of the Infinity's wreck, so I followed it.
I met up with the humans who survived the crash and started helping out by clearing a landing zone. I fought alongside humans for the first time in a dense forest filled with Forerunners. It soon became evident that the Didact had convinced the Covenant to fight on his side against the humans. I got to ride a Scorpion tank to blow Covenant and Forerunner to bits.
Finally, I had to turn one large cannons to scare off the Didact's vehicle, guarding the Infinity. To do so, I rode an amazing piece of machinery, the Mantis. This bipedal mech is equipped with a powerful machine gun and some high damage rockets. This thing fucking tears through everything in a flash, including Covenant drop ships. In the next mission, the UNSC targets the gravity well that is keeping all ships grounded.
I really like what I've played of Halo 4 so far. One of the big reasons is that it looks just stunning. I mean, it's a last generation game technically, but boy, does it look great. The beautiful art style doesn't hurt either. It also plays like a more modern game with good level design and good set piece moments.
Platform: Xbox One
Session fun rating: 10/10
I played the first half of Halo 4's 10 missions, the only game in the series that I've never played. It starts in the hull of the wrecked Forward Unto Dawn starship as Cortana wakes Master Chief from cryogenic sleep. She detected intruders on the ship which is weird considering they are stranded in deep space after the events of Halo 3.
Chief wakes up and investigates the threat right away. There are major changes that are noticeable right away in this game. For one, Cortana looks completely different, though I kind of like her new look. Also, the game looks very good graphically. It doesn't look old like Halo 3 did, it looks like it fits rather well on Xbox One... The lighting effects are beautiful. There is also a sprint button now, which was in Halo Reach, but not in any game starring Master Chief.
 |
| I really love Halo... |
On the horizon, an odd looking planet stares down at us and quickly starts pulling all the Covenant ships and the Forward Unto Dawn towards it. This is the first time a Halo game has cinematic first person sequences, similar to what is often seen in Call of Duty and honestly, they pull it off pretty well. For example, Master Chief gets pulled through debris as he crash lands on the planet below in first person view.
On the ground, Master Chief stumbles around the wreckage for a bit until Cortana locates a ship that we could use to escape. Cortana is going rampant due to her age. AI start losing it at 7 years old, but Cortana is 8 years old. This means that she is somewhat inaccurate, slow and sometimes downright scary. Not only does Master Chief want to escape the planet, he wants to save Cortana by getting her to her creator on Earth. Anyway, I fought more Covenant on the surface, trying to find the intact ship.
Eventually, we discovered that the signal from the intact ship was the USNC Infinity. A rescue ship! Unfortunately, we can't communicate with it just yet, though we found a weird portal while attempting to regain communications. We had a glimpse of some robotic entities that seem to be able to teleport at will before rushing out through the portal.
Using a Ghost vehicle, Master Chief escapes a dangerous area and reaches a relatively safe spot. From there, we saw the Infinity lose control of it's systems and crash land in the distance. I fought the new enemy type, Forerunners. These metallic enemies have new forms and behaviors, which is very welcome. Even more interestingly, they carry new weapon types. While there is the usual pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, burst rifle and sniper rifle, all of them feel different and look very very cool. They assemble themselves from pieces with a very awesome animation.
At first, the Covenant the the Forerunner units fought each other, which was nice for me. After a bit more exploration though, a powerful creature named the Didact was awakened. He clearly has malicious intentions, though I didn't quite catch what his objective was. Anyway, he flew to the location of the Infinity's wreck, so I followed it.
I met up with the humans who survived the crash and started helping out by clearing a landing zone. I fought alongside humans for the first time in a dense forest filled with Forerunners. It soon became evident that the Didact had convinced the Covenant to fight on his side against the humans. I got to ride a Scorpion tank to blow Covenant and Forerunner to bits.
Finally, I had to turn one large cannons to scare off the Didact's vehicle, guarding the Infinity. To do so, I rode an amazing piece of machinery, the Mantis. This bipedal mech is equipped with a powerful machine gun and some high damage rockets. This thing fucking tears through everything in a flash, including Covenant drop ships. In the next mission, the UNSC targets the gravity well that is keeping all ships grounded.
I really like what I've played of Halo 4 so far. One of the big reasons is that it looks just stunning. I mean, it's a last generation game technically, but boy, does it look great. The beautiful art style doesn't hurt either. It also plays like a more modern game with good level design and good set piece moments.
