Halo 4: The Forerunner's Revenge of the Precursor's Plans of the Reckoning...Trilogy?

Well, we know it's got Master Chief in it.

Halo 4 is the newest Halo game out from Microsoft's internal studio, 343 studios, making this game a departure from the Bungie Halo games. Oh no, cried purists who grew distrustful any time a favorite game was doled out to a secondary studio.

I can say without a doubt, 343 studios has taken what everyone loves about Halo, and they've kept it sacred. There's something dangerous about putting a popular game on a pedestal, and refusing to change anything due to reverence of the past (or do to easy copy/paste jobs in games to keep a franchise milking money for years to come).

I'm looking at you Call of Duty Modern Warfare Black Ops Combat 25.

One great thing about Bungie's development of Halo is that they weren't afraid to change the schema of the game, adding dual-wielding, armor abilities, new playable characters, etc; as the series went on. 

The number one cause of me screaming BULLSHIT!!! in 2004. 

Bungie allowed the game to change and evolve, and each game has a sort of niche factor to it. Halo 1 had that classic deathmatch feel to it, Halo 2 was definitely an arms race on weapon load-outs, Halo 3 added ridiculous weapons like the gravity hammer; Reach added armor abilities. Minor tweaks of course, but each one changed how we played the game. While some of my friends really focused on certain weapons, like the Sniper Rifle/Battle rifle, each game I found myself experimenting with different weapons, different combinations, to really change my play style.

Of course I was brutally killed and tea bagged constantly. 

DAMNIT DUDE JUST STOP

Halo 4 does have changes in it. Gone is dual wielding (just like in Reach) and weapons have been changed here and there. Armor abilities are still in play, and weapons have been tweaked adding more power or "nerfing" of weapon types to get everyone out there experimenting to find their best fit. Wait. Armor abilities, no dual wielding, change in tone of the story, more Spartans than just the Chief...isn't this just Halo Reach with better graphics?

Now with more Master Chief! 

There are some changes! Hold on! It's just not a radical jump. Each of the changes have been, like I've said, tweaks and minor changes. Halo as a series has been the same throughout. There as super space soldiers, and they are fighting in space, or on earth, or on a colonized planet, or on a giant magical space gravity field planet...it's not War and Peace!

Still, have Nikolai battle some aliens and it'd be a much easier read.

   The biggest change is the story. The tone, I mean. Halo 4 is less of a race against time against an evil alien menace (I mean, there IS that, but it's more background) instead in the foreground is the relationship between Spartan John 117 and his AI companion Cortana. 

She keeps getting sexier and I keep getting weirder. 

Cortana, who has evolved from nagging voice in our heads, telling us to go to objective after objective is more prominent than any of the Halo games before. She's losing her mind, going into a state of rampancy (basically AI alzheimers mixed with a bit of a god complex) of which there is no known cure. So Chief does what he does best: He says he'll fix her, and off we go, guns blazing killing more aliens in the process. But even more so for the human element of Cortana, we get a heck of a lot more Master Chief in this game! 

And more of Steve Downes' smooth sultry voice.

For the first few missions, the dynamic is strictly Master Chief/Cortana. Back and forth quips as you blast your way through covenant and a new enemy that can be described as the villains of Tron with skull faces.

Wow. Commander Sark got scary all of a sudden. 

Of course the story takes a turn for the crazy when a ship full of fresh, meat shield ready space marines finds their way into Halo 4's crazy inside-out planet, and The Chief, Cortana and their new friends have to save the galaxy before bedtime. 

That's it for the story portion of the review. I'm the kind of guy who doesn't want to tell all the nitty gritty details, because then there's no point to play the campaign mode. So, next stop is the portion of the game I fear the most: Multiplayer! 

DAMNIT

There are 3 ways to play multiplayer in Halo 4. Co-Op campaign, WarGames (the standard team based/deathmatch/crazy rules multiplayer mode) and the Co-Op Spartan Ops: a new mission a week multiplayer game that tells the story of a Spartan IV team.

WarGames is the basic "multiplayer" mode. It has all the bells and whistles leading to 16 player deathmatches, capture the flags, king of the kills; all the good fancy game modes. Plus Flood Mode (infecting other players) and an improved Grifball mode.

Spartan Ops is pretty much mission based levels, where you're sent to eliminate X amount of enemies, destroy X amount of targets and head to extraction. For Co-op lovers like myself, it adds more fun (due to my terrible aim in games like CTF and Slayer) by allowing me to brutally murder the computer, who doesn't glitch to the top of the screen and doesn't tell me what horrible things he's done to my mother with the voice of a 10 year old. 

QUIT CALLING ME A NOOB!

The big difference in the online play is the new "load-out" system. You start out with your basic Assault Rifle and Pistol, and you kill your way to more experience points to unlock new weapons, new armor abilities and such. This "carrot-on-a-stick" leveling system is seen in other FPS games and in my opinion, has become something of a dead horse beaten on by every publisher now. Still, it does give a goal-system to unlock better abilities to be able to hold your own against other players. Just, keep your head down while those guys with the sniper rifles are lining your head into a shot.

The Verdict

Halo 4 is not going to change the face of the First Person Shooter forever. It still holds true to the form and function of Halo: Combat Evolved, ten years after its launch. And to be honest, that's not a bad thing. It adds new things with each new game, Master Chief and friends boldly travel to new worlds, spilling blue and purple blood to protect humanity, and it's still fun. 

Nothing beats split screen slayer, elbowing your friends and shouting to quit screen watching. Halo 4 can still deliver that, though now you'll need another tv, system, game and a LAN chord for the other two guys (thanks 2 person split screen). You can make parties with friends and spend hours killing, camping, sniping and tea bagging, or you can play with random people and risk getting called sexist and racial terms by kids. 

Hey, it's Halo. It's still fun. And it's good to see the Chief back in action.