Halo 4
- Thread starter Rangers
- Start date
Everytime Cortana makes a gesture (to grab/interact with something in the physical world and such) as if she were a real person just makes me laugh. Regardless of the fact that she is an artificial person made from the living tissue of a real person, that image of hers is still just a projection and not her actual self...her real self is just a computer device.
Yeah, the floating holo interfaces Cortana keeps manipulating are also funny, but scientifically her interactions with humans are all completely wrong as well. A computer program, even if it has a personality, can think and communicate thousands of times as fast as any living person, and her emotional states probably shouldn't last as long either.
I think it was Frederik Pohl's sequels to The Gateway that properly explored AIs interacting with humans - how they had to find other things to keep themselves busy while they waited for people to hear, understand and process what they were told and then finally manage to answer
But this wouldn't work in any video game (think Legion and EDI in Mass Effect) and most definitely not in Halo. All the facial expressions, GUI gestures and delayed reactions served one purpose: building a connection with the player. This was the right way to go.
I think it was Frederik Pohl's sequels to The Gateway that properly explored AIs interacting with humans - how they had to find other things to keep themselves busy while they waited for people to hear, understand and process what they were told and then finally manage to answer
But this wouldn't work in any video game (think Legion and EDI in Mass Effect) and most definitely not in Halo. All the facial expressions, GUI gestures and delayed reactions served one purpose: building a connection with the player. This was the right way to go.
one plus i really liked about the game, they really nailed that incredibly fine line of weapon scarcity that so many shooters get wrong imo.
what i mean by that is you're fairly regularly (but yet not overly so, either) forced to forage weapons off the battlefield because you ran out of ammo. and they're all mostly fun. you cant just sit in a comfort zone with your same weapons all the time. and like i say, this dynamic wouldn't work if all the weapons werent actually fun to utilize, but they are.
it's a really delicate blalance thats hard to put your finger on but imo most shooters do weapons scarcity/differentiation all wrong. halo gets it right, at least halo 4 does, some of the past halos, less so. an example of doing it wrong i can think of is cod, where i really dont care what faceless weapon i pick up as they all seem 99% the same.
what i mean by that is you're fairly regularly (but yet not overly so, either) forced to forage weapons off the battlefield because you ran out of ammo. and they're all mostly fun. you cant just sit in a comfort zone with your same weapons all the time. and like i say, this dynamic wouldn't work if all the weapons werent actually fun to utilize, but they are.
it's a really delicate blalance thats hard to put your finger on but imo most shooters do weapons scarcity/differentiation all wrong. halo gets it right, at least halo 4 does, some of the past halos, less so. an example of doing it wrong i can think of is cod, where i really dont care what faceless weapon i pick up as they all seem 99% the same.
Well, I expressed myself badly. I just don't know of a better word in english to convey what I wanted to say, but I don't find cortana chubby in the sence she is fat, but in the sense her lines are a little undefined. Her whole look is kind of too soft and shapeless. She is a meh kind of woman. That's just me of course.
haha Fair enough.
I started playing last night and my overall impressions were that it doesn't quite feel Halo at the beginning, and the gfx aren't any better than other current games in the genre.
And the enemy AI is quite easy to trick; on one level I hung back and used a carbine to pick off all the enemies, who just stood still taking shots.
But the later sections are starting to shine in terms of Halo like gameplay and the gfx have taken a definite uptick in eye pop factor. Definitely better than H3 but on par with Reach so far.
The Chief speaking is a bit like Dredd taking off his helmet
But the later sections are starting to shine in terms of Halo like gameplay and the gfx have taken a definite uptick in eye pop factor. Definitely better than H3 but on par with Reach so far.
I'm on my third play through (Heroic) and I'm going the other way - my disappointment is if anything growing.
- Banshee levels are tiny, and flying a plane around a tiny box is stupid
- Elites can't handle flying planes around tiny boxes and keep getting stuck, or they turn into deadshot Aces.
- Difficulty isn't normally high, but is in places very imbalanced.
- Enemy movement isn't right - grunts for example can do amazing "no acceleration" high speed jumps of several meters (an attempt to force some kind of balance when the main ingredients aren't right)
- Checkpoints are often in bad places
- Doors lock behind you like an on rails platform shooter
- Level design is repetitive and uninspired, but unlike Halo 1 doesn't play to the strengths of enemy encounters
- Often harder to make out which weapons enemies are carrying (grey on grey)
- No fun to be had getting vehicles where they shouldn't go!
- Weapons, while mostly very good, have been tuned to handle more uniformly. Which is boring.
- Wraith aiming is a mess, like the weapons it's tuned for pointing and shooting straight at something quite close in front of you.
Campaign gameplay is far, far less fluid and far more "pop out and shoot the enemies in the correct order" than in Halo 3, ODST or Reach. It feels more like ... every other FPS.
It's like 343 made the building blocks for the levels and then the maps themselves independently of defining the gameplay mechanics. The focus for the engine - with it's smaller play areas, harsh limits on having entities lying around, and the complete abandonment of dark places (no VISR and stealth and no torch either) - has not been on enabling varied environments and gameplay spaces but on delivering fancy looking frames. I don't like this kind of hobbling - technology should be gameplay driven, not the other way round.
Bungie are a tough act to follow, and where it most counts 343 haven't really been up to the task. They're an A grade developer trying to fill AAA shoes, but it's early days for them and this is their first gig. Halo wasn't Bungie's first game, after all.
- Banshee levels are tiny, and flying a plane around a tiny box is stupid
- Elites can't handle flying planes around tiny boxes and keep getting stuck, or they turn into deadshot Aces.
- Difficulty isn't normally high, but is in places very imbalanced.
- Enemy movement isn't right - grunts for example can do amazing "no acceleration" high speed jumps of several meters (an attempt to force some kind of balance when the main ingredients aren't right)
- Checkpoints are often in bad places
- Doors lock behind you like an on rails platform shooter
- Level design is repetitive and uninspired, but unlike Halo 1 doesn't play to the strengths of enemy encounters
- Often harder to make out which weapons enemies are carrying (grey on grey)
- No fun to be had getting vehicles where they shouldn't go!
- Weapons, while mostly very good, have been tuned to handle more uniformly. Which is boring.
- Wraith aiming is a mess, like the weapons it's tuned for pointing and shooting straight at something quite close in front of you.
Campaign gameplay is far, far less fluid and far more "pop out and shoot the enemies in the correct order" than in Halo 3, ODST or Reach. It feels more like ... every other FPS.
It's like 343 made the building blocks for the levels and then the maps themselves independently of defining the gameplay mechanics. The focus for the engine - with it's smaller play areas, harsh limits on having entities lying around, and the complete abandonment of dark places (no VISR and stealth and no torch either) - has not been on enabling varied environments and gameplay spaces but on delivering fancy looking frames. I don't like this kind of hobbling - technology should be gameplay driven, not the other way round.
Bungie are a tough act to follow, and where it most counts 343 haven't really been up to the task. They're an A grade developer trying to fill AAA shoes, but it's early days for them and this is their first gig. Halo wasn't Bungie's first game, after all.
I'm thinking the disappearing weapons thing might be a memory issue. I vagely remember a Bungie dev talking about how you need to decide on this capability (persistent weapons) early on, incorporate it into your memory budget, and then stick to that memory budget. I'm thinking you're correct that 343 prioritized graphics over gameplay.
Also, the flying section in the last level is one of the stupidest, most tedious, most uninspired aspects of the game (and a lot of the SP campaign feels uninspired). I mean seriously? This is all they could come up with for a flying mission? It's the most un-fun way to go about it.
Also, the flying section in the last level is one of the stupidest, most tedious, most uninspired aspects of the game (and a lot of the SP campaign feels uninspired). I mean seriously? This is all they could come up with for a flying mission? It's the most un-fun way to go about it.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Finally finished it and mixed reactions.
First the graphics are great. I still personally like the art direction of Reach and prior Halos. Halo 4 seems to lose a bit of character because of the changes. But it's still technically quite brilliant in places. Shader aliasing still appears to be a problem but edge aliasing appears to be fairly well done.
I generally like the new AR and pistol. Unfortunately, they didn't go all the way. I miss how much ammo weapons used to hold. The AR used to hold 60 rounds in Halo 1. Shotguns held like 8 shells as well back then. And what's with shotguns only holding a max of 15 rounds? Bleh. The Halo 1 AR with 60 rounds would have made me grin and giggle like a schoolboy.
But things start to fall apart when I start playing.
Most outdoor levels have the "appearance" of being open but quite often prove to be relatively tiny compared to Reach.
What happened to my Covenant AI? Elites are far more stupid, dumb, easy, and boring than they were in Reach. As far as I'm concerned, Halo Reach is the pinnacle of enemy AI in a shooter thus far this generation. No other game even comes close. And Halo 4 unfortunately is in that boat.
I didn't think I'd miss the colorful enemies, but I do. Not only was it a part of the character of the series, lending humor and levity in what could otherwise be a dark and depressing series (humanity on the verge of extinction)...but it provided a very real and useful guide to quick enemy assement.
Then again, considering the AI is god awful (elites running straight at me to be gunned down while backpedaling? seriously?) most of the time, it's not that big of a deal.
I dislike the whole change in tone of the story. I know that every other shooter in existence now desires to be more "serious" more "grown up" and feature more moral ambiguity... Halo was refreshing in that up until now, you were playing an unambiguous badarsed hero type. Your supporting cast while not always competant generally supported you. Compare the commanders in Halos 1, 2, and 3 who were supportive of the chief, to the one in 4
.
Yeah yeah, but it's like that in other games, blah blah blah. I don't want Halo to be "other games." It just blends in with the bland mess of unmemorable "other games" while it goes down that path.
I definitely miss the color, style, and humor from the previous games. Reach was about as dark and dreary as I ever wanted to see, but even it managed to maintain that stuff. Halo 4 just seems intentionally too dark, too dreary, too characterless, too ambiguous, and too much like any other shooter you can play.
I could go on about the driving mechanics, flying mechanics, etc. But people should get the point. In general it's not as good as Reach, IMO. Halo Reach, currently being the best shooter on a console, IMO although Halo 3 beats it in some areas (the epic Scarab battles).
Now all this might make it seem like I didn't like they game. I did. It was a good first effort by 343i. Unfortunately, if this is the direction they are going with it...trying to be like every other shooter (Uncharted, COD, BF3, etc.) then I'm really don't think I like the direction it is going.
Halo was enjoyable and unique because of its style, conjunction of colorful aliens with humor in a dark universe, and solid gameplay with generally speaking the best enemy AI at the time of any given release.
343i's Halo 4 is very polished on many levels. Better human animations, better facial modeling, etc. But honestly, I'd take the prior Halo's gameplay and art direction over a more polished presentation anyday of the week.
I'll cross my fingers that 343i will improve and rethink the direction they are going, but I'm not entirely confident they will.
Regards,
SB
First the graphics are great. I still personally like the art direction of Reach and prior Halos. Halo 4 seems to lose a bit of character because of the changes. But it's still technically quite brilliant in places. Shader aliasing still appears to be a problem but edge aliasing appears to be fairly well done.
I generally like the new AR and pistol. Unfortunately, they didn't go all the way. I miss how much ammo weapons used to hold. The AR used to hold 60 rounds in Halo 1. Shotguns held like 8 shells as well back then. And what's with shotguns only holding a max of 15 rounds? Bleh. The Halo 1 AR with 60 rounds would have made me grin and giggle like a schoolboy.
But things start to fall apart when I start playing.
Most outdoor levels have the "appearance" of being open but quite often prove to be relatively tiny compared to Reach.
What happened to my Covenant AI? Elites are far more stupid, dumb, easy, and boring than they were in Reach. As far as I'm concerned, Halo Reach is the pinnacle of enemy AI in a shooter thus far this generation. No other game even comes close. And Halo 4 unfortunately is in that boat.
I didn't think I'd miss the colorful enemies, but I do. Not only was it a part of the character of the series, lending humor and levity in what could otherwise be a dark and depressing series (humanity on the verge of extinction)...but it provided a very real and useful guide to quick enemy assement.
Then again, considering the AI is god awful (elites running straight at me to be gunned down while backpedaling? seriously?) most of the time, it's not that big of a deal.
I dislike the whole change in tone of the story. I know that every other shooter in existence now desires to be more "serious" more "grown up" and feature more moral ambiguity... Halo was refreshing in that up until now, you were playing an unambiguous badarsed hero type. Your supporting cast while not always competant generally supported you. Compare the commanders in Halos 1, 2, and 3 who were supportive of the chief, to the one in 4
who was actively hostile. At least he got what was coming to him at the end, but meh
Yeah yeah, but it's like that in other games, blah blah blah. I don't want Halo to be "other games." It just blends in with the bland mess of unmemorable "other games" while it goes down that path.
I definitely miss the color, style, and humor from the previous games. Reach was about as dark and dreary as I ever wanted to see, but even it managed to maintain that stuff. Halo 4 just seems intentionally too dark, too dreary, too characterless, too ambiguous, and too much like any other shooter you can play.
I could go on about the driving mechanics, flying mechanics, etc. But people should get the point. In general it's not as good as Reach, IMO. Halo Reach, currently being the best shooter on a console, IMO although Halo 3 beats it in some areas (the epic Scarab battles).
Now all this might make it seem like I didn't like they game. I did. It was a good first effort by 343i. Unfortunately, if this is the direction they are going with it...trying to be like every other shooter (Uncharted, COD, BF3, etc.) then I'm really don't think I like the direction it is going.
Halo was enjoyable and unique because of its style, conjunction of colorful aliens with humor in a dark universe, and solid gameplay with generally speaking the best enemy AI at the time of any given release.
343i's Halo 4 is very polished on many levels. Better human animations, better facial modeling, etc. But honestly, I'd take the prior Halo's gameplay and art direction over a more polished presentation anyday of the week.
I'll cross my fingers that 343i will improve and rethink the direction they are going, but I'm not entirely confident they will.
Regards,
SB
I haven't played it yet, and might not play it, but saying "every other shooter" and then listing three games that play as differently from each other as they do from Halo 3/Reach doesn't really help your argument.
Billy Idol
Legend
I thought exactly the same.
Billy Idol
Legend
But even in this case, Uncharted does not fit...well, never mind, who really cares....
HALO 4 makes fun. That is all that counts for me. People often seem to have a romantic view on old games or prequels (me included). Devs can't please everyone I guess...
(((interference)))
Veteran
I thought Halo 1 was quite dark, I felt it was more serious than Halo 3 actually, which was too melodramatic for me.
I like the sense of wonder and mystery you got from the minimalism of Halo 1.
I like the sense of wonder and mystery you got from the minimalism of Halo 1.
There were some great characters and scenes in Halo 1. Well Guilty Spark 343 was in it, and Cortana didn't have sad brow yet.
I'm disappointed with Halo 4. Halo has always been a fantastic mix of different elements, but what always stood out to me was the attention to detail in the subtle elements of the gameplay. Halo 4 feels like it completely lacks this.
There are many things in Reach that are there primarily for subconscious recognition. Used to reduce player confusion and give more tactical awareness. Appreciation of these elements is tricky to communicate, but I believe it is part of what gives a game staying power.
The audio design in Reach was especially impressive - lots of very subtle things, like the unique sound each gun makes when selected (both by yourself and other players). Someone has the energy sword? you know about it instantly. The unique sound each weapon made - at range and up close.
But it's far more than that - vehicle sounds were especially well done in reach. Play a BTB game, and usually you can simply hear what is going on in the game. You can hear the distinct sound of a ghost from across the map (if it is occluded too) - the distinct blast of the tank with echo and delay, the whine of a banshee etc. In halo 4, I've often been run over by vehicles that were completely silent. It's frustrating and it's bad game design.
I could go on and on - just about the audio: Foot step sounds are badly balanced based on material, impact sounds are all thuds (the needler makes a thud sound now?), assassinations are comical in how bad they sound (thud thud thud!), grunt chatter feels like mindless squarks with less sense of urgency/panic/characteer. Elites rarely announce their presence (especially those with energy swords). Even the foley audio in the cut scenes is incredibly armature. The game's unique identity has been lost through this lack of attention to subtle detail.
It carries on in visual design too. As many people have mentioned, there is a lot of subtlety in character design. Their colours, stance, animations and audio. This feels completely lacking in H4 - even the knights lack a sense of distinction.
Play as red team, and all your team mates have large blue nameplates floating above them. Enemies have red indicators... Reach did this too, but it was subtle variations of blue (blue/green for hud, much more saturated for characters). But here it's dramatic and genuinely caused me to shoot my teammates and ignore enemy players the first few games I played.
And UI and the font. Hell. Absolutely disgraceful. An ALL CAPS font, with digital style straight lines / hard corners - poorly pixel aligned producing nasty up scaling artefacts with almost no variation in size, colour, etc. It's incredibly hard to read because it is all so similar, you have to strain to read it. You see cut off text and text overrun its border in places. For gods sake, BTB is titled "Big Team Infinity Slaye" while in game. Did anyone test this?
The bloom and god ray effects are exaggerated often to the point of stupidity. A well exposed scene should not bloom, with exception to very bright small details. Play Ragnarok and it seems at least half of the time the screen is awash in bloom. This makes it hard to focus, and strains your eyes / brain. I find a single game will often give me a headache for this very reason.
Beyond that, the bloom is poorly implemented anyway - the auto exposure is based on screen brightness not scene brightness. This means you can get into situations where the auto exposure starts to oscillate and not settle. The result is that the adjustment is very slow (likely to reduce this nasty oscillation) - further straining vision. Most infuriatingly - and completely boggling to me as a graphics programmer - the player's weapon and its muzzle flash affect this auto exposure.
In some of the darker single player levels, it is possible to have the ground almost completely black out due to the exposure system trying to compensate for your gun fire. This is utterly unacceptable in my opinion and a severe gameplay issue (it also is a large cause of headaches).
I could go on, there are a large number of other technical issues I'm not happy with. They all point back to that lack of attention to the subtle details.
I haven't even touched on actual gameplay elements either. But here's an example: In reach, if you are zoomed in and get hit - you zoom out. This doesn't happen in H4 and dramatically changes how long range DMR duels play out. There are lots of these little issues that are missing in H4.
Weapon balance? Yikes. I could write an essay on that too. I remember a bungie developer saying [paraphrase] "never make a weapon weaker - make other weapons stronger". Sticky grenade anyone?
But perhaps what disappoints me the most is that it feels like decisions have been made for the wrong reasons. Firefight, an incredibly dynamic game mode has been turned into a turgid dull mess that is 'Spartan ops' on the mad assumption that people wanted to play co-op for the story. As a result it has become a dull slog through recycled linear environments where groups of enemies wait for you to take them out and you have to endure some of the most uninspired and poorly written dialog in gaming history ("go rescue those geeks!"). And surprise, you can't watch the Spartan ops story videos in co-op. It sums it up for me really; grand ambition to create something epic while completing missing the point of creating a memorable game while ignoring the fundamental subtleties that make an experience great.
Disappointed.
(P.S. - I apologize for the incredibly hostile tone of this post, I made it at 1am. I realise that what 343 has created is an incredible achievement for a new developer and I have much respect for what they have produced, however I still can't help feel disappointed overall)
There are many things in Reach that are there primarily for subconscious recognition. Used to reduce player confusion and give more tactical awareness. Appreciation of these elements is tricky to communicate, but I believe it is part of what gives a game staying power.
The audio design in Reach was especially impressive - lots of very subtle things, like the unique sound each gun makes when selected (both by yourself and other players). Someone has the energy sword? you know about it instantly. The unique sound each weapon made - at range and up close.
But it's far more than that - vehicle sounds were especially well done in reach. Play a BTB game, and usually you can simply hear what is going on in the game. You can hear the distinct sound of a ghost from across the map (if it is occluded too) - the distinct blast of the tank with echo and delay, the whine of a banshee etc. In halo 4, I've often been run over by vehicles that were completely silent. It's frustrating and it's bad game design.
I could go on and on - just about the audio: Foot step sounds are badly balanced based on material, impact sounds are all thuds (the needler makes a thud sound now?), assassinations are comical in how bad they sound (thud thud thud!), grunt chatter feels like mindless squarks with less sense of urgency/panic/characteer. Elites rarely announce their presence (especially those with energy swords). Even the foley audio in the cut scenes is incredibly armature. The game's unique identity has been lost through this lack of attention to subtle detail.
It carries on in visual design too. As many people have mentioned, there is a lot of subtlety in character design. Their colours, stance, animations and audio. This feels completely lacking in H4 - even the knights lack a sense of distinction.
Play as red team, and all your team mates have large blue nameplates floating above them. Enemies have red indicators... Reach did this too, but it was subtle variations of blue (blue/green for hud, much more saturated for characters). But here it's dramatic and genuinely caused me to shoot my teammates and ignore enemy players the first few games I played.
And UI and the font. Hell. Absolutely disgraceful. An ALL CAPS font, with digital style straight lines / hard corners - poorly pixel aligned producing nasty up scaling artefacts with almost no variation in size, colour, etc. It's incredibly hard to read because it is all so similar, you have to strain to read it. You see cut off text and text overrun its border in places. For gods sake, BTB is titled "Big Team Infinity Slaye" while in game. Did anyone test this?
The bloom and god ray effects are exaggerated often to the point of stupidity. A well exposed scene should not bloom, with exception to very bright small details. Play Ragnarok and it seems at least half of the time the screen is awash in bloom. This makes it hard to focus, and strains your eyes / brain. I find a single game will often give me a headache for this very reason.
Beyond that, the bloom is poorly implemented anyway - the auto exposure is based on screen brightness not scene brightness. This means you can get into situations where the auto exposure starts to oscillate and not settle. The result is that the adjustment is very slow (likely to reduce this nasty oscillation) - further straining vision. Most infuriatingly - and completely boggling to me as a graphics programmer - the player's weapon and its muzzle flash affect this auto exposure.
In some of the darker single player levels, it is possible to have the ground almost completely black out due to the exposure system trying to compensate for your gun fire. This is utterly unacceptable in my opinion and a severe gameplay issue (it also is a large cause of headaches).
I could go on, there are a large number of other technical issues I'm not happy with. They all point back to that lack of attention to the subtle details.
I haven't even touched on actual gameplay elements either. But here's an example: In reach, if you are zoomed in and get hit - you zoom out. This doesn't happen in H4 and dramatically changes how long range DMR duels play out. There are lots of these little issues that are missing in H4.
Weapon balance? Yikes. I could write an essay on that too. I remember a bungie developer saying [paraphrase] "never make a weapon weaker - make other weapons stronger". Sticky grenade anyone?
But perhaps what disappoints me the most is that it feels like decisions have been made for the wrong reasons. Firefight, an incredibly dynamic game mode has been turned into a turgid dull mess that is 'Spartan ops' on the mad assumption that people wanted to play co-op for the story. As a result it has become a dull slog through recycled linear environments where groups of enemies wait for you to take them out and you have to endure some of the most uninspired and poorly written dialog in gaming history ("go rescue those geeks!"). And surprise, you can't watch the Spartan ops story videos in co-op. It sums it up for me really; grand ambition to create something epic while completing missing the point of creating a memorable game while ignoring the fundamental subtleties that make an experience great.
Disappointed.
(P.S. - I apologize for the incredibly hostile tone of this post, I made it at 1am. I realise that what 343 has created is an incredible achievement for a new developer and I have much respect for what they have produced, however I still can't help feel disappointed overall)
