So how is everyone here?

Good and yourself?

Quite well, scrolling through my subbed to trim down on what I have to worry about. Gonna keep this one. Just thought I'd pop in for a bit to check on y'all.

Next post incoming.

Alright, I just posted for the first time.

Nallore said Xbox One is the way of the future lol.

All teasing aside, I just don't trust Microsoft or Xbox One after the shenanigan they tried to pull last year. Especially since they left the clause in that let's them bring all those old changes back again in a heart beat.

I would be more upset over that cause it means I'm giving up Halo... But 343 completely ruined Halo 4 for me, showing how little they care for the franchise. So I'm rather fine now with just not touching anymore games and saying the franchise finished with Halo Reach.

343 took a dump on the franchise, unless they can turn it all around in Halo 5 (MC Collection doesn't count, since they're basically reskinning xD) then they have screwed themselves over because from what I know Halo 4 was not all that well received among fans. I know I didn't receive it all too well xD

Next IC Post is up.

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I actually really enjoyed HALO 4. I liked the story that was told, and appreciated the fact that they really brought more the EU into the mix. The gameplay, while a little stale, still offers enough to keep me entertained. Though, I do wish you could aim down sights. I can't speak for the Multi-Player though, as I haven't played it, nor really any Halo Multi-Player. I like Halo for the Single-Player.

Awesome post Swift I'll be getting mine up once I'm out of work. :)

I'd point out that the type-52 wasn't encountered until 2552, but screw that lore shit, lets get on with the badassery!

Halo four multiplayer was pretty terrible. The single player story was all right, though it kind of pissed on the covenant which annoyed me xD The multiplayer included way too many elements that just detracted from the game rather than added to it as had been intended... I'm looking at you loadouts. Why the hell would you give me a choice between a precision weapon like the DMR and an assault rifle? Obviously the DMR has an advantage, especially since the motion tracker range was extended past the effective range of the assault rifle, rendering it pretty useless

I rather enjoyed the loadout's.

It allows you to start with your style, new players tend to do better with the assault rifle cause it's just shoot like crazy, rather than having to worry about precision.
But for those who do have some precision you still have the variety of models, Battle Rifle? DMR? Carbine? And then there's choosing your spartan power, your grenade and your preferred pistol as well.

Gameplay wise my main complaint is their kill streaks. An obvious COD rip off (Load outs technically was too, but at least it had some benefit) which completely screws over map balance. Now any player can get a OP weapon if they gain a few kills. One of the charms of earlier Halo games was watching the whole team fight over the one energy sword or rocket launcher on the map. Not anymore. :(

The story... bleh.

I have a number of issues with that.

1. Master Chief talked way too much.
His main charm was being the quiet bad ass who spoke little words. Halo 4 felt like they threw him into a Shakespeare play.

2. The Villain
He shows twice... for like a minute each. The first time he pops out of no where goes "Hi, I'm a villain, Grrr!" and leaves. Never coming again until end game where having only seen him for a minute you wouldn't care for him at all.

3. The way they told the story
Having to cram your entire story in a two minute rant, through from vision from a God woman was just the laziest form of writing and story telling I ever saw. Is it too much to ask for gradual story progression throughout the campaign? From characters? It is? Ok.... fuck you Halo 4.

4. Covenenant is EVIL!!!
They already resolved this, the Prophets were gone and the Elites were good with humanity.
Now apparently the Arbiter become totally incapable in finding his lost bretheran and elites are now evil because... people want to kill elites?

5. The new enemies are cheap
The Praetorian's were cheap as hell, spawn out of nowhere and have the ability to kill you in one hit, at full health.
They weren't a challenge, they were "How many respawn's until you memorize where they are" sort of threat.

I disagree on custom loadouts. Any player with any skill to shoot straight wil take ofne of the precision weapons, pick up another player on his much larger motion tracker and will be able to take down an AR user with relative ease. As a result, given the larger maps, increased motion tracker and thus AR decreased efficency, most players will take a precision weapon. If you go into a game in Halo 4 now, you'll be hard pressed to find a match where someone isn't using a precision in their loadout. The precision weapons and the AR aren't on the same level, they aren't supposed to be, the precision weapons such as the DMR are better as long as you have a half decent aim (There's even disparity between the different precisions in terms of power :/ ).
Armour abilities, I get to choose which ability to bring along. Why? Why wouldn't you have them as something to hunt out and only have a set starting on? (Unless it was an invasion style game mode, then I could understand because that was meant to be an op fuck fest xD) Why are some of them level locked, if you were gonna go the way of allowing players to choose how they want to play, why would you slap a restriction on right off the bat for no reason other than to try and create an incentive to play, but in actuality just create inbalance?
Pistol wise? Play big team battle, there is a mass over use of the plamsa pistol, turning a previously vehicle heavy gametype into infantry warfare. In slayer, boltshot. Need I say more? Its secondary mode is pretty overpowered to start with. Perk? This one Is surprisingly have not too many issues with, it really didn't feel like my perks were a big boost and you couldn't really notice it with other players though there were a few which are just silly.
It doesn't let you play the way you want because there are weapons that are just better than others on there. Those are the ones people are going to use. Not only that, but why should I spawn with a weapon of my choice? Its mother fucking halo, the game built around map control, finding your weapons and skill, not built around tossing you a choice of weapons then letting you bring in power weapons to your feet after a few kills so you can get more kills and call yet another in.

Another problem with this ordinance system is not just that it wrecks map control... Its completely random. They made it do your points would carry over so the losing team can eventually get ordenance... But they could end up choosing between frags, a speed boost and a scattershot while the enemy teams gets to choice out of a rocket, binary rifle ir damage boost. Fair... Its silly that me and my opponent could be neck and neck, reach ordinance... And then he pulls several kills ahead, getting more ordinance because he got to spawn in a rocket launcher and I got some frags :/

Story

1 Apparently people don't agree with me on this point, but I agree with you. Chatter box chief isn't as good as quiet chief. Quiet chief seems more professional, like he's focussing and planning out his moves.

2 His screen time was laughable, I agree. He had potential as a villain that wasn't fully realised because our encounters with him were a few minutes if gloating

3 Seems more like they wanted you to have read and analyzed all of the newer halo books to fully understand what was going in. For anyone else, you got two minutes exposition from a dead woman and unexplained stuff all over the place. As I said above I thought it was alright, and even on the good side at some points..., but I admit it could have had better pacing... And better explanation, why do these covenant remnants get beaten up so often?! They clearly have their own mother fucking covenant war fleet, how does infinity go around kicking their arse 0.o

4 Interesting how these Elites, who are apparently the Elites from the covenant who decided "No, fuck you, we'll believe what we want" somehow lost all tactical skill and underwent badass decay because lets fuck up the Elites some more. I hope arbiter and his Elites still have a brain left between in their skull. These are supposed to be the alien race which won the war for the humans. Without them the humans wouldn't have won, and without them the covenant wouldn't have grown to be so strong. They're deadly, brutal, intelligent, cunning and loyal. Did Jul get landed with all the Elites who were dropped at birth xD

5 Their shields had an annoying habit of recharging to full the second they teleported... And they had an annoying habit of teleporting the second you came close to breaking their shields. That's just an example of why they aren't a challenge but just irratating xD

I didn't mind Halo 4 too much, although speaking as an Elite player all throughout Halo 2, 3 and Reach, I was disappointed with the treatment of the "Hinge-heads".
ESPECIALLY what they did in Multiplayer. I know it's supposed to be a Spartan Training Simulator, but if Humanity is allied with the Elites, shouldn't the two be training together? If there's obviously splinter groups out there, why not fight against/alongside them?

Actually, if anybody here's played through or watched the Cutscenes from Spartan ops, does anybody think that this scene was a little bit... much?
I mean one spartan, unarmed and alone, versus at least five energy sword wielding Splinter Elites... and he manages to slay nearly all of them before he gets clocked in the head.
It seems like Elites got bumped down from deadly-brutal-intelligent-cunning-and-loyal foes to Saturday morning cartoon villains.

I posted.

The armor in Halo 4 looked so weird.

I agree Halo 4 armor wasn't really my favorite Reach's felt more human then any of the other games in my opinion. The only armor sets I liked from 4 are mainly the classic ones like Mark 5, Mark 6, Recon and ODST. But my favorite would have been the Raider set, the rest looked more alien like.

I mean like, they just looked so weird! Idk why, something about them just gives me an Alien vibe, even the Mark 5, Mark 6, ODST, and Recon ones, that look somewhat human.

Granted on the Loadouts, it does make it pretty unbalanced. But they're at least somewhat comparable and not say Rocker Launchers, Gravity Hammers, Energy Swords, Fuel Rods etc.

The Ordance we were always in agreement, they broke the game and ruined the whole point of map design and mini-wars over a weapon.

And I think we also seem to both agree that story was pretty lackluster.

TheAngryMelon said
It seems like Elites got bumped down from deadly-brutal-intelligent-cunning-and-loyal foes to Saturday morning cartoon villains.

I remember that feeling of absolute terror fighting elites when I first played CE. Since then, they've been sort of dwarfed by bigger threats from the Covenant. I feel like they haven't made as fierce of an impression since, with the exception of the arbiters - especially Ripa Moramee. I dunno, the halo gods listened to me when I wanted a book about the covenant, so I'll press my luck: Here's me hoping for a full game where you can play as the arbiter, or an elite special ops group.

Oh and Queen, I love your sig with Steph Curry breaking George Hill's ankles!!! Go Warriors!!!