Halo 4 - Catch All

I have really enjoyed watching the evolution of Chief and Cortana over the years.

Spoiler:

The Chief's reaction to leaving her behind in Halo 4 was much different than in Halo 2, even though both decisions were her own. Her comment to Chief that "when it's over, figure out which one of us is the machine" is foreshadowing a lot of this story. Cortana is gaining more humanity through her rampancy and the Chief is loosing his for whatever reason. The opening cut scene also foreshadows where they're going with Chief. Dr. Halsey basically admits to the mysterious interrogator that the Spartan II's were anti social and she gave them the tools to deal with that, namely, AI's like Cortana. Without her at this point in the Chief's life, I think we're going to see him go really dark.

So where are they going with this? This game also foreshadows Cortana's future:

Spoiler:

The game makes it a point to explain how the Forerunners attempted to "recompose" (i.e., via the Composer) their flesh and blood bodies into digital versions that would be immune to the Flood, and when the flood threat was over, recompose themselves back into organic material. However, for all their advanced tech, the Forerunners never got that part quite right. The re-composition failed, resulting in the flawed personalities that were eventually turned into the Knights. So, Cortana was the first AI cloned from human tissue, Dr. Hasley's brain, because apparently the Librarian gave Dr. Halsey the tech to do so (or "allowed" her to discover the tech). She tells the Chief in the second level that "maybe" her neural net can be reconfigured to "fix her." At the end of Halo 4, Cortana has apparently defeated her rampancy by "discharging" her rampant "spikes" into the Didact's system. Why should couldn't do that before, I don't know. However, Cortana has apparently mastered the manipulation of the "hard light" the Forerunners use. You've seen the Forerunner "hard light" with the light bridges, the shields the Watchers generate for the knights, and the Jackel's shields (which are co-opted forerunner tech). When Cortana "touched" the Master Chief at the end, she was in her "hard light" form. I suspect that the next games will deal with us helping Cortana master and solve the Forerunner's problem of recomposing themselves from a digital form back into organic material, and Cortana will be come a real human. Maybe she'll get put into Palmer's mind, or something.... and then she and Chief can finally "do it" to save the friendship! /Seinfeld.

A few gameplay observations, good/bad:

Love:

  • How you can totally destroy vehicles. Just blow them to smithereens!
  • The slight bit of Gregorian chant at a certain point in the game. Nice tip of the hat!
    Running!
  • The new Promethian weapons.

    Hate:

  • No helmet light? Why get rid of that?
  • Really missing the heavy metal guitar riffs when the battles get intense. The new score is too... electronic for my tastes. Although I do like two tracks: Belly of the Beast and Arrival.
  • What's up with the "Battlestar Galactica wannabe" singing in the start screen?
  • The new sound of the Warthog. It's too loud, and sounds too much like a mongoose/motorcycle. Sounds like it lost its muffler.
  • Too many buttons! And also, "Defend this Area" parts of the levels suck.
  • The new "grunt speak."
  • How mechanical the new plasma pistol sounds
  • Why is Cortana using her "hands" to type on a virtual screen? She can do hundreds of thousands of calculations in her "heard." In Halo CE when she "accessed" a computer she just put her hand to her head like she was thinking.
  • The lack of human weapons near the end of the game. Halo 2 had this problem as well. There were a few, but not enough.
  • Grenades in general seem nerfed. Not as much oompf.
  • The CG cut scenes show Chief nearly 8 feet tall and towering over normal humans, but in the game, I'm eye level with every marine and human I meet.
  • That piss-poor excuse of a "Legendary" ending.

    I was really pumped to...

    Spoiler:

    fly the broadsword... until I died 5 million times! I could't make out A LOT of opening in that level and just got really frustrated. And then when I was trying the level on Legendary for the weekly challenge, I got a checkpoint right in-front of a metal door sliding out so as soon as the game restarted, I blew up instantly. Terrible! Had to restart the whole level and all that time wasted. I have dreamed of finally flying a Pelican, but it was a rehash of the chopper from Halo Reach.

    The long sword space combat in Reach was SOOO much more fun than this.

    If you watched the web series "Forward Unto Dawn," then...

    Spoiler:

    the reuniting of Lansky and Chief was REALLY poorly done. I mean, Lansky became the leader he is because of the Chief. How about a ""What? How? My God, you're alive! We all thought you were dead! I'm sooo happy to see you!" Instead we get, "Oh, hey, 'sup? Go clear an LZ." And Palmer comes face to face with a living legend, and she just says, "Thought you'd be taller," which was kind of funny as it's something that the marines say in Halo 1 a lot, but it just fell flat for me."

    Spartan Ops is not as much fun as Firefight, and for the love of God, who is writing these episodes? Can Fem Shep Palmer please stop calling scientists "geeks" and "Egg heads"? Doesn't 343 know who is buying their game? The geeks and egg heads! Grrr.

    So... it sounds like I have a lot of complaints, but it's only because I really like it and just wish it had a little something more to make it truly a classic. Played a few levels of co-op campaign on a 100' projection screen and it looked and played great. Here's hoping we get Halo 2 Anniversary next year!

  • It's not clear from the competing fiction when exactly John was paired with Cortana. Depending on the source you read, John fought the Covenant for over 25 years before the Fall of Planet Reach and being paired with Cortana on a fairly regular basis.

    Gonna bomb around in Spartan Ops and maybe some campaign tonight. If anyone is interested send a friend request to gainscwa.

    Uggh. The resetting loadouts issue. They need to fix this.

    I'm new to gamers with jobs and have been a fan of Halo since the very beginning. Work and family squeeze out my available gaming time, but I try to play when I can. Feel free to send me a friend invitation on Xbox live if you'd be interested in playing together. I don't have particularly good aim but I enjoy lots of teamwork.

    Supertofu wrote:

    I'm new to gamers with jobs and have been a fan of Halo since the very beginning. Work and family squeeze out my available gaming time, but I try to play when I can. Feel free to send me a friend invitation on Xbox live if you'd be interested in playing together. I don't have particularly good aim but I enjoy lots of teamwork.

    What's your gamertag and what game-types are you looking to play?

    Supertofu: what modes do you like to play? We're both on the west coast so I could see us being able to sync up for a game or two each week.

    So I bought the LE verson with the season pass - I entered the code and then was told to use Waypoint or somesuch to download new maps. I can't seem to figure out how to get the new maps without paying for them. I saw there were some issues with the season pass on the new maps, but was curious if anyone else who has the LE has figured it out.

    TexasRay wrote:

    So I bought the LE verson with the season pass - I entered the code and then was told to use Waypoint or somesuch to download new maps. I can't seem to figure out how to get the new maps without paying for them. I saw there were some issues with the season pass on the new maps, but was curious if anyone else who has the LE has figured it out.

    This thread on the Xbox.com forums says it's supposed to be available sometime in the next 2 hours for those of us with LE or season passes. You should be able to download it from the Marketplace section of the Halo 4 in-game main menu.

    No clue why it wasn't available at the same time it showed up in the Marketplace though. After I saw the advertisement on the Xbox dashboard earlier this morning, I loaded the game and only saw themes and avatar items available from the in-game Marketplace. The out-of-game one was trying to charge 800 spacebucks so I decided I'd wait till after work to check again.

    Thanks.

    SaintFaucet wrote:

    The out-of-game one was trying to charge 800 spacebucks so I decided I'd wait till after work to check again.

    That's exactly what I did - I started to just download the maps, saw the charge and tried the game - didn't see anything and was then was confused.

    It should be fixed now. I downloaded for free about an hour ago. I use multiple consoles, so I had to make sure the season pass was downloaded on the machine before I could get the maps.

    S0LIDARITY wrote:
    Supertofu wrote:

    I'm new to gamers with jobs and have been a fan of Halo since the very beginning. Work and family squeeze out my available gaming time, but I try to play when I can. Feel free to send me a friend invitation on Xbox live if you'd be interested in playing together. I don't have particularly good aim but I enjoy lots of teamwork.

    What's your gamertag and what game-types are you looking to play?

    Thanks for the reply, Mclintok and solidarity. I thought my gamertag would appear automatically since its in my profile, but I guess not. My gamertag is supertofu.

    I'm pretty new to multiplayer, so I don't think I've played enough game types to have a favorite. I lean towards objective game types (dominion, CTF) because they seem to be more teamwork-oriented. But simple slayer can be fun too because its less complicated and doesn't demand as much knowledge of the map.

    I'll send you a friend request shortly. I don't get on every evening, but if you post here during the day I'll be sure to let you know if I'll be available. In my experience teamwork really swings the game regardless of the game type. In Halo 3 I used to be able to win 2-on-1 battles against lesser skilled opponents maybe 50-60% of the time. In H4 it's more like 10-20%, I always end up needing to draw them into terrain that gives me an upper hand.

    I got the new new maps from the in-game marketplace. It was a pop-up screen in fact as soon as the game booted up.

    I played through the campaign with my son this past weekend. The last level of the campaign, Midnight, is an incredible level. Easily my new favorite of all time. The last third, Rally Point Charlie, has to be one of the best fire fights in a Halo game ever. The song "Arrival" starts to play as you run towards the first conflict, and the slow, somewhat melancholy song paired with the fast gun play is just an outstanding combination. Really feels epic. And one small detail really gets me going for this level too. As you hit the man-canon and are flying towards the first platform, Cortana yells, "Get Ready!" and it's weird, but that little cheer plus the building song Arrival really ramps me up for the level. I am like, "f*ck yeah! Let's do it!" and then the bullets and plasma start flying. I can hear the french horn solo in the middle of the song in my head right now.

    Supertofu wrote:

    I'm pretty new to multiplayer, so I don't think I've played enough game types to have a favorite. I lean towards objective game types (dominion, CTF) because they seem to be more teamwork-oriented. But simple slayer can be fun too because its less complicated and doesn't demand as much knowledge of the map.

    Great, I will shoot you an invite tonight. I'm mostly a Slayer player so my idea of good teamwork amounts to "stay close to teammates". I'm open to trying out objective games though as it's a nice way to learn more about the maps.

    Hmm, I can't seem to create a quote block -- I'm not sure why. Pressing the quote button creates tags, but instead of delineating where the quote block begins and end, the tags themselves appear.

    In any case, sounds good, thanks Maclintok. I agree, teamwork in slayer pretty much involves sticking close to your partner. I was thinking that there may be some interesting strategies with the hardlight shield and the regeneration field, if you coordinate well with another person. And it's always fun to load up a Warthog or tank with two people...

    I wish that there was a class in Halo that allowed you to play more of a useful support role, sort of like in Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer, where even people with fairly bad aim could contribute a lot to a team's victory with their powers. (For example, in that game you could play a volus, a rat-like creature that was fragile as paper and had pathetic offensive abilities, but could emanate a field that would constantly buff and recharge the shields of nearby players.) It seems like the regeneration field is going somewhat in that direction, although given its long cooldown and short duration, I haven't quite figured out how to use it effectively in the middle of combat.

    Newbies to the forums can't use BB Code for a bit of time. I forget how long until you can, but it's a brief enough period it won't be too inconvenient for too much longer.

    Supertofu wrote:

    It seems like the regeneration field is going somewhat in that direction, although given its long cooldown and short duration, I haven't quite figured out how to use it effectively in the middle of combat.

    As far as that, I would use it during Dominion matches mostly. I found it was nice when I would take a point and if it was already held and I had to engage the enemy, I would use it for myself and anyone else that happened to be around.

    I'm finding that the Operator Spec is one of the better ones for support roles (though I would be remiss if I didn't point out that it's the only Specialization I've completed at the moment, so feel free to take this with a grain of salt.)

    I'm in the same boat as supertofu - I'm rubbish with aiming. Fortunately, good drivers/pilots seem fairly rare and I'll bet you can carve out a niche for yourself as a 'support class' by getting comfortable behind the wheel. I've found the Wheelman ability significantly increases vehicle durability and pretty much takes plasma pistols out of the equation (the Emp cool down is maybe a second, tops) so it seems ideal for a support role.

    Grabbing the nearest machine gun turret also helps make up for my terrible aim. I know that's not technically a 'class-related' element, but that's one of the things I love about Halo 4; there seems like a lot of flexibility designed into the system and its various tools so you can tailor things to your own skills and the role you want to fulfill.

    Please feel free to add me to your friends list if you like; I'm also on the West Coast (BC, Canada here) and would love to have some fun with others who are also 'aim challenged' and figure out some good teamwork strategies.

    My gamertag is: Maddhaus

    Pleased ta meetcha!

    Thanks for the comments, Demonicmaster and Maddhaus.

    I'll keep that dominion strategy in mind, Demonicmaster. Based on my limited use, it seems that the trick to using the regen field is that it has to be turned on a little bit before the enemy sees you, so I guess you have to time it right using your radar. I have generally found that if you turn it on after you see the enemy, you get plugged full of bullet holes by the time the regeneration field forms. Even if you're not dead, somehow the regeneration field isn't strong enough to heal you as the enemy blasts away the last bits of your health. So embarrassingly, what often remains is my corpse surrounded in a pretty green dome.

    I'm only level 25, Maddhaus, so unfortunately there's a while to go before I reach the Specializations. But given what you said, Operator Spec sounds like a good fit. Thanks for the tactic, and I'll send you a friend invite soon.

    Boom. Fellow BC resident. Shot you a friend request, Maddhaus. See you online!

    Maclintok wrote:

    Boom. Fellow BC resident. Shot you a friend request, Maddhaus. See you online!

    Thanks Maclintok! Good to see other Canadians here. I look forward to seeing you online!

    I haven't really been able to make the regen field work for me either, but that could be because I play mostly Big Team Slayer and it may not be ideal for that game type.

    Personally, I can't get by without Promethean Vision. My 43 year old eyes and reflexes can't keep up with all these youngsters who have the hand-eye coordination of fighter pilots, so it helps to get a bead on where people are hiding, sneaking, etc. Funny thing: I've found that it even works in a support role. I recently noticed that teammates often use my machine gun fire as a crude spotting technique. By working my PV and directing a steady stream of hot death at lit-up targets, I can ensure someone else (hopefully with better aim) will notice the threat. It's a nice way to rack up Assists, even if my own kill count isn't very high.

    I'm West Coast too (Portland, OR), I'll add some of you guys.

    Please do, H. I'm a relative newcomer to the XBox community (was a PS3 owner until my 60GB backwards-compatible model tragically gave up the ghost) so I'm always looking for new friends to game with.

    I'm on the West Coast too! Hit me up, I'm dominicknight.

    Woo, Friday night. It's Halo night!

    I think my usual Spartan Ops crew is taking a break this week so I'll be casting around joining pub Slayer games until I see some friendly faces online.

    Maddhaus wrote:

    Personally, I can't get by without Promethean Vision. My 43 year old eyes and reflexes can't keep up with all these youngsters who have the hand-eye coordination of fighter pilots, so it helps to get a bead on where people are hiding, sneaking, etc. Funny thing: I've found that it even works in a support role.

    Yeah! I didn't think much of Promethean Vision at first mainly because I wasn't adapting to its limited range very well. Well, it's got a permanent spot in my go-to 4v4 Slayer loadout now because it is just so, so useful for flanking, ambushing, being defensive, everything. It sure compensates for the slower reflexes on those smaller slayer maps!

    All jetpack, all the time.

    Just started the online stuff on Spartan Ops, if anyone wants to add me on XBL I'm RoyceH. I'll be adding Hickle and dominicknight, if that's cool guys.

    I know I have been not playing multi with anyone as of late, I had the War Games itch and had to scratch it. It taught me a few things.

    1. I can still hang with about half the people playing War Games.
    2. The other half are cheating...they have to be.
    3. Putting your audio setting to Mute Everyone (not in your Live Party) is a gift from the heavens.

    I would like to hit the Campaign on Legendary sometime, I finished it on Normal and have been doing Heroic at my own pace. I have never done Legendary so I am afraid I would piss people off with having to restart if I died.