Halo 4 – My Tale of Overall Disappointment

With Halo 4, 343 Industries were put in the unenviable position of taking over control of a world-conquering franchise. So I in no way whatsoever hold Halo 4 against them. It is, at the end of the day, a well-designed Halo game. I want to be very clear about this up front, before I go off on a rant, it is a well-designed shooter that plays to all the tropes Halo is known for. I like Halo 4. I really do.

With that being said…

I have never found Halo‘s gameplay to be consistently effective at what it tries to sell itself on. The three pillars of guns, grenades and melee within a combat sandbox are all well and good until you realise that the emphasis on the very powerful melee finish is directly confounded by two things: the predilection that the series has for large-scale encounters and the sheer amount of damage the player receives on any difficulty above easy. These two aspects of the series make melee all but pointless, for the most-part.

That’s fine, I guess. I don’t need to be able to hit enemies up close to play a shooter, but when I do decide to partake in that activity, I’d appreciate a reasonable area of effect, such as an arc that’s larger than the exact centre of the aiming reticle. Also – and while I’m on the subject of the ‘Combat Sandbox’ business – it sure would be nice if there were more than three compelling instances of said ‘Combat Sandboxes’ per game. Don’t get me wrong, the few that there are are incredible. Take for example the part in Halo 3 when you have to take down a number of Scarab walking tanks in a massive canyon with the option of flying a Hornet between each one? Amazing. Love it. So it’s a pity that was one of maybe three similar scenarios in that whole game. I’m all up for a game designed around ‘Combat Sandboxes’, but a reasonably big room or a corridor do not a sandbox make.

Then there’s the whole ‘constantly having to scavenge half-empty weapons’ thing and losing the weapons you like when you load through a cut-scene. Honestly, I could rant on a bit more as far as this issue is concerned, but there’s little point. I just wanted to lay down some reasons as to why Halo games have never drawn me in with their gameplay. But the narrative and music on the other hand? I’m sold. 100%.

I used to leave the Halo 3 menu screen on in the background while doing other things – that score was intoxicating. To this day, it remains one of my favourite video game scores. So it was disappointing, to say the least, when I played through Halo 4 to find a mediocre musical score that seemingly could not follow a singular theme. It’s all over the place. I mean, it smells a bit like Halo music, but it doesn’t taste like it. You know? That’s a minor quibble anyway. The music is good enough. The story, though? Whew.

In the past, I’ve played a bunch of games that have had novels written around them, but never have I played something in which no fewer than three novels are required reading in order for me to have any idea what the monkies is going on. Halo 4 introduces you to a whole host of characters that have never been foreshadowed in previous games (unless you include the umpteen hidden terminals in Halo Anniversary), without so much as a second sentence explaining who, or what, they are. You essentially get a very hasty ‘Hey I’m a bad guy, she’s a good guy, there’s a big weapon, and if you have any more questions about us I invite you to stick your finger up your own butt and make a face like a confused fish’. Not once does a single member from the cast of characters attempt to find out any more information about these new characters than that, presumably because it’s assumed you’re up to date with the novels. I was not. I was left deeply confused.

Also, to add to the story woes, at no point does the narrative give any hints as to why the Covenant are back to fighting Humans again. At the end of Halo 3, everything seemed peachy – then suddenly I’m woken up in Halo 4 to find that Galaxy War 2 has started. It’s been four years. It took way longer than that for World War 2 to kick off after recovering from the first World War, but apparently in the Halo-verse entire galaxy-spanning armies can be re-established and find more reasons to fight each other in less than the amount of time that Star Wars Galaxies was online. Take that, perspective.

This whole ‘missing story beats’ thing is made all the worse by the fact that there are more hidden terminals in this game, and even if you manage to find one of these pieces of ninja machinery, they require you to exit the game and go to Halo Waypoint to read the sodding thing. I’ve never been more irritated by a company’s attempt at cross-media narrative in my entire life. I think that kind of thing is a bit dumb anyway, but at least when that stuff is ancillary to the core experience, it’s… Well… ancillary.

I appreciate that 343 found themselves in a difficult position with Halo 4. They were taking the reins from Bungie and they knew they had to get the game out on a system that, frankly, is nearing the end of its lifecycle. Still, handing off important narrative beats to external media and playing it safe by pretty much sticking to the exact same formula Bungie derived eleven years ago is something that I find a little difficult for me to forgive 343 for. I absolutely get why the everlasting Halo fans will see my arguments as unimportant to them, but I don’t hold the series with that same reverence.

To end on a slightly cheerier note, because I don’t want to come off like I hated the game (I didn’t, as stressed at the top of this mish-mash of words on a page), Halo 4 is beautiful. I often knock console SKUs of any game for looking terrible compared to what I usually see on my PC screen, but there is no denying that Halo‘s art style, combined with 343’s seemingly obsessive artists and level designers have resulted in something that I could not be happier to be viewing. As much as I still don’t care a whole lot for the gameplay, it does at least do what it does — what Halo has always done — perfectly.

For obvious reasons, this isn’t a review. I just wanted to vent. I haven’t written anything for the site in a long time (I am the video guy, after all), but after ruminating on this for a few days I had to get it off my chest. If you disagree with my opinions, that’s all well and good. Just tell me why.

Tags: 343 Industries, Bungie, halo, Halo 3, halo 4