I didn't actually put much thought into this because I always considered it a no brainer, but...
Are there any UNSC flying vehicles in multiplayer? If not, that is a major downer for me because I loved the Hornet from Reach to death. God, please bring that amazing vehicle back.
EDIT: Wow, there's seriously not a human flying vehicle in multiplayer? MAJOR fuckup. Nonsensical in every way.
I wrote up some impressions of Halo 4. I would have posted it here but it's just over 3400 words long. I don't know why. I talk a lot. Please forgive typos. It is long.
I wrote up some impressions of Halo 4. I would have posted it here but it's just over 3400 words long. I don't know why. I talk a lot. Please forgive typos. It is long.
I didn't actually put much thought into this because I always considered it a no brainer, but...
Are there any UNSC flying vehicles in multiplayer? If not, that is a major downer for me because I loved the Hornet from Reach to death. God, please bring that amazing vehicle back.
EDIT: Wow, there's seriously not a human flying vehicle in multiplayer? MAJOR fuckup. Nonsensical in every way.
Yeah I don't understand the need for two threads that will 99% be talking about Halo 4 ATM. Maybe when the community narrows again a year down the line, but even still I'd imagine keeping everyone in the same place is best for everyone.
The Falcon is great, though it wasn't put to much use in Reach's campaign; sure, there's an entire mission built around it, but they way it was introduced ("the warthog of the sky") led to different expectations.
Yeah I'll miss the Hornet/Falcon, surprised by the omission, if for no other reason than the lack of banshee vs Hornet/Falcon battles in the background in SP, let alone Multi.
Oh we'll, this is 343i's Halo CE.
I fully expect Halo 5 to add tons of vehicles, more enemy types, more gameplay additions etc. It will be the reason people flock to get Xbox 720s.
The Falcon is great, though it wasn't put to much use in Reach's campaign; sure, there's an entire mission built around it, but they way it was introduced ("the warthog of the sky") led to different expectations.
IMO the Falcon was much better suited for Campaign than MP. I loved that mission, probably my favourite in all of Reach.
The nerfed version in MP requires a full team to use effectively, which isn't really the most cost-effective or easiest to coordinate, and the devs knew this so they never really integrated it into matchmaking.
I think as badass as human flying vehicles sound, we'll never see one in MP because it doesn't fit in the UNSC arsenal anywhere like the Banshee does. Unless we finally get that Pelican vs. Phantom mode.
I wrote up some impressions of Halo 4. I would have posted it here but it's just over 3400 words long. I don't know why. I talk a lot. Please forgive typos. It is long.
Welp, I got that done with. I won't go into any real impressions as I'd rather wait for other people to get their playthroughs in. I will say though
uhh, interesting Legendary ending! What I assume is the Legendary ending anyway, don't know where the other one would cut off.
In terms of the series though I'd definitely grant the campaign as being better than 2's and 3's. Don't know where I ultimately feel it's gonna hit on the entire scale because the true test of any Halo is how it replays.
After playing other games taken by different developers and feeling off in terms of presentation, like Max Payne 3 and Diablo 3, Halo 4 does the opposite for me. It doesn't feel really out of place even though there are a lot of differences in approach, but the characterizations of the human side is a lot better than they've been before.
One thing that does disappoint me, and this is a holdover with what I consider a missed opportunity in Reach's campaign, is the integration of AAs. I feel like I'm going incredibly long stretches with little choice as to what I'd like to choose, AAs can represent significantly different playstyles and approaches and I feel it squanders the chance to really add on the replayability by giving you more of them more often.
In particular, I think thrust is only give to you once in the entire game, and for a brief period too. It was by far my favourite to use in the scant few encounters allowed.
On the music side, nothing really clicked with me during the playthrough like On a Pale Horse or Neon Night. I don't really have much else to say about it than that.
I guess I'll just sum up my thoughts with a two point pro and con list for now.
+ Cortana's ass
- Floating Master Chief shoulders
As long as you don't stop and stare, they still look pretty decent, yeah.
I used the word "relatively" in that writeup because the things I'm comparing it to are things like the Halo 3 level Halo having an insanely detailed matte painting of the Ark hanging over the entire level.
Thanks to folks that took the time to read that thing.
After all the shit he's been through, I don't even think it's a spartan thing at this point. Dudes has the fate of the galaxy in his hands more than a few times.
Before the battle of Reach, the UNSC had this last ditch plan to have the remaining Spartan-IIs jack a Covenant ship, crash it into High Charity and kidnap a Prophet for ransom to end the war.
After nearly every Spartan died on Reach, Chief barely escaped through slipspace with Cortana and crash landed on a giant space weapon, then proceeded to blow up the weapon, his own ship, and most of the nearby Covenant fleet all at once and barely escape on an emergency vessel, and he still intended to carry out this plan when he got back to Earth or before that if possible, talking like it was just a fact that he was gonna do it. He only stopped believing that he was gonna do it the second the admirals at Earth told him it was a no-go.
Chief really is a kind of robotic dude, he thinks only about the mission at hand, but over the course of the series he's grown attached to Cortana as well, so I'm real interested to see how 343 play with those two things conflicting.
Welp, I got that done with. I won't go into any real impressions as I'd rather wait for other people to get their playthroughs in. I will say though
uhh, interesting Legendary ending! What I assume is the Legendary ending anyway, don't know where the other one would cut off.
In terms of the series though I'd definitely grant the campaign as being better than 2's and 3's. Don't know where I ultimately feel it's gonna hit on the entire scale because the true test of any Halo is how it replays.
After playing other games taken by different developers and feeling off in terms of presentation, like Max Payne 3 and Diablo 3, Halo 4 does the opposite for me. It doesn't feel really out of place even though there are a lot of differences in approach, but the characterizations of the human side is a lot better than they've been before.
One thing that does disappoint me, and this is a holdover with what I consider a missed opportunity in Reach's campaign, is the integration of AAs. I feel like I'm going incredibly long stretches with little choice as to what I'd like to choose, AAs can represent significantly different playstyles and approaches and I feel it squanders the chance to really add on the replayability by giving you more of them more often.
In particular, I think thrust is only give to you once in the entire game, and for a brief period too. It was by far my favourite to use in the scant few encounters allowed.
On the music side, nothing really clicked with me during the playthrough like On a Pale Horse or Neon Night. I don't really have much else to say about it than that.
I guess I'll just sum up my thoughts with a two point pro and con list for now.
+ Cortana's ass
- Floating Master Chief shoulders
Before the battle of Reach, the UNSC had this last ditch plan to have the remaining Spartan-IIs jack a Covenant ship, crash it into High Charity and kidnap a Prophet for ransom to end the war.
After nearly every Spartan died on Reach, Chief barely escaped through slipspace with Cortana and crash landed on a giant space weapon, then proceeded to blow up the weapon, his own ship, and most of the nearby Covenant fleet all at once and barely escape on an emergency vessel, and he still intended to carry out this plan when he got back to Earth or before that if possible, talking like it was just a fact that he was gonna do it. He only stopped believing that he was gonna do it the second the admirals at Earth told him it was a no-go.
Chief really is a kind of robotic dude, he thinks only about the mission at hand, but over the course of the series he's grown attached to Cortana as well, so I'm real interested to see how 343 play with those two things conflicting.
You get Mark VI armour and a gold visor to use for multiplayer. Dunno if this is a Legendary or normal complete thing but you also get a 117 dogtag emblem. The game clocked me at about 8 hours, though I took some pause breaks in between.
Speaking of emblems, it's still dumb that they're hidden away to unlock, that should just be a kind of baseline personalization that should be fully available from the start like it always was.
i think some sentient robot took over the halo 3 campaign AI. i was playing through the game and decided what the hell, lets let the AI drive the warthog on tsavo highway. and i didn't die in a fiery explosion, he drove me through the entire level. and i didn't die!
then i decided hey you can drive this prowler, he got me all the way to the dawns landing site. then a marine drove me in the Gauss hog, and let me kill the scarab. and then on the covenant, the hornet guy flew me over the scarab and let me jump down on it. me and my friend were absolutely flabbergasted the AI fucking worked.
im gonna try this in halo 4 when i get it. wish me luck.
As long as you don't stop and stare, they still look pretty decent, yeah.
I used the word "relatively" in that writeup because the things I'm comparing it to are things like the Halo 3 level Halo having an insanely detailed matte painting of the Ark hanging over the entire level.
Thanks to folks that took the time to read that thing.
Ahh okay. Disappointing, but not that big of a deal.
Man, Halo 3 had some of the best skyboxes. From the portal in Floodgate, to the crater in Tsavo Highway and the Ark in Halo. Hopefully 343i improve from the 2D .jpeg next time.
I was wondering how they'd get the graphic detail so nice, and 2D skyboxes seem like a fairly no-brainer option (in terms of amount of resources regained for fidelity lost).
It's a shame that Halo 4 ran into the same sorts of compromises that Halo 2 did from a technological standpoint, but the hardware is the hardware, what can be done?
i think some sentient robot took over the halo 3 campaign AI. i was playing through the game and decided what the hell, lets let the AI drive the warthog on tsavo highway. and i didn't die in a fiery explosion, he drove me through the entire level. and i didn't die!
then i decided hey you can drive this prowler, he got me all the way to the dawns landing site. then a marine drove me in the Gauss hog, and let me kill the scarab. and then on the covenant, the hornet guy flew me over the scarab and let me jump down on it. me and my friend were absolutely flabbergasted the AI fucking worked.
im gonna try this in halo 4 when i get it. wish me luck.
Can someone explain to me why the marine AI sucks (or just sucks in comparison?) Is it just a matter of time--we only have X amount of time for AI, let's make sure the enemies are fun to fight rather than making the allies super awesome and overshadowing you? I don't think most vehicle driving would ever work out that well but I'd love some more coordinated efforts from friendlies. Most of those elements in Reach felt scripted and less organic.
i think some sentient robot took over the halo 3 campaign AI. i was playing through the game and decided what the hell, lets let the AI drive the warthog on tsavo highway. and i didn't die in a fiery explosion, he drove me through the entire level. and i didn't die!
then i decided hey you can drive this prowler, he got me all the way to the dawns landing site. then a marine drove me in the Gauss hog, and let me kill the scarab. and then on the covenant, the hornet guy flew me over the scarab and let me jump down on it. me and my friend were absolutely flabbergasted the AI fucking worked.
im gonna try this in halo 4 when i get it. wish me luck.
I just finished 4's campaign, there was one part where I was trying to carefully position a gauss warthog's gun to hit something and a soldier was like HEY LOOK A JEEP and jumped in the driver's seat. He then proceeded to drive us off a cliff.
Augh, the Reach grain, it burns. Glad to put that behind us.
One weird coincidence that I just noticed that I have you on my XBL friend's list from a while ago, where from I can't even remember at this point but certainly not from GAF. In any case, small internet.
I suspect King of the Hill would be lower, probably close to Oddball's number, but there's a challenge today to win 3 King games.
Neither Oddball nor King of the Hill have ever been top-tier popular gametypes, instead serving as filler gametypes to mix things up in grab-bag Objective playlists. I understand why 343 went with their "one gametype per playlist" philosophy, but I suspect those two lists will be fighting over scraps until they're inevitably cut in a few months.
I suspect King of the Hill would be lower, probably close to Oddball's number, but there's a challenge today to win 3 King games.
Neither Oddball nor King of the Hill have ever been top-tier popular gametypes, instead serving as filler gametypes to mix things up in grab-bag Objective playlists. I understand why 343 went with their "one gametype per playlist" philosophy, but I suspect those two lists will be fighting over scraps until they're inevitably cut in a few months.
I suspect they'll be consolidated at some point, along with Extraction, which doesn't currently have a home, into a Team Control playlist. Hopefully that could sustain a decent population.
I was wondering how they'd get the graphic detail so nice, and 2D skyboxes seem like a fairly no-brainer option (in terms of amount of resources regained for fidelity lost).
It's a shame that Halo 4 ran into the same sorts of compromises that Halo 2 did from a technological standpoint, but the hardware is the hardware, what can be done?
Can someone explain to me why the marine AI sucks (or just sucks in comparison?) Is it just a matter of time--we only have X amount of time for AI, let's make sure the enemies are fun to fight rather than making the allies super awesome and overshadowing you? I don't think most vehicle driving would ever work out that well but I'd love some more coordinated efforts from friendlies. Most of those elements in Reach felt scripted and less organic.
I think you hit the nail of the head. AI programmer's time is better spent on enemies rather than on friendlies since the time you spend with friendlies (at least in past games) is so much shorter than the time you spend fighting elites.
Augh, the Reach grain, it burns. Glad to put that behind us.
One weird coincidence that I just noticed that I have you on my XBL friend's list from a while ago, where from I can't even remember at this point but certainly not from GAF. In any case, small internet.
Yeah you've been on it forever. I don't generally add people very often and most of my friends list still consists of leftovers from halo 3/ODST vidmaster challenges. But it shows you got yours done long before me so I have no idea.
Can someone explain to me why the marine AI sucks (or just sucks in comparison?) Is it just a matter of time--we only have X amount of time for AI, let's make sure the enemies are fun to fight rather than making the allies super awesome and overshadowing you? I don't think most vehicle driving would ever work out that well but I'd love some more coordinated efforts from friendlies. Most of those elements in Reach felt scripted and less organic.
I think you hit the nail of the head. AI programmer's time is better spent on enemies rather than on friendlies since the time you spend with friendlies (at least in past games) is so much shorter than the time you spend fighting elites.
I want to say Damian Isla, who did work at Bungie on their AI for Halo 2 and 3 talked about this a while back. He said that the reason they tone down the effectiveness of friendly AI is so the player feels like the hero, doing what sad little Marines can't. They could make the AI have perfect aim and all that, but the game could ostensibly play itself at that point. I don't necessarily think the right move is to make them so stupid that they frustrate the player, but I see where he's coming from. I know with Reach one of the Bungie Weekly Updates or podcasts mentioned that they used to have pinpoint accurate Warthog gunners that would never miss a shot, but they were too effective and had to be toned down.
As for their poor driving, well, that's just a mystery.
I want to say Damian Isla, who did work at Bungie on their AI for Halo 2 and 3 talked about this a while back. He said that the reason they tone down the effectiveness of friendly AI is so the player feels like the hero, doing what sad little Marines can't. They could make the AI have perfect aim and all that, but the game could ostensibly play itself at that point. I don't necessarily think the right move is to make them so stupid that they frustrate the player, but I see where he's coming from. I know with Reach one of the Bungie Weekly Updates or podcasts mentioned that they used to have pinpoint accurate Warthog gunners that would never miss a shot, but they were too effective and had to be toned down.
As for their poor driving, well, that's just a mystery.
