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Halo |OT13|

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Yes, you should have to watch content outside of the game to be able to judge the story of Halo 4. Makes sense.
It's content developed specifically for the game, and meant to be interwoven with the story. The only problem was that it wasn't finished on time and thus had to be moved to waypoint. So if you don't give a shit and are lost in the story then ok. But if you're actually a Halo fan and are still judging the game without watching the Terminals then you're just plain stupid. Offense Intended.
 

Tawpgun

Member
my rankings of best to worst halo games are irrelevant because I don't play Halo games for the games, I play them for the people. by that metric Halo 3 is my favorite Halo game because not only was halogaf filled with a small but fun group of people at the time but my long time pals played a lot too. Reach killed off a lot of the cool HaloGAF people and 95% of my old pals, then Halo 4 killed the rest. I don't expect more from Bungie or 343 because I want to play Squad Slayer or Slayer Pro by myself. I expect more because I want cool people to enjoy getting on and playing together.

I wasn't around these parts for the Halo 3 days, but they were absolutely a lot more people on Reach, especially the first few months then there are on Halo 4 :(

I just find it hard to play with a team in Halo 4. In Reach/3/2 we would call out weapon spawns, times, have good map callouts, one shot on my x was a thing....

Now it feels like yeah we can play but its like everyone is playing their own game while in the same game.
 
Soo.. anyone else getting destroyed by Legendary. I can only do one mission a day.

Legendary campaign solo is way harder this time around. I pump so much fuckin ammo into these guys. I'm not sure where the issue is, but heroic seems to be a significant decrease in difficulty.

There's a very large discrepancy between campaign heroic vs legendary. Either legendary needs to be brought down, or heroic should be made more difficult.

Only 3 more missions on campaign to finish in solo.
 
It's content developed specifically for the game, and meant to be interwoven with the story. The only problem was that it wasn't finished on time and thus had to be moved to waypoint. So if you don't give a shit and are lost in the story then ok. But if you're actually a Halo fan and are still judging the game without watching the Terminals then you're just plain stupid. Offense Intended.

So you are supporting the idea going to a movie, being confused as hell, and then having to watch some "supplemental" videos on the internet to make sense of it all? I am sorry, that is a failure in story telling. Your main in game story should be closed and cohesive; understandable without the need of more media to make sense of it all. Halo 4 puts way too much emphasis into outside info, whether from books or terminals to even remotely grasp what is happening.
 

rakka

Member
I could play 3/ reach / ce campaign over and over again, some levels more than others, but overall many many times. heroic, legendary, normal, coop / splitscreen, etc. huge open spaces to explore and muck around for hours even. new Alexandria, winter contingency, tsavo, landing on halo to name a few.

played through halo 4 once and have no desire to play through it again. everything felt more linear and forced. shame really.

and I have a shopping list of complaints with mp but it is possible to enjoy at times. almost SR80.

Now it feels like yeah we can play but its like everyone is playing their own game while in the same game.

yeah pretty much. I keep myself alive and that's it. I was rocking a headset for the first few days but it seemed like it didnt make a difference whether I did or not with instant respawns , PO and unpredictability in general.
 
I just find it hard to play with a team in Halo 4. In Reach/3/2 we would call out weapon spawns, times, have good map callouts, one shot on my x was a thing....
It what you make it. I only play with friends who love Halo, and that's what we do. But we also tend to run as a unit unless one of us grabs a single-seat vehicle, and even then its in support of our group. We're decent but not the best, so moving as a pack helps.

That and for the most part we don't care if we win or not, we just try to play our personal best, or at least get into the groove. If we play well it doesn't matter if the rest of the team goes to shit, as long as its not every game.
 
Untitled-63_zps405bf138.png


Are those playlists gone and people are just hanging in them as long as they can?
 

Tawpgun

Member
I finally got Asscreed III today. Is this game good?
I had a lot of fun with it but it was a lot of issues. Story isn't that great, ending sucks. Like really, really sucks. Game mechanics not explained well at all. wtf ui decisions with weapon wheel. Cities not as free run friendly.

But the gameplay is awesome. The wilderness is amazing as well.
 

exYle

Member
Soo.. anyone else getting destroyed by Legendary. I can only do one mission a day.

Legendary campaign solo is way harder this time around. I pump so much fuckin ammo into these guys. I'm not sure where the issue is, but heroic seems to be a significant decrease in difficulty.

There's a very large discrepancy between campaign heroic vs legendary. Either legendary needs to be brought down, or heroic should be made more difficult.

Only 3 more missions on campaign to finish in solo.

Yeah, Legendary is bullet sponges galore.

As you're probably aware, the order for killing always, always goes Watchers -> Crawlers -> Knights. All three are pretty timid fighters, so you should have no problem killing them in order.

I really recommend taking the Auto-Sentry EVERYWHERE. Not only do the Knights shoot at it, it pings their shields alongside you with (ideally) a Light Rifle. When you pop their shields, they tend to get mad, open their faces, and scream at you. If you manage to land a shot on their exposed skulls, that's an insta-death.

I found that if you take the time to look around, there's a surprising amount of rifle storage units just about everywhere, so ammo should be less of a problem.

Finally, if at all possible, carry a weapon that's really efficient at dropping shields. Power weapons such as the SAW, Shotgun/Scattershot, all Snipers and Rocket Launchers are great, but Boltshots are also effective. Don't be too afraid to get a little up close and personal, but NOT within their melee range - that'll fuck you right up. Once their shields are down, switch to the LR and hit them a few times, and down they go.

Sometimes, when you're really lucky, you can toss a Pulse Grenade at a Knight and they will literally stand there, taking constant damage. If you're really lucky, they'll still be there when the grenade goes off a second time, which will usually kill them.

When you have a sniper OTHER than the Binary Rifle, shoot them once, wait for them to side-step (they always do this!), then hit them again to drop their shields, which will stun them, then hit one more time for the kill. With the Binary Rifle, one shot should drop shields, the follow-up will kill them.

By the end, the units that'll be giving you the most trouble will be the Incineration Cannon and Binary Rifle guys. Fuck them. But they have some pretty prominent tells: Binary Rifle Knights have a giant, orange glowing ring around their head when they're getting ready to fire (same with Crawler Snipers, but these guys can be one-shot) - get mobile! Incineration Cannon wielders are always Knight Battlewagons, and thus have a peacock-like fringe around their neck and heads. Other Battlewagons exist, but they always have Suppressors or Scattershots and are more likely to charge you. Incinerator Battlewagons ALWAYS hang back.

Hope that helps
 

TCKaos

Member
Untitled-63_zps405bf138.png


Are those playlists gone and people are just hanging in them as long as they can?

Might be one guy hovering in a lobby with his 360 still on. I've done it before. I was in Bungie vs The World for like a week after it ended because I didn't play for like a week after that, I don't think.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
You haven't watched the terminals, and still you judge the story? You call yourself a Halo fan? Getouttaofhere!

Two things.

I'm judging the story in the campaign, yes. But I'm also only judging what I've experienced of it. I specifically called out the fact that I hadn't see the terminals so you could take that into account. I'll definitely revise my opinion once I've taken them in. I was only speaking to the primary narratives.

Thing Two. I don't think I should have to watch the terminals to understand or appreciate the story in the campaign. That's actually one of the things I love about Sadie's Story in ODST - it enriches the background story, and adds context. It even impacts the endgame a bit, if you round them all up. But it's not essential - the story stands on its own quite well. (Someone pointed out on the Gaming side that this is something Bethesda is very good about in the Elder Scrolls games; there's additional fiction everywhere in the game, in the form of books and other story delivery tools, but they're not required, they only enrich.)

It's telling that everyone is like, hey you can't judge the story unless you go watch these video clips on Waypoint or Youtube. Well, I played the campaign from end to end. Doesn't that count? It's what I do to all the Halo games. I didn't read all the Reach data pads or Halo 3 terminals, either. (I had to read Voc's Ascendant Justice piece to make sense of the Halo 3 terminals.)

And the story in Halo 4 wasn't all that compelling. And large parts of it were actually pretty bad (still better than Reach, though). That's actually a disincentive for me to explore it further: I didn't like what I saw, so I'm not motivated to explore it further; it's why I haven't gotten around to the terminals yet. I'm not going to read the appendix of a book I didn't like, either.

Bonus Thing: "You call yourself a Halo fan?"

No, not really. Halo made me a Bungie fan. But Halo is the only series of theirs I've played in depth (dabbled in Marathon 1 and 2). I love the art, music, gameplay and universe to the series. The story has always been secondary to me, which is a good thing considering how spotty Bungie's story telling is. I didn't buy Halo Wars because I don't play RTS games and the Halo name isn't enough to win me over. And I've had a hypothesis - based on other shooters - that what I loved about Halo was something that Bungie, and specifically Bungie, brought to the table. Halo 4 has proven that that out.

(I'll bust out my Cameron Terminator analogy if that will help.)
 
Well 1,500 miles of driving later and I am home. No more Kmart connection. No more North Dakota. Might play some Halo 3 tomorrow if anyone wants to. I kinda want to try Halo 4 with a good connection too... Hmmm.
 
The story is a convoluted mess regardless. So poorly handled it baffles me.

Just finished my co-op split screen run through with an old friend who loves Halo but doesn't own an xbox. At the end of the game I had to take 10 minutes to explain what happened. His only response was "That is terrible story telling. How was I supposed to understand any of that by playing this game?".
 
It's telling that everyone is like, hey you can't judge the story unless you go watch these video clips on Waypoint or Youtube.
The terminals have their own goodness to them, but not in terms of directing the campaign, which is a tangled mess of misdirection and fails and tripartite switches/panels/power cores and universal AI connector-ports. All the terminals in the world couldn't save that, but it would have helped the very tiniest of bits.

Just finished my co-op split screen run through with an old friend who loves Halo but doesn't own an xbox. At the end of the game I had to take 10 minutes to explain what happened. His only response was "That is terrible story telling. How was I supposed to understand any of that by playing this game?".
Exact same experience here. And they knew I'd read some of the novels, including the latest series so they all looked to me for explanations. "Fuck if I know" was all I could provide em. I get the story now, after investigations and asking around and reading the story thread here, but damn, what a letdown.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
The terminals have their own goodness to them, but not in terms of directing the campaign, which is a tangled mess of misdirection and fails and tripartite switches/panels/power cores and universal AI connector-ports. All the terminals in the world couldn't save that, but it would have helped the very tiniest of bits.
Good to know. They're definitely on my watch list.
 

Purplemage

Neo Member
I just jumped off my ghost on shatter and fell into the glitched rock. I some how managed to fail at killing myself with nades so I was stuck inside this thing. Thankfully my roommate saw my arms would poke out of the rock and he was able to betray me.

Super lame.
 
I just jumped off my ghost on shatter and fell into the glitched rock. I some how managed to fail at killing myself with nades so I was stuck inside this thing. Thankfully my roommate saw my arms would poke out of the rock and he was able to betray me.

Super lame.

At least the game is consistent. Story is full of holes. Maps are full of holes.
 
Well 1,500 miles of driving later and I am home. No more Kmart connection. No more North Dakota. Might play some Halo 3 tomorrow if anyone wants to. I kinda want to try Halo 4 with a good connection too... Hmmm.

As with any Halo game it is far more fun being in the good connection games.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
People, go outside if you can see the sky and its clear. meteor shower all night. Peaks at like 4am but I was out for about 20 minutes and saw 8 here in Iowa.
 

Havok

Member
Are the Reach playlist population numbers stuck? They're all in the same range as they would have been before Halo 4 dropped.
 
Soo.. anyone else getting destroyed by Legendary. I can only do one mission a day.

Legendary campaign solo is way harder this time around. I pump so much fuckin ammo into these guys. I'm not sure where the issue is, but heroic seems to be a significant decrease in difficulty.

There's a very large discrepancy between campaign heroic vs legendary. Either legendary needs to be brought down, or heroic should be made more difficult.

Only 3 more missions on campaign to finish in solo.
Legendary brought down in 4? No thanks. The only thing id suggest is to make Binary Crawlers more visible, but it doesn't fully matter since they're the rarest of Promies in the game to encounter.
 
So you are supporting the idea going to a movie, being confused as hell, and then having to watch some "supplemental" videos on the internet to make sense of it all? I am sorry, that is a failure in story telling. Your main in game story should be closed and cohesive; understandable without the need of more media to make sense of it all. Halo 4 puts way too much emphasis into outside info, whether from books or terminals to even remotely grasp what is happening.
Nope. This idea is BS. People who DO have outside info keep thinking this, but everything you need to enjoy in Halo 4, has been specifically produced for Halo 4.

Like I've said, the Terminals ARE Halo 4. They are an intrinsic part of the game. It is a great disappointment that they weren't completed in time for when the discs needed to be pressed, but they are as much part of the game as Spartan Ops is. Yes you need an internet connection to see the Terminal Video on Halo Waypoint, but the Spartan Ops video is also being streamed from servers as well. You wouldn't say that Spartan Ops isn't a part of the game.

And again, my point of necessitating watching the Terminals is for any self-titled "Halo fan". If you really were any half decent Halo fan, you have to watch the Terminals.

I mean, we get 100,000s of views and dozens and dozens of pages over a few minutes of E3 trailers, or Live Action Commercials....yet people won't go and watch an actual integral part of the story that has specifically been produced to be within the game? Are you kidding me?
 

Havok

Member
Bummer. I was hoping to see how it was holding up, population wise.

Still, managed to get a game of FFA in without a waypoint over my head the entire time, so something good came out of it. I think I respect that game a lot more in hindsight, though I never hated it like so many did.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
my rankings of best to worst halo games are irrelevant because I don't play Halo games for the games, I play them for the people. by that metric Halo 3 is my favorite Halo game because not only was halogaf filled with a small but fun group of people at the time but my long time pals played a lot too. Reach killed off a lot of the cool HaloGAF people and 95% of my old pals, then Halo 4 killed the rest. I don't expect more from Bungie or 343 because I want to play Squad Slayer or Slayer Pro by myself. I expect more because I want cool people to enjoy getting on and playing together.
iZmGirH0c5e4M.gif
 

Fracas

#fuckonami
I really, really hope Destiny has competitive multiplayer. I'm sick of Halo, and while Black Ops 2 is decent, I want an arena shooter.
 
Nope. This idea is BS. People who DO have outside info keep thinking this, but everything you need to enjoy in Halo 4, has been specifically produced for Halo 4.

Like I've said, the Terminals ARE Halo 4. They are an intrinsic part of the game. It is a great disappointment that they weren't completed in time for when the discs needed to be pressed, but they are as much part of the game as Spartan Ops is. Yes you need an internet connection to see the Terminal Video on Halo Waypoint, but the Spartan Ops video is also being streamed from servers as well. You wouldn't say that Spartan Ops isn't a part of the game.

And again, my point of necessitating watching the Terminals is for any self-titled "Halo fan". If you really were any half decent Halo fan, you have to watch the Terminals.

I mean, we get 100,000s of views and dozens and dozens of pages over a few minutes of E3 trailers, or Live Action Commercials....yet people won't go and watch an actual integral part of the story that has specifically been produced to be within the game? Are you kidding me?

Doing the absolute bare minimum in a game should give the player enough of a story to follow. Ignore every optional thing in the game and what you are left with is the core story. Much like the core gameplay, the added things don't define the gameplay, but rather, they just accent it. Terminals are so far removed from the player I don't know how you can say that it is Halo 4's story.

Don't get me wrong, the Terminals absolutely benefit the player that views them but they shouldn't be completely necessary to enjoy the story for what it is. This is all too similar to how AAs/Ordnance/Specilisations work in terms of the multiplayer sandbox.

You only play the game? You should be able to grasp the story at a very basic level. I don't believe this is the case. I think, as integral as the Terminals are, they should not be required reading for people who just want to enjoy a story.
 

Overdoziz

Banned
I wanted to play this so bad, all of my friends loved it! However, no support for inverted controls so I cannot play :(
It's really not an issue. I've been using inverted controls my entire life pretty much and it didn't bother me except for a couple of moments where you have to shoot while aiming with the cursor. Other than that it's pretty natural.
 
It's really not an issue. I've been using inverted controls my entire life pretty much and it didn't bother me except for a couple of moments where you have to shoot while aiming with the cursor. Other than that it's pretty natural.

That's good to hear. Fracas just told me about the lack of invert and I panicked, haha.
 

Ramirez

Member
I wanted to play this so bad, all of my friends loved it! However, no support for inverted controls so I cannot play :(

It's more like an interactive story book, the controls are a non issue. And I find it impossible to play any other game without inverting...
 

heckfu

Banned
It's really not an issue. I've been using inverted controls my entire life pretty much and it didn't bother me except for a couple of moments where you have to shoot while aiming with the cursor. Other than that it's pretty natural.

It's more like an interactive story book, the controls are a non issue. And I find it impossible to play any other game without inverting...

It was a huge issue to me. Couldn't get invested in the story at ALL because I was too focused on my hands.
 
I wanted to play this so bad, all of my friends loved it! However, no support for inverted controls so I cannot play :(
It's an adventure game, there are some brief first person segments but 99% of the interaction is with a cursor that you move around. Don't disappoint, even if you're an invert it shouldn't be a problem.
 
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