This guy is VERY good at the game, ended up chilling with him for a bit - It was like ripping through matchmaking, it was absolutely insane how 'powerful' a good team can be against 'randoms' - some Infinity Slayer games came down to the other team only having 50 points.
I am going to just dump a uncollected bunch of thoughts rather than try and do a 'proper' write up:
- Railgun - This weapon is awesome, seems pretty balanced on small maps - but will dominate on maps like Valhalla, essentially you hold the trigger for a second and it autofires - the hold time isnt enough to make it challenging - I can see this maybe being called OP, but its extremely rare, which balances it out.
- Incinerator - This weapon is amazing, surprisingly not as OP'd as I expected, but can be used in some pretty awesome ways - in one of my games I saw someone run to a part of the map where I couldnt see him, but could see forerunner decorations on the wall, I bounced the shot off of that which must have rained the subsplosion onto him, seeing the white text to confirm the kill was hot.
- Spartan disintegration - loved it, saw a guy get scattershot into the back of the head... ragdoll while disintergrating from the neck down. Was brutal. I miss the Halo 3 ragdolls but im impressed with the tech behind this visual effect.
- Jumping and movement felt like they took Halo 3 and turned it upto 10 - the movement in this game is SO good, in one of my early games I got a ninja (but was yoinked
) - in a later game I came across 3 people, was able to thrust the hell out of there, go through a mancannon, drop back down through the floor and take out all 3 of them from behind. This all happened insanely fast.
- Didnt get a chance to use the Sniper much - got some sweet kills with it, but I cant tell if its easy like the Reach sniper - the bulky design didnt feel like it got in the way which is a plus.
- Game winning killcams are in! - Got a frenzy In my last game but I dont think the medal showed in the killcam, which is a shame.
- Weird menus - checking score using the back button in game stops you moving. It essentially pauses the game briefly to show you the scoreboard. Post game lobby was also awkward.
- Earning ordnance felt wacky, you didnt really know when you where going to earn it or how far from the next one you where. The ordnance unlocked animation took a painfully long time to give you your options. After killing a guy I would like to bring it up immediately, not have to wait another 5 seconds for the animation to finish.
- Lunge is significantly nerfed - sword guys have to be right on top of opponent to get the kill, melee lunge is also very short. This was awesome - but I fear could be a LAN 'feature' only?
- Saw someone camp a lift with sticky detonator which sucked - he essentially shot it at the thing, and waited for someone to come up. He also had promethean vision - which was super op'd.
- Promethean vision was a game changer - I could snipe people who I couldnt see well using it. The first time I used it I was shocked by how long it seemed to take to work, but on subsequent uses it felt fast - I dont know what to make of that.
- Feedback was just bad - hard to read medals - white text helped here but I still really dislike what they did with the medals, perhaps when I learn the new designs I will read them a bit better, but they are tiny, all look the same and spam the screen constantly. You can get 4 medals for what seems like a simply kill. - Medals should be used as cue's and should help with readability - they currently do not - although that can be based on limited knowledge of the medals.
- Hard-light shield is awesome - fast movement - well balanced - can strafe around teammates using it and I had a moment when I used it when I was about to lose a BR battle - a guy wasted his bullets into it - had to reload and I wasted him.
- Regen field is weak, and when your inside it - you had slightly blurry vision - cant see this being helpful to anyone in multiplayer ever.
- Crap nades - nades feel like ODST nades, wasnt a fan at all.
- Super nerfed jet pack - I love it. Thing feels more like the Arkham Asylum cape hover than anything.
- Turret cleaning up kill? - At one time I used a turret, got into a fight - died but got the kill - I thought the turret derezed once you died? perhaps it lasts a little longer? In general the turret is a great distraction, but will probably go unused compared to thrust, prom vision or hardlight shield - all 3 of those where awesome.
- Pressing x to respawn made my use my AA too many times lol! I was jamming x to get back into the action and would see my character thrust a lot! In a way this showed me how little juice AA's have, which is awesome.
- Ques handlers where really good - eurogamer needs to give the guys working the Halo que real life medals - or a pay rise. Loved them guys. For reference, Metal Gear Solid and Black Ops 2 had what seemed like more TV's, and somehow also had what seemed like 2 hour que's. I was playing Halo 4 within 20 minuites of queuing every single time.
- There where 4 main areas - my first match was regicide, (which I won ) - but the tv's had a ton of input lag. The Tv's which where playing Adrift also had a ton of input lag - so I only played that map the once, but it was awesome - really fun. Lots of potential for jumps. My main gametime was spent on Solace and Haven in Infinity Slayer - both maps aestheticaly felt similar, and I liked them both. Solace felt a little large, and even Haven felt a bit too large at times. I would love a Pit remake!
Had a long day, and ended up doing a lot of other stuff after playing - memories really fuzzy - mention random sandbox stuff and I will mention if I came across it.
Did come across the Beam Rifle, but never got to use it
Also I still dont like tactical and support packages, they are very fuzzy, they add barely anything to the game except for extremely rare situational advantages. Game would be better off with the advantages of some of them being built into the base gameplay.
Couldnt get on with the Light Rifle at all - BR was heaven, DMR was powerful, Carbine was sick. So much variety!
Magnum was suprisingly good - Boltshot was good as a mini shotgun, but felt less useful as a pistol for some reason. PP had decent tracking but I only tried it once, I imagine the noob combo will happen annoying more then you would think.
I will say this, the game is REALLY fun, awesome moments happen on a match by match basis - 343 has put an incredibly game together - and while I may still feel a bit like its not fully Halo... in may ways its
better than Halo. Great job guys, you converted a pretty skeptical fan. I know im going to have a lot of fun with the game - the 5 shot felt good, the fun factor was there - good job guys.
