Halo 4

This was the first halo game to be developed by someone other than bungee, while it’s a decent game by all accounts, I kind of wish they ended the story with odst as I feel there isn't much more they can do with the series as this entry proves.

There's not much to say about the story here, it basically calls off the truce that humanity has with the covenant as our hero once again has to battle elites who once fought alongside him in the earlier titles. I'm not even sure why this is as the game introduces a new faction in the form of the Promethean, although these weren't well received by the fandom so perhaps the developer added back the covenant in case they alienated fans with this new faction. Honestly there's not much to say about the Promethean either, they're basically the games equivalent of the flood and come complete with their own weapons which are just variations of human and covenant weapons. Thats the biggest problem with this game, it's just more of the same which makes it a decent game in its own right but a disappointment when compared to the other entries in the franchise.

I guess I must not quite get the appeal of the single-player side of this series, because despite the very mixed reception to it, the campaign for this game did not seem significantly better or worse than the Bungie entries, on the whole. The problem is that this game follows 5 earlier games, and plays it safe enough that everything in it feels very familiar, and by the time you get to this game, tired. The additions to the familiar Halo single-player gameplay loop are not significant ones - the Prothean enemies don't add much and are less interesting than the Flood in the earlier games, and the weapons they drop similarly don't offer anything fresh. The Covenant remain much as they've been since Halo 1. On the positive side, it's a better-looking game than the Bungie-made Halos, though similar in visual style and its tendency to send you plodding through too many forgettable sci-fi hallways. The story is silly but functional, and to me does not diverge much from the spirit of the series.

Played this game with a guy who I sort of hated, he always got really quiet during the cutscenes with Cortana. Not a great game, but really funny to remember this guy horned up for Master Chief's waifu. Multiplayer was fine, didn't do it much.

After a long lasting relationship, 'Bungie' passed the Halo series over to '343 Industries'. 343 Industries had a difficult job of meeting the high expectations, yet making some changes to keep things fresh.

After many years of being in stasis, Master Chief emerges straight into battle with his new found running ability, but has forgot his skill in duel wielding. Due to these changes, you will need to get used to the new controls. There are also power-ups that you can pick up and activate at the touch of a button, such as a shield, sentry turret, jet-pack, active camouflage.

The story was a bit lost on me and seemed bland and partially silly. Initially, Master Chief goes searching for Cortana's creator in order to save her, since as an A.I, she is coming to the end of her life cycle and is becoming 'rampant'. Meanwhile, a Forerunner race known as the Prometheans led by the warrior Didact seem to be teaming up with the Covenant. The Promethean army consist of crawlers, which are wolf-like mechs which can climb walls, Knights which are strong robots with teleporting abilities, and Watchers which fly and offer support.

There are new weapons too but they generally feel similar to existing weapons, so the Promethean's have a version of the pistol, machine gun, shotgun, and sniper etc. Graphically, the game is very impressive, and the biggest change is with the cut-scenes which feature amazing facial animations. Gameplay wise, it's pretty familiar stuff, although Cortana likes to make Master Chief hit switches and insert her into the many terminals. The locales don't seem as interesting when compared to Halo 3, and some of the sections feel very copy and paste in the parts where you are hitting multiple switches.

The story doesn't seem to have the epic edge that the Halo series usually has, so although it's still a good game, it seems the most boring version yet.

A pace that gets long in the tooth and a bunch of new weapons with only minor mechanical deviations from typical firearms distract from what should be a killer Halo experience, even one where the backstory betrays the spirit of the series thus far, with the Covenant going straight back to being bad guys. Still, it is Halo; sharp design, intuitive gunfights and well regulated difficulty keep things from approaching stale, but it's easy to take a step back once its over and realise how many holes it all truly has.