Shrooblord said:
I already saw some footage of it and what I can say about it at first glance is that I really don't like the textures that for example the ground has. I mean, look at this. This really doesn't turn me on (funnily enough, the cliffs look great though).
And the other thing is that I despise the new armour and armour colouring. I guess I could get over that and enjoy the game for what it is, but I'll just have to see.
Please tell me more things you notice about Halo 4 (whether you like them or not), because I'd like to get a good non-commerical look at it.
Oh, can you dual-wield?
[[MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS]]
Okay I was in a 'fuck it, I'll just go get it' mood and now I have Halo 4. Most of my presumptions were wrong. The game's textures are great. The location of filming in that screenshot must be somewhere in an out-of-bounds place where the devs never expected people to go (so they didn't care what texture they stuck on that rock). The armour colouring is not even that bad in-game; you hardly notice it. To answer my own question: no, you cannot dual wield anything.
There are some great new features/gimmicks too. Some of the new armour abilities are great. I like how you can always sprint and how that's no longer a specific armour ability. There's things like Ordnance Drops that I thought were a nice addition. The overall changes to HUD (like that it moves a tiny bit as you run) make it feel more realistic and this is a serious pro. The physics are great in this - better than in most games I've seen so far. The sound is really good too: if there's an explosion around the corner and quite far away, you can hear it all muffled and distorted like you would; if you find yourself surrounded by explosions, you will experience hearing impairments for several seconds; the sounds are overall more realistic.
The campaign is great. Cool new story, but I won't go on to tell you what it is (and don't go on to tell me; I haven't finished it yet!) - don't want to ruin it for you.
There's one thing that I notice immediately: the game is really based on on-line experience. About half of the content or more is locked as long as you don't have a LIVE Gold account. What really disappointed me was that I can't even use the File Share anymore without having a LIVE Gold account. Shame on you, 343 - it seems it's all about the money now (welcome to life in the human world, I guess).
Then there's one more silly thing that I'm disappointed about in Halo 4. The explosions aren't great. In fact, they're a bit of a letdown. Things no longer explode in grand flashes of light and displays of epic fireballs - maybe a tad more realistic, however - not quite what you're used to after playing 1, 2, 3 and Reach (and ODST). Things explode weirdly too. Where first things made sense as they exploded, now they blow up into such pieces that you can immediately see that those pieces could have never formed the initial shape to begin with. The whole explosion mechanic looks a bit mediocre. Like I said, it's something silly that disappoints me; it's not really anything worth the attention I'm giving it.
The new capabilities in the Forge are, while not revolutionary (like one of my friends noted), certainly a big improvement for your efficiency when making maps. For a good overview on what's been added, why not check out this vid:
If you liked the other Haloes, you're most probably going to enjoy this one quite a bit too. It's a recommendation from me for sure.
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