My biggest complaint is the Spartan Ops: without an Xbox Live subscription, I couldn't even play the extra solo missions, which left the story feeling very empty. The end is anti-climactic, you wind up fighting the same three monster types for the last two levels, with no real "final encounter." There's a strange amount of weapon overlap, with the BR, scoped Magnum, Covenant Carbine, and two new weapons filling the same niche, the DMR and Light Rifle. The story is more confused- the main campaign never explains why you're fighting elites again.
There's a good deal more "Press X to X" to be had, which feels more like CoD than Halo.
It is a bit of a departure from their formula, I find. I finished 1-3 and felt it was finally time to see if 4 was as bad as all the hype claimed. I'd been feeling nostalgic and decided to go on a Halo marathon. There are ten basic multiplayer maps, but an updated version of the Forge mode returns to once again let creative gamers edit and share their own map designs. When players hit level 50 they unlock Specializations, which, over the course of ten more levels, give them the ability to further customize their characters into eight specific classes like Pioneer, Rogue, and Operator. Gamers can equip new abilities by earning Spartan Points, and all the experience they accrue allows them to progress from level one to level fifty.
Players can now completely customize their loadouts with a primary weapon, secondary weapon, grenade, and a variety of armor upgrades like jet-pack boosting, camouflage, and a new kind of X-ray vision.
The War Games mode fits into the overall narrative, serving as a large training simulator in which Spartan warriors fight one another in a variety of multiplayer game types, including Slayer, Regicide, and Infinity Slayer. Halo 4 also includes the new Spartan Ops co-op multiplayer mode, in which up to four gamers can join forces for weekly objective-based missions and cutscenes.Ĭompetitive multiplayer remains a key part of the Halo experience, with players creating their own Spartan-IV warrior and then accruing experience by taking part in various game modes. Set four years after the Covenant War, the Campaign mode finds up to four players working together to help Master Chief battle a variety of foes, uncover ancient secrets, and deal with Cortana's instability.