Now most everyone knows my long term love with FPS's, and by love I mean video game induced motion sickness. Bless Halo ODST for curing that little fault, or maybe bless Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin for doing voices in it that made me want to plat the game myself. Either way I've played all of the Halo games since ODST cured my illness and have to say this is one of my favorite ones.
A lot of people will say it's the same game just updated graphics, well aren't all those FPS games really? How different is you last version of Gears of War from this one? Aren't you still hiding behind stuff and shooting people? With Halo 4 there actually are a few changes, the first one being the studio. Since Bungie is no longer involved with Halo there were some changes that, I'm assuming, had to be made. Don't expect to hear the tell tale intro music, but you will see some of the same old Covenant.
Now that 343 has taken over they made some additions that I, for one, enjoyed like the new weapons. Don't get me wrong, everyone loves taking out a few grunts with the rocket launcher but the new weapons the Prometheans (trying really hard not to bring up Mass Effect) brought with them are pretty bad ass.
I'm not a fan of the shotgun in games usually, as a rule. At some point in the game I always end up stuck somewhere that I'm out of ammo and the only weapon on the ground is a damn shotgun. I would take a Plasma Pistol over a shotgun in these cases. So when the inevitable happened and I was stuck with the Promethean version of a shotgun, the Scattershot, I was prepared to hate it and pray for a grunt to come around that rock so I could steal his Plasma Pistol. Instead I actually liked it. I used up all it's ammo before I got rid of it and for me that's saying something.
The Boltshot and the Lightrifle are some more of my favorite Promethean weapons. I'm also kind of fond of how they float onto your arm when you pick them up for the first time. Kind of explains away the, "Wait a second, how can you use these? Clearly those aliens have different kind of hands than Master Chief." It gives it a bit of an, "It's advanced technology that forms to its user." and that's really all the more you think about it.
The graphics and the soundtrack have gotten a bump as well, and the game play doesn't leave me wishing for tougher bad guys. The AI for the Promethean's is admirable in that you can put a little thought into taking out the flying guys first, since they'll chuck your grenades back at you if you use them, or you can just fill everything full of lead., or little bolts of light, until everything is left twitching on the ground.
Unfortunately I had to work all weekend so I didn't get to finish the whole game prior to writing this, but I will say I felt like the story was going pretty quickly. Hubby and I were playing co-op and after 3 hours we're about half way done. For a $60 game I'd like a little longer story than that myself, since I'm not much of an online player. Call me crazy but I don't like teenagers tea bagging my character and calling me a "little bitch" when they find out that I'm actually a girl.
Which brings up another interesting topic:
Bigotry on Halo 4 will earn you a lifetime XBL ban?
Because there are so many women who are working on Halo 4 there were all sorts of stories flying around that stated if you are reported for bigotry, against any group, while playing Halo 4 that you would be banned from the game AND that you would permanently lose your Xbox Live Account. A Microsoft rep recently denied this was going to happen stating:
"While Xbox Live indeed
does not condone harassment of any kind, account and console bans are
issued based on a robust complaint and evidence-based system, There is no difference in the Xbox Live
Terms of Use and Code of Conduct for Halo 4."
So, there will still be teenagers calling people names, and I guess that means I'll still be left wanting more story to play so I can play with those cool new guns and not have to deal with that kind of behavior.
The final answer to the question of "Is it worth buying?" depends on your own experience. If you think you might only want to play through the campaign, then I say rent it. It's short enough you could get through it in a weekend easily. If you want to play online with all the new guns and all the new maps, then fork over the cash, cause it's worth it.
-Sapph
