Halo 4 Review

When Halo: Combat Evolved first arrived on the scene, it was the sole reason to buy an Xbox. It modernized the first person controls on a gaming console with its’ dual analog setup. Its’ original developer, Bungie, now gone from the series saw some serious wear from the series with the last couple of titles. While Halo 3: ODST had a great campaign, it was rather short and not worthy of the full price Microsoft made it. Halo Reach, while heralded, was hated by many fans due to some of the creations in its’ multiplayer, along with its’ laughable campaign. But in their stead comes 343 studios, a Microsoft created development for the sole purpose of making Halo games. Considering it’s their first time, Halo 4 does have some growing pains about it, but it’s ultimately a worthwhile experience.

Halo 4 marks the return of the series’ hero, Master Chief, along with his AI companion, Cortana. After four years of drifting in space, Master Chief is awakened to a rogue Covenant group who boarded the ship on the outskirts of a Forerunner planet. The game doesn’t do a very good job conveying what is actually happening with the story, both present and past. While you can unlock background information via Terminals that can only be accessed via Halo Waypoint, an application, it drives the point home of the game having poor storytelling for its’ main thread. Unfortunately, for the story that’s there, it doesn’t really go that far with it, which makes it even more puzzling. Another plot thread is Cortana’s rampancy, which is really the only thing conveyed well in the game’s story. It makes you wonder why so much effort was put on that part of the story and not the main portion of it. It’s confusing, albeit straightforward. Halo 4 has an alright campaign, but it could’ve been better with some better storytelling.

Halo 4’s campaign also continues the tradition of semi-open areas for firefights. While there’s a good mix of small and large areas, which look amazing by the way with its’ gorgeous backdrops that will make you wonder how a console is doing this, on some of the higher difficulties firefights become a major issue of stop and go. At certain points the game will become a puzzle in terms of you figuring out how to pass them, due in part to the game’s poor AI. It’s frustrating to know that a single shot can ruin four or five minutes of progress because the game failed to load a checkpoint. The new enemies in the game, the Prometheans, aren’t all that fun to fight either. They essentially have Flood like numbers, but require the amount of bullets it usually takes to kill a Covenant Elite. You’ll constantly be scrambling for new guns and ammo, leaving you defenseless. While you can appreciate the variety the game is trying to promote, running out of ammo is often the line between progress and reload, a very harsh mistress indeed. What’s also harsh is the loss of firefight in favor of a new cooperative mode, Spartan Ops.

Spartan Ops is a short, mission-based, 5 chapters per week for 10 weeks mode. In this mode, players go throughout an area and kill all the enemies until the end with a cutscene start and finish. Ultimately it’s a short, filler mode that serves little purpose other than to keep people interested in the game for more than a week or two because of other shooters on the market. It’s not an equal substitute for Firefight, but it does an okay job to fill the gap if you get bored, or want more experience than what you’ll get from multiplayer. Halo 4’s multiplayer is a bit more Call of Duty like than Halo Reach. While there aren’t class loadouts for each playlist, you get points to unlock weapons, abilities and armor pieces. While armor pieces are automatic unlocks for various milestones such as getting to Spartan Rank 5, at each level you get 1-2 points to spend how you see fit on Weapons, Grenades or abilities. It’s an adequate system since it promotes choice to peoples’ play styles. What’s not right about it is how the game decides to show you what you can unlock. Instead of laying out everything from the outset, getting kills, gaining levels, and more allow you see what is ahead of you. It’s not tempting anyone to choose variety over a preferred style of play that makes them have a good time. It’s not a fundamental problem, but it’s enough to be a noticeable problem.

Halo 4 does a lot right. It’s graphically impressive, it sounds and controls beautifully. It does a few things wrong as well, most of which are inexcusable. But for the most part, despite its’ flaws, it’s probably the most fun you’ll have with an online shooter this year. That, in and of itself, is why is succeeds.

Score: 8.5 out of 10
+ Looks Amazing
+ Great Multiplayer
+ Good interaction between Master Chief and Cortana

- Terrible Storytelling
- Spartan Ops is disappointing
- Unlock System tedious, cumbersome past weapons

NFL 2012 - Week 11 Predictions

Sorry for not posting my NFL weekly picks last week, as I was busy.

As always, my picks are noted in BOLD

Thursday Game
Miami @ Buffalo

Sunday Early Games
Arizona @ Atlanta
Cleveland @ Dallas
Green Bay @ Detroit
Cincinatti @ Kansas City
NY Jets @ St. Louis
Philadelphia @ Washington
Tampa Bay @ Carolina
Jacksonville @ Houston


Sunday Afternoon Games
New Orleans @ Oakland
San Diego @ Denver
Indianapolis @ New England


Sunday Night Game
Baltimore @ Pittsburgh


Monday Night Game
Chicago @ San Francisco


Overall Record: 89-56

Assassin's Creed III Review

When Assassin’s Creed III was announced to take place in the American Revolution, there was a lot of excitement and concern about the direction the series could. The excitement being centered around, of course, that American History would be the focal point. The concern would be how much will the game sacrifice from the Assassin’s Creed series mechanics to make it functional and proper. While I can tell you that there were no sacrifices made, with the exception of all the bad mechanics introduced in Revelations, last year’s entry, the game re-introduces a lot of the negative elements from the first game to make you wonder if the Assassin’s Creed series has been good or bad for the most part.

The first thing you’ll notice about Assassin’s Creed III is the amazing atmosphere and visual presentation. It has just the right amount of detail to not look like it’s going overboard on realism while keeping itself in line with the rest of the series’ art design. It’s a testament to the new engine that has been created for this game that such fidelity was achieved. But with a new engine comes problems, as framerate drops and screen tearing are somewhat prominent. The game ranges between 15 and 60 fps, although it hangs around 30 for most of the game. The game is also incredibly buggy, akin to the original Assassin’s Creed. Sometimes the game will force you to reload checkpoints because something didn’t trigger. It’s ultimately frustrating to see the game have these bugs because they do ruin the experience. While you may be reliving history through a computer in a video game that they say ‘this is kind of buggy, don’t worry about it,’ you do end up worrying about it since it presents itself time and again. It’s also more prominent because of the slower than usual pacing.

Combat has never been a strong suit of Assassin’s Creed, and this game follows that trend in spades. While the combat is easier than ever before, it is also extremely slow and obnoxious at times. You’ll be waiting a lot longer to counter enemies, which in some cases is the only way to kill enemies. It really drives home the game’s slow, tedious nature that is seen in other areas of the game. There’s too much build up without enough payoff to keep you motivated for very long unless you are an absolute diehard fan of the series. The game’s tutorial takes 5-6 hours to get going, but it takes about that same length for the game to reach its’ proper conclusion. It feels as though something major was cut along the way, but I can’t put my finger on it. While the game has plenty of side missions and the usual Assassin’s Creed fare, the areas created by the end are still unfamiliar to you, which is a shame since the other Assassin’s Creed games made sure you knew where everything was by day’s end. The only outright shining example of excellence in this game is the ship combat, which is both simple and complex to make sure anyone can enjoy it thoroughly. But that’s just a small portion of the game, but there are still gripes that make up the same portion, if not more of the game.

Chases sequences are a prime example of this. They are terribly designed, and some can go on forever if you don’t know what you’re doing. This really drives home the point that the game doesn’t properly convey things to you. It feels like a game manual would help with these grievances but some publishers have done away with them to save money, even though developers act like they’re still there. If you fail some of these missions, I hope you didn’t waste any items along the way, because you won’t regain them if you reload a checkpoint. It’s appalling that this type of punishment exists in a game like this, and it makes you feel helpless and demoralized to know your one good weapon is gone forever because of a simple failure or glitch. And that’s really what Assassin’s Creed III feels like, a glitch; something that shouldn’t exist because of its’ series history.

While Assassin’s Creed III has a lot going for it, but the expansive nature about it makes it feel unfocused and unpolished. It feels like the series’ yearly iterative cycle has finally caught up with like Revelations was alluding to last year. Instead of falling on the side of 2 and Brotherhood, 3 fell on the side of bad with the original and Revelations. Assassin’s Creed III may delight some fans, but it will disgust and bore the majority of them, just like so many saw it before the series’ inception.

Score: 6.5 out of 10
+ Great Atmosphere
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Haythem Kenway, that dapper fiend

- Extremely Glitchy
- Too much like Forest Gump, where Connor is everywhere, doing everything
- The story has a terrible ending