Edited Halo 4 review by me

Halo 4 Review – Owens top of the Christmas tree gaming list

 

The Hype

 

When I saw Halo 4 on play.com for a mere 30 quid, it was a straight grab.

I’d recently bought Fifa 13 but was fed up of getting absolutely welted online, so I decided to try and take my custom elsewhere.

 

The hype around the new Halo game was at its usual immensity.

Hard-line Xbox fans all around the world had all been eager for its release and I wanted to get in on the excitement. I wasn’t going to take it too far, I don’t fall under the category of gamer that’s willing to stay up way past my bedtime and go to the midnight launch, and I always feel like I can wait till the morning. Plus it was cheaper on play.

The midnight launches do work though, and this year Halo proved it, it opened up in 10,000 stores worldwide for a midnight release, and the game brought in a staggering $200 Million in the first 24 hours.

 

When the game arrived through the door, just two days after purchase (well done play.com), I was pretty giddy about it.

The wait had caused me to go online and look at the flurry of newly uploaded game play footage from its huge online community. It looked good, really good.

 

The Game

 

A secondary disc is provided and must be installed to unlock all of Halos features.

It’s a big game, and whilst loading it up, I definitely got a Halo 1 nostalgic buzz. While you wait for the install you get hit with that traditional epic music and amazing vivid scenery. I was ready to get down to it.

 

The menu system is slick and very different from the older Halo games made by Bungie. You can tell 343 industries (the new developers to take the franchise) have really tried to shake things up and turn the game into their own masterpiece and not just make it a rehash of an older Halo model.

Successfully done as well, navigating the menu is a breeze; everything can be accessed easily and it makes for a quick and snappy play if you have ten minutes and just fancy blasting a few heads off online.

 

The campaigns length isn’t as impressive as some of its predecessors, with only a roughly six hour run time but it does make up for this however in depth and magnitude. The introduction of the new enemy, ‘The Prometheans’ was great way for 343to start shaking things up. This new force includes three new unit types, Crawlers, Knights and Watchers, each coming with their own problems for you such as: the ability to cling to any surface, float, warp and just generally try and do everything in their power to get under your skin and into your head.

 

Depth

 

Halo 4 feels a lot less cartoony. It’s more serious, more grown up, it seems to have shed its quirky skin and adopted a more grounded, mature one. The campaign caters for existing Halo fans and new comers who seek to understand the games amazing universe.

Creative director Josh Holmes was quoted as saying the new approach to the Halo design was ‘sophisticated’ and that is seen explicitly throughout.

Halo 4 has a darker, more moody feel to it this time round; tactically this was a great play. By reanimating this classic with a fresh new, rather more aggressive feel to it, 343 industries have most probably set themselves for at least ten more years’ worth of Halo games to grace our shelves, I hope so anyway.

Its huge sandbox environments are the cornerstone of the campaigns success; they keep you welded to the screen as you pass through the galactic adventure.

It’s a game that allows you to really see how far the gaming industry has developed graphically in the past few years.

Some missions in the campaign feel subtly familiar to former Halo games, but everything is presented with this new edginess that crushes any feeling of romantic Déjà vu.

 

Massive Fun

 

Online was pretty much what I expected, amazingly fun as per. Some new modes have been added that beef the experience up a notch from the other Halo’s. There’s more to do.

I spent a good few hours exploring the online modes before review and there’s definitely enough to keep any Halo 4 fan going until the next instalment.

 

Halo 4 is a title bound to rock the shelves this Christmas, and for good reason. It’s fantastically immersive universe and reliably fun online experience make it a great challenger amongst all the other massive titles being released this winter.