Forum:Halo 4: From the Beginning You Know the End

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Alright hear me out here, I know the title of this forum may seem a little extreme but this is not about the ending to the game, or rather the story of Halo 4 at all. What it's about is the ultimate end of the Halo experience that was masterfully crafted by Bungie, there has been a lot of information leaked out from the May issue of Game Informer, and I know I may be jumping to conclusions, but its seems like the franchise is already headed in the wrong direction. Let me clarify:

It seems like 343i is trying to bring the multiplayer to the "modern age", which at a glance seems good, but think a little deeper. Almost all modern shooters have the same basic formula, e.i. Battlefield, Homefront, Crysis, Killzone, Rage, etc... And we all know where this stems from; Call of Duty, now don't get me wrong, I enjoy some Call of Duty from, time to time, I, unlike many others don't have any problems with it, however I do hate the majority of it's audience, which I'll return to later.

Now to me it seems like 343i is trying to COD-ify the experience in an attempt to expand the already massive audience, some examples of the COD-ification would include the removal of a respawn clock and making it instantanious, a seemingly small change but it still breaks the formula. Another huge change is sprinting for all, which is the only change I'm for, its about time the supersoldier can actually move faster than 3MPH, however some possible cons to this could be that everyones sprinting to cover, making it harder for the marksman with the Battle Rifle to do his job, rushing the power weapons (which now has an issue all its own) which used to be something that players that chose sprint as an armor ability had exclusively. Thats just scratching the iceberg, as I mentioned above the power weapons have issues, now they no longer follow a respawn clock so players can no longer plan there routes accordingly, now rather they randomly come in "weapon drops" where everyone gets a notification of where the weapon if, similar to Gears of War 3 or Crysis 2, however think of how this breaks the formula, the power weapon spawns would become a massacre if every player rushed them at once. Worse still, I've heard rumors of ADS (aim-down sights) being added, that would honestly be the nails in the coffin for that Halo feel.

If I havn't convinced you enough yet then this should; players can now join multiplayer matches in progress, something that seems good, now nobody has to play 3v4 right? Well honestly its a problem Bungie started in Halo: Reach, leaving a match had almost no penalty, which of course led to much more match quiting than Halo 3 where you actually lost EXP for leaving a match, now it becomes more like COD where you could join a match a minute from ending, which DOES NOT work in the Halo formula, where kills have to be skillfully earned and took a whole match to look impressive on the scoreboard. Now players could loose their whole sense of "honor" for the match, now with people joining and quiting it becomes a droll experience where every opponent is an annoyance, not a worthy adversary, which is how I alway saw it. With this new system rage quits will run rampant across Halo's "honorable battlefields".

It's worse still, custom loadouts and armor that effects how you play is what a lot of Halo fans wished for, but honestly it's one of the biggest breakers of the Halo formula, all the way back to Halo: Combat Evolved it's work liked this: All players spawn equally and victory is based on skill and obtaining the power weapons, now this new formula takes that and pisses on it, now this is how it works: Victory is based on who is higher level and unlocked better armor and weapons and is unfair to every other player. It's just sickening. Like I mentioned above now you'll have to unlock your armor through LEVEL PROGRESSION. NO. Halo: Reach had it perfect, you could customize your armor to you're liking by buying it with the credits you EARNED. Sure you had to be a Colonal to but the gold visor for example, but you probebly couldn't afford it anyway so it all really balanced out. Now theres "Spartan Points" which you use to buy you're armor abilities, including the VERY overpowered-sounding Forerunner Vision, seeing through walls? Really 343? There goes trying to be stealthy and using cover, its just becomes mindless shooting and punching in the open, sure in retrospect it seems like an anti-camping measure but now that you can customize your grenades (and honestly, who would actually run Frags when stickies are an option?) campers don't worry me as much.

Theres still more, now 343i is undoing the mastery of Bungie, REMOVAL of Firefight!? Really? How can you get rid of that? A game without a survival mode these days? Thats not gonna fly, it was an amazing game mode. I personally liked it better in Halo 3: ODST because in Halo: Reach they kinda ruined the matchmaking aspect of it but I still enjoyed a private game on occasion with my pals. They now have Spartan Ops, a story-tied series of weekly four-player missions, I am opptimistic for this at best but would rather take Firefight over it any day. Also tossed on the trash are the Elites in multiplayer, although they were less common is Reach than in Halo 2 or 3 they are still very welcome and loved, I remember always making jokes with my friends about playing as an Elite in Reach, they'd run and call me a dinosaur, and laugh when I was too large to fit through things, and now they are gone. And I can only assume that Invasion is out because there are no Elites, pity, I loved Invasion. Now the multiplayer has a "story" you're all SPARTAN-VIs in training, but honestly we didn't need a reason on why they are fighting, we already have one, cough "Kill the Reds, Kill the Reds, Kill the Reds".

Now im not all cynacle towards the changes, like I said I don't mind the universal addition of sprinting, and the new game mode; Regicide sound like fun (although Headhunter was pretty much the same thing). But I can honestly barely find anything positive about these changes.

Now in a final conclusion, I draw attention to Microsoft, obviously the true one in charge here, not 343i, that was obvious but I think it goes deeper than that. I believe that Microsoft wants 343i to make this game appeal to the Call of Duty audience, in an attempt to make more money. Why else would they not make a beta for Halo 4? When they'd supposedly been working on it for years? So that the Halo community dosn't realize that the new formula sucks and decides not to buy the game. They just want money, they'd sell out the massive Halo community, the "Halo Nation" as we are collectively called, so they can have Call of Duty's audiance, which like I mentioned earlier is mainly kids, little punks who think they're cool and hackers. When Bungie was in charge they would of never let this happen, they did thingd their way, not Microsofts, but now they're gone. The Halo multiplayer is done, as Luke Smith once said "Campaign prepares an amazing table, but multiplayers your meal." and it appears that meal has been spoilled rotten.

BushWookie^Camper 23:16, 9 April 2012 (EDT)