back to article Halo 4 game review

If you’re a Halo fan, it’s a no-brainer of course. You’ll buy Halo 4 whatever I or anyone else says. You’ll enjoy it too, no question, especially if you’re after its upgraded multiplayer experience. But if you’re hoping the game's solo campaign will let you relive the magic of the original Combat Evolved, you may be a little …

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  1. Ramazan
    Paris Hilton

    will it be available on Microsoft Surface?

  2. eJ2095

    You forgot to mention

    ITs a realy short game if your not going to play it online

    Completed in about 4 hours!!!

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: You forgot to mention

      Try turning the difficulty up from moron level...

      1. toadwarrior

        Re: You forgot to mention

        It will still be short on content. You'll just have to do more shooting than moving.

      2. Greg J Preece

        Re: You forgot to mention

        Try turning the difficulty up from moron level...

        So your answer to "the game hasn't enough content" is "artificially pad it out"? Have you ever worked on Devil May Cry? Or, indeed, the original Halo (the end of which was unbelievably padded)?

  3. Greg J Preece

    But if you’re hoping the game's solo campaign will let you relive the magic of the original Combat Evolved

    Ha! Hahahahahahah! That "magic" is the last thing I want. God, the original was rubbish.

    1. Greg J Preece

      Oooh, I see the fanboys are out in force today. Sorry guys, but the original was crap. The guns looked like they were made by Fisher Price, the physics was dodgy, the enemies were thick as pigshit and pretty repetitive, and the ending was padded to an almost insulting degree.

      The environments were quite cool in places, mind. Having previously read Ringworld (which they clearly ripped off were inspired by) it was pretty sweet to look up and see the ring above you, but as a game it was dull as ditch water. Only remembered because it was good...for a console FPS. That's a pretty low bar.

      1. AbortRetryFail

        I have a lot of affection for the original Halo: Combat Evolved because the unfolding story in the single player mode was pretty good.

        However, I agree that it was heavily padded out in place. The endless waves of Flood in the Library spring to mind - a level that you think will never end. Likewise the unending progressions of identical rooms linked by corridors that you encounter later on (I forget when - it's been many years since I played it).

        Oh, and the final dash in a Warthog though the Pillar of Autumn at the end was pure Sci-Fi Blockbuster, but not in a good way.

        Overall though, it was a good story.

        1. Greg J Preece

          It was a fairly decent story, I'll grant you. I did feel like I'd heard it before, though. Two warring sides unearth ancient uber-powerful bad guys, eh?

          And *thank you* for the Pillar of Autumn. I'd forgotten about how stupid that level was. I was thinking of fighting the Flood, myself. When I went into the 9th copy-pasted room, I nearly rage quit the game.

  4. AbortRetryFail
    Thumb Up

    Good review

    Good, in depth review. A big step up from the usual superficial reviews we see on the Reg.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    recycled crap

    Xbox owners are used to that.

    1. RICHTO
      Mushroom

      Re: recycled crap

      But not as much as PS3 owners are....

  6. Herer

    most overrated game ever

    So many people rave about this game but i always found it really clumsy. The slow pace of play is designed as a result of the massive control shortcomings of a FPS using a controller. Sure it looked nice in its day but so did Rise of the Robots.

    Besides, what happened to 'Finish the Fight'?

    1. BorkedAgain

      Re: most overrated game ever

      No, it has a way to go to beat RoR in that respect. All those sexy pre-rendered visuals turning out to be a sub-Tekken-button-bash. I still chafe.

    2. toadwarrior

      Re: most overrated game ever

      It's not that good but if you're a fanboy it's about the only exclusive Microsoft has that's not a dire kinect game.

  7. Dave 126 Silver badge

    Good review...

    A good review. Halo: CE was good. Shame 343 choose not to include fauna, as Bungie had originally intended to do so in Halo, but didn't due to time constraints. It's a bit like walking around the Eden Project: There's lush vegetation and some humidity, but the squawks and howls of the jungle are conspicuously absent.

    Curiously, Halo: CE actually started out as a Real Time Strategy game for Macs, introduced by Steve Jobs at Macworld:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoSyp_KhFOo

    I know there are some people who don't like Halo: CE, as they prefer fast PC mouse-driven FPSs. Halo though felt more solid than PC shooters at the time, the weapons were very balanced with strengths and weaknesses, the Iain M. Banks-inspired plot was good with some nice twists and surprises, the vehicles fun, the split-screen multiplayer added an important social aspect. Not having to cycle through a dozen guns to find one with some ammunition was good, as was not having to look for health-packs all the time.

    1. Gazareth

      Re: Good review...

      Easy explanation for lack of fauna - any species that run towards explosions/gun fire/big metal exoskeletons have become extinct. The fauna's there, it's just heading rapidly away from you :)

  8. tommy060289
    Thumb Up

    Halo for me has always been

    the best FPS ever released. Im sure people will disagree but I have absolutely loved every game that has ever come out. Its the only original xbox game I own now but the whole series has been one big triumph for FPS's and now I cant wait for this one. I know people will say its the same again, but like smart phones, is there really much evolution to be done at this stage of the life cycle besides just making them bigger and prettier.

    At least it wont be as bad a money churner that is Call of duty. Call of Duty 4 was again one of the greatest FPS's of its day, but since then the game has been exactly the same, Litterally! all they do is put a slightly new story mode on and charge full price for it! I dont think the graphics have changed much at all in the last three releases!

    1. Greg J Preece

      Re: Halo for me has always been

      I dont think the graphics have changed much at all in the last three releases!

      ....because they have to make it fit onto the 360. ;-) Every CoD game is still DirectX 9, and I wish they would just tell the 360 to f**k off and make the new one DX10 or even DX11. But that would require a development cycle longer than Activision will allow.

  9. Another Justin

    Nice review but...

    Does it go "Du Du Du Duuuuhhhh!"?

  10. W.O.Frobozz

    Halo was always overhyped

    The only reason the first one was such a "success" is it was released on the brand-new original X-Box, to an audience that had never seen this "first person shooter thing" before. There was nothing Halo did that long-time PC games like Unreal Tournament hadn't been doing for ages. But the X-box weenies all oohed and aahed as though the FPS had just been invented by Bill Gates himself.

    1. Rob Crawford

      Re: Halo was always overhyped

      Considering I had been playing Doom from the day of release and progressed through so many FPS that I had gotten sick of them by the time Halo came out.

      I ended up with Halo I won an Xbox and got Halo with it, it was simply different, and was worth completing (despite some padding)

      2 weapons and reasonably decent enemy AI (the grunts running away to get somebody bigger to help them was different and still is) and lining up single shot multiple kills from a sniper rifle was a game in itself.

      No I didn't like the joypad controls and still don't but like it or not Halo changed the FPS game.

      As for padding I would point at the alien world in Half Life as being considerably worse than anything that Halo inflicted upon me (it annoyed me so much that I never finished HL1 and will have to play the Black Mesa mod for HL2 to make up for the disappointment I suffered)

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