Great game, new tricks, new weapons, new characters... No Masterchief!
I have now played ALL the HALO series games, and frankly, I don't care for this one as much as Halo 2 or 3. I like some of the new tricks, like the jet-pack and being able to fly the Sabre and the Falcon, but the controls keep changing with every evolution which inevitably gets one killed, while hitting the wrong button for changing weapons or reloading. The story, the art, the animation, the imagination are all still top of the line, genius talent, but in the world of 'reality', we need to deal with so many losses and so many changes. Leave the games alone! Bring back the Master Chief, and put the controls back where they belong!
I like the new menu items that allow you to build your own game, which makes this version virtually eternal.
I bought this disk used, so I don't know if there is a problem with it, or if I am doing something wrong, but every time I 'finish' a level. I get my points, my achievements, my rank promotions, but the game restarts at the same level, over and over again. Bungie has never been big on instructions, so it's hard to even know if I am making the right menu selections when starting, but one would assume that 'resume game' would put you at the next level, not start you again at the level you just completed. Might be a tech problem with the saves or something. Another issue is when and how to deploy articles/equipment picked up, or even its function, there are so many, and my biggest peeve with this and all versions, is trying to read the screen instructions, communications, HUD, etc. Why bother having a huge screen so you can sit comfortably 10 feet away, if you can't read the screen! Even a young, 14-year old player, had to stand 2 feet in front of the screen to see what it was reporting.
One more peeve, and don't get me wrong, I am not a biggot, but these 'foreign' accents drive me nuts! I don't understand half of the dialogue because of bad accents! I understand that the UNSC is a multi-national force, but come-on guys, even Hollywood gives us language we can understand! If you are making different language versions anyway, why not have the characters speak clearly in the selected language? (subtitles would help, but not if you can't read them because the characters are too small!)
I am not an online player, so I cannot comment on that function or its capability.
Balancing all the positives and negatives, it is a great game and I recommend it to Halo players. But 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'! Hopefully Halo 4 will bring back Spartan-117 (and The Arbiter) and maybe even be Kinect enabled!).Read full review
