The Basics
The game begins with Master Chief waking up from his four year power nap in a cryo-chamber on board the damaged UNSC frigate Forward unto Dawn. The covenant have stormed the ship (apparently that truce didn't last long), and to make matters worse, they are being sucked towards a giant forerunner planet called Requiem. I'm not going to give away the rest of the story, but the game takes off quick. It's a first-person shooter, with similar controls to the other Halo games. Tons of new weapons and gameplay elements give the player a game that is quite unlike the other Halo games.
The Good News...
I'd like to start this section by saying that the graphics of Halo 4 are probably the best of any game I've ever seen on the 360, and really push the graphics capabilities of the 360 to it's limits. Watching the cutscenes, I actually had a hard time being able to tell if they were live action or animated (until an elite showed up). The campaign is full of environments and landscapes that will make your jaw drop in awe; seeing my first giant forerunner structure took my breath away, because not only were the designs so beautiful, but they actually looked real! And don't even get me started on the forerunner weaponry; never did I think killing someone could look so beautiful.
The gameplay is fantastic as well. The large arsenal of weapons and vehicles is impressive, and there are several new gametypes (including Flood, which is like Infection, except with... well... the flood). The armor customization options are spectacular (Hooray for red visor color!!!), and the ability to customize loadouts is a nice touch that helps Halo keep up with modern shooting games. The multiplayer is more fast paced since you can choose to respawn almost immediately when you die, and now games are point based so that even the assist noobs (like myself) contribute to the teams victory.
And Now for the Bad News
Every rose has it's thorn, and Halo 4 is no exception. While the game may appear flawless at first, most people won't even notice what's missing: The theater for campaign. While theater is still available for multiplayer, 343 made it completely unavailable for campaign missions. I don't know about you, but when I kill 4 hunters with a plasma pistol on legendary and brag about it at lunch, I want some proof to show my buddies. However, there have been rumors around the web that a title update may indeed make theater available again, but there is no way of being sure. For now, I guess we will have to be theaterless.
Also, I am less than impressed with Master Chief's character development in Halo 4. I know this is based off of personal opinion more than anything, but I was always used to the Chief being a silent, mysterious character that we know little about. Well, Halo 4 decided to change all that. Remember how little the Chief talked in previous games? Perhaps we got two lines out of him per mission, if we were lucky. However, in Halo 4, we get about as much dialogue out of him as we do Cortana, and she's going bat shit crazy, so trust me, that's alot. I don't necessarily feel that having all this dialogue for the Chief is staying true to the original Halo series, and the attempts at humor throughout the game were a little embarrassing, to say the least.
Final Score: 8.5/10
All in all, Halo 4 was a pretty solid game. I enjoyed playing it more than any other Halo game out there, and even though it may have a few flaws here and there, they did not take away from the experience that it was trying to deliver. Whether you're new to the Halo universe, or a Halo veteran, I highly recommend this game for any Xbox 360 owner. All points considered, this game deserves a well earned 8.5/10.
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