Halo 4 Review

The gameplay is crisp.  343 spared no effort in making the aliens as life-like as possible, and gave Master Chief and Cortana as much personality as one could hope for in a game.  This isn’t Mario, folks.  Steve Downes reprised his role as MC, and Jen Tayor once again voiced the sexy A.I. vixen Cortana.  Along with other cast featuring Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter, the game feels more like a movie than anything else in some aspects.  The beginning cutscene, for example, blew me the f*** away.  I had to convince myself it was only CG, and not real people on the screen.  You’ll see what I mean when you play it.

This game marks a new turn for the Halo franchise.  It explores more than just killing stuff.  It explores the depths of John’s (Master Chief, for the uninformed) own emotional ties to Cortana as he not only has to save the planet, but also save Cortana from herself.  As the trilogy proceeds, we get to see more and more of what ticks inside the mind of Master Chief.  But seriously, in this game alone you find out more about the man than you ever dreamed would be created for the character.

The main aspect of the game, and what makes it an excellent FPS, is the gunplay.  All the old guns are there, and true to form, each has its own place and time to be used.  There was once scene where I was fighting a flying machine that no matter what I fired at it, it simply wouldn’t kill off.  Finally I just hauled ass up a hill to fight something a little less… bulletproof.  While I do love the games, I’m still far from willing to memorize what each gun does to each foe.  I did it with Dead Space.  I refuse to do it with Halo.  There’s only so much space left between my ears for that kind of knowledge.  But I have no doubt that dyed-in-the-wool Halo fans will have no trouble picking up where Halo 3 left off.