Halo 4 Review
The brevity of the campaign gives the impression that the developers put time into creating a story arc for the whole trilogy and then had to stretch the first segment of that story to fill Halo 4. Huge stories that span multiple games are great, but each game needs to be able to stand on its own. If Halo 4 is a good indicator of how much content there is in the entire Reclaimer Trilogy, then the whole trilogy will probably have less going on then a lot of competing stand-alone games.
Another issue with the single player campaign has to do with pacing. In this regard you can tell the original Halo game was used as a model. The game begins with you immediately getting thrown into a fight and the action is nonstop until the game ends. That is what Call of Duty and almost every other first person shooter has been doing for years. It’s getting old. Halo 2 and Halo 3 did a much better job pacing the game and creating a nice arc with an appropriate climax.
A good example of what I’m talking about is Cortana’s storyline. This is something that could have been slowly teased out to give you a sense of discovery. Instead, Cortana drops the 800 pound gorilla on you right at the beginning of the game with an ‘oh, by the way . . .’
The lackluster ending was also problematic. It didn’t resolve problems that had arisen and it didn’t provide any sort of lead-in for the next game. The epilogue cinematic was very out of place. It seemed like it was ripped straight off a transformers movie but instead of Optimus Prime stoically talking about the future you get the game’s antagonist rambling about nothing important.
The musical score was a let down as well. The loss of Martin O’Donnell (who will continue to work on Bungie projects) cannot be understated. Halo 1, 2, and 3 contained some of the most memorable music in gaming and its going to take a more substantial effort to keep that tradition alive. I also wasn’t a fan of the new HUD because it obscures too much of your view. In this day and age it really seems like players should be given more opportunity to customize their HUD.
Another troubling aspect of the game is the changes to Master Chief. A major focus of the Reclaimer Trilogy is the continued development of the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana. This involves Master Chief doing some introspection about who he really is. Is he just a programmed machine? Or is he still human with emotions and fallibility. These topics are not problematic per se but they are treated very haphazardly.