It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly five years since we last found ourselves behind the visor of Spartan-117, blasting our way through space, trying to save the universe by blowing up as much of it as we possibly can.
After his lengthy hiatus the Master Chief is back in action and ready to bring the hurt to all manner of intergalactic evil once again in Halo 4, the first major outing from developer 343 Industries.
With only a few months to go until we jump back into the boots of everyone’s favourite space marine I’ve taken a look back at the last proper title in the series; Halo: Reach, to decide what I’d like to see improved upon in 343′s first proper foray into the Halo universe.
Putting together this list was no mean feat. Reach was brilliant, a fitting end to Bungie’s run with the Halo saga, but even the best games have room for improvement.
So without further ado and in no particular order, here are 10 things I’d like to see improved upon in Halo 4.
10. Enough with the Covenant Already
This may be a controversial idea but hear me out. I like The Covenant, I really do, but after a decade of shooting them in the head I’m getting a bit bored. If you’ve checked out any gameplay footage you’ll know we’ve not seen the last of our old pals. It just wouldn’t be Halo without them, but I’m hoping that we’re going to see less of The Covenant this time around and more of the new bad guys we saw in the recent E3 gameplay trailer.
From the hulking skull-faced robots to the laser shooting dog… things, these new baddies look seriously menacing. A far cry from the brightly coloured almost cutesy foot soldiers of the Covenant. I’m seriously looking forward to fighting an enemy that doesn’t resemble a piñata wearing a gas mask and I can’t wait to see what else Halo 4 has to throw at us.
Let’s all keep our fingers crossed that The Flood don’t rear their ugly heads again too.
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12 Comments
“More Vocal Protagonists”
Oh shut up. You’re one of those people that wanted the Covenant to feel more “human” and hence we got what was affectively the death of the Covenant as “cool” in Halo 2. I bet you if 343 did make the Master Chief more “vocal”, everyone will hate it and moan about how sht Halo 4 is because of it, and then 343 take him back to his “roots” and make him mute again. We’ve all seen this pattern before, and it’s people like you who are to blame.
Master Chief doesn’t talk much. It’s not a feature, it’s WHO HE IS. The point of a character is they are what they are, not what YOU want them to be. He’s silent so you can imprint badassery all over him. It would be wrong for him to suddenly start getting all chatty and socialable with the Precusrsors. Do you seriously want him to spew out hammy lines? “Take that E.T!”…like every other rubbishly writen game character? Please. I DON’T want MC to exhibit anymore character then he already does: I control him, I’LL give him character. If you can’t then you simply have no imagination.
No offense, but you need to do a bit of research. As mentioned by the previous guy, a vocal Master Chief would be all wrong. Master Chief being who he is allows the player to feel like the Chief himself and become the badass. There is going to be a loadout system in multiplayer. There will be weapon skins for weapon customization. Enemies are going to be more difficult, especially new enemy class. Friendly AI’s are hopefully more helpful than they have been in the past. The unlocking system for armor hasn’t exactly been released yet. There is a forge that is phenomenally improved upon from Halo reach. There will more than likely be a search playlist solely for “social” custom made maps, sort of like reach’s community map add-ins.
@Phil
Actually, the Chief can be fairly chatty at times. No, he’s not always running his mouth, but neither is he the “strong, silent type.” He has a fair amount of dialogue in the cinema scenes as well as in the books. The fact that outside of Halo 3: ODST (and Reach’s Firefight mode) the player character never talks during gameplay doesn’t mean much of anything. The Arbiter never talked during gameplay during Halo 2 (nor in Halo 3 when playing co-op), but he’s anything but silent. He has quite a lot to say. The Chief will be talking during gameplay in Halo 4, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a good thing. If anything, having the protagonist be silent during gameplay really limits what can be done with the character in-game.
Oh, and the Covenant side of the plot in Halo 2 was the best thing about that game. They went from some stereotypically faceless horde of aliens to a force comprised of factions and individuals with their own culture, attitudes, and (often competing) interests. That added a tremendous amount of depth to the Halo story, and by any measure the Arbiter is a far more dynamic and interesting character than the Chief.
I’m glad Chief will talk more in Halo4, just as long as he doesn’t get too chatty. I don’t like hearing him in Firefight simply because it doesn’t come off as the Chief. Far too much talking to himself there. And that’s just weird for the character. If he’s talking to Cortana in Halo4, then fine, but keep it minimal.
As stated, Halo wouldn’t be Halo without the Covies. They should ALWAYS be in the Halo games. No Flood?! Are you nuts? Seriously, Halo is ABOUT THE FLOOD. True there is a new story arc but it’s roots are still firmly planted in the Flood story. Heck the HALO Rings were built to remove the Flood and we still have 5 more rings to deal with. The game is titled after the structure designed to remove the Flood. Not ever see them again. Forget that! We know they’ll not make it into Halo4, but I sure hope they make a return in Halo5. The flood were just getting interesting with Halo3 and then they just up and vanished for the next 3 games (counting H4).
As for Forge, yes Halo3′s forge was a pain to work with, but there were ways (glitches) around most of those issues. And reach was a HUGE improvement for Forge. It removed the need for those glitches and opened a LOT of doors. The only thing limiting Map designers in Reach are their imaginations and the credit limit. Halo4′s Forge will have a 1 million credit limit which is a HUGE jump from the 100 thousand found in Reach. Gravity and Player Trait Zones (announced at RTX) open up a lot more possibilities. But if you had trouble working in Reach’s Forge then you either don’t have any patience to finish one simple map or you haven’t tried it for more then 5 minutes. It’s incredibly easy to use. Setting it up for certain game-types can be tricky at times but everything is labeled for ya. So what’s the problem?
Weather effects? Yes, that would be awesome. Sadly, 343i has already told us that it’s not a option in Halo4. I understand why as well. Doing such stuff at will over a network for 16 players is a BIG lag issue. That’s a lot of information for that has to be played at once over many networks for many players, at many different resolutions, yadda yadda. It’s bearly possible to allow it in Campaign for 4 players where it’s all faked and pre-scripted. But doing that in MP where Forgers have control over it and it’s in Real-times? Forget about it.
But I still want it. ;)
I’m glad Chief will talk more in Halo4, just as long as he doesn’t get too chatty. I don’t like hearing him in Firefight simply because it doesn’t come off as the Chief. Far too much talking to himself there. And that’s just weird for the character. If he’s talking to Cortana in Halo4, then fine, but keep it minimal.
As stated, Halo wouldn’t be Halo without the Covies. They should ALWAYS be in the Halo games. No Flood?! Are you nuts? Seriously, Halo is ABOUT THE FLOOD. True there is a new story arc but it’s roots are still firmly planted in the Flood story. Heck the HALO Rings were built to remove the Flood and we still have 5 more rings to deal with. The game is titled after the structure designed to remove the Flood. Not ever see them again. Forget that! We know they’ll not make it into Halo4, but I sure hope they make a return in Halo5. The flood were just getting interesting with Halo3 and then they just up and vanished for the next 3 games (counting H4).
As for Forge, yes Halo3′s forge was a pain to work with, but there were ways (glitches) around most of those issues. And reach was a HUGE improvement for Forge. It removed the need for those glitches and opened a LOT of doors. The only thing limiting Map designers in Reach are their imaginations and the credit limit. Halo4′s Forge will have a 1 million credit limit which is a HUGE jump from the 100 thousand found in Reach. Gravity and Player Trait Zones (announced at RTX) open up a lot more possibilities. But if you had trouble working in Reach’s Forge then you either don’t have any patience to finish one simple map or you haven’t tried it for more then 5 minutes. It’s incredibly easy to use. Setting it up for certain game-types can be tricky at times but everything is labeled for ya. So what’s the problem?
Weather effects? Yes, that would be awesome. Sadly, 343i has already told us that it’s not a option in Halo4. I understand why as well. Doing such stuff at will over a network for 16 players is a BIG lag issue. That’s a lot of information for that has to be played at once over many networks for many players, at many different resolutions, yadda yadda. It’s barely possible to allow it in Campaign for 4 players where it’s all faked and pre-scripted. But doing that in MP where Forgers have control over it and it’s in Real-times? Forget about it.
But I still want it. ;)
Terrible AI has only surfaced as of late. 1 and 2′s AI (and the vast majority of 3′s) had perfectly fine AI.
And you only hated Forge because you were stupid enough to think it was a “map editor”. It never was, and no one ever claimed it was. A couple people (such as you) just got their panties in a twist because they WANTED a map editor.
And please, at least look up the names of the new enemies. Otherwise you just look ill informed.
The pathfinding and driving AI was always a bit out of whack but decent for a console FPS. Reach was abysmal when it came to AI though…
I like your reasoning and mostly agree. Some of the other comments have good reasoning too. I feel your right and hope some of those things are improved
i agree with many of the ideas especially the credit system as for weapon customisations a huge NO that for me would make halo way too familiar with COD i love the halo weapons as they are to have scopes on pistols and bayonets! on our rifles woah now i really have to disagree, the only weapon customisations i would like would be skins and colours :)
Some of your points are good but not the chatty chief one. Something you should have put insted is buyable hostle AI`s in forge that would make forge even more fun because you could fight covies,flood and the new enemies on your own map.
Some of your ideas are right but not the chatty chief one.One thing you should have put is buyable hostle AI`s like covies,flood and the new enemies that are suposed to be in halo 4.that way you could fight whatever you want like a 1,000,000 grunts on your own map using anything you want.
Look I really would be intrested in a Talkative chief but what would be the fun in that? In my opinion I like a mute like Gordon Freeman. Just sayin.