75%PC

Not as memorable as others, but probably has more polished gunplay. Still fun and good story. The game looks good obviously.

80%Xbox Series X/S

Halo 4 wasn't that bad. I quite like it, but it does have its downsides with story, enemies, and technical difficulties.

Let us start with the negative aspects of Halo 4. I don't know why 343i hasn't fixed the issue of sound just randomly going out. This is a 10 year old game and this bug still persists. Worst, it happens on the critical story points which takes the player out of the story. However, I do find the story to be alright. No book needed to understand what is happening, but collecting the terminals does help understand the Forerunners. Master Chiefs and Cortana relationship was... interesting to say the least. Seemed like a romantic relationship which is pretty weird since I never sensed this in past entries, but we do see Chief's humanity in the cutscenes. Well we see surface level emotions from him which is better than nothing.

The new enemies are absolutely and utterly annoying. Prometheans absolutely bring the game down given how tanky and dull they are. A knight could one hit kill you with some bullshit weapon they have it's crazy. Enemies in Halo 4 are annoying, simple as that. Killing the Covenant is still fun though.

Music and visual are great. Music goes from classic halo to techno depending on the environment and sets the vibe of the level. Visual are an absolute upgrade from Halo 3, but Master Chiefs armor is a bit of a downgrade. I like Halo 3 and 2's armor better than 4's. Enemy designs are more detailed and Covenant look more reptilian here while the new enemies are more robotic and smooth looking. Gameplay wise, I think everything from movement to shooting seems good.

8/10 Halo 4 experience was overall pretty good. An alright story with good gameplay make it an enjoyable experience... well except killing the Prometheans lol.

85%Xbox Series X/S

84%

60%Xbox 360

el fokin halo... nunca fui fan pero era entrete

75%Xbox One

I did not find the story to be very compelling. However, the gameplay was as great as ever and there were some standout moments. Still planning on continuing my playthroughs of 5 and Infinite, but my expectations have been lowered a bit.

45%PC

+ Multiplayer was good but not nearly as good as previous titles

= Story was mid

- Gameplay was Repetitive and boring, press switch, press another switch, kill reinforcements, wait for switch etc
- They ruined Master Chief
- Grunts look like sharks, Jackals look like Eels
- Forerunner are just bullet sponges on legendary
- Spartan Ops put me to sleep

60%Xbox 360

For Halo's standards, this was pretty pathetic. The turn to change to a COD like gameplay was shocking, the story focusing on Master Chiefs humanity, was an awesome concept that wasn't fully fleshed out and then scrapped in future instalments. For me this was the beginning of the decline for Halo.

50%Xbox One

some cool ideas at times but mostly dropped the ball

90%PC

8.9/10

80%Xbox Series X/S

it was ok

80%Xbox One

When I played the Halo series for the first time in 2021, I was expecting Halo 4 to be a dropoff. I was told by Halo fans that this is where the series began going downhill, but... I dunno about that. I actually enjoyed this game. Does it try too much to be like other shooters? Yes. I don't mind sprinting but it didn't need it either. This is a more story-heavy game than the previous entries, focused around Cortana primarily. And I liked it! I really don't think this game is bad at all, but it's definitely not up to par with the games that came before it.

Score: 82

70%PC

Honestly I like this game more than a lot of other people and thought it was fun. I actually liked some of the weapons they added.

80%PC

I had a lot of fun with the gameplay and really liked the dynamic between Master Chief and Cortana, but the game has way too much plot points and fails to properly develop most of them.

20%PC

Halo 4's overall execution should be studied as what not do when making a sequel to an IP which had storngly defined itself with consistently quality games before. The campaigns writing for the Master Chief and Cortana story line is fantastic, moving the story in a deeper direction was done well but other than that it's awful, all other characters are poorly written and the stage variety sucks. That last part isn't helped by the enemy variety which has reverted back to Combat's Evolved roster for the Covenant (why even bring them back) with no substitutes for Brutes, Skirmishers, Drones and the Flood is replaced with Promethean's, none of whom provide an interesting fight. The weapon roster hasn't lost much though but it feels like they took everything that came before and copied it for the new weapons which makes the guns feel bloated and samey, also bloom is back for some reason. The soundtrack is good, I don't remember any of it, but it was good, the villain sucks though, their so uninteresting which is weird because they are an actual Forerunner, they should automatically interesting after having played a previous Halo game. The multiplayer also sucks, it's diet Call of Duty with weapon spawns for some reason, it doesn't feel anything like Halo, it's like a skinwalker that resembles Halo. The game would be a 3/10 if it wasn't for Spartan Ops, which replaces Firefight and man is it so boring, the enemies are just not fun enough to fight to make it interesting and it's story is boring with another sauceless villain that was so bad it got canceled and resolved within
the first mission of Halo 5.

60%PC

A decent, but unnecessary sequel to Halo 3. I didn't care much for the story, but I must admit that the ending was surprisingly well done and would have been a nice way to wrap up the series. I wasn't a big fan of the Prometheans or their weaponry; most of their guns felt underpowered.

1: Halo 2 8/10

2: Halo 3 8/10

3: Halo 1 8/10

4: Halo: Reach 8/10

5: Halo 3: ODST 7.5/10

6: Halo 4 6/10

80%Xbox One

Gameplay 2/3 it's good that it shakes things up. Its never ideal to make the same gameplay over and over, but there are some less than great choices. nnew weapons bring fun variety ton the combat and yet in some ways it feels like too many are similar especially with how some of the changes were implemented. New enemies is also a nice inclusion but still doesn't feel too varied. The qte is a bit silly too.
Story 2/3 the thing here is that halo 3 really feels conclusive. And halo 4 derails that. It does a good job with it but it's not perfect. Cortana's involvement was something, the forerunner lore is good
Visuals 2/2 great style appreciate the new esthetic and there's a lot of variety of locations and enemy designs
Audio 2/2 great music and voice acting

Reccomend completing, not 100%

70%Xbox One

Every audio channel besides the one for effects stop working on the last part.

I know this is a bit of an issue with a lot of these games for me, but the enemies in this game were way too bulky and considering the weapons you got I felt I bit uneven in terms of power. I do enjoy these but I don’t think I’m really the person that should’ve gone this far (I say 6 games in)

85%Xbox 360

No, despite this game having Halo as the title it has nothing to do with religion.

Definitely one of the better campaign shooters I've played, probably up there for one of the best. The enemies and weapons were done well, quite a bit of variety often encouraging different weapons. Of course there's the normal weaklings, then there are some enemies with shield that you have to aim carefully at their hand and then shoot them, enemies with actual regenerating shiels that only extremely high damage attacks or machine guns will work, fast dog like enemies which can instantly be killed with a headshot, drones, each type of enemy felt like it required it's own strategies. The weapons are like this as well, each with their own uses, and even some "hidden" special ones. There are even gimmick moments in this game, but for once the gimmick sections were actually though well. Piloting mechs, planes, tanks, it was fun. While relatively minor, the story was also above-average for a shooter, while not something super engaging like an RPG, it kept me interested for what's next. A neat feature was the skulls you can turn on for the campaign, which add certain difficulty increases, such as disabling the motion sensor, improving enemy weaknesses, or even some stupid ones like making rare dialog more common. I personally didn't use these, but it's a nice feature. Now for the negatives, some areas of the game felt rather enemy spammy and that I was at the mercy of the AI, a great example of this was disabling the shield in the 5th mission. Most of the game seems to rely on sniping and hiding behind corners for your life too much, however this changes towards the end, especially in the last mission. Being able to carry only two weapons was kind of annoying as well, would've liked to carry more. The levels are also rather linear, which isn't a bad thing, but there's barely any secrets in them except for the occasional flanking path or special weapon. The game starts off as a drag as well until the 3rd mission. I was also unable to play the spec ops, as to do so you need to install information on the system from disc 2, and it's WAY more space than my default 3GB drive can handle. Why wasn't this section of the game just played off of Disc 2, similar to how many PS1 games work?

Anyways, this is an excellent campaign shooter, definitely interested in playing the other Halo games. It's kind of a shame Halo gets so much hate for being a Microsoft exclusive and being called a Doom clone, I really had fun with this one. Funnily enough, about the doom ripoff/clone part, I've played both games and I didn't really see any similarities between the two other than Masterchief and the Doomguy look similar and they're both campaign shooters.

X Rating: 0/5 - An M rated 360 game with a 0? Impossible! All characters are minimally sexualized except Cortanna, which even then why would you even, how? She's not even physical matter and a hologram!

100%Xbox One

Après un halo 3 décevant sur le scénario, cet épisode décide de s'attarder sur une nouvelle menace, les forerunners. L'univers vraiment colorés et des environnements travaillés enrichissent cet univers.
Le gameplay propose un sprint intégré au Master Chief et des nouvelles compétences et armes basés sur la technologie des précurseurs.
Le scénario se compose de mystère et de rebondissement, le multijoueur est maîtrisé avec une forge proposant des possibilités étendues ainsi qu'un mode Spartan ops proposant un scénario à suivre dans ces escarmouches.
Les graphismes sont magnifiques pour un jeu Xbox 360 à la base et les effets de lumières jolies.

40%PC

I didn’t like Reach, but at least it was still Halo. This is not Halo anymore, this is bad fanfiction. If this happened because of Reach, then Reach was a mistake too.
More words: https://kerosyn.link/oh-yeah-halo-exists/#halo-4

70%Xbox 360

O jogo é legal, mas de todos os Halos é o mais fraco

60%Xbox One

Halo 4 is a strange beast. 343 Industries went so far in trying to capture the gameplay and feel of classic ‘Bungie era’ Halo that sometimes it is near indistinguishable, but at other points it can come across as nothing more than a pale imitation. The game feels fundamentally split down the middle, one half trying to recapture that Bungie era while the other half attempts to modernise the series and allow 343 to put their own spin on it. It succeeds and fails in both of these aspects, but overall it still delivers a fun experience and would have been great building block for 343 to improve upon in future instalments.

Although I’m not a big fan of the new Master Chief’s design, I have to admit that Halo 4 looks absolutely gorgeous, especially for a late Xbox 360 game. It’s hard to believe it’s actually running on the same hardware as Halo 3 or ODST. This level of polish is present throughout the whole campaign, whether in the in-game cutscenes or the beautiful, sci-fi vistas that you see throughout each level. It’s at these moments where 343 comes close to capturing that Bungie magic: with Chief looking out on an intricate Forerunner landscape, mesmerising in both scale and design, as Neil Davidge’s emotional score takes centre stage.

343 has also excelled in recapturing much of the gameplay of those original Halo games. Although the addition of Sprint might have frustrated some, it was a welcome one for me as I think it brings a speed and intensity to the gunfights not seen since Halo 2. All the weapons from the original trilogy return and feel as crunchy and satisfying to use as ever. 343 has done a great job replicating the Bungie style and weapons, in a way that remains faithful to the originals while still providing some updates and improvements. Where 343 doesn’t succeed as well is in adding weapons and enemies of their own. The 3 new Promethean enemies may be visually distinct and cool to fight at first, but they quickly become stale and don’t seem as balanced as returning enemies like the grunts, jackals or elites. The Knights look very cool visually, but their overdesigned armour makes it hard to tell when your landing meaningful hits, and they have a habit of teleporting away for seconds at a time right as your about to kill them which gets annoying fast. The Crawler enemies are similarly annoying: they are the main ‘Promethean fodder’ so you will fight large numbers of them throughout the game, but they are fast on their feet and can be difficult to hit reliably, especially when crawling on walls. These would be fine as just another addition to the battlefield, much like a Dog or Wolf enemy variant would be in most games, but making them the main enemy Chief regularly faces again seems strange. The Promethean weapons also don’t pack the same punch as returning series weapons. There are Promethean variants of most of the traditional weapons like the Lightrifle (battle rifle) and the Scattershot (shotgun). These look fantastic, literally assembling in Chief’s hands as you pick them up. But they never feel as satisfying to use as the more traditional weapons, especially against the Promethean enemies who don’t respond reactively to sustaining damage. A shotgun blast would blow an enemy into a ragdoll in previous games, whereas shooting the Prometheans (especially the Knights) feels like they are just bullet sponges, standing there and absorbing the ammo until they eventually burn away. 343 recaptured the original weapons and combat so well, but their own new additions were surprisingly disappointing. I feel I should also note the length of this game. Whereas most Halo campaigns usually clock in between 10-15 missions, this entry only has 8 missions overall. Although some of these are longer than the average mission, this also means the game isn’t able to explore as diverse an array of environments as previous entries, resulting in it feeling comparatively smaller in scope. This limited run time means the campaign flies by at a breakneck pace which only worsens the rushed introduction and quick resolution to the Didact conflict.

My main problem with Halo 4 is its story. Much like the game itself this story feels completely split down the middle, dealing with 2 unrelated conflicts (Cortana’s rampancy - and - the Didact) which both required far more development and perhaps even their own games to properly flesh out and deal with satisfactorily. Cortana’s physical degradation and fall into rampancy is easily the more compelling plot element, both from a narrative standpoint (it’s the most satisfying and complete narrative arc overall) and also from an emotional standpoint (most players, me included, already have years of love invested in this character).......

Continue at: https://www.backloggd.com/u/MrChrystal/review/193378/

60%Xbox Series X/S

Something felt off.

Pros:
+ The new machines introduces by 343 are super cool: e.g. Mammoth, Mantis.
+ In general, the biology-inspired designs work: e.g. electric dogs, Didact's ship as chrysalis.
+ The retcon for index is kinda cool (though execution suffers).
+ So the game shines the most when it goes the furthest away from the original trilogy.

Cons:
- Gunplay feels off. There is no punch to guns. Enemies are bullet-spongy.
- Levels are meh. In a sense, you go through a set of very small rooms and need to kill all enemies to proceed further. Again and again. It makes gameplay feel kinda random, more like Quake 3 Arena or Doom rather than Halo.
- Enemy AI is meh.
- The graphics are meh. Some designs are quite cool. But there are many visual glitches (even to this day). Huge ships just disappear in the air after the explosion. Items re-spawn behind you. All this breaks the illusion quite a lot.
- People look wooden. And the cutscene art direction in general is not up to the standard of previous games. Also, the story between Master Chief and Cortana will make you cringe.

65%Xbox 360

The beginning of 343's takeover of Halo and the decline of the franchise.

80%PC

Playing as Master Chief (John) once again (after playing ODST). I felt like the story is a lot more manageable compared to the previous ones. Able to use the Mantis and the Pelican in the missions were fun instead of just running and shooting the enemies. Didn't really cared about Master Chief and Cortana relationship to be honest.

80%Xbox 360

paled this with dad and jojo some of the most fun ive had

80%PC

8/10

70%Xbox Series X/S

It has simply outstanding graphics, sometimes it's unbeliveable it runs on the X360. The emotional story of Chief and Cortana works well, even if it sacrifices a iconic character, her death was well made but they should have not get rid of her before more games. The forerunner stuff I don't care as much as the story in the original trilogy. The combat itself is fine, it feels robust, modern, a bit CoD-like at times, but I confess the new AI machines enemies were pretty boring. The game was at it best when we were fighting our old friends covenants. It has some pretty monotone levels as well, especially in the final levels. It's a good game, I would give it 7.5 especially because everything feels high-budget, but while not being shit, Halo is more of a common game under 343 than the classic it was under Bungie

90%PC

Halo 4 is the fifth Halo game I played in 15 weeks after starting with Halo Reach (first game in the Master Chief collection chronology) None of the games felt like a waste of time at any point even when I died half a dozen times at the same checkpoint.

50%Xbox One

By far the worst halo game I have played. Couldn't care less about the story, hated the enemies and new weapons. Master Chief is still a badass though, but they made him talk way to much to try and give him some actual character and I was not a fan. Shut up and shoot chief.

20%PC

Looks great, good music, I hate the new guns, Don't like the story, Legendary mode

80%Xbox 360

03/01/2023
8h42min
88%

90%PC

Most action packed Halo game.The story was also pretty good especially the moments b/w MC & Cortana were captured beautifully.

70%PC

I'll keep this short because frankly, I played the first 6 missions of this game, then never touched it for a year for some reason. My memory really sucks and I don't remember the previous levels that well, so I'll try my best. I'm not a huge Halo fan, and I don't think will ever be, but this game gets a lot of hate among the community, and I don't know why?

Well for starters, the weapon variety has been increased as usual, giving you new types of Covenant & Forerunner weapons. Each weapon feels great to use with a new sound design added to make them sound powerful. The Forerunner weapons have a distinctive style compared to UNSC and Covenant, and I love the "beam-ish" noise it makes upon firing, which makes them feel satisfying to use.

The sprinting and armor abilities have been carried over from Halo Reach, now adding some new ones like the auto sentry, hard light shield, & and thruster pack. It's a shame the thruster pack isn't used more, as it's perhaps one of my favorites. It acts as a quick boost so you can dodge away from blasts, dodge Hunter heavy attacks or head to cover that may be further to you which sprinting may help. Sprinting seems to be getting a lot of flack, and I personally, don't understand it, as movement feels much quicker and smoother thanks to it, and it'll even save you to run to cover quickly.

Of course, there's the amount of enemy variety as Forerunners are the new enemy, each with unique attacks like dogs that can climb up on walls and shoot from a distance, or knights that can teleport to you and kill you in one hit with their unique attack unless you move away quickly when you see it's animation. I do tend to get frustrated with levels that throw waves of Prometheans at you, especially when dogs run up to you while taking cover, and then a teleporting Knight that you didn't see, hits you from behind. While fighting the Covenant can get boring as they're always used a lot, it always felt more satisfying to fight them rather than the Prometheans sd they felt much easier and simple to fight against. The main villain, while I don't really care for them, does establish a threatening presence thanks to Keith Szarabajka's voice, for making him sound threatening. Not only that, but you also get to see what he'll do if he takes over, and that is disintegrating humankind, as you saw with Dr. Tillson's horrific death.

I never really cared about Halo's story, to begin with, but one of the biggest highlights throughout is the interaction between Master Chief and Cortana. This story continues to expand upon their relationship and how Chief deals with the dilemma of having someone who has been with him for all of his life, is now dying and becoming more corrupted, and would do anything to help her, while dealing with the situation that threatens humanity. The ending felt solid as it tells you more about how Chief really felt about her, despite being the battle-hardened, cold, commanding soldier he is, he always did have huge care for his companion, showing his compassionate side that I'm sure he rarely shows.

Overall, I don't think this game is bad as the community makes it out to be. I'm not sure if I'll ever play the next Halo games some other time, but personally, I thought the story was solid, and would've been a neat conclusion to the Chief and Cortana storyline. And despite how I felt about the Prometheans, I do have to give some plus on the design intentions with them. Again, while the previous half has been fuzzy with memory, there were still a few moments that still remembered. I think this game was solid, though Reach still remains to be my favorite of the Halo games so far.

70%PC

Has some issues, such as the new enemies mostly being annoying (especially those flying things that revive the knights) and there's a lot of waiting for new waypoints to appear, but overall it's a decent experience.

It's graphically quite impressive and mostly feels less random, as in when you die it's usually your fault unlike in some of the previous games (jackal snipers, rocket/shotgun flood, random grenades that had no indicator).

It has some bugs, some major (half the level not loading in Reclaimer forcing a restart of the mission), some minor (weapons seemingly disappearing, so grab them while you can), but not enough to sour the experience.

Overall it's a decent game and I don't quite get some of the hate I've seen for 343. Perhaps the next installments are worse, but 4 is pretty decent.

40%PC

My first time ever playing through Halo 4. Unfortunately the Gameplay 100% lived up to the negative reviews. I think the MAIN problem with this game is that the Knights just had a bit too much health. The only other glaring issue is that the levels are WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too long; it just wasn't very enjoyable. One thing the Gameplay did somewhat well was mixing up repetitive, predictable sections.... of course there are just gauntlets of enemy after enemy, but some of the objectives were mixed up in what felt like a somewhat natural way. One disappointing design choice was the removal of all English Covenant voice lines, they just speak gibberish. It really did feel like a Halo game and it wasn't HARD... just long and tedious, not super engaging.

I thought the story 343 had expanded on from Bungie's original idea of Cortana's Rampancy was FINE, I've never had a problem with the stories of 4 or 5. The Story, as flawed as it may be, is truly the most redeemable quality of this game other than perhaps the visuals and some interesting weapons. The Voice Acting was for the most part, legitimately quite impressive.

40%Xbox 360

Never been keen. Boring levels and characters and new enemies with atrocious combat. Weapons introduced fluctuate in quality. Story is mediocre.

70%Xbox One

This is probably my least favorite Halo, but it is still Halo. It's a very good game. Still a must play.

5%Xbox 360

fall of rome but for xbox

65%Xbox 360

Decent game.

70%PC

Halo 4, oh boy Halo 4 this is a game that tends to piss of Halo fans by the mere mention of it's name. And I have beaten the game a number of times over the years and yes, I do like the game. It's a game while I get not being a great game yet at the same time I can't for the life of me get why it's considered a "bad game". I am not a Halo super fan despite spending over 100 hours in the MCC so this is probably why I don't consider it to be the epicly bad game that 4 is widely call as. The game is mostly a play it safe sequel in terms of gameplay and that is by far it's biggest issue, I'll go more in detail on that later.

Story first, I actually consider this to be the best narrative in the series as far as games are concered, the only game in the series that I consider coming close to this is Halo Infinite, I say this because while the story overall isn't super amazing, the bond between Master Chief and Cortana is what carries much of it and does so much of the heavy lifting for the story. I like Chief and Cortana's interactions with each other and it's Jenn Taylor best performance in the series. The whole idea of Chief being a stoic soldier having no humanity is reflected well within the story. It's both a strength and a weakness. A weakness in that Chief never really knows what to say to Cortana in her times of need yet also a strength because his stoism also gives Cortana the conviction to move forward. It's one of the few times where the series actually gets any form of emotional connection out of me regarding narrative. At the same time, Halo 4 has it's flaws, a lot of stuff like Infinity, the expanded lore with the Forerunners, the "storm covenant" and the character of the Didact feels like the game is throwing way too many concepts that an FPS like this can even handle, I might look up the supplementary material for this game but at the time, I am not that interested. The Didact might be the best villain in the series...even though it's not saying a whole lot, he does at the very least does one evil deed that makes me dislike him like killing all those people on the Halo installation where Truth and previous Halo villains never accomplished that much, sure they killed Miranada but even Tillson in her short screen time was more interesting than Miranda was in 2 whole games. The Didact still does that Halo villain thing of doing the cryptic monologuing while Chief is killing enemies but I'd still say he is better than what came before, even if it was a low bar.

Now the gameplay, I still think the gameplay is solid and the sound design for the game is incredible, the gun sounds and weapon feedback was the best the series had up until that point and I still love hearing so many of the weapon sounds, sounds meaty and very punchy which is great considering this game is an fps. The fights with covenant are still the same, the AI is still solid even if the enemy roster is still the same 3-4 types you have mainly been fighting in the series up until this point, they are still enjoyable to fight and the coveant weapons being more fun to use with improved feedback makes the combat more fun in some ways since I want to use covenant weapons more. Now where Halo 4 divides everyone is the Promenthan enemies and weapons and while I don't think they are as bad as Halo fans make it out to be since the Flood wasn't exactly enemy design masterclass either. They still are just Halo struggling to figure out to come up with an enemy type outside of the Covenant since fighting the same 3-4 enemies for 10 hours would be boring and you don't have the Halo Reach excuse of shoving in Brutes halfway through the game. I do think the Promethan weapons at the very least feel good to use and the combat with them don't expose how bad Halo's health system can be compared to the Flood, at the same it's isn't that great either. Since enemies can be pretty spongey can swarm you a lot especially swarm you more than the health system can handle. Rocket launcher promethans can be pretty annoying too since they can kill you in one hit at full health.

I also don't get why sprint gets so much hate when Halo's health system forces you to have your health to regen, sprint saved me at so many points and it's one of the few options I have when health is at critical. Halo was never even as fast as Doom and Blood to begin with, so sprint isn't even ruining anything.

The biggest issue with Halo 4 is that I played the game already, it's called Halo Reach, it has the same armor abilities which I didn't find interesting in that game since most of them are situational. It even has similar air combat like Halo Reach does later in the game. And that's where the big issue with Halo 4 lies, it doesn't offer a whole lot of geniune innovation gameplay wise over the rest of the games. The Mantis was great but innovations and sections like that are few and far between.

Overall, I'd say it's a good game but not amazing.

60%Xbox Series X/S

Halo should have ended when Bungie stopped developing the series. This wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great either. In particular I found the ending to be very disappointing and 343 just hasn’t been up to the task in considerably worse ways ever since. Hopefully after Halo Infinite Microsoft has the good sense to put the Master Chief out of his misery. RIP John. You’ll be missed along with Cortana.

70%Xbox 360

I loved Halo 4 when I first played it since it was also my first Halo campaign, although compared to the other entries, it wasn't the best. This became apparent in the several (failed) attempts I've made at trying to get through this game on solo legendary, which is an absolute nightmare in these open areas where enemies shoot at you from every direction and sometimes you have little to no cover. People complained about the story, but I've never been especially devoted to the narrative of these games, so it's never bothered me, although it for sure is a departure from the types of stories told in 1-3. For reference, I've played through Reach at least half a dozen times and probably still couldn't tell you what the story is there even - it's probably my favorite FPS of all time, but I just don't care. I'm here to shoot things and have a good time in multiplayer or co-op. And ultimately, that would be my recommendation: play this MP or co-op. Do so, and you're bound to have a good time. Not really recommended as a single player experience.

70%PC

Oddly liked this one. At the start it feels really off compared to the other games, especially with the quicktime events and the return of the Covenant which goes unexplained. But as it goes on, i found myself preferring the more personal approach to a Master Chief story, especially coming off of ODST which has my favourite story in the series. 4 has Chief talk much more, which robs him of his mystery but still characterises him more than the original trilogy did. I really appreciated him in this game, and his attitude of never giving up despite Cortana's condition was admirable. Didact was an interesting villain, especially if you see the terminals for his backstory, but ultimately falls flat in a terrible QTE sequence near the end and totally undermines all buildup. Having Chief go up against a godlike figure could be a good premise to escalate the stakes after the other games, even if the scale is overall smaller.

Gameplay is pretty spot on despite the developer change. The sprint is next to useless so it's not that big of a change and I often forgot it was an option. The new Promethean weapons are a mixed bag unfortunately, with the longer range light rifles and snipers faring much better than the closer range stuff like the bolt gun, which I found to be next to useless. Level design is mostly good, with some levels like the jungle and the desert being memorable.

Music sounds nothing like Halo but it is still quite good, slightly melancholic at times, and fits the more cinematic angle this game takes. Oddly enough reminded me of blockbusters like the modern Star Trek films.

Even if the start was quite shaky (QTEs being a big offender here) the game absolutely grew on me and is now one of my favourite Halo games.

20%PC

one of the biggest let-downs ever. it's not fun, the visuals are cluttered, the story is abysmal. i had a bad time :(

50%PC

I only played the single-player campaign because I don't give a shit about multiplayer so this review is for the campaign only.

This game is rough. While the story has some interesting and cool moments, I found it to be pretty confusing overall. It felt like you were expected to read the Halo books because barely anything is explained in the game. I've only ever played the games so I was lost pretty much the whole time. The previous Halo games didn't expect you to go beyond what was presented in the games, but this one does. It's just poor storytelling all around; I shouldn't have to go beyond what's presented in the game to understand what's happening in that game. There are also terminals that give you cutscenes that apparently explain the story as well, but they're basically collectibles: hard to find and placed in obscure locations. Wtf kind of design is this? Also, the ending is horrible, but I'll get to that in a little bit.

The characters were a mixed bag. On the one hand, Chief and Cortana both get some character development that humanizes them, which was nice to see. I also liked commander Lasky, who was a good dude. However, everyone else was lame. There's a Spartan named Palmer that does absolutely nothing and a ship captain named Del Rio who is an asshole just for the sake of adding unnecessary character drama. Everybody besides Cortana, Chief, and Lasky is underutilized as hell. However, the worst character for me was the main villain. He's a Sith Lord and could easily force choke Chief in his introductory cutscene, but lets him go because of poor writing. Aftewards, you hardly get to see him or learn about his motivations because of how barely anything is explained in the game. Later on, he does something cool and villain-worthy, but then in the finale, he dies in a QTE. It's not even a long QTE; it's legitimately just one button. Wtf. And then the ending/epilogue after that left me feeling unsatisfied and hollow. When I got to the end, I felt like 343 could've done more, as the story ended up feeling rushed and incomplete.

The gameplay is also a mixed bag. By and large, it's still classic Halo combat, but with new weapons, new vehicles, and a new group of enemies to fight: the Prometheans. The Prometheans are super annoying to fight. One of them can teleport around whenever it wants, which just feels unfair, and another will protect anything you shoot at but then fly away as soon as you shoot at it, which gets annoying very fast, mainly because of how inaccurate and/or weak some of the Promethean weapons are. Plus, the Prometheans feel like robots, which aren't as fun to fight as fleshy things that bleed when shot. On the other hand, the set pieces are cool as always and I enjoyed the level design. Each level felt pretty varied too, as 343 didn't just go the generic route of "here's a warthog level, and here's a scorpion level, and here's a banshee level, etc."

I played this as part of the Master Chief Collection and I'm glad 343 finally got the subtitles problem right. In the other releases, there weren't any subtitles for in-game dialogue, which would make it hard to follow instructions and chatter due to all of the noise during firefights. This problem doesn't exist in this game, which made the experience way better. Also, the graphics are superb, definitely a huge step up from Halo Reach. The game's cutscenes are cinematic now and it was very cool to watch them play out.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this game that much. It does have some good parts, but it's an overall weak entry in the series.

60%Xbox One

You know what?

Early in this game, as I was playing through it, I couldn't help but feel like 343i had actually mostly nailed it. Whatever magic Bungie had pulled together to make the gunplay work so damned well in Halo 2 and 3 and Reach, 343i had clearly studied and figured out how to replicate with surprising accuracy.

And then the characters started talking. And the prometheans arrived. And then their weapons became the dominant weapons in the game. And then I started wishing I were playing against the Covenant again.

All of this to say that the gameplay is pretty good when you're not in a ship (which is consistent with other Halo games) and when you're shooting bad guys (which is consistent with other Halo games). But the narrative is absolute nonsense, and completely unworthy of the series (which is saying something, because it is only a video game narrative, and the Halo 2 and 3 stories were greatly enhanced in the MCC).

But what really killed this game for me was the ending. Halo has admittedly only ever been good at endings when they involve warthogs escaping ships that are quickly falling apart, but this ending is truly the worst I have seen in the series.

I'm excited to complete my playthrough of the Halo narrative with Halo 5 in the next few months, again with my brother, and again as co-op. Then I can get back to Halo Infinite and really dive into the singleplayer mode. But, if I weren't committed to getting through the story before starting Infinite's narrative, I would just be skipping 5 entirely. Halo 4 leaves an unpleasant taste in your mouth and, somehow, I finally understand all of the complaints that were lodged against it when it was launched 10 years ago.

Not recommended.

70%Xbox One

Solid

80%PC

Halo 4 is that one entry in a popular franchise that people hate but is actually pretty great all around.