"You Look Terrible, Snake" #2 - Halo 4

"Don't make a girl a promise... if you know you can't keep it." - Cortana (Halo 2)

The release of Halo: Reach marked the end of Bungie’s exclusivity contract with Microsoft, and the end of their days developing Halo games, as they looked towards new frontiers with their next project, Destiny. But Halo was destined to remain a property under the ownership of Microsoft, who had created a department specifically for continuing the Halo storyline, dubbed 343 Industries. 343 Industries would be tasked not only with the development of future games in the bestelling series, but weaving tales for novels, comic books, and live action series that helped to fill the gaps between games. During the Bungie era, there were a number of Halo novels written that provided greater context to the Spartan program, the UNSC vs. Insurrectionist conflict that preceded the Human-Covenant War, and explored other Forerunner artifacts that Doctor Halsey had examined prior to the crew of The Pillar of Autumn stumbling across Alpha Halo at the beginning of the first game.

As part of the buildup to the 343 Industries-directed Halo 4, which would signal the start of the new ‘Reclaimer Trilogy’, two novel trilogies were launched. The first dealt with a UNSC team known as Kilo Five, and took place in the then-present day of the Halo universe, bridging the gap between Halo 3 and Halo 4, and exploring the fragile peace that existed between the Human race and their reluctant Sangheili comrades. This trilogy would go on to explain how some of the Sangheili grew restless in the post-war peace time, and opted to splinter off into their own faction to continue their warrior-like ways in seeking out Forerunner artifacts, thus setting the stage for Master Chief’s unexpected encounter with antagonistic Elites and Grunts early in Halo 4. The other trilogy of novels went far back in time to provide a direct narrative of the last days of the Forerunner empire, setting up for Halo 4’s major plotline that saw the return of the Ur-Didact and his desire to wipe humankind from the galaxy, under the belief that they proved the greatest threat to its stability in the absence of The Flood.

Many of Halo 4's highest points come courtesy of the Didact being such an intimidating villain.

While I personally found the Forerunner trilogy to be among the best Halo tie-in novels released to date, there was something exceptionally odd about their being so contextually important to the events of Halo 4. The same went for the Kilo Five trilogy – sure, I had read these precursor texts as my anticipation for the new game built, but in the grand scheme of things, only a small portion of the Halo fanbase would go out of their way to acquire and read these novels. Previous Halo novels like Ghosts of Onyx, Contact Harvest, The Fall of Reach, and The Cole Protocol did well to expand upon the existing universe, but not a single one of these was necessary reading in order to grasp the context of the games. Anyone could play from Halo: Combat Evolved up through Halo 3 and successfully gather the core of Master Chief’s story – the aforementioned novels provided further backstory to other characters and events, the majority of which preceded the events of the games by many years. But both the Forerunner and Kilo Five trilogies were so tightly connected to the narrative of Halo 4, I find it a wonder the delivery of the single-player campaign managed to come across as well as it did.

Consider this required reading material.

Halo 4’s campaign is incredibly short-lived, even when compared to the games that came before it. Yet, it hits high notes from start to finish, with Master Chief’s race to stop the Didact’s plans standing strong as the core conflict of the game. It’s quite surprising, in fact, that this smaller-scale and more personal battle between two men out of their own time handles so convincingly in a series that has long been about a large-scale conflict between an alien conglomerate and the human military. The game delivers a satisfying conclusion that wraps up its own story without too much in the way of cliffhanger content, yet leaves enough doors open the ensure future games and associated media have sufficient material to draw from.

The combination of the campaign being so brief, yet so well-written, certainly left me with somewhat complicated feelings toward it, and perhaps more importantly, toward the future of the franchise under the banner of 343 Industries. But with Bungie veteran Frank O’Connor relocating to the 343 Industries team, I was hopeful that Halo 4’s story was more a reflection of the studio wanting to play things safe during their first proper outing than a signifier that the series would teeter toward the realm of Metal Gear with a highly complicated narrative than would be as spun up in the core games as it would any and all spinoff material. While the former may very well have been the case for the campaign mode, the online multiplayer and Spartan Ops modes revealed an uglier truth.

The Halo games have provided me with a ludicrous number of hours of entertainment in online play. From Halo 2 onward, friends and I would take part in a variety of Slayer and objective-based matches, from the close quarters of Lockout and Turf, to the vehicular carnage on Valhalla and Sandtrap, to the new game types of Invasion and Headhunter introduced in Halo: Reach. Halo retained a unique identity in the online multiplayer scene. While Halo 3 and Halo: Reach both offered players the option to alter the appearance of their multiplayer Spartan avatar, these were purely for aesthetic purposes, and no restrictions on unlocks were associated with any weapons or ability loadouts. Halo 4, however, painted a much different picture – one that wandered a tad too far into the realm of every other first-person shooter on the market for my own tastes.

Highly-detailed Spartan armor cannot disguise the huge steps backwards the competitive multiplayer took.

Better weapons and abilities were unlocked at higher levels, and this sucked a large amount of the fun from the multiplayer experience. Ordinance drops of heavy weapons rewarding the winning team even more of an edge over the competition led team matches to feel incredibly lopsided. The map layouts either evoked rather direct memories of their Halo 3 and Reach predecessors, in that their designs deviated so little from what had already been established, or were too outlandish and impractical for more than one or two game types. While I abhor the competitive multiplayer format of practically every other major first-person shooter, I think it is worth mentioning that I actually performed quite well in the majority of the Halo 4 Slayer matches I did play. But the lack of enjoyment I found from them led me to abandon them so quickly, that my objective with Halo 4 became solely focused on completing the campaign, a feat which was completed in a grand total of three sittings – and I was by no means attempting to rush through it.

Spartan Ops was an abysmal series of short missions that lacked any inspiration in either design or narrative, asking little more of you, the player, than to kill every enemy along the path from point A to point B. To think that Spartan Ops replaced the spectacular horde mode that was Firefight boggled my mind, especially considering how well-received Reach's Firefight was by the Halo community. Maybe the later updates that Spartan Ops received offered more interesting missions, but one playthrough of all the default missions left me with a foul opinion of them. Perhaps if they had been included alongside the Firefight mode, I might not have received them so poorly.

Spartan Ops: for when you want to team up with friends to tackle repeatedly lackluster missions.

With all of these factors combined, it was abundantly apparent to me that 343 Industries had lost sight of what Halo was really all about somewhere during the development of this new game – at least with regards to every facet of this project outside of the campaign. But even there, the lack of consideration to how easily audiences would be able to settle into the new narrative was a significant oversight on the part of Halo’s new management. Since the release of Halo 4, 343 Industries has gone on record as stating that they will do better with the next installment in the series, though what specific points they intend to improve on remains to be seen. The push for current storylines in both tie-in novels and comic books to emphasize rebellious factions of both Sangheili and Humans leaves me concerned that Halo 5 might see Master Chief fighting other human soldiers as opposed to the Promethean Knights or some other kind of Forerunner combatants.

While I wasn’t particularly hot on the notion of fighting Elites and Grunts again for the sake of convenience in 343 Industries not having to design a whole new slew of foes, I understand that something familiar needed to be retained to avoid wholly alienating longtime fans. But the potential for future games to teeter even further into the realm of Call of Duty or Battlefield by having Master Chief fighting militarized human forces is a truly upsetting notion. With any luck, the team at 343 Industries will recognize how much the Halo community loved the old multiplayer format, and return to the series’ roots with Halo 5: Guardians, as Halo’s online component has always accounted for a good half of its identity.

Xbox 360 review: Halo 4

Four years after the end of the Human-Covenant War, Cortana reawakens Master Chief on board the wreckage of the Forward Unto Dawn. A small group of former Covenant forces have boarded the ship, and as he fights his way toward the exterior hull, Master Chief discovers that the Forward Unto Dawn has been pulled into the gravitational pull of a Forerunner shield world known as Requiem. At the same time, a state-of-the-art UNSC ship name Infinity is inbound to Requiem, having picked up Cortana's distress beacon. As Master Chief races to find a way to communicate with the crew of Infinity and warn them not to land on the artificial planet, he discovers Promethean Knights, ancient soldiers used by the Forerunners, and a plot that could threaten the future of humanity.

While Master Chief encounters familiar enemies like Elites, Hunters, Jackals, and Grunts, they are largely pushovers when compared to the automated armies the Forerunners left behind. The Promethean Knights prove admirable foes when Master Chief faces them one-on-one, while Watchers provide support and Crawlers swarm and lay down repeating fire. A significant number of weapons have been removed in order to make space for the new Forerunner weapons. Each of these new weapons looks alien and controls just different enough from their UNSC and Covenant counterparts to make their inclusion worthwhile. Familiar firearms such as the Assault Rifle, Covenant Carbine, and Needler behave much like they have in recent Halo titles, while the Storm Rifle and Pulse Grenade don't have much practical use.

In keeping with the art style of Halo: Reach, Halo 4 sees inclusions of very industrialized vehicle and armor designs. Master Chief's upgraded suit retains its old sensibilities, but has a ton of new details worked into it. Character models, on the other hand, are a bit more stylized, falling closer to the realm of Halo 3 (though without the borderline-claymation textures, thanks to the Xbox 360's capabilities to run such improved graphics). There are a few pre-rendered cutscenes that look so incredibly realistic, you may have to do a double-take to confirm they aren't using live action actors ala the Forward Unto Dawn tie-in series. The design of the Forerunner world retains its roots from yesteryear, combining rich and colorful landscapes with silvery-gray geometric structures. Though it is a distinctly different style than Marty O'Donnell's work, Neil Davidge's soundtrack is at times tense, at others sweeping and mysterious, and as a whole provides a fitting follow-up to the familiar tunes of days gone by.

With regards to the online multiplayer, Halo 4 has traveled down a path similar to the Call of Duty franchise. Loadouts determine the weapons in use, with a very limited number of weapons that can be picked up on any given map. The medals earned for multi-kills and sprees in previous Halo games have been swapped out in favor of a point system that rewards in multiples of fives and tens based on kills, assists, and so on. Each level you rank up rewards you with a single Spartan Point, which can be saved up and spent on unlocking other weapons and abilities for your loadouts. Forge mode remains largely unchanged, though it is not on as grand a scale as it was in Halo: Reach. There is a decent number of maps included from the outset, with a relatively even balance of small, medium, and large spaces for appropriate playlists.

Gone is the wave escalation mode of Firefight, replaced with Spartan Ops, a series of short missions that allow a small team or a single player to fight a set number of enemies of the different difficulty settings. While 343 Industries plans to add new chapters over time, the default missions are rather small in scope. Each has you tracking down some Forerunner artifact or source of intel and fighting both Covenant and Forerunner enemies along the way. The environments are directly inspired by some of the campaign missions, and as a whole feel quite uninspired.

Though the campaign lasts only a few hours - short, even by Halo standards - the storytelling is consistently great throughout. With the threat of an ancient evil lying wait deep inside Requiem and Cortana's descent into Rampancy, Master Chief finds his hands full. This aids in bringing out some of his personality - an element that has been almost entirely untouched during his previous in-game missions against the Covenant and the Flood. Yet, for every two steps the campaign takes forward into bold new territory, the other game modes insist on stepping back one, offering up stale and uninteresting takes on a formula that did not require fixing.

My rating: 7.5 (out of 10)

Halo E3 announcements

Two Halo titles have been announced already at this year's E3 (well, technically four, but I'll explain that more in a bit). First up is an HD version of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, which, at first, I was simply going to cast off as Microsoft trying to sucker people into buying the title from the Xbox Live marketplace again (since Halo: Combat Evolved has been available for download among a number of other titles from the original Xbox for quite some time now). As it turns out, however, this is a completely redone Halo, with updated graphics and an art style more reflective of Halo: Reach. Online multiplayer will be available, and based on some of the gameplay footage, it appears players may be able to customize their multiplayer SPARTANs much like in Halo 3 and Reach. This HD remake, officially titled Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, has already been slated for a November 15, 2011 release.

Halo 4, as the current working title is, takes place post-Halo 3 as Cortana desperately awakens Master Chief in the drifting wreckage of the Forward Unto Dawn. Chief uploads Cortana into his helmet and races through the ship until standing on its edge in space. The screen then reveals a gigantic ship of some sort, which looks similar in design to Covenant tech, but based on the way Halo 3 wrapped up, that seems more likely that it would belong to some new faction. Though the trailer revealed very little, it was all very cinematic and it makes me wonder if this will ultimately play out to be the Halo: Chronicles project that Peter Jackson was formerly to be involved with. For those unfamiliar with Halo: Chronicles, it was a project first announced around the time Halo 3 was released, and was reported to be a sort of involved cinematic experience (which I understood to be something of a movie that players could determine the outcome of based of various decision made along the way). While Microsoft and 343 Industries did not give any concrete details on the gameplay of Halo 4, they did confirm it would be the first of a new trilogy for the Xbox 360, which leaves me curious if these will be three full-fledged games or perhaps downloadable episodic gaming.

E3 2010: First Impressions

The first two full days of E3 have now come to a close, and while there is still more to come I thought I’d offer my thoughts on the materials presented thus far. With their overhaul focus on the Playstation Move and Kinect, Sony and Microsoft seem to either want to play catch-up with Nintendo very desperately, or they simply have little new games and peripherals to show off at this year’s expo. Of the two situations, I really hope it’s the former, because – while I could certainly understand highlighting their new motion controlled peripherals on the first day – keeping the Move and Kinect the focus of two whole days of E3 isn’t a particularly effective way of keeping potential consumers interested.

Sony did a fantastic job this past year in realigning themselves to better compete with Microsoft and Sony. For the longest time following the release of the PS3, it seemed Sony could only promise games that would be coming out in the future, never giving the slightest hint of an expected time frame for said releases. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Little Big Planet were huge successes for Sony, while titles like Resistance: Fall of Man saw a decent return. But with so few exclusive games that were actually enjoyable to play and had a great deal of replay value, Sony was lagging behind by a long shot.

With the more recent releases of God of War III, Heavy Rain, and Demon’s Souls, Sony has reminded gamers of their last-gen successes with many a PS2 title and in turn has seen a significant spike in the sales of their PS3. Second and third party titles such as Borderlands and Batman: Arkham Asylum have also helped Sony back on its feet, and the recent PSP-exclusive release of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker played an instrumental role in keeping their handheld market humming along smoothly.

With all of this in consideration, Sony should still be very cautious this coming year with their games and peripherals. Personally, I think Move is stupid, considering that Nintendo’s Wiimote controller has carried the system without a single hitch in three and a half years (not counting initial wrist strap strength issues). But if Sony wants to gamble with the Move, they better have some big titles lined up to fall back on (both new and old) in the event that their expedition into motion-controlled gaming goes belly-up.

Microsoft didn’t deliver a ton of new gaming developments in 2009 and 2010, largely due to financial reasons (with the recession both in the US and in other countries around the world). They relied heavily on second and third party developers for sequels that were as direct as they come, in the forms of Bioshock 2, Mass Effect 2, Assassin’s Creed II, and so on, though this certainly didn’t cripple Microsoft in sales.

Microsoft’s biggest seller for years has been the Halo franchise and they’ve got another title in the series slated for a September release (which, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you probably already know a bit about it). This time around, Bungie is opting for more squad-based gameplay as players experience the fall of Reach firsthand. New armor abilities, weapons, vehicles, and a revamped multiplayer mode make this Microsoft’s golden goose for the Fall, but with most of the game’s major features and selling points highlighted prior to E3, it makes me wonder why this seems to be the only thing outside of Kinect that Microsoft wants to focus on. Where’s Gears of War 3? What about Dead Space 2? These and other titles have been briefly glossed over, but it seems that Microsoft is sticking with what we’ve already heard time and time again as of yet.

Nintendo, who had me both excited and disappointed by last year’s revelations, have proven that they are coming out in full force this year. The 3DS, which many people expected to be the major focus of Nintendo’s showings, has actually been reserved for later on in the show, which has me hoping and believing that Nintendo has some exciting surprises up their sleeve with the new handheld system. As far as games go, they’ve shown off plenty of the upcoming Metroid: Other M, and have finally given a name for the newest adventure in Hyrule, The Legend of Zelda: The Skyward Sword.

But Nintendo didn’t stop with the big names everyone was expecting. They’ve announced Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, Donkey Kong, and Kid Icarus all for the 3DS, as well as Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Wii. A lot of footage from the new Goldeneye game was shown off, utilizing (obviously) the Wii’s motion controls and replacing Pierce Brosnan with Daniel Craig in one of the most critically acclaimed first-person shooters and multiplayer games of the late nineties. What all will be included as far as new material in Goldeneye remains to be seen, but the footage in and of itself was a much welcomed surprise. The lineup shows Nintendo’s desire to balance fans of new and old gaming styles, with some traditional platforming ala Kirby and the current free-roam do-whatever-the-heck-you-want-whenever-you-want gameplay of Animal Crossing. Or if players want both old-school and new-school in the same game, then they can turn to Metroid: Other M for their fix. No news yet on Pikmin 3, but there’s still plenty of time for news on that – I’m a bit eager with this one in particular, due to how long it’s been since the release of Pikmin 2 and the fact that the third title has been confirmed as being in development.

I’m not saying that things can’t turn the other way around by the end of the expo, but Sony and Microsoft better step up their game if they want to have the slightest chance of stealing any of Nintendo’s thunder. Even Capcom with Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Resident Evil: Revelations, Eidos and Square Enix with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and Day 1 Studios with F.E.A.R. 3 are proving to have more impressive showings that Sony or Microsoft right now. I really hope there are many surprises in store from the two companies, otherwise 2010’s E3 will be a very lopsided and (frankly) disappointing expo.