Halo 4

    So Halo 4. If you have an Xbox, barring a couple of my weird friends, you own this game. You have probably beaten this game as a point of fact. Well let's get right on into this bad boy.

    Characters- Well here is a place that Halo has never been a big fount of characters and good characterizations. Halo 4 doesn't do a whole lot to dispel this notion but the Chief continues to be a strong character despite, and almost because, he does a lot of minor elements that demonstrate just who he is. A great example of this is when he is going to go after the big bad of the game and he stands up to the captain of the Infinity. There is just a quiet confidence in himself that really comes through in this scene. Cortana shows up again and her slow degeneration gave me a lot of laughs throughout the game. Especially when she causes the crash of the ship that the Chief stole. Unfortunately the rest of the characters within the story aren't really portrayed very well. The commander and the Spartan Palmer show more in the Spartan Ops mode but given that it is a weekly episodic thing it is difficult to say much more about them. That is the problem with a one man army type story. The antagonist characters of the Didact and to a small extent the Librarian character are flat and scream plot point. Not character.

    Plot- The plots of the Halo have an advantage over many other games by actually being able to track down what the hell they are trying to do. At its surface it is the Chief against the Didact but on a deeper level it is about the Chief trying to keep the last member of his team, Cortana, alive. It is well done and it is a nice change from the normal stories of games like this. For some reason, possibly due to a lack of concern the Covenant show up again. This wouldn't be an issue but it isn't explained well enough. Are they there because they are salvagers and that's why they shoot at the chief. Or is it something else. More telling why they show up would have been nice. But I can go popping grunts any time.

    Appearance- Ok hands down this is probably one of the best looking games I have played in a long long time. I might actually suggest that it is the best looking of all time. It took a long while into the campaign until I had gotten to the point where I realized that the cut scenes were digital and not made the same way as Transformers or something you would see in a high valued Hollywood blockbuster. The sounds of the game are awesome, despite my original consternation at the altering of things that I had thought sacred of the series. The shotgun sounds like a thunderclap and the assault rifle sounds beefy. Everything about the game's appearance would get top marks if I actually rated things.

    Accessibility- Simple and easy to get into. I had some difficulties getting my head around the new changes to the change to the control scheme. Changing crouch to B was an interesting choice and even though I didn't like it at first when I thought about it I realized that there was really no better button to use there.

    Odds and Sods- As usual with a new Halo we see bunch of new guns. The forerunner weapons I could take or leave, preferably leave, but they don't give you enough ammo for them to really make them count. I played through most of the game with a Lightrifle because it was the only gun I could reliably have ammo for. Now I understand the story reasons why. But it screamed to me that the developers were just widely proud of their weapons so those are the ones we see much more. I say I didn't like the new weapons and that is perhaps a bit strong. I wasn't entirely sure the Lightrifle did more damage or less when scoped. The design on them was cool but I don't know that the game really needed a fourth weapon that does that kind of scoped precision damage. Especially because the DMR and the Battle Rifle return in the game. They said that the lack of ammo was to encourage people to experiment and what it really did was to make the game slow down while you hunted a new gun down.

    Multiplayer- Works well enough but it works just like COD. Of course this is praise. I think that Halo does it a bit better. One of my friends doesn't really care for the COD system and I can understand his problems with it. I agree with many of them despite debating the point on a regular basis. The unlocking of armor types and stances and things is cool because it allows for almost unlimited customization of your Spartan and it creates that connection with the online character.