![]() ![]() It is your introduction to the planet you’ll be spending most of the game exploring and fighting the new Promethean enemies on, an obvious callback to the unforgettable moment when you touched down on the Halo ring for the first time in Combat Evolved. Expect your jaw to drop at least once on every level of Halo 4’s eight-mission campaign, especially after crash-landing on the Forerunner planet Requiem, emerging from the wreckage, and ascending a hill whose apex overlooks a gorgeous valley. In the opening mission, Master Chief is thawed out and immediately put back to work shooting Covenant, evoking both Halo: Combat Evolved (it’s set aboard an under-attack spaceship) and Halo 2 (the stage’s major battle takes place in zero-G on the hull of the ship). ![]() The short-range Energy Sword or new Scattershot are great to pack alongside mid-range delights such as the DMR or Battle Rifle, which also pair nicely with the ferocious Sniper Rifle if you’re into the long game. The inaccurate Promethean Suppressor and undesirable Covenant Storm Rifle proved near-useless at times, but Halo 4 still hits on a ludicrously high percentage of its death-dealers. Halo’s weapons continue their trend of working in complementary harmony, where each gun has a purpose, and every situation a fitting firing solution. It strikes a fine balance between old-school fan service and establishing context for new players, and it quickly segues into gameplay, where Halo 4’s greatest strength becomes immediately apparent: its gunplay. The lighting is flawless, subtle movements and animations abound, and it even goes so far that Commander Lasky (yes, the same Lasky we see as a teenager in the Forward Unto Dawn webseries) has crooked teeth – not the usual polygon-perfect Chiclet choppers that every other animated video game human has. It starts with a mesmerizing CG cutscene that flat-out knocks you on your ass. And just how new developer 343 Industries has done it will surprise, delight, and excite you. The plot delves deeper into John’s humanity than ever before, but Halo 4 is more about Cortana and the fight for her own – ironically enough – humanity.Īmazingly, Halo 4 is not only a success, but a bar-raising triumph for the entire first-person shooter genre. And that’s the unexpected heart of Halo 4’s greatness. As their knowledge base expands, they eventually, as Cortana explains, think themselves to death. She is slipping into rampancy – a condition that plagues all UNSC AI constructs after they’ve been in service more than seven years. In Halo 4, his more difficult task is rescuing Cortana from herself. "And when we do it right, that’s what elevates games beyond what other fictional mediums can do – it allows us to create stories where people are immersed as active participants as opposed to just a silent audience," he said.Saving humanity is the easy part. "Multi-player in particular has been shaped by the fantasy of being a Spartan and the more sci-fi elements of gameplay that go beyond just a typical military shooter." "The overall fiction of the Halo universe has defined people’s experiences with the game beyond just our storylines and our characters," he said. The first issue of the new series will begin, Schlerf says, in the midst of a violent assault from forces determined to stop diplomatic talks between the Arbiter and the Brutes, powerful enemies from Halo lore. The comics will flesh out the wider context of the game's world, Schlerf said. The plot of Halo 4, which Microsoft released for Xbox 360 last year, focused primarily on the relationship between the Master Chief and Cortana characters. Halo: Escalation's plot will cover "how the events of Halo 4 have helped define the destiny not only of the Chief but of the galaxy as a whole," Schlerf told Wired in an email. ![]()
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