Hello, old friend. How've you been?
The feeling I have putting the disc into the drive feels like greeting a childhood friend; like opening the cover of a new book by your favorite author; like rediscovering a part of yourself. It took me a few years, no doubt about that. But for me, Halo 4 has officially arrived.
You are awakened by the beautiful voice of the radiant Cortana, still your companion after all these years. And your ship is crashing, AGAIN. If Pillar of Autumn had been designed today; this is what it would look like; "Forward unto Dawn" is its name, a hulking metal beast that would appear more than menacing if it wasn't in the process of being attacked by a bunch of Covenant. Looks like that truce didn't work out. Needless to say, you find yourself a new mystery within minutes; an entire planet designed by the Forerunner. The Halo's were just a testing ground, this is the real deal. An entire metal exterior surrounds a working atmosphere, complete with a false sun, jungles, seas, and starry nights. You can't help but think to yourself that it's not a bad place to be trapped. The beauty is short-lived however, there's a new enemy this time around, The Didact, a Forerunner war criminal with vengeance in his heart, bent on destroying all of humanity. Just as you begin to gear up, you're hit with a bombshell; Cortana is dying. With the stakes higher than ever before, the adventure begins.
Back in 2007, after the release of one of the greatest games ever made, (Halo 3), Bungie broke away from Microsoft, leaving behind one of gaming's most beloved series in the hands of twelve people who went under the banner of 343 Industries. Corporate issues aside, fans clamored for a sequel they thought might never come. And the best-selling prequel Halo: Reach set the bar higher than ever before. But with 338 people, and a whole lot of heart, 343 has finally pulled off the impossible, and produced an astounding game worthy of the title: Halo 4.
I have been a die hard fan of the Halo franchise ever since it was first introduced to me back in '07. Every afternoon for most of seventh grade I'd find myself at my friend Chris' house, drinking Coca-Cola, eating a Pepperoni Papa John's Pizza, and playing Slayer. With no Xbox at home, I couldn't get the full Halo experience, so I settled with what I could get; Halo: Combat Evolved for the PC. To this day I still think that the PC version of the first game is superior to the console version. Quickly blasting my way through that masterpiece, I moved on to Halo 2, (the easiest of the series). Once that was out of the way, I finally conquered the campaign of the monumental third installment, a game that changed the way I saw games for the rest of my life. I also enjoyed ODST quite immensely. It was Reach I was never incredibly taken with. Maybe it was the Call of Duty vibe, maybe it was the lack of Master Chief, maybe it was the fact that the whole story was nothing but a means to an end. In either case, all I ever wanted was Halo 4. Years passed, and I moved on, as did life. Then Forward Unto Dawn happened.
2012, the buildup to the big release. Games had at last made a return into my universe. A weekly Halo 1 tournament at my high school brought me guns blazing back into the fold. I also discovered a little thing called Mass Effect 2, my favorite game. It was then that 343 released the series; "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn", it was called. A prelude to the series itself, taking place on the planet Cirnicus-IV, it followed Thomas Lasky, a UNSC cadet whose facility is attacked by the Covenant back when no one knew what the Covenant even was. The Master Chief swoops in and saves the day, but many of Lasky's team loses their lives. This turns Lasky into a harder cadet, and a better soldier. Excellent everything all around, acting, writing, CGI, production design, all masterful. What a series! After that, once again, Halo fell off the radar for me. A group of games that had affected me so profoundly in my youth, fell into the background of my memory. I hadn't thought much about the franchise. Until now.
Simply put, they've done it. 343 really HAS done it. This game has literally everything you want in a Halo game; Chief, Cortana, Marines, Scorpions, interesting maps made up of unique landmasses. And of course your trusty Assault Rifle. I don't think it's possible to describe the joy one can experience from listening to Rock and Roll while running around that Promethean Planet.
There is so many new things this game has to offer as well. The mechanics for one thing are fantastic. It's my personal belief that the mechanics in Halo 3 were the best of the series. That was the main reason why it was so great. Halo 4 comes THIS close to passing that level. See, mechanics work with many elements; how we move, how we shoot, jumping. Here, it's the shooting thing that takes it down just a small peg. Halo 4 is arguably the most ambitious of the franchise thus far, one of the reasons for this is because it adds an entire new race of aliens to the fray; Prometheans. The native warriors of the Forerunner planet "Requiem", (gee sounds like a great place), these creatures are made up of digital energy, and are entirely non-organic. They also come with their own weapons, a whole new batch to work with. Are these guns good? Absolutely they are!!! The Suppressor is easily my favorite gun in the game PERIOD. The light rifle is handy, the scattershot can pack a punch if you're up close. And of course, in the right moments, the Incineration cannon is a beauty. But with all these new weapons, you've got a problem. In trying to create an identity for itself, Halo 4 has accidentally somewhat distanced itself from its parent trilogy, and at the end of the day, it's very easy to tell it doesn't come from the people at Bungie. The mechanics are still there, but the simplistic real world-inspired Covenant weapons are barely seen in the game. As for the UNSC guns....oh boy. A pistol that shoots sticky bombs, A Rail Gun, new shotgun model, a SAW, has someone been peeking at my christmas list? Although I must say that I don't like what they've done with the Rocket Launcher. I preferred a smoke stream as opposed to what they have now, a direct beam of light trailing behind a less powerful rocket. You don't feel the impact as well as you used to, which is most definitely disappointing.
343 has also bumped up the proceedings elsewhere; giving the player control of entirely new vehicles. First out of the gate is the Mantis, which is basically the robotic supersuit from the Matrix Revolutions, but it's so fun to operate, we really don't care. Compared to everything else however, the Mantis is nothing. Give me a Pelican any day, because now we can fly it! Operating a Pelican is everything a fan hoped for and then some, swift, easy movements, the mechanics are perfect here, and for the two levels we get to fly it, we really do feel free. 343 has also supplied us with the Mammoth, which is basically a supersized Elephant, and can hold up to several Warthogs. During the mission Reclaimer, you must defend this monster as it thunders a pathway through a red rock desert, destroying all Covenant in your way. The addition of the Mammoth to Halo 4 really does show the scale of the game, how everything has become bigger, stronger, better than ever before. All your other vehicles are back as well, new and improved Banshees, Ghosts, and Mongooses, the last of which having been fixed from the horrid things Bungie did to them in Reach. They now traverse terrain almost as easily as they did in Halo 3. Scorpions are back too, virtually unchanged. The only disappointment is the Warthogs actually, that don't handle as smoothly as usual and also have been given a constantly irritating sound effect that sounds more like an amplified RC car than anything.
And as always, we have a brilliant storyline, written by Josh Holmes, entailing the aftermath of the attack on Forward Unto Dawn and the legend of the Composer. This is the game's true triumph, for being a worthy followup to what was already a near-perfect trilogy. Halo 3 was always a little too short and under-developed, so it only stands true to form that Halo 4 be longer. Maybe not literally, (gameplay-wise), but there's definitely more meat on the bone this time. Requiem is a beautiful backdrop for our two protagonists to explore, from the Pandora-like swamps to rock-strewn grasslands. Even the dim-cloudy wasteland areas are breathtaking. I've found however that the maps are rather flat in general, 343 hasn't taken into stride the concepts of downhill slopes and steep inclines. Aside from a few bumpy hills, everything is pretty much a set path, which can be slightly disappointing. Despite all their progress, they were unable to recreate the feeling we got when we first looked up from the forest in Halo: CE, and saw the majesty of the ring stretching out into the sky. Nevertheless, our story happens here, and among dueling Covenant and Prometheans, Chief and Cortana traverse this strange new world, searching ever desperately for a passage home. And for just a little bit, I got what I'd always wanted, a game with nothing but those two. I always saw Halo as a story of survival in paradise. I am Legend meets Avatar. That's what I've always wanted from the Halo series. We get that for a little while in ODST, but it lacks the charm of Cortana's voice in your head or the iconic Chief with his Assault Rifle. Halo 4 gives me what I wanted, if only for a level or two. And then we meet the Didact.
The Didact is the most imposing Villain of the series, beating out Spark by a long shot. If one really considers the facts, the Didact is the only true antagonist of the Halo series worthy of being an opponent to the Master Chief. Even so, I'd love to have seen more of him, or have him return in a sequel, assuming he survived the fall into the Slipspace Corridor. His plan is fascinating as well. In this installment, Chief leans more about the Forerunner and the precautions they took against the Flood. The backstory is somewhat vague, but from what we learn this time, it's possible the disappearance of the Forerunner has now been revealed. It would take a few more plays to really nail down what exactly happened, but the mystery surrounding the Composer is certainly interesting enough to keep you going until the end. The Composer itself, well it loses it's flare once it simply starts vaporizing everyone, making the entire Composer level serve no purpose. This does in fact break one of the rules of writing a story; never put your characters in a position where their actions have no affect on the story. Let's face it, if Chief never went to Installation 03, all of those people would have died anyway. Hence the entire 3rd act is somewhat muddled.
By the time we reach the finale, we are almost exhausted from the constant swell of the story, which (as long as it is), does still feel rushed. If 343 had really pushed it, they could have squeezed in two more levels before Forerunner, to slow things down a bit into stealth missions. What I wouldn't give for a cutscene with Chief and Cortana alone in a cave, trying to sit through the night, just talking about the stars in the sky, or their rich history together. Rain falling outside, the sounds of Promethean animals howling in the distance. That would've calmed me down before the storm that is Halo 4. Regardless, Midnight is actually the greatest ending in the series. First, a race through the ever-changing architecture of the Didact's ship in a Pelican harkens back to the Warthog escape from the exploding Pillar of Autumn back in the first game. Then, a near-impossible set of corridors lye between you and your enemy, who waits patiently, wreathed in crimson shielding. It takes forever just to turn it off, and an epic cinematic has you destroy the Didact (seemingly), before you heroically blow yourself up in a Nuclear explosion to save the world once again. But victory comes at a cost.
Halo 4 is the only videogame ever to make me cry. Seconds after detonation, Cortana seals you in a cocoon of digital code, in her last few seconds of life. AI only lasts for eight years before deteriorating, and her time has finally run out. Now lifesize for the first time, she touches the scar on Chief's chest. "I've waited so long to do that." Chief can't handle it, his only companion of his entire life is dying before him, and he stutters excuses of denial, unable to accept the tragic reality. The greatest hero in the universe, who can save anyone, faces the one thing he is unable to stop; the death of the one he loves. "It was my job to take care of you," he manages at last. "We were supposed to care of each other, and we did." Cortana whispers, beginning to disappear. "Welcome home, John." And thus the saga of the Master Chief and Cortana comes to an end, leaving fans everywhere weeping.
As the credits roll, I think back to that small boy who first discovered Halo in a family room in Medina, Ohio. His wonder at first looking at something new, something exciting, something pure. Fast forward to today, and look how far this world has come. How long it's been since we were last truly amazed. And how a mere video game can literally take your breath away. I think it's fair to say, that a quote is in order. Cortana's last words seem appropriate, albeit with one slight alteration.
"Welcome back, Halo."
