I say goodbye to Halo 4 before any more damage is done.

On 06/25/2013 at 10:10 PM by avidacridjam

I have this friend on my XBL account that I've known since I started my account back in fall of '07. That was not too long after my brother/roommate came home with an HDTV, an Xbox 360 and a copy of Halo 3. I spent the next 2 1/2 years off-and-on with Halo 3 multiplayer and met a lot of friends (and scores more of people that I hope get eaten by wolves). One guy in particular kept in touch with the next 2 entries in the franchise (ODST, Reach) but when 4 was released, he apparently was not impressed. He was so angry at the direction the franchise had taken under 343 Industries that his XBL profile has statements like "343 sucks" or "343 ruined Halo".

Since I bought it back in November, I was quite taken with the game. Yes, the MP and controls felt different but I was always convinced that I'd get warmed up to them and for a while I was convinced. Lately, that hope has diminished somewhat in small increments every evening I start up some MP and it finally dawned on me that Halo 4's MP is lacking and I'm no longer committed to continuing playing it.

It's so strange, like all of a sudden, these things my friend was complaining about finally reared its ugly head. I've had too many times where I'd be in a one-on-one with someone and I'd try to strafe; my character would trick itself into thinking its about to run and drop the gun down and to the side. All this did was give my opponent all the time in the world to put a few more deadly shots into me and I was done for. This in particular has been creeping up way too many times and it never happened in any previous Halo game.

I'm not even interested in playing Spartan Ops. I just don't fucking care. Usually I've had bad nights with Halo MP (all the way back to 3) and I'd just stop the game, do/play something else and revisit it with a cooler head. I'm not inspired anymore, which sucks because for the most part, 343 did a really good job with the game. Sooner or later I experience burnout with a FPS and never return to it for whatever reason and I had to expect that it was going to happen with Halo 4, but never this soon.

I see no other course but to trade in this game for store credit somewhere. I keep giving it a chance and it just bums me out in the end. Guess I need to start up Reach or 3 in the future for a Halo fix because while I stopped playing them at some point, it was never on bad terms.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

06/25/2013 at 10:14 PM

2 was the highlight for me. I played Reach and ODST and 3... they just seemed so hollow. haven't touched 4.

avidacridjam

06/25/2013 at 10:22 PM

Somehow I skipped 2. When I participated in Halo CE LAN parties in college (neither my brother or I owned an Xbox so we mooched off of other friends), we stuck with that game and when Halo 2 arrived, it felt like such a drastic change in some ways. By that point, the LAN parties didn't happen as much and my friends and I were near the end of our time in college. I still own a copy of 2 but I've yet to play the campaign.

I love 3. So many great memories. Yes, you'd meet some of the worst-behaved cretins sometimes but the group of friends I played with are awesome and hilarious. They'd make me laugh so hard during a match that I couldn't focus and would die too much. And we'd all gang up on those trolls. Good times.

06/25/2013 at 10:26 PM

I guess it depends on who you played with. I mostly played the campaigns with my brother. I never bothered much with the multiplayer.

06/25/2013 at 10:30 PM

It does and my brother played for a time but his interest waned and he played other things. It helped if you could find some like-minded people (actually, IT ALWAYS HELPS).

transmet2033

06/25/2013 at 10:44 PM

I have given up on competetive multiplayer for the time being. I used to love getting together and playing halo with my brothers, but we haven't done that in a while. I still really like the halo 4 campaign, and had been working through the weekly challenges until I got burned out on FPSs. I also got burned out on Microsoft.

06/25/2013 at 10:51 PM

I didn't have any problem with the campaign either. It was well paced and full of great moments.

06/26/2013 at 10:04 AM

I think that my biggest problem with the Halo 4 multiplayer was that there was only 6 smaller maps. It sucked playig the same map over and over and over again. That really burned me out. I know that in a year or so, I will want to replay all of the Halo campaigns, so I see little reason to trade the game in. That is just me.

06/26/2013 at 08:28 PM

The map packs they've put out since the release have been very good in design and how different game modes can be used in them. There's a little more variety last time I checked. Never had a problem in that area.

rmsk8r05

06/25/2013 at 11:30 PM

Halo 2 caused me to stray from the series but that being said, I mostly play for the single player. It was the co-op experience that also made me enjoy the first game. I wasn't really to keen on the multiplayer stuff though. At the moment I'm tackling Halo 4, I don't know; the whole experience just feels kind of dry. I'm just waiting for something to wow me but that isn't happening yet.

KnightDriver

06/26/2013 at 03:48 AM

Yea, I bought Halo 4 day-one, started it, and never finishing it. I watched my buddy finish it for me. I dunno. I thought this whole business with Cortana was just stupid. MC and Cortana should not be an item. It's just weird. I didn't like the music either. It seemed like a generic movie score and not the exciting stuff Marty O'Donnell used to do. Also the shooting seemed heavily weighted to headshots. Its like nothing did any damage unless you got a headshot. This screams of being too influenced by Call of Duty to me. It just didn't feel like a Halo game to me. I'd much rather go back and play some Reach Firefight and get another meaningless medal.

Homelessrook

06/26/2013 at 08:09 AM

I never liked Halo anyway. Yes, I did try playing the first one but it was so boring I quit before the second chapter.

leeradical42

06/26/2013 at 10:03 AM

The last Halo i played was ODST and funny enough i did like the single player campaign and i beat it although i didnt get crap in acheivements for beating the game, but i tried Reach didnt care for it so i stop

playing it, they really need to stop with the

series and give it a new fresh direction

maybe its time for a halo wars

mothman

06/26/2013 at 10:29 AM

I did not buy 4 but then other than 2 all the other games in the series were bought when my son actually used the 360. I preordered 2 and played a few chapters then got bored. So that's the extent of my Halo experience.

Ranger1

06/26/2013 at 11:06 AM

Never could get into Halo. I'm not really into FPS games at all, really.

BrokenH

06/26/2013 at 03:19 PM

Sorry the awkward strafing mechanic is giving you difficulty. There's still a chance it could be fixed if enough people voice their concern.

Super Step Contributing Writer

06/26/2013 at 07:06 PM

I really liked a couple times I played Halo 2 with friends, but that was the extent of it. Sorry the strafing and such is giving you trouble.

PixlBit