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| My H4 review - Multiplayer | |
| Posted By: Avateur <avateur@gmail.com> | Date: 12/29/12 10:11 p.m. |
In Response To: My H4 review - Campaign (Gameplay and Story) (Avateur) I've had almost nothing positive to say about multiplayer dating back to when they first started revealing it. My expectations were so miserably low for H4's multiplayer that I can honestly say I'm completely surprised at the actual multiplayer post-launch. Gameplay I've found myself pleasantly surprised with the ordnance drop mechanic. I like it. Granted, it's absolutely unbalanced and needs to seriously be fixed, but at the same time it's nice being able to drop in a SAW or a Shotgun every so often. But these should be done in incremental levels, not in a situation where someone gets the same kills at the same time as I do, we both get our drop, and I'm stuck with Pulse Grenades, Super Fast Sprint, and a Needler. Granted, the Needler is freaking awesome, but it usually only gets me two kills, MAYBE three if I'm lucky compared to what someone else might be granted (Overshield, Rockets, Dino Blaster). Far too unbalanced to justify my overall like of it, especially due to its effects on gameplay. The gameplay mechanics, for the most part, are solid. The way my Spartan moves and the way the weapons shoot (give or take some absolute trash and unbalanced weapons) are work fairly well. I feel like some weapons lack a badly needed punch (the BR is a joke outside of SWAT, I'll take a DMR and UNSC Pistol any day). The sandbox is cluttered with a never ending cavalcade of weaponry with no ammo to be found anywhere. UNSC, Covenant, Promethean, and if you're on a roll, you may have a very difficult time finding new ammo for any of these depending on your play style unless you get killed. Did we really need the BR and DMR in this game? I could go on and on about other weapons that could have been left out, but it's fairly clear that some are unnecessary and the sandbox is unnecessarily cluttered in general. This is the only Halo game where sometimes I have no idea what killed me or how. That shouldn't be happening. Or you can just use the Boltshot like everyone else and clean house with a nearly limitless supply of ammo that's more powerful than power weapons that are rare and hard to come by due to weapon drops or personal ordnance drops. Most unbalanced weapon ever. Sorry, had to get that little rant out. The killcams are a joke. They're absolutely inaccurate and serve no purpose in assisting me in figuring out how someone pulled off what appears to be a total nonsense kill on my screen. I don't know how the killcams could be so far off. Were they tested at all? Is there even a fix for it? The multiplayer maps themselves are absolutely awful. Granted, I'm willing to admit that they are better than Reach's launch maps, but even then only slightly. When I sit down and try to think really hard about which maps I'd like to see re-made in future Halo titles, well, I come up with Ragnarok. Except that's a remake of a Halo 3 map. Oops. The map design doesn't lead to clear or even fun encounters, some maps I spend more time trying to find someone to shoot at than I do actually shooting at people, and some maps have locations so indistinguishable from one another that callouts are practically a joke. About the only time I have fun playing H4 is when I have a party of eight or more friends playing against each other in 5v5 CTF or 5v5 Oddball, or if I'm playing alone in Regicide. I pretty much can't stand any of the gametypes due to the instant respawns, inability to communicate positions on maps without any real discernable callouts, and the inability to callout my locations (dead or alive). While trying to support the natural flow of gameplay, the poor map design (which seems to be of a mentality of clutter the maps with as much awesome looking graphics as possible, gameplay and fun be damned) only serves to act against it all. There are no X's to be seen on the maps if you die, so one shot my X has gone the way of the Dodo which greatly harms teamwork communication, tactics, and strategy (whether playing competitively, casually, for fun, for srsr bznz, or the roflcopters). In an ironic twist, apparently with a certain specialization, if you get killed, that person will have a red X over their head so you can try and hunt them down. How beneficial in a team setting. Which lets me end on the basics. 343 Industries couldn't manage to let me hold the Back button while moving or place red X's over my dead teammates. Basics going back to Halo 2. In other words, to conclude on the gameplay section, I was more surprised at how awful the multiplayer experience is than I thought I would be. Theater Or should I call it lackoftheater? Part of what I just mentioned in rolling back the series (no X's over dead teammates' heads, no holding back button while moving), we can't even upload screenshots or render films. Bungie clearly spoiled the living daylights out of us with Halo 3. Sure, we couldn't do everything we wanted with theater in relation to campaign films, but at least we had them. No campaign or Spartan Ops films to be had in H4. No way to really share with friends. And the fileshare system itself is so hidden in the awful UI that I have some friends on Xbox Live (veteran Halo players and HBOers) who, up until even a week ago, had no idea there was a fileshare or theater system in this game. Wow. That's really about all I have to say about that. Forge I have no idea. I haven't really tried to use it. petetheduck has still been coming up with a lot of nifty stuff, but from what I've heard it's like Forge got turned back a bit, too. Not sure about the details, so no real opinion here, but I at least wanted to say something so it didn't seem like I was glossing over it. I defer any thoughts or opinions on Forge to petetheduck. Conclusion Overall, I feel like Halo 4 is a huge letdown. The multiplayer itself surpassed even my negative expectations by being worse than I actually imagined it could be, even if I do like some of the newer inclusions to the title. Campaign was a big disappointment. Spartan Ops looks to be about the only thing that will keep me coming back time and time again to H4, and even then only if they start to inject some variety into it. I'm ready to go back to Reach if needbe or to find other games to play. Then again, Destiny awaits in the new year. I'll stick around H4 for a bit, maybe they'll fix some things. If not, see everyone Starside!
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