Halo 4 Kicks Off New Sci-fi Trilogy (November 6, 2012)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
One of the biggest games of the year, Halo 4, was released for the XBox 360 today. Both its competitive multiplayer and cinematic campaign storyline have gotten rave reviews, and there's also substantial buzz about the series' new feature, Spartan Ops. This new mode features a cooperative multiplayer side story that will be released in weekly five-mission installments over ten weeks. The game is graphically fantastic too!











The Wing Commander parallel is Secret Ops, which pioneered the concept of episodic games in 1998. The WCSO campaign spanned 56 missions over seven weeks and followed after the events of Wing Commander Prophecy. Lance Casey and company transferred aboard the TCS Cerberus to engage in a series of missions that stemmed the Nephilim tide closer to Earth. Wingnuts who were present during the game's original run will usually recall the long night of downloading (as almost all fans still had dialup internet!) in order to acquire the 112 megabyte starter package, but the game can be yours in just minutes now! Everything you need, including the serial key generator used during installation and the fiction files that go along with each episode, is available below. The fiction link also includes the awesome Secret Ops teaser and trailers.











Wingnuts should also check out Shades' extensive Secret Ops Guide. It includes detailed mission walkthroughs, complete stats, game history and more!

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Original update published on November 6, 2012
 
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Dundradal said:
Started the campaign last night and for a story guy like myself it's amazing!
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When you factor in Spartan Ops, Halo 4 is basically like jumping over WCP and going straight to Prophecy Gold - it's got the full cinematic campaign, plus a whole 50-mission side campaign tossed in for free. Also, the side campaign has stellar story cinematics too, and both campaigns are fully playable in 4-player coop.

Whether it's multiplayer or storyline missions, my biggest first impression is the way the Halo 4 engine feels. They did something similar going from Gears of War 2 to 3. Something about how they made it feels ultra solid. It's a little hard to put in words, but where many shooters feel like you're spraying a bullet hose until bad guys fall down in front of you, Halo 4 (and small number of top tier shooters) get the weapon sensation just right. Each shot feels substantial, and you have enough control to consciously target body parts without it feeling cumbersome. There's more too it than that - everything from the sound effects to the controller vibration has been tuned so well that it's a real joy to run around and shoot.
 
Story wise is there any need to have played Halo Reach before Halo 4? I just picked up a replacement 360 and am umming and ahhing about which to get.
 
Not at all. Reach was a prequel to Halo 1. It showed a few things that help explain Halo 1-4 better, but it's not at all necessary to know what happened in Reach to enjoy 4. (it's more important to brush up on a plot summary of 1-3 maybe)
 
So at one point late in the game Master Chief takes flight in a bomber-ish type vehicle called a "Broadsword". Is it my imagination or is that a shout out to Wing Commander?
 
It's true that they're both space fighters with the same name, but it's just as likely a coincidence as a reference I'd say.

Also, please refrain from any more "So at one point late in the game..." statements! :) That's not really a spoiler, but I'm afraid the next time someone starts a sentence like that, it will be.
 
The "problem" with Halo is it's a multi-media type story.

There's a lot of Halo books that serve as backstops ("The Fall of Reach" is a prequel to Halo 1 - "Halo Reach" takes place around the later part of this book), book versions of the game ("The Flood" is Halo 1 in book form), followed by a book that takes place between Halo 1 and Halo 2 ("First Strike"). And I think it was a Longsword fighter - at the end of Halo 1.

Then there's the Blu-Ray (Look, a Halo you can stick in your PS3!), the comics, etc.

Yes, I'm a story kind of guy - the only multiplayer modes I can wrap my head around are the Co-op ones. Versus isn't fun for me (mostly because it's a 10 second wait for every second of play I get. I'm that bad).

And man, I'm rusty. Halo 4 is proving a bit challenging right from the get-go.
 
All the story references to the older games, the novels (especially the Forerunner trilogy), the tie-in with FUD, is awesome! I'm playing a few hours each night and my jaw is constantly dropping at the story references...and is it me or did they go out of their way to give John more of a sense of humor? It first appeared in Halo 3 when he rescues Cortana, "Thought I'd shake things up a bit and shoot my way out." But I've noticed several deadpan lines in Halo 4.

Can't wait to come home and play some more!

And yes, please no spoilers! I rolled right past that "Later in game" post without reading anymore.
 
Worf said:
The "problem" with Halo is it's a multi-media type story.

There's a lot of Halo books that serve as backstops ("The Fall of Reach" is a prequel to Halo 1 - "Halo Reach" takes place around the later part of this book), book versions of the game ("The Flood" is Halo 1 in book form), followed by a book that takes place between Halo 1 and Halo 2 ("First Strike"). And I think it was a Longsword fighter - at the end of Halo 1.
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That's a great problem to have! Just like Wing Commander.

Although you really don't need to follow the novels or have played every game to get into Halo 4. They're promoting Halo 4 as part of a new trilogy, and while there's certainly plenty to appreciate if you are familiar with that stuff, the game really stands on its own too.
 
Put in a little time last night - having played Halo Anniversary lately was a mistake as I may be a little overloaded on Halo but the visuals are genuinely impressive. Some overuse of the bloom (I realize I'm the last person who ought to be complaining about that) on the ship, and the range of material shaders seemed fairly limited - but good poly counts, texture resolution, outdoor lighting, draw distances, AA etc etc. In every way a visual improvement on ODST which is the last Halo I played.
Definitely had the most fun from multiplayer (perhaps as it's the first time I've played a multiplayer game, other than a little Mario Kart, in around a year). No gaming for a while after tomorrow, but feel free to add me to XBox live, I look forward to some multiplayer when able.
 
I dunno, I could live without the HDR, lens flare and bloom to be honest.

Though, I really miss the old-style Bungie grunts. Gruntpocalypse is just that much more fun with the irrelevant commentary the grunts add. These Covenant remind me more of Halo 1 enemies than anything else.

And yeah, you don't need to follow the novels and such, but if you enjoy the Halo universe, well, you sorta have to keep up with all the media being put out.

Perhaps I should've selected Easy instead of Normal to get through it quicker to enjoy the story... not really an FPS kinda guy, I just enjoy the story and universe of Halo (and Half-Life - though there's far less canon material for that).
 
Worf said:
I dunno, I could live without the HDR, lens flare and bloom to be honest.
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I'd be surprised if you could; every modern game has them, the issue in Halo 4 (at least the early indoor section) is the flaring is far too strong and reaches too far. The impact to scenes lighting with and without tone mapping can't be overstated. The problem is your HDR effect is going to take up, say for arguments sake 3ms, that's a little under a 10th of your total rendering time - the instinct of the programmer is to crank it up high, get the most out of that constant expense of GPU time. However a good technical artist will almost invariably dial any effect way down to the point where the player doesn't actually realize why the scene looks better.

Trust me, every game you've played in the last five years almost certainly had it, the problem here is that it stands out enough that you've actually noticed it - but as I say that's about my only complaint about the games visuals so far, and it hasn't bothered me since I moved on to the outdoor sections of the game.
 
Worf said:
The "problem" with Halo is it's a multi-media type story.

There's a lot of Halo books that serve as backstops ("The Fall of Reach" is a prequel to Halo 1 - "Halo Reach" takes place around the later part of this book), book versions of the game ("The Flood" is Halo 1 in book form), followed by a book that takes place between Halo 1 and Halo 2 ("First Strike"). And I think it was a Longsword fighter - at the end of Halo 1.
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That's one thing I liked about WC too. The books fill in areas, although with Halo 4 if you've read/watched all the other stuff it's an amazing amount of incorporation. I was pretty surprised at the level of it.

I just finished the game and overall I thought it was pretty good.
 
Pedro said:
I'd be surprised if you could; every modern game has them, the issue in Halo 4 (at least the early indoor section) is the flaring is far too strong and reaches too far. The impact to scenes lighting with and without tone mapping can't be overstated. The problem is your HDR effect is going to take up, say for arguments sake 3ms, that's a little under a 10th of your total rendering time - the instinct of the programmer is to crank it up high, get the most out of that constant expense of GPU time. However a good technical artist will almost invariably dial any effect way down to the point where the player doesn't actually realize why the scene looks better.

Trust me, every game you've played in the last five years almost certainly had it, the problem here is that it stands out enough that you've actually noticed it - but as I say that's about my only complaint about the games visuals so far, and it hasn't bothered me since I moved on to the outdoor sections of the game.
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Well, I meant I could use a lot less of it - Halo 4 seems to use it to a huge extent - to distraction really. The other games tend to be far more conservative, and even the Source demo didn't make it so your entire screen washed out in glare.

Of course, I suppose I'm missing the "sunglasses" option. It's not that I don't like it, it's just used much too heavily in Halo 4.

Though, since I've also moved on, it's gotten a lot better. Probably because the outdoor areas (where they normally need HDR) they dial it way down because you can't really see all the nice details if it's constantly bloomed out or your're overexposing the scene. Halo 4 has nice visuals, and the HDR and other effects really reduce the details.

Or for future game developers - less is more.
 
It didn't. It added the role of NOBLE team to the Fall of Reach, but overall doesn't interfere with the Master Chief/Spartan IIs story.

People probably whined because of the role Dr. Halsey plays and how the Pillar gets going.
 
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