Game #7: Halo 4

Halo 4
Platform: XB1
Total Playtime: 7.5 Hours

If playing through the original Halo trilogy was a trip into the annals of FPS history, Halo 4 is like taking a time machine into the future to see the dystopian landscape of everything that is wrong with the genre now.

Crowded HUD? Check.
CoD segments where your character is flung around without your control? Check.
Final boss that's just a quick time event? Check.

Even in the first firefight I got into, I could immediately tell this was a completely different game. After killing the same enemies with the same guns for 3 games and knowing how many bullets it took, everything just felt off. Enemies take a ton of bullets in this game to die, making automatic weapons pretty much the worst choice in every situation. Headshots with the various semi-autos were the only really effective way I found to put down enemies at a decent pace.

Speaking of enemies, the new ones you fight in this game (The Prometheans) are probably the most annoying enemies I have ever encountered in an FPS. They constantly dart around, they have regenerating shields, they teleport away when their shields go down to let them recharge, and there's a unit that can just rez the rest of them that immediately flies away when you try and kill it. I liked using their weapons a lot, and they have a slick design, but damn were they a pain to fight.

So what did I end up enjoying? The vehicle segments were a lot of fun this time, especially the Death Star trench level. I really did like a lot of the new guns that were added like the Promethean guns and the single shot Human rifle. The equipment was pretty fun to experiment with and the game did a good job of making you try out each one before populating the maps with the more popular choices. It was also a very pretty game to look at.

Oh, and I am not going to talk about the story. After fully completing the game, I still cannot tell you why the Covenant were even in it to begin with other than to be a different enemy to fight.

I miss dual wielding :(