Halo 4 is worse than you remember - Halo 4 Review [2/2]

The second part of my rant against Halo 4. Last time I talked about plot, but for this video I'll be diving right into gameplay, game mechanics, enemies, level design, and even a bit of multiplayer! Believe it or not this was the longest part to write, so I hope you all enjoy how much I break down this game's combat and everything that's wrong with it.
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/ bunkerdweller
00:00 - Graphics, Visuals, and Art Design
14:40 - Prometheans are a bad Enemy
28:36 - Weapons and Ammo
31:58 - Hiding behind Cover
37:40 - Level Design
51:33 - Multiplayer and Player Drop
1:00:57 - Leaving Halo 4 Behind

[@baddle6880]

If I had never watched this video, I would have lived my live thinking that there are no promethein knight ranks in halo 4.

[@dr.rodders3329]

Same

[@NGRevenant]

I didn't even know the elites still had colours lmao

[@perrytran9504]

@@NGRevenant Bungie: Blue, red, black, white, gold 343: Puke green, puke brown, puke purple all at the same time

[@Sockren]

everybody knows that making readable ranks requires little to no contrast and silhouette change

[@SeraSmiles]

I was completely unaware the knights had shields, like played the entire game & never realized they didn't just have a weirdly big variable amount of health

[@guy3295]

Fun fact: Engineers made you feel bad when you killed them, their name denoting their role as non-combat individuals, and would make a fearful shriek when they were about to die. But the watchers... well...

[@wolf7115]

And with the Engineers, if you understood the lore (which for Bungie games was totally optional, which is how games should be), you'd understand that Engineers exploded when you killed them because the covenant attached bombs to them to keep them under control. The engineers didn't want to fight the player, they were forced to.

[@bruhgod123]

engineers were sentient and made you feel bad for shooting them watchers on the other hand made you feel annoyed and wish you could wipe all of them out because of how fucking annoying watchers are

[@Loch_Ness_Lachster]

Also, everyone wants a pet engineer, no one wants a pet watcher

[@HolyknightVader999]

Every Watcher I kill makes me feel warm inside. When I see one, I immediately focus all attention in killing it, and when it dies, I smile.

[@saltmines5761]

Recently listened to Fall of Reach, and the Engineers are described as non-combative and more like researchers as they disassembled cars. Makes sense they’re not a threat

[@alanlee67]

You missed a critical aspect of enemy design that bungie was maestros with that nobody seems to be able to do. Enemy death animations. I can tell from across the map if I headshoted a grunt immediately. Halo 4, sometimes the grunts still look like they're alive. Note that bungie halo games did not use hit markers but nowadays hit markers are the only way to know you hit anything in an fps.

[@Norwoodg00ner]

Speaking of death animations, 343 did an unholy job at vehicles exploding in halo infinite literally all of them turn red and explode the exact same way

[@ZSTE]

Hit markers are needed now in the game because they have done a poor job of feedback. Easiest example is play Halo CE in classic and anniversary graphics and shoot an Elite. New graphics make it very hard to tell.

[@nagger8216]

@@ZSTE Yeah but the Elites' shields in Anniversary graphics are barely noticeable anyway, in Halo 2A they're done way better and it proves you don't need hitmarkers if you have actual feedback, even with modern graphics

[@ZSTE]

@@nagger8216 That was my point... CEA did it bad.

[@nagger8216]

@@ZSTE Ah my bad, I thought you meant modern graphics in general make it hard to have the same kind of feedback on hitting enemies as the original games did

[@Zecuu]

Ah yes, the Watcher resurrecting the Knight, who is also able to summon another Watcher. Man I always hated that mechanic. Glad you brought it up in the gameplay section.

[@luckyducky7819]

When you think about it, doesn't the enemy design in Halo 4 seem like Boss design? "Guy can summon drone to pocket him and will vanish when you pop his shield" or "Drone that summons baddies and hides when you shoot him" would be perfect as bosses, but as average goons? That's silly.

[@Zecuu]

@@luckyducky7819 Yeah I agree. Honestly as a Boss Fight... I don't mind the concept of a duo that continuously resurrect each other. Elden Ring's GodSkin Duo fight has them both repeatedly come back to life but they share a healthbar so you don't lose progress and it's honestly a pretty fun fight imo.

[@AbbyRawks]

@@Zecuu They kinda did just that with Halo 5's Knights tbh. They added in Promethean Soldiers, which replaced the Halo 4 Knights, and made the Knights much stronger and gave them more clearly defined weak points. I can't really speak to how well they played in comparison, but on paper they definitely seemed a lot more interesting.

[@Zecuu]

@CandiRokz H5 Knights are a huge improvement. Unfortunately Halo 5 also introduced the Warden Eternals... who are even more annoying to deal with than H2 sniper jackals.

[@montypython5521]

@@luckyducky7819 If you think about it that makes sense for the average goons of a force made to fight the flood, problem being we aren't the flood

[@EliteKnight97]

Not only are you forced to use the forerunner weapons due to lack of ammo, but they feel the worst to use. The game genuinely forces you to play in the worst possible way

[@necro4258]

mfw when they introduce an LMG near the beginning (LMGs are my favorite kind of gun) and then they proceed to have it show up maybe 3 times the whole campaign.

[@awebimmer]

I completely agree. I didn't like using any of the Forerunner weapons. They felt like they had a lack of impact to them and none of them were particularly aesthetically pleasing to look at.

[@he.5865]

This entire video: Look at this - halo 4 has this thing (all other halos also have this but I'm not going to show you) and here's another halo which has this thing (halo 4 also has this but I'm not going to show you). It's like what a classroom would show you as an example of purposeful selection bias.

[@EliteKnight97]

@@he.5865 examples of what you mean?

[@he.5865]

@@EliteKnight97 There are plenty of green and blue areas in halo 4 and plenty of brown and grey areas in the other halos. Hence the selection bias with the examples shown.

[@skullospice]

The key difference in design philosophy between Bungie games and 343 games that I've noticed is that Bungie gives you a sandbox to outsmart and to break, while 343 locks you down and says "you will play this the way I designed it to be played"

[@0giraffe0]

It's funny because that's also how Bungie treats Destiny. Really miss OG Bungie.

[@snodog00]

It's a lot more than that, too. Halo was a colorful, player paced, dynamic experience. They designed levels to be played multiple ways with care and dedication to each. You can hoof it with your desired weapon, pick up a ghost, and quickly blast everything. You could hijack a tank and slowly slog your way through blasting enemies in groups. You could pick up a banshee and fly your way through. Sure, each level had more or less a specifically designed way, like Metropolis clearly wants you to use a tank on the bridge, but you don't have to. They even provide you with a Warthog in case you just want to get to the other end. The only dynamic play I can think of in Halo 4 is throwing a random Banshee down, but the areas were too small to be fun to fly around anyway. No care taken to make sure it was fun if you picked up a Banshee or any other vehicle. Hell, the levels are even designed around specific weapons a lot of the time for fucks sake. No freedom what-so-ever. Bungie also had little set pieces that could be played out or interrupted, like a Brute about to kill a marine if you didn't shoot him in time. Or massive AI battles that you could participate in or just sit on the sideline and watch them blow each other to smitherines. The only thing I can think of is the Jackal that tackles and viciously kills a scientist that you can't even interrupt. If you can, it's exceedingly difficult to because I've never managed it. There's a word for something like that. Care. You can tell Bungie devs were talking to each other saying "dude, wouldn't it be cool if the player could do this or that?" Or "what if we did this and this so the player can do this or that?" When it feels like 343 was like "Okay, let's make this level like this and that. No, Jimmy, don't try and mess around with it. Just make the level." You can just tell that 343 has the high brass telling their peons what to do and they're so stiff and uncreative, no one shares ideas in fear the higher ups would shoot them down because they do so often. The Bungie offices was open and creative and you can tell they would order pizza and work late on projects because they had passion. 343 is probably just an office where they clock in and clock out on time every day.

[@BoolyK]

Almost makes you wonder why they sold it to them? What did they see or not see? And why?

[@Backfisch5927]

Doesn't infinite have an open world?

[@patchmoulton5438]

@@Backfisch5927 Thats not the same as an open sandbox

[@Hokiebird428]

34:14 I've seen these values (percent chance that an enemy will overcharge the Plasma Pistol) and on Legendary they have a 100% chance that they will! I covered it a bit in my own video but had no idea it was this bad, and you're not just imagining things. Completely untested, and unacceptable. 34:51 Ooh! Ooh! I know! I know! Pick me! Yes, thank you! So um, in Halo 4 enemy melee attacks are 10 frames in duration. 1/6 of a second to insta-kill you!

[@Ch4pp13]

oh wow, that's 0.16667 seconds! I wonder how much time you get to react to that! ... average human reaction time is 250 ms, maybe slightly lower for the average video game player person... in other words.... by the time you register it happen you can already see your corpse.

[@Xineombine]

The only way to 'counter' the unfair melee attacks, if you can even call it a counter, is that you have to always assume that the enemy can & WILL use it. Now, for a game like Monster hunter, that's acceptable as the player has a multitude of options; blocking, dodge rolling, guard point, etc. Here's the issue, in Halo, you DON'T have an option like that, so the only solution is to avoid getting into melee range period. I've gone through Halo 4 on Legendary for over 120 hours and still have no Idea how much damage the melee attacks do, sometimes, they one shot, sometimes, they don't and there's no way to tell which is which. That just adds another layer of frustration. The only saving grace is that the Pulse grenade will "stun" knights if you hit them directly, but even then, that will only buy you 1 second, which most people aren't going to be able to capitalize on for a back smack to one shot the knight. I'm not defending 343i, far from it, I just wanted to highlight that the melee system in Halo 4 is not only just unfair, it just feels unpredictable at times, but I feel that also stems from the game running on Reach's engine. Not ALL of the blame should be directed at 343i for the BS melee attacks, Reach was the game that implemented THAT particular feature, 343i was just too lazy to adjust it properly. I say both Bungie & 343i are at fault for the MELEE being bullshit. The rest of the issues: Ammo, vehicles made of tissue paper, and lack of weapon verity are 343's fault, shit they easily could have fixed with proper play testing, or just having actual Halo fans play through on legendary and give feedback... Alas, that isn't the case, and what's done is done...

[@MaxiemumKarnage]

Tbf, you kinda need to play 4 assuming that a Knight is always about to melee you... Which ruins the gameplay....

[@hrthrhs]

Your vid was brilliant btw

[@EA_SP0RTCENTER]

Only super smash bros melee players can react to halo 4 enemy melee attacks.

[@vinhquanghoang8301]

There are 4 different type of Promethean knight? I honestly thought there are 2 those who have hair and those who are bald...

[@beetheimmortal]

I kid you not, I played this godforsaken game twice (the lowest amount I've played any Halo game up to that point), and I never knew there were more than one type.

[@gogousa6661]

Never noticed lmao I only replayed this campaign once only to help a friend.

[@bruhgod123]

only 2 stand out the one with that holographic shell (y'know the gas station company) logo and the one with LED lighting all over it

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@bruhgod123 “and the one with LED lighting all over it” THAT’S EVERY PROMETHEAN!

[@bruhgod123]

@@Slender_Man_186 the one with like 10x more led lighting

[@NimsoStudios]

Hi, as a game developer who worked in AAA as a programmer, regarding 16:55 I can tell you that companies will absolutely remove fun elements to bring the rating down. I've seen it done to ragdolls, where the inability to mess around with a character body once it's no longer alive was done explicitly to bring down rating.

[@danilosardo1179]

But why would they want to bring their rating down? Isn't that counterproductive?

[@Stormfin]

​@@danilosardo1179 It widens the market. Movies rated 14A make more money than Rs. There's a reason why there was almost no blood throughout The Dark Knight Rises.

[@danilosardo1179]

@@Stormfin Ohh, I got it, they referred to M, R, T, etc. I thought they were talking about general rating, like bringing it down from 9.1 to 7.3

[@Stormfin]

@@danilosardo1179 Nah man, honest mistake, I getcha.

[@theholygamer969]

This might explain why Portal 2 isn't a quiet, atmospheric, isolating puzzle game like its predecessor.

[@suzy.crabgrass]

So the reason H4’s graphics look crusty is because 343 invested in making all-new High res models for next-gen but scaled them down to run better on the 360’s hardware.

[@aceambling7685]

Thats only part of the reason. The main reason is that 343's artists are uninspired and incompetent, which mostly has to do with the sharp decline in the quality of art schools over the past decade or so. Which is why I hate the "its the executives fault" excuses people always jump to whenever a game releases broken, unfinished, and just generally low quality. Anyone with some tenure who has worked in these industries will tell you that the quality of work has gone downhill, because the quality of the workers themselves has gone downhill. Which is itself a result of the institutions where these workers are educated having gone downhill. The early 2000's was an era of creative visionaries releasing legendary games on shoestring budgets with overwhelming deadlines, like Halo 2. Those men didnt let executive pressure (that was much more serious and destructive than it is nowadays) stop them from making passion projects that delivered amazing experiences, because they were true artistic geniuses and masterful computer scientists. The creative teams responsible for these modern games are passionless worker drones who got into the industry because its a "good career opportunity", being overseen by talentless hacks who worked their way up the corporate ladder by playing office politics. The quality and character of the people making these games is completely different from the old guard of the video game golden age.

[@colorantics8160]

@@aceambling7685 wow great comment! so true

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

@@aceambling7685 truth! Why the fuck do those companies hire people who don't play games to work on games? Diversity quota?

[@TheMasterofComment]

@@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117 ehm ehm frank o Conner

[@olibarrett4283]

They had to scale down the textures to the point of being noticeable outside of a zoom function, example zoom into the elite armor in halo reach and zoom into the elite armor in halo 4, halo 4 has a higher polly mode but the textures are scaled down. Also the lighting is fucked on some missions.

[@Janx14]

The problems with h4's forerunner environments are still present in Infinite. Yes, Infinite cut down on the lense flares and the over complication, but they're still the same dull, silver, lifeless environments that look fresh off the press rather than some ancient ruin.

[@EvilPhoenix007]

Halo Reach did it best when it came to the actual Forerunner Maps that came with the map packs. The subtle lightings, and ancient worn down designs all stayed true towards the original Trilogy.

[@Janx14]

@@EvilPhoenix007 Bungie knew how to make grey/silver environments really appealing, in a way 343 just doesn't get. Then again even explosions looked better in bungie games than they have in any 343 game. Its wild given the graphical improvements that 343 just can't pull this off.

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

343's forerunner designs are some of the most devoid of personality things I've ever seen. They want to show off how slick and sci fi their designs are. Look at the polygon count! Look at the lens flares! When it has no soul or history like bungie's forerunner designs.

[@hrthrhs]

I'll pay more attention to the forerunner architecture next time I play Infinite, but from memory I thought it looked great. H4 and H5 had the worst in the whole series.

[@Janx14]

@@hrthrhs Its a hard thing to explain admittedly. Yes, it does look alot closer to the classic style than h4/h5 did. But at least to me personally it still has this too clean, sterile look to it. I think part of it also comes down to diversity in the forerunner environments. The forerunner tileset in each level of CE alone is different for each level (not counting the remixed levels in the later game). The levels halo and silent cartographer are similar but still quite different. The assault on the controll room is also quite different. The library is this vast open interior, and uses brown heavily rather than silver, and the silent cartographer is a mix of silver and brown areas. You can probably tell each level of CE by merely looking at its forerunner archetecture, but all of Infinite's structures look like they could be the same building. The final level adds some gold bits here and there at least.

[@JohnSSSSS]

I like H4 for making me understand what makes the other Halo games so good.

[@WALTERRIFIC]

20:42 That’s not fair to Bionicle.

[@emperorbirb1]

Agreed

[@Nethseaar]

My brother photoshopped the arms off of the Halo 4 elites for a joke "save the elites' arms; help us fund complete armor" ad. Or, it might have been pretending to raise money to buy them all prosthetics. Anyway, I'm glad to hear you mention how absurd it is! Great video!

[@Gyrfalcon312]

🤣 Great joke by your bro!

[@alexanderrobins7497]

I always imagine them looking like some dirt bag from New Jersey wearing a tang top at the beach for some reason. Also their skin is completely different from how the Elites looked in previous games.

[@brophy6856]

There's been a lot of revisionism going on with Halo 4 recently. Glad to see more gamers/fans like you setting the record straight on how dogshit the game really was.

[@StrikeAxl]

This! I saw the other day a post by Sacred icon halo and I was very surprised at how many people were praising Halo 4s MP. Like, did these people lived on the same timeline as us? I played the game religiously, but I knew the piece of shit game I was playing, to the point I would always go back to Halo Reach and 3. I wasn't too vocal at the time nor I actively thought "this thing is so bad", but deep down I never enjoyed it as much as I did Halo 3

[@Mr_Sakul]

@@StrikeAxl It's probably just younger generation growing up. As a kid I did kind of enjoy halo 4 but I still stuck mostly to bungie halo games. Nowadays hearing 343 and halo makes my blood boil.

[@Vote4waifu]

I feel like this happens with tons of bad games in popular franchises. People are waiting so long for something good that they begin to put their fantasies onto shitty games despite it being nothing they're thinking about.

[@KeithBoehler]

Its also kind of wild that halo wars seems more grounded in the universe even tho it was also made by another studio (which bungie did not want to help)

[@ha-kh7ef]

Yall really just don't like other people's opinion huh?

[@OrionCenturion]

Going back to enemy design. The covenant had personality, grunts were funny and cowardly, brutes were aggressive and, well, brutish. Elites were lean and bossy, jackals were scappy and slimy. Even in CE where the covenant aren't translated, you can understand this from their actions and responces to your attacks. Although halo 4 covenant mostly carries this over (even though they no longer translate the covenant again for some reason), the prometheans have none of this. They're just robots with zero personality and nothing to remember them by. Part of the fun of fighting the covenant is seeing how they'll react to the chief, the panic or anger in their voices upon seeing The Demon. They would even jump backwards. The prometheans, on the other hand, just immediately start start shooting, have zero lines of dialogue, and don't talk to each other at all.

[@gabrielchasecanceladosinap3959]

At least they vould have made the Promotheans having sparkles of personality or dven some whitt.

[@alexanderrobins7497]

The flood had no personality compared to the Covenant, but that is what made them scary. Instead of communicating and trying to stay alive, they would make uncanny noises and charge without fear of death. The promethians were boring robots even compared to the Sentinels (which would get old fast if they were the only enemy fought for 75% of encounters).

[@Nedak2003]

I have no idea what your talking about. I wish they were like how you described. I always though it was bizzare that the forerunners would design a robot dog that howls (crawler), a four armed bipedal foot soldier that poses and taunts you, (Promethian Knight) and a little angle with circle wings (watcher). These things were meant to fight the flood. They are supposed to be lifeless robots with no personality like the Sentinel aggressors, Sentinel officers, and sentinel enforcers in the bungie halo games. The Promethians are too life like. That's why I hated them. They don't seem like forerunner creations at all.

[@LiveHedgehog]

You compared the Knights to Bionicles, but they'd be far better if they were more like Bionicles. Give each rank a colour, the highest being Gold. Give them unique face masks, etc. And make the weapon an obvious attachment on their arm. Then of course all their weapons need to be changed to be visually distinct like the Covenant's are. Each a different colour and obviously different shape.

[@SR-388]

funny too cause if they would have been cooler and maybe fit in more if they did look more like bionicles, since bionicles don't usually do large amounts of neon, and floaty bits

[@gogousa6661]

343: Best we can do is Robot Dogs. Would Ya like some Robot Dogs in your Halo game? Genius. Robot Dogs. Dogs Robots. They’re gonna love it.

[@Janx14]

I honestly think it would have been cooler in the Prometheans had a more angelic aesthetic. A sort of actually knightly appearance. Could even still have lights and floaty bits. You could still have the glowing skull and other nonsense show when damaged. But i like the idea of the Prometheans looking regal but having a darker underlayer would have given them a lot of character.

[@MaxiemumKarnage]

GeneralHeed actually recently proved that 343i could've easily made the different ranks have different coloured lights, but that would've taken away from the MP™

[@MaxiemumKarnage]

@@Janx14 Make them look like the Prefect armour from H4 and speak in garbled, robotic but human sounding voices

[@waspoptic]

Also I love how CREATIVE ASSEMBLY, a real-time strategy game studio, was able to make HALO WARS 2 more in league with Bungie's Halo than 343i was And then 343i stole their ideas and shat all over them.

[@perrytran9504]

Before CA it was Ensemble Studios who made Age of Empires as their claim to fame. They were not supported by Bungie during their development of Halo Wars (their last game before being closed by Microsoft), and yet they still paid more respect to the series than 343 did in Halos 4 and 5. 343 just would not do that until Halo's popularity had dropped to critical levels after 5, and by then it was too late because they still didn't understand why old Halo was so well liked.

[@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778]

343 ruined the banished

[@Wuunderboy]

​@@jurassicarkjordanisgreat1778exactly!!! The Banished was perfect to help save this franchise. And then 343 comes along.... I fucking HATE this company!!!!

[@daniellewis2664]

I have to turn this off because it's too thorough, well thought out and infuriating to ruminate on. 343 did Halo so dirty.

[@LKNear]

I wholeheartedly agree bro Halo 4 was a complete embarrassing. I didnt even grow up with Halo, I started on Reach when it released on PC and the very first moment I got to Halo 4 I could feel something was horribly wrong on every single level. Now I have like 2k hours on MCC and probably not even 1% has been Halo 4, I despise the mere thought of playing it

[@fortnitekidlover9171]

No it wasn't

[@krimson8317]

@@fortnitekidlover9171 sure

[@Largentina.]

​@@fortnitekidlover9171 Nice logical argument there lol.

[@dr.rodders3329]

​@@fortnitekidlover9171 username checks out

[@cosmictreason2242]

It's tolerable on normal difficulty but there's no reason to play it on legendary

[@JR-jw2du]

Halo 1's graphics actually blew me away when ot first released. It was hands down the most graphically impressive title of its era.

[@fonesrphunny7242]

It's the first game I remember seeing bump maps being used. Seemed like magic back then.

[@spiral7399]

Looks great but it isn't the best, metroid prime and MGS2 look and run better

[@gigafuq8751]

@@spiral7399 i disagree. the second level of CE when the game first came out was something else that nothing else at the time really captured imo

[@spiral7399]

@@gigafuq8751 scope maybe but the actual graphics weren't very good

[@NGRevenant]

the first level I played in CE was silent cartographer and it blew my fucking mind

[@OKMBVideos]

Two quick points, 1. The shield issue is applicable to Halo CEA as well. In Halo CEA, it is REALLY hard to tell if you've damaged an enemies' shields or not, and even worse, if you've popped them. This was fixed in Halo 2A, but it's still an issue in CEA. 2. Engineers, at least in Reach, also have a headshot region. This means you have the ability to kill them in two shots. The first shot knocks off the "faceplate" and the second shot will kill them. Watchers don't have this. Watchers CAN be assassinated, but that's small potatoes when they literally fly out of the map when damaged.

[@danielhambrook3669]

Another point about Engineers: to my knowledge Engineers in Halo 3: ODST will die in one shot from an overcharged plasma pistol on any difficulty.

[@perrytran9504]

@@danielhambrook3669 They do, it's extremely useful on Firefight legendary. And on heroic you can also instakill them with a supercombine (though you need more damage on legendary.) As much as I found engineers overtuned in ODST when playing the firefight maps on legendary, they are at least a lone hazard that was a reasonable addition to the sandbox, and they are not as common as watchers. The main annoying thing with them is just how insanely tanky they are plus the explosion after you kill them, but unlike the watchers they don't run away and actively try to waste your time fighting them.

[@Fyrecide]

The difference is CE is a 20 year old game for one, and for another the visual cue of the shield is made moot by the point that shooting an Elite will still let the player know whether shields have returned or not, which still doesn't happen nearly as fast as Knights (which is the salient point overall).

[@Batdude36]

@@Fyrecide No he's referring to CEA, the "remaster" of Halo CE that 343 gave to another company to do.

[@Fyrecide]

@@Batdude36 I know... but the original graphics do show shield indications. I never play on the remastered graphics because they absolutely fucking ruin the atmosphere and feel of the entire game. It's horrid.

[@dad5410]

Finally someone inspects the astroturf 343 implements within the halo community.

[@Slender_Man_186]

If you like this, you should check out C3 Sabertooth’s video “We Were Forerunner” he completely shred’s Frank O’Connor’s lore and dispels every 343 fan’s cope that “343 didn’t change or retcon the lore.”

[@Blockistium]

If I understand your meaning, I think astroturf is a little much. I did like Halo 4 enough when it came out. I may have only been 17 at the time, but I still thought it was okay.

[@dad5410]

@@Blockistium it really isn’t too much. Any time there’s a controversy in the halo community the entire Reddit page and other forums gets entirely censored except posts that defend the actions of 343. Even if you don’t believe they’re implementing bots or fake accounts for PR purposes, the former example is undeniable.

[@Blockistium]

@@dad5410 I did not read Reddit or any online thing about Halo during the time of Halo 4's release. My opinion was entirely my own. Maybe not the case for other people, but I experienced it almost isolated.

[@dad5410]

@@Blockistium for a more recent example look up the remember halo video. It was a love letter to the old halo games yet since it added in some elements of the failures of 343 it was entirely banned from the halo sub.

[@EvilPhoenix007]

Fun fact about Promethean Vision: 343 copied that armor ability from an Indie game called Blacklight Tango Down where in that game you had an ability to see though walls for like 5 seconds. And not only that the 343 employees who made this game came from other studios like Tryarch, Infinity Ward, Bioware, Ubisoft etc. Who made this game, there was a 343 vidoc on the Halo Waypoint 360 app that I once watched back in 2011 where they talked about how 343 formed and then comes to opening title sequence where all those studio logos showed up and they formed into the infamous 343i logo we all know today. I know that vidoc still exists since I used to spent countless and countless of hours in that app trying to get my milestones and watch the daily updates on the Halo 4 news becuase back in those days I used to so vividly hype for this god awful game since I didn't know any better at the time since I was purposely deluding myself that this game was good but eventually I saw how bad this game was an never touched it again, and y'know whats funny? 343 Fanboys are always claiming that 99% of 343 are mostly Bungie employees even tho thats 1000% pure bullshit if you take your time to read through the ending credits. The more I look at this game the more how bad it looks and I wished I never wasted my time on this game way back in the day.

[@goldcreeper7376]

While I don't disagree with your overall post, even if they copied that ability from that game, I highly doubt that Blacklight Tango Down was the first fps to include that kind of ability. I don't even think that what is essentially a temporary wallhack constitutes a proper mechanic, it's entirely derivative

[@RatsFunHouse101]

@@goldcreeper7376 Never knew of any FPS that integrated wallhacks into the main gameplay loop before BLTD. Other games have it but it's usually a power up or a debug code, not an ability you use routinely to keep track of enemies. Halo's was definitely closer to Blacklight's (even in the colors it visualizes as)

[@TheClol7]

@@RatsFunHouse101 Didn't Perfect Dark do it before that with the Farsight?

[@OmegaF77]

@@goldcreeper7376 The word "Blacklight" before "Tango Down" makes it sound like a porn game.

[@EvilPhoenix007]

@@OmegaF77 it was an actual video game mind you on the indie side released back in 2011. It was a generic twitch shooter like COD but it had it's own unique charm to it.

[@alpis6897]

8:28 i actually screamed "yes, YES, YEEEEEEES!" I'm really baffled when people defend the artstyle. I don't know when I subscribed but whoever shits on halo 4 is automatically on my favourite KZbinrs list. In all seriousness, great videos, you have summarised exactly how I feel about the game. Looking forward for more of your content, great job.

[@colorantics8160]

i dont think he talked about this in the vid actually but making the grunts talk their own language and removing their hilarious dialogue killed the spirit of the game, removed the fun and was pretty emblemic of why 343's version of Halo feels totally soulless.

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

@@colorantics8160 they should've made them speak English because this game was far ahead of reach, and reach has a good excuse for grunts to speak their own language since it's a prequel. Atleast the fake grunts speak their hilarious dialogue on 5, but its a game I don't wanna touch anymore either way.

[@Espartanica]

@@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117 The point was to make the Covenant much more alien in feel rather than just the timeline. Hence why Elites look much more like sharks too

[@YodaOnABender]

Literally the only parts I liked about 4’s art style are the jackals and chiefs new armour (but not enough for it to be his main armour)

[@dylanowens7902]

@@YodaOnABender those are like the worst parts about the new art style lmao

[@sikViduser]

I remember when Halo 4 first came out and friend was trying to convince me how cool it looked, he flipped out when I wasn't impressed. I damn near told him everything you said here and he looked at me like I was crazy. It's really cathartic to have this kind of vindication when the people around you always treat you like some kind of naysayer or contrarian who just wants to oppose anyone.

[@EvilPhoenix007]

I wonder whats his opinion on Halo 4 now?

[@sikViduser]

@@EvilPhoenix007 Oddly enough I had a falling out with him years ago.

[@sikViduser]

@@daegnaxqelil2733 It's always a bit tough being a critical thinker. It tends to put you at odd ends with a lot of people.

[@mlarpindarpin4538]

@@daegnaxqelil2733 wtf 😂😂😂😂

[@mlarpindarpin4538]

@daegnaxqelil2733 please tell me you're playing a character rn, you're too much 😂😂

[@Tateisadrummachine]

Man I HATED the promethean weapons, and they’re basically the only guns you can use in the game due to ammo availability. Pitiful.

[@Synechiae]

Halo 1 was the first M-rated game my dad let me get after he saw me playing the Silent Cartographer on a demo disc that came with my Xbox. Halo 2 was the most excited I have ever been for the release of any game ever. I brought my official Xbox magazine to summer camp, wrote the release date on my middle school calendar like it was a holiday. It didn't disappoint. Halo 3, Reach, and ODST got me through high school. I bought Halo 4 at the midnight release in while I was in college. I haven't purchased a Halo game since, and you articulated exactly why.

[@bizzaremonkey756]

Same here, preordered and bought the legendary edition of 4 at launch. Played through the whole campaign, played one game of multiplayer, and didnt touch it again until it came to MCC, never really knowing why I didnt care for it at the time.

[@grafnosferacula7473]

Its unfair to call the prometheans "Bionicle-like" because at least bionicles have different colours and clear design .-.

[@four-en-tee]

The "Call of Dutyization" point is basically something we see now with games needlessly adopting Battle Royale modes just to keep their player base from leaving and trying out Fortnite. Though the battle royale craze is less harmless than this was back in the day. At least a game can still maintain its identity while having a battle royale game mode if they want one.

[@01swainco]

I started at the beginning with Halo 1. I never liked 4, hated the digital enemies, hated all the lore, hated the fake feel of the game. Everything pointed out here in searing detail brings a bad feeling, a bad taste that was my experience with 4. I hardly played when new, never returned to it. These videos explain exactly why.

[@Drivalord]

Thank you man. I knew I wasn't the only one feeling this way. Reddit casuals really warp reality in order to defend 343 when it comes to halo 4.

[@Slender_Man_186]

They do the same thing with all of Halo’s lore, they argue that 343 never retconned the fact that humans were forerunners in the old lore despite all of the evidence in the Bungie games saying otherwise. And the thing is, the only two pieces of Bungie era lore that contradicted this, the Librarian and Didact Terminals from Halo 3 and the IRIS ad campaign (which was an ad for said terminals, and these are the only two things that contradict it, even the other terminals back up Humans=Forerunners) were both written by Frank O’Connor, someone who hasn’t even been able to correctly summarize a single Halo game. No, seriously, Frank thinks Halo CE had a prophecy of some kind (he said this in an interview a while back), he thinks that at the end of Halo 3 Humanity and the Covenant came to a truce (this is shown in Halo Legends Origins Part 2, and Chief also says this at the start of Halo 4, even though that never happened in Halo 3, the Elites broke off from the covenant entirely), and he tried to retcon the Arbiter’s entire backstory in Halo Legends The Package, the Elite Major is supposed to be the very same Thel Vadamee from Halo 2 and 3 (this was later retconned again, now he’s some some other elite named Thel, but still, he seriously didn’t know the Arbiter’s backstory ffs). And remember, the guy who said/did all of that is the pretty much the sole person who worked at Bungie that didn’t think humans were Forerunners

[@perrytran9504]

The Halo 4 stans are just vocal, I would say the silent majority on the Halo sub still dislike it. I for one hate it with a burning passion. People like us don't make posts about it but in the comment threads you'll see a lot of very upvoted comments mention how shit the game was and list the reasons why. The Halo 4 fans almost never give reasons for why they even like the game, just vague discussions of the story (and never the mechanically terrible gameplay which they so conveniently gloss over.)

[@kabbablabba4073]

​​@@Slender_Man_186its hilarious that he didnt know the arbiters backstory considering in the very first scene we ever see arbiter the prophets are literally giving a recap of what happened in CE, why it pisses them off, and why they blame arbiter for it.

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@perrytran9504 it’s less the “silent majority” and more like the absent majority since like 95% of the fanbase completely bailed after Halo 4’s population dipped to only 20k in less than a year.

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@kabbablabba4073 seriously, it’s blatantly obvious that he never even watched the cutscenes let alone played the games, and HE is the one who was put in charge of Halo’s story as a whole when 343 took over.

[@hideshisface1886]

My first direct contact with Halo was through Master Chief edition on PC. And you know - with zero nostalgia for the series, zero bias towards one team or the other, because I simply didn't care who made which game... Halo 4 is such a monstrous drop in quality it hurts. I went through original trilogy and ODST and Reach in one fell swoop - and most of it felt very consistent and coherent. Story, for the most part, made sense, drama was organic, and everything felt somewhat grounded, despite a lot of bonkers stuff happening. Halo 4... I just could not finish. A dropped the game soon after first encounter with Prometheans. But even before that, something felt off - the Covenant remnants felt wrong, especially Elites lacking their trademark agility - combat felt like a slog. And suddenly you get to enemies with build in synergising respawn mechanics, close range instakills and completely stupid AI that will murder you senseless if you get close... But does virtually nothing when you are away. Their lack of aggression combined with design that forces ranged combat made fighting them... boring. And the only tense moments in fighting them were when I had to dive in for ammo, because why would be able to carry ammo in a shooting game, right? I quickly figured out that these boring assholes would be a bread and butter of the combat - I mean, they are 343s "original character, donut steel" thingamajigs - so surely they would not be a throwaway enemy in their debut game... So I quit. And never looked back. I didn't want to sour my fresh, good memories of the original Bungee games.

[@spartanjohn-1176]

bungie halo is garbage

[@thecynicaloptimist1884]

Remember when Frank O'Connor said Chief's armour changed because of nanobots while he was asleep? But there was no explanation for the relatively small frigate _Forward Unto Dawn_ suddenly quadrupling in size and also completely changing hull design?

[@tanodz7635]

That excuse he made was stupid as fuck. Halo games never featured any nanotech and here we learn that Chief's armor was upgraded while he was asleep in a SPLIT OFF PIECE OF SHIP which should be barely functioning?! There is no way he could have come up with a worse excuse other than Magic.

[@seth3491]

And how the Arbiter looked different in Halo 5 supposedly because they didn't have time to reimport his H2A model, yet that doesn't explain why he still has his H5 design in the comics.

[@tanodz7635]

@@seth3491 , or that Elites we see in Halo 4 and 5 are different because they are Sub-species yet for some reason Arbiter also looks like that.

[@tanodz7635]

Not only that, but from the Lore standpoint it would be a giant waste of resources, because there are no visible changes that come with it. Chief remains the same, in fact, he is worse in Halo 4, because he can't take any hits without recharging his shield and hiding behind covers.

[@turututu2113]

I wonder what made 343i completely change the already established art style throughout the franchise. Like, it was/is excellent. Why change everything?

[@samuelfoster8615]

After this 2 hour review of Halo 4, no one can claim Halo 4 was good. Halo 4 is officially buried

[@niccr4279]

YES, this is why I felt weird playing it, thank you again. the "Halo cycle" is a lie

[@EvilPhoenix007]

The "Halo Cycle" has been pure bullshit since the very beginning.

[@gabethebabe3337]

It only applies to the 343 apologists who don’t know what they like. They act like a few forum posts of people bitching about Halo 2 back in the early 2000s means people hated Halo 2. They ignore the fact that back then the internet wasn’t nearly as widespread in its use. They can’t comprehend just how small the internet was. Hell they probably think KZbin was also huge back in 2005…

[@Espartanica]

@@gabethebabe3337 Spoken like a true Bungie stan, pretending only one side exists/is guilty of a certain behavior

[@bfrehksdhf]

Agree I couldn't understand why Halo 4 felt so off, but he explains it quite well. Also appreciate Halo 3 way more, especially the masterful Ark level.

[@gabethebabe3337]

@@Espartanica whatever you say pal. At least Bungie’s Halo games were actually popular

[@SHADOWFRENZY92]

In the second mission the first thing I did was complain about the weapons, Warthogs and the Dawn being wrong. I always said that if they were so adamant about changing them, they should have just used Halo 3s stuff until the Infinity shows up. Additionally, Halo 3s movement is not actually all that slow, the field of view makes it feel far slower than it actually is. I only realised this once Halo 3 was on pc and I could up the field of view.

[@coco10023]

I think the reason why some people say that halo 4 is not as bad as they remember is because the bar is so low now compared to before. I mean halo 5 had a worse campaign then halo 4 and Infinite has been such a disspointment that people think halo 4 was not that bad when in reality it was pretty bad. It is a similar situation to the disney star wars movies who are so bad that people remember the prequels as great hidden gems when in reality those movies in some aspects where pretty bad. The lower the bar gets the higher the praise for undeserving things. People used to hate on Reach but today many people have fondness for the game because it was the last good halo game. You dont know how good you have it until you lose it and halo reach is a perfect example of that.

[@willbohland3698]

Tron Legacy was 2010. That's why all the Forerunner hallways have that color scheme. I can hear it now, "Tron made 400 million. Yeah, people loved that movie. They love orange and blue strip lighting with trapezoidal patterns. We can do that! We can do it better than Tron did!! We can make 500 million!!"

[@gaiusfulmen]

You might be right. Tron did it better tbh...just goes to show it's usually best to stick with your own style rather than chasing trends.

[@willbohland3698]

@@gaiusfulmen Absolutely. Chasing the audience is never the way to go. They'll always outrun you. Even if you add a sprint function.

[@AvoozlPlays]

I went through all the trouble to get all achievements in this game and now I will never play it again through MCC.

[@TheInfiniteAmo]

Interestingly, Reach had the same problem with the melee timing. The Elite melee stomp was way too fast to be reacted to and was a guaranteed kill iirc.

[@yolsil775]

The stomp or the Sparta kick? I remember the overhead stomp is extra easy to dodge if you go left. I don't think the Sparta kick is dodgable at all.

[@peanutgallery4]

Halo 2 as well

[@antogno4625]

@@peanutgallery4 nah, halo 2 elites have other (way bigger problems).

[@georgebaggy]

I only recently learned that Reach was basically a side-game assigned to secondary team members while bungie's main talent worked on Destiny. Helps explain why the core gameplay was so much worse than that of the mainline games.

[@perrytran9504]

@@georgebaggy Yeah Reach isn't as bad as 4, but replaying it more makes me realize it was a noticeable step down from the trilogy + ODST in sandbox and AI balance. Elites moving around a lot is fine as it's clearly meant to evoke CE, but their grenade throws and melees are extremely fast animations not meant to be reactable like the older games. 343 should've reverted away from this, but instead they doubled down for Halo 4 and even made an entire faction worse than the elites in animation balance.

[@Blox117]

343: you aint seen nothin yet! (releases halo 5)

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

"Well that fuckin sucked. Gameplay was good though"

[@TrickyPanda65]

Halo 6*

[@iloopindeadbydaylight]

Halo 6 is good​@@TrickyPanda65

[@TrickyPanda65]

@@iloopindeadbydaylight that's the worst one it looks like a woke fortnite game

[@iloopindeadbydaylight]

@@TrickyPanda65 did you even play it lmfao

[@torinriley7569]

The bit about visuals really hits the nail on the head. MCC is a great example of the clashing art styles, I am actually incapable of playing through the forerunner interior bits of Halo CE with the "Updated Visuals" active because the sheer amount of glossy shiny reflectivity actually gives me sensory overload, which isn't something I've ever experienced before then. That and the lighting in some areas is just completely massacred, with parts that are meant to be bathed in shadows instead being clearly and rather harshly lit. Its honestly shocking how much the style was massacred. I'm just glad someone cared enough to make it opt-out.

[@thatsneakyneenja2595]

Don't forget that the same "Updated Visuals" took away from the level by removing details like the blood splatters everywhere and how they were so desperate to make the game look good they left some really bad spots where you can clearly see the enemy but your bullets get caught by an invisible wall.

[@CGray-pq2zm]

The one exception I'll say is The Library. It still looks like hell for the most part, but the arrows printed on the ground solve the issue of getting lost on the worst map in CE. I just recently played through CE on legendary again, and would flip to the remaster if I was having trouble navigating that area, but man does it look funny.

[@daegnaxqelil2733]

the outdoor environment in CEA weren't bad, very pretty but im agree for the interiors.

[@George-zj9rr]

good video. I would have added to the unbalanced difficulty part, that weapons despawned almost as soon as you looked away from them. 343 put so much more memory on shiny graphics over Reach, that they couldn't afford to maintain all the bodies and dropped guns that was a staple of the bungie games. On legendary from H2 to Reach, I could backtrack at least a couple of rooms back to top off my sniper ammo if I remembered where a copy of my gun dropped. or needler ammo or fuel rod ammo or whatever. the memory budget wasn't just used for graphics, it was used to maintain a lively sandbox. halo 4 was torture on legendary. I had no motivation to keep trying after the second mission. Every Bungie halo was tantalizing on Legendary. yeah it would kick your ass but you knew you could win if you played smart and used the ammo around you. you wanted more.

[@livingfives865]

Amazing points. Going back on legendary to get a rocket you know you saw get dropped somewhere to beat a certain section you're stuck on

[@quintonlim4275]

Try Halo Infinite. Weapons and bodies disappear almost immediately. A cool thing in the old Halo's is backtracking previous rooms to top off your ammo and seeing the end of the carnage that you just inflicted. And this is Halo Infinite a game that visually doesn't look next gen is released on the most recent hardware PC and the Series X and somehow lacks the performance to have some bodies and weapons linger just a bit longer.

[@George-zj9rr]

@@quintonlim4275 that does not sound fun. the whole thing sounds un-exciting. don't hop to new locations across the galaxy in a tight storyline, stick to a 5 mile "open world" square and just keep revisiting locations and camps and shit. uncover a storyline that happened out of sight, in the past, because it was easier to write. Cortana was going to disrupt the status quo after Halo 5, now that's all undone because it was hard to write about. don't worry, here's a new cortana just like the old familiar one.

[@basedsneedclave175]

With people saying they want more Spartan ops they don’t mean they want it’s insane repetition and Brian reed’s awful writing What they actually mean is they like the concept of it for halo basic pve mission content focused around a story focused around your Spartan done in a live service format You see people supporting it now because infinite has a ‘story’ focused around your Spartan but all they do is stay at base and get told to play vr. Where I think a lot of halo campaign enjoyers would have at least loved to have gotten something more actually playable and despite the numerous flaws with Spartan ops it’s the only real example of a playable side campaign we’ve had in a halo game.

[@thecynicaloptimist1884]

One of the biggest problems with the Watchers is that they stifle play style variety. Here's an example: you come across a squad of Covenant; 10 grunts, 2 blue elites, and 1 red elite. Who do you kill first? Well, you could take out the elites first, demoralising the grunts. But, there's a risk if you do, the grunts might swarm you and overwhelm you. So you could kill the grunts first, while making sure you don't get outflanked by the elites. You can take them out from a distance, or you can get up close. You can snipe them. Or you can get up close, grenade them, and gun them from up close, never giving them a chance to fight back effectively. Everything was risk-reward. But with these floating fuckers, why would you ever _not_ go for the Watchers first? They're so overpowered since they can shield the enemies, spawn new enemies, and catch grenades. In the Bungie games, I found myself varying my play style depending on the environment, situation, and class of enemies I was facing. With Halo 4, I found myself doing the same thing on a loop - sniping the Watchers from a distance, at which point I might as well just snipe everything else from a distance.

[@salamander4668]

The Avengers movie and it's consequences have been a disaster for the human race. A hate capeshit and it's influence on movies and games so much it's unreal.

[@aceambling7685]

Fuck Capeshit All My Homies Hate Capeshit

[@chrisrods1994]

Can you elaborate? I sense the same thing too but can you explain it further? I can’t really put it into words

[@_ok1735]

I absolutely agree Death to capeshit

[@salamander4668]

@@chrisrods1994 no, i am dumb.

[@clonebriksstudios7719]

Halo 4 practically made the player play as a marine in spartan armour, hiding and using whatever they can to keep a distance.

[@Ghostman223]

The worst part about the prometheans is that 343 could've made it interesting, they could've made a dismemberment ability, where if you shoot the arm off it can't shoot. It could've been awesome.

[@noble20xx56]

Another thing. The music! Does anyone remember a single score from Halo 4? Any soundtracks that stick in your head to this day? Marty is gone and replaced by someone who should make music for a different game. It just dosen't sound like Halo.

[@savathunthejudge914]

i remember revival, 117, midnight, arrival

[@cdyjv118]

"To Galaxy" was actually pretty good.

[@theta_clips]

That ending rant was definitely the crown jewel of this video. I absolutely despise the faux trust people are putting in 343. Especially now that Infinite is getting updates (you know, content that SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE FUCKIN GAME AT LAUNCH) and people are virtue signalling and "TRUST THE PLAN" groupthink. I appreciate this video so much.

[@BigChap117]

Can we also talk about the sound design? Covenant weapons lost their alien twangs, human weapons sound too mechanical, the Scorpion's cannon is just abominable, everything has this crunchy or high-pitched sound to it, like metal foil, with no base. Once again, moving away from the military-sci-fi roots of Halo to trying a more "realistic" COD-style soundscape, and it just doesn't fit. Halo's sound was in the vein of games like Half-Life, or movies like Star Wars, where sometimes existing sounds were manipulated beyond recognition, and more often completely novel sounds were created (you know, the way a talented artist might do). Instead, they just recorded real life sounds and left them as is. I'm not expert enough to really describe it, but they also botched up the sound design.

[@DetectiveJones]

Fun fact! Halo Reach was technically the first to let you fly a Pelican. It wasn't part of the mission but there was an easter egg you could accomplish then after flying through the weird building with the gap in the middle if you fly a Falcon it turns into a Pelican and a Banshee turns into a Phantom. So take that Halo 4! one of your positives is a lie!

[@dobl5266]

4:05 it’s crazy how much better it looks without the brown filter who thought it should look that way?

[@signas501]

Funny thing about the ammunition gripe, I swear to god Halo 4 was the only game in the series I had an issue with scavenging ammunition just simply due to the fact that most corpses and their weapons dropped despawn seconds after looking away from them. And it just kept happening to me on Legendary, regardless of how many enemies dropped a weapon I would need ammo for, it would just majestically disappear when I needed it most.

[@cosmictreason2242]

The despawn made me rage. Since ce being able to go back for ammo was one of the distinctives about halo

[@phantauss13]

you sir have an underrated channel, like editing, pacing, music, and script all hit way above their weight class for as small of a channel as you've got. You deserve 300k sub at least.

[@colorantics8160]

agreed! i cant imagine how much editing these two videos took. Makes me cringe just thinking about it lol

[@daegnaxqelil2733]

it is for a good reason

[@ZaLewdWarudo]

@@daegnaxqelil2733 have you not shut up yet?

[@giannilyanicks1718]

he's toxic

[@phantauss13]

@@giannilyanicks1718 according to who?

[@rykin]

One big change in Halo 4 was the draw distance for enemies. As someone that loved the sniper, I would walk into a level with a snipe ready and scan the area. In previous games, this allowed me to pick off the fodder before I was never near danger. However, in Halo 4, the enemies wouldn't spawn half the time until you were in firing range. I would check out the area with the snipe, see no enemies, and waltz right into the middle of the map only to find that everyone just spawned around me and I was suddenly under heavy fire.

[@cosmictreason2242]

And dropped weapons despawn. In CE i could walk back through several sections and collect a weapon/smmo or grenades i needed. 3 would have despawn but it wasn't very aggressive. In 4 sometimes weapons will despawn 10 feet away from you after 30 seconds

[@GalileoGuy175]

Don't forget how the TTK in 4 is also an example of "call of dutyization" that made camping essential if you want to do anything in the game.

[@deltase7en717]

If i had license to teach design, i would use 343 as one of the examples as to how not to redesign something, i swear to you man, every single 343 re-design its worse from the previous design that they want to replace, for me, the greatest example is the shotgun, the shotgun is literally a UNSC ship skin but they shoot a 12 gauge shell, when you think about the human weapons in the old halos, in your mind you can imagine a marine disassembling a battle rifle, for example, to do a maintenance, i have NO IDEA how a marine would disassemble a 343 shotgun, its so overly design as every single 343 design that you dont even know where to look, its literally a design a 8 year old would make in his imagination with the premise of, it would be cool if, nothing serves a purpose other than, it looks cool and slick, look at how many polygons this thing have, when it doesnt have a identity, personality, purpose or history, and this is coming from a company that removes the Elite from multiplayer using "lore" as a excuse, you could make a montage with a human fleet, replace one of the ships with a shotgun, and no one would see a difference. I have always been the guy that hated Halo 4, the idiotic and infantilization of the narrative and characters always pissed me off, i never understood the melodrama between Chief and Cortana, Cortana was his partner, but Chief had lost countless childhood friends in the war against the covenant, he is a man on a mission, he is a adult, which writers these days doesnt know what that entails, in my mind, the moment that Cortana would show signs of rampancy, Chief would pull the plug if it would jeopardize the mission, and not having this mental breakdown because a AI was going to cease operations, transforming Chief in to a manchild, the more you think about Halo 4, the worse it gets, the only point that people comes back to it its how the story is well made, but the more you think about it, the worse it gets, you have to have too much talent to have 10 years worth of L's and still be in business, this video is amazing, and encapsulated almost everything that i could say about Halo 4, i would love to see something similar to Halo 5, Infinite and even MCC if you have something to say about those titles.

[@EvilPhoenix007]

This video is should be trending but unfortunately its not, it would take weeks to get this video to 10k. And hopefully the KZbin algorithm reccomends this to everyone.

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

What """lore""" did guilty spark's prick company use to not include playable elites.

[@nagger8216]

@@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117 The excuse is that since Halo 4's multiplayer, "War Games", are in-universe training simulations on the Infinity it wouldn't make sense to have Elites onboard the Infinity. Even though Elderwrito has Elites since it apparently takes place on a space station that's made by both humans and Elites lmfao

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

@@nagger8216 it would make sense since the elites formed an alliance with the humans in halo 2 and continued it in 3. Yeah the elites are a different species and look hideous but still, give us some diversity in the warzone. Halo 2 3 and reach wouldn't be the same without those four jawed lizard men.

[@nagger8216]

@@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117 Nah that's what I'm saying, they had a perfectly good explanation to have Elites without it "breaking the lore" yet they still chose to leave them out in future games. I also really like the idea of Elites and humans coming together after Halo 3, it's a lot better than the stupid "Storm Covenant" and "Banished" shit where they just want to kill humans again.

[@DerpyDooReviews]

I'm still shocked at how many people try to say halo 4 was a good game. They forget what it was like at launch and instead say "Well Halo 5 was worse so Halo 4 looks good in comparrison" which is just flawless fucking logic.

[@MrGrizzzlik]

I really think that Halo 4 is good mental gymnastics is simply younger generation growing up with 343 trash instead of Bungie games trying to brainwash themselves into "ah remember how good my childhood games were"

[@fossfox]

I went into this skeptical, but outside of a few disagreements on characterization, your review has been a sobering experience. I booted Halo 4 up last night and found so many of your points absolutely hitting home in my brain, especially the stuff pertaining to visuals. I'd never thought the game was amazing, but I guess now it's shifted in my mind from a decent and understated title to...a guilty pleasure, I guess. It's really soul-numbing realizing that even from the onset of 343i's career they were doing a poor job, huh

[@wafflingmean4477]

Something I love Elites and Brutes having bright colours and unique armour pieces to signify rank made sense from a story perspective as well as a gameplay one. This is an army that has been largely unrivalled for a long time so has little need for stealthy camouflage and in large scale battles you need to be able to identify officers from a distance at a glance so you know who's in charge once a battle starts turning into chaos.

[@seth3491]

and if they needed camouflage they could use active camo stealth elites, brute stalkers, etc

[@perrytran9504]

War historically was an opportunity for rich people to show off their social status. In the time of Medieval and Renaissance war doctrine (which the Covenant never really progressed past despite their technology), people made a big deal about donning fashionable armor if they could afford it and passed numerous laws dictating who could wear/wield what. Sound familiar with the elites? Exact same thing. Of course, as you said it also helped to identify who was a higher rank when organization at the unit level was strictly inferior to a more modern military. Luckily for the UNSC (and the player), it also makes it easy to quickly prioritize who is the biggest threat based on who has the most bling. So kudos to Bungie for making art consistent with story and gameplay needs at the same time.

[@swagyolo9223]

For years I knew 343 halo was ass. Thank you for this

[@Riddlywiddly]

One thing u never mentioned in halo 4 is the knight will teleport on top of you and melee so you instantly die no matter what u die u can't survive it

[@crabmannyjoe2]

One of the fun things about the pelican in Halo 4 was that it was faster to decend by jumping out of it, then free falling and jumping back into it. 😂

[@danialdirty5656]

im surprise you didn't mention halo 2 heretic elites and how they look different from the standard elites and its clear which is which when playing as the arbiter.

[@ZaWarubro]

I’ve just binged every Halo, back to back , with my gf, and lemme tell you. As soon as we hit Halo 4, it immediately felt different. The firefights in the arenas did not feel fun. Between banshees that swarm you, and are hard af to shoot down because of lack of any weapon variety, Promethians that teleport and have revival mechanics. Grunts that don’t sound or even look like grunts. It honestly felt like 343 took all the hard work, world, and characters from Bungie’s games, and said FUCK YOU. It seriously feels like they thought hey could one-up Bungie and failed so hard.

[@militaryarchive4840]

100%

[@koolaidman4869]

The only thing Halo 4 did right was Cortana's model

[@barrygeistwhite3474]

Re: The Mammoth and Pelican - Both of these vehicles would have made for very cool mobile base and fire support sections. The Pelican in particular could have been a lot of fun, letting you support groups of otherwise cut off marines either by using the built-in weapons, landing and supplying the marines with ammo and weapons, or even dropping off vehicles and reinforcements. You know, things Pelicans do. And the Mammoth, tacticool monstrosity that it is, was clearly intended to achieve fire superiority over a significant area. With it's armory, compliment of Warthogs, array of turrets and big MAC gun it's the UNSC's way of saying that whatever scrap of dirt it's on or near is off the market. And yet it doesn't achieve that purpose at all. Every time it gets near an objective in the mission it's used in it has to stop and wait for the Chief to DMR all the scary bad guys. Why not let us use that MAC gun to shoot down incoming Phantom and Spirit dropships (hey guys remember Spirits, which this Covenant splinter group should definitely still be using?!)? Or use those turrets to keep pursuing Ghosts and Banshees off of nearby allied vehicles? Maybe repel Covenant or Promethean boarding parties? Total missed opportunity in both cases and it's a damn shame.

[@america-san]

Dude I got to play eldewrito when it released and hot damn was that fun. I never got to experience halo 3 multiplayer when it was popular, but back in 2018 I got to feel it!

[@koolaidman4869]

I completely forgot about dewrito despite how much time I spent playing it😂

[@turututu2113]

I also remember, I really had a LOT of fun, the personalized games were simply AMAZING. Is the game still alive?

[@america-san]

@@turututu2113 No, they killed the servers like a month after it came out. Microsoft straight up told them to stop it.

[@turututu2113]

@@america-san Serious? Last time I played in November 2022 there were still some servers active (Not as many as before MCC launched).

[@unknownwill4th549]

Its back man, 0.7 dropped with mod support

[@four-en-tee]

Im disappointed that you didn't make a Breaking Bad joke about the piss yellow sky in the desert level. That's just Mexico.

[@saithvenomdrone]

"I grew up with Halo. I lived and breathed Halo. Halo 4 is the game that killed my love for the series." Same

[@samuelfoster8615]

I remember playing Halo 4 with my friend for the first time and wondering, "why isn't this fun?" I just blindly believed that a Halo game would be good no matter what. It didn't even cross my mind that a Halo game could be bad.

[@cosmictreason2242]

Halo 4 made me wait 3 years to get halo 5 for $10. Halo 5 made me use the $1 promo to play halo infinite on gamepass. Halo infinite has made me unwilling to get any future game unless it's a reboot to remove everything 343 has done and start again at a completely different halo 4

[@turututu2113]

@@samuelfoster8615 Same. The game is not fun, the scenarios tire the eyes, the story is dirty and the gameplay is irritating. I still can't say what got me into buying this game.

[@spenjak18]

The only 343 Halo game I played was 5 and... my god it was a bad experience. I don't want to play it again.

[@hrthrhs]

Completely agree with you on how H4 and H5 just look unappealing. I could never explain why myself but you did a good job. I think part of it is the over designing 343 do with their environments.

[@CrunchyVideos]

I've played through Halo 4 twice and watched others play it, and I honestly didn't know that there were different kinds of Promethean Knights until you showed them on screen.

[@marriedtomychair]

Good video! Found you from your Redline video, and I like your to-the-point style. It's possible I was distracted when you brought these things up, but I'm surprised by a couple things you didn't bring up. Notably, elites in Halo 4 can melee attack faster than human reaction speed. It's a carryover from Halo Reach, but it's partially on 343 for being too lazy to fix such an egregiously terrible design choice. There's also that ridiculously unfair Knight attack where they rapidly teleport towards you and one-shot melee you. It feels like it's based on luck whether you can evade it or not. I also would've mentioned how atrocious the Mantis sections are, where you're getting endlessly pelted from all sides and needing to hide behind cover IN A MECH SECTION.

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

Atleast you can stomp and teabag with the mantis

[@canyongoat2096]

Yes I replayed it not long ago after ages. What's up with like 200 enemies firing at you from all directions constantly in this game everywhere? Like it's cool Halo 4's engine can handle it and all but for fucks sake this game needs to chill for a second.

[@lordmarcusrax]

Can we talk about how fucking ugly are the explosions in Halo 4, compared to the beauty that they were in Halo 3?

[@YoJimBoHugabaJoe]

Cortana character model is the only good 343 design,shame they ruined her actual character in the process

[@dalalalalaallah8957]

Ngl I abused the ordinance drops so badly it probably wasn't even fun for anyone else in the match anymore

[@grafnosferacula7473]

I didnt know prometheans had shields . _ .

[@jaybobdoodles]

“Butbutbutbutbut I want the players to see how creative I am” - made me laugh so f*ing hard, because it’s so pathetically true. It’s like if you gave the self taught tweener who can draw “fRoM tHeiR ImAgiNaTiOn”

[@amonumenttoalallyoursins1207]

The point of a watcher is to make the player want to kill themselves in the case that the awful game play didn't.

[@amonumenttoalallyoursins1207]

Also reach sucks good art design customization and progression and some customs, base gameplay ruins alot of it, are all that was good about it. The base gameplay is awful feeling for me and it has major rose tint syndrome.

[@baylithe]

Issues with Halo 4's multiplayer as someone that played it competitively that I didn't see mentioned here : Halo 4 had Haven as its only competitive map until forge maps were added in. Not getting descoped when getting shot was a huge issue, as well as the flinch added in. Bolt shot being a one shot kill available to anyone as a starting weapon. AGL picked it up months after MLG dropped it, and they never paid most of the teams that won. The start of maps having such terrible lighting where looking at a light source blinds you, because artists love showing off their lights. No scoping with the beam rifle was far too easy because of its insane hitbox when fired from the hip. Sprint being in the game for everyone means that the maps are all larger to accommodate for this. Might seem needed in BTB but those maps are made to be huge because of sprint. When you are trying to play a competitive map they go from small arena style map, to what H2 or H3 would have used for a BTB game. Not being able to drop the fucking flag and now having a pistol with unlimited ammo was the dumbest thing. In Ce, 2, 3, and Reach flag juggling was done because you moved faster when you were not carrying the flag. This made juggling it a skill. Stat sites like Halotracker no longer worked because 343 refused to allow 3rd party sites use their game data the way that Bungie did. No ranked system at all. You would go from playing against a guy and his 3 friends all playing on one tv, to a team of 4 that were trying to pubstomp, to playing against 4 randoms. BR was a 5 shot kill while the DMR was a 4 shot kill while also shooting faster and farther. The BR had a chance that some of its 3 bullets would miss as well, making it take more shots to kill or even pop a shield. I highly enjoyed both videos man. Got a sub from me for this.

[@cdyjv118]

Aside from CTF, 4's MP was nearly unplayable and boring. It felt like a cheap COD knockoff (which it was) and had ZERO competitive appeal. It also lacked basic features like player-counts and even the Red Xs when you died so your team could see on the map. I gave it a chance but like many went back to H3 on the 360 after a few months.

[@Kudos2me11]

I believe I read somewhere that 343i brought on one of the guys who designed Gears of War to work on the Covenant units; which makes a lot of sense because the Elites literally look like they're related to the Locust horde.

[@tommymaxey2665]

22:12 Silouetes are very important for FPS games. Being able to quickly identify an enamy and what gear they have is tremendously important in FPS games. Some of my favorite games like Battlefield 1 or Battlefront II have this. I can tell in BF1 from 150+ m out what class and faction the enemy is. It helps a lot in Hardcore mode.

[@Martian2607]

Honestly, I didn’t even realize that Knights had shields beyond the watchers thing

[@VANZ1111]

I actually tried to play spartan ops last year. I didn’t know it was broken because I stopped playing once I had to fight prometheans again.

[@Razgriz_01]

9:05 That was what Bungie were going for, for the human designs. Retro, or more accurately, cassette-futurism. Think of Aliens and the USCM. Pretty much where Bungie took inspirations from. Then came 343i and wanted to mix it with Star Wars and Marvel for some reason. Hell, I think 343i even admitted they wanted Halo to be like Star Wars. Well, like Disney, they pretty much did that and fucked it up. Only difference is that there isn't enough side-projects to salvage it.

[@georgebaggy]

43:00 you forgot to mention how ludicrous it is that the Mammoth has a giant rail gun on its back but bafflingly lacks the means to aim it. You have to manually laze a target before it becomes capable of aiming at it. ??????????????

[@Alpha1200]

9:05 - The thing about Halo human tech, and this is actually one of the things I loved most about Halo, is that it is this wonderful combination of grounded, yet futuristic. Like the battle rifle looks like a rifle that humans would make. Except small stuff like the digital ammo indicator make it feel just a little bit more high tech and sci fi. It's a great balance that Halo struck PERFECTLY in the original trilogy with almost everything. This is not at all true for later games.

[@KOAHUNT3R]

100% my man. You hit the nail on the head with how I felt about 343 and their direction with Halo since after Reach. Part one was definitely where most of my frustrations lied with Halo 4, and that long rant about how that five minute cutscene with the Librarian destroyed both the canon going forward and the previously established lore from before. I stopped reading the books after Contact Harvest, but I've researched into the Forerunner trilogy and that writing is the most convoluted bullshit ever written. Like if you were going to have ancient humans being a space faring race, then why not cut out the middle man and just make humans forerunners like Bungie had previously established? Plus Master Chief being "The Chosen One" is just so stupid. Halo was first and foremost a military story, that had a little bit of mysticism sprinkled in. Halo 4 was like, "Nah, Ancient Aliens this shit ayy lmao! Space Magic go!!!!" Anyways, Halo Anniversary and Halo 4 basically killed Halo for me back in the day, and with Gears of War 3 tying up its stoey in a nice bow, I didn't even bother to pick up an Xbox One, and I still haven't gone back to Microsoft since and it's a shame.

[@Akapaco2]

I agree 100% with everything you said. "The chosen one" story lines completely removes a character's agency. Now Master Chief isn't good because of his skill, he's good because it was destiny. Also, now almost all the "military hard scifi" aspects of the games are gone. The UNSC no longer feels like an actual military. Hell, the new Spartan Branch doesn't even have ranks!!! I also feel like franchises shouldn't last forever. Once they reach their natural conclusion, they should be allowed to end. Halo should have ended after Reach. Bungie was ready to move on, and the franchise had already peaked. Microsoft really needs to develop new IP's.

[@TaiidanOnslaught]

I especially dislike the changes to forerunner architecture. There’s a Halo 3 multiplayer map that I cannot recall the name of. It screams 343 with all the weird art design and architecture. Your review has replaced Renns Reviews as my favorite most honest and thorough Halo 4 review.

[@EvilPhoenix007]

The architecture is abysmal and 343 fanboys justify it becuase of their dogshit ass pulling lore in a pathetic attempt to excuse the inexcusable art style change.

[@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117]

I think the halo 3 map you're talking about is called edge. And you ain't lying. It literally is halo 4.

[@Yay295]

@@thesamejackalsniperthatkil117 Apparently "Edge" was originally created for Halo Online and then added to Halo 3 in MCC Series 7 (June 2021); it wasn't an original Halo 3 map.

[@0lionheart]

I remember my friend at school had a modded Xbox, and one of the mods he had for Halo 2 put the Pelican model on the Banshee game object. It's funny looking back, because that's what the Pelican segment in Halo 4 feels like. No part of it plays into the fantasy of flying a dropship like that, ferrying marines around, etc etc. Just feels like a Banshee segment.

[@patchmoulton5438]

Honestly, the Falcon part in Reach is closer to what we wanted when flying a Pelican than what we got in 4

[@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ]

wasn't the shotgun the only hitscan weapon? Im pretty sure everything before Halo 4 was projectile based just some with absurd speed. which explained why you can ricochet shots off at certain angles

[@Killerduck0213]

Every weapon in Halo 1-3 was projectile based, even the Spartan Laser. It's just that sometimes those projectiles were so fast it was hard to tell with Halo 2 having the fastest. But even in Halo 2 the projectiles have a travel time where hitscan weapons by their very nature do not. This is part of the reason why some people think the gunplay in Halo 3 MP is bad, take 2007 peer to peer netcode mixed with 2007 internet connections and you have a situation where bullets can teleport into a pocket dimension for a nice vacation just long enough for your target to have moved by the time they come back. Halo 2's fast bullets were still affected by this but it wasn't nearly as noticeable, plus wayyy fewer people had Xbox Live at that point so not as many people remember.

[@Czechmate88]

@@Killerduck0213 Exactly this. When I first started playing Halo 3 MP I was losing my shit over my own perceived inaccuracy. It was only after a deep dive on KZbin that I learned the trick of leading your shots. Still forget that when I go back and play which sucks lmao

[@patchmoulton5438]

@@Killerduck0213 Wasnt the Sentinal Beam hitscan too?

[@madookamagooka743]

I tried to play halo 4 again after many many many many many many years to see if it was as bad as I remember, my brothers in chrsit I couldn't even leave the dawn before I quit and uninstalled.

[@Nedak2003]

Damn that quickly? I hate the game too but what happend in the beginning that made you quit?

[@A10N50]

The only Halo games I’ve owned was ODST and 4. Finishing 4 it left unfulfilled, but playing ODST I felt a sense a relief like the characters in the game do. ODST is my favorite installment of Halo.

[@user-Delta117]

I didn't even know the knights had ranks, I just thought they were all randomly made.

[@Mark-Zuccubus]

If Halo CE was the evolution of combat in gaming, then halo 4 and onwards is the rapid if not outright instantaneous devolution of gameplay, visual and mechanical clues, and otherwise quality of product. Did i mention complete and utter story dissolution? It's a rough time for the halo franchise, and i think it's too far gone to come back thematically without a complete retcon of the last few games. Sure, they can take steps to stabilize very slightly, but it'll never be as good as it could've been prior to the lore disasters that have plagued this series since 343 took over. Bungie, we miss when you were great, we miss when you were leading the industry and changing the game in it's entirety, and we miss when you were in charge of Halo. And thank you Andy, these two videos were extremely and fantastically done, and you've more than earned a subscriber out of me, and i look forward to your future content!

[@MrEDK1985]

Something I wish you had mentioned directly, which you kind of danced around, and it’s how incredibly repetitive the campaign objectives are. Every level is Push 3 Buttons, or Destroy 3 Things. There’s no variety, which the “Reclaimer” level turned into an art form.

[@Slender_Man_186]

Am I the only one who noticed this same shit in Halo Infinite’s side objectives?

[@luckyducky7819]

You know, I wish there were more FPS games that had the balls to be as colorful as Halo CE.