Halo 4 & Halo Remastered

[Dac]

Yes, what ATimson and -Brett- said was essentially my biggest gripe.

Yes, I know how, but I don't see how it happened.

Spoiler: Halo 4

Ok, it's a hard light shield? Ok. I'll forgive the fact that chief was touching the nuke. I'll forgive the ridiculously fast smallest-literal-measurement-of-time-possible-timing it took to get that shield up, but what the hell was generating that shield?! Cortana herself says that "she" is "down there", meaning the Didact's vessel is kablammo, and we see the debris from the ship moments after. Plus, I was kinda a bit "OK...?" with Cortana getting all touchy feely with the Cheif. Yes, ok, theres always been an undercurrent of sexual tension due to the fact she's a naked blue chick, but actually played it up the extent Cortana shows in that ending boarders on uncomfortable for me. He's a 40 year old super soldier, she's an 8 year old piece of software. It's a line that I think Caprica toyed with but still mostly stayed away from, I don't think a First Person Shooter was the right place to inject that thought.

I'm enjoying Spartan ops however.

And just to flash my credit, yes, I've read all the Halo books bar the Forerunner Saga (they just don't interest me that much) and another thing that's bugging me - where the frak is Kilo Five? Sure, ok, they didn't need to be in the game at all, but I'd love to see that crew represented in a game or cutscene or Spartan ops or whatever. They have an awesome dynamic which so far Lasky and Palmer don't have at all (although admittedly we've only had very little of Lasky and Palmer). And yes, I know Cortana was going Rampant

 

[ATimson]

And just to flash my credit, yes, I've read all the Halo books bar the Forerunner Saga (they just don't interest me that much) and another thing that's bugging me - where the frak is Kilo Five?

You assume that they survive book three.

 

[Dac]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!! Man, I was pretty riled up by the end of Glasslands, with Phillips and BB's fragment getting all exploded on Sanghellios. If they dare Kill the whole team off (especially Vaz and Mal) I'm gonna be pissed.

Besides, even if Halo 4 and Spartan Ops take place 2-3 years after Glasslands/Thursday War, Spartan Ops has started featuring Jul M'dama as the big bad. If Jul sticks around that long, I'd hope at least most of Kilo-Five do too

 

[SPCTRE]

Oh I finished this on Normal on Release, and completed Legendary a few days ago solo...

Initially, I was a bit "WTF" on the whole thing. The end was very out "there" for my liking, with some pretty big leaps of faith 343i are hoping the audience will take. Plus it felt even shorter than Halo Reach for my liking. BUT, since playing through again on Legendary...the story has grown on me. I'm still a bit wtf on the ending, but I don't let it overshadow the rest of the game.

What about the ending was a WTF moment for you?

If you have any degree of familiarity with the extended Halo fiction, you know that Cortana

Spoiler: about the ending of Halo IV

was going to die shortly because of her age

so that shouldn't have come as a huge surprise.

If I were to guess, I'd think he was referring more to

Spoiler: Halo 4 ending

the chief surviving the detonation of a nuclear weapon literally right in his face, just because the light bridge rolled up into a ball to protect him.

That was pretty hard to swallow.

Edit: Sorry. Didn't mean to parrot ATimson. Posted while I was still typing.

I agree, it was a far-fetched kind of moment. But it wasn't different from a similar moment in Halo 2, really.

Remember when

Spoiler: a sequence in Halo 2

Master Chief jumped out of a perfectly fine space station and time-delay detonated a massive bomb in the core of a Covenant battle ship without breaking a sweat

?

 

[ATimson]

Remember when

Spoiler: a sequence in Halo 2

Master Chief jumped out of a perfectly fine space station and time-delay detonated a massive bomb in the core of a Covenant battle ship without breaking a sweat

?

Yes, but there's the slight factor of distance there to consider.

 

[Chris3123]

The release dates for the map packs have (supposedly) been leaked on the German Xbox dashboard:

Crimson Map Pack - December 10th
Majestic Map Pack - February 25th
Castle Map Pack - April 1st

Link

I tried matchmaking in War Games, but it hasn't quite grabbed me yet. I've bought all of the MP map packs for Halo 3 and Reach, but I'm not sure yet if I will here.

I finished the campaign on Heroic, and now working through it on Legendary. I liked it. I love the Mantis.

I really like Spartan Ops, though. It's like an extra campaign (which is good for me, since I really like solo stuff). Some have complained how there's no more Firefight, but I think something structured like this is better than bad guys just spawning on a map (and I loved firefight). I finished the first chapter on Heroic, then again on Legendary. I'm about to start on Chapter 2.

 

[SPCTRE]

Remember when

Spoiler: a sequence in Halo 2

Master Chief jumped out of a perfectly fine space station and time-delay detonated a massive bomb in the core of a Covenant battle ship without breaking a sweat

?

Yes, but there's the slight factor of distance there to consider.

Well,

Spoiler: a sequence in Halo 2

the time-delay of that explosion was what, 5 seconds? No way he could just bounce off of it and reach minimum safe distance in that kind of a time frame

 

[ATimson]

I really like Spartan Ops, though. It's like an extra campaign (which is good for me, since I really like solo stuff). Some have complained how there's no more Firefight, but I think something structured like this is better than bad guys just spawning on a map (and I loved firefight). I finished the first chapter on Heroic, then again on Legendary. I'm about to start on Chapter 2.

See, they claimed it was an extra campaign, but there's just not enough story (or map variation) for me to count it as that. It's really just Firefight with cutscenes, as far as I'm concerned.

(The fact that I can brute-force my way through on Legendary via respawns is fun, though. )

 

[SPCTRE]

I really like Spartan Ops, though. It's like an extra campaign (which is good for me, since I really like solo stuff). Some have complained how there's no more Firefight, but I think something structured like this is better than bad guys just spawning on a map (and I loved firefight). I finished the first chapter on Heroic, then again on Legendary. I'm about to start on Chapter 2.

See, they claimed it was an extra campaign, but there's just not enough story (or map variation) for me to count it as that. It's really just Firefight with cutscenes, as far as I'm concerned.

(The fact that I can brute-force my way through on Legendary via respawns is fun, though. )

I love SpOps - it's just enough story to keep me entertained, and the Gameplay is super fun, even Solo Legendary is pretty awesome across the board.

Co-Op (2-player) SpOps requiring XBL Gold for both players sucks balls though.

 

[Roshi]

I hate you guys!

 

[Dac]

I agree, it was a far-fetched kind of moment. But it wasn't different from a similar moment in Halo 2, really.

Remember when

Spoiler: a sequence in Halo 2

Master Chief jumped out of a perfectly fine space station and time-delay detonated a massive bomb in the core of a Covenant battle ship without breaking a sweat

?

I don't think we need to spoiler code Halo 2: That game came out nearly a decade ago :P

And really? At least there was 5 seconds of cutscene showing him shooting away from the carrier. Through the magic of editing that could have well been 5 minutes, it wasn't anything like the end of 4. 5 seconds of high acceleration in Zero G puts him at what, 100m away at least? He's in a pressure suit which has comparable armor to a spaceship. That's plausible. What happens at the end of 4 really isn't bar some deus ex machina we've yet find out about.

 

[-Brett-]

Yes, what ATimson and -Brett- said was essentially my biggest gripe.

Yes, I know how, but I don't see how it happened.

Spoiler: Halo 4

Ok, it's a hard light shield? Ok. I'll forgive the fact that chief was touching the nuke. I'll forgive the ridiculously fast smallest-literal-measurement-of-time-possible-timing it took to get that shield up, but what the hell was generating that shield?! Cortana herself says that "she" is "down there", meaning the Didact's vessel is kablammo, and we see the debris from the ship moments after. Plus, I was kinda a bit "OK...?" with Cortana getting all touchy feely with the Cheif. Yes, ok, theres always been an undercurrent of sexual tension due to the fact she's a naked blue chick, but actually played it up the extent Cortana shows in that ending boarders on uncomfortable for me. He's a 40 year old super soldier, she's an 8 year old piece of software. It's a line that I think Caprica toyed with but still mostly stayed away from, I don't think a First Person Shooter was the right place to inject that thought.

The most annoying part was how unnecessary the issue was.

Spoiler: Halo 4

We already know that teleporting is an old trick for the forerunners. Why not just have Cortana beam the Chief to a safe distance?

 

[Chris3123]

And here's the trailer for the Crimson Map Pack:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suAnW6GyPTk[/yt]

Not very colorful.

 

[Roshi]

Speaking of colors, I'm the only one who loves to play the Bastion and Noble maps on Reach. Nobody seems to like them.

 

[Chris3123]

Speaking of colors, I'm the only one who loves to play the Bastion and Noble maps on Reach. Nobody seems to like them.

For anyone else confused by this, I just looked it up and "Bastion" is the French name of the Defiant pack.

Anyway, I really like Highlands and Breakpoint. The others are just ok, IMO.

And Unearthed was pretty fun for a Firefight map.

 

[Roshi]

Damn! That's true!

Highlands is my fave, especially with the glassing in progress in the background.

 

[Chris3123]

Highlands is my fave, especially with the glassing in progress in the background.

I'm not sure if I ever noticed that. I tend not to pay much attention to the backgrounds.

Highlands is my favorite Big Team Slayer map. I love CTF on it, too.

 

[Chris3123]

Finally finished the campaign on Legendary (alone!). Man, those Knights can be a real pain on this difficulty! Anyway, there's always a special Legendary Ending, so I stuck around to see what it is. Let's just say it's one of those things that some will think is super-awesome (like me ), and some will think is no big deal. To see it for yourself complete the campaign on Legendary and sit all the way through the usual post credits sequence. It's tacked on at the very end.

Or you can just search Youtube for it.

Spoiler: Halo 4 Legendary Ending

It's basically the exact same post-credits sequence, only instead of it just going black as Master Chief's helmet is removed as before, the "camera" lingers for a couple seconds. That's right, you see his face! Well, part of his face, namely the area around his eyes. But still, his face!

 

[-Brett-]

343 made a lot of noise about developing the Master Chief's character. Maybe they're gearing up to replace the mask with a face for the next installment.

Personally, I prefer leaving it to the players imagination.

 

[Chris3123]

A new title update for Halo 4 was released today. The details:

• Implemented general stability improvements
• Fixed glitch where quickly reloading after firing the Boltshot resulted in an instant reload
• Fixed glitch where sprinting prior to activating the Hardlight Shield allowed players to move faster
• Fixed glitch were players could throw a grenade and then immediately sprint afterwards to perform a high velocity grenade
• Fixed glitch where Mantis could fire more rockets without reloading if the machine gun was fired partway through unleashing the charged missile barrage
• Fixed issue where DLC was unavailable for other profiles on the same console
• Fixed issue where DLC disappeared after console reboot
• Fixed issue where players could not unlock Campaign completion achievements when using a rally point other than Alpha for any mission to finish the Campaign
• Fixed issue where players were not given credit for completion of a Spartan Ops Episode Difficulty Challenge when completing it through Matchmaking
• Fixed issue where players with 99 or more Xbox LIVE friends could not get File recommendations
• Fixed issue where loadout configurations were lost if the game was booted and then powered off before passing the “Press START” screen
• Fixed issue where attempting to upload large films to the File Share under poor network conditions caused the upload to fail
• Improved time to load variants with separate profiles
• Fixed issue where moving a profile from one controller port to another after relaunching the game reset loadout settings
• Improved consistency of random ordnance navigation marker display
• Fixed performance issues when launching Halo Waypoint from Halo 4

Link