80°
10.0

[Review] Halo 4: 343 Does Bungie Better Than Bungie - Twinfinite

Fans have been eagerly awaiting this newest release in the Halo series for what feels like forever. This enthusiasm was tempered with some serious concerns. Fans didn’t know if the hand over to 343 Industries would be successful. I’m relieved to say that they went above and beyond any and all expectations. They did such a great job, my amazing coworker Brett McLeod (also Twinfinite’s multiplayer Halo master), demanded to contribute and wrote a little piece detailing his experiences with the multiplayer aspect of the game.

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twinfinite.net
Monstar4180d ago (Edited 4180d ago )

Err, YES.

Bungie if anything were one hit wonders with Halo, they became way too cocky and road the success of the first Halo for too long..and due to fear were NOT willing to spice things up or make much needed improvements. Bungie also seems to have lost direction or perhaps ideas/creativity what the first story created and in doing so drove the franchise in a more military approach. Halo 2 is a good example of this.

That being said, Halo 4 is clearly what halo 3 shouldn've been, in looks..designs, feel and attention to detail. Perhaps 343 new the overall fragile state of such a huge franchise and did everything they could to make it right without losing it's indentity in fear of the reaction. With such responsibility they mananged to perfect an already aged formula and make it feel good again.

Best story in the franchise, PERIOD! It was above and beyond and pushed forth the direction it needed to go, expecially concerning Master Chief which fully expressed him in more way's than just some typical grunt in an armored suit..but someone more enlightened and emotionally driven..which gave much depth to his mission and surival of the human race.

Metroid Prime was a great influence for 343 NO doubt and i'm glad it was.

atticus144180d ago

While im not making excuses for them I think Bungie just became bored, thus why they left the sequel machine that MS made them to be.

We'll see if 343 gets tired a few games into the series, although they do have a great advantage of finally moving to a next gen console, lots more innovation will be possible with vastly superior hardware.

Kalowest4180d ago

Almost half of 343i are old bungie developers.

IronFistChinMi4180d ago

Not true. Whilst a few did make the switch (in some of the important roles), the majority of them are new to the franchise.

aviator1894180d ago

Not really. Not even close.
I think only a handful few went to 343i.

TekoIie4180d ago (Edited 4180d ago )

I absolutely agree! Heres some reasons why:

1. Easily the BEST single player in any Halo game!
2. Great new MP modes and improvements compared to previous games Halo games.
3. Spartan Ops is awesome! Watch episode then play with friends!
4. Armor looks much more futuristic compared to Reach which I like a lot :)
5. Prometheans add more variety to enemies.
6. I love the concept of the Spartan IV's and Infinity War games!!!

My only issues are the following:

1. Is the battle rifle weak? Or is the DMR too good?
2. Forge magnets are a slight letdown.
3. NO PELICAN IN FORGE D: I mean atleast bring the falcon back!
4. Tone down the boltshots secondary fire mode. Its ridiculously powerful...

My issues with the game are a little picky but I still absolutely love this game!

MrKim124180d ago (Edited 4180d ago )

Your title has me confused.

Jek_Porkins4180d ago

I think Halo 4 is a marvel for sure, Bungie created the franchise and will never be forgotten because of that, but I agree that 343i has done the best Halo game with Halo 4.

It also cant be lost that at least a few employees at 343i are former Bungie, and the rest of 343i is made up of an all star team of developers. Microsoft spared no expense with the future of Halo and it shows.

MasterD9194180d ago

Halo 4 is an epic masterpiece. It's damn near perfect.

My only complaint is that I wish a few more classic Halo maps would come back. I'm hoping that the DLC will have unbelievably awesome maps.

260°

Microsoft Appoints Former Forza Boss As New Xbox Game Studios Head

Pure Xbox writes: "Microsoft has appointed Alan Hartman as the new Head of Xbox Game Studios. If you're not familiar with Hartman, he's been part of Forza Motorsport team at Turn 10 Studios since 2005.

Over the past couple of years he's led as Corporate Vice President of Forza and Fable, and before this was the Forza Studio Head at Turn 10."

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purexbox.com
hiroyukisanada166d ago

Seems like a solid choice considering Forza and FH have been the only high quality studio, consistently for Microsoft.

hiroyukisanada166d ago

*Forza and FH are the most consistent high quality and this guy ran Turn 10. Playground did FH but still high quality. Let's see if he can get some quality production out of the rest

Obscure_Observer166d ago

He´s been doing an excellent job ahead of both Forza franchises integrating those studios to work together by sharing knowledge, technology and manpower.

The new ForzaTech is amazing and I can´t wait to see what it can do for the new Fable.

Phil Spencer has been promoting a huge shake up at Xbox with new leadership hopefully full of fresh ideas!

I hope Alan Hartman as head of XGS to keep the focus on single player games and RPGs. Fable looks absolutely stunning, so we can expect Forza Horizon´s level of excellence for Playground´s first RPG.

I can´t wait!

Futureshark166d ago

What a nice reward for the latest Forza, which is probably the most mediocre of the lot so far.

amazinglover166d ago

That game was using a new engine and had to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Redgrave166d ago

So that gives it a pass to be a lesser entry than those before it?

amazinglover148d ago

@redgrave not an excuse an explanation for why this game has less features. Not my problem you don't understand how game development works or development in general. When you move to a knew platform some things need to be rebuilt from the ground up.

I am currently migrating one of our services we provide to our customers to the cloud version and having to rebuild a lot of the add-ons we had built for them over the years.

But go ahead and keep criticizing devs when no one here has any clue what it actually takes.

Disccordia166d ago

Still think Rod Fergusson would have been a good shout. He's got a track record of fixing stuff and I assume he's still at Blizzard.

Not heard of this guy but I feel like anyone is better than Matt Booty

I thought Dan Greenawalt was head of Turn10 though (although I noticed he didn't do the on stage stuff at e3 this year). Is he not there anymore?

Barlos166d ago (Edited 166d ago )

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! This is the best news I've heard since the last piece of xbox news!

Go team xbox! Xbox will rule the world!

Lightning77166d ago

He's over overlooked The Forza games which have been consistently good through our the years. Hopefully he has the same eye for quality for the rest if the studios going forward.

babadivad166d ago (Edited 166d ago )

How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?

Lightning77166d ago

They just downvote just to downvote they have no reason.

Jin_Sakai166d ago

“How can anyone deny that Forza has been a quality franchise for almost two decades?“

Forza Motorsport declined after FM4. And this release was one of the worst in the series.

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340°

Halo Infinite Dev 343 Explains Shop Price Hike, ‘This Isn't Necessarily What Everyone Wants to Hear’

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries has moved to explain a recent microtransactions price hike following a community backlash.

Jin_Sakai173d ago

You can always count on 343i to make bad decisions.

jznrpg172d ago

Replace 343 with MS and I agree

1Victor172d ago

This smell like passing down the cost of acquisitions down to the consumer at all cost in any way shape or form 🤷🏿

Godmars290172d ago

@1Victor:
Given that under best conditions - i.e. no more such spending, it'll take decades, what do you expect?

Hell, they just tried to revoke GP for their employees.

Sonic1881172d ago (Edited 172d ago )

And you can always count on the Xbox fans defending them and the price hike. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed Halo Infinite multiplayer

Snookies12170d ago

Yeah, no excuse for this garbage 343i... I haven't played Infinite's multi-player in a long while. Downloaded it again on PC only to find that the PC port is absolutely broken right now with like 3-5 minute load-in times just for the main menu. Now hearing this, I went ahead and uninstalled it lol. Wish they'd stop shooting themselves in the foot with this title.

gold_drake173d ago

so they made several changes how the helmets etc work, however, ive never seen anyone raising prices in a shop due to changes THEY made.

crazyCoconuts173d ago

This is like raising the price on VCR players

XiNatsuDragnel173d ago

343i congratulations yall killing halo mp slowly fr

Gaming4Life1981172d ago

The store price hike is stupid but halo infinite mp is currently at its best. Nobody has to buy the cosmetics as they offer alot of free content.

Crows90172d ago

Fuck that stupid argument. If you pay full price for a game you should get everything the game has to offer.

Last I checked the game released at full price. I know MP is free but then that makes the release highly overpriced.

CobraKai172d ago

@Crows
It totally was. I got suckered by Halo Infinite. All i got was a data disc and a half assed campaign.

Petebloodyonion172d ago

@Crows90
Does the single-player portion of the game (what ppl bought) offer Microtransaction?
As far I recall the answer is no.
So ppl got what they paid for meaning a complete campaign that is comparable to a lot of AAA games like Resident Evil, Wolfenstein, Doom, Mortal Kombat, etc.

Now regarding the FREE multiplayer part, I agree it's a stupid move that will probably do more harm than good since the game is (despite what several N4G members would like you to believe) in good health, and like Gaming4Life pointed out no one is forcing ppl to buy theses items.

rippermcrip172d ago

Any person who thinks that any game content created and released after launch should be free... go ahead a justify that... I'll be waiting.

I can see the argument for them selling shit immediately at launch, but even still that is weak.

You buy a game knowing exactly what is included when you pay it. You should expect nothing else for free.

CobraKai172d ago

@ripper
Insomniac released some free costumes for free for Spiderman
Capcom released free next gen upgrades for their Resident Evil games
No Man’s Sky became a new game from all the free DLC
Minecraft has a good amount of free dlc content.
Witcher 3 had some free cosmetics and a mission.
Overwatch has new characters that were free
Arkham Knight had some free costumes and a Batmobile skin

Some people expect free DLC because some companies actually gave free DLC.

jznrpg172d ago (Edited 172d ago )

@Petebloodyonion they were already charging for items and then they raised the prices on top of that. It wasn’t free to begin with and now they want more $$

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 172d ago
Petebloodyonion172d ago

@JZRNPG
"@Petebloodyonion they were already charging for items and then they raised the prices on top of that. It wasn’t free to begin with and now they want more $$"

And I said that raising the price was a stupid move and even made an earlier post about how it's the best way to antagonize your customers but it still doesn't change the fact that the multiplayer portion of the game is a FREE to Play game.
In this regard, Gaming4life comments stand correct and Crows comments stand wrong since Nobody paid a dime to play the game (the MP part) and no one is forcing you to buy cosmetics.

And again I totally agree with the sentiment and don't defend MS or 343I on this crappy move.

KyRo172d ago

There is absolutely no reason for ever raising the price of cosmetics. They are some of the quickest assets to create but charge silly prices for them. Its greed. There's no other way to spin it no matter what the game is.

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130°

Microsoft says 343 will continue to work on Halo, but other studios may get involved

343 Industries will continue to work on the Halo series going forwards, but other studios may get involved in development, it’s been suggested

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videogameschronicle.com
just_looken313d ago (Edited 313d ago )

man what a failure halo wars 2 was the only good thing from this series on xbox one/series

10yr plan new ring that can change over time slipspace engine all gone now halo is another steam game sitting in the background.

Kids/teens today have no clue they halo we grew up with.

If a cod dev gets involved then that will be worse current cod out now is only popular because its the best out of the crap pile. i launched it the other day 4 cash shop popups one unskipable add then 30min trying to find the game through all the mt's.

purple101312d ago (Edited 312d ago )

Your right, i once played Halo Reach, at a LAN party, for 32 hours straight! It was no joke!

(with food breaks, but no sleep) it was so good, I was totally addicted.

Now I'm a PS fan.. ps4 and ps5 have been the best money I ever spent, hands down, in terms of 'fun' & overall 'value'

PhillyDonJawn311d ago

I hated reach couldn't get into it but Halo 3, them all nighters was so much fun. Custom games with a full party was some of the best times I'll remember.

Chevalier311d ago

I remember sitting around and playing hours of Halo 2 daily with my friends just MP match after match for weeks on end. Was an incredible memory to this day.

PhillyDonJawn311d ago

Child please, Halo 5 MP was amazing. Campaign was trash tho.

StitchJones74312d ago

It's good to see that 343 cannot handle the task and are looking to do something. But how many years have gone by where there has not only been nothing to show, but issues. Microsoft is the issue here. And as of just 1mth ago with Refall, it has been proven again. Guess what,,, Phil S is NOT a developer and not does he have any legs to say a damn word about development. Wake up people.

chobit_A5HL3Y312d ago

crazy how indifferent ms is about one of the biggest franchises in gaming. it looks pretty bad when you don't even have a clear plan for your flagship title. ms just has no idea how to make good games anymore.

anast312d ago

They will probably be working on the mobile game.

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