Halo 4 Impressions

[DirtyP2002]

I was about to make a thread for Halo 4 impressions as well. I wanted to hear the community and not the reviewers.

Short introduction before I talk about the game itself, because I think it really matters for reviewing a game:

I finished a 6 day vacation trip with my girlfriend yesterday. I had no day off for the past 6 months and I really needed a break from work. So I came back, picked up the game at my mom's house (pre-ordered it there, so she can pick it up when I am not at home) and spend about 2-3 hours with it. As many of you know, I am a big supportet of BVB and they played the best club of the world yesterday as well. So I had to interrupt my gaming, watch the match at my mom's house again (she has PayTV) and watched the election afterwards. I won't have to go to work for the rest of the week, so my gaming-time will increase the next days.

So here are my impressions of the game itself:

I played the campaign on legendary, but before I got there I had to listen to the soundtrack first. It is just as awesome as the Halo games before. Just perfect and heads and shoulders above everything in this industry. The first big change I noticed were obviously the visuals. It starts with a CGI scene that is again the best I have ever seen in a video game. I actually thought MS hired actors for the cutscenes.

This is the opening cutscene and it is beautiful. The ingame graphics are pimped as well and it looks amazing. There are battles outside a ship, so gravity and physics are a factor of the game. While it doesn't really change your way through the game, it looks and feels so alive. The battlefields alone are huge and you can always find different ways through the mission just like Halo always did and everybody loved it for. Now imagine these battlefields with less gravity. Guns, bodies, all kind of objects are moving in the really big scenery and you are in it to fight your way through.

I caught myself just watching the view on the battlefield for a few moments. It looks stunning and feels alive.

Another major point for me is the sound. I spent more than 2.300 Euros (about 3k USD) for a Bose-soundsystem last year and playing Halo 4 on it just feels right. The gunsounds are brilliant. You really hear the power of these guns and grenades are even better.

So just from the technical standpoint, this game offers high quality from the very first minute and is the industry-leader in some aspects (sound, CGI). I have yet to play multiplayer, because I have to finish the campaign before. I always do that. So far it is exceeding my expectations and I can't wait for Halo 5 on more powerful hardware. I will have to leave in a couple of minutes, but I will play again later today for another 3-5 hours. I will give you an update.