[cheebacheeba]

Halo 4.

I'm not a fan of Halo as a series to be honest...I played the first one about 3 years after its release and while know it may have been a little dated in gaming terms I personally didn't really see what all the fuss was.
It seemed a pretty generic shooter with a sci-fi skin.

I had a look at the second game in the series and decided against playing on because I thought it seemed astoundingly similar to the first and didn't seem to have moved on.

Never saw the third, the top-down strategy game (not really part of the series in my mind) or ODST - Though I thought ODST actually looked pretty good, so I may give that a go.

The next one I turned on was "REACH" which I played around with for about 15 minutes then switched off, it bored the hell out of me.

So I acknowledge the series has some die-hard fans, and I'm sure that it's probably that I haven't given everything that much of a chance but I'm a pretty impatient gamer these days, so that could be it.

I got Halo 4 from a friend. Heard it was something of a new start on the series.
It gave me enough information in the intro to have an idea of what was up.
It started out exciting. It looked a shitload better than any other HALO game I'd seen. I don't know from experience if they changed the tone and style of play that much (new 343 guys) but I enjoyed it.

At first I thought I was just going to have a look and blow it off like I had every other HALO game but this one actually sucked me in.
The storyline was cool, I like the friendship (?more?) between the chief and his AI...things evolved there in what I thought was a really great backstory/history of where humanity had gone, the voice acting was rock solid, and the FMV sequences were amazing.

The game itself is sharp and crisp, you move around in a smoothe and comfortable manner which to me is important in an FPS.
The combat feels arcadey in a way but that just "fits" somehow, allowing some high intensity and fast paced gun battles.
The maps are serviceable with a lot of cover to work with, and the use/?introduction of? the secondary functions like the sentry and the hard light shield allowed for some varied approaches to gameplay.

I liked the environments, and at no point did I feel like I'd spent "too long" in the one kind of area, in fact I even appreciated the desert scenes which I'd normally find bland and boring.

The only let-downs were a slight glitch that needed a level to be replayed a couple of times ("board the covenant ship", anyone?) to proceed, and in all honesty the vehicles...they're alright...just not really my thing in an FPS...though you don't *have to* use them most of the time, and even if you did it was fairly sparingly peppered throughout the game.

So yeah overall I liked this game, I don't know how differently these 343 guys do things from Bungee but they made me like the series and anticipate the next one.
Overall I'd give it a 7.75 out of 10.
Play it if you're looking for a user-friendly, solid sci-fi experience laced into a VERY shiny looking game.