I gave the first player a good 5 hours this week and it just seems like every other halo game. Same weapons, same vehicles, same enemies.
You move from one lush environment to the next, fight a group of the same enemies, a dropship comes and puts out more, then once and a while you fight two of those large indestructible things. Then you get a worthog and half enjoy the game but it lacks because you either drive and don't get the joy of shooting, or shoot and get utterly frustrated because of the shitty AI driver. It's the exact same tired formula of every other Halo game.

The landscapes are vast, but the detail is lacking and the game seems overly washed out and blurry.
The sound and music is the same. Actuallyt he voice acting is terrible and everything is walkie-talkie compressed, which is odd, since this day in age we have better wireless voice, and this is supposed to be the future? I can barely understand the dialog sometimes.
The story is well, about as boring as the past stories. I lost interest in all that after Halo 2.

I really don't understand the high scores. It really is just a tweaked Halo game, offering nothing new and it seems almost tedious to play. It has it's moments and I'll probably finish it, but why 10s? Must be getting paid for the scores.

^^ I've ALWAYS been caught up in the hype of the game and pick it up... only to be disappointed as well. This game is basically my stop gap between completing Bioshock 2 and Medal of Honor (and then Call of Duty).

I finished the campaign last night. Very well done, and easily the best Halo I have ever played.

I can't finish the game. I mean, I can't get the game to record that I finished the game.

That game is Headhunter. The goal is typically to score 25 skulls. When you kill someone they drop all the skulls they were carrying as well as their own skull. If you are carrying skulls you can score them by entering the score zone. Typically it is an area with a grey marker that moves to a new location on the map every 15-30 seconds. First person/team to score 25 skulls wins.

However, if you are carrying 10 skulls (iirc) and score them all at once you instantly win. This means that when someone starts carrying a bunch of skulls you want to take them out asap. It also means the invisibility equipment isn't that useful since there is a giant marker over your head showing the number of skulls you are carrying.


Good strategies: Have a teammate work on guarding the score point. Killing someone right by the score point makes it easy points for you. If you are getting close to 10 skulls then your team needs to rally around and make protecting/escorting you a priority. Pairing up with a buddy also works well. Both of you work on killing but only one of you collects the skulls. It lets you consolidate towards an instant win and also means someone is assigned to guarding your back and looking for people swooping in to vulture some skulls.

Thanks for taking the time to explain that. I'm used to deathmatch and capture the flag

I like Headhunter, but it's really just one big clusterfuck of a game. As far as I can tell, luck is your best companion.

I think the voting system for Multi Player is a HUGE mistake. People keep voting for either Swat or Snipers, and I'm so thoroughly sick of it that I'm finding myself going back to Halo 3 just so I can play some good old Slayer.

Yeah I agree... I mean I like the game for the most part, I guess more than the others since Ill finish it, but its not becoming a chore for me. I mean how many times am I going to do the same thing over and over again.

this. perhaps using jetpack and sniping people running toward the objectives might be a good strategy.

I have to give Bungie props on Matchmaking.

I don't know how they've done it, or if I've just been lucky but for nearly three weeks I haven't had any [clearly] lopsided matches. Of course there are those times when someone quits making things uneven(or when a team just isn't working together), but I'm talking about those matches like in H2 or H3 where you get matched with someone(or a team) who is 15-20 levels above you and just owns the match start to finish. Or even those matches where it's clear someone started a new gamertag or de-leveled just to "pwn noobs." Are the experts really sticking to the arena?

I haven't even used the advanced features either, opting to leave it open to anyone. So I don't know if it's me, or something on the back end, or the arena, but whatever it is, it's working. Hats off to Bungie.

Oh, and they need a longer timer after matches. People end up checking stats for too long, end up in a match they didn't want and end up quitting at the start. 3-5 more seconds would work better, IMO.

Same here. I played for right under an hour yesterday and every match but one was snipers or SWAT. I really hope they fix this soon because it’s getting very tiresome.

On a separate note I’m a couple levels in to single player and am loving it so far. Hope to finish it soon so I can try out firefight mode. Anyone up for the one million point achievement in firefight?

you can do this in about an hour using unlimited weapons (rocket launcher), infinite health, and no assassinations. you basically customize yourself to be invincible and then wreak havoc. the graphics get pretty intense with multiple enemies, multiple weapons firing, and multiple explosions.

And do it on the Corvette map, it's small and confined.

I hate SWAT so very much.

WTF!?one hour!?

I did it today with my friend.

3H6M16S

[Overlook]
Legendary
Wave 171
Round 32
Set 10

Yeah, about an hour. Took about 6 sets/30 waves.

When you play with someone else you are splitting the points and not chaining all the possible kills together for maximum points.

Looks like they're fixing it on Tue. According the the Weekly Update on Bungie.net; they're pulling SWAT out of the playlists and giving it it's own and reducing the instances of team sniper in BTB.

Why the hell do people like infection so much? I'd rather have a real infection then play that bullshit over and over.

well we had fun

Awesome news!

A buddy an I are having a lot of trouble doing the campaign on MP. I've seen references to the issue on various sites, but am having trouble finding out if Bungie says it will get any better. Are we screwed, or is it possible this gets improved at some point? (matchmaking works just fine, firefight and campaign are just laggy messes)

Anybody done Rocket Race? Just did that with some friends earlier in the week and it was loads of fun!

It's fun, but sucks flying solo. The last half dozen times I've played my teammate quit. It actually makes it easier to win since you don't have anyone else distracting you, but it's less fun.

Just finished the s.p. campaign:

This was a disappointing entry in the series. Halo 1-3 i was able to finish in only a few sittings and within days. I kept playing and putting it off to play some other games. This one took a few months to finish. It just felt like every other halo that didn't add enough variety to gameplay. The only good thing about it was the spaceship dogfights. But those are few are far between with only one mission that excited me. I got to the end and thought i had one more level to go. Then the end credits hit. This was also the weakest ending to a halo. The epilogue was kinda cool i guess. I think i'm done with the series after this game.