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| Spartan Ops & Enemy thoughts *SP* | |
| Posted By: RC Master | Date: 11/18/12 5:09 p.m. |
In Response To: My Halo 4 Review / thoughts / complaints *SP* (RC Master) = Spartan Ops =- While the Spartan Ops missions are ostensibly objective-based, in the first two Weeks of content (of 10) all the missions basically boil down to killing enemies. Occasionally there is a button to press, or some objective to destroy, but progress is all locked out on condition of enemy death so there is no room to allow for the 'creative avoidance' that typifies the design of Halo's campaign. The buttons seem only there to lull you into believing that this isn't just a semi-linear/semi-randomly-move-around-the-map version of kill-em-all Firefight. "No point leaving anyone alive, Crimson" - uh, yes there is, save ammo, get out of here quicker, and leave survivors to tell of our great skill and ferocity. How do you think the Covenant came to fear the Demon in green? - The Spartan IVs act and talk much more like generic marines/soldiers, than the super-special-ops forces we've come to expect out of the Spartans. They also don't seem to take their job seriously - making jokes about beating each others times for clearing objectives, while in-game players are dying all over the place! Quite a bit of dissonance there. - The fiction doesn't work either when you have infinite lives, magically respawning vehicles (first SO chapter), infinite ammo caches spread throughout the level and artificially restrict a Spartan's access to loadout weapons based purely on tenure. And then you drop in a bunch of Rocket Launchers for them on-map, so why exactly can't they start with a DMR yet? - Speaking of weapon access, SpOps could badly use the same 'pre-set' loadout mechanic that they have for War Games. As getting access to a PP (for example) is a HUGE advantage on levels with Knights on Legendary. - Spawning sucks. This has been discussed before on this forum so no need elaborate. You need far-off safe spawns, and a bit more consistency in when you spawn. - Not sure there is much reason to replay other than to grind out further XP levels - which seems exceptionally lucrative. There are hints of a partially-completed scoring system in the 'biggest kill' but that's it. I can see 'best time on legendary' online (not in-game though) but there is no way to know how good that is; there are no friend, regional, group or global leader-boards. Plus there is no in-game timer so you can't tell how well you're getting along mid-mission without a stopwatch. - The Spartan Ops cinematic episodes so far (episodes 1 & 2) feel really disconnected from what you're actually playing. They follow another Squad that you never meet, see, or interact with (apart from radio transmissions). Your only anchor to the story is Sarah Palmer. Who, apart from Lasky, is also the only one that appeared in the actual campaign. - Palmer is a bitch btw. "Crimson, you should go hit that button, Crimson" Oh, yeah, really, SO I CAN GET AMBUSHED AGAIN!? Yes, thank you so much. She struts around in Spartan armour aboard the Infinity CIC yelling into the mic about eggheads and occasionally kicks things but in actuality she's just a glorified manager. In fact I think I'd prefer someone who realised they were a manager so they would keep to the damn point and stop filling the airwaves with useless traffic. And this is after I initially liked her, actually. I thought "Sweet, FemShep is my Spartan leader!" Pity she's nothing like FemShep - who actually gets her hands dirty. = Enemies =- My biggest problem with the enemies is how they are introduced into fights. Previous Halo games would mostly just drop a bunch of enemies in an area and say: 'go on, deal with them however you like.' Whereas Halo 4 only seems to spawn a small number of enemies at a time, then brings in a Phantom, or an uber-drop-pod, or shoddily hides the spawn of the next enemies behind a wall, or just straight-up makes them appear out of nowhere like the Prometheans. - Tell me, if Prometheans can teleport in to anywhere on Requiem, how is anywhere on the planet safe? Why do they stop attacking particular areas, ever? Why do they only send in small numbers of troops at once? With the Covenant it makes sense: they're intelligent beings with limited resources far from home that don't really want to throw themselves against a meat-grinder indefinitely (even though they seem to do that quite a bit in Spops). But if Prometheans can spawn Crawlers out of the FRICKIN GROUND and Knights can be brought from seemingly anywhere and then remade at whim by Watchers, where is the bottle-neck in their supply line? - I really, really, really hate the Knights mid-fight teleporting ability. It is such a discontinuity in combat when you have to go from actively shooting them to trying to find them again. And getting one teleporting in behind you is NOT FUN. Especially when you can barely tell the difference between the different types and you keep confusing the LightRifle with the Scattershot because the shots look so similar! - Elites come off as a bit dumb in Halo 4. If you get in melee-range and keep trying to circle around them tying to get a backsmack, they'll often just keep running in circles around you. It looks ridiculous and I much prefer the quicker resolution of melee battles in Reach (even if they were a little overpowered in that game). - One of the good things about Halo is that the enemies always stood out against the background well. But everything is a bit dull and blends in a bit too much. I know other games do this to far greater extents, but it's one of the things that made Halo stand out as different and it's being eroded away. Prometheans are grey enemies on grey backgrounds, with lights. Grunts' heads are difficult to discern as well. All too often I seem to just have to trust my instincts with respect to the placement of the rest of their bodies than actually discerning where their head is and aiming at it.
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