sorry, clicked teh wrong button...

I swear, this game's opening is better than the ending of most games. I just can't stop playing the SP.

Also, I've never been afraid in a Halo game before, but I actually get scared in this one, because of the design of the levels and the mystery surrounding just about everything. You always think something crazy is going to pop out somewhere. You just didn't know what to expect and when in the first playthrough. Great sense of size and exploration in this game. I'm still amazed by the sheer size and distance of the Forward Unto Dawn wreckage. Things that are meant to be really big in this game are actually really big. These are the most dense and busiest Halo SP levels ever.

Definitely the most impressive looking console game I've ever had the privilege of playing. It doesn't disappoint visually in the slightest.

Also, does anyone think Heroic in this game is much harder than previous games?

I enjoyed sp, but I cant really share your enthusiasm...

About the difficulty, fighting the promethians the first time was challenging, but I got used to that after a mission or so.
I found my self very often short of ammo, so in overall I think its harder than previous Halos.

He is special.

Def the best SP in a FPS i've played, brilliant stuff!

I don't know, first touching down on Requiem is an exploration experience easily eclipsing the best moments of any previous Halo games. The art in this game is the best the series has ever witnessed by any fair assessment. There's so much to look at and appreciate in any single level or location. When you first see those massive indexes in the sky as you head up the mountain from the epicenter of the forward unto dawn wreckage, eventually coming across some warthogs from the FUD wreckage, it's just all incredibly impressive. This game is quite the accomplishment.

I do get the sense that there are less, massive wide open areas, I actually get that sense, so I'm in agreement with you there, but I think Halo 4 more than makes up for that by the locations being far more detailed and substantial in just about every conceivable way. This isn't to say there aren't absolutely huge areas, because there are, but there is less raw freedom of movement, but I think that actually does more to enhance the game than take away from it. It makes the gameplay feel that much better. You get this constant feeling that you're actually in a much larger location than you're ever actually in due to the way the total visual package comes together. And you are right that you were bound to see "Best Halo ever", and I'm certain it comes as no surprise from me, but is there really any doubt that there is no Halo so far that has been superior to this one, as far as SP campaign is concerned? The entire opening alone beginning to end on Heroic and above speaks volumes to this very fact. I think what naturally prevents others from saying the same is that there is very little that's "revolutionary" about what Halo 4 does, as awesome and as evolutionary as it might be in a number of instances, particular in the story department. The original Halo did things that changed gaming in ways that Halo 4 never had a chance of doing even on its best day. I've had time for this thing to sink in, and I feel this is the best one yet. Not only the best Halo campaign for me, one of the absolute best SP FPS experiences I've ever had, up there with Half Life 2.

How many times in other 360 Halo titles have you approached some sort of forerunner architecture and there isn't anything too special about it other than the fact that a nice concentration of enemies packing heavy firepower are there? In this game, even the transitory gameplay sections seem almost fit for significant events and story developments. I just look at the total package, Cortana and the Chief's communication. Cortana alerting the Chief to an Elite's camo package and then adjusting the Chief's suit on the fly, visual indicator and all, to take advantage of it? When I say best Halo ever, I'm not basing it solely on the SP gameplay and missions, as fantastic as a lot of it was, and even though I, too, got slightly annoyed at the flip multiple switch segments of the game. I'm also very much basing this on the entire package, presentation, story, dialogue between Cortana and the Chief. This is the strongest Halo campaign ever with regards to rock solid focus on character development, and naturally my being a huge fan of the books, that's going to heavily tilt Halo 4 towards being my favorite. I think there are solid, defensible reasons for loving this Halo entry as much as I do.

There was a warm blanket of comfort that always existed in previous Halos, where you just knew you were safe and nothing could get to you. In this game, however, you always feel like there's something watching you or sneaking up on you, or something you didn't anticipate is going to throw you for a major loop. In that regard alone, its a major break away from previous Halo titles. Bungie talked about the planet Reach in Halo reach feeling like it's own character unto itself. I love that game to death, but it didn't quite achieve that. There's no question that the environments littered throughout this game's SP are like their very own character. They feel alive.

This game just succeeds fantastically at making you seem small and at the mercy of all that's around you.

I have played all the halos thanks and my statement stands!

I just thank god this game delivered for me, because I was anticipating this game like you wouldn't believe. It is everything I hoped it would be and then some.

@ Optimus
True, the scale of the environments, the skyboxes, the art...awesome

Yet its a shame that you mostly only can look at the scale istead of exploring it.


Well i also have to admit that I played through the game only once, gonna start on legendary today, havent found many terminals yet, so maybe I wasnt forcing myself exploring too much.

When you search out and find anything in this game, it feels like more rewarding due to the way the environment is structured, so a find really does feel like a legitimate find.

What I like about the size and scale in this game is that it feels like they didn't want to give you freedom just for freedom's sake. They wanted to have meaning and be in the proper context of what was going on, and what kind of story they wanted to tell. I feel this game does that very well. It goes without saying that few environments in a Halo game has ever helped in the successful telling of a story as strongly as this game does. That isn't to say Halo games haven't done this well in the past, because they have, but I think this game turns everything on its head. And it's almost awkward when you say this, because you don't want to come off like some graphics whore. It's so much more than that. This isn't a simple matter of "wow, the graphics are so amazing", the team of artists that produced the beauty in these environments deserves tremendous credit. It's almost scary what a next gen Halo may look like. Technical impressive alone doesn't get you as far as this game comes.

Well, on the total singleplayer package, I thought there was a very good chance that it just might be unanimous, but I understand if not everyone agrees. I personally think this game represents the best bringing together yet of Halo's gameplay with the kind of storytelling and presentational potential that I've felt, based on the books, has been there all along waiting to be taken advantage of. I've always just been itching for the Master Chief to finally be represented as the kind of badass supersoldier that he was showcased as being in this game. They also did a very good job showcasing the other part of Master Chief's character, digging just deep enough without going too far and ruining the character.

Have a lot of praise for this one. It hits all the right notes.

I expect Bungie's next game to be pretty amazing. The MMO part makes me nervous, too, but then a part of me suspects that we may be pleasantly surprised with what they've got in store.

Halo legendary solo few hard parts (like the loads of knights right near the end..) but its ok not to hard not to easy

the covys are piss to down, it is just the knights that are the problem on legendary.

Optimus have you bee listening to all the hidden little logs hanging around the levels? not the terminals or anything like that, i think there really cool little things to find, but can be sooo annoying when the music overpowers them :(

Youtubed any vids of your games?

Yepp, ordnance crap ruined the game for me.

It has become boring and camperish. As you said there is no motivation in going around the map. (Especially on Ragnarok). In Halo 3, there was always fighting around the middle area going on, the entire map felt differently...

In the last 4 games on that map, the team on the sea-side were camping inside their base, using camo, DMRs and snipers.
I know I could also do it, but it is ZERO fun.

It's especially frustrating when you only get shit yourself as ordnance and the vehicles are no use at all to smoke another base out.


There once was a play-list in Halo 2 or 3, where you started with random weapons each spawn. It was not very popular, mainly because, well its a shit idea. Halo 4 feels alot like this game mode...

No kidding. It's all the little things that really bring this together for me. Cortana diverting all the power from the Chief's shield's to power the boost function on the Ghost? That was a pretty big deal to me. That's the kind of thing you would only ever read about in a book, but there it was playing a crucial role in the game. The kinds of things Cortana and other really advanced AIs should be fully capable of doing, and have done in the books, is now happening in the games. Cortana literally taking two weeks past forever to hack/open those doors to the landing zone while a boat load of Prometheans practically tear me a new asshole while I'm barely, and I mean barely, hanging on for dear life, thinking the entire time "What The fuck is Cortana doing!? Why is it taking so long?" is another one of those moments for me. It did seem strangely long for an AI of Cortana's level to take so long with that door, and turns out the story reflects exactly those feelings: It was explained almost immediately afterwards to the player, and there was no question that it was largely due to her impending rampancy. Cortana was becoming less efficient, less effective and the narrative was handled really well for how regretful Cortana was about the entire thing, even though the Chief was obviously trying to downplay her screwup by acting like it wasn't a big deal, but he had to know that Cortana almost got him killed.

Stuff like that really stands out for me. It's what makes the overall package so memorable for me. Not solely just the big moments, but also those moments that can very easily get overlooked. They are what help to keep bringing me back to this campaign.

For the game to do these little things so well, in addition to how well it does all the big stuff, and then you toss in the incredible gameplay sections in this game that have little to no performance dips at all, that's when you really realize just how much ass this game kicks.

Manthatyoufear With regards to logs, probably not. Only one I've really found resembling that is the Chief's service record aboard the Forward Unto Dawn. There's a lot that I haven't found in this game, because there's really so many places to look. Things could just about be hidden anywhere at any time. The levels are pretty packed with detail all over the place. Any number of spots look as if they could be hiding something potentially important. It's precisely why I anticipate youtube and the internet is how I'll fill in a lot of the stuff that I haven't found on my own. I've already played and beat this game 4 or 5 times by now. I've only found maybe 3 terminals, probably less, on my own? Some of the other stuff I've found, I only found because friends literally showed me where they were located. The first couple times I played the game, I made sure to play and beat it on the best television in my house with the nice surround system hookup, which is the one in the living room. It's only lately that I've finally started to play the game on the 360 in my room, which is the only one I actually use Xbox live with. I haven't even tried Spartan Ops yet, but there's plenty of time for that. :)

What will this forum do when Halo 4 has passed by