Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Masterpiece"

Halo 4 (Xbox 360)

After a cliffhanger in Halo 3, where Master Chief and Cortana were left adrift in space, and now after the franchise switched developers, we have the long anticipated Halo 4. The 5 year long wait is finally over.

Now, the humanity in on its knees and after a 4 year sleep in cryo-sleep, Cortana wakes Chief up, and they find themselves crash-landed near a rogue Covenant ship. While exploring the requiem and fighting hostile Covenant and Prometheans, Cortana reveals that she's in a "Rampant" state, which is due to her working past her operating period and she is slowly moving toward her expiration date. Master Chief promises to take her to her creator, in hope to reverse her condition. This installment is a step up in the story department, since it fleshes out the already developed characters, with top voice acting and stunning new graphics, making them evolve into relatable personalities, and combine that with their relation development, it's not doing any favors if we try to spoil it, you have to experience it yourself.

Halo 4's main campaign can be played solo or coop online or split screen with another player, the difficulty can be tweaked. There are terminals in the game which unlock content containing backstory, which can be viewed in the Halo Waypoint app.

The game also features a separate episodic story that can also be played single or coop multi player, Spartan Ops, where the story is set 6 months after the main story, and it contains new missions and cut scenes. The Infinity returns to Requiem to deal with, still present, Covenant and Prometheans. Spartan-IV teams are deployed and they discover an artifact, after upon examination, scientist Doctor Glassman vanishes. This mode feels a bit short, but it's a great way to deliver new post release content.

Coming back from Halo 3, the Forge is present, a map-editing tool, with the new magnet feature, and Theater mode from Halo: Reach, where players can record their games and take screenshots and share online.

And now the competitive multiplayer, the trademark thing in the Halo franchise that is a genre standout in the current console generation. Now titled War-games, it brings back everything the Halo multiplayer is known for, but it's all further tweaked and polished, with the only addition of new weapons, maps, and customization, adapting a standard of modern first person shooter games, the load-outs.

They consist of primary and secondary weapons, grenades, armor, and two new abilities that buff the player, like quicker reloading or weapon switching, grenade enhancements, and shield mods. These are unlocked while the player gets experience, but there are preset load-outs available. Even with these additions, Halo 4 remains one of the most balanced competitive shooters out there, which we grown to love, but with fresh new details.

Pros:
• Great Campaigns
• Stellar Multiplayer
• Improved story
• Amount of content

Cons:
• Short "Spartan ops"
This is truly a flagship title for the Xbox 360, and if you're a seasoned Halo player, you have no excuse to miss out on the one.
Rating: 9.5

-Petar
GameNTrade Ltd.