E3 2012: Halo 4

“The Legendary Warrior Rises Again”

Developer: 343 Industries
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform(s): Xbox 360
Genre:  FPS
Release Date: November 6 2012


The Halo franchise has been the crowning achievement of the Xbox and Xbox 360. Halo 4 starts a whole new trilogy of the Halo series, labeled the “Reclaimer Trilogy”. At Microsoft E3 press conference a new trailer showcases the Master Chief encountering a new evil that threatens the universe.
 

The trailer starts with a live-action segment 4 years after the end of the war with The Covenant. A repurposed UNSC ship called the Infinity has been sent into space to discover worlds for human advancement. Unfortunately things don’t go according to plan and the ship crashes on the same planet the Master Chief and Cortana was seen floating towards at the end of Halo 3. Witnessing the crash and intercepting the distress signal Master Chief intends to rendezvous with the ship but a strange sphere-like Forerunner device appears behind the Master Chief and heads toward the UNSC Infinity.

As Master Chief heads toward the crashed ship overhead he sees an array of Phantoms, Banshees, and the Forerunner device. Heading into the jungle towards the Infinity John encounters Covenant scouts and quickly disposes of the Jackels and Grunts but the Elite is vaporize before completing his charge towards the Master Chief. Looking for the attacker John sees a flicker then receives a transmission for all UNSC ground forces to retreat. Right after John and Cortana encounter a type of lizard synthetic life forms that are equip with the same technology at the Forerunner Sentinels. After killing a few they retreat towards another humanoid Forerunner creature that hops onto John, screams, and reveals a bright orange skull beneath its mask. The creatures has two blades, one on each arm and a beetle like back the creature launches a drone-like creature that provides shielding and repels grenades. When the creature is killed it vaporizes into orange dust and the drone escapes, but the creature drops what seems to be a long-range Forerunner gun with detachable parts locking into place.
 

John chases the escaped creature into the forest only to find more lizard-like creatures and one more humanoid one. After all the enemies were cleared another weapon was dropped, this time a shotgun. Another humanoid Sentinel leaps towards John only to catch the barrel of his newly acquired shotgun. John receives a transmission about hostiles almost breaking into the Infinity causing John to make a huge mistake. Leaping into a swamp area John switches into his thermal visor only to find that he is completely surrounded. The demo ends with a series of scenes showing off the Master Chief and was left of the Infinity organizing to defend or attack. Cortana acknowledges that her time is almost up and that she will prevent something from leaving the planet, this while looking at more of those Forerunner creatures. The demo ends with something or someone acknowledging Master Chief as the Reclaimer and how he was dreaming of this day.

Right from the start you’ll notice that the game doesn’t look like other Halo games. Master Chief looks bigger, the battle rifle zoom is a square, npc’s speaking to Master Chief are shown on the upper-left screen, sprinting is no longer an ability but universal, and an unexplained power is shown, but never used, on the lower right side. Master Chief and Cortana are voiced with the same actors and still share that same bond that is notorious among fans. New visor ability and the Master Chief is more talkative that usual, perhaps he is growing more anxious of Cortana’s lifespan coming to end. The game is definitely different from other titles; maybe that was 343’s desire from the start and perhaps this will be a more story driven Halo because it definitively looks that way.
 

Unfortunately no multiplayer was shown, only single player. However this shouldn’t discourage you as the game looks great. Although it doesn’t share the aspects of Bungie’s titles it is nevertheless looks and plays like Halo. As a huge Halo fan I cannot wait for this title and hope multiplayer will be shown soon.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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