Weird that I've done this two weeks in a row. The UK's total disregard for release dates is a pretty awesome thing.

So, I played through the campaign in one sitting, only taking a two minute break to eat a biscuit and drink some tea. I have liked all of the Halo games, a lot in some cases (ODST) but never loved one... Until now. Halo 4 has the best campaign in the series mostly due to its relentless pacing (one of the reasons I couldn't stop playing it) , its good story and amazing art.

I think the ending is a little flat considering what happens, but the story throughout the 7-8ish hours was consistently good. Well acted, well told and those character models/faces are superb, some of the best out there. It is definitely as reviews have said Cortana's story and it's nice to hear Master Chief with a lot more dialogue.

This game looks amazing, one of the best of this generation, there is a huge amount of variety in the environments and the lighting is great. The game started and I still thought it was in a cut scene, the hazy, moody lighting in the first mission doesn't come close to some of the amazing visuals later in this game.

The score is one of the best in a game this year. The sounds of the guns have all been redone, I found it a little strange that there isn't a single one of the old style plasma guns in the game, its been replaced with a plasma rifle thing that works exactly the same. All of the new effects for the guns make them sound like they do an insane amount of damage. The tank has this ridiculous, echoey boom that makes you feel godlike.

There's a good mix of on foot and vehicle sequences and the new enemies can be terrifying when they start teleporting towards you. The smaller ones are little fuckers that can be taken down easily if there is one or two, but in large numbers they will kill your shields in an instant.

Final thoughts. I think this game is easily one of the best of the year, it hasn't jumped to the top of my list, but I assume it will be right up there after messing around with the multiplayer. I think the final gameplay/story section is a bit weak and the epilogue is just setting up the next games. I'd like to have known more about the bad guy, although I have a feeling a lot of that backstory is hidden in some of the terminal stuff I unlocked. It is nuts to think a game that looks this good is running on such old hardware, I could gush endlessly about the games visuals. I think 343 have balanced honouring the past and making Halo their own pretty damn well. I can't wait to see what they do with the series next.

This game is totally more Halo.