The presentation of the game is absolutely fantastic. This is the first game I've played on the Xbox in awhile that hasn't reminded me it's an outdated piece of hardware.

I'm not super keen on the promethean enemies - the knights in particular. I am always running out of ammo trying to take them down with all the health they have and how they can zoom off into the distance to avoid being killed. Maybe there's a strategy there I haven't learned. I haven't learned to look out for the binary rifle yet, either, which has killed me a few times when I thought I was doing good.

(Heroic difficulty)

I think it is awesome!

I've read in a few places that they've notched up the difficulty and that certainly seems true. I'm playing Heroic (as always!) and it's kicking my ass... I love it though. The legendary playthroughs are the real meat of Halo singleplayer for me.

@Veektarius said:

The presentation of the game is absolutely fantastic. This is the first game I've played on the Xbox in awhile that hasn't reminded me it's an outdated piece of hardware.

I'm not super keen on the promethean enemies - the knights in particular. I am always running out of ammo trying to take them down with all the health they have and how they can zoom off into the distance to avoid being killed. Maybe there's a strategy there I haven't learned. I haven't learned to look out for the binary rifle yet, either, which has killed me a few times when I thought I was doing good.

(Heroic difficulty)

Destroy those flying things that hover over them, they heal knights. Took me a while to figure that out and have been shooting at those dudes for like 15 minutes without any progress. ( on heroic )

Also have been enjoying some multiplayer matches and completed two challenges, our team as loosing in a slayer match and when I got that gun with the round magazine that shoots really freakin' fast I started wastin' dudes left and right and turned the match around.

@Ravelle said:

Destroy those flying things that hover over them, they heal knights. Took me a while to figure that out and have been shooting at those dudes for like 15 minutes without any progress. ( on heroic )

Also have been enjoying some multiplayer matches and completed two challenges, our team as loosing in a slayer match and when I got that gun with the round magazine that shoots really freakin' fast I started wastin' dudes left and right and turned the match around.

Nah, I got that part. But after I've spent the ammo to take those down, It seems like I rarely have enough to deal with the knights. Like I said, might just be a matter of strategy. Maybe I need to charge more and spend less time shooting them from a distance.

(Posted this in another thread where it was barely applicable, it is actually applicable here).

That there controversial Tom Chicks review:

"...The last few Halos seemed to be stretching their legs. The jazz bar melancholy of ODST’s ruined city and the last-stand grimness of Reach had character. They seemed to realize you can only go so far with a faceless dude in a suit of armor. But now we’re back to Master Chief doing all over again what he’s already done before. There is literally nothing that happens in Halo 4 that hasn’t happened in one of the earlier games."

Presently, this nails exactly how I feel about Halo 4. I don't particularly think Chick's being overly "look at me" with his reviews points, (perhaps the score is a little incredulous). Rather, it would seem that his personal experience with the game is very much similar to mine. I'm yet to find any great innovative leaps in Halo 4, it's just feels like a (lovingly) polished version of a pre-existing formula made to catch up with modern FPS expectations. For me, the game plays predictably and offers very little in the way of "new". It's all just a little boring, contrived and off-the-shelf manufactured. Perhaps a little too much attention was paid to the men featured in this article.

Also, they could have kept the Grunts funny. There's no need for the robotic voice 343i added.

Tom Chick just annoys me a tad as a reviewer. He has a weird grudge against the medal of honor series.

Played up to mission 6 in the campaign on Heroic and I'm enjoying it allot, the sound design in particular stood out the most, the story for the most part is pretty good and it's good that 343i is trying to include allot more of the Halo lore into the game, The graphics are probably the best on the 360.

On the MP side, played allot infinity slayer and it seems to flow allot quicker and the changes and inclusions, to me at least seem pretty balanced, also the AR seems to be allot more powerful, the maps are all pretty well designed in terms of layout and design and they all look very pretty.

One complaint is the for me at least, the stat-tracking is pretty slow and not updating quickly, and not a big fan of the UI.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

Alright I found something about this game I hate. What did they do to the Banshee?? I heard them talking about nerfing it for MP on the 343 podcast but they made it completely useless in Campaign. Controls like crap, super slow, can't aim even close to straight down, meanwhile the AI on Heroic are doing these hairpin turn plasma cannon snap shots that blow me out of the sky. They must have a newer model.

Not a huge deal but I miss the old Banshee, that thing was no joke.

Got a few MP matches in though and that's so damn fun. Feels a little faster but still totally like Halo. Ran the map on one game with the Railgun that thing is so rad.

Totally agree with you on the Banshee, In one part of the Campaign I think during the second mission, there were 2 Banshees flying up in the air and a whole load of covenant forces on the ground, and an unmanned Banshee on the ground, so I take the Banshee and it can barely take out one enemy Banshee, it gets taken out way too quickly, the ground forces just blast it out of the air, after a few trys I take out the two banshee and and bail, also don't like the fact you have to change from the fuel rod canon to the blasters.