There are many things to argue for or against Halo as a series: the colorful aesthetics, the control decisions between each entry in the series, the environment design in the single and multiplayer environments. I have always admired the uniqueness of the Halo series' almost singular direction under Bungie. It has given the Halo games a spot on my shelf for the simple purpose of experiencing what each entry has to offer. I'll still go back and jump in a match or two of Halo: Reach or Halo 3 if I'm feeling really nostalgic. I even managed to get somewhat decent in Halo: Reach and I think it is one of the best Halo games in terms of user interface and design. I don't feel any of that kind of connection with 343's Halo 4.

Halo 4 is certainly a technical achievement. Every graphical bell and whistle on the Xbox seems to have been utilized to show off what kind of spectacular presentation can be done with an unlimited budget. However, I can't say Halo 4 is much more than that: a great presentation. I'm not sure who or what is at fault, but the design choices made for Halo 4 seem to have mostly been to the detriment of its gameplay. The encounter design feels wrong at so many different points in the game. In the previous entries of the series, I felt like I was in control of the situation. The encounter was entirely within my grasp. If any one scenario didn't work out, I was free to try a new approach and work my way through whatever Bungie had originally intended for that sequence on my own terms.

In Halo 4, there seem to be more bottlenecks and fewer choices in both the encounters and in the weapon choices. In the previous Halo entries, I used to go crazy with melee and cover, sweeping between rocks or other scenery to work my way close enough to bash someone's head into their torso. In Halo 4, I don't feel free to do this. It feels like there is a constant pressure to do things the way a "pro" would do it. "Pick up the rifle and aim for the heads!" is what the game's designers seem to be screaming at me. One of my favorite things to do in Halo 3 was to bring a depleted sword with me across a level for the sheer fun of hitting people to death with a hilt. And I could do it! I was even able to take that sword hilt across missions if I wanted. Halo 4 actively works against this behavior. Enemies seem to be positioned so that the only possible weapon choice is one of the battle rifles. In fact, using a powered sword in Halo 4 feels more like a "kick me" sign than player empowerment. 343's over-focusing of Halo's gameplay feels even more awkward in the multiplayer portion of Halo 4.

Firstly, I must admit that I have never been a "rifle" guy in the Halo series. Going all the way back to Halo 2, I have mostly found myself on the wrong end of the reticle of the Battle Rifle/DMR/whatever-the-hell-else-they-came-up-with. I've had to develop other ways of getting by and having fun in the Halo games. In Halo 2, I had to learn the ins and outs of dual-wielding. InHalo 3, I had to learn how to properly zone my targets with the assault rifle and how to exceed as a vehicle driver. By the time I played Halo: Reach, I had developed a near-disdain for the "rifle"-type weapons. Halo: Reach's sprint and cloaking mechanics helped ease the gap between "rifle" weapons and the rest of the weapons in its arsenal.

Halo 4 feels like a step back for the equalizing that was attempted in Halo: Reach. Melee has had an extreme reduction in range and there is a slowdown mechanic that has been implemented to prevent people from speedily closing in. Halo 4 has also switched to a class system to allow players to choose their own weapons each time they spawn and a kill streak system that can call down explosive rocket launchers of multiple varieties. Unfortunately, the sudden increase in number and availability of "rifle" and bazooka weapons has exaggerated the weapon issues that had always been present for me in the Halo games. In other Halo games, there were ways to get away from or minimize certain game types or even play-styles that one wanted to play. Halo: Reach even allowed users to choose the kind of people they wanted to play with. All of this is gone in Halo 4. There's no way to filter out the noise. Not only am I stuck in matches where only rifles or bazooka weapons are used but I don't even get to decide who I want to play with anymore. The filtering system was so well set up in Halo: Reach that I can probably count on one hand the number of genuinely bad experiences I had. This is compared to Halo 4, where I can't even finish matches due to connection issues or out of utter frustration with the asshats on the other end.

Halo 4 feels like a game made by people who were too close to the thing they loved. 343, in seeking to polish out some of the old lines in the Halo series, seem to have unwittingly done away with some of the finer details that made it shine for me. Halo 4 certainly has everything that a hardcore headshottin' FPS fan could want and even seems designed to catch the old guard of stalwart Halo players. Unfortunately, Halo 4 feels lost in the sea of appeasement that comes with drawing in those fans and it has lost what set it apart from other shooters for me.