Alright, If you're one of those people who just look at what ratings I give this review isn't for you to read, I gave this game ratings given on how good the aspects actually are in many respects, I give a good rating where it's due and that same goes with poor ratings. I'll be honest, I love this game, I've loved the Halo series since I started playing it (At 3 if you must know, While I didn't grow up on Halo like most people my age I was lucky and got to grow up on the classics.) When it comes to simple game play, This one is probably my favorite to be honest. It's stunning visually and mechanically, With Multi-player that actually takes a good skill to master. (When you're like me and can average 20+ kills and 0-3 deaths on a game you're pretty much one of the best out there, But you're still no master at that level.)
This is truly one of the better games that have come out within the past few years, I'm not going to say whether or not it's the best game as of late or not, As a matter of fact I can tell you now it's not my personal favorite game, Pretty high up on my list but it's not my favorite regardless. A lot of fans hate this series in comparison to the original series such as Halo 3 and Halo: Reach (If you consider Reach as part of the original series, It was made by Bungie after all.) partially because this was made by a different company named 343 industries which was made by Microsoft for the sole purpose of making new Halo games. That being said many fans prefer this game to the original series as well. This game brought several new aspects into play and even added a new story arch to play through in the upcoming years.

Any way you look at it I've already spent a lot of time explaining the basic core of the game but the fun part is exploring it yourself in my opinion, And let me tell you I could go on with so much positive feedback for this game, I could also go with some negative feedback too, But the negative us highly overpowered by the positive feedback, So without further ado, Let me get to the specifics of the game. 

Graphics: 10... Okay first off, Every aspect of this game is absolutely stunning visually, From the plants, To the enemies, To you... To Cortana. You name it and it'll look pretty good in this game if not just absolutely amazing, I mean you can see the smallest details on your own arm in this game, Some spots on the ground do look a little... Bland but when you're playing through this game it doesn't really seem to bug me at all. Then again I'm more concerned with game-play rather than graphics when I play a game. Still, It doesn't hurt to have a game with amazing graphics in a well done game.

Another thing I wanted to cover in this a little more specifically is visual effects. Now while some of the visual effects like the tanks exploding might not be that realistic, It still looks amazing and pretty darn beautiful too. I mean from a Spartans shield being knocked out to the new enemies falling apart when you kill them, It looks simply stunning, Even though I don't play these games for graphics I couldn't stop but being caught aside and even sometimes stopping mid battle to look at these amazing graphics.

Sound: 6... Now before you jump on me for this somewhat low rating hear me out. This isn't even just soundtrack or just sound effects and I have a perfectly good explanation for this rating if you'll hear me out. I'm going to start with sound effects here and explain to you my problem and lack there of with these. The sound effects in these games aren't really the best or the most realistic, Now I know this is a gun game and gun games are simply games, But the UNSC weapons sound nothing like normal weapons.. If anything they sound weaker when they are supposed to more powerful than most guns, It's flawed and it matches poorly with the story of this and that's something that will always get on my nerves... That being said, It's not exactly meant to either, It's supposed to mostly nostalgic to the original series. (That Battle rifle sound sound a bit familiar to any of you yet?) I mean even the sound of when you land hard on your feet or when your body lands on the floor still sounds off to me, Shouldn't it sound a little more metallic and also... These are Spartans we're talking about, They're supposed to be half a ton for crying out loud, Shouldn't they land a little heavier? (Halo has poor gravity physics... Just look at the puny crater MC made at the beginning of Halo 3 when he jumped.)

Now, As for the soundtrack.. I'll be honest here, It's wasn't really something that suited me at all really, I mean.. It worked kinda and all and I'll give credit where credit is due regardless, But I myself am not really a fan of this games soundtrack, With or without story behind it. That being said I wasn't very fond of the way they composed the music for this game in general, This kind of takes away the old and pretty epic music from Halo 3 and even Reach ( Remember that sadly these are the only two I have played before 4.) that I loved. I mean it's good and all, But it's just not very Halo in my opinion, But that's just my opinion and I need to make sure I state that I remember that fact. But it's really less of an epic conquest against the " Ultra-powerful Alien enemy. " And more of a... "Mystic emotionally powered" form of music in some respects. I realize some of this is still personal preference but this is still my review after all so there isn't too much room for you to complain about this and remember, This is still one of my favorite games, The sound just isn't one of my favorite features about this game sadly. Anyway, I don't want to ramble on for too long because there isn't much more that is actually relevant to my review that I have left to say about music.

Addictiveness: 9... Man I love this game... This game is mostly made for its multi-player, And it does not disappoint... You see, For years now MLG (Major League Gaming) has been using the Halo franchise as one of the most popular competitive FPS (First person shooter.) games. While I don't have any problem with Call Of Duty but this game is was made for a different audience than most other FPS games. This is more like a "Quick thinking, accuracy and (team or solo) tactics > Bum rushing and hoping for the best" kind of game, This allows for more complicate and tactic based game-play rather than a mindless pile of poorly skilled players, (While you still get the amateur players in this game it's still different, This brings in several type of FPS players into one game.) I'll be honest but this game did kind of copy the load out system from other FPS shooters in Halo: Reach, And now simply the custom load outs and (unlimited) sprint... Again from most mainstream FPS games.

Honestly that last paragraph was a little.. Off topic and I'll apologize and compensate for that right now. This game is fun, It makes you want to come back and play more of it online, Or play through the campaign again for the fun of it. (Solo on Legendary anyone?) I played this game for weeks on end when I first got it, This game was made to keep you playing it as long as you possibly can and even then you don't really want to put it down, Everything from the multi-player to the campaign was made to get you and keep you hooked for a while. And when you're a fan.. You don't even want to put down this game at all, let alone the entire series. (I mean have you ever gone on a Grunt (The weakest of the alien Covenant) slaughtering spree? Trust me it's fun.) I mean even the sound of the weapons is nostalgic and will make you want to come back to this game if you here it after you stop playing. Honestly this game is just addicting, I don't really know how to explain it well, But I loved the Halo campaigns and I love this games game-play and story to a certain extent.. That being said, Let's move on to the story.

Story: 8... Alright, I'm going to try and avoid spoilers here to the best of my ability and I won't give away anything too important but I will have to reveal a small bit of information from this story in order to explain it and review it properly, So in advance I apologize for the spoilers. (Don't worry, I'm not really giving away anything that you can't find out from a trailer or two honestly, And there isn't much difference between a review and a trailer.. Anyway, Back on subject.) Well.. I never grew up on the original series, I played through 3 and Reach, And out of the two I grew a certain attachment to the story of Halo (Mostly because you are the main character of Reach.) And was hoping to be blown away by this games story. And when I finally got to play it, While I didn't like the story as much as the others, It still didn't leave any room for disappointment and let me explain why.

As you can learn from certain trailers of the game, Something is wrong with Cortana. (Master Chief's AI partner in case you are new to the series)  I'm not going to say exactly what because I'm still trying to avoid spoilers here, But the story is pretty much an emotional roller coaster in comparison to the previous games which were more centered around the action and events that took place rather than the emotional weight than everything bore. Don't get me wrong it's always been an emotional series, But not in the same way it is now. I mean it's almost a love story now. (Okay, It is a love story now.) And while I'm one who can enjoy a good romance every now and then, I wasn't exactly happy with the way they did this story. While it's still a good story I myself am just not a fan of it and can only wait for the next game and see what they do with that one. One thing I did like about this story is it ended with positive build up for the next chapter in the series to do even better than the last and that's something I can appreciate. It's something I need to keep in mind but I will like very much to see where this story is going. I mean I could talk about it for hours already, I just hope it doesn't disappoint when I finally get to play the next game.

Depth: 7... Well, This specific thing is a little complicated to rate, While there is a certain depth the story lacks, There is also a certain depth to competitive aspects of this game have on a level most other games can't compete, I mean it's made for it's multi-player in order to keep people playing online honestly. There was an entire group of teams centered on just making the Online and multi-player as perfect as possible, And they are still working on it to this day, You may not realize it while playing this game, But do you ever stop to pay attention to just how exactly the damage tables work? It's pretty complex and amazing, I mean so much time and effort was put into this game it's not even funny, And if you don't consider that deep I don't know what is.

I mean even the one way story that has no alternate cut-scenes or ways to change what happens still has extras and bonuses to explore and find, There are still Easter eggs to find in the game and I'm sure there always will be in these games, Actually Easter eggs have been around for quite a long while and hopefully always will be. But this game does have stuff to explore and even in the campaign, There are about twenty different ways to go about taking down a group of enemies, You've got to know how to go about it. And multi-player is just pure amazing when it comes to tactics and strategies... Allow me to explain in the next part of my review.

Difficulty: 6... Now before anyone gets on my case let me explain something.. I'm a good player and some (Not all.) of my rating is based on a personal experience while playing this game. I'm going to start with the multi-player aspect first, The games multi-player is much more fast pace than the previous games, That's something someone like me can use to his/her advantage if they are a fast enough thinker.. But every time I played online I couldn't help but start predicting how the other players would act and you know what.. Every single time they did something I knew they would and messed up horribly. (I mean something along the lines of running out into the middle of the field to get shot at by all sides and killed in seconds or things along these lines, Or walking into my grenade that I clearly just threw in front of them.) Even when I played against some of the best players they were still easy to predict and then I had the ability to use counter measures to ensure my victory... Maybe this is just me being some awesome strategic genius and not knowing but I mean, No one really uses their head in the game and it's mostly just running around shooting, When someone like me who uses his head comes along and goes around taking down everyone like some sort of human tank it's kind of.. Easy? Then again I could turn these tables around and say it's way too hard because there are really good players out there like me for an example. But honestly it's not too hard but it's not exactly easy either, It honestly boils down to your personal skill level when you get down too it.

Now let's talk about the campaign, Even for people new to the series it's really not that hard and almost serves as a place to learn the controls and get adjusted to game-play before taking on the competition in multi-player, I mean even on Legendary it wasn't that hard.. And here's why, The A I are predictable and easy to manipulate, That's right.. Just like the majority of players online. (Or maybe this is just me being awesome at taking advantage of my enemies and their in-ability to keep up with me mentally, Yay being smart.... Do school kids, It's good for your brain and it'll even make you better at your favorite games!) I mean you can even just use a Plasma pistol + Head shot weapon combo half of the time to make things overly simple, As a matter of fact that's one thing I liked about this game, The nerfed the Plasma pistol.. Now don't get me wrong this was probably one of my favorite weapons back in Reach, But it was way too easy to use and almost nothing would over power it if you combined it with a melee or a head-shot. 

But regardless of my own skill levels, Let's look at this in comparison to some of the other games out there, I mean have you ever played any of the games from Japan? Most of them would probably be too hard for the average gamer to beat and some are too hard for me and that's saying something. It honestly isn't that hard of a game, Even on Legendary it just doesn't compete. I would love to have a harder version of a Halo game and will gladly play it when released, But there are still harder games out there, Even on the Xbox 360 console it won't be the hardest out there. (Resonance of fate people... You will die every time, You probably have never heard of this game though, I recommend looking it up and taking a look... It's pretty awesome.) As much as I would love a harder Halo game this simply isn't it, I mean in some respects Reach and 3 were a lot harder mainly just because of the way the game-play was made, Game-play is so important in terms of difficulty, And this just isn't a toughy, But I'm going to stop saying the same things over and over and move on with my review now.

Overall: 8.8... Well, This is pretty much the end of my review and I don't have too much more to say other than this is one of the most popular Xbox games out currently and will probably be that way until the next Halo game comes out... Hopefully the next one will have My little pony characters in it but probably not. (In all honesty I don't want MLP characters in Halo, It's a joke.) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my review and I didn't mess it up too much or anything. The overall here is actually a combination of my other reviewed aspects in the game for the first time so let me know what you think of my review since I styled it this way, Enjoy yourself and thanks for reading my review, It was pretty fun writing this.

Wow Frodlex how long did it take you to write this? This is awesome. I don't like the game, but this review made me want to try it again. This is an outstanding review. Keep up the good work!

tgags123 :
A user of this : You two would be surprised but this actually only took me a couple hours to bust out, But thanks for all the positive feedback, I apparently did well enough to get this review featured so apparently I did a good job as well, Hopefully I can keep this up and get even better with my reviews. Although it isn't everyday I get to review a game I know as well as Halo, Or one that has so much to talk about at that. Again thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it a lot, Time to finish up my next review though.