HeruLuingul

GRAPHICS: It probably looks amazing. I bet. Somehow. If you can actually see through the oceans of overzealous bloom covering everything. Some portions of the game literally blind you. Crossing a light bridge? Can't see anything else in the room. Enemy standing in front of a light source? Good luck scoping in on him without your eyeballs catching fire. Everything just emits a radioactive aura about five times as large as is reasonable. I'm not totally against bloom, like I love Tron Legacy and that movie is chock full of it. But the bloom is just so extreme it actually prevents you from enjoying what is probably the best graphics on the 360 right now. I wouldn't know because playing is like staring into the sun. AUDIO: I guess I can't really complain about Cortana's voice acting, because she IS going insane, but she just sounded so casual and snarky this time around. There was always a hint of 'proper" in her voice before. Her vocabulary was more advanced. Now she sounds like an angsty teen. But where she had the body to match before, now she looks 30+. Confused. Sound effects in general are complete crap, I don't understand why 343 felt compelled to change so much instead of updating the old sounds. The Warthog sounds like an electric shaver from the 70's, or a crappy lawnmower with a fart can. The Mongoose sounds like the Warthog SHOULD sound. The plasma pistol sounds mechanical instead of, well, energy. The shotgun has no bass, where the Assault Rifle has way too much bass. The warthog's chain gun sounds like the glitchy noise when weapons would get stuck in the walls in Halo CE Anniversary (It's like 343 noticed that glitch and said "hey, I like this sound, let's work with it"). Everything is just way too loud, there's no balance to what sounds have priority. When you're shooting a gun from a vehicle while listening to Cortana and the Infinity talk to you at the same time, it all just cancels itself out and you can't make sense of anything. MUSIC: It's not BAD, but it's just so generic. I suppose I've been spoiled by Marty's genius, but Halo 4 sounds like your standard summer blockbuster action movie fare. I would compare it to Transformers by Michael Bay, but I actually remember some of the music from Transformers. This stuff is entirely forgettable, and multiple times during the campaign, my friend I was playing co-op with commented on how repetitive and boring it was, so I know it's not just me. GAMEPLAY: I haven't touched Multiplayer yet so this is all about Campaign. What a ridiculous glitch fest. The production value is obviously high, so there's a level of polish to it, but there's some really obvious problems I would have identified immediately if I were a playtester. So many times, I killed an enemy and walked over to his corpse, only to find the gun he was using had disappeared. If you try to get in the hovering covie sniper towers, you'll get stuck between the grav lift and the bottom of the platform. The enemy AI are HORRIBLE drivers. They frequently get stuck on walls or level geometry and don't do anything to attempt getting un-stuck. They just continue boosting forward into the wall, as if that will help. If you're on Legendary and playing a vehicle-heavy level, you're **** out of luck. And before you all scream "LOL YOU CASUAL YOU JUST ****," know that I have completed it on Legendary. When you're on the highest difficulty, it is LITERALLY impossible to drive a vehicle and avoid enemy shots. The AI tracks your motion with complete omniscience. Your banshee will be shot down the moment you leave the ground. your ghost will be blown up if you don't use boost constantly. Your warthog will be obliterated by small-arms fire if you manage to avoid the five Wraiths sniping you from a mile away. I know that legendary is supposed to be difficult, but in the previous games I could still make use of vehicles without being destroyed in seconds. Some of the action sequences SCREAMED Call of Duty to me, like the turbo-ghost section. It reeked of "Snowmobile level." Particularly the scripted long jumps that would be impossible to make under normal circumstances. Vehicle sections in previous Halo games always relied on the actual capabilities of the vehicle being driven, and your skill. This is pandering. I'm also incredibly mad that the game begins and ends with quick-time events. Which, BY THE WAY, do not work in Co-op at all. I was on my own xbox, playing co-op with two guys who were splitscreen on another. The first QTE switched control between the two split-screen guys every two seconds, so they were never sure who should be doing it. And the last one at the boss battle was given to me, so they never even knew it happened. Ideally the game would not have any QTEs, but if it's really necessary, just give control to the party leader and be done with it. But give me a real boss battle over this any day. Summing up, 343 has destroyed Halo for me and I hate them for it

Starfox is just as good as it used to be, but now with awesome HD textures. The ability to save is welcome, but you get a little bonus recognition on the scoreboard for doing it in one sitting like the good old days. Multiplayer is cool but there REALLY should have been online. Because of the local-only, this game hardly ever gets broken out since I played the campaign a few times. If I could play random people online, you better believe I'd be dogfighting every day. Haven't bothered with the gyro stuff, classic controls are my thing.

Swapnote is basically e-mail, but with drawings instead of words. And things aren't delivered the moment you send them, it's more of when the software feels like delivering it, as notes are only sent in spotpass (when the system is closed). And if someone replies to your note, you can't directly reply back, so it prevents discussion chains of any kind. And the 3D makes the lines really fuzzy except for 2 specific spots on the 3D slider. And the amount of "ink" you're allowed can get pretty limiting if you're a good artist. And all of the features are gradually unlocked as you send notes, which is kind of irritating. It's useless for attempting any real communication, and the limitations end up making it the current day equivalent of drawing **** on the bathroom wall for other people to see later. Still, can't really knock it bad, cause it's free.