Armor abilities add an enormous amount of complexity, yes. You have typically five loadouts in every game outside of the classic playlist, and unlike equipment or the relatively clean and elegant two power-ups from the original, you can use them pretty much constantly. So every firefight between two decent players involves a steady use of sprint, evade, jetpack, armor lock, whatever. Basically you go from playing chess to playing 3D chess. You could say that ups the level of tactics involved - and that's true - but most people would argue that chess is the better game because you can do so much strategically with a (relatively) simple premise. But that is hardly the only distinction between CE and Reach. CE had three multiplayer vehicles: warthog, ghost, scorpion (the wraith wasn't in multiplayer, nor was the banshee). They all served radically different purposes. Reach has ELEVEN: warthog, gauss hog, rocket hog, ghost, scorpion, wraith, banshee, revenant, mongoose, falcon. Inevitably the distinctions between them are blurrier. CE had eight weapons: pistol, AR, shotgun, sniper, rocket launcher, plasma pistol, plasma rifle, needler. Each one is functionally quite distinct, and if you wanted a long range or extreme close range or explosive weapon, you had literally one option. Reach has more than twice as many weapons: pistol, AR, DMR, needle rifle, needler, plasma pistol, plasma rifle, plasma repeater, fuel rod gun, rocket launcher, sniper, focus rifle, spiker, spartan laser, plasma launcher, concussion rifle, grenade launcher, sword, shotgun, grav hammer... I think that's all of them. There's now three close range weapons, four explosive ordinance weapons, two mid-range weapons that are near-identical (plus their maligned little brother, the pistol), three anti-vehicle weapons (and I didn't even include the turret, or the sniper which may as well be included here), four full-auto mid-range weapons that are so similar to most players that basically no one picks up three of them... etc. All of that hardly makes Reach un-fun or unplayable, but it took Halo from beautiful simplicity to messy complexity, and really to no end except as an end in itself. To me at least, Halo isn't more fun with all this stuff. It's just messier. And it made balance a lot harder to pull off, because all these weapons and vehicles and armor abilities have to be accounted for in a million different possible situations. Innocuous things that used to be straightforward, like putting a vehicle on a map and seeing if it's over or underpowered there, are now staggeringly difficult to determine. Adding or removing one weapon or vehicle on a map can throw the entire thing off-kilter. I believe Bungie has found it harder and harder to balance these things properly, so to compensate they've made a lot of power weapons and put them on their maps, especially the big team ones. Playing Paradiso, for instance, is weirdly close to playing "heavies" in Halo 3: you roll around with your one-shot-kill weapon or vehicle, until another OSK weapon or vehicle takes you out.
High concept games franchises can't make their killing with equally simplistic sequels. They have to expand and develop, to widen their audience.
Im not willing to read through the last 80 or so posts to see if this has been posted before, but here is some food for thought. If bungie set halo 4 in an alternate galaxy there would be no UNSW or covenant, therefore no warthogs, ghosts, assault rifles, dmrs, grenade launcher, brute shots, wraiths, etc... see what Im getting at? If they made it in an alternate galaxy the only thing left of halo is MC. I don't think 343 are gonna do that and think up a whole new set of weapons and vehicles.
Wow, I didn't even consider that. Hm. edit: maybe the stuff will just miraculously carry over from the remains of the frigate. or the planet you end up on is one with stuff strewn all around or it's a scavenger culture or something.
yeah there could definitely be plenty of UNSC weapons on the frigate. perhaps some forerunner tech will be introduced though.
O rly? How do you know this? And we could possibly see the pistol as the main weapon throughout Halo 4... seeing as this gun now has multiple attachments. I'm still not quite sure how they're going to scatter ammo throughout the the planet... thingy, lol
As I believe the Halo 4 thread that was linked some time ago about the story, there are already UNSC forces on the planet known as sigma 7. If that's wrong, it's wrong. As for the pistol, I watched the trailer a few more times, and watched the IGN rewind video (in which they knew nothing about Halo, but it was pretty handy nevertheless), I'm having doubts as to whether that's actually the pistol. Then again, it probably is.
i feel like if ONI knew of a planet covered in still-functioning forerunner tech they would have at least looked into it a bit and sent someone to check it out at least
Um...if you believe in the "leak" of halo 4 information from that one dude on bungie.net then ONI knew about that planet and even has UNSC troops inhabiting it and studying it for some time. So much time in fact that apparently they are no longer getting orders and warring amongst themselves. Again, all conjecture and from that one dude's "leaked" information post which may or might not be credible. There's a link to that guy's post on bungie.net somewhere round here.
The structure the frigate is approaching is one of The Didact's Shield Worlds, which means that its been populated by the Librarian, yeah. Oh, btw, Microsoft is not activision. L2notderp
Is it just me or does Chief's shoulder pieces look different in the Halo 4 trailer? It doesn't bother me any, just saying though.
i think its more that pieces or parts of pieces are missing than it being different armor. either from the cryo or just the events of halo 3.
2 to 3 didn't change that much compared to this though. Also, it's unexplained now, doesn't mean they won't put something in the game to explain it. the switch from 1 to 2 was unexplained in any of the media stuff leading up to it. EDIT: anyone else think his helmet looks like a cross between Mark VI, Recon and Scout?
i hate that helmet in that picture. i didnt think it looked so bad in the trailer. that one doesnt even look remotely like mjolnir to me. the rest of the body i dont mind, it actually looks pretty cool.