Now that the game has been out for a week, how is everyone here feeling about the lack of split screen? I'm noticing a lot of hate on the official pages and it is quite apparent by the ridiculous amount of zero's being posted to Metacritic that people have some deep feelings about this missing feature. I myself am in the less than impressed crowd. I get why things have been done, and I appreciate the level of graphic fidelity that we have seen here but I am pro choice. I would personally like to see a split screen update added, with a disclaimer mentioning it comes with a reduction in visual quality and stability, play at your own risk. I have stopped purchasing single player games altogether, because the main time I game is when friends are over. Single player games end up on Xmas lists. I own about 15 single player games still in their wrappers. I'm considering dropping the games that only offer single player campaign from my future request lists for this exact reason. I'm not about to rate this game a 0 because of this missing feature (and it is missing), but the frustration of it all brings what would be a potential 9 down to a 7 for me, and occasionally a 6 if I get fixated on it. These are my feelings. How about you?
The game is a 6 in my book but boosts up to an 8 when forge/btb releases but to give a 9 or 10... That's being generous especially about the overall length of the campaign, lackluster story, the growing noticeable issues in multiplayer, the req system, the overall limitations the game has which makes no sense as to why the game should limit itself. The game is not perfect nor does it earn an A for the overall game. As for split screen and choosing 60fps with high res graphics was a mistake. Sure all sorts of stuff they made for the game is excellent, amazing even but when you look at the big picture you see a mess. These decisions were made based on what? Game play is excellent because fans criticized the game early on to ensure smooth play. Although when you set the stage for a specific type of group it doesn't matter anymore. Especially since there's a lack of stuff on the base game. This game is built for fans to play possibly have them keep playing but when you remove split screen and limit the games potential its just asking to lose fans to a fresh new game that actually provides the things missing from Halo. I understand certain decisions but I will not look past other decisions that they made just because it seemed easier to do. Makes a slacker like me feel like they just half assed something that could of been 10/10 from the base game.
I agree with your sentiment over how to score this game. It sounds like we aren't really that far off. My score is not final and is based on my current impression of the Forge which is largely part of why I stated "a potential 9." I haven't played through the entirety of the campaign so far ( playing at 3 different times with 3 different people) but what I have played has been quite enjoyable. The movie sequences have been well done, I thought Rolands outburst was powerful, and the following chat between Buck and Locke was well done. Gameplay has been solid, with my only gripe being thrown onto dedicated servers for campaign. If there was more heavy lifting done by the server I wouldn't mind so much but 'to my knowledge' there isn't all that much going on behind the scenes. I honestly don't believe for a second that this is a smaller game but due to some major changes in gameplay it has dramatically shortened the single player experience. The largest culprit being the questionable revive feature followed closely by the much appreciated shorter check point system. The turbo full health restore is also a bit unnecessary and I would have approved of something that may have slowly restored your health over a couple minutes. Another problem is the difficulty levels. They all have seemed to have taken one step to the left. The major flaw in making a game that progresses faster is that you have to make the game progressively larger. I feel that they have made a larger game but failed to determine how large it really needed to be to make up for these changes. I think you will be more satisfied with the campaign length if you enable the Iron skull on legendary. It should add a number of hours of frustrating classic Halo gameplay.
Its just the actual issue is you shouldn't feel as if your forced to experience something you had in the previous Bungie Halo's. The gameplay is solid, although 343 advertising that the campaign length is double of Halo 4 is false and misleading. The actual Hunt the truth doesn't happen or we don't get both sides of the story like they were advertising. It would been more interesting if they went that route but oh well. I'm not sure if this is just me but if the game offered more options within the game instead of putting limits this game would of (in my opinion) received a higher score. We can only wait for the forge to be at our disposal and see what they could of possibly added in that's already in the base game.
I think its sad but where most video games are headed. Most players have they're own copy anyway and wouldn't need split screen. Perhaps it will end up reducing the 12 year old population.
All my friends owned a copy of Halo 1,2,3,4 and Reach (I was the only one to own ODST) and we all played via split screen at my place. We did a little online when we couldn't meet up in person but really Halo was a chance for us to game in person. There's only so much Kinect sports grown men can handle. We wanted to play other games as well but the limited number of co-op and 4 player split screen multiplayer games kept us on Halo's playground. Other than the love for the game we really have no reason to stay exclusively in said playground. We also didn't mind having 3 or 4 people over playing co-op round robin but this isn't as much fun in single player. You end up with one super cautious player that you have to set a time limit to because of their coma inducing gameplay. I wanted to sink more time into Destiny, but with a couple buddies still on the 360 and the lack of split screen, that game has been shelved since weeks after launch. I haven't even downloaded any of the expansions that I own. Matter of fact I haven't quite finished the base game story line.