Halo 4 - Release Date November 6th, 2012

[CyberKnight (mod)]

Some more coming out of RTX (where they're doing their official unveiling): http://stickskills.com/2012/07/07/ha...d-at-rtx-2012/

[edit] Looking at Strat's Joystiq link, sounds like the video might have been recorded at the very RTX unveiling. Never mind.

[StratyMcStrat]

Here's 16 minutes worth of Forge video...

http://kotaku.com/5924199/halo-4-for...g-capabilities

[w0rm]

Forge looks much friendlier to use. I can see myself using it more than the Reach forge especially if there is a Forge environment consisting simply of a flat plane.

[CorruptedAngel]

Yeah, I had to miss out on this panel as nature and a need for food pulled me out of the conference room. I got to get in a round while at RTX, (the line was over 2 hours) and can vouch for the player movement speed in general feeling faster. We didn't have a ton of time for setting up loadouts, so my information on it's going to be limited, and running from memory.

There are three areas, Armor Ability, Support Ability, and Tactical Packages.

Armor Abilities I saw were Promethean Vision, Hard Light Shield, Hologram, and Thruster Pack. Holo is still the same, which will send a double of the character running out to a designated spot, PV and the shield have both been discussed, and the Thruster Pack is basically a short-range, high-powered jetpack for faster on-the-ground movement.

Here's where some lines to CoD can start to be drawn...

Support Abilities -
Ammo upgrade, which just ups the starting ammo count. (Like the MW3 Scavenger Pro secondary perk of starting with an extra mag's worth of ammo.)
Sensor upgrade, which increases the range of the motion tracker. (Kind of a visual SitRep Pro from MW3.)
Mobility, which allows players infinite sprint (Like Black Ops Marathon Pro.)
Awareness upgrade, which brings along the tracker to ADS/zoom weapons.

Tac Packages - AA Efficiency, which recharges your Armor Ability more quickly.
Resupply, which allows you to pick up grenades from dead enemies/teamates (Black Ops Scav. Pro, minus the ammo resupply.)
Shield package, which recharges your shields faster.
Firepower package, which lets you spawn in with two primary weapons. (See MW3 Overkill.)

As I only got one round in, I didn't get a ton of time to play around with different weapons. The DMR is still the DMR, and will likely be my base weapon of choice should I pick this up. I didn't manage to pick up a BR, but the Assault Rifle is also, well, still the Assault Rifle. Full-auto, and still takes nearly a full clip to down someone if there's not a smattering of headshots. The Ordinance Drop kind of confused me, as I had no knowledge of what I was really selecting there, and I only got one. We played a round of Infinity Slayer on a map that I don't know the name of, (sorry,) but felt pretty large, and had a decent amount of verticality to it, although I didn't really have time to go exploring, what with all the bullets and explosions and Warthogs around.

Down to it's core, the game still feels like Halo, although... slightly different. Not off, just more of an evolution than previous titles. All of the base mechanics are there, and the gunplay is still fun, but I'm not sure if it's for me at the moment.

edit: The Jimi references from the video come from the fact that the musical groups playing in the room next door were going through sound checks. Didn't help that the wall between the two was, well, just a retractable one that probably wasn't designed for sound dampening. We went through it with the RT panel that took place just before it.

Side Note: Mister Chief is now on my 360! Was fortunate enough that the 343 crew that was on-site commandeered a table and had an impromptu signing session. Unfortunately, I'm still missing a good deal of the RT cast and crew due to the number of people that were in lines to try to get their signatures, as well.

[StratyMcStrat]

http://youtu.be/Ca3Y8Ws3plI

[JediChric]

http://youtu.be/Ca3Y8Ws3plI

SWEET!

[StratyMcStrat]

Limited edition (meaning Best Buy will have a pile of them 5 years from now) Halo 4 Xbox 360 w/ 320GB Hard Drive - $400

[TC Mooch]

Limited edition (meaning Best Buy will have a pile of them 5 years from now) Halo 4 Xbox 360 w/ 320GB Hard Drive - $400

As much as I, or anybody else, would love to get this but why would you buy a $400 360 when the 720 is due to release the following year?

[DJ Gunner v2]

Well really, its still the $299 360, altbeit with a hard drive upgrade to 320gb and an extra controller ($54.99) and Halo 4.

What's awesome: the controllers and console are translucent.

What sucks: the bundle comes with the standard edition of Halo 4. For any true Halo nut that's going to do this, they have to buy this AND the Limited edition Game for another 100 bones and hope they get a decent resale out of the included standard copy.


(not that Ive spent any time considering this today...honestly....I promise...really.)

[dolphan117]

You are a tool, good sir!

And you sir, have the intelligence of an ameba. An ameba with the worlds worst hygiene.
Shoot me a message if you see me on and want to play some H3, its been to long since I was able to insult properly.

There are quite a few vidoes out there from MLG players who have logged a decent amount of H4 playtime and they are starting to REALLY go on about how overpowered PV. It continues to be the biggest thing that scares me about this game.

It has a BR though, which apparently behaves a lot like the H3 BR. I cant tell you how happy that makes me.

Player speed and jump are definitely increased - I've been playing Halo 3 the past few days and it feels so much harder for me to aim...part of that is due to the BR vs DMR with different aim assist and hit scan vs bullet travel, but a big part is the player speed and jump height. I think Halo 4 will definitely be tougher when it comes to aiming - at least for me. The BR does seem weak (compard to DMR) but we'll have to see what happens when the game is released.

It will be interesting to see how they balance it all out. The videos looked good as far as balance but we have to see how it holds up after people have time to figure out which combos work best.

I doubt they'll remove PV, but maybe they'll tweak it somehow. I'm not a fan of it, but it could be worse I guess. The shield didn't look very useful, but coordinated teams with 2 or 3 shield users may get annoying...who knows, it doesn't look anywhere near as annoying as armor lock so good news there.

One thing I'm wondering about, is how will the game work if people can spawn with plasma nades or the plasma pistol. I don't mind an occassional game with everyone having sticky nades, but I can't imaging every game having tons of people using sticky nades off of spawn! We had that with slayer pro and I hated it....luckily 343 changed it to just frags (at least in rumble pit, not sure everywhere). And even if they make the PP harder to use, it still is an occassional free kill using an overcharge and a melee (up close) or a headshot at distance. I'm not saying it won't work, but will be interesting to see if there are annoying combos that are way more powerful than others.

Cyber - not sure which glow is which but I think one is overshield (green?) and another is increased movement...hmmmm...i could be wrong on the 2nd one.

Honestly I would say the aim assist and hit scan vs travel is a bigger factor then you are giving it credit for, particularly if you are on a week connection vs someone on 4 bar. I always felt leading targets in H3 was one of the things must people never figured out, and the latency variance that good host vs bad host provided made it really inconsistent game to game. But yes, movement speed definitely is a factor as well, though I dont think jump height makes all that difference for aiming.

I guess one of the questions with the sticky grenades is how powerful they will be in terms of damage radius, some of the videos I have been watch make the grenades seem MUCH less powerful then Reach and even less so then H3. Which I chalk up to 343 trying real hard to fix the things people complained about with Reach, and maybe going a little too far. Its the kind of thing thats could easily get tweaked before release though.

Starting to get just a little excited for H4 honestly.