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Halo 4 looks and feels a lot darker than previous instalments. The Covenant forces, along with their requisite hardware and vehicles, have also returned, although for Halo 4 they seem to have left the Brute shocktroops at home. They also helpfully drop weapons, which are variants of the pistol, machine gun, shotgun, sniper rifle and rocket launcher that players expect in an FPS. These floating units not only rain down gunfire on the player, they drop shields in front of other units and warp in new ones if they aren't dispatched quickly.Īll three Promethean units have their own set of animations for players to learn in order to take advantage of the particular rhythm Halo has always offered as a shooter. Watchers are the most annoying of the bunch. Knights are the bi-pedal units – they look like human skeletons encased in glowing carapace-like armour and they have a nasty habit of teleporting to safety when the player reduces their health significantly. Crawlers are the grunt units – these four-legged horrors can cling to any surface and usually come armed with a pistol or machine gun, which augments their vicious melee attack.
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The Prometheans are split between three unit types: Crawlers, Knights and Watchers. Play for longer than an hour, however, and you'll begin to take in the changes 343 have made to the Halo universe – notably in the form of the Prometheans, the brand new enemies of Halo 4, who seem to be the result of some sort of horrific merging of human flesh and digital steel. Halo 4 Photograph: Copyright, Microsoft, 2009. If you've ever played (and loved) a Halo title, you'll be right at home here. The controls feel like they haven't been updated since the original entry Halo 4 may take one or two cues from the current crop of shooters, but RB is still melee and zoom are activated by clicking in the right stick, rather than pulling the left trigger. Weapons give a satisfying kick when fired, and driving a vehicle is like piloting a particularly chunky marionette. Master Chief – or the player's own customised Spartan troop in the co-op and competitive multiplayer modes – handles like a lissom athlete with the physical presence and power of a Mack Truck. So it's no surprise then, that at its core, Halo 4 looks and plays like any other Halo game. Oh, and since it's the new entry in the Xbox 360's FPS flagship franchise, it'd better sell by the lorryload too. They've been tasked with producing a game that moves the Halo franchise forward, while remaining true to the expectations of its fan base and its legacy.
Halo 4 developer photo crack#
As the first studio to have a crack at the Halo franchise since original developers Bungie jumped ship, 343 have a pretty tough checklist. It's a question that must have kept the development dream team at 343 Industries up at night. So how does a developer put their personal stamp on this kind of game? In other words, how much innovation is there room for in the creative process, when the game one is working on is Halo 4? H ere's a conundrum for any armchair games developers out there: how would you go about creating a new instalment in a franchise that both the fans and the owners of the IP in question want to stay as close to the last entry possible? In games, innovation and pushing the envelope are practically required, as well as expected.