Escapecraft

It came out on the 6th, and I have been playing it nonstop since. It has certainly taken over my free time somehow

So, yeah! What does everyone think of it?

I liked it, the campaign got a bit repetitive after killing so many of those robot dog lookin things, but the multiplayer is fun. And of course they had to do the teaser at the end of him taking his helmet off then the screen going black

IT'S F*CKING AMAZING

Does anybody want to play with me anytime? my gamertag is Robipod Supreme

I finished the campaign, and while I do have to give 343 credit for really tuning up the graphics and gunfire sounds (Halo 3's rifle noises sound like dying chimpanzees in comparison to the new sounds), I found there were still a few plot holes in the story that I probably shouldn't reveal due to spoilers, and the story's campaign seemed dull to me in a sense that you are just going from room to room, clearing the area of Elites and those Forerunner things with the occasional vehicle mission thrown in every now and then.

Forge was a big letdown for me. Compared to Reach, settings were included there for a massive world specifically devoted to creating things in Forge, as well as options to make polygonal shapes, essentially allowing you to create structures and buildings that aren't included in regular Halo Reach files. However, 343 apparently thought it would be a good idea to fuck all this over, and go back to Halo 3's relatively dull Forge mode that was mainly used for creating custom matchmaking maps. This was probably the biggest disappointment I found in Halo 4.

Spartan Ops is quite nice in my opinion, though. The first Op mission involves clearing an area of enemies with vehicles that is more entertaining tenfold when you bring in 3 other players to help you, and so I never found myself at a lack of amusement each time I'd finish this level and gain an extra 5000 XP towards my character to unlock upgrades and other swanky things.

Another neat Spartan Ops level that I found repetitively fun was the third mission (Or second, can't remember) where you and three other players are pitted into a firefight against Covenant forces and those Forerunner things, with unlocked perks taking a large account into your performance during the level. Then, to add a cherry on top, random sequences during the mission will involve heavy ordnance such as railguns and rocket launchers being dropped down to your position, and watching grunts being sent up into the air never gets old for me. To boot, some of the elites drop energy swords, and running at your opponents and killing them with one press of a button is extraordinarily entertaining for me.

So in a sense, I think 343 did an amazing job with Halo, while the story seemed a bit rushed, and non sensible, the visual and audio effects had been drastically improved as well as a nice clean-up of the multiplayer system, taking similarly after CoD's unlocking weapons - ranking up sort of thing, without including the dull repetitiveness of each game that was also in CoD's online system.

Overall, I give it a 8/10. Would make OP.

Now, submit that to your teacher for your next essay and you'll be good!

motormaniac wrote:Now, submit that to your teacher for your next essay and you'll be good!

Thanks, I was hoping my review would be Grade A literature, I should honestly consider publishing it under a book title, would probably be a New York Times bestseller.

Invunarble wrote:I...P.

I thought the storyline was great, but that might be because I read all the books and they tie in a fair amount, particularly Halo: Cryptum and Halo: Primordium, which give the Didact and the Librarian backstory. The Thursday War also explains a lot about the Spartan IVs, which sort of just turned up without comment.

The Forge is good, with LOADS of items, there are specific forge maps, with Impact, Erosion, and one other giving the most spawnable items, and big areas for building. I felt, while they did lose a little of Reach's, it was still much much much much much much better than the clonky building of Halo 3.

I am a teensy bit biased with regard to Halo, but I though 343 did a great job of picking up from Bungie. Crazy Cortana amuses me also.

Generally, that's one thing I dislike about series that incorporate external literacy into their games that require you to read/watch a whole bunch of books/tv shows just to understand how context in the game suddenly appears (Similar to Mass Effect 3's Grissom Academy and Assassin's Creed III's Daniel Cross and the whole ordeal behind him), and often I'll just end up interpreting these moments in the game as plotholes, since there is not much previous explanation in predecessor games about how these aspects suddenly appeared into the story (Didact and the Librarian, for example).

As far as Forge is concerned, I may have been a bit biased to say they detracted from that in comparison to Reach, while I did try out a few Forge maps yesterday, I was generally unimpressed on how less user-friendly Forge had been modified to for Halo 4 compared to it's predecessor, more specifically the distinct lack of a world that was made for the direct purpose of Forge (Impact and Erosion are adjustable to work well in matchmaking without Forge modifications).

Also, holy fuck with the codes for this game. I preordered a copy of it, and I've so far accumulated two 2 month free Xbox Live Gold codes, two 480 Microsoft Point codes, four codes for the preorder bonuses, a 2 week trial code, a 3 match Double XP code, and five other Double XP codes that I've picked up from various Mountain Dew/Doritos products which all added up to 24 total matches of Double XP - A bit overkill in my opinion.

I recently tried out forge, and it was a real disappointment. There are hardly any useful props available and I was also hoping the whole budget thing would be removed, but i guess not. It is similar to Halo 3's forge, except in Halo 3 you could actually make SOME good maps.

The Double XP codes are really stacking up on my Xbox Live account, so far I've accumulated a grand total of 32 Double XP Codes. Recently I've been buying an extra Mountain Dew slurpee cup at my nearby 7/11 with my regular drink at lunch each day just for the second code, and used a total of 18 Double XP codes in one day last week. I think I'm going too hardcore on this...

Curiously, how many codes has everyone else used so far?

Wait a sec... you're paying extra money just for a little bit of double xp? And people complain about having to pay for DLC...

Invun, your blood must be mountain dew if you get through that much Anyway, add TyreseEngineer and if you let ne know you're from escapecraft I'll probably play a few games if I have time!

Sti_Jo_Lew wrote:Wait a sec... you're paying extra money just for a little bit of double xp? And people complain about having to pay for DLC...

Well, first of all, each slurpee cup I buy gives me three double XP matches, and at the SR30sish rank, that's almost two levels guaranteed right there, all bundled with my drink for lunch.

Also, general de-motivator of mine to purchase Xbox Live/Steam/other internet things is that it either requires some sort of series of codes to activate, or it requires the usage of a credit card. With my drinks, I just have to give the cashier at the store a $5.00 bill and I have half my lunch and some bonus XP to use.

Ok, that makes sense I guess then...

I would now like to point to This in regard to invun.

vallorn wrote:I would now like to point to This in regard to invun.

Here, I'll summarize the entirety of that video you just directed me to:

"Microsoft is corrupt, everything is a conspiracy, people who can make money are all stupid, blah blah, 9/11 was an inside job by the Illuminati, and doritos are stupid."

Ewwww....

Jimquistition. I can't stand that guy.

I've avoided reading replies as I think I nearly got spoiled by Motor's reply. I luckily stopped reading at 'tease'.
I'm yet to finish the Campaign. I've just had barely any time. I'm up to the bit where you've just met Lasky. Loving it so far. The Multiplayer is great too, though I've only played a few matches. Can't wait to try Spartan Ops, but apparently that takes place after the Campaign, so I'm holding off for now.

Actually, Spartan Ops takes place during/before the campaign, so don't be intimidated by the possibility that you will spoil anything.

In fact, a new Spartan Ops episode is released weekly, and the servers only host the current week's episode, so you should try them sooner if playing them cooperatively online with others is your best interest.

No, Spartan Ops is after the campaign, once humans have returned to Requiem to try and uncover more of its secrets, now that the [bad dude] is gone. The Prometheans and Covenant are still acting on their standing orders of "no humans lol"

Invunarble wrote:

vallorn wrote:I would now like to point to This in regard to invun.

Here, I'll summarize the entirety of that video you just directed me to:

"Microsoft is corrupt, everything is a conspiracy, people who can make money are all stupid, blah blah, 9/11 was an inside job by the Illuminati, and doritos are stupid."

I like Jim Sterling and his hyperbole, he says what he thinks and i tend to agree with him. What he's actually saying is that making marketing deals is fine, you want to make as much money as possible, but don't act like the games industry actually needs to do it. Also thank Sagan for me.