One thing I really admire about Halo 4, which might be the polar opposite to a lot of opinions on the game, is it's efforts to really do something different. There's something about the game that stands out to me amongst the rest, it feels almost individual in it's presentation.

To elaborate, this my thoughts on the creative process of Halo 4 in regards to tone, narrative etc. and not about the gameplay or MP, on which my thoughts tend to differ quite significantly.

But I wanted to write about the things I love about Halo 4 - from an OG trilogy fanboy.

First of all, Halo 4 in my opinion did a magnificent job in the soundtrack department. The soundtrack felt new and fresh, the alienesque synth approach to the tracks really complimented the forerunner backdrop and visuals. It also reinforced that this was a *new* story.

Some of my favourite tracks include Requiem, Aliens and Green and Blue.
The alienesque synth approach really compliements the tone and surroundings you find yourself in.
The soundtrack complimented one of my favourite moments in the entire series.

^ No moment in the series has ever stayed with me quite as vividly as when you make your way through the caves, catch the sunlight cracking through the exit across your visor, only to met with an astonishingly beautiful landscape, complimented with the swelling of the music.

This brings me to a highly discussed element of the 343 games - the visuals and art design.

Now, Halo 4 for me, is an absolutely beautiful game and I'm sure most would agree. It was stunning in 2012 and still is now, Microsoft not making it an X1 launch will forever confuse me.

Now as for the art design itself, I actually think 343 did an amazing job of the landscapes (seriously, even in MP, look at those backdrops)
And although it deviates heavily from Bungie's design, i think the forerunner structures are breath taking.

Where I do take issue, and stand with most of the community, is the design of the forerunner enemy types. They just do not make any sense to me, the designs just come across as loud and in your face, and completely contrast the elegant design of the architecture.

I'm 50/50 on it

I also wish that we saw more of those beautiful forerunner landscapes, like we did in Halo CE. Instead the game becomes trapped in it's endless corridor shooting, and feels like a waste of Requiem's potential. The only real breathing room came with Shutdown.

But the visuals and music aside, always a point of contention in the community, I'm finally at the point I'm excited to talk about:

343's emphasis on character development in Halo 4, and their ability to take a self insert character and humanise them.

(Before we get to that, I just wanted to talk about Chief's "heavily modified" Mark VI armour)

I genuienly like it, though there are some design points that leave a lot to be desired (and have questionable efficiency mid-op in regards to exposed areas)

For me, nothing will beat the robust, clean cut nature of the Mark V/Mark VI - and Infinite has returned to form on that point.

I do however enjoy the design, but it's weaked aspect is it's implementation, which rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

Picture this:

You awake on the Forward unto Dawn, in the same Mark VI (heavily damaged after your escape from The Lesser Ark's destruction) you make you're way through the game until your rendezvous with Infinity. Cortana asses the damage, and the Infinity-

A ship that by all means, would be outfitted with newer technology, could have provided the means for Master Chief to change his armour, smoothing that transition from the Bungie armour into 343's preferred style.

Instead, we uh, we go this.

Now that that's out the way, back to the meat of this thread - the characters. Now this, among some other aspects, is something I wish Halo 5 had focused on going forward, in reality Halo 5 felt like a totally different game.

Chief and Cortana were nothing short of amazing.

Having John and Cortana's love and dependency upon one another was really exciting to see in game, rather than being left to the external media to expand upon. It's dive into Cheif's psyche, Cortana's rampancy and her relationship with Halsey. It all made a compelling game.

I didn't push through Halo 4 so I could see what happened to the cartoon villian Didact and his Saturday morning TV show super deadly alien blaster, I did so because of Chief and Cortana. I wanted to know that they were OK, and the ending to that game is phenomenal.

It was that good I like to pretend the events of the next game didn't happen, just to preserve the feelings I had back in 2012 towards their relationship. It was masterfully done, and set the stage for a new battle the series had never encountered before:

Chief's depression.

A shame it was never really followed through, but I won't know the wonderful work Halo 4 did executing this in a game series that was generally seen as "big green robot kill alien lizards" and only played for it's MP (which to this day I will never understand)

A note on Didact: I didn't hate him, I just wanted more from him than his Saturday morning cartoon villian routine. Instead of a COLLASAL exposition dump mid game, or terminals, I wanted development from the man himself. There was so much that could've been tapped into

And just like Jul 'Mdama, his handling makes me extremely sad, as both of those characters had ridiculous potential in the Halo universe. Both could be sympathised with, understood, and fleshed out even more in the games. A shame, but back to Halo 4.

Halo 4 in my mind, stands as a love letter to Halo in my eyes - were there missteps? Absolutely. Missteps I was very harsh on at release.

But I will always appreciate an effort to give new life to a story, characters and setting, even if it doesn't all work out perfectly.

Because those missteps weren't malicious, they weren't done because no one cared about the series. I think anyone who has played Halo 4 knows this, it's clear a lot of effort was put in and I only wish that it's sequel was more a sequel. I wanted to see themes carried over.

Halo 4 will always be a strange little outlier in the series to me, just because of it's divisive nature. I think the game does deserve credit in certain departments. It's very easy to detract from something as a whole when negatives raise their

Personally, I appreciate Halo 4.

*sorry about the spelling errors, it's still quite early in britbong land and I've been writing this after waking up.