Weekend Confirmed 127 - Darksiders 2, Dust: An Elysian Tail, Madden NFL 13

So.... I just played Halo 4 :D

I got to play a few rounds of multiplayer at Fan Expo this past weekend.

I played competitive multiplayer, Big Team Battle. We played on 2 different maps: one larger with vehicles, the other smaller and more of an arena-style environment.

Some standount impressions:

* The game feels very polished. The engine is greatly out-performing the Halo Reach engine. Better lighting, frame rate, smoother animations, greater detail, and that annoying "ghosting" effect is gone.

* Weapon balance feels finely tuned. Every weapon I got my hands on felt uniquely useful and powerful.

**** Player movement ****

I do feel 343 has made a fundamental change to the classic Halo formula in terms of the manueverability of the spartans.

The general pace of the game is faster than Reach. Kill times are slightly faster, weapon rate of fire feels a little faster. All players now have sprint as a default ability, so you can get around the map much faster.

BUT... the base player movement speed feels slower. Your spartan feels heavy and clunky during standard movements. I think this is a big part of why the kill times are faster... the players aren't able to strafe and jump around as quickly during combat. You definitely feel a little more pinned to the ground.

On the flip side, the right thumb stick (your "look" control) feels much faster and twichier. It makes turning and looking up/down much faster and more responsive, even with a low controller sensitivity.

The effect this has on gameplay is interesting. I felt like it forces the player to focus more on accuracy and weapon efficiency, rather than bouncing around the environment during a firefight. I still felt very mobile thanks to Sprint and some of the other armor abilities, but when the combat starts the movents definitely slowed down. This makes close-quaters combat particularly frantic, since players will alternate between stationary firing and sudden sprint/melee attacks.

Overall, I found it to be very different, but very fun. I'm definitely excited to play more.

I recorded a podcast with a friend who was at fan expo with me. If anyone wants to hear more about what we thought of Halo 4, here it is:

http://waypointmodcast.com/episode-25-halo-4-hands-on/