1 Nothing?

Is it me or has 1up.com’s Halo Reach coverage of Halo Reach been pretty light in contrast to what they had for the release of Halo 3? What’s the matter 1Up? Did you piss off Lukems?

So what did we think of the Halo 4 game play from E3?

Well, I think this image above sums it up. There’s the Chief, chatting with Cortana with the Covenant flying overhead to some urgent target. It’s Halo and it’s looking like it 343 have nailed the ‘Halo feel’.

Initial I am impressed by the amazing colour palate that’s been put on display for the first time at today’s E3 Expo.

I’m so impressed by the palate, I want to talk about the colour green. The Master Chief has always been green. When the first images of the big green guy were released a few months ago, I was drawn to his new hue of verdant wonder. Now, we can see that the game will have amazing greens:

They are just perfect and it looks like any game play set in the forests of the planet Requiem will simply be a delight to play in and shoot the Promethean Knights and Crawlers!

Much has already been made of the UNSC Infinity. We’ve already heard how it is going to form a major component of the multiplayer game play, which seems to be a nice twist from what we have been feed in recent years. The live action trailer featuring the ships crew is pretty darn impressive too.

Like how the Pillar of Autumn was a space ship that was a fairly important character in Halo: Combat Evolved, the Infinity appears destined to have a central role in Halo 4. At the very least it’s gonna be a source of Ammo, Warthogs and cannon fodder UNSC soliders for the Chief to utilise in game. The campaign suggests there will be at least one mission that revolves around our green guy making his way to the ship.

I think the design of the Infinity is an excellent example of the attention to detail and ‘the getting it right so that it’s Halo’ mentality that 343 Industries has long been proclaiming as their design directive.

What about the creatures that the Master Chief got to go a couple of rounds with? In what would appear to be a first for Halo, it appears the Chief might have finally met his match in the form of the Promethean Knight, a dude with an ass so big he can hide the Promethean Watcher inside it.
That final Knight we saw, totally kicked the Chief’s ass and appeared to have actually knocked him out with a punch to the head. This is a good point to raise that the campaign revealed that the Chief appears to have the ability to rumble in the jungle in a kind of boxing mode (as opposed to the traditional melee option). Could be interesting, and probably a real challenge when taking on a Knight on legendary mode. I totally dug the shield they deployed but the re-turn of the grenades by the Watcher seemed a little corny….
At least we know who this fellow was now….
I think, at first flush, those Promethean Crawlers are going to be really annoying bastards like those Clickers from the Gears of War series. Time will tell.
What else does the campaign reveal to us? There’s a wicked new Light Gun that’s left by the Promethean Knight, that’s a kind of souped up carbine of sorts. I’m picking it will be a player favourite. I’m pretty keen to see how the Scattershot turns out in practice too!
“I have long dreamt of this day, Reclaimer.”

Such is the line at the end of the trailer which hints at what might be the main protagonist of Halo. Given Requiem is a Forerunner planet, I’d be pretty confident this is the Diadact – given Frankie has said the Halo novels Cryptum and Primordium are direct tie ins to the Halo 4 campaign, I think this is likely fella to get the plot rolling along. Indeed, the symbol that is displayed when the line is uttered is that of the Diadact himself.

The campaign material also makes a direct reference to Cortana’s forthcoming rampancy. It’s clear that this is intended to be a major plot point for the Halo series. It will be interesting to see how her state of mental decay influences plot developments.
So what’s with that big orange ball that’s chasing / guiding the Infinity to the ground? Some kind of Monstrously Large Monitor or security agent?
We also got to see a fancy new HUD which reveals some kind of Predator like visor mode, reminiscent of the ODST version. The HUD also suggests that when parties such as Cortana communicate with the Chief, there will be a video interface of some sort.
And one thing that was revealed on the Halo Waypoint site was the mechanical suit, which looked pretty cool.