My Hands On with Halo 4 at Fan Expo

I got a chance to play Halo 4 at Fan Expo in Toronto. I got about 8 games in. Here are some of the notes i took from my experience:

Guns

·         BR - Felt great, i used this gun the most

·         DMR - very accurate, seemed like i could spam it much faster and be more accurate than from Reach

·         AR - very powerful, most people were using this gun. I got into several fights with people with the AR and i had a DMR, it was a 50-50 fight, very even fight. One weird thing was the DMR loadout, the AR was a selectable weapon, which made this loadout over balanced.

·         Pistol - seemed like the same pistol from Anniversary, great secondary weapon

·         Scattershot - loved this gun, killed a guy on a ghost from about 15ft away with one shot. Very deadly up close

·         Sniper - i don't like the sound of it, seemed i didn't have to lead my shots, i had to be very accurate...

·         Sword - seemed to make you run faster, just as deadly as before

·         Rockets - came loaded with 6 rockets, seemed pretty comparable to the rockets we all know and love

·         Needler, Carbine i didn't get a chance to use

Things I liked

- Ordinance drops were cool. Showed a logo of the gun that just dropped. Seemed like there was about 5 different random locations a weapon could drop at

- Personal ordinance drops were also cool. Once your meter fills up, it gives you 3 weapon options. Once you select it, wherever you aimed , it will drop within 2 secs. I had a couple team mates steal my drops, annoyed...

- BR was awesome, glad its back

Things I didn't like

- Seemed like ammo was a problem. They had about 6-7 loadouts to choose from. So everyone was picking different weapons. Which results in less ammo on the floor to pick up. I ran out of BR ammo several times and couldn't find replacement ammo. Very annoying. This could be a problem moving forward if so many loadouts are available...

- the sound of the sniper gun

- grenades seemed flat, with little more bounce than Reach's nades

Armor Abilities

- Promethean Vision was very helpful when i couldn't find anyone near me. When you wear headphones it might be too much intel

- Thrusterpack was useless, its basically the replacement for evade from Reach but it didn't move you as far, and only let you use it once before a long cool time

- Hologram is exactly the same as Reach

- Hardlight Shield was ok, once you press the button it comes out right away but when you're done with it, it took some like maybe 1 full second to put away, so it left you venerable afterwards.

Things I Noticed

- grenade indicator when a thrown nades lands near you, ALA Call of Duty

- Overshield looked like an blue bubble around the player, much like Halo 2 or 3 but blue and much thicker...

- there were power weapons at the start of the matches. We rushed for Sniper on Longbow all the time...

- loadouts were adjustable during the game

- instant respawns

- all the control schemes were there (thank god Legacy was there)

- Running was alittle odd at first. THe added button to the layout will take some time to get use to. I switched my buttons to "Recon" which had run as the "X" button which was very weird...

- The running animation was more like the BF3 jog, where you're whole body is moving unlike Reach's run animation which was more stiff...

Maps

- i got to play all three maps shown so far, Haven, Adrift and Longbow

- Haven: Symmetrical Map, very bright, seemed like a cross between Guardian and Narrows from Halo 3. Two floors with a center point on top mid that everyone was fighting at. Cool map IMO

- Longbow: Somewhat Symmetrical Map, snowy environment, much bigger than the other maps. I'd say size wise on par with the Halo 3 map Standoff

- Adrift: Only got to play this map once. Seemed like a cross between Reach's Countdown and Condemed. Very dark, and confusing hallways. If i got to play onthis map more i might know my way around it more.

If you watched last nights episode of Thick and Thin, we discuss my experience in more detail. Check out the stream at http://www.twitch.tv/2old2play/b/330308852#

I also was able to record 2 games. Here are those games:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-yGGnAeRh0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6TIei1o2T0

If you guys have any questions just let me know...