Halocopter 4

Strangely, around the same time Halo 4 came out, I saw Halo 4” lights on sale at Home Depot, and had to wonder if it was a completely unrelated coincidence or an actual ad wizard came up with that one.

My ability to splatter enemies across the map has been hampered as of late. In virtually all cases, the splatee is jumping out of the way, whereas I am being splattered constantly. I tried using the hard light shield ability a few times, thinking it would cause the offending vehicle to instantly explode like in Halo Reach when deployed. Nope. The same damage is taken with or without the shield, which defies the laws of physics. Halo is full of those confusing moments where something that seems innocent can kill you, and something that looks like it can kill you is harmless. For instance, being attacked from behind can instant-kill you, whereas taking a full clip to the sternum at point-blank range has the same effect on your shields as stubbing your toe. I think the major change with my ability to pilot vehicles effectively has to do with the enemy always standing directly in front of a rock or wall, causing me to curve my steering too much to be effective. I end up missing and grinding up against the wall, unable to turn, while they throw grenades at me. There’s always a second fucker blasting away at my vehicle while I’m zeroed in on a target as well. Bailing out never, ever works. Not for me. I’ll hold down the X button and my character will take two seconds to jump out. The animation for the exit always starts as the vehicle explodes in a purple haze of plasma.

People online were bitching because weapon drops have to be earned now instead of being pre-placed on the map. I’m fine with that. The game was all about running like mad when you spawned to grab the best gun, and then suffering if you happened to get there second. The vehicles are still ready to go, with other appearing at certain pre-set scores. That means everyone runs for the vehicles now when the game starts, because you’re a sitting duck if you don’t. I don’t know why the Ragnarok map has four mongooses. Mongooses suck. They suck so hard. So very hard. They’re useless. You can’t even run people over with them. You always sort of just bounce off them, like you’re on a giant beach ball. Then you get blown up.

I had to look online to remember how to assassinate. It’s not listed in your controls. You’d think it’d be a big thing, considering it’s always an insta-kill. I did my first assassination in the game on a Knight in Spartan-Ops. My screen lit up with Achievements and Avatar Awards. It’s like I found the game’s clitoris.

I was expecting a huge drop in the online population because of CoD, and there was.