Developers 343 Industries took every second of the three year development time to make a breathtaking game. Halo 4 takes place four years after 3, where Master Chief’s AI Cortana is reaching the end of her life. Together they set out to find a way to keep Cortana alive. Throughout the game you see a sociopathic Master Chief, who has problems interacting with humans, and how he connected to a machine in Cortana. The gameplay consists of the usual Halo fare: land somewhere strange, fight, press a switch and repeat. The only knocks are its length—way too short for such a stellar game—and it has a forgettable main villain. Halo is less about the enemy than it is about the man behind the machine. Though many people, including myself, initially thought this sequel was unnecessary, Halo 4 is arguably the best game in the series.
This article appears in Nov 22-28, 2012.