Halo 4: PAX News Part 2

The other bit of Halo 4 news that has come out from PAX has fans on the Internet flipping out for no reason as they appear to do always, slight changes made to some of the key multiplayer gametypes.  The one that has got fans riled up the most is not being able to drop the flag once you have picked it up in a game of CTF (Capture The Flag), in previous games in the franchise players would pick the flag up and perform what has been called "juggling" by the Halo community.  To juggle the flag the player would pick the flag up, jump, and at the highest point of their jump they would throw the flag, this would not only advance the flags position making it the quickest way to score the flag but it would make the in game announcer say "flag dropped, "flag taken" over and over again which would infuriate members of the other team.  It has become a staple of the competitive side of the franchise but now with the upcoming release of Halo 4 juggling is out, instead the player will now pick the flag up automatically, no longer will they have to hold the X button to do so, once the flag is picked up it the players movement speed will no longer be slowed down and they will automatically pull out a pistol in their other hand and epic music begins to play.  Take a look for yourself in this gameplay clip from PAX, don't mind the poor play of the player, in fact do not watch the whole video, I would be amazed if you could do so without vomiting.



This is a change that I feel the community is upset just because it is a change, in no way do I feel it takes away from the teamwork side of CTF, all it does is take away the ability for skilled players to have a very quick flag score on players who do not know all the tricks and play styles of the competitive community.  In fact I believe it increases the teamwork required to score the flag because of another new feature that has competitive players upset, with the inclusion of not being able to drop the flag the opposing team will also have an indicator on screen that simple says "kill" showing them where the flag carrier is.  The competitive community is upset by this for the fact that there is no longer the possibility of a stealth flag capture, I agree with this being a bummer for the fact that it was always great having to relay to teammates which way the flag carrier was heading in hopes that it wasn't too late for them to cut them off and ruin their capture party.  Now the main reason why I do like this indicator is for the fact that every player on your team knows where to go and what to do, no more complaining about teammates without headsets not communicating or just players in general going the complete wrong direction.  It again adds to the overall teamwork needed to capture the flag, you almost must have a well orchestrated plan to capture and bring the flag back to your base because now you know the entire other team will know the flags position once a member of your team has taken the flag.



The final change made to familiar objective modes found in the Halo franchise I am going to discuss happens in both Oddball and Grifball,  in Oddball traditionally one player on a team shall pick the ball up, hold the ball to score points, the ball can be dropped and passed to other members of the team if needed, and with Grifball the ball is a bomb, two teams face off spawning directly across from one another in a box of sorts, everyone is armed with a gravity hammer primary and a plasma sword secondary, the bomb spawns in the middle and must be taken into the other teams base (their spawn) and planted, then detonate to be scored.  The major change that is taking place is now the players have the ability to pass the ball or bomb depending on which gametype you are player, this changes the game immensely.  I can envision teams picking up the bomb at the start of a match of Grifball just to throw it as far as they can towards the other teams base as a way of pushing them back and advancing the bomb and in Oddball it is easy to for see what will happen, some epic games of monkey in the middle.  This is a welcome change to both games, not only does it add to the teamwork of each game but it adds to the fun that will happen, imagine intercepting a bomb pass in Grifball and taking it all the way to the other teams base for the score. or intercepting a ball pass in Oddball to steal away the win from the other team.  All in all I believe all these changes (even the ones in CTF that players are upset about) will bring great changes to these gametypes Halo fans have come to love and that fans should stop yelling at change, it is similar to the classic Simpson's newspaper headline, "Old Man Yells at Cloud."