Halo

[Vakarian]

I need to catch up on Spartan Ops pronto.

[ShadowPred]

I need to catch up on Spartan Ops pronto.

lol me too. Still need to beat episode 2...only reason I didn't is because ch.4 from ep. 2 glitched on me, I beat it, but the game got stuck in a black screen right as the mission ended. When it fades out to tell you the mission has been beat, that's where it got stuck for me.

[Vakarian]

I need to catch up on Spartan Ops pronto.

lol me too. Still need to beat episode 2...only reason I didn't is because ch.4 from ep. 2 glitched on me, I beat it, but the game got stuck in a black screen right as the mission ended. When it fades out to tell you the mission has been beat, that's where it got stuck for me.

Aside from work, the only reason i ain't been playing is because of how bad the lag issues are multiplayer wise. :/ - Matchmaking is absolutely fine, it's just campaign and co-op mode that is a bitch.

[Nightmare Asylum]

Episode One lagged for me a lot, but that's only because of my friend's terrible router. I played Episode Two solo.

[KNIGHT]

My little theory on Spartan Ops.

Spoiler

I think Spartan Ops will likely slowly set up Jul 'Mdama as a larger villain, so we know just who he is for when he's in Halo 5. Either as a villain or, like I've said earlier, an Arbiter-styled character we get to play as. Or maybe that's just my fanboy for the character leaking out.

[close]

[Master Chief]

I hate to break it to, but

Spoiler

I killed him last night.

[close]

[Nightmare Asylum]

Meh, wish I didn't click that...Oh well, still looking forward to playing through the episode.

[Master Chief]

Ouch. Spartan Ops Ch. 3 solo (Heroic) is such a great challenge, but I think I'll do Legendary with support. I don't like to curse.

[Vakarian]

I think Spartan Ops on Legendary solo is a walk in the park, just because there are infinite respawns.

[Master Chief]

Challenge yourself. Try not to enjoy getting killed.

[Vakarian]

Oh don't get me wrong, I do try not to get killed, I just don't get frustrated to the level I did at some points doing the campaign on legendary solo.

[Nightlord]

RANT

So this isn't about Halo 4's main story which I think is great or it's MP which I like, no this rant is about the direction the Halo universe has been taking.

The Halo games have always had a slightly serious attitude to things, but the theme has always been epic romanticised heroism with a good ole dose of comedy and one liners, which is great and awesome and we all loved it.
The books on the other hand had that political intrigue and more serious look at things that the games never visited, with a tone that was alot more cynical and pessimistic, that was fine too it meant that stuff was there if you wanted a somewhat more serious take on Halo, but it didn't impose it self on the games as much as it does now.

Now though the Halo universe feels like it's being run by someone who only read the books and never touched one game in their life.
The newest book line, the Kilo-5 trilogy just outright spits in the face of Halo 3, the entire arc Bungie took the elites through is all torn to pieces just so we could fight them again in Halo 4.
Then we have ONI who have basically become the Cerberus of Halo, they want to start another war for no other reason than the fun of it.
The books are taking the cynical side of things to such ridiculous levels that it's laughable rather than interesting.

I wouldn't care much if this was just in the books and left there, but nope all this cynicism and political bullshit is seeping into the games now too, beginning with the very prologue of Halo 4.
Then when we finally meet back up with the UNSC, the captain of Infinity, Andrew del Rio is a character just for the sake of insulting Chief, because we totally need to have an opposing view all the time right.
The epilogue does somewhat redeem this stuff in the end, but then it looks like Spartan ops is set to continue the trend, yay.

I could complain about how much of the visiual designs are plain wrong too or how the soul seems to have been ripped from all the AI chatter but I won't, it just feels like 343i are being constrained by Halo and the kind of game they want to make isn't a Halo one.
I still absolutely love the story we got but I wonder if it would have been better if Chief had never woken up.            end rant

TL DR Halo 4's good but the universe feels hollow for it.

[KNIGHT]

The newest book line, the Kilo-5 trilogy just outright spits in the face of Halo 3, the entire arc Bungie took the elites through is all torn to pieces just so we could fight them again in Halo 4.

I disagree completely. The arc Bungie took the Elite's through is anything but torn to pieces. In fact, I feel like it's been expanded on further.

Halo 3 would have had us believe "Oh sure Elites and Humans are now all buddy-buddy peace and shit", but there really was no way a peace like that could last.

The Elites made a truce with Humans only because The Prophets ordered the extermination of their race. They still hated the Humans, they just couldn't afford to keep fighting them at the time.


The problem with truces like that, is while some may be content to keep that peace, most won't.

Which is what we've seen with Jul 'Mdama and the Storm Covenant. They don't speak for all of the Sangheili. They're just a fraction of the species.

Then we have ONI who have basically become the Cerberus of Halo, they want to start another war for no other reason than the fun of it.

Again, I must completely disagree. ONI's goal wasn't "lol let's start a war", nor was it "lol let's kill the Elites cause why not". It was "These guys were the military sword for The Covenant. We need to make sure they can't threaten us ever again".

Humanity was nearly extinct by the end of the war, with very few worlds left. They really couldn't afford another war, at least not so soon. Sure, The Arbiter wanted peace with The Humans. Obviously, though, he doesn't speak for the entire species. Hell, there was a damn Civil War over it on their planet.

While I do think ONI were kinda scumbaggish about it, it really was the best time to put the Sangheili down.

Then when we finally meet back up with the UNSC, the captain of Infinity, Andrew del Rio is a character just for the sake of insulting Chief, because we totally need to have an opposing view all the time right.

While I do agree Del Rio was essentially a dick, he did have some valid points. Master Chief wanted to go take the Didact Out right after The Infinity pushed him back. Del Rio, though, had to take his ship and crew into consideration. Honestly, had I been him, knowing only what he did at that time, I probably would have gone for a tactical retreat too.

[Space Sweeper]

I hate to break it to, but

Spoiler

I killed him last night.

[close]

That wasn't him, it was one of his lieutenants.

the soul seems to have been ripped from all the AI chatter

While I understand where you're coming from with all of this, what I've quoted above is all I can agree with in terms of what has been detrimental to the game(s).

I was seriously underwhelmed with the AI chatter in Halo 4; I even swapped weapons with various Spartans/Marines various times just to see if they'd say more than three or four things or anything that was supposed to be funny, but yeilded no results. On the topic of the Covenant, I'm severely disappointed that they took steps backward and made the Elites and Grunts speak alien tongues. It doesn't add anything, but takes away. It was pretty obvious why they did that for Reach (to make them truly stand out as alien invaders), but having them flip back in Halo 4 just seems to break continuity after 3 & 2.

I seriously hope they change back to English speaking Covenant in Halo 5, mostly because I want a true Covenant story with characters, a playable character, and the return of the Arbiter; god knows they can't have Keith David speaking gibberish in the sound booth. Fighting English speaking Covenant and playing as an Elite character again in the second entry of a trilogy... no bias.

Make it so, 343.

[KNIGHT]

I just assumed they were speaking a different language because it was a different dialect of Covenant Speech, and hadn't been translated yet like the common Covenant Dialect.