Halo 4 - Part 1

[Thundercrack85]

It was just a major let down to me. The climax was so lame. It just ended and I was like WTF? There was no clear end like at the end of Halo 1 or Halo 2 or Halo 3.

Glad to know there's someone else out there who feels that way.

 

[Benstamania]

Halo 2 ended up being one of my least favorite campaigns...Mostly due to the focus on alien weapons... Which, for the most part, I hated. Also... You want to talk about a game "just ending" look no further than 2.

 

[jacobed]

Didn't have a clear end? Halo 4 is the first Halo game with an end. Ce may have had one because i can't remember it too well. Halo 2 had the worst ending of all time which was a cliffhanger. Halo 3 had the uncertainty cliffhanger of Master Chief. Halo 4 ends on a sad but poetic note with Lasky and Chief. I found it to easily be the best and one that actually ends the game, no big cliffhanger or anything. I didn't care there was no boss fight, I considered that whole level to be the boss fight because it was quite the gauntlet of enemies.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

I think Halo 4's ending is pretty damn clear. And yes, I despised how Halo 2 ended.

And yes, that conversation between Lasky and Chief was more engaging and better written than anything in the previous Halo games. You learn more about Chief from one conversation than from 3 games leading up to it.

And I agree Jacobed, that final level was a boss fight. Starting with the Star Warsesque sabre flight to the endless gauntlet of enemies... That was more exciting than a one on one fight would have been, which would have felt ridiculously out of place.

The only let down I have about this game was that it was so short.

 

[TheWiseGuy487]

It was just a major let down to me. The climax was so lame. It just ended and I was like WTF? There was no clear end like at the end of Halo 1 or Halo 2 or Halo 3.

You were let down because of the ending, and all of the sudden the entire campaign sucks for you?

And Halo 2 had a clear ending? It had the worst ending in the entire series! It was pretty much Master Chief saying "Sir, finishing this fight", and then it cuts to black. How is that a clear ending?

 

[chaseter]

Halo 2 ended up being one of my least favorite campaigns...Mostly due to the focus on alien weapons... Which, for the most part, I hated. Also... You want to talk about a game "just ending" look no further than 2.

I looked at 2...it didn't just end. You played the Covenant friggin boss at the end. It had a climax. This game did not. If you call the final level here a climax, then what a pathetic climax. Too much nostalgia fog in here. When Cortana captured the Diadect and they had the cut scene...did you honestly think that was the end of the game and you felt like it had a great last level?

Halo 2 did focus a lot on the alien side but I found that interesting that they delved into the Covenant side of things. Playing as MC fighting aliens in what 6 games now...will get old if they don't show more sides of the cube...which they did in Halo 2.

It's why Halo 2 is ranked the highest out of all the games on Metacritic. Halo 2 was and still is the best Halo game to date. This game just isn't as good as I was hoping it was going to be. Campaign was not that good, it was short and insanely easy on legendary. The multiplayer is just the same basic Halo multiplayer.

 

[chaseter]

You were let down because of the ending, and all of the sudden the entire campaign sucks for you?

And Halo 2 had a clear ending? It had the worst ending in the entire series! It was pretty much Master Chief saying "Sir, finishing this fight", and then it cuts to black. How is that a clear ending?

I am not talking about the cut scenes. You can't play the cut scenes. I am talking about what you as the gamer do at the end of the game. The last scene in Halo 2 was an obvious setup to Halo 3.

I never said the entire campaign sucked because of the final level. The entire campaign wasn't anything great or revolutionary. It felt like a basic and safe entry into the Halo franchise. It was too short, it was too linear, and it was way too easy. We beat it super quick on Legendary. It wasn't anything amazing but I was very let down by the climax. I was thinking...is that it? That's the game? Ok...

Story wise, it wasn't amazing either. They have this entire Forerunner mythology to delve into and they don't really explain much. Hopefully Halo 5 will be like Halo 2 where they really dive into it where this will be like Halo 1 where they introduce a lot without diving way far into things.

 

[chaseter]

I think Halo 4's ending is pretty damn clear. And yes, I despised how Halo 2 ended.

And yes, that conversation between Lasky and Chief was more engaging and better written than anything in the previous Halo games. You learn more about Chief from one conversation than from 3 games leading up to it.

And I agree Jacobed, that final level was a boss fight. Starting with the Star Warsesque sabre flight to the endless gauntlet of enemies... That was more exciting than a one on one fight would have been, which would have felt ridiculously out of place.

The only let down I have about this game was that it was so short.

WTF was exciting about it? Honestly? You kill the same exact bad guys you have been killing for the last 6 hours, press two or three buttons like you have been doing for the last 6 hours and that's it. How is that exciting?

I will say though...the music on the last level was very good.

 

[Soapy]

Too much nostalgia fog in here.

The irony.

 

[jacobed]

The irony.

Agreed

 

[chaseter]

Comparing the merits of games =/= giving passes to its faults just because it's a Halo game.

It's odd how Metacritic agrees with me.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I have to agree, the final boss... well, the "battle", was pretty half assed.

You don't really fight him. At least not the way we fought other bosses. It's more like cutscenes where you press buttons. Quick time event is what I think they call them. You see them in other games (which usually aren't FPS).

It's not satisfying. It's very anti-climatic, at least from a gameplay perspective.

Even from a cinematic POV it kind of fails, since it's not really a showdown. It's more like kicking the big bad off a bridge than having a proper fight.

A homage to Mario maybe?

 

[Wolvieboy17]

WTF was exciting about it? Honestly? You kill the same exact bad guys you have been killing for the last 6 hours, press two or three buttons like you have been doing for the last 6 hours and that's it. How is that exciting?

I will say though...the music on the last level was very good.

You kinda half answer my question there. The whole experience of the final level was exciting for me. The fact that this game got me more invested in the story than any other Halo game, made it exciting for me. Fighting a generic boss fight when you don't give a rats ass about the story at all, which was my Halo 2 experience, means nothing when you actually feel like there is something at stake.

The big cutscene leading into the final level, involving the scientists, was AWESOME. I was already on the edge of my seat with that cutscene. Then, having a cool unexpected flying segment was awesome.

Also, I don't know if you played that final level on Co-op or solo, but you can't complain about the overall quality of the campaign if you haven't played it solo.

I think that is the biggest flaw of the game overall, it's such a tightly constructed, personal story, that a lot of that impact gets lost in co-op, when there are four Master Chiefs just running around, blasting through everything and missing incidental dialogue.

For me, that final level on solo just felt like it was ramping up, closer and closer to this deadline. I mean, the Didact bloody made it to earth...

I suppose this comes down to difference in gamers though. I would always prefer a story that is engaging and rewarding than an arbitrary boss fight just because convention says it's needed.

I have to agree, the final boss... well, the "battle", was pretty half assed.

You don't really fight him. At least not the way we fought other bosses. It's more like cutscenes where you press buttons. Quick time event is what I think they call them. You see them in other games (which usually aren't FPS).

It's not satisfying. It's very anti-climatic, at least from a gameplay perspective.

Even from a cinematic POV it kind of fails, since it's not really a showdown. It's more like kicking the big bad off a bridge than having a proper fight.

A homage to Mario maybe?

You have to remember, this is the START of a trilogy more than it is the continuation of one. This game was more about laying down story foundations, building up a stronger relationship with the player character and establishing his direction for the future.

Ending on an epic, boss fight/explosionfest is a lot less interesting to me than

Spoiler

Chief getting his ass kicked and Cortana self sacrificing to save him. It give him a sense of loss

and it's MEANT to be a bit of a down note because 343 are clearly setting up the idea of 'Identity' for the next two games... I mean, Chief is this outdated Spartan, he is seemingly emotionally crippled and he is surrounded by other, newer Spartans who seem like totally capable super soldiers without Chief's emotional stunting. The idea of leaving Chief questioning him self and his place in the world is a lot more exciting and enticing to me for the start of a new trilogy than an ass kicking 'New threat? HERE WE GO AGAIN!' kind of ending, and the final level was the perfect lead in to the ending they had.

I agree it was too short a campaign though. I would have liked another level, although I though Reach had a lot of filler levels anyway so I don't want extra levels just for the sake of it.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Why can't we have both?

I.e. an epic boss fight, and [BLACKOUT]Cortana's death.[/BLACKOUT]

I have to say that this really doesn't feel like the start of a new trilogy for me. It probably doesn't help that the ending goes right into "save Earth from a super weapon, defeat the villain" territory.

If that's what they were going for in a story sense, they failed miserably. This didn't feel like the start of a new trilogy at all. It felt like a belated conclusion to Master Chief's storyline.

They didn't really set anything up. I mean, there's still stuff they can do, but it didn't end with... let's say some official telling the Chief that they've found another Halo, or something like that.

If they hadn't told you this was the start of a new trilogy, you wouldn't suspect it was. It might have a sequel sure, but what the hell doesn't have a sequel these days.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

I feel like a lot of what I said went straight over your head.

They set up A LOT but it's all personal. They've set up a huge character arc for Master Chief, which is something they haven't done before. That's more interesting than ending with "Chief... We need you to blow up something else... but not now... later."

To me, the most interesting but completely unexplored idea from the Halo series is Chief's background and the early Spartan stuff, so the fact that this new trilogy is drawing on that, to me, is more impressive than leaning on the old stuff "Forerunner tech, Covenant use it to blow up earth, Chief saves day' blah blah blah.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

I would also strongly recommend watching all the domain videos if you haven't already.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I feel like a lot of what I said went straight over your head.

They set up A LOT but it's all personal. They've set up a huge character arc for Master Chief, which is something they haven't done before. That's more interesting than ending with "Chief... We need you to blow up something else... but not now... later."

To me, the most interesting but completely unexplored idea from the Halo series is Chief's background and the early Spartan stuff, so the fact that this new trilogy is drawing on that, to me, is more impressive than leaning on the old stuff "Forerunner tech, Covenant use it to blow up earth, Chief saves day' blah blah blah.

I think you need to play more games if you think the Master Chief is that interesting of a character. He's up there with Link and Claude (the protagonist of GTA III, who doesn't talk) for me. In the books he might be be, but not here.

Don't get me wrong, the armor design is great, but the character? Next to nonexistent. Even in this game. Just because he has lines, and a few moments of character interaction...

[BLACKOUT]The armor arguably hurts that anyway, as it means we see almost no emotion from him. They really should have had him take his helmet off when Cortana died. But then he's always been more of a symbol than a character.[/BLACKOUT]

 

[Wolvieboy17]

He does take his helmet off, in the end cutscene. Just saying.

Also, you've clearly missed a lot of the more interesting ideas within this game. Chief's emotional state is probably one of the most significant themes of the whole game and I suspect this new trilogy.

One of the biggest flaws with Chief in the initial trilogy was that he was just this grunting, basic, robotic super dude. He had no descernible features other than getting the job done. As the series got bigger and more cinematic, it seemed like more and more of a flaw.

In Halo 4, however, in the first 3 minutes of the opening cutscene, 343 brilliantly makes this an important part of the canon, with Halsey being interrogated about the side effects of her Spartan 2's, that they are cold, emotionally detached in order to get the job done. We see a glimpse of a small child, sitting on a beach, as possibly the last time Chief was a typical human who 'felt'.

Now, you combine this with the back story that, the original spartans where actually children, abducted from their homes and replaced with clones, then turned into Spartans... That is seriously messed up.

So then we have one such child, who is turned into a super soldier and becomes one of the greatest heroes of the planet, paired with an incredibly intelligent AI.

But in Halo 4, yet another part of this 'emotion vs no emotions' them is we have Cortana, the AI, seemingly MUCH more emotionally open, aware of her own impending mortality with this rampancy thing. She even directly calls Chief a machine, which is repeated later on.

Then we have the story segments, where Chief is basically directly confronted and challenged with his persona and lack of emotion... He justifies it when he disobeys Captain Del Rio, by disobeying an order because he has to do whatever it takes to get the job done... but then later,

Spoiler

when despite all his efforts, he can't save the scientists. He is forced to watch them burn to death, quite horrifically. Then later, he can't personally beat the Didact without Cortana and then she has to sacrifice her life to save him.

To me, thats why this story was great, because it's SUPPOSED to feel like a downer. It ends with Chief, pondering his own role. I mean, he is deliberately emotionally stunted in order to allow him to focus on getting the job done... But if he can't even save the people he wants to save or beat a certain threat, what is he for? Especially when you consider an A.I. like Cortana, who we see is actually capable of emotional intelligence, is still just as capable.

I mean hell, Lasky basically challenges Chief on that in the end and you can SEE it has an effect. Sure we don't see his face or get a line of exposition... But because of everything around it, they MAKE Chief interesting..

They've turned him from just a boring robot type dude into Robocop, a conflicted hero figure who was a normal human once.

 

[Roose Bolton]

:

 

[Thundercrack85]

Really? Man, the bar is low here. Make Master Chief show any emotion and bam... awesome.

I really wish he had taken his helmet off when [BLACKOUT]Cortana died[/BLACKOUT]. If not then, when?

And no, that really doesn't make him interesting. It makes him more interesting, sure. More interesting than the almost personality-free character he was up to this point. And that's good. But let's not go nuts. There are minor supporting characters in other games who have more personality.

Now Cortana, I did actually find interesting.

For the record, I'm not trying to knock the character. He's fine. Just don't tell me he's interesting. He's not. His backstory is. But he never even mentions it. Or alludes to it. The fact that he's literally faceless, doesn't help.

What would it take to make John interesting? Have him have a confrontation with Halsey. Reflect on his lot in life. And taking his helmet off during cutscenes that require emotional intensity would go a long way.

 

[Roose Bolton]

I'm fairly certain they're building to unmasking Chief, probably at the end of the trilogy. But the truth is, as Wolvieboy said, he's emotionally stunted so it's natural (and better storytelling) that he slowly becomes more human as the Reclaimer trilogy roles on. I mean the guy's had it drilled into his system since he was a kid put aside emotion so it makes sense that he's slowly regaining humanity with Cortana being the spark that sets it off instead just being this chatterbox who's having emotional outbursts, he can't be that guy now, he does know how to do that yet.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

For the record, I'm not trying to knock the character. He's fine. Just don't tell me he's interesting. He's not. His backstory is. But he never even mentions it. Or alludes to it. The fact that he's literally faceless, doesn't help.

What would it take to make John interesting? Have him have a confrontation with Halsey. Reflect on his lot in life. And taking his helmet off during cutscenes that require emotional intensity would go a long way.

That's such a narrow minded, Hollywood approach to how you develop a character. Not every character out there is capable of 'reflecting' or emotional confrontation, just like real life. In fact, those characters have the potential to be MUCH more interesting than any dramatic, exposition spouting character.

The fact is, Chief's backstory being interesting, his situation being interesting, his relationship with Cortana being interesting, that all makes HIM interesting. The fact that they have actually made his lack of emotions a personal challenge and character flaw IS what's interesting.

You want him to yell at Halsey? Maybe we'll see that, but obviously he has a lot to overcome first. That's what I'm looking forward to. The steps 343 have made with Chiefs character, they journey they've set him on the path of is one of identiy. Chief might not seem to have the complexity of Nathan Drake or someone like that in this game, but they've actually made his lack of personality a clear FAULT, which is really, really clever from a story telling point of view.

Also, your comments on his back story are just wrong. It's mentioned and alluded to throughout the game. Hell, there were clips of it in one of the trailers leading up to the game's release.

 

[Wolvieboy17]

I'm fairly certain they're building to unmasking Chief, probably at the end of the trilogy. But the truth is, as Wolvieboy said, he's emotionally stunted so it's natural (and better storytelling) that he slowly becomes more human as the Reclaimer trilogy roles on. I mean the guy's had it drilled into his system since he was a kid put aside emotion so it makes sense that he's slowly regaining humanity with Cortana being the spark that sets it off instead just being this chatterbox who's having emotional outbursts, he can't be that guy now, he does know how to do that yet.

Thank you.

It reminds me of some of the Punisher Max series, by Garth Ennis. You have a character who is so emotionally stunted but focused on a goal, a lot of people have criticised that for lacking depth but I thought that series had the most depth ever brought to the Punisher. You'd have this moment, where someone would do something incredibly personal and horrible to him, you'd get a close up on his face but instead of him yelling or showing an outward sense of emotion, his face is just coloured slightly differently and his mouth looks a bit tighter. That scene TOTALLY nailed the emotion of it, the cold rage he'd be feeling, by doing relatively little.

Most often, less is more and for me Halo 4 used that method to a T, when Halo 1 - 3 seemed to just use the model of 'None at all is... um... whatever'.

 

[Master Chief]

Pretty much. Conveying emotion through body language can be much more powerful than a dramatic outburst.

I always found the Chief interesting simply because he was the last of the SPARTAN-II's, which is what prompted me to read the prequel novel but either way it's obvious what they're doing with his character. Cortana usually kept the Chief in line and flipping that right off the bat was a good move. What they did in this game, their direction with his character couldn't be more clear. All that strength with a bit of heart? Yes plz.

Nooow I just hope 5 has a more epic scale coz that's the only complaint I have with 4.

 

[Texas Zombie]

Halo 2 and 4 both ended on cliff hangers.

I do think that the multiplayer is a little stale, I can't wait till they put competitive game modes in.