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Halo |OT13|

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Yeah but Halo CE was a new universe we knew nothing of.

Chief is a super soldier.
Cortana is some kind of AI.
Covenant is religious.
Flood is a threat.
Gotta destroy Halo.

Halo CE established the universe.

Halo 2 filled it in.

In Halo 4 we already had a universe AND books on books. Halo 4 still was wtf confusing for many of the fiction whores here.

Clearly you haven't gone and watched the approx. 1 hour start to finish link I recommended. When you watch it like that as one session it's easier to rate the merit, pace and completeness of the story. I don't disagree about CE establishing the universe but I reckon 343i did A LOT of hardwork to create the new trilogy story with the focus of getting back to that CE feeling as you describe.
 
So after being part of a number of Halo OT's there seems to be a consensus that the story was a bit hit and miss. The first time I played I mildly agreed but upon revisiting just the cut scenes without the gameplay at all I now believe the story has more than enough cohesive presentation to be clear to any new comer to Halo.

If you have the time watch this from start to finish but "forget everything you now about Halo" as if you are new to the series.

SPOILER WARNING: All Halo 4 Cutscenes in one YouTube video

I did this last night and I have to say the story fits together nicely and has a lot of ground to cover. When you then watch the terminals you are opened up to the universe far more too. I'm not sure where my first play through "story skipping feeling" came from but it is quite a linear story told in just the cut scenes.

Remember when you knew nothing about Halo and fired up CE the first time. What did you understand about the universe or the Covenant or a Halo ring or Cortana or why you were in cryo etc? You knew nothing and the game felt great to have all this mystery that unravelled as you played.

For me the campaign and new story derived from all the hard work by 343i into the universe and setting up the trilogy really paid off. It felt like new experiences to uncover and I wanted to watch more terminals, read more books prior to Halo 4 and post Halo 4 as well as chat more on forums to get more insights about the new story elements.

When viewed this way I believe the directions 343i have taken are more to regain the ability of the unknown. Everyone heralds CE as the mystery story and that nostalgia feeling then with Halo 4 343i worked hard to make everything fresh and mysterious but linked and filled with the ability to explore more.

So we what crucify them for not knowing everything in the campaign the whole time? If you watch the cutscenes in the link start to finish you'll most likely arrive at the same train of thought I have. To me the campaign was a winner.

Sure it could have used far less buttons and insert Cortana but enjoyed the ride. Not as replayable as Halo 2 and there are issues due to the aging hardware, especially AI. Anyway I for one and seriously looking forward to Halo 5 and the universe or spin offs leading up to it as well.

I'd say the story is a big miss just for wasting the setup, and I'm far from the only one thinking that. Although there were plenty of Marines in the first Halo, there wasn't really a base you returned to, and the only constant presences were Cortana and occasionally Foehammer. There basically aren't any Marines at all for the last 3rd of the game, for that matter. But Halo 4 doesn't do any of that, it doesn't do anything with its setup at all aside from having the Didact as the villain rather than the Covenant or the Flood. The game still introduces humans right near the beginning of the game, and frankly, it feels like you have the advantage the entire time. There's an enormous vessel packed with Spartans, weapons, and vehicles. You have two to three voices in your ear almost the entire game, and the whole thing just plays out like another military operation that could have taken place during or before Halo 2 rather than a new trilogy. Thoroughly squandered the "Master Chief and Cortana on a mysterious Forerunner planet."
 

kylej

Banned

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of course she "loves anime and video games"

in the same way that thousands of hot young teens and single horny moms in [town you don't live in] are dying to get laid right now. after i make my dick 6 inches longer in just three easy steps, I'll join the facebook of sex and meet that chick
 

heckfu

Banned
t.png


of course she "loves anime and video games"

in the same way that thousands of hot young teens and single horny moms in [town you don't live in] are dying to get laid right now. after i make my dick 6 inches longer in just three easy steps, I'll join the facebook of sex and meet that chick

You watch a lot of porn to see all those ads and have them memorized.
 
I'd say the story is a big miss just for wasting the setup, and I'm far from the only one thinking that. Although there were plenty of Marines in the first Halo, there wasn't really a base you returned to, and the only constant presences were Cortana and occasionally Foehammer. There basically aren't any Marines at all for the last 3rd of the game, for that matter. But Halo 4 doesn't do any of that, it doesn't do anything with its setup at all aside from having the Didact as the villain rather than the Covenant or the Flood. The game still introduces humans right near the beginning of the game, and frankly, it feels like you have the advantage the entire time. There's an enormous vessel packed with Spartans, weapons, and vehicles. You have two to three voices in your ear almost the entire game, and the whole thing just plays out like another military operation that could have taken place during or before Halo 2 rather than a new trilogy. Thoroughly squandered the "Master Chief and Cortana on a mysterious Forerunner planet."

Weird I took the story as exactly what you describe, it's the focal point of humanity moving to reclaim the mantle and becoming the dominant universe species. This was described by the librarian in a cutscene and the epilogue by the Didact.

As for the missions, which I really wasn't talking about I would have liked some other encounters and things done differently for my tastes. Although Reach really went back to CE with it's mission structures and focus so I can understand why they wanted to make Halo 4 instead of rehash another CE or 2 or 3 exactly.
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
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of course she "loves anime and video games"

in the same way that thousands of hot young teens and single horny moms in [town you don't live in] are dying to get laid right now. after i make my dick 6 inches longer in just three easy steps, I'll join the facebook of sex and meet that chick
don't you know she played that one final fantasy game and watched inuyasha that one time?
 

DeadNames

Banned
t.png


of course she "loves anime and video games"

in the same way that thousands of hot young teens and single horny moms in [town you don't live in] are dying to get laid right now. after i make my dick 6 inches longer in just three easy steps, I'll join the facebook of sex and meet that chick

hahahhaha i love you kyle
 
For me the campaign and new story derived from all the hard work by 343i into the universe and setting up the trilogy really paid off. It felt like new experiences to uncover and I wanted to watch more terminals, read more books prior to Halo 4 and post Halo 4 releasing as well as chat more on forums to get insights about the new story elements.

When viewed this way I believe the directions 343i have taken are more to regain the ability of the unknown. Everyone heralds CE as the mystery story and that nostalgia feeling then with Halo 4 343i worked hard to make everything fresh and mysterious but linked and filled with the ability to explore more.

So this forums crucifies them for not having the player know everything in the campaign the whole time? If you watch the cutscenes in the link start to finish you'll most likely arrive at the same train of thought I have. To me the campaign was a winner and the story is clear but perhaps when combined with the gameplay missions it's not presented as clearly.

Sure it could have used far less buttons and insert Cortana here/there but I enjoyed the ride immensely. Halo 4 is not as replayable as Halo 2 for example and there are issues due to the aging console hardware, especially AI quality. Anyway I for one am seriously looking forward to Halo 5 and the universe or spin offs leading up to it as well.

I feel the complete opposite. I felt that there was very little mystery in Halo 4. Halo 2's story expanded the fiction in many great ways without the need of books and terminals and web series to aid it. It stood on its own 2 legs and told a great story. Halo 4 relies so heavily on the Greg Bear books that to me it killed the mystery. The universe is huge, but they chose to rehash main key plot points from Greg's books as HUGE revelations in Halo 4. The story could have gone anywhere, yet a fan of the outside fiction like me feels shafted because I read the books. I connected the dots of how the Didact, Composer, and Prometheans were connected by reading the books alone. That alone hurt the story IMO.
 

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
I was waiting for this.

-----
Btw we need 1 for next Friday (28th) in South East Michigan to LAN Halo 1/2 on regular xbox/tube tvs. Anyone interested?

Man I wanna find or create some sort of competitive gaming scene in my area. That would be too much fun. I gotta look that shit up. I'll play whatever too, don't even care. Fighters, shooters, RTS, MOBA

edit: I google, "video games putnam county, ny"

top listings are for video game addiction therapists. lol that's fucked up
 
I feel the complete opposite. I felt that there was very little mystery in Halo 4. Halo 2's story expanded the fiction in many great ways without the need of books and terminals and web series to aid it. It stood on its own 2 legs and told a great story. Halo 4 relies so heavily on the Greg Bear books that to me it killed the mystery. The universe is huge, but they chose to rehash main key plot points from Greg's books as HUGE revelations in Halo 4. The story could have gone anywhere, yet a fan of the outside fiction like me feels shafted because I read the books. I connected the dots of how the Didact, Composer, and Prometheans were connected by reading the books alone. That alone hurt the story IMO.

I suppose that is the cornerstone of difference here where "in depth" fans that read all the books and formulate insights get spoiled before they play the game a bit. I'm not sure I have a single example where the truly hardcore followers have so much depth but still receive all new material and mystery in a non-Halo game.

I hated the Greg Bear writing style, I hate his other Sci-Fi books too, so I guess I skimmed through those books rather quickly and probably enjoyed Halo 4 more for being so lazy when reading his text from this universe.

How would you create that depth for hardcore fans but still make it 100% stand alone and accessible to a new comer? Tricky one.


Also I made the original post...I'd like to thank Juices for loading my thread posting gun and orznge for nominating me for such a bestowed honour.
 

Tawpgun

Member
Ok you put yourself out there and you should be prepared for some criticism...

You have no industry experience, no multiplayer experience, list nothing about collaboration/networking/game engine/testing skill sets, don't like Halo 4 or Reach and troll a forum where developers exist. Hmmm good luck getting their attention mate.

Personally I'd rather not have a forum personality such as yourself develop against veterans of the industry who have developed previous AAA games. I'll stick with the hiring criteria of you know a professional gaming company like 343 or MS Studios thanks.

heheheheheheh
 
Eh? Were we even playing the same game?

You need to go revisit CE & Reach if you don't realise this.

Truth & Reconciliation Start = Nightfall

Truth & Reconciliation Covie Ship boarding = Long Night of Solace (part 3)

Silent Cartographer = Long Night of Solace (part 1)

Flood introduction cutscene = Noble team carriage ride to Halsey

CE Maps = Anniversary Maps with CE remakes galore.

The race weapons equally damaging each other brought back in Reach, as was damaging plasma weaponry.

CE had bloom just presented differently to Reach and was also toggled by semi-auto fire in CE.

Health packs returned.

An attempt at the classic settings and pistol returned with Anniversary.

Story literally lead straight into CE.

That's just off the top of my head. I've done a similar write up before and there are over 50 similarities between them.


Haven't seen these before, I guess they're not in Australia.
703525361.jpg
 
So have HaloGAF customs died? We should play some Halo 3 or even better, some Reach

I'm wondering if BTB could be good in this game if we held a custom with only BR starts and fixed weapon spawns.

There's no more room for misjudgement, there's no more room for error. I know there's been a lot of drama in the thread recently, and yes, some of it has been over the top, but Halo really does exist on a precipice if it wants to maintain what it was half a decade ago.

Really over the top. We've all got our beef with the game but I don't think it's that bad, like most here feel. I've swung back round to the game though, makes me feel fortunate because I hate not enjoying Halo. Obviously the way MS has repeatedly devalued the LE has been pretty disgraceful but I just hope it burns people enough that they don't buy another LE published by MS in the future. That's the way to get your message across. They're usually teeming with tat anyway.

Scrap random weapon spawns and implement regular, fixed weapon spawns
Scrap instant respawn outside of Infinity Slayer

These two very moderate and easy to implement changes could make such an improvement to the flow of Halo 4 matches.

Obvs I'd like renovated theatre, No PP or Plasma nades on spawn, ranked/social divide with 1-50 and patched UI with old Halo medals reinstated. Oh and descoping in Team Snipers.
 

Omni

Member
You need to go revisit CE & Reach if you don't realise this.

Truth & Reconciliation Start = Nightfall
You're kidding right? They might have similar themes, but the play out completely different.

Truth & Reconciliation Covie Ship boarding = Long Night of Solace (part 3)
Again, wut? Just because they board a ship, doesn't mean that they're anything like each other. In T&R, you're fighting waves of Elites, Grunts, Jackals and Hunters to board the ship via a gravity lift. In LNoS, you just have to fly into it and a cutscene starts.

Silent Cartographer = Long Night of Solace (part 1)
Okay, yeah. It's a dull storming the beach run.

Flood introduction cutscene = Noble team carriage ride to Halsey
...no? I don't even know how you came up with that one.

The race weapons equally damaging each other brought back in Reach, as was damaging plasma weaponry.
Maybe. It's not exactly like it ever left campaign wise.

CE had bloom just presented differently to Reach and was also toggled by semi-auto fire in CE.
CE had spread, not bloom.

Health packs returned.
I'll give you that one. Seemed to be more forgiving in Reach though... Maybe because it healed a third of your health without a health pack.

Reach had similarities to CE, but it was far from "really [going] back to CE with it's mission structures and focus", IMO.
 
You can't make this stuff up...

FuD was ok but it wasn't great. The ODST ad was better and it conveyed more emotion.

The transfer being sometimes marred was the negative and it got it a 9.1. Apparently a Halo with no campaign theater, no ranking system, glitched theater and a broken fileshare didn't warrant more than .2 points being subtracted.

IGN! King of the Slrp.
 

Rtas

Member
Wow the jetpack is broken, just had a killing spree of 11 kills ended because the guy jetpacked higher than I could track then hopped down and hit me in the back
 
BAN THE FUCKING BOLTSHOT

You've got nothing to worry about, I'm sure 343 will patch it soon.

Seriously though, didn't ANYONE think allowing people to spawn with camo, a mini-shotgun, and extra-ammo was a bad idea? There's no way 343 was like, "no one will abuse this!"
 
Wow the jetpack is broken, just had a killing spree of 11 kills ended because the guy jetpacked higher than I could track then hopped down and hit me in the back

I disagree, you had essentially 1 in 12 kills affected by the Jetpack. That isn't broken just because another player got the drop on you.

The only part of Halo 4 jetpack nerfing I agree with is to remove it from classic playlists, again 1-3 playlists without jetpack but for all other "default" playlists the jetpack is already nerfed enough and the maps designed around that.
 
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