Bradamante3D
Member
I can't speak to the multiplayer components, only to the single player campaigns. I didn't like the Halo 4 campaign due to it's focus on Cortana. Her story line and how she evolved over time is a good indicator for the general problem of the newer Halo campaigns: the unwillingness of the developer to make hard decisions concerning their characters, probably out of fear to alienate fans. Gears of War as a franchise had similiar problems. By Halo 3/4 or GoW 3/4 it was about time to kill off the main character, to hand over the torch ... or to morph them into the new antagonist (i.e. "Master Chief goes baaad"). Unfortunately 343 didn't have the guts to do this. Instead, for the Halo 5 campaign they try to introduce a new antagonist/protagonist in the form of Locke, who is a such a generic, bland super soldier it's pretty obvious he was made so that wannabe military players could project onto him.
Comparisons to the movie industry are only of limited use here. Sure James Bond has been around for decades, played by different actors. You can also use characters like the Joker or Batman as examples of different executions of the same idea, made for different audiences or generations of viewers. To a degree this applies to video games. Notice the difference though: in video games you are that character, you made it, you own it. The appropriation is different. Video games have a harder time telling audiences that a character has changed if part of this character and it's execution is the audience's job. To a degree that's true for movie, too, of course. Just not everybody likes Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.
Music is a pretty important part of the Halo experience. Halo 4 starts strong with a great menu music but with the first song on the soundtrack you can literally hear the music crash and burn at around 2m 24s. Beyond this mark you will never hear anything good from the Halo 4 soundtrack ever again.
The Halo 5 soundtrack I liked much more. Sure not one for the history books, but I'd say here the hit-miss rate is about 50-50.
With Halo Infinite - based on the stage presentations - things are looking dire. Where older games like Half-Life 2 or Halo CE let things happening organically and accepted the chance that players might not look at important events while they happen, newer games will hand-hold you, force music onto you, force character dialogue upon you, etc. All in the search for "epicness" because that is what corporate manager types think players seek in games.
Comparisons to the movie industry are only of limited use here. Sure James Bond has been around for decades, played by different actors. You can also use characters like the Joker or Batman as examples of different executions of the same idea, made for different audiences or generations of viewers. To a degree this applies to video games. Notice the difference though: in video games you are that character, you made it, you own it. The appropriation is different. Video games have a harder time telling audiences that a character has changed if part of this character and it's execution is the audience's job. To a degree that's true for movie, too, of course. Just not everybody likes Daniel Craig as the new James Bond.
Music is a pretty important part of the Halo experience. Halo 4 starts strong with a great menu music but with the first song on the soundtrack you can literally hear the music crash and burn at around 2m 24s. Beyond this mark you will never hear anything good from the Halo 4 soundtrack ever again.
The Halo 5 soundtrack I liked much more. Sure not one for the history books, but I'd say here the hit-miss rate is about 50-50.
With Halo Infinite - based on the stage presentations - things are looking dire. Where older games like Half-Life 2 or Halo CE let things happening organically and accepted the chance that players might not look at important events while they happen, newer games will hand-hold you, force music onto you, force character dialogue upon you, etc. All in the search for "epicness" because that is what corporate manager types think players seek in games.
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