Halo 5 seemed like it really wanted to bring back the multiplayer prevalence that Halo used to have back in the days of Halo 2 and 3. And to be fair, it was a really fun multiplayer experience. It was weakened somewhat by the focus on micro transactions and loot crates, but I understand the corporate incentive to implement alternative monetization models. I don't like it, but I do understand it. The story on the other hand, was... Not well executed. The campaign levels were not well designed. The narrative was not compelling, and Locke, despite a fine performance by Amadi, was just not an interesting character. It's the only Halo campaign I've never bothered to go back and play on legendary because I just have no desire to. When I was in highschool discovering Halo for the first time and falling in love with it, I allowed myself to believe that it was more than it was. Something that would go on forever. But in the end, the thing that made Halo special was in its creators and in us, its players, and our connection to the game. And like all things, those relationships change with time. Same with Red vs Blue and RoosterTeeth, which were created from that shared love we all had for Halo. There was a time I'd watch obsessively all the content they put out. I haven't watched anything from them in years. At some point the spark was lost, things changed, and people moved on. Myself included. It all remains an important, even formative part of my life, and always has a place in my imagination. But the days when it seemed like the most important thing in the world; when all I wanted to do was play and dream and think about Halo, those days are gone. And though it's a bittersweet feeling, it's not a bad thing to move on. Change is growth, and growth is life. I went off on a tangent there, but I really do have a lot of feelings about this game. I think as far as campaign levels, I most love the High Charity levels in Halo 2 and The Ark in Halo 3. Silent Cartographer and Assault on the Control Room in Combat Evolved deserve some mention too. Multiplayer wise, I'm heavily biased by the majority of my multiplayer experience coming from Combat Evolved on the PC. Blood Gulch, Death Island, and Boarding Action. Those were my home for many of my teenage afternoons.
@wiremagician
Жыл бұрын
Yeahhh all of what you said is so true. This might be a hot take, but I think Locke could've been a REALLY interesting character. "A Spartan that hunts other Spartans" is a really cool idea in my mind, and could maybe show how he relies more on tech and stealth tactics than Chief who relies on a lot of strength and running/gunning (a little bit general, but you get the idea). It would've been really cool if we could almost play 2 different campaigns. One from Chief's perspective and one from Locke's (not the disappointingly 3 levels that are offered in the actual game, but a full out like 6-7 missions for him and same amount for Locke). It could've been similar to how Halo 2 dealt with the Arbiter, maybe even certain choices you made in the Locke levels affected some gameplay elements in the Chief levels (and vice versa). I feel like Halo 5, overall, is just a big waste of potential. Bungie definitely had lighting in a bottle when they created the series, part of me knew that after Reach, Halo wouldn't be the same. But I also wanted to believe it would last forever at the same standard like you did. After Infinite, I have no clue what's gonna happen for the franchise anymore. At this point, my headcannon is that everything after 3 is just Chief's dreams in the cryopod XD Also I still standby the statement that the level "The Covenant" from Halo 3 is the best level from the series.
@ForumArcade
Жыл бұрын
@@wiremagician He could have been. But he wasn't. We hoped for something like the Arbiter, but we didn't get it. And god, the missions which are 50+% walking slowly and examining datapads ruined what little appeal the game did have. I did actually like Halo 4 quite a bit, although it had its flaws. The thing I didn't like though was Cortana's death/return in Halo 5. You mean to tell me that the AI who always wanted to be human is at the center of a machine explicitly built to turn humans into digital constructs, she reverses that machine, which then explodes, and there's not a human Cortana down there on the ground? Instead just some hand-wavey nonsense about "Oh I touched the Library; it's a fountain of youth for AI". 😑 The Covenant is a pretty good level. I think it's a little less visually spectacular than The Ark, but it has a hell of a climax.
@wiremagician
Жыл бұрын
@@ForumArcade Yeah! That's a big thing I hated. While I didn't like the Didact storyline, I loved the Cortana rampancy in 4. And the ending was soo good, with Chief reflecting on what it means to be human and losing what he loved most. He had lost a lot of allies before, but this one was different. Bringing Cortana back just nullifies the entire ending (and possibly the story as well) for Halo 4. It honestly would've been really cool, if Halo 5 made us think that Cortana was alive during the Chief missions and that's why he goes AWOL. In the Locke levels we never see any evidence that Cortana has come back but the player might think "well I saw her when I played as Chief so it must be true" but the ending shows that it's either a trick from some enemy (rebellion against arbiter, banished, etc. pick whichever one you want) or it's just Chief grieving over Cortana so much it's effecting his psyche. It could send a good message about how in war there are just some people that don't make it back, including people we don't expect. Also I will say I'll forever love "The Ark" for giving us the masterpiece cutscene in the beginning with that AMAZING song that plays alongside it.
@ForumArcade
Жыл бұрын
@@wiremagician Okay, we're getting into my old loremaster days a bit, but the AI situation in Halo 3 and Halo 4 is really interesting. There are a few AIs that we've seen that have lasted a really long time. They're all Forerunner (necessarily; humans haven't been around that long). Guilty Spark, who was actually a human that had his consciousness turned into a machine by none other than Señior Didact. And Mendicant Bias, the Forerunner AI that was corrupted by the Flood Gravemind during the Forerunner Flood wars. Mendicant Bias was actually on the Ark, helping the Master Chief along. You could see this by reading all the hidden terminals. So although the Forerunner likely had a different process for creating AI than present humans do, here's one who went crazy due to the Gravemind's logic plague, came back from insanity, and lasted thousands of years without going crazy again. That puts him in a very similar position to Cortana. I just feel like the story would have been a bit better without saying that "AI deteriorate after seven years" and instead say that she's still been dealing with the effects of the Gravemind's influence, driving her towards those same destructive conclusions as Mendicant Bias. Then the path towards authoritarian takeover would have been laid in a much more compelling way. But c'est la vie.
@wiremagician
Жыл бұрын
@@ForumArcade Oh my god yes!!! This is something I seriously thought they were gonna do in Infinite when I saw the first teaser trailers. Since they seemed to be going back and marketing on the original series vibe, I thought they were gonna touch on how Cortana was basically tortured and infected with the Logic Plague and THAT was the real reason she went crazy.
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