So sad :( I shed some tears. Not many games make me do that. Cortana's expression when she's telling Chief she can't come with him. God damn :( I couldn't take it.

Favourite moments: Pelican (that vista!) , the Broadsword, piloting the Mantis, and the assault on the science base inside the Halo ring.

@AngriGhandi said:

I second everyone on Earth's confusion with all of that Librarian shit.

I also agree that the latter half of the game has some really cool moments, such as the Broadsword trench run, and more importantly, finally flying the MOTHERFUCKING PELICAN. (!!!)

And the two CG cutscenes before and after the credits were amazing, if only for giving us a super-rare glimpse of humans in the Halo universe actually having a moment to reflect on the crazy-ass stuff that keeps happening to them, as opposed to just getting blown up all the time.

But structurally and gameplay-wise? I can't help but feel like more risks should have been taken.

Nothing too crazy-- I'm just saying maybe I don't necessarily need to be one-shotting a line of grunts with a battle rifle to get through a linear campaign in the next Halo game.

...Consider changing at least one of those things.

Huge risks weren't taken because A) 343 needed to prove to fans they could make a Halo-ass Halo game as Brad Shoemaker would have put it. And B) the story takes some risks so maybe it would have been a bit much for the players.

I really enjoyed the whole game, and I think it sets up a great reason for the next games, since the Didact probably survived and found another way to digitize humans into Prometheans.

The Covenant group (which I think is named Storm) is a group of religious fanatics that didn't appreciate the treaty with the humans after the same humans basically killed their religious leaders, they join with the Didact because they see the Forerunners and their creations as Gods and Holy objects.

I think the Covenant will play less of a part in 5 and 6 (maybe they will be completely gone by six) and the Didact will evolve new Prometheans from both humans and the Covenant races, at the same time I could see Master Chief struggling with himself after losing Cortana (which will probably haunt him in some way, perhaps ala Halo 3), though I think we will get to hear much more from Halsey.

Just finished it a second ago. Overall I think it was a really great game, just a bit more explanation of stuff story wise would have been helpful.

Was it ever explained why the Covenant were even at Requiem and going all 'gung ho' on a badly damaged UNSC ship? Are the Humans and Covenant at war again? Was it just a rouge group? I think I remember a brief statement where either Chief or Cortana asks why they're attacking because they thought they had a truce and the other replys that 'a lot can happen in 4 years' and then the Didact brainwashes them or something so then they all fight for him and it's never mentioned again.

The Librarian cutscene was a little wtf but like the OP said it gets a bit clearer when you see the composer in action, which brings me to my next point. The composer was being fired at earth for quite a while surely there would of been at least a few casualties? But its never mentioned. And if the composer is meant to turn humans in prometheans why did it face melt those scientists on that facility near the other halo ring?

Im sure there are some other things I was unsure of but that'll do for now.

@DAAANNNN69 said:

Just finished it a second ago. Overall I think it was a really great game, just a bit more explanation of stuff story wise would have been helpful.

Was it ever explained why the Covenant were even at Requiem and going all 'gung ho' on a badly damaged UNSC ship? Are the Humans and Covenant at war again? Was it just a rouge group? I think I remember a brief statement where either Chief or Cortana asks why they're attacking because they thought they had a truce and the other replys that 'a lot can happen in 4 years' and then the Didact brainwashes them or something so then they all fight for him and it's never mentioned again.

The Librarian cutscene was a little wtf but like the OP said it gets a bit clearer when you see the composer in action, which brings me to my next point. The composer was being fired at earth for quite a while surely there would of been at least a few casualties? But its never mentioned. And if the composer is meant to turn humans in prometheans why did it face melt those scientists on that facility near the other halo ring?

Im sure there are some other things I was unsure of but that'll do for now.

They show a bunch of piles of ash and a burnt city at the end.

I liked the story. I do think that the nuke at the end could have been a little better handled. If Chief had just tossed the thing, it'd be a lot easier to believe that somehow, Cortana had just used the same technology that creates the lightbridges to create a forcefield around him. That's how I interpreted things anyway, but to be honest it seemed more like magic.

It's interesting that a lot of this stuff is no surprise if you read the books. I understood the premise perfectly without having done so, but it did seem like they were spending way too little time dwelling on it - not that Chief is ever going to raise and eyebrow and say 'what?' no matter what you tell him. Except, apparently, "we're going to retreat".

I"m not totally crazy about the meta-story revolving around the direction of the game's universe. I mean, it's fine, but like some said, Mass Effect did it first. ( Or more accurately, Mass Effect finished it first. The whole concept of there being Forerunners who aren't terribly nice started back in Halo 1, before Mass Effect). However, the smaller story, the same old Halo stuff about Chief racing from one emergency to the next, was way better than usual. I actually couldn't stop playing at times because I wanted to save the Infinity, or the Composer, or Earth. And they showed maturity by having the Chief fail a few times. The Cortana/Chief stuff was good, too. I mean, really good, but other people have already talked about that.

Regarding the gameplay, I agree about the new weapons, unfortunately. In fact, they felt underpowered compared to both their human counterparts - at least the grenades, bolt guns, suppressors, and light rifles. What I liked even less than the weapons though were the prometheans. The crawlers were too easy and the knights were too hard, and between the two of them there wasn't really enough variety. In Jeff's review, he complains how much you fight the covenant, but I had a much better time whenever they showed up. Also, they really pit you against a lot of guys, don't they? I feel like the enemy numbers in this game are a whole level higher than they were in any prior Halo.

they actually have a story to tell that doesn't completely suck but they suck at telling it. they have the budget and awareness to be able to put all of this back story into the game. unless you take the time yourself to figure it all out it's pretty boring but when you do figure it out it sounds fairly interesting and it's a shame they only made this thing 6 hours long with aging combat and new shitty guns. go a little mass effect and tell the fucking story so i care, that'd be nice.

I was honestly hoping they would have stuck with the idea that Master Chief and Cortana were off in unknown space facing new challenges, cut off from everything, and was disappointed that here are the humans and here are the covenant and here are some more "my name is a theme" characters.

I do get that 343 needed to prove they could handle the game where I wonder if instead of Halo 4 they should have done something like Reach or ODST which would have allowed them to prove they can handle the franchise then go off on wilder new stuff. Oh well...

When some of the back story of Halo was written it was Mass Effect before Mass Effect with The Forerunners having a collection of all species that way they could replace everything after being wiped out and all those other connections

Also I would rate this Halo well compared to the things that came out this generation

@Rodin said:

I think they did a great job with the game, i really enjoyed the music and sound design, solid combat, but the new weapons seemed kinda pointless. The grunts kinda look like small krogans, but that's just me, and i'm glad they don't have high pitched voices.

I think they squandered a lot of stuff, like the cortana rampancy thing since she "dies" at the end, although i highly doubt she really died. I also don't really understand the point of the composer, does it turn people into knights and shit? or just data. And i'm guessing by the epilogue, that the diadact survived, but i cant think how, and however he did i guess that's how cortana conceivably survived, and assuming she is a alive, i'd wager on her getting a body.

Also chief survives because video games. that or magic.

Now I feel bad for killing hundreds of mini-wrex's.

The macro part of the story with the diadact and promethans went right over my head. I don't really remember much from the past games so it was confusing at times. You would think with Master Chief being out of commission for 4 years would set up a nice fish out of water story where everything can be explained to you. After reading some wiki pages it made some more sense.

The story between Chief and Cortana is what really interests me. I honestly can't believe Cortana is dead (if she is) but I kind of hope she is, because it will mean Master Chief will have to become much more of a fully fleshed out character. I like that they started to do that in this game, he actually showed some humanity, he was frustrated with Cortana when she was saying goodbye.

This has been my favourite halo game by far. The detail and scale of the covenant made me understand why they were such a formidable threat to humanity. I also like that Master Chief is fucking huge. I mean yeah they've always said he really tall, but for the first time you actually see how massive he is compared to other people. The music didn't really strike me but the sound design did in a way not many games do. The guns sound amazing. Was it just me, or did music and sound effects sound muffled during cutscenes?

For as much as I wanted to move on and for this to be different, I'm really glad the covenant is still there. Mainly because the Prometheans are no fun to fight. Especially the knights. On heroic they take forever to kill, a solid two clips most of the time. And that's if they don't teleport away and recharge their shields, or one-shot melee you.

I think after chapter 4 or 5 the game turns to total boring, bullshit. The game starts off incredibly strong an brings an interesting premise to the table, but its obvious the writers at 343i aren't up to the task of doing anything interesting with the story. The Didact could have been cool but NOTHING happens in this game.

1. You press buttons

2. You stick Cortana in things

3. You pull Cortana out of things

The cutscenes are amazing and they make Chief an actual character for the first time ever (outside of supplementary novels). Unfortunately, nothing really happens in this game. I don't even see a connect between the character represented in Forward Unto Dawn and Halo 4. I think the entire package of Halo 4 has lots of stuff in it, but none of it is very compelling...even Spartan Ops is boring as hell. I hope, for 343's sake, that they have something up their sleeve for Halo 5 or they will make the series as irrelevant as Gears has become. Microsoft's reliance on the series looks, to me, like they are going to start killing it off like Activision did with Call of Duty. There are plenty of interesting things you can do with Halo and Master Chief, but I don't know that 343i has the people capable of doing that.

@CrossTheAtlantic: It's really too bad they don't communicate any of the deep story in the games.

Not sure if it's been addressed, but why is so much of the lore and story hidden away in novels and logs? Did the developers assume that anyone left playing Halo now is already deeply invested in the universe? Could they not incorporate so much exposition in to the writing without it coming off as Exposition? Either way, it only serves to alienate non-hardcore Halo players like myself. I'm sure there's something to be had from the francise's universe, but I'm not prepared to read through ten or so novels to get there.

@Dunchad said:

End was depressing as shit. What do people have against happy endings these days? Stop making me cry manly tears of masculinity.

I gave a small choke I have to admit :(

Just finished it. I lost interest in Halo after the first one and didn't really like any of the others. That said this was defiantly my favourite game in the series, both from a story telling perspective and gameplay. I can't believe there are people who think Cortana won't be back. This reminds me of some of the forum posts that where going around after the first modern warfare game when Price was "killed". Of course she will be back, and I think the people who suggested it may involve her using the Forrunner tech to get a physical form are spot on. Also did anyone notice both this and Assassins creed 3 involve storylines about ancient civilisations inventing tech to move peoples minds into digital "containers" to avoide Armageddon? Weird.

I don't see why everyone is comparing this to Mass Effect; in this one we are killing the Prometheans. That's totally different. But I guess the Collector's were Prometheans in Mass Effect 2. FUCK.

In all seriousness though did anyone noticed that particle effect after killing Knights was almost the same as killing the Harbinger Collector units in ME2? The similarities from Halo 4 to Mass Effect are really weird.

Anyone who really thinks Cortana is dead is crazy...I hope. They wouldn't kill her off at the start of the trilogy.

@MariachiMacabre said:

Anyone who really thinks Cortana is dead is crazy...I hope. They wouldn't kill her off at the start of the trilogy.

Yeah, I was pretty amazed, I was also thinking the same thing. Still props to 343 for hitting us where it hurt.

@MariachiMacabre: My thoughts, something to do with all the Cortana clones attacking Didact at the end will come into play. Due to Didact narrating the final cut scene, I feel as though he is still alive. However due to his weak state after getting served by Chief, I think the Rampant relics of Cortana will take control of his body/mind, and thus the final baddie through chapter 5, and maybe 6, is bat-shit crazy Cortana.

Start Halo 5 off with Master Chief getting paired with a new AI, and you have even more fuel for crazy Cortana, as rampant jealousy sets in.

This one

@MariachiMacabre said:

Anyone who really thinks Cortana is dead is crazy...I hope. They wouldn't kill her off at the start of the trilogy.

Yeah, I was pretty abased, I was also thinking the same thing. Still props to 343 for hitting us where it hurt.

From the sounds of it, it sounds like the shittest story ever. Could it be any more video-gamey?

I swear these people who write the stories in games haven't got a clue.

man chief must be fucking rancid under that armor. he hasn't taken it off since between halo 1 and 2

Just finished it. Ending made me sad :( I'm sure they're gonna find a way to bring Cortana back but that was a real bummer. The interactions between her and John and everything relating to that part of the story were amazing. The rest of the story was good but I think it could have been told a bit better. I know people tend to shy away from exposition but I feel like this game needed it. Not necessarily with walls of text or a character dropping info, but something. Real strong first act, kinda weak middle, pretty strong third act. There's a great story in there it just wasn't communicated super well, I feel like that's a bit of a running thread in the main Halo series. As for him surviving the Nuke, all they really needed to do was having him throw the bomb or run away a few steps or something to make it feel a bit more plausible. Not a big deal I don't think, but a small thing that would have helped.

I understand Jeff's criticism about a missed opportunity, while I enjoyed the story, it would have been nice to get away from the Covies. That being said, they're still a blast to fight against while the Prometheans were not. I played through on Heroic and while they weren't super frustrating, they just weren't that fun. I liked some of the new weapons a lot, the Incineration Cannon is goddamn brutal and the Binary Rifle is rad. The Suppressor is pretty useless and the Scattershot didn't feel as tough as it should have I think.

As a whole I think it's a damn good game, while some of the design elements didn't quite do it and the story could have been told better, the visuals were fantastic, amazing music (although I don't know if it's just me, some of the sections the audio mix wasn't great. music was way in the background), the character animations and models were incredible and the voice acting was top notch. I still think Reach is my favorite campaign, the story was told a little better and I feel like the missions flowed better, but this is a real close second. Making Chief a bit of a broken character was absolutely the right move and I'm really looking forward to the next game to see how he handles losing Cortana.

Oh and p.s. whoever redesigned the Banshee should be slapped. That thing is completely useless now.

@JazGalaxy: damn man, you know what's up

Most of what I have to say has been said already, so I'm just gonna say this one thing that bothered me. At the end, when Lasky is talking to Chief, he's like " I've lost people too, but I I can't begin to imagine how this feels(in reference to losing Cortana)" or something along those lines. Ok... what the fuck is with that? Cortana is a computer program that Chief has known for maximum 4 years( cause 4 of those 8 years he was napping). Even when Lasky loses his lady friend in the Forward Unto Dawn series, that is way worse than losing some computer program, cause it's a fucking person. And he says people, not person, so obviously there's other people he lost too. He could have watched his mother die, and im sure hes seen buddy's get killed right in front of him over his lengthy military career, so how in the fuck is Chief's loss so much greater than his own? I know this is a minor annoyance compared to larger flaws in the game, but fuck me was that line ever dumb.

@Warihay said:

I am really not sure what to think about where they took the Chief and Cortana story. I'm sure they are going to explore it more in the next two games cause I don't believe for one second that she won't be back in the next game.

Unless they find a way to get her back into the fold really early in the next game, then it will probably be a "oh no Cortanas gone and let's go find her" thing. But if you'll remember, Cortana wasn't with Chief at all in Halo 3 except on the last level, so that whole sad theme of losing her is gonna feel really tired and lazy I'll bet.

Just finished the story about an hour ago - I thought it was great, and the music during the final flying sequence near the end was awesome. One thing that really sticks out, if you go back and look at the animation of the previous Halo trilogy versus this game, is the facial animations. Holy shit they are good. Old Halo faces were scary as fuck.

@TomA said:

Most of what I have to say has been said already, so I'm just gonna say this one thing that bothered me. At the end, when Lasky is talking to Chief, he's like " I've lost people too, but I I can't begin to imagine how this feels(in reference to losing Cortana)" or something along those lines. Ok... what the fuck is with that? Cortana is a computer program that Chief has known for maximum 4 years( cause 4 of those 8 years he was napping). Even when Lasky loses his lady friend in the Forward Unto Dawn series, that is way worse than losing some computer program, cause it's a fucking person. And he says people, not person, so obviously there's other people he lost too. He could have watched his mother die, and im sure hes seen buddy's get killed right in front of him over his lengthy military career, so how in the fuck is Chief's loss so much greater than his own? I know this is a minor annoyance compared to larger flaws in the game, but fuck me was that line ever dumb.

I think you're getting too pissed off about a pretty throwaway line that is only somewhat nonsensical if you've watched the Halo 4 web-series.

Chief and Cortana have always had a close relationship, and she essentially is a person to him. Beyond his duty, she is also pretty much the only driving force he has - Halo 3 was all about "keeping a promise" to her, remember?

yup, just finished it too, definitely my favorite after halo 1. lotsa stuff been mentioned already so i'll just add what comes to mind:

1. the Didact - from the greg bear books the Didact never really came off as the revenge seeking type, at least the original Didact didn't. looking forward to seeing what light the 3rd novel sheds on this

2. John escaping - Cortana musta used the Forerunner teleporting tech. lol

3. Cortana - my hope is the Librarian worked some Lifeshaper magic on her, as well as the evolutionary boost she performed on John. at the very least Cortana's mindstate was saved, and stuff

4. music - halo 1's score is a large reason why it will probably always remain the best Halo game for me. i dig massive attack, and i have no beef with the score, but at no point did halo 4's music make me sit back and and say shit, imma kill shit!. maybe my legendary playthrough will be different

@Scotto: yea im with you on this. doesnt take a therapist to realize what Cortana meant to John. between the galaxy spanning jaunts to save the human race (more than once) and her being the only intimate - as in always there - presence he has ever had, her loss will likely help shape his character more than anything else. of course, Cortana is alive so hopefully he wont be alone for long :D

Part of me kind of hopes Cortana, or at least Cortana as we've known her, is gone. I feel like the "Composer" technology (digitizing human beings, essentially) is setting us up for a human Cortana at some point, however.

It was interesting to see John get emotional at the end of Halo 4, because you literally never see it in the games. That scene with him just staring out of the Infinity was great, because you can feel the weight on him. Cortana had been his only intimate human relationship for years, and he had done crazy shit on more than one occasion to keep her safe.

The same goes for that scene where he refuses Del Rio's order to hand over Cortana. Chief literally never refuses an order, yet was willing to for her, even though it was clear that she was falling apart and dangerous. If she's gone for good, I really think it would be interesting to see how Chief handles it in the rest of the trilogy.

I thought the game was great, not perfect but pretty fucking good. Hard to compare the campaign with Halo 1, but I think this was better than Reach and I thought Reach was good.

I didn't have too much trouble following the story, I do think they could have spelled out some stuff (about the Didact and the preivous human civilization etc.) I thought the Cortana / Master Cheif story was great and a logical next step in Halo story telling. I really appreciated Cortana descent into Rampancy and how crazy she got at some points and how aware she was about her limited lifespan and the crazy nature of her psyche. I really thought the game was going to end with MC getting a new Cortana AI and being super sad about it cause she aint the real one, but I guess they left that for halo 5. There were a lot of good settings in this game, but I kind of felt like the Promethean were kind of lack luster, but I can't imagine how difficult it is to create new type of enemies that are as fun as the Covenant (but at least there was no flood and there was something else to fight beside the Covenant)

I think Cortana either save MC at the end by making a shield out of that Hard Light bridge (the reason why she had a physical form) or she teleported MC outside the space station / death star thingy (or a combination of the two).

I would like to see the next halo include Spartans as enemies ( a human civil war kind of thing), this game was suggesting some shady dealing with the origins of the Spartans program as a measure to control the human population, so I would like the next games to expand on this kind of morality by having MC fight against humans ( and a nice morality choice for MC, who continuously states that his mission is to protect humanity). I would also like to see MC get a new Cortana AI, but not get along with her, this could somehow end up with the real Cortana returning either in a physical form or just hijacking the new Cortana AI (via space magic of course, and yes space magic exist in my Halo fanfiction)

Also I had a question for you guys, why is everyone on the Internet saying that the Didact lived through the ending? Don't get me wrong, he probably did live through the ending because its a god damn video game; but I'v seen a lot of people state the speech from the Didact at the end of the prologue as reason that he is still alive. The way I saw it, that was the speech he gave the Forerunners before his imprisonment after digitizing humans during the Forerunners / Flood war.

anytime you don't see a body of a villain, it usually means he's coming back

tho I agree it doesn't necessarily mean that speech is from after this fight

Finished first play through of the campaign on Heroic a while back, will work on Legendary later. My overall opinion, it's pretty much the Call of Duty of the Halo franchise which has some pros and cons. One of the things that steadily bothered me more throughout the campaign, and I'm surprised more people haven't brought up, was that they decided to lobotomize all of the Covenant and leave them with no voice in the story (almost literally since MC's translation software apparently evaporated). I know that at least part of the Covenant being pretty much the "alien bad guys, you shoot em," instead of intelligent beings, was that they were a more fanatic group, that split off and apparently has their own fleet. But what really made no sense to me was that there's pretty much no mention of those allied to Humanity, even at the research station near the third Halo. You would have thought that some of the Covenant would have been involved on researching the civilization that they spent their lives worshiping, but instead we're given a humans-only station with a bunch of scientists screaming "The Covenant are coming for us, oh no!" I also was a little peeved that they seemed to pull names out of thin air (the Didact never introduces himself before Cortana starts using that name, apparently pulling that factoid from a late Halo book as well, under the assumption that everyone read it) .

For me, the strongest part of the campaign was the CortanaxChief relationship that was played with. I feel they did a good job of giving Chief a human side while still retaining his character (remaining far from emotional outbursts was probably a good call here). As far as Cortana's fate, I'd prefer if they left her dead to make the ending a little more justified and, if they should bring her back, I'd prefer to see it be as an antagonist (a rampant part that split off and survived perhaps) rather than her old self, but I half expect that they'll revive her fully anyway (possibly given human form thanks to the Composer). Speaking of which, was anyone else disappointed with the CoD style, anti-climatic, first-person quicktime sequence at the end? After pressing L-trigger to sticky him with a grenade that doesn't stick to things, I expected something more, maybe even a proper fight, not for Didact to just topple and presumably die. Despite this, the campaign offered some pretty cool missions (Broadsword piloting inside a structure was an interesting idea) and looked gorgeous, so that's always a bonus, I guess.

Vehicle diversity has taken a major hit outside of campaign (Covenant vehicles now represented by only 3 old designs, the only new vehicle is the Mantis), although I probably should have seen that coming after the Covenant and Promethean infantry both consisted of only 3 racial variants each (4 for covenant if you count they handful of Hunters thrown in). Alien weapons sound more like human guns than ever before for some reason.

Overall, Halo 4 is fun, even if it borrows heavily from ideas that are neither original, nor are they Halo-esc. I hope that 343 can continue to improve from this as a starting point of their Halo designs. And that's about the extent of my opinions so far. [/rant]

edit: because I had a tangent about multiplayer in there for some reason.

@theveej: if we want to be more transparent more than just saying its a god damm videogame :P.

is that 343 have been touting this guy as the villian for this trilogy, ill say this though, based on reading the forerunner books, ill almost guarantee that he wont be the only villain in the series, ill even say that there will be possibly 2 more enemy types thrown into this sandbox before the end of this trilogy

@mrfluke: Sounds good to me, I'd love to see some more diversity (especially if they can keep the old cannon alive at the same time). I just hope they remember to give them a proper in-game introduction as well.

Man, what a terrible campaign. I laughed my ass off at the mini cortanas, but mostly I was just fucking bored. A story about an Evil Guy coming to earth on a Powerful Ship to Destroy Earth. When I found out I was going to save earth I was like "yeah of course I am. who gives a fuck". The only opinions I had on the Didact were "he has a really fucking dumb name", Cortana doesn't matter because I'll just get Cortana 2 in the next game and it's not like an AI that says "hey go here" is a character I can care about, and the game ends with a fucking HALLWAY CRAWL. Well, not a hallway as much as tons of those big platforms you routinely clear. I mean really, it's like ending Halo 1 after The Library.

Just utterly terrible imo. But I'm not too upset because I've been enjoying the multiplayer. Kind of funny that I've always hated halo multiplayer and liked the campaigns, and with each game, it progressively moved until now we're here.

@Hamz said:

I'm one of those oddballs that has never actually sat down and played every Halo game or even read the EU Books/Novels for the series but I am a dab hand at using Google and Wikipedia and have come the following conclusion...

Humanity once evolved to a state that rivalled the Forerunners and managed to make them sweat a little during the Human/Forerunner War. The Forerunners viewed Humanity as just another violent race looking to expand aggressively across the Universe and after taking a few beatings from us they finally went all Alpha Male and almost wiped us out. However they realised too late that we were fleeing from the Flood and that is when The Librarian kickstarted the Human race again on Earth, in secret, until the Didact found out but at that point the Flood were pretty much ripping the Forerunners a new one. Now my guestimation here is that the Didact would have rather enslaved what remained of Humanity to use as fodder against the Flood instead of using the Halo Arrays but the rest of the Forerunners disagreed and imprisoned him.

Basically it seems the entire theme for the game is to not be a heartless killing machine but to show some compassion. We literally see Chief disobeying orders, getting more than a little attached to Cortana and then (I assume) get a little teary eyed at the end as he stares out the window before the credits roll.

Another point is that when they isolated us to ancient earth the also devolved us with the Halo rings back to savages, Ironically the Didact exiled himself after this because it was against the Mantel, he was not for the construction, or use of the Halo rings. However what I assume is that the new Didact, which is the Didact in Halo 4, he is not the original, he has the essence and knowledge of the old Didact but still is not the same person, the original was killed by the Master Builder, this new Didact was the one who went all crazy and wanted to eradicate man kind, turning them into machines for bringing the flood to the Forerunners door step.

@Warihay: I'll be honest with you, Halo 4 was very "ho-hum" story wise. I kept waiting and waiting for it to pick up and up until the last 30 mins, I literally did not care to go here push this button or defend Cortana so she could do this. Reach and Halo 4 have just had very boring stories. Halo CE is still the best in the series. I know most FPS are a rinse.repeat formula with going here, killing enemies, activate 'thing' etc, but normally Halo is pretty good at making you care. These last two just haven't had that. I also felt some of the dialogue was just bad.

Dont take this as a anti-Halo rant, I actually love Halo, but the last two have been "off". There will always be a place in the gaming world for Halo multi but I'm beginning to wonder if Halo's 'prime" has passed(single player wise) Maybe 5 will step it up

I really enjoyed the story and campaign of this game.

I loved that ending. I loved that from start to finish, the focus is very much on humanising John. Even the intro manages to do that better than the first 3 games, and without even showing him.

And yeah, that ending was pretty impactful, it's a great, quiet and personnal ending that in comparison to the usual bombastic endings that video games get, is kind of refreshing.

I didn't like it. Bringing the Forerunners into the world should have been fascinating, but the Didact and all his stuff just bored me horribly. The only part of the story I found at all interesting was Cortana's arc, but now she's gone. Couple that with the fact that I don't like most other things about the game (new enemies, new art direction, new music, etc... though I do like the new guns), and I have absolutely zero desire to play any more of 343's Halo games at this point. Also, they killed off my favorite character from those games. They can go to hell.

On the bright side, that means I can save money next generation by just going with the PS4, since Halo is the only Xbox exclusive I really cared about.

I just finished it. The last run up to the ending was really cool. I don't know about the rest of you but my style of play changed dramatically. The first parts of the game I stayed back and took sniper type shots and then would clean up with an automatic weapon. At the end though the design felt more claustrophobic and spent much more time sprinting, switching weapons, and lining up really fast headshots. I really liked both styles of play and it's awesome that the game allowed for such differing gameplay. I really liked the variety of this game too. I never had those moments where I got too tired of the shooting or driving or anything else. The gameplay might be the best I've seen in a Halo game and that's saying a lot.

The story has its ups and downs. On the one hand I was well aware of the emotions I was supposed to be feeling. I felt rushed when the game wanted me to feel rushed. I knew why I needed to be irritated and, even though I didn't quite get as irritated as I think the game wanted me to be, I knew that was what the game was going for. But the specifics were lost on me. I understand the broad details of the story but I don't know the explicit details. I enjoyed the story overall but I couldn't really go into detail about any of it. I worry that this trilogy is starting to mirror the story of Mass Effect. I get the impression that the forerunners are essentially the same concept as the entity that created all of life in the ME universe. Maybe I'm wrong though. But fuck the details. It was a fun game.

@Warihay said:

If you couldn't tell by the title, stop reading here if you haven't finished the story yet.

So I just finished the game for the first time in one sitting. Overall, I think the game starts off very strong but I started to lose the thread of what was going on when the Librarian approaches you and the game shows the flashback cinematic. I initially did not understand what the composer was but that became more clear as the game went on. But the main question I still have is the motives of Diadact for wanting to destroy humanity. I must have missed something in the cinematic because I have no idea why he was doing what he was doing throughout the game. So if someone could clear that up for me or at least how you interpreted it, I would greatly appreciate it.

I am really not sure what to think about where they took the Chief and Cortana story. I'm sure they are going to explore it more in the next two games cause I don't believe for one second that she won't be back in the next game.

Finally, however Cortana managed to save Chief from not evaporating after setting off a nuclear bomb right in front of him is beyond me. I feel like that they did not make that very clear how she did that. As for the ending itself, they left it pretty open and I imagined they would leave it on a bit more of a cliffhanger but we'll see. Other than that, I thought the music was fantastic and some of the best in the series. I think the pacing was pretty good and I never got bored and for the first time, there wasn't a "Cortana" or "Library" level in a Halo game that was just unbearable to play.

So what'd you think?

From Halopedia

The Didact was a Promethean, a member of an extremely powerful class of Warrior-Servant. He gained his name while teaching at the College of Strategic Defense of the Mantle. On Charum Hakkor, he met a Lifeworker named the Librarian and married her. They had several children, who followed their father's footsteps and became Warrior-Servants. During the Human-Forerunner wars, the Didact lead the Forerunner military against the humans. Though all of his children died, the Forerunners were victorious.

Hard light is also believed to be able to protect an individual from a nuclear explosion at point-blank range as shown when Master Chief manually detonated a HAVOK Tactical Nuclear Warhead but was protected by a barrier of hard light surrounding him thanks to intervention by Cortana as she was dying, along with manifesting a hard light, life-sized holographic avatar to be able to touch Johns armor before disentegrating completely upon her death.

@Marshall109 said:

I just found the story in general to be pretty flat. There were no real high points except maybe the trench run in the broadsword fighter, which I thought was pretty dang awesome. Aside from that I just found the pacing way too fast and the story lacking supporting characters. Seriously, there's practically no one in this game. Sure Lasky and Del Rio talk a fair amount, but I never cared for them or thought much of them.

Playing this really reminded me of why I enjoyed Reach so much. The slow build up in the beginning and characters that I thought weren't entirely disposable (although I know plenty of people who would disagree with that, and I see where they're coming from.)

But yeah, I thought the game played extremely well, there just seemed to be a lot of missed opportunities. Also, 343 really likes Mass Effect apparently.

I am gonna have to agree with this one. I also found the story to be flat. What I found absurd what how some characters treat Master Chief, Mainly Captain Del Rio. The guy was just a dick to Master Chief from the get go for no good reason and none of the characters ever have any problems with it.

I thought the campaign was great. But I've read all the Halo books (particularly Cryptum) so I wasn't saying "Who the fuck is that?" when the Didact and Librarian showed up. I can see where most people would be lost though. A pretty bold choice by 343 to not hold the hands of the casual fans and aim the story at the hardcore fans of the lore. I also loved all the corny Cortana/Chief stuff. I'm a bit of a softie I guess. That said, I'm confident that Cortana and the Didact be back will be down the line. All in all, a totally satisfying experience.

So. Uh.

...I don't know.

Pretty dumb that they had to 'kill' cortana to give the story some sort of weight, and stuff like that just shows how it was cliche ridden crap really. Del Rio being the shining example of stereotypical military man who apparently is incapable of making a single decision that wont make things worse, and wont listen to the man who's been there and done it all before. So fucking infuriating. And the whole story might as well not have happened, there's almost no lasting implications other than a few humans being incinerated.

And gameplay wise, I wish they hadn't cut so many corners to make it look pretty...

You can clip through pretty much all the terrain and you'll see numerous vehicles and weapons go straight through entire mountains and structures. There's pretty much no open space gameplay either, the likes of which the Halo series was known for ever since the first.

I hope they have him find a way to get Cortana back (assuming that will be the focus of the next two games as he contends with whatever remains of the Didact) because she's one of the few interesting characters in the series and I hope they don't play it so safe like they have now. Maybe get way crazy with the history between prometheans and forerunnes and the old humans and perhaps actually have the chief interact with other real people in a meaningful way (Spartans like Kelly and Fred are still out there.) I would equate this level of storytelling to the likes of Avatar in terms of quality and predictability.

Edit: Should mention that the part with this song playing was my favorite moment in the game

Reminds me a little of Firefly/Serenity, they might be similar musically. Gave me a nostalgic feeling anyway.

@big_jon said:

@Hamz said:

I'm one of those oddballs that has never actually sat down and played every Halo game or even read the EU Books/Novels for the series but I am a dab hand at using Google and Wikipedia and have come the following conclusion...

Humanity once evolved to a state that rivalled the Forerunners and managed to make them sweat a little during the Human/Forerunner War. The Forerunners viewed Humanity as just another violent race looking to expand aggressively across the Universe and after taking a few beatings from us they finally went all Alpha Male and almost wiped us out. However they realised too late that we were fleeing from the Flood and that is when The Librarian kickstarted the Human race again on Earth, in secret, until the Didact found out but at that point the Flood were pretty much ripping the Forerunners a new one. Now my guestimation here is that the Didact would have rather enslaved what remained of Humanity to use as fodder against the Flood instead of using the Halo Arrays but the rest of the Forerunners disagreed and imprisoned him.

Basically it seems the entire theme for the game is to not be a heartless killing machine but to show some compassion. We literally see Chief disobeying orders, getting more than a little attached to Cortana and then (I assume) get a little teary eyed at the end as he stares out the window before the credits roll.

Another point is that when they isolated us to ancient earth the also devolved us with the Halo rings back to savages, Ironically the Didact exiled himself after this because it was against the Mantel, he was not for the construction, or use of the Halo rings. However what I assume is that the new Didact, which is the Didact in Halo 4, he is not the original, he has the essence and knowledge of the old Didact but still is not the same person, the original was killed by the Master Builder, this new Didact was the one who went all crazy and wanted to eradicate man kind, turning them into machines for bringing the flood to the Forerunners door step.

Yet another point is that apparently there is a creed that says that "whoever is the most evolved shall look over everyone else", or something to that effect. Meaning that the most evolved race shall carry The Mantle. Meaning that Humanity were to take on The Mantle if they defeat The Forerunners, like the Librarian is arguing to the Didact that they probably should. But the Didact, because he carries a big ol' grudge, won't allow that to happen and is trying to ensure that it is always The Forerunners that will carry The Mantle.