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| One More Thing | |
| Posted By: Hawaiian Pig | Date: 9/17/10 10:51 p.m. |
In Response To: Re: Hawaiian Pig's Fantabulous Story Review *SP* (BanditORR) : I agree 100%. Everything you said. Everything. Are you me? Haha, since you're the only reply, probably. Thanks for the input thought. : The bottom line is, you could easily switch up the order of several levels
I was thinking about all of this some more, and I gotta say, it's worse than just the incoherence of events. It's straight up awful writing. Peep this. Halo 1 Opening Cutscene
Keyes: Cortana, all I need to know is, did we lose them? Cortana: I think we both know the answer to that. Keyes: We made a blind jump.... How did they -- Cortana: Get here first? The Covenant ships have always been faster. As for tracking us all the way from Reach, at light speed my maneuvering options were limited. Keyes: We were running dark, yes? Cortana: Until we decellerated. No one could have missed the hole we tore in subspace. (pause) They were waiting for us on the far side of the planet. Keyes: So, where do we stand? Cortana: Our fighters are mopping up the last of their Recon picket now, nothing serious. But, I've isolated approach signatures from multiple CCS-class battlegroups. Make it three capital ships per group. And in about ninety seconds they'll be all over us. Keyes: Well, that's it then. Bring the ship back up to Combat Alert Alpha. I want everyone at their station. Cortana: Everyone sir? Keyes: Everyone. And, Cortana... Cortana: Hmm? Keyes: Let's give our old friends a warm welcome. Cortana: I've already begun. Now obviously Halo 1 has the luxury of being absolutely fresh, but the idea here is that everything feels natural. It feels like you're overhearing a conversation, perhaps even coming in mid-sentence. You get the sense that this is a short breather in a tumultuous time; that these guys are in a war and were in hot pursuit. There are some allusions to things we don't yet fully know, and are intrigued to know more about. What is this Covenant? Who is the old friend? So much is apparent, and yet nothing is overtly stated. Here, Halo 2 didn't have the luxury of being completely fresh, and how does it open? Halo 2 Opening Cutscene
Elite Commander: There was only one ship. Prophet of Truth: One? Are you sure? Elite Commander: Yes. They called it...the Pillar of Autumn.
Prophet of Mercy: Why was it not destroyed, with the rest of their fleet? Elite Commander: It fled, as we set fire to their planet. Elite Commander: But I followed with all the ships in my command. Prophet of Truth: When you first saw Halo, were you blinded by its majesty? Elite Commander: Blinded? Prophet of Regret: Paralyzed? Dumbstruck? Elite Commander: No. Prophet of Regret: Yet the humans were able to evade your ships, land on the Sacred Ring, and desecrate it with their filthy footsteps? Elite Commander: Noble Heirarchs...surely you understand that once the parasite attacked... Prophet of Mercy: There will be order in this Council! Prophet of Truth: You were right to focus your attention on the Flood, but this Demon, this 'Master Chief'... Elite Commander: By the time I learned the Demon's intent, there was nothing I could do. Prophet of Regret (whispering): Prophet of Truth, this has gone on long enough. Make an example of this bungler. The Council demands it. Prophet of Truth: You are one of our most cherished instruments. Long have you led your fleet with honor and distinction, but your inability to safeguard Halo...was a colossal failure. Council Prophet: Nay, it was heresy! Elite Commander: I will continue my campaign against the humans. Prophet of Truth: No! You will not. Prophet of Truth: Soon the Great Journey shall begin. Prophet of Truth: But when it does, the weight of your heresy will stay your feet, and you shall be left behind. Again, an extremely natural and believable exchange. Once again, there's a lot to be intrigued about, a lot to engage the viewer. Who is this Elite Commander? Sounds like he's the guy I rocked last game, interesting. What's going on here? There's some definite tension, things are getting a little heated. Colour me interested. Juxtapose this with the celebration back on the orbital station that comes next, and the reveal that the covenant have found Earth, and you have a compelling set of events. But on top of it all, the writing feels natural. I fully believe that this is how the Covenant would discuss and deal with this situation. Halo 3 Opening Cutscene
Cortana: They let me pick. Did I ever tell you that? Choose whichever Spartan I wanted. You know me. I did my research. Watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. Like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw, but me. A second, lesser fireball breaks off from the main one. It moves at an oblique angle to the first, which is to say, towards the camera. It moves closer while the first vanishes behind a spray of trees. Can you guess? ...Luck. ...Was I wrong? Halo 3 opens a bit differently with an intimate voiceover by Cortana. It's cinematic, it's interesting, it's engaging. She talks about how she "picked" you. Her words are very well picked; she talks about watching you develop as a solider and separate yourself from the other SPARTANs with your unique quality: Luck. And omniously, yet almost jokingly, she asks "Was I wrong?" This introduction not only brings us back to the Halo universe, but it ties very well into the rest of the game. Cortana's choice, something we didn't know before, will be tested, and her fate depends upon it. I didn't even include the rest of the cutscene, where the Chief reacts to the Arbiter's presence. Awesome stuff, that. So that brings us to Reach (yeah, I'm skippin' ODST, wanna fight about it?) Halo: Reach Opening Cutscene
Col. Urban Holland: Contact with Visegrad Relay was lost last night. All signals flatlined at twenty-six hundred hours. I responded with trooper fire teams, which have since been declared MIA. Carter-A259: And now you're sending us. Col. Urban Holland: The Office of Naval Intelligence believes that deployment of a Spartan team is a gross misallocation of valuable resources. I disagree. Kat-B320: Commander. Jorge-052: So that's our new number six. Emile-A239: Kat, you read his file? Kat-B320: Only the parts that weren't covered in black ink. Carter-A259: Anyone claim responsibility, sir? Col. Urban Holland: ONI thinks it might be the local insurrection. Five months ago, they pulled a similar job on Harmony. Hit a relay to take out our eyes and ears, then stole two freighters from dry-dock. That cannot happen here. Reach is too damn important. I want that relay back online, Noble One. Carter-A259: Sir. Consider it done. Col. Urban Holland: Then I'll see you on the other side. Holland out. Carter-A259: Lieutenant. Noble-6 B312: Commander. Sir. Carter-A259: I'm Carter, Noble Team's leader. That's Kat, Noble Two, Emile and Jorge, Four and Five. You're riding with me, Noble Six. Carter-A259: I'm not gonna lie to you, Lieutenant. You're stepping into some shoes the rest of the squad would rather leave unfilled. Carter-A259: Me, I'm just happy to have Noble back up to full strength. Just one thing. I've seen your file. Even the parts the ONI censors didn't want me to. I'm glad to have your skill set, but we're a team. That lone wolf stuff stays behind. Clear? Noble-6 B312: Got it, sir. Jun-A266: Welcome to Reach. That last line pretty much sums up the feeling of this entire cutscene. Hey! Player1. This is a video game! Welcome to Halo: Reach. Congratulations on your purchase and/or rental. What happens here? We're told our objective, we're introduced to our team. What's really engaging here? The fact that there's a downed comms array? That's hardly interesting, and it isn't even given sufficient treatment. I mean, there's potential there to make it interesting, and the few lines about insurrectionists helps this, but beyond that the remainder of the scene serves the sole purpose of telling the player who everyone is and what they're about to do. Telling me who your characters are and giving me a sitrep for your introduction is bad writing. This is the first thing the player sees, engage me dammit. It's unnatural and horrible. It's decidedly not "Halo" to me. I understand that this scene is an effect of having a faceless character that your player can assume. But, hey, if Half Life can do it in an interesting way, why can't you? Hell, it's done in Halo 1 with that guy in the hushed casket. This scene sets the tone for the whole game. Nothing feels natural, everything feel like it's being thrown at you. With the trilogy, all of the interactions make you feel as though you're peering into another world. And heck, not everything has to be presented to you through dialogue. On 343GS, you're alone for the first time. You're given this level where something happened. You don't know what, but there's a heck of a lot of evidence of stuff happening that you explore at your own pace. Short breathers like this help build atmosphere and are abundant in the trilogy. We get a glimpse of this on Exodus when you first enter the city, but not much else. Not everything has to be telegraphed to the player. I cannot stress enough how much potential there was here. Reach is supposed to be humanity's last bastion. The only thing between the Covenant and Earth. This shit is supposed to be tense. There's supposed to be conflict, turmoil, interesting stories to tell. So when the Covenant show up for the first time, why is the only real reaction: "Here we go." Now again, in my earlier post I make this clear: This isn't to say Reach doesn't do a stellar job of building atmosphere. I certainly feel like this planet is under siege. What I don't feel is that the characters and story make great use of this great atmosphere. I don't care one bit about any of these SPARTANs. I care about SPARTANs in general because I like the Halo series, but aside from that, these guys suck. Anyway, there's so much to say about this, and no one is reading so I'll just huff and puff elsewhere.
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