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A happy, positive post.
Posted By: Quirel <I_am_quirel@hotmail.com>	Date: 3/1/13 4:08 a.m.
In Response To: Halo Wars & Halo 4: That "Halo" feeling *vids* (Revenant1988) I'm going to try. I'm honestly going to try. Not going to be so negative. Going to try and tone down the cynicism. : Is it possible that the Halo that Bungie conceived 10 years ago stayed true : to form and wound up where they thought it would? Possibly, but highly : unlikely. Fragments, and points here or there may resemble the original : concept but I think its been vocalized before that no one, not even Bungie : had any idea on just how "big" Halo would become. : Maybe I should have seen some of this coming, the "this" being that : moment when a franchise hits that sort of.... critical mass moment when it : begins to collapse into itself, be it a little, a lot, or completely (I've : experienced this with all sorts of other things, movies, comics, multiple : tv shows). That's the feeling I've been wrestling with lately with Halo as : it sits currently. And that's why we're all here. Group therapy. : Is that an apt description? Do any of you feel similar? Actually, I love that description. Might borrow it and use it myself, one of these days. Is it continuity lockout? Continuity snarl? Somehow, it seems like what made Halo great has been lost in successive layers of self-imitation and artistic license. What made the Covenant deadly and mysterious has been lost to Flanderization and contrivance. What made the UNSC compelling protagonists has been obliterated by plot armor and more contrivance. The once-interesting hook of the fight over Forerunner artefacts has been played to the point of self parody ("It's the Covenant. Aren't they always looking for something?" "We really need to find these guys a new hobby.") and it's just not interesting anymore. Critical mass? Darn right. : Maybe it should be expected- there is a new studio at the helm after all. It : takes time to get barrings and to learn the ropes. 343i has been at it for four years now. They no longer have that excuse, and I wish people would quit making it for them. : "Then Frank O’Connor says, “Maybe Jul : just drives Requiem into the sun.” And we all laughed, because that was so : wonderfully absurd. " : Yeah, that is kinda dumb. I'm glad you guys were able to joke around so- : wait, what- : "A half hour later we still didn’t have an idea of how the Requiem : adventure ended. Eventually we let Jul drive Requiem into the sun because, : come on. That’s pretty awesome, throwing planets into suns." "Hey, 343i? I don't want to alarm you but, ah, that's how DC almost killed the American comic book industry." And no, randomly throwing planets into suns and blowing both of them up isn't cool. It's... over the top. And we... don't... care. There was mystery in Requiem, back when Halo 3 was released. But Halo 4 exploited it and prematurely killed that mystery. There was nothing interesting on Requiem, besides some interesting skyboxes and some beautiful scenery that we were hustled past. So, Requiem was destroyed? Alright. They came to that decision after thirty minutes of deliberation? Doesn't surprise me, to be honest. It carries the same emotional impact as the destruction of New Phoenix. I at least felt something when Halo was blown up. Hell, I was also sad to see the Ark go. But Requiem? : Here's the thing, 343, if that was how it all went down, fine- but my advice : would be to never, ever-never tell the fanbase that sort of thing when you : are being watched so closely or when your stewardship of the series is in : question. Terrible PR move. That's a story you can tell 10 years later, : but not right now- There are still stories we haven't even heard from : Bungie at this point with Halo's development and its possible they could : be just as goofy as yours- the difference is they still retain their : mystery by saving it for a better time- you just blew yours. Speaking as the person who was excited at the idea of hearing about behind-the-scenes and cut content from Kiki Wolfkill... yeah. : Maybe the writing team lacked "Halo writing" experience? : No, that's not it because Frankie was a writer during Halo 3 and Halo 2 if I : recall correctly so he should know what things to focus on. I have a hard time reconciling the fact that Frankie wrote the Halo 3 Terminals with the knowledge that Halo Legends and Halo 4 were published while he was... Franchise Coordinator? Something like that. : Maybe it was all the new things that 343 introduced that Bungie never did? : No, that isn't it either because again, Halo Wars introduced all kinds of : things into the universe that fit surprisingly well, things that I could : imagine being in a "Bungie Halo". Uh... : Watching these 3 videos gave me goosbumps. I felt like throwing Halo in and : going to play right then and there while I was at work. Ensemble was a : totally different studio and they managed to take all the things that I : love about the first person narrative in Halo 1-3 and put it into an RTS. : -The dialogue was good 0.0 : -The characters felt important and I cared about them o.0 : -The other Spartans FELT like Spartans, and while you never saw their faces : you could still tell they were different from the Chief >.> : -The villains were compelling and interesting =.= : -The new assets felt like they belonged, even ones that were somewhat radical : in appearance. >_< : - The story wasn't trying to do too much at once *Goes off to pour a stiff drink* -The dialogue was weak. Extremely weak. Each character has a line that's worse than Miranda's "To War". Serina: "See? I told you we'd make it." Cutter: "The Scarab is destroyed. Victory is ours today." Anders: "I'll come quietly if you let him live."* Forge: Take your pick. -Different strokes for different folks, I guess. -The Spartans never really felt like real Spartans to me. Mostly because they were hauling around the same weapons in every single mission (and Douglas can't hit the broad side of a barnyard. Grr...) However, the cutscenes didn't really do them justice either. Ensemble came closer than a lot of other people, though. -The Arbiter of Halo Wars was impotent. At no point in time did I feel like he was a threat to the main characters or an effective leader of the Covenant. -Hey, I love the Sparrowhawk, Wolverine and Locust just as much as the next guy. I can't take the Cobra or the Cyclops seriously, though. As for the Mammoth tank (not a typo), it holds the dubious distinction of being a vehicle that I think would work great for the Aliens universe, but not for Halo. -The story was trying to do too much. Halo Wars was trying to be too much. Because of that, every mission from when the Spirit of Fire leaves Harvest to when it's pulled into the interior of the Femto-Dyson Sphere is just filler. Halo Wars tries to be a "complete Halo game", and much of it was unsuccessful. The Flood wasn't scary or interesting, the Arbiter wasn't a very good villain, and the subplots about Forerunner artefacts was weak. Halo Wars was at its strongest in the first few levels, when it was focusing on the fight between the UNSC and the Covenant over colony worlds. That facet of the conflict was well done, and it was interesting because we'd never seen much of it before. God, I love that game.** : In fact, Halo 4 to me felt like it had bitten off more than it could chew, : like it was trying to do too much at once when if they had focused just a : tiny bit better on the smaller conflict with the Chief and Didact that it : might have been better overall, instead of trying to cover the : Forerunners, the Didact and Librarian, the Chief and Cortana, the Spartan : 4's, Infinity, Del Rio, Palmer and Lasky and lastly the remnants of the : Covenant. Don't forget the Human-Forerunner War and the Prometheans. : The other thing they did really well was making the cut scenes and in-game : objective dialogue fit with the gameplay, AND they were able to do this : while maintaining that "sky" or "god" perspective that : an RTS requires. The in-game cutscenes were hit and miss, but I don't have enough room to go into it here. : I think that is most impressive and something that : Spartan OPs and the Terminals from Halo 4 lacked- they didn't connect well : to everything else and while solid individually fell short combined : because of it. Preach it! : I don't know if we'll ever see a Halo Wars 2 but at least when Halo Wars blew : up their sun it made sense due to them being in a dyson sphere. *Cheek twitch* No. No no no nein no. No. It was an illogical nonsense implosion just gotterdammer -0 phlebotinium-fueled fffffffffffffff-- GRAVITY SLINGSHOTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! Ahem. In order for a gravity slingshot to work, the body you're orbiting has to be in motion relative to your starting point or your destination, neither of which is true for the Femto-Dyson Sphere. Honestly, the "Threading a needle" maneuver is a violation of Conservation of Energy, as well as plain common sense. It also raises prickly questions about the heat output of that miniature star, as well as the mechanism with which it was held together. As for the implosion... I can buy the Pillar of Autumn's reactor destroying Halo because of the energy requirements the ship has for moving around and firing its gun. I can buy a misplaced slipspace drive tearing a supercarrier a new one, because of Jon's Law and Kat's Corollary****. But imploding an entire hollow-world? Sorry, but that's the Galloping Gertie of my suspension of disbelief. : As : Loftus so eloquently put it to me one night on XBL "Requiem being : pulled into a nearby sun was like flicking a frozen pea at a beach ball, : except the beach ball wasn't there earlier". Having worked for years in a food plant, I can personally attest to the destructive power of frozen peas*****. Blowing up a star is beyond them. For further reading on the subject of hurling planets, please visit the following pages. http://qntm.org/moving http://qntm.org/destroy Best line of the whole website: "Atmospheric considerations are ignored here since it is far more energy-efficient to manually remove the Earth's atmosphere, move the planet, and reinstall it." : And for godsake, don't : tell people that you came up with it in 30 min because you couldn't think : of anything better. Amen. --------------------------------- *Is it just me, or does the weakest dialog occur right after the destruction of the Scarab, when the plot does a 90 degree turn towards the Femto-Dyson Sphere? **Seriously. Not lying.*** ***Well, it's kind of an abusive love-hate relationship, but I do harbor positive feelings towards Halo Wars. ****Jon's Law: "Any interesting space drive is a weapon of mass destruction." Kat's Corollary: "A slipspace drive is designed to transition an object into slipspace, whether or not that object wants to." *****Quite terrifying, at times, but nowhere near the sheer destructive power of frozen corn cobs. Those things can put an eye out if you don't handle them right.

Message Index

Halo Wars & Halo 4: That "Halo" feeling *vids*	Revenant1988	2/28/13 9:26 p.m.
Re: Halo Wars & Halo 4: That "Halo" feeling *vids*	Dielectric	2/28/13 10:30 p.m.
Re: Halo Wars & Halo 4: That "Halo" feeling *vids*	Azo 'Galvat	2/28/13 10:31 p.m.
I think what Halo Wars did best	TDSpiral	3/1/13 1:06 a.m.
Re: Halo Wars & Halo 4: That "Halo" feeling *vids*	DarkReign2021	3/1/13 1:29 a.m.
A happy, positive post.	Quirel	3/1/13 4:08 a.m.