I don’t care if you’re 100 years old or born yesterday, and I especially don’t care if you grew up on the original trilogy.
I played Halo 4. You played Halo 4. We both played Halo 4, and we both played Halo Infinite. If you didn’t enjoy it, great, just say that. I did, and I don’t need you to come out here to sell me on why I’m wrong, because I don’t want to hear it.
You can feel whatever you want about this game, but don’t go out of your way drag me into your cesspool of “this game stinks for [x y or z].”
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fair enough my apologies, I only hope we get free/cheap story dlc and soon
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Think one reason why they did not want the banished / created conflict to continue because 343 did not want the prometheans in the game.
I’m okay with them resolving it off screen, but they should have at least included a few terminals in the game that went into more depth
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Just wanna say thanks to everyone for keeping this thread civil.
Seems like that’s kinda hard on here sometimes.
I disagree. 343 Guilty Spark had just as much of a disconnect with what was going on, with the added disadvantage of having no wiki to reference. Something that, to note, isn’t even needed in Infinite as the mystery is explored directly through the plot, and secondarily through datapads.
343 Guilty Spark did not have phenomenal storytelling. Nowhere near what Nostalgia would suggest. The Chief delves into a Forerunner facility, chasing after Captain Keyes, finds Space Zombies of all damn things, and then is whisked away by the Monitor for… reasons. Reasons that grow increasingly convoluted when it’s discovered that the Halos are a big super Doomsday weapon to fight the Flood - which at that point was nowhere near as developed conceptually as they have become - because apparently a double-tap from a M90 wasn’t enough - and apparently the Chief is the reincarnation of someone.
It was terrible, really. It’s only been made infinitely better through additional lore and future additions to the Franchise. But that doesn’t help the story-telling of Halo: Combat Evolved itself.
Contrast this with Halo Infinite, and we have so many more story elements that aid the quite solid plot. We have so much more emotional weight than was ever present in Halo: CE - honestly. Truth now; how many of us passively watched as Keyes was zombified and face-holed by Chief’s fist? Speaking for myself, it never bothered me much, and Chief’s passiveness didn’t convey the emotional weight that the scene demanded.
On the other hand, Halo Infinite is doing fantastically conveying emotions that give the plot significant weight. We can literally see and feel Chief’s wounds from the previous events with Cortana. We can tell from his stoicism and silence that he doesn’t fully trust the Weapon. We see him grieve for his fellow Spartans far more than the little headshake he gave Jenkins’ helmet. We can easily see and hear the desperation of the Pilot - and even that of the Marine NPCs that we rescue across the ring.
Objectively, Halo Infinite is doing a far better job at storytelling than Halo: CE.
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and that’s the point this game suffers from H5’s cardinal sin of telling us what happened instead of showing us. think about it in 343 guilty spark we enter the facility in the first few rooms we are confronted by covenant guards. then as we get deeper the scene changes and we start finding barricaded rooms, dead humans and elites, and green goop dripping from everywhere. then shortly after we come across a marine mumbling about monsters and being turned into one. the next rooms we come to are covered in human and covenant blood but there are no bodies. it sets the stage and nothing in this game equals that.
Instead of the cut scene of chief getting his butt kicked at the beginning of the game they should have started before Infinity jumped to what ever system zeta is currently in and let us experience the fight for infinity first hand instead of making us watch it., but the way it was presented was like having the Piillar of Autumn be a long cutscene directed by Michael Bay, lots of action no story. the audio logs are telling us what happened instead of showing us. it detracts from the gameplay to have to hunt them down just to know whats going on and what has happened while we were drifting in space.
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Don’t act like the original trilogy was absent of this.
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Halo: CE told us about Reach, about Keyes finding out the Covenant call the ring “Halo”, about the dangerousness of the Flood, and about “Last time you asked me…”
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Halo 2 told us that John-117 made it back to Earth, and worse still that Johnson had somehow survived the destruction of Installation 04 in defiance of “Dust and echoes”. Halo 2 also told us about the depths of the in-fighting between the Hierarchs - to the same degree that Halo Infinite is telling us information. It told us that Truth withdrew the Phantoms of Vadumee’s lance, and it told us that the Hierarchs “questioned” 343 Guilty Spark.
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Halo 3 once more told us a great deal of things concerning the Forerunners in the same degree as Halo Infinite is telling us information; through terminals and ancillary in-game content. It told us that Truth’s fleet decimated the Home Fleet.
And in Halo Infinite we come upon several past events and clearly see the aftermath of them. We see the Marine’s campsites, and hear from them about how they’ve been surviving for the past six months. We hear - brutally - and then later see the aftermath of the Harbinger literally tearing apart 117649 Despondent Pyre while she’s still alive. We directly see events as they unfold, and are conveyed recent and current stories through environmental tone in the exact same degree (and often greater than) that we saw in 343 Guilty Spark.
Regarding the opening of the game (mindful of spoilers), we don’t watch Zeta Halo flee the Ephsu system, nor do we see the battle that took place on Zeta Halo between the Banished and the UNSC, or the deployment of the Weapon and the containment of Cortana. Now, before you throw up your hands and say “See! Cardinal Sins!” (gods I hate terms like that), that is exactly the opening situation for Halo: Combat Evolved. We didn’t see Reach, we didn’t see it’s fall. We didn’t see the Pillar of Autumn narrowly escape, nor the Covenant pursue them. We don’t even know what the Covenant are. (And to note: it’s never really clearly explained in Combat Evolved just what the Covenant is.)
Subjective, because I don’t really think that it does. Not to mention, after taking down the Banished Anti-Air Cannons, Fernando explicitly lays out what happened. Escharum blatantly tells us what happened. Marine survivors tell us what happened. The only mysteries truly given light from the audio logs is what happened to the Command crew of the Infinity - including Captain Lasky, Commander Palmer, and Dr. Halsey..
To consider this as “detracting from the gameplay” puts having to hunt down the Halo novels to figure out what the hell is going on in Halo: CE and Halo 2 under the exact same scrutiny and criticism. One cannot be criticized and the other pardoned; they are the same.
And as an addendum, Halo 5 does not suffer from this “tell don’t show” very much at all, that I can remember.
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You cant strip down CE to its most basic form, leaving out all lore and context, and compare it to a detailed explanation of infinite and expect that to hold up lmao
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Watch your mouth soldier! If you spend hours wandering 343’s open world to collect all the audio logs you’ll have all the story you need!
Very good breakdown there.
MOST games in general do a lot of things like this and I personally don’t mind it because it leaves a mystery we can unfold via finding audio logs or through missions. Totally fine in my personal opinion
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I sure do love hearing some Spartans and marines I never meet (save one) talk about a more interesting story! Absolutely nothing like Fallout 76!
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No context, Infinite is not being granted the same. But please, do lay out the purely game-based lore for Halo: CE and how it was such a deep story.
Nothing in this game is deep, and there’s barely a story. It’s just the level Halo, with Chief killing some old Brute at the end. Halo 4 dealt with coming to terms with the inevitability of death far better. The game just teases you with a story, and we’ll have to wait however long for an expansion for it.
As the Campaign is now, it’s a prologue that poorly resolves Halo 5 and Halo Wars 2, and poorly establishes itself own story going forward.
Okay, okay. We learn that this species or faction called The Endless exist too, and that the Forerunners feared them more than the Flood. But…that’s literally all we know. That’s less than we knew about the Flood in CE.
Throwback to early November, I thought you said The Flood were never Space Zombies? Kinda disingenuous to simplify the story of Halo CE to that, and it’s even more disingenuous to compare the 1st game in the series to the 10th console game in the series, 20 years later. Okay, yes, you didn’t make the initial comparison, but even if Infinite were deeper, so what? Again, it’s the 10th console game of the series, 20 years later. Whichever someone finds superior is going to be personal taste anyway, and you might prefer the open-world, but depth of the plot isn’t an argument you can back up, and even if you could, it’s to be expected. There’s more to a Campaign than the plot.
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I’ll grant the first as being highly subjective, but the second is flat-out false.
Do I really need to clarify cynicism for you? Add to this that we know what the Flood is now, and that does not resemble zombies in any way. Back in 2001 when Halo: Combat Evolved first came out? Less so.
The Space Zombies point was just a playful poke. I’m not going to get us into that again.
You haven’t actually said what’s deep about the plot, and the plot you described qualifies as barely a story. This game could have been made by JJ Abrams with its reliance on mystery boxes to carry it.
Chief wakes up.
Saves Pelican.
Lands on Ring.
Finds AI.
Answers UNSC distress call, and finds out the Banished have a dig site.
Finds out the Banished woke up someone called The Harbinger.
Gets shot down, and destroys three AA cannons.
Stops Ring from being rebuilt.
Finds out about something named The Endless.
Spartan Assassin dies.
Esh dies.
Harbinger dies.
What about that is deep or complex? Cortana’s maybe-final death was in there too, but that was so hastily done, that it was a flashback. Something actually important to the plot happened while Chief was unconscious in spac- Wait, how did Chief survive in space for 6 months? Damn, that’s just dawned on me. I don’t recall being told that Gen III Mjolnir allows Spartans to cryo-stasis whenever they want. Chief should have starved to death… Huh… Anyway. I don’t see anything there that makes Infinite’s Campaign superior to any console Halo game’s – yes, even 5.
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This has got to be the shortest campaign ever, of all time. right now doing a speed run on easy, I’m 2hours and 35 minutes in and I’m already on the 10th main mission.
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I think the writing is terrible. The most memorable lines are memorable because they are so cringey. Gunplay is excellent but the gameplay is too hand holdy, the resources are far far too plentiful, and none of the vehicles are particularly fun to drive. Everything is too quick and easy to scale with the grappling hook and that takes away from the majesty of the location IMO. Graphics are fantastic but become very repetitive. Overall 5/10.
Chief SMELLS FINE BY THE WAY!
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The game actively encourages beating the game quickly through one of its achievements, and no (to any one that thinks they’ll catch me out), 3 hours on Legendary for the Halo MCC games isn’t comparable to 8 hours for Infinite on any difficulty.
Thanks for actually spoiling the entirety of the Campaign, even after multiple reminders to use the Spoiler function, or if that can’t be found maybe just not.
I’m going to put a pin in this, finish the Campaign with minimal surprise now, and return when up to speed. Don’t hold breath for Speed Runs, I’m actually playing it.
…Damn… I’m sorry, I’d forgotten you hadn’t completed it. I hadn’t had any reminders to use the spoiler function. It was easy to forget, considering you’ve said Infinite is superior to CE, when you haven’t even finished the game yet. It completely slipped my mind, and as it’s 94 comments down the topic, thought nothing of it. No matter how barebones I think the story is, I’m genuinely sorry to have spoilt any of it.
Although, to touch on your insinuation that I simply just rushed through the game, I spent 20 hours in the Campaign, and did everything – only needing a guide for 10 audio logs, and 3 skulls. I didn’t rush.
I’ve now amended my comment, and it has the suitable spoilers covered… Obviously, doesn’t help you out, but at least it prevents the Campaign being spoilt for anyone else on this Campaign topic… I can only apologise again.
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