So, I’ve been really wanting to posit my opinions and views on Halo 4 for some time now but just haven’t gotten around to it. I decided to today and, whadya know?, it’s Halo 4’s birthday! What a coincidence!
To begin, Halo has always been about the story for me, ever since the H1 days when it COULDN’T be about the XBL experience. Therefore I will focus on my thoughts about H4’s campaign from here on:
I suppose I should touch on the quote/unquote “main focus” of this story: the Chief/Cortana relationship (henceforth referred to as “he” and “she” for typing’s sake). Let’s all think back to before H4 and what we were looking forward to with what little knowledge we had about it: it was going to be a “game where we get to see Master Chief as a person instead of a machine and get to look more in-depth at his relationship with Cortana”. We were all really excited and wanted to see that. But did we really know what we wanted? Was it necessary to see him talk to her like a boyfriend comforting a girlfriend? …did we really want to see her touch his armor? …see him talk to himself? Did we want that?
No.
I don’t really have a problem with looking more into his life as a human, after all it’s nice to be reminded he’s not a machine, but the execution in H4 is pandering. It looks like a soap opera. The dialogue is mostly forced between him and her and just ends up sounding mushy and pleading. Definitely not Chief and (maybe) definitely not Cortana. I say “maybe” in parentheses because I could understand if Cortana weas to begin acting a little strange or even out of control, that’s expected from a rampant AI, I get it. But his reactions to her are so out of character that, with his new armor and all, it doesn’t even seem like the same guy any more. He’s a steel-framed, rock-chiseled, kidnapped-and-trained-since-he-was-six Spartan II! I realize that their relationship is very unique and that they have been mostly alone together and maybe you could begin to see some “cracks” in his armor, so to speak, but he talks like a civilian lover to her, definitely not a war-hardened soldier. Looking back at Jorge from Reach, him talking to those civilians was interesting and enlightening because we got to see his character background through that as him being compassionate. We didn’t previously know that about him. The Chief, however, is very well-known for being stern and calculating and so placing him in these positions where he’s soft all of a sudden is just out of place.
Look at how Bungie conveyed his care for her in the previous Halo installments: in H3, during the cinematic between “Floodgate” and “The Ark” when they’re playing the Cortana recording, watch how they reveal his character with minimal dialogue. His body language says it all when she begins to spazz out during the playback and his gusto and confidence when Hood asks if he really "trust her that much" (“Yes, sir.”) He didn’t need to go into mushy-mushy mode and say “OHHH Corty-Corty! I love u soooooo much and will find u and we will killz all teh floodz together! MWAH MWAH!” No. Just no.
Besides mushy-Chief, I guess another issue for me is the enemies now:
Having read the Kilo-Five books, (I want to establish my qualifications by saying I’ve ALL the Halo books, some multiple times)I understand why, and enjoy that, the Covies are back. Great! I didn’t really like fighting only Brutes in H3 and I thoroughly enjoyed going back to Elites in Reach with their cosmetic upgrades, etc. However, as excited as I was leading up to fighting Elites as the Chief again, I was even skeptical before the game came out about some specific topics:
1.)The Elites look ridiculous to say the least. Their foreheads are Pope-hat-like and their jaws sticking out at the bottom make them look like mops. Not intimidating in the least. They really are dinosaurs now. Stupid dinosaurs.
2.) I know the Grunts are supposed to be quirky and stupid and silly, but they’re over the top here. They have almost not intelligibly funny lines, they’re voices sound like they’ve had too much helium in their food -Yoink!-, and their rebreathers look like huge metal hunchbacks. Ruined.
About the Forerunners:
1.) I was REALLY excited about Forerunners making their appearance in H4 but now that feeling is gone. The Prometheans have a very good and interesting place in the story but they just simply aren’t fun to fight. With no ammo for any gun that’s worth picking up, and the other guns not being effective in the least against them, they just suck. They teleport at the last moment before you get that final shot on them which basically voids anything said about Halo’s “thirty seconds of fun” and, WHAT?, HEAD ARMOR? Pass. (P.S. Crawlers are worthless and annoying, Watchers slow the game down in harmony with the teleporting Promeths.)
2.) After reading in the Forerunner trilogy about the Didact and Librarian, I was very hyped to learn they would be making appearances. I got the game and beat it and I said… “No.” Why show a Forerunner’s face? ALL of the magic and mystery of their prestigious lives is now gone now that I know hat under that cool (but generic-looking) armor the Didact is a twelve-fingered Voldemort. Yuck. Yes, it’s been a long time and we know so little about the Forerunners but why do we need to see them?
Just some random thoughts before I run out of characters:
1.) Killing Cortana was expected and cliched and dumb on 343’s part: Key character that was able to be saved is conveniently sacrificed at the end to save another main character. Guaranteed she returns in H5. Need a better plot device than death to keep us engaged.
2.) Adding sprint does not make up for game-slowing enemies. Not Halo. It’s catering and I don’t like it.
3.) Del Rio’s character could be taken out of the story and not affect it. Worthless character that is JUST an a-hole with no redemption or justice for his actions. (Mentioning a demotion in disembodied dialogue in the last level doesn’t qualify as justice.)
4.) Mammoth “escort” mission isn’t terrible but the vehicle should’ve been used in a more clever and visually appealing way.
5.) The first-person action vignettes where Chief climbs the wall and kills the Elite by PRESSING ONE BUTTON are not fun and take me out of the experience. Take control away from me and show me this or don’t do it at all.
6.) Exposition like “…the genesong I placed in you blahblah…” is good only when you either preface it or explain it more. That was only understood by those who read the books and a proper explanation could never be gleaned from just playing the game, therefore it shouldn’t be in there. There are several lines and scenes like this which all stems from Forerunners now being directly part of the story, which should’ve been rethought, perhaps.
I have more (AND ALSO POSITIVE THINGS TO SAY) but we’ll get to that if anyone wants to discuss.