Good evening everyone. I have placed this thread into existence to express my thoughts on Spartan Ops.
Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1, but I feel as though there are things that can be improved upon to enrich the experience even more. These are just my thoughts, and by no means to I mean to talk for everyone.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
Let’s talk about Dialogue:
As others have already stated in many threads, the dialogue in Spartan Ops is quite lacking. Dialogue is a very important part of game-play. Cheesy, redundant, idiotic or annoying dialogue can severely hamper the experience.
Part of the disconnect of Season 1‘s dialogue was that Miller and Palmer were sipping their cups of tea and commenting on last night’s TV show while I’m getting my face torn off by Knights and victory humped by Grunts.
There needs to be a more serious tone. A more focused and seriousness to help aid and assist in the current objective. When you hear things such as “Bad guys are incoming!!! asmqgukyhogsgkh!1!11!” it gets annoying and before long you start to ignore them altogether.
I will list characters preexisting in the Spartan Ops universe and provide helpful tips on improving their lines to not be so draining.
Miller: Miller needs to not conduct himself as a hyper 14 year old. “Bad guys” is a very inelegant terminology. Switching his dialogue up with “Tangos”, “Enemy Contacts”, “Enemy Forces”, “Hostiles” etc and spoken in an informative and calm manner could really help make his character not so obnoxious.
Dalton: A broken record with “I can arrange that” and “you got it.” A way to improve him is to also switch up his dialogue.
He is also reactive, not proactive. He mostly responds to requests/demands. Having him offer support and ordnance instead of always being asked to do so could help keep things from being same old, same old.
Also occasionally declining a request, responding “Sorry, ordnance is not available. I’ll try to restock ASAP.” would be a unique twist; You expect presents to descend from the heavens, just to be denied until later.
Palmer: Well, many a thread have been created in her “honor”. She is perched in the middle of a love-hate relationship for many of the fans.
A way to make her not seem like queen you-know-what of the universe, a more respectful attitude and a less emotional state would help her cause. The term “egghead” can never exit her mouth again. ever.
Roland: I always enjoyed his lightheartedness. His mockery of humans can make for a chuckle. He seems to have taken the role of comical relief, and I can’t say I dislike that.
Now onto cut-scenes:
Cut-scenes are icing on the cake. After slaying for an hour, you reach a certain point in the mission and are rewarded with a cinematic. I cannot speak for others, but I can say I have always enjoyed watching Halo’s cut-scenes.
The cut-scenes in Spartan Ops need to feel more relative to the missions. A prime example is when you watch Majestic do the ballerina on some Minor Elites, then you get dropped into the mission where 5 Elite Generals with Fuel Rod Cannons await for some sweet spawn killing.
The cut-scenes also seem distant from the player. They need to feel connected, we need to actually see the fruits of our labor in the cinematic. As it is now, you see a completely different span of events, then you are thrown at some objective that had no real meaning to the events you just watched.
Now onto Game-play:
People like consistency, but not redundancy. Sadly, the first season fell into the latter.
We need consistency in the missions; what you do here will affect what happens later. Not; You’ll do this certain type of mission this week, then another next week with no relevance to the prior one.
Now, with consistency, we needn’t trudge into the state of redundancy. Playing the same missions over and over again becomes redundant, even if the theme is trying to set it as though this is another place.
Vehicular combat:
Diversity within the combat is also welcoming. We all love mowing down some hapless Grunts or challenging Elites with our bare hands or trusty rifles, but who says vehicle combat, be it air and ground, cannot be thrown into the mix?
Faster paced vehicles: Warthogs provide fast, easy supplement to vehicular ownage. Always a blast to have them as an option of warfare.
Faster exertion type missions could really make good use of the Warthog. Something equivalent to Halo CE’s and 3‘s Warthog run with a timer to get in, grab whatever, then get out, all while mowing down enemies could really be epic.
Aerial fun: Who’s up for some aerial engagement? We’ve only sampled the full potential of aerial combat.
A mission with Pelicans or Broadswords could be a blast.
Infiltration into an enemy stronghold with no conventional way to get to it from the ground? No problem, I’ll grab the keys and we’ll take the Pelican for a spin.
Banshee’s ruining your picnic? I’ll get Tom Cruise and we’ll warm the Broadsword’s engines. Queue Danger Zone song
Total destruction: Then, lastly, we have Scorpions. Scorpions are the slower, Yoink-everything-up option. These 66 ton HE spewing de-vine interventions need their time in the playground. There’s few things more fun than rolling through waves of enemies as they attempt to end your reign of tyranny.
Missions that have an abundance of vehicles we need to plow through is also enjoyable. Having those sorts of missions that actually focus on vehicular combat, rather than it be a saide option would be a good idea.
But with big treads, comes big places. The maps sporting these tanks didn’t offer too much room to wiggle. More open maps to provide diversity both for vehicular and infantry type engagements would be most beneficial.
Continued in second post.
