First off, I realize that this is totally an opinion post. Some of you WILL disagree. Objectively, I think Halo 4’s campaign was fun. I’m just posting this because I’m interested in seeing if there are any other veteran Halo fans who couldn’t help but feel that the game’s story line felt…odd. While I won’t bring up Spartan Ops below, I feel that it also suffers from what I try articulate in the rest of the post, as well as from some very corny writing that thankfully is not present in the campaign.
Personally, I felt like the way in which the story was told was so alien to the old-school Halo universe I know and love. I guess this “new direction” started with the Greg Bear novels, and to be honest, I purposely didn’t read them because I didn’t like the new lore that was being introduced. I’ve always seen the Halo universe as being set in what I call “grounded science fiction.” In other words, everything seems believable and real, with acceptable scientific explanations behind even Forerunner tech (like the light-bridges: above our comprehension, but logically something that could be possible with highly advanced technology). Indexing and modifying DNA was about as far as I was willing to go, but still, I could reasonably understand that a race as highly advanced as the Forerunners could achieve something like that, considering that even today we are gaining so much more knowledge about that kind of thing.
Halo 4, though, is completely different. Not only are the Forerunners revealed, but all this super high science fiction nonsense is constantly being crammed down your throat. It almost gets downright spiritual, with the Composer and the Prometheans, and bridging the gap between reality and the digital world and all that weird, unexplainable stuff. There are many more examples of situations like this (the dream-like sequence during the conversation between John and the Librarian’s A.I., where by merely being near him, is able to somehow activate his gene geas). Also, I mentioned earlier that I was okay with the idea that the Forerunners could modify DNA. I am NOT, however, accepting of the fact that they could create the kind of colossal “inevitability” that the Librarian speaks of. How does it make any logical sense that DNA could be modified to actually plan the specific actions of every single member of an entire species for hundreds of thousands of years, literally predetermining their will so that the Spartan program is born and Master Chief is spawned? That’s God-tier, and simply not believably doable by anything that’s not supernatural.
Not to mention, the Deus ex machina in this game is out of control. Cortana turns into a physical being by fusing her multiple personalities (…what) into the light-bridge in order to chain the Didact down, who for seemingly the millionth time decides to give the Master Chief a long Dragon Ball Z lecture instead of easily killing him, causing him to drop the Chief, who miraculously lands on the edge of the bridge,and blah blah blah until he is shielded FROM A POINT-BLANK NUKE by Cortana when she somehow wraps the light-bridge around him even though nothing physical exists to project that bridge anymore, after which they proceed to have a conversation, which seems almost to take place inside Master Chief’s mind or inside the hard-light bubble, again with no power going to anything because the ship has already been blown up.
Wow. Talk about a run on sentence, but I don’t know how else to express my exasperation. Now let’s talk about other things that hurt my immersion in the universe. The presentation of the Forerunners is so underwhelming to me, because the Didact’s character makes them seem so ordinary. The Forerunners are supposed to be an enlightened, almost majestic, race. Why is one of their most powerful leaders consumed by such base emotions like anger and a lust for revenge? I wanted them to be the sole protectors of the galaxy, and the most advanced civilization ever. I guess this all just stems from the fact that I dislike all the new lore about the ancient humans and the Precursors. The Forerunner’s enemy was destined, in my mind, to always be the Flood, and the Flood alone. Instead, all the new stuff about the parasite being “created” as a weapon or whatever leaves such a sour taste in my mouth. And Guilty Spark actually being, in some sense, the “soul” of an ancient human? That honestly ruins him as a character for me.
Speaking of the Forerunners as ordinary, run-of-the-mill characters, what is with the ret-conning of their powerful technology? Master Chief is wearing a “class 2 combat skin,” according to Guilty Spark, and the Forerunner’s use a “class 12.” And yet, Chief can mow down Prometheans? How is that even possible? Sentinels, I get. They are low-powered, weak, expendable machines that are simply meant to mop up Flood with their lasers. The Prometheans are supposed to be the army of the Didact himself, a great Forerunner general! Which begs the question, what level of combat skin is the Didact wearing? How can he possibly be defeated by the Chief? Yeah, he used a Forerunner grenade, but the Chief was able to survive blasts from those same grenades! And how is the Didact’s ship destroyed by a lowly human bomb, nuke or otherwise? Maybe you could argue how it’s possible, but see, that’s my point. I never had to do all this logic searching just to make a Halo story acceptably believable.
Now let’s get to the real nit-picky stuff. Artistic license was taken too far. Why did the Grunt’s foot structure completely change? Did the invisible super-secret nanobots get them too? And why do they sound so radically different? The Grunts in Reach didn’t speak English, but they still sounded like Grunts. The Didact’s armor looks really awesome, to be completely honest. But seriously though, does that look like it belongs in the Halo universe? It looks like a new raid tier set for Warriors in World of Warcraft.
I’ll be brief about the actual gameplay. The quicktime events were cool, but they don’t feel like Halo. The music is great, but is was too much in the background, and it wasn’t used to give the same kind of atmosphere like in previous games. Again, this wasn’t bad, just too different for my tastes (like the Star Wars type music on Mission 7, for example). Master Chief’s grunts and groans are realistic, and make him feel more real. That’s the problem, though, because he is supposed to be beyond ordinary, capable of handling any pain and exertion with stone cold focus.
Ok, I’ve got to stop. You get my drift. I know this sounds like I’m absolutely ripping the game apart, but it’s just me trying to explain my feelings. I do enjoy some things, like the exploration of the relationship between Chief and Cortana (as long as it isn’t romantic. I didn’t get that vibe, but if it is, then I take it back). My general feelings about the campaign have actually even kept me from playing the competitive multiplayer as much as I thought I was going to, because I feel so disconnected. The game, as a separate entity not related to the rest of the series, is good. As a Halo story though, it falters. Part of me almost wants to think of this trilogy as a non-canon “what if” story so that I can enjoy it for what it is, because otherwise, I feel less enthusiastic about the classic Halo universe that I loved so much.
