Blood Gulch is an awful map (but I still want a remake because everyone else loves it).
Halo 4’s BTB is absolutely incredible, and is the best casual matchmaking experience in the franchise despite the fact it doesn’t play much like Halo.
Thank you and goodbye.
Halo 4 has the best multiplayer in the series, armor mods, and loadouts were fun.
I really enjoyed Dominion.
I could see Blood Gulch being more interesting if they ramped up the vehicles, especially for air combat. Imagine a BTB map with each team getting a falcon and two banshees or hornets.
I think they should integrate rpg aspects into the game. You’re on a snow/ice map maybe masterchief gets sick and gets a cold. You’re on a swampy map? MC has to take his boots off periodically to dump water out so he doesn’t get foot sores. Maybe also give him a house where he can meet a woman and raise their children
Captain Del Rio is a pretty hip dude, ngl.
The Halo 2A version of Coagulation had a couple of hornets and an EMP tower at each base. Easily the best version of that map ever made imo.
Halo 5 has some good characters from the books and lore.
The Didact should’ve made an appearance in Halo 5: Guardians.
Why?
So I could stick that jerk with a splinter grenade in the chest cavity twice.
The Spartan-III program is better than the Spartan-II program.
Firstly, the Spartan-III augmentations are on par with Spartan-II augmentations, so I don’t want to hear the typical “Spartan-III augmentations weren’t as effective” because they were. The only reason more Spartan-IIIs survived the process is due to the technological advancements from 2525 to 2531.
Next, Spartan-III Alpha and Beta companies were only wiped out on their respective “suicide missions” was due to them wearing SPI, an inferior armour system to Mjolnir as SPI armour given to the mainline companies lacked the main component of Mjoknir, energy shielding.
My third point is Headhunters. We all have at least heard of these badass soldiers dropping in behind enemy lines with a likelihood of dying. A number of Spartan-III Headhunters actually survived the war and are still within the program now with a select number of Spartan-IV Headhunter operators as well, but these Spartan-IVs are some the best in their program, which is why they get that honour. But the Spartan-III Headhunters never were given Mjolnir as far as we know. We know some were given SPI, but since this variant of SPI wasn’t being mass produced for 300 Spartans, it featured some technology such as energy shielding, a VISR mode, and a prototype active camouflage, but using photo reactive panels (this was the only thing the regular iterations of SPI had). Pretty badass if you ask me
Lastly, Spartan-III Gamma Company Spartans are considered to be the best Spartans created by the UNSC based on the fact that Kurt added a secretive chemical drug to the Gammas augmentations that affects the higher areas of the brain, making them unable to feel severe pain, at least not as easily as other Spartans, and so therefore Gammas can stay in the fight longer. A member of Team Saber was able to withstand a Plasma bolt grazing his side and a Needler explosion from his chest exploding his ribs and still walk for a while before collapsing and dying, as he did eventually succumb to his injuries.
I feel like I’ve at least justified my point, but then again, I’m a Spartan-III fanatic so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Also halo 5 had the best custom game UI and warzone was kinda fun. 5 had the best forge for pc not Xbox. Some of the halo 5 custom games was the best.
I think this comes down to both programs being vastly different for a plethora of reasons. To be entirely clearly, I absolutely love Spartan IIIs and am currently imagining my Infinite character as if they started out as one.
Now, on to the simple baseline; Spartan IIs and Spartan IIIs are both methods of making Spartans, but by almost no means similar. An individual Spartan III, in their intended gear, has absolutely no chance against a Spartan II in their own loadout. And this is fine. IIIs were never meant to be on par with a II.
While technological advances made the augmentations more potent and safer, one of the massive differences between the Spartan IIIs and Spartan IIs is their genetic curation. IIs were filtered out for the program in a time of peace, with stable medical records, ample time to collect data, anticipate reactions and synergy, etc etc, all so they could stretch the end result of their augmentations to the absolute limit. They were taken at a younger age and trained from one of the earliest points possible to be at peak human condition prior to receiving their augmentations. Now, even with all this preparation the simple fact that when something could go right for them, it went amazing because they could use those augmentations to their fullest, also means that if something went wrong, it would be disastrous. Just look at the numbers for their initial run at the augmentations. Half the IIs came out of it deformed or deceased. The other is the pinnacle of humanity’s fighting force.
The Spartan IIIs were recruited at the same age that the IIs got their augmentations. The pool of applicants were volunteer orphans because the army needed to burn the paper trail. The parameters for acceptable subjects were eviscerated as the bar had to be that much lower to even the odds in a time of war. While the technological advancements with the augmentations certainly helped, if the individual is only able to gain half the muscle mass compared to a spartan II subject, they only have a fourth of the chance for those muscles to shred their skeletal structure. A spartan III, given the context of who made up their program’s recruits, would never have the chance to get near as much reward from the augmentations while receiving far less risk from that exchange as a benefit. They also lacked the physical training prior to their augmentations, likely coming out in a similar condition to what a spartan II was at going into that program’s augmentations.
Going back to their equipment, SPI is not inferior to Mjolnir. It is made for a vastly different purpose which actually provides one of the greatest advantages available to the Spartan IIIs while operating in the manner they were trained for; Wholesale onslaught. A Spartan II, while raised up in a team and instructed in squad tactics and unit cohesion, is built to be a one man army. A Spartan III, while some members were spirited away for the likes of the Headhunter program, was always meant to carry out their missions as a battalion of Sam Fisher’s. Spartan IIs are sent around the battlefront in their groups to sway the tide of battles. Spartan IIIs are deployed as entire companies to raze Covenant strongholds deep behind enemy lines to the ground. Spartan IIs take the shock of attacks with their shielding to protect their marine allies. Spartan IIIs, with their invisibile armor en masse, are never being attacked until the fight is primed to be won whether they survive or not.
Alpha and Beta companies were wiped out because that is what their missions called for, removing an unmovable object by engaging it with an unstoppable force, in order to delete both factors from the equation. Be it an entire fleet of marines, several teams of Spartan IIs, or either of the Spartan III companies, no one was coming out of that situation alive. Yet, because of their purpose as a spartan program and the equipment they wielded, both Alpha and Beta accomplished their objectives while victory would have been questionable if the operation were attempted by any other force.
This brings us back to the scenario of a spartan II vs a spartan III. This is not a fair fight, because they are not equal fighters and were never meant to be. A spartan III will never be as strong, as big, or as fast as members of the spartan IIs were. That wasn’t the point. A spartan III’s augmentations weren’t as effective as a spartan II’s. That wasn’t the point. Their gear will never be able to take as devastating or as many blows as the Mjolnir system can. That wasn’t the point. They are not better than the spartan II program, because the two are playing different sports.
A special note on Gamma company. While they can likely put up the longest fight of any spartan especially now that many of them have access to mjolnir armor, I don’t think their specific drawbacks of a rapidly degrading psychological condition and the requirement of daily mood stabilizers is necessarily worth it.
While I can’t say that Spartan IIIs are better, I believe that chief says it best in Halo 5 when answering Fred’s question on Fireteam Osiris. “They are spartans.”
Now, enough procrastination on my bedtime.
And to have a more believable villain than Cortana.
Cortana represents the pinacle of human-created AI, and she was loyal even through her rampancy, but when one of her fragments was lost (the one containing her capacity for love, empathy, and mercy) the remaining fragments that reformed in the Domain became the tyrant we see in Halo 5, having finally succumbed to the Logic Plague seeded in her mind by the Gravemind in the story “Human Weakness”.
It actually makes complete sense, especially when you compare it to Humanity’s test in the Forerunner saga (Humanity was responsible for releasing the Flood, and passed the test by self-sacrificing to save the rest of the galaxy from what they released). It looks like that history will repeat.
You are completely wrong though (and I mean that respectfully as you seem like a nice person)… That’s all I really have to say. I mean you can take it up with pretty much any Halo lore expert and they’ll say exactly the same thing. I was having this discussion in HaloCanon’s Discord server, and he, as well as others agreed with me as one person was trying to deny this fact… They may not all exactly be on par, but the main point is that on average, a Spartan-II and Spartan-III are on par with each other. You could make the argument of experience, but even then, that doesn’t really hold up as of 2552 all but Gamma Company Spartans would’ve had a great amount of time in the field
Anyone familiar with the lore should be able to recognize the specific strengths and weaknesses of each generation.
If you’re familiar with Warhammer 40k at all, a Spartan II and a Spartan III are equivalent to a Custodes and a Space Marine. Head to head, the Custode will come out on top but there is a reason that Space Marines come in chapters of a thousand strong.
It makes sense in retrospect because they had to make it work.
The reason Cortana is the villain is because Microsoft thought people wouldn’t recognize Halsey.
031 exuberant witness was a better monitor than 343 guilty spark
There is also much, much more to be said on what actually matters for being a Spartan.
Spartan IIs focused on individual skills and dynamics to craft effective fighting teams. The later Headhunter program adopted the same mentality for the companies of the Spartan IIIs, taking promising examples for further training, setting them up with resonant partners, and giving them access to gear that brought them in line with a II’s loadout.
Spartan IIIs focused on establishing a process and working with a vastly larger fighting force. As Ackerson put it, “Make the units better with new technology. Make more of them. And make them cheaper.” The program is a distillation and refinement of what worked with the Spartan II program and what was needed in the current era. Make physically stronger humans to run fancier gear and train them to kill.
The IIs were made to quell insurrections in the outer colonies. They had the luxury of time to form teams of soldiers to shuffle around from planet to planet cutting down small forces of enemies. They were never meant to be a force to wage a war.
The IIIs were made to buy time for the survival of the human species. I don’t say this to fault them, I say this as a recognition of how their situation was different. The UNSC didn’t need olympic warrior poets, they needed a lethal force to accomplish a goal and run out the clock. So they got the IIIs up to code, trained them for brutal combat, and gave them gear that suited that purpose.
The IIs were the Spartans that were wanted of that era. The IIIs were the spartans required of their own. And now, with the universe at a relative time of piece, the IVs are picking up the mantle and taking the lessons learned from all the prior generations. The investment required to produce spartan IIs is frivolous and irrational when you can field a battalion of IIIs or IVs in essentially the same gear.
The Store is bad.
Unpopular opinion
It is really bad.
The lore starts breaking if you think about it too much. Like how they say chief loves the egirl even though its Hasly’s brain which is his mother figure sooooo there go those fans. Halo wars 1 story was bad, and characters were too. Abrys new armor from 5 looked good. Boss fights should be in halo but halo 2 boss fights tho. They should have let Jun die in Reach or not idk which, I think.