Podge 90

Halo 4 had nowhere near the amount of epic moments as Halo 3 (taking out a Scarab, to name one), but it introduced an element that hasn't been seen in the Halo games before; character development. I genuinely could not disagree more with the OP about Cortana. If you care about the Chief, you should care about Cortana. If you care about Halo, you should care about Cortana. For me, it was was horrible watching her tear herself apart, and the facial animations and voice acting hit me right in the feel. I think the end was beautifully tragic (whether we've seen the last of her or not...), which is quite an achievement considering the risk 343i were running and the tight-rope they were walking with the possibility of it coming across as terribly corny and laughable, but they did nail it. I'm sorry the OP missed that. 343i have two more games to get the epic moments in. For now, I'm happy that they have laid the foundations for how they approach and portray their characters in future. Halo 4 addresses the idea of showing exactly what you are fighting for, rather than the simplistic "to save the human race". I love this new approach, and believe it can only get better. The hard part is done, now it's time for assaulting beaches and destroying Scarabs from the inside out

Call of Duty was the first game to do anything, ever.

Halo was the best in the business for it's soundtrack. The music was as integral a part to the Halo experience as any of the characters. I believe Halo 4's music fits the game, and I agree with WonderWombat that the traditional Halo music wouldn't give the right impression, but it's still incredibly generic and essentially forgotten about. A shame, really.

Just been having this discussion with my brother and cousin. I posed the question, if you were in charge, what would you do with H5? Would you work out a way to bring Cortana back, or use the Chief's new-found characterisation, use the concept of him being "broken" and really have him go off the rails. The Chief has lost his best and only friend, and Cortana helping him discover his humanity (as opposed to being solely a soldier), it's going to hit him hard. My brother gave my favourite response. Have Chief go off the rails in 5, perhaps engaged in a pursuit for an incarcerated Halsey (perhaps imprisoned by Covenant/Forerunner who understand just how important she is - who knows where Spartan Ops will take us...), in an attempt to not only save one of the most brilliant minds of the UNSC, but also to try and bring Cortana back. In 6, maybe we see the culmination of Chief and Halsey's efforts to bring her back. I like the idea of her having flashes in the Chief's head, reminiscent of Halo 3. Easy to do, just say there are traces of her lingering in the tech he uses. So yeah, the short story would be to have him go alone in 5, but trying to get her back. The final scene would have Halsey and Chief insert a chip into a console, which then shows a distorted, hazy image of blue and white, gradually focusing into Cortana's avatar lay down, eventually standing up and looking at them both, and then says ".....Chief?" *Curtain falls, cut to black, exit stage* Replacing Cortana with another AI (without the intention of ever bringing Cortana back) would be sacrilege.