Azaxx

Congratulations H4F H5F ... H6F, I know you'll do a great job in upkeeping the code that past and present mods have represented. Nice to see that the joey has grown into an adult 'roo. Good luck with the role bud.

I'll be completely blunt, no. There is no chance in hell that Halo can recover to the days of Halo 1-3, or even any era with Bungie. 343 Industries have screwed up literally every aspect of the games that they have made that the community has either abandoned them or left prior from foresight. I'll start with posting this video, take a look. It perfectly encapsulates the different philosophy of building Halo between the two parent companies, Bungie and 343i. Bungie take the mindset of "If it's not fun, we're not making it", opposed to 343i's standpoint "Intertwine everything above all else". This is why Halo died, not because of the different sets of talent between the two companies, not because of the way Microsoft interfered with the game's production, nor because of the era of which games are developed (early 2000's opposed to the 2010's). Let's deconstruct why the original trilogy (main titles) were better than the two main titles that 343i have produced. Master Chief was someone that literally everyone could relate to or see inspiration in. He was a blank slate that a person could 'self insert' (I hate that phrase but it applies here), a character that had no in-game personality, only traits such as stoic, courageous and 'gary stu-esk'. He was someone that could not lose under any circumstance because the plot desired him to be victorious after every battle. There is only one instance where this is rejected, and this is in the book Fall of Reach where Chief is born and molded into the soldier he became, however this is now considered not canon by Halo Reach when the ending of the game retconned established lore. By his definition of being a black slate, everyone could relate in a way to him because there was no reason that prevented them from doing so. This is where 343i decided to scrap that philosophy and make the Chief into a character that no person on the planet could ever hope to relate to. 343i decided to make this super soldier tormented, broken and vulnerable to his resolve being broken. In essence, making a character that no one could relate to because the character is nothing like any person alive given the circumstances that Chief went through during the main title games. You can't relate to him after his A.I. (Cortana) 'died', you can't relate to him after he sees the UNSC and ONI turn against him, and you most definitely cannot relate to him once he was reunited with the pseudo-mother whome created him. These are story aspects that 343i created in an attempt to make a character that people could relate to without actually realising that nothing of what he experienced is relateable to what we gamers have experienced in our lives. We haven't been paired with an A.I. or person 24/7 for years, we haven't been turned against by a nation, and we haven't been created as an experiment. This is how 343i failed when making a 'character' out of Chief, they ruined him by destroying the very thing that made him special. Second point, what the hell are those campaigns in Halo 4 and 5? Let's start with Halo CE, a simple, well scripted and ultimately well executed narrative (not discussing gameplay for the campaigns) that is remembered because it was both fresh and well designed. Halo 2 introduced a new character gave us gamers a reason to understand why we were fighting them, The Arbiter was a character that gave us both a narrative and gameplay excuse to understand the nature of the force that oppressed us in the first game. This game was ultimately rushed and resulted in a poor ending "Sir, finishing this fight". Halo 3 had a weak narrative but concluded everything well with a fitting ending for a now iconic character. Giving us the tease of a future game was a good idea with the legendary ending of the game. Now, Halo 4. Where do I begin? Didact, I thought he died on the rings? Librarian, wait what, she somehow controlled evolution of the Chief and an A.I. to be in this exact place and time to meet her? Who are the Prometheans? Oh right, you either have to read all of the books or leave the game and open the Halo Channel to understand anything of what's happening in a game. That is poor story telling. When you explain a story, you do it in the damn game, don't make us buy other products and read them before playing the game to have any context prior the opening cutscene begins. Halo 5 Guardians requires its own paragraph because I wish to discuss the gameplay alongside of the narrative. For starters. Four hours? How the hell does years of development result in a campaign playthrough lasting only four hours? For context, I was playing Normal while deliberately going out of my way to explore the levels and find any easter eggs, and it took me four hours to start the opening cutscene to watching the final cutscene play. There is no excuse in any universe that could possibly justify the fact that the story was short, rushed and poorly scripted in every possible imagination. Who are Fireteam Osiris you might ask? Don't worry, you get a line of backstory for each character in the final mission in case you were worrying. Why was the character of Buck ruined? The whole point of him being a highlight character in Halo 3 ODST was because he was an elite ODST with normal guy issues since he was human. As the quote goes "If he were any better, he'd be a Spartan", the whole point of that sentence was the fact that he was so close, but it's not something he'd reach because he was only a normal guy. Making him into a Spartan throws away the character development in his original game and is honestly an insult to the character. Moving to Blue Team, who are they? Well if you're a hardcore Halo fan who read Fall of Reach and First Strike you would understand, otherwise you get literally nothing about them in the game. Why 343i actually wrote them the way they did is beyond me. Next, 3 missions for Blue Team and 12 to Osiris. Why. Halo is about the Master Chief, if I want to play a game about Locke and his team, I'd buy a game specifically about him and his team. Halo 2 did it right, make it a more even split between the level count for the two characters to allow us time to get to know what's happening to both parties. Halo 5 Guardians' shoved Osiris down our throats and tossed Blue Team out of the park so we weren't to worry about them. With narrative out of the way, let's move to the gameplay, specifically the multiplayer. I'll be brief, I hate Halo 2's multiplayer. It was buggy, it was unbalanced and it was not fun to play against exploits which people praise because they're 'skillful'. I'm sorry, but nothing about an exploit is good when was not intended originally by design and poses a disadvantage to those who are unaware of a mechanic that was not intended. That being said, at least Halo 2 had the best fill of maps in any Halo game. Midship, Sanctuary and a Blood Gulch remake, these maps were iconic and well balanced. Most importantly, they were fun to play on and gorgeous to run around in. Name any map from Halo 4 that was like this? I can only think of Exile, it was lush green and fun for vehicles, but what if you didn't like BTB? Tough luck because all of the maps for Arena play sucked. At least Halo 5 changed that, right? Well no because the only top tier map for Halo 5 is a Halo 2 remake, Truth (and its subsequent remaster being Regret). Sure Empire is some fun, so is Coliseum, but they suffer from major issues because 343i cannot understand how to make them well balanced. Halo 4's multiplayer featured ordinances, and thank goodness that 343i removed that concept for Halo 5 Guardians. But decided to have blatantly overpowered Spartan abilities that have near to no counters (i.e. Spartan Charge + magnum combo) and horrible bugs everywhere in the game. Recently (in the past month or so) I decided to download Halo 5 Forge Bundle for the PC to see how things have changed given that I have not played Halo in some time. I thank 343i and Microsoft making it free, but honestly it deserves it. Filled with bugs such as lack of good hit registration, account sign in issues and server joining problems make it an utter night to play. You legitimately have to only play mini-games such as Minotaurs and Sumo Mongoose to enjoy yourself (I admit the fans who made these gametypes did a fantastic job and I'm glad a working File Browser is finally in the game), but if you wanted an Arena experience in customs, it's not for you as the game actively fights you when you want to have fun. I understand that 343i made this product for toying with Forge, but then I ask this, where the hell is any sort of manual in game to understand how the Forge system as a whole works? There is nothing to assist Forgers on the PC platform, let alone new comers who want to make some nifty creations. At least it's not as bad with the bugs as Halo MCC was for over an entire year right? I understand that my views here do not match the vast majority of current players of the game on both this forum, other forums, or no forum at all. However, when a company has shown complete lack of care and a drive to improve not only the game, but themselves, it justifies my opinion and beliefs about the company. 343i have consistently shown blatant disregard for Halo as both a franchise and universe, lack of any care for the very basics of the narrative to the balancing and bug fixing of multiplayer have been major eye opening factors for me in realising that 343i do not have any justification to say that they will make Halo great again. I supported them once Halo 4 dropped, saying Halo MCC will be incredible. I supported them once Halo MCC dropped saying that it was a massive undertaking and they bit more than they could chew. I supported their development of Halo 5 Guardians as it seemed exciting, fresh and fun for the franchise. They lost my support once the game dropped.