mmacosta

Well, hello everybody, I'm new to the forum, I mean, really, really new, since (as you can see) this is my first post. I've been into sci-fi since 1977, when I saw Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A space Oddissey" with only 4 years old; and I have been a hardcore gamer since the Atari 2600 days, beeing the shooters my predilect (but by no means unique) genre. Naturally, I got ineluctably forever trapped in Halo's universe. AS was my 16yo daughter, with whom I happen to share the love for sci-fi, games and shooters. And Halo. Now to the point: Cortana's Death. That was a sucker punch. I now, I now; we've been aware of her impending doom due to her shelf-life, but, hey, come on, when you see Master Chief (the guy capable of anything) say that he will save her, well, you believe him, don't you? I know you did, I know that you (just like me) thought in that very moment something like "great, now I HAVE to see how is he gonna do it, cause he's gonna do it". An then Cortana Dies??? What the...??? I understand the point of her death in the whole issue about awaken Chief's humanity but, given the close relationship between Chief and Cortana, could not her death make him a nefariously grim and/or bitter character? Not a very appealing hero, the again, 343 could always go with the "Stoic Hero" type. I believe that Halo with Cortana is very, very diminished and I think that the majority of the Halo followers feel the same. My daughter says that she doesn't want to play Halo 5, hell, she doesn't want to play Halo 4 again. Obviously, she's a teenager and they tend to exaggerate, but this is by no means an isolated case, and this is a commercial risk 343 should take in mind. Now, I read the posts of BaconShelf and Zuko 'Zarhamee, and I concur with them in that bringing back Cortana would be fan service. But we, the fans, are the reason that videogames companies actually sell videogames; if the game don't pleases the fans... well... they go to bankrupcy. This comeback should be done, but executed flawlessly, avoiding cheesyness and excesive fan service (nobody wants the Star Wars Prequel Incident again) As for the whole "ruining the franchise" thing... well my friends, "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" didn't ruin the franchise (which has ran up to 12 movies so far). There are many ways for doing this, there could be traces of her scattered and waiting to be rescued (maybe, some of this traces could still be running on the Chief's architecture) by the Chief and reintegrated by Dr Halsey (with much effort), even more, the reconstruction my not be complete, and some aspects of her and their relationship should have to be built again over the new games. And the humanity part? well, let's cross Halo and Mass Effect a little and imagine Master Chief taking very hard moral choices in order to obtain fragments of Cortana. I love Halo, I love The Master Chief and I love Cortana, the are the "Master Blaster" of space operas; I would certainly play this new trilogy entirely as I watched the Star Wars Prequels (my eyes still hurts, by the way), but a Halo without Cortana would be less. The thousands of loyal and hardcore fans most probably will buy and play the games, but there is the thing about the players who felt "cheated" by this (like my daughter) and who are not so inclined to experience a Halo without Cortana. The videogames industry needs this gamers as much it needs the hardcore fans. Well, that's my opinion, in the end, only 343 has the last word (and fairly enough, their very destiny) and we'll have to deal with that, like it or not.