A non ragey assessment of the plot (Spoilers)

[Mattfire]

I've recently completed the campaign on Legendary with my brother on co-operative mode and it took around 10 hours maximum. Here's my assessment of how things stand and what was so hideoulsy flawed as well as the few things I enjoyed.

 

First of all I felt at the beginning of the game as if I was utterly disconnected from the Master Chiefs struggle. Oh look here's where you were last time the ship still works ... even the bloody weapons still fire. Yet nahhh Cortana's not thought to activate a distress beacon? Where did a forerunner shield world come from? I assume it would have you know been obvious being all purple .... end of Halo 3 showed driftin towards a planet. But i don't recall it being anything like this. Oh look the Covenant are there as well. Time to splat some alien ****! Cortana "I thought we had a truce with the covenant" well ... HOW does she knows this!?!? She's been stuck with MC alone in a stasis pod before the war ever ended to my knowledge unless i'm missing something fairly huge. So thus how can she even know the war is over? Quoting wikipedia here on the Halo 3 entry: However, the force of Halo's blast causes the slipspace portal to collapse, resulting in only the front half of Forward Unto Dawn, carrying the Arbiter, making it back to Earth.

 

So yes the MC never got back to Earth. Never saw the peace treaty. Never saw the memorial service. All they'd know is the elites are on side and the rest of the covenant are rather well .... pissed off. Someone please do correct me if i'm missing some way they could know.

 

The plot seemed exceptionally thin on the ground to me. The captain of Infinity is all like "Herpa derpa derp why would I blow this uber dangerous enemy ship up with my space cannons man!??! What if it returned fire." well .... it seems to have no weaponry at all otherwsie it would have killed them already. So he runs off ... you scramble for another way. Then Cortana fails. That's relatively fine with me but then at the end the ship is assaulting Earth literally vaporising people. There are visibly like 6 or so UNSC ships in orbit and -none- even try to blow the ship up. Only a piddly laser to shoot a tiny piddly hole. So i must ask with humanity at risk how can you think it's good scriptwriting not to follow the logical course of action? These are the people who let the elites glass all of god damned Africa because there "might" be some flood there still. An entire continent but nah ... they're happy to let this fella with a shiny orange gun finish the Earth off instead while they watch from their capital ships bridges going "Damn man look at the colour it's so shiny." are they all tripping acid?

 

Then there's the Starfox / Death star torpedo run mission in your fancy fighter. Don't get me wrong this is by far my favourite mission in the entire game just for the nostalgia and adrenaline rush. But I do have to wonder to myself how exactly the MC first surprassed the shields to get inside. One can only assume the baddy is a bit of a spanner to have left them turned off prior to such a jump?

 

Mild campaign issues aside I noticed on the human installation at Halo installation 3 there was an outdoor area with visible space .... open to vacuum. No visible shielding and humans in helmets without mouth pieces. No vacc suits in sight. I must have been expected not to notice this error and when I later returned to find 20 grunts had wiped it all out I joked "Well maybe the humans realised all the oxygen should have been sucked from their lungs and just fell over dead". I honestly cannot comprehend this lack of common sense to map design. I know it's a game and all but it'd be nice to see some adhesion to common laws of physics and space. Especially in regards to you know ... gravity and oxygen. This said i found the early zero G combat exceptionally awesome in the first level so it's not all bad.

 

The ending however is the bit that had be merely staring dumbly at the screen going "Are you serious?". So here is how I see it. Darth Vader crossed over into Halo and force choked MC then force gripped him off the edge. Then Cortana suddenly became physical (somehow) and decided to become a digital spider and glue him in place. Then MC badly weakened climbs onto a bridge made out of LIGHT (how do you grab light particles no matter how dense?) and climbed up. He then grabbed a grenade. Missed. Bad darth vader wanabee casually staggers off the edge and goes splat. MC then grabs the nuclear bomb ..... hits the trigger to fire the device. Cortana havingly previously states "You won't have much time to get out" ..... we now fade to white. Next thing you know MC is in space having survived a point blank nuclear detonation to the face. But no it's FINE Cortana must have fiddled some control panel ..... teleported him right? I didn't see any terminals and i don't recall her being able to spawn wormholes from the digital world. THEN as if this wasn't implausible enough already MC is floating in space and immediately a pelican finds you! In one of the Halo books a spartan's jetpack malfunctions and he goes off into space. They state even IF they weren't in a battle it'd be near impossible to find and retrieve him in the hour of air capacity his suit containts. So again one must assume that the MC is not actually breathing as well as being immune to nuclear weaponry. It just ..... eurghhhhh. Please? Really? I'm intelligent you know. You can't fob me off with "He's a hero so he always survives." i was gunning for an actual HEROIC death here. But nahhhh cortana dies except I bet my life savings you'll bring her back next game as a physical being which is also impossible.

 

After this lovely little ending i'm treated to the legendary ending and shown a glimpse of John .... not Spartan 117. John. Presumably getting an armour upgrade. Now i'm all for this but really I bet that pissed off a **** tonne of hardcore halo fans out there who haven't read the books and don't know his personal story etc. That he's not -always- in his damned armour. So nice brave move there. Especially for the engineers ... the mans not showered in years by now.

 

I'm aware by this point i'm probably going to be described as ranting but there's a few final points before I finish up. To my knowledge it is never explained why the covenant are happy to help the enemies once again and why they're led by elites not brutes. I won't assume about the lore between Halo 3 since there's nothing concrete but surely the elites aren't going to go "WE HAVE SAVED HUMANITY!" then four years later decide to casually turn them all into promethean knights. Also where did all the covenant ships go when you grab your heavy fighter and pursue to Earth? Did they just .... go home for tea and cupcakes after blasting an entire space station to bits from the inside?

 

Now my non plot related issue. You have removed firefight. Made the campaign shoddy and 10 hours long and then made 50% of game content unaccessable without xbox live. Well .... why not cut the crap and make a pc game from the start so we can ALL use the internet based segment. I feel like i've bought a call of duty game for the storyline!! How often does that happen? Never. Because their storylines are **** and the games only made for the online aspect. Which this feels like you've done to Halo 4 with it's measly 10 hour campaign on legendary and poor, repetative map designs (barring a few nice touches).

 

OH and I almost forgot. In four years you trained replacement spartans? Oh right ..... because the grow from age like 4 to 18 in four years? Read the books before you write a damn game even the Spartan 2 program took years to make and they weren't in power armour and had barely any physiological upgrades. Oh and they almost all died. So yes it's totally feasable there are plenty of Spartans on Infinity only four years later. Not.

 

Frankly I found the gameplay good. I liked the new weapons. I thought the graphics were much improved and I liked the covenant retextures. I loved the promethian knights idea and thought the initial story while patchy was still very good. However by the end I felt so disengaged from the main charachter as I knew implausibly he must survive and then was proved correct via nuclear bomb and two face plantings through the windows of spacecraft (seemingly not crash proof). It just seems to slowly descend into a slog fest of orange and red corridors fighting stuff off to press buttons to get a cut scene then repeat the process in slightly different corridors. Oh I also -loved- the new guns. Especially the human LMG and the light rifle.

 

End rant! Thank you for listening to my views on the campaign. Troll them and i'll troll your face off.

[x 7y old kid x]

Not trying to start a fight with you, but you're confused on a few things.

 

Cortana did activate a distress beacon. It was pretty obvious to me during my campaign run. The UNSC Infinity was lured into Requiem by the distress signal. It was a major plot point. Suggest you play these levels again and listen to the audio. You can hear the distress beacon.

 

The truce with the Arbiter was in effect for the entire Halo 3 campaign and the last act of the Halo 2 campaign (before Chief and Cortana were stranded in the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn so they definitely had this information, reference Halo 3 cutscene where Chief sticks his gun in the Arbiter's jaw, Johnson intervenes and the Arbiter says "Were it so easy" classic line). It was reasonable for Cortana to assume the Arbiter and his allies would continue to honor the truce. Cortana never claimed to have exact or current intelligence about a truce, hence her surprise and her rationalization that a lot could happen in four years. She doesn't know the war is over, she was making an educated guess (rather optimistic).

 

Please play the "Star Fox" level again. It explains how Master Chief gets inside the shield (Didact thinks Chief was destroyed by the Composer so Chief has element of surprise) and it explains that yes the UNSC is doing their best to defend Earth but they are facing an unknown enemy with unknown tech. The best they might possibly have are contingency plans that have never been tested as they have never faced a real Forerunner before. Also it's a race against time, they don't know for sure they can take out the Didact ship defenses before he fires his weapon. How many shots will it take to pop Didact's shield? They have no idea what to expect. All they know is, Didact hasn't fired his ultimate weapon yet and he's moving rapidly towards planet Earth. What is the exact range of the Composer and how much devastion will it cause when it fires? They don't know how much time they have but it's running out and the Chief is their best hope.

 

On the human installation, just because space is visible does not mean they are exposed to open vacuum. It's apparent that they are not exposed to open vacuum, although the game does not explain in detail what technology is separating them from vacuum. It's typical science fiction stuff. If people are acting as though gravity and oxygen are present, then they are in a controlled environment with gravity and oxygen. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to establish the setting. If people are wearing heavy clothing and they can see their breath, the setting is cold. You don't need the writers to hold your hand and tell you temperature = X, gravity = Y, oxygen level = Z. If the setting was dangerous somehow, that would be shown in the actions of the characters.

 

Also, on the subject of Spartan 4 program, they were not trained from early childhood as the Chief was. They are UNSC veterans who have been upgraded. Any soldier in the UNSC can apply to become a Spartan 4 but only the best are selected. The UNSC could easily achieve this, in less than 4 years.

[Baeztoberfest]

Not trying to start a fight with you, but you're confused on a few things.

 

Cortana did activate a distress beacon. It was pretty obvious to me during my campaign run. The UNSC Infinity was lured into Requiem by the distress signal. It was a major plot point. Suggest you play these levels again and listen to the audio. You can hear the distress beacon.

 

The truce with the Arbiter was in effect for the entire Halo 3 campaign and the last act of the Halo 2 campaign (before Chief and Cortana were stranded in the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn so they definitely had this information, reference Halo 3 cutscene where Chief sticks his gun in the Arbiter's jaw, Johnson intervenes and the Arbiter says "Were it so easy" classic line). It was reasonable for Cortana to assume the Arbiter and his allies would continue to honor the truce. Cortana never claimed to have exact or current intelligence about a truce, hence her surprise and her rationalization that a lot could happen in four years. She doesn't know the war is over, she was making an educated guess (rather optimistic).

 

Please play the "Star Fox" level again. It explains how Master Chief gets inside the shield (Didact thinks Chief was destroyed by the Composer so Chief has element of surprise) and it explains that yes the UNSC is doing their best to defend Earth but they are facing an unknown enemy with unknown tech. The best they might possibly have are contingency plans that have never been tested as they have never faced a real Forerunner before. Also it's a race against time, they don't know for sure they can take out the Didact ship defenses before he fires his weapon. How many shots will it take to pop Didact's shield? They have no idea what to expect. All they know is, Didact hasn't fired his ultimate weapon yet and he's moving rapidly towards planet Earth. What is the exact range of the Composer and how much devastion will it cause when it fires? They don't know how much time they have but it's running out and the Chief is their best hope.

 

On the human installation, just because space is visible does not mean they are exposed to open vacuum. It's apparent that they are not exposed to open vacuum, although the game does not explain in detail what technology is separating them from vacuum. It's typical science fiction stuff. If people are acting as though gravity and oxygen are present, then they are in a controlled environment with gravity and oxygen. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to establish the setting. If people are wearing heavy clothing and they can see their breath, the setting is cold. You don't need the writers to hold your hand and tell you temperature = X, gravity = Y, oxygen level = Z. If the setting was dangerous somehow, that would be shown in the actions of the characters.

 

Also, on the subject of Spartan 4 program, they were not trained from early childhood as the Chief was. They are UNSC veterans who have been upgraded. Any soldier in the UNSC can apply to become a Spartan 4 but only the best are selected. The UNSC could easily achieve this, in less than 4 years.

 

I was very surprised at the lack of argument that ensued after the posted thread. I agree completely with the rebuttle. Very well said. Both of you.

[Mattfire]

Not trying to start a fight with you, but you're confused on a few things.

 

Cortana did activate a distress beacon. It was pretty obvious to me during my campaign run. The UNSC Infinity was lured into Requiem by the distress signal. It was a major plot point. Suggest you play these levels again and listen to the audio. You can hear the distress beacon.

 

The truce with the Arbiter was in effect for the entire Halo 3 campaign and the last act of the Halo 2 campaign (before Chief and Cortana were stranded in the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn so they definitely had this information, reference Halo 3 cutscene where Chief sticks his gun in the Arbiter's jaw, Johnson intervenes and the Arbiter says "Were it so easy" classic line). It was reasonable for Cortana to assume the Arbiter and his allies would continue to honor the truce. Cortana never claimed to have exact or current intelligence about a truce, hence her surprise and her rationalization that a lot could happen in four years. She doesn't know the war is over, she was making an educated guess (rather optimistic).

 

Please play the "Star Fox" level again. It explains how Master Chief gets inside the shield (Didact thinks Chief was destroyed by the Composer so Chief has element of surprise) and it explains that yes the UNSC is doing their best to defend Earth but they are facing an unknown enemy with unknown tech. The best they might possibly have are contingency plans that have never been tested as they have never faced a real Forerunner before. Also it's a race against time, they don't know for sure they can take out the Didact ship defenses before he fires his weapon. How many shots will it take to pop Didact's shield? They have no idea what to expect. All they know is, Didact hasn't fired his ultimate weapon yet and he's moving rapidly towards planet Earth. What is the exact range of the Composer and how much devastion will it cause when it fires? They don't know how much time they have but it's running out and the Chief is their best hope.

 

On the human installation, just because space is visible does not mean they are exposed to open vacuum. It's apparent that they are not exposed to open vacuum, although the game does not explain in detail what technology is separating them from vacuum. It's typical science fiction stuff. If people are acting as though gravity and oxygen are present, then they are in a controlled environment with gravity and oxygen. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to establish the setting. If people are wearing heavy clothing and they can see their breath, the setting is cold. You don't need the writers to hold your hand and tell you temperature = X, gravity = Y, oxygen level = Z. If the setting was dangerous somehow, that would be shown in the actions of the characters.

 

Also, on the subject of Spartan 4 program, they were not trained from early childhood as the Chief was. They are UNSC veterans who have been upgraded. Any soldier in the UNSC can apply to become a Spartan 4 but only the best are selected. The UNSC could easily achieve this, in less than 4 years.

 

Assuming she does make the leap of faith to assume the covenant truce is continuing that's still only the elite controlled half. The brutes still control all those lovely capital ships and standard non elite led covenant forces. So i'm rather surprised these weren't used instead as a ore viable alternative plotwise. This and to my knowledge it's not explained WHY the covenant are helping the Didact or why he doesn't promethianise them.

 

As for the star foxish level it's definately something i'm going to replay as I loved the way it was done so perhaps I'll see that. I got that he assumed MC is dead and I suppose it's not too much a stretch of imagination that thus his shields might be down. I'm not majorly fussed about that segment more that it's assumed he doesn't detect the ships approach and the covenant fleet vanishes utterly from the scene.

 

As for the Earth encounter I had to suspend my disbelief rather a stretch when I saw all those ships not firing at the pre-warned threat of annihilation. In my opinion in such a situation they'd have launched all they had! Perhaps a better way to do the level would have been to show the UNSC fighting the covenant frigates to make up for this slight issue. But then i'm not a level designer I suppose most people don't look up at the sky and just powered on in a lust for the end game.

 

I do agree with the assume it's sealed off from vacuum on the installation level as that's obviously implied to be the case my point is more that I view it as rushed and shoddy map creation not to seal these things up logically. It rather killed my immersion to notice it as did the other light errors. I suppose i'm just an observant person who likes their logical stuff in order.

 

As for Spartan 4's .... i'd say it's rather against the cannon lore in the books to have UNSC veteransmade into spartans. It took them years and they barely achieved a 50% success rate on genetically engineering the Spartan 1's. Bearing in mind that other 50% died horribly for the most part. I would have been happier with some genetically buffed up ODST's but then I suppose that's just me if they want to say "This is how it is they made new spartans" ultimately I have no say in the matter but it again was somewhat an unexplained event that busted the immersion.

 

I'm glad nobody has yet screamed me down! I hope I made the original post clear that I'm moderately happy with the game this is just my view on some of the things that made it less than perfect in my experience

[Vaulting♥Frog]

Assuming she does make the leap of faith to assume the covenant truce is continuing that's still only the elite controlled half. The brutes still control all those lovely capital ships and standard non elite led covenant forces. So i'm rather surprised these weren't used instead as a ore viable alternative plotwise. This and to my knowledge it's not explained WHY the covenant are helping the Didact or why he doesn't promethianise them.

 

Perhaps I might be able to help? The truce between humanity and the Covenant is still held that much is true and the Brutes are still in a civil war for control of the Covenant against the Elites. Jul 'Mdama (the Covenant leader) has been at Requiem for several years trying to get it to open. He knows the humans are causing instability within the Covenant to keep its war fighting capacity low and he has no love for humans. He got this particular fleet from a Covenant planet which had no idea the Covenant had fallen. Hence the non-standard gear they use. No Brutes in this fleet as far as I know so you dont even have to worry about them. Honestly they are a splinter group of the Covenant.

 

As to why they are helping the Didact, he is Forerunner. One of their gods and they (the Elites) have reverted back to that mode of thinking. To serve a living god is tantamount to heaven for them. Plus they hate humans so thats a plus for them. As to why they werent turned into Prometheans themselves there is a simple explaination. The Didact couldnt until he got hold of the Composer. Without that tool he couldnt turn any organics into the AI's needed to drive the Promethean shells that we were fighting.

 

As for Spartan 4's .... i'd say it's rather against the cannon lore in the books to have UNSC veteransmade into spartans. It took them years and they barely achieved a 50% success rate on genetically engineering the Spartan 1's. Bearing in mind that other 50% died horribly for the most part. I would have been happier with some genetically buffed up ODST's but then I suppose that's just me if they want to say "This is how it is they made new spartans" ultimately I have no say in the matter but it again was somewhat an unexplained event that busted the immersion.

 

I'm glad nobody has yet screamed me down! I hope I made the original post clear that I'm moderately happy with the game this is just my view on some of the things that made it less than perfect in my experience

 

You forget about the Spartan III program. They were producing Spartans by the hundreds within a few years worth of training at that point, with similar implants and genetic modification (improved to speed up the process). The last group of them to use that tech were produced at the end of the Human-Covenant War. Tech like that probably has been significantly upgraded due to Forerunner and Covenant tech being studied so it can be applied to adult subjects with minimal risk and greatly enhanced recovery so they could be pressed into active service. Take for instance the Infinity. It is a blend of Forerunner, Covenant and Human technology. It was a prototype during the Human-Covenant War but shortly there after it became operational and is easily the single most powerful ship in the known galaxy (until the Didact's ship became active). I dont see anything lore breaking there.

 

Also you see in the very begining Dr. Halsey. They are talking about her choices in the Spartan II program and how to do it better. Her experience and notes probably fast tracked the Spartan IV program.

[ThebigC]

Kind of ragey, not pure rage, but clearly some rage in this thread. You need to replay Halo 2 and 3, your information is wrong. I have my problems with the campaign, but most of what your complaining about is actually wrong information on your part.

 

Now on to your points. You have a problem with the Covenant fleet and what they are doing. I don't it's explained in the game that they are a splinter faction of fanatics. As we all know fanatics do stupid things. Now if you had said I have a problem with why they are still following the great journey I would have agreed. The Prophets betrayed the elites and all the elites know the prophets were lying about the great Journey. It never made sense to me that they would still be fanatical about this lie. But fanatics are fanatics. So that can go either way. As for why Cortana didn't notice the Covenant fleet, the Dawn is totally smashed, so that I can believe. But the fact that the Covenant fleet did not notice the distress Beacon until the Dawn was on top of them made no sense.

 

You don't like Captain Del Rio. Me either but your reasons are not that clear. For me he has to be an idiot, the Master Chief holds the official rank of Master Chief Petty Officer of the navy, his rank insignia is clear as day on the memorial. That means he is the Chief of NAVCOM and under the direct powers of the Chief of Navel Command, his billet protocol is that of a Vice Admiral. Captain Del Rio is not even in his command structure and even if he was the only people who order the Master Chief Petty officer of the Navy around have multiple stars on their insignias. That's why the Chief has gold not silver stars on his insignia. He could order Del Rio relieved of command with the snap of his fingers on grounds of incompetance and countermanding the standing orders of the Chief of Navel Command. Del Rio has zero power over the Chief. The Chief on the other hand acts with the authority of the Chief of Navel operations. No Captain in his right mind would even attempt to give him an order let alone threaten him. However it is the reason Del Rio is relieved of Command by NAVCOM later in the game and the Infinity is sent to assist the Chief.

 

I agree I have no idea why they are letting an enemy ship sit in orbit above earth, they know it is an enemy ship because they have already debriefed the Infinity command officers. The Infinity damaged that ship with one shot, so why didn't the fleet open fire? They know they can damage it. Instead they sit idel by and let the ship kill everyone in New Phoenix. Kind of a huge mistake. I don't like idiot driven plots and this plot tended to be driven by just that.

 

As for the ending, yeah I won;t argue it, the emotional context was well done but the execution of events was just to much of a reach for me. The Nuke, the light bridge bubble that had no power source or bridge device and it could take a nuke hit, the unexplained survival of a ground zero nuke, the use of the Force by the Diadac, which does make sense to me because I know one of the lead writers wrote multiple Star Wars novels. But it's Halo not star wars and it does not belong. The whole genetically placed Luck, all that to far of a stretch Libriarian history. Didn't do it for me. The game turned the Humans into genetically engineered seed corn that sprouted billions of years after it was planted. She supposedly planted the genetic seeds for them to make power armor? I mean come on, really? So it was all her and not the Humans, the Chief is the Chief because she made him the Chief, because she gave him all that he is in genetic coding placed in primordial ooze billions upon billions of year ago. None of it works because we actually know when the earth was formed and when the universe began. We don't have the window to develop to that level twice. The time does not exist. But I can forgive that kind of comic book science, but really programing all modern advances in science via primordial ooze. GTFOOH. I would buy Galactus showing up before that plot. But to each their own.

 

If Chief uses Force Jump or Force lightning in Halo 5 I am going to have to dump the series.

[Azeraph]

Read Thursdays war and the Forerunner saga.

 

Yeah i thought the engine was 2011 like everyone else with crysis thrown in for colour.