Addendum from one of your HBO posts, Cody

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 18:59 (3892 days ago) @ Avateur

I know it's Levi's opinion, but I'd argue that H3 didn't really pull even some of the bigger parts off. Why did Regret jump the gun? What was Cortana's plan when she stayed behind on High Charity? What's H3 tell us? Doesn't matter, no reason/who cares.

For the record, I enjoy playing H3 for the most part, but a lot of the gameplay and level design just absolutely kills me. And the story itself only gets satisfying near the end of the game. I'd argue that the first 4-5 levels serve just about no purpose.

I also disagree that H4 does the big or small story points well. I've ripped that story to pieces enough over at HBO, no need to carry that over here. :P

Halo 4 gets a few thing right:

- Cortana's echo-y distress call on the opening cutscene with the in half Forward Unto Dawn. Ignoring that it's not the same ship that scene has the right tone… well until Cortana appears and starts displaying a virtual, holographic touch screen for her avatar to swipe around for no reason… Still the audio and visuals up till then are powerful and set a great mood, just one that is quickly tossed aside. :(

- The Librarian telling of Humanity's struggles with the Flood and Forerunner is pretty decent. It had a good mood and would be a highlight of the Halo/Human/Forerunner story if the rest of Halo 4 had supported it better. :(

- Cortana's scene after the scientists are digitalized is very good. It hits home the story point that she is dying and that she doesn't want to be replaced, even by herself. Too bad it's only a short bit of gameplay before we're reminded that the Didact is evil for no reason and has a plan that make no sense. :(

The thing is, I think those three scene are actually some of the best in all of Halo. Bungie was always… very standoffish with the greater fiction of their universe and never really connected with it, or outright attempted to rewrite it as in Reach. Halo 4, despite all its flaws, did attempt to, and in some cases very successfully did, connect to its surrounding fiction. It just dropped the ball in connecting the book Didact to the game Didact so badly that no good points could save it.