Addendum from one of your HBO posts, Cody

by Leviathan , Hotel Zanzibar, Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 23:11 (4103 days ago) @ Ragashingo

- 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. :(

It helps that it began with the classic musical motif that began all of the Halo trilogy titles. Sadly, the composer didn't wish to revist any of the other main themes except at the sight of a Halo for a brief moment, and the credits. I'm all for new music, but a Bond film needs its Secret Agent Man, Star Wars needs its fanfare, etc. Halo needed some of its classic themes. It's been four console games since we've had the Truth and Reconciliation Suite!

- 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. :(

I can give ya the next one, but I don't know about this one. It definitely LOOKED cool, but I don't think it explained the ancient human history very well. My girlfriend who has played the main Halo trilogy only had absolutely no idea what was going on. Hell, I could barely understand it. There were way too many new twists and concepts in a such a short amount of time. They should have spread it out throughout the game, along with exposition on the Didact and why he wasn't just a simple vampire wanting to murder Earth - which is all my girlfriend grasped as well. It was only in his after credits monologue that we had any interesting depth to his character and hint of understanding to his goals. But that's not a very good place for that to start happening, hah!

- 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.

Yep, for me at least - the Didact and the overall depiction of the Forerunners and the lack of explaining this new Covenant splinter cell... at all, really made the events of the game make no sense to me. The terminals needed to be an integral part of the game, not something I had to go watch on Waypoint later if I remembered it. I still don't think I've watched them all.