- OrderedComa
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- Noble Member
In all honesty, no one really gives a rats arse about one reviewer and his opinions, no matter how good they may be. I cannot really speak anything in favor or not in favor of Plinkett as I have never seen any of his reviews, however I will say this, one of the most important things I've learned about writing a story, whether for a film, a book, a play, or a video game, is that the reviewer/critic is not always right or even accurate. For instance there are a great deal of movies that I've seen that were nor very favorably received by the critics, which I however enjoyed the hell out of and are some of my favorites. And another thing, practice is what makes you a better writer, not some professional or amateur reviewer, they may get you thinking more critically, but ultimately any improvement is in your hands and is the result of your own efforts in conjunction with feedback you receive that will make you improve. That being said, now moving on to dissecting the rest of this wordy, word stew :P (not saying wordy is bad, just saying it is wordy ;P ).
In response to section 1:
I personally was very pleased with how Reach turned out, it was everything I was expecting it to be, and I saw all the trailers and such just like you did, my expectations were high, and I was not really let down. I wouldn't call Reach the best story Bungie has done (I personally don't think there is any "best" amongst the stories in the various Halo games), but it is most definitely NOT the worst. Imo, people are only dissapointed with the game because they over-hyped themselves for it and were setting their expectations way too high.
I really did not feel overburdened by enemies, if anything it helped me feel the scale and gravity of it all much better than I did in the other Halo games, with exclusion of the levels in the Covenant ships or strictly Covenant areas I really didn't feel like I was fighting a war for humanities' survival, it felt much more like a series of a small scale battle by two under-equipped sides. And no matter what the game, I have never felt like the enemy AIs are anything more than obstacles to beat into submission and out of my way. That is natural, you are supposed to feel powerful whenever you play as a Spartan, because that is what the Spartans were. However I did feel like Humanity was gets its ass handed to them on a silver platter, I knew this and felt this from looking out at the background images and from listening to dialogue going on around me.
And frankly, I disagree with you about the levels played as the Rookie, until the end I felt like they were the very worst part of the game, they were quite boring to me. I never felt at all screwed when playing as the Rookie, I certainly got the loneliness and the whole "city is dead" feeling and vibe, but I never felt screwed once. I never felt any mystery to what they were doing either, the only mystery was what Dare was up to, we knew why the Covenant was there, and we knew what they were doing. The Rookie missions I wanted to get overwith as fast as possible, aside from finding the audio logs for Sady's Story, there was absolutely nothing going on and nothing really to promote playing those levels, if you ask me, they were the weakest levels in the whole Halo Saga.
In response to section 2:
I will give you that Carter was a rather weak character and probably the weakest in Reach, however I think all the rest of the characters within the game were just as well developed as in any other Halo game, with Jorge being the strongest and most developed in Reach's story.
One flaw in your comparison between the Squad and Noble Team is that Noble are composed of Spartans, and they were meant to live their lives in service to the UNSC and her colonies and defending them, they are not going to show all that much personality. Whereas the Squad have all grown up leading normal lives, they have a life outside the military they go back to when off duty. Spartans? They have no real life other than the military, they are not going to be emotional the same way as people who have developed and been shaped by other factors than the military.
Carter did the thing a good leader would, he did not show his true emotions, he put what he felt aside for the good of the mission, which was defending Reach to the death or the order to retreat was given. And even if he does not really express too much emotion over Kat's death obviously, you can never the less still notice it if you look. Like for instance, after she dies he is the one carrying and cradling her body as they wait for extraction, and in the next level you can tell from his voice that he has lost a lot of his drive and is extremely worn and exhausted emotionally, both from Kat's death and the inherent fall of Reach weighing heavily on him.
It may have been possible to kill the Banshees, however, the Pelican lacked any armaments capable of taking out the Phantom, if they had turned to fight, the Pelican would have been shot down, so no real problem with Carter's death. Kat was not acting any different than the rest of Noble had, it could have just as easily been one of them who died there as it had been Kat, she is merely the one chosen to "off" at that moment, and I didn't feel all that saddened by her death at first, I always feel saddened at that part of the game every time now. And as for Emile's death? It was hardly unavoidable, for starters, the Phantom came from below the Onager and thus out of its range, and when it did come in range there was not enough time to fire anything off.
ODST and Reach are both excellent games, you may feel inclined to disagree and think one is better than the other, I however think both are excellent games and explorations into the heart of humanity. I don't think any Halo game is better than any of the others, they are all different and special in their own way.
As for the lines you are comparing, the first is completely mismatched, it is like comparing apples to a head of lettuce.
The second, you're a bit closer on this one, but still not the same. I find Emile's last words quite memorable, it is not just the line that makes something memorable but the actions that go with it. For instance, in and of itself, Master Chief's line about "giving the Covenant back their bomb." is not really all that memorable by itself.
TL;DR: Reach is an excellent addition to the Halo series and is just as good as any of the other installments. With great characters, excellent environment, and a highly enjoyable and engaging story.