By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Posted by: the real Janaka
At the time, the story was centred around a handful of questions, such as: what was the Legendary planetoid, what happened to Onyx (Dyson Sphere, Halsey and co), what was Mendicant Bias on about with atonement, where did Epitaph fit into everything, and why did Sandtrap along with parts of Delta Halo look different, etc.
I think the whole thing with Epitaph and Sandtrap is a bit shallow to include in unraveling a mystery centred around the campaign, that was all a wild goose chase (albeit an enjoyable one) that got blown out of proportion by the fanbase.
However, 343i must have thought that these mysteries or questions were far too petty to base, or at least start a new trilogy on, cause they shrugged it all off; tied some of the ends as fast and simple as possible, and ignored the rest. The Dyson Sphere with--at the time--was the most impressive Forerunner structure, ended up being nothing. At this point they've tossed in so many new Forerunner structures, that it's completely diminished the worth of the old ones.
They didn't have the Onyx Dyson Sphere end up being nothing, we knew exactly what its purpose was in Ghosts of Onyx (a 'bomb-shelter' from the Halo Array) and it's left to be explored and exploited by ONI which we'll no doubt see reflected in Halo 4 and The Thursday War since the technology will likely be implemented into the UNSC Infinity.
The only place they've introduced new Forerunner structures is in the Forerunner Saga set 100,000 years before the present storyline. It doesn't diminish the worth of the old artefacts, in fact it adds to their importance seeing as how we're shown how vast the Forerunner Ecumene was and we're only discovering pockets of technology they've left behind.
Master Chiefs new adventure should have been about finding out what happened during the "Tipping Point", and becoming the "Final Solution"; being a direct follow up on whatever Cortana was on about in the Iris viral.
There are resonant connections but we don't know the full extent of this. We've seen 5 minutes of gameplay from Halo 4, this is not enough to judge what the whole game is going to be about since there's still about 6-10 hours worth of content we know nothing about.
Halo fans after 3 wanted to yet again, experience the sense of wonder, serenity, desolation, isolation, and mystery, that CE provided. Not seeing generic armour clad space skeletons rawring in ones face, whilst regurgitated alien hordes fill the landscape, shouting words like "bad ass" and "epic set pieces". What is this, a Transformers skinned Call of Duty?
I'm quite puzzled by what you've said here. In the demo, the vistas looked just as impressive as they were in Halo 2 with a clear portrayal of exotic and mysterious landscapes, this hasn't changed from the CE-feel I'm sure. But you're comment about throwing in 'generic armour clad space skeletons' can just as well be applied to the Covenant in Halo CE/2/3...
Shouldn't Halo be about exploration through environments that are able to tell the story for you? Instead of overly storydriven and scripted sequences? Shouldn't the relasionship between Cortana and Chief be defined by comments here and there, about various topics, instead of super dramatic cut scenes? Shouldn't the cinematics main purpose be to just slightly push the player in the right direction, just merely confirminf or denying some of the main theories up until that point?
Again, you seem to be judging an entire game off of 5 minutes of footage in which the guy playing it was just trying to run-and-gun through.
There is no single purpose to a cutscene, there's no archetype for it to fill because it can do a lot of different things. It can provide character or plot development, cinematic action, admiration of scenery and plenty of other things. All of this is designed to immerse the player in the experience because a cutscene has to take you somewhere in the story; with what we saw in Halo 4's demo, there's a blend of movement, plot development and action. John is constantly on the move, when he stops it's to look almost in awe at the scale of the things and combined this gives the player a sense of immense size and distance for this world. It's none to different from what we saw in Halo CE, really.
Why did it have to be a whole new epic trilogy, couldn't it be about Chief walking in the shadow of the past and solving whatever the Forerunners couldn't?
Because it can be both. But at the same time, we've already done this in the first 3 games and it's time to add something new into the mix. It seems the reason people don't like this is because it's unfamiliar, players have become way too ensconced in their own preconceptions of a definitive list of things that makes a Halo game a Halo game. There is no list, the universe for this series is constantly evolving and changing - compare Halo CE to ODST or Halo 2 to Reach. They're completely different, each is telling a different story and thus requires a different tone.
As for being able to judge script, direction (as something a director does), etc, I'm going to be terribly--perhaps even off puttingly--smugg and arrogant, saying that there is enough there to judge the quality of the entire product. Everything that happens, every scene, is a product of 343i's style.
There isn't. We've seen 5 minutes of a 6-10 hour campaign, you can be "smug and arrogant" but at the end of the day that's what you're being - smug and arrogant.
There was a dramatic scene with cortana, the were a lot of scripted events - two of which featured an enemie trying to kiss MC right in the face. There were enough scenes.
2 scenes... No, it's not enough to make a judgement on the full product.