By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe.
Posted by: Sp4rksLT
The music in the gameplay trailer/footage thingy WAS TERRIBLE. I know it's all personal preference, but that new guy, he didn't capture Halo feel at all. I know I haven't heard the whole soundtrack yet, but there is a reason that Halo's soundtrack is the best selling Halo soundtrack out there.
Yeah, that reason is because there's no set of arbitrary principles which makes a Halo track 'feel' like Halo. There is no set list of boxes a Halo soundtrack has to meet because the music, like the game itself, is constantly evolving. Compare Halo 2's soundtrack to ODST's, there is an unprecedented difference between them. You can dislike the soundtrack, but there's no way you can say it's "not Halo".
Now, if you only have played the games and not dwelled in the books Halo 3 ties up everything nicely. Flood is kinda finish, no threat to humanity. Covenant shattered, Sangheili allied with the humans and Chief. Well I really liked what Bungie did to him. He's not dead, but he's resting. That's it, that was his final battle and back in 2007 I accepted it and was completely happy with that idea. Halo 3 had a great, bittersweet ending that closed up the trilogy well.
Now remember, I'm only talking about the games. Without the books there aren't even any other SPARTANs mentioned in the games (talking about the trilogy here still). I personally have played the three Halo games, and then a few years back finally managed to get my hands on the books. They were a great addition to the canon. But then Reach.. yeah, it kinda shattered my faith in Bungie and after Legends I just had to make my own canon rules.
Erm... NOPE. The game alone leaves about half a dozen loose-ends without ANY reference to the extra fiction, the 3 major ones are:
- Mendicant Bias tells John he's sending him to the Forerunners. This alone opens up the possibility for a whole new trilogy (which has since been realised).
- Gravemind states we've only delayed his return.
- There are still 6 Halos primed and ready to fire at any time.
For now all 343 have done with the franchise seems to be instead of trying to build upon Bungie's plot (remember, most of the Bungie-era books were written by Bungie's own writer) and just completely swipe that away and say "yeah well, actually this isn't the greatest terror, THIS is the greatest terror and evil and bla bla bla". The story was taken to new heights? Are you kidding me? All they did was tie up any left over story threads from Bungie times and open completely new ones, and numerous at that. Halo may be grander than ever, but has it any quality left?
But they are building on Bungie's set plot. Halo 4 picks up DIRECTLY where Halo 3 left off from the point Bungie illustrated with Mendicant Bias.
No, most of the Bungie-era books were written by Nylund. Joseph Staten was the only Bungie member to write one of the novels (Contact Harvest). Halo has been building towards this whole Precursor plot for years, 343i have been building it up and foreshadowing it ever since Evolutions.
And what I've seen of Halo 4's gameplay was ridiculously scripted for that short campaign period and if the game is like that gameplay trailer, well then Halo just went full Crysis. Or CoD, or whatever you want to call it. Bungie didn't take control away unless it was a cutscene. It made the gameplay feel really good (personal preference again).
Remember when Halo 2 was shown at E3 in 2003? The ENTIRE thing was was scripted and they said that they wanted that in the game but didn't have enough time. The scripting in the demos is all done to entice the players by making it look impressive, it may or may not be in the final product (e.g. ME3 with the Reaper chase on Rannoch, it's COMPLETELY different in the game itself).