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Possible spoilers

I really didn't care much for ODST n reach; whilst Halo 3 was a bit of a letdown for me. But, I was actually very entertained by 343's anniversary edition. Obviously CE was a solid game, but it was the level of detail put into it; especially the human flood who look near horrific, that made the game excellent. I also liked the terminals narrating guilty spark, referencing Keyes being absorbed by the gravemind (which BTW is sick with the new graphics) and hinting at Halo 4. So it left me feeling unusually positive about Halo 4 and that its in safe hands.

What I know:
Two trailers have been put out, one involves the chief awakening on the front part of the frigate he left on and about to fall into an opeining portal. The other is a very interesting artwork piece which shows several environments and has quite an unusually dark tone. It also end with a barely visible but evidently sinsiter enemy.

http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/28/new-art-based-halo-4-trailer-airs-at-pax/ scroll down page to see trailer

Putting it together, it seems likely that the chief n cortona will be on their own for most of the game, with the environments hinting at a lost in space type scenario with him both trying to escape and slowly understanding the nature of the forerunner craft he is on. This would thus bring back a sense of mystery and suspense which was the main strength of Halo CE story. This mystery is provided, probably, by the realization that the forerunners survived in some form. The terminals in CE anniversary really hint at this, 343 specifically mentions that 'if one of our devices were to fail, or our technology to be used' (both hinted in Reach and done by the Covenant) then the Diadact would surely act. It also ends with him cryptically saying that this diadact, a forerunner military leader who opposed the building of the Halo's and advocated a war of annialation with the flood would be worse than the aforementioned gribblies. I'am not entirely sure that the thing at the end of the trailer is meant to be him. I was more inclined to think insane AI with the glowing red eye, usually a sign of 'rampancy'. If this is the case then there are two likely candidates from the lore as described in the recent forerunner trilogy books. Either its Mendicant Bias, who sided with the flood but redeemed himself during Halo 3 (don't ask too complicated n obscure), or its the AI which defeated him who has went insane after millennia of idleness. Or, I don't know, maybe the forerunners but their consciousnesses into machines to survive Halo (Necrons!!! ).

I would thus suppose that this new trilogy will probably, and I hope, focus on introducing the new forerunner faction and taking time to explain WTF they are and not jump into reintroducing the UNSC and covenant splinter factions. I know, I know, I would also like to see redesigned elites and advanced marines. But, one of the issues I had with Halo 3 was that it got too convoluted in trying to resolve various plot points (covenant destruction, civil war, earth invasion, flood destruction, final forerunner mystery, character resolutions etc) it had just gotten bloated and wasn't helped by how it was put together. I really would prefer just havin chief n cortona having some alone time and focusing the game on the forerunners/whatever new enemy they want. If this really is a new trilogy then starting from a base that is more accesible to new players would be better anyway. Despite this, I'am fully expecting the UNSC, former covenant and flood (you know they haven't killed the bastards off! ) to play major roles in the series. I just hope they don't throw them in too early.

So anyway, I'am really hopeful for Halo 4 and looking forward to Holiday 2012. Anyone else's thoughts?

makes me want to play homeworld

Grundz wrote:makes me want to play homeworld

What games that?

After playing Halo ODST, I felt practically burned out of the series. I played maybe two levels of reach before I stopped and never touched it again.

Go read the two forerunner saga books that are out. It would solve quite a few of your questions. Like the one about who/what the forerunners are.

I'll just put it all in spoiler tags from here on out, so don't read this if your planning to read the books MASSIVE SPOILERS:


Btw, the AI that defeated mendicant bias was Offensive Bias. The reason it won was because Mendicant didn't expect to fight another AI.

Soladrin wrote:

I have mixed reactions about this game....

I loved fighting the Covenant, if I don't get to punch a brute a few times in the face in this game I'm going to be sorely disappointed.

bombboy1252 wrote:I have mixed reactions about this game....

I loved fighting the Covenant, if I don't get to punch a brute a few times in the face in this game I'm going to be sorely disappointed.

I don't know, maybe other factions try to enter the Shieldworld/whatever it is. Remember, there is no covenant anyomore, just groups of aliens out for themselves. That said, since Jackals are mercenaries, grunts are drafted and hunters give up troops because they just don't care; never mind the idea of leftover covenant fanatics I would expect them to return in their familiar multi-race format. What I'am not sure about is the Elites. They could either do one of several things.

1-The Elites simply join the UNSC and fight alongside marines. The UNSC thus becomes a multi racial unit like the EU. This in turn means their ascetic changes somewhat to look more like marines..

2-The Elites want to build a secular covenant/empire which is a threat to the UNSC and provokes a war. The chief and Cortona, who know the true threat are simply caught in the middle of this conflict.

3-The elites are xenophobic arseholes who want nothing to do with the other covenant races (supposedly hinted at in a book) and are as they were in Halo 3. Allies of the UNSC that pop up randomly whenever it suits them.

4-Not every elite accepted that the coveneant had ended and these are now part of the army of whatever Covenant remnant remains. this assumes that any covenant splinter faction are not dominated by Brutes and therefor hate elites.

I was simply saying that I would hope that they don't overwhelm you by introducing them too early.


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Necroshea wrote:After playing Halo ODST, I felt practically burned out of the series. I played maybe two levels of reach before I stopped and never touched it again.

I agree, whilst ODST had its moments it had a really pointless story, oh wow this is how we knew what we already get told at the end of Halo 2; theres something under Earth. Reach, was dreadful, the story was completely contrived to explain what, again, nobody was interested in. Only George got an actual character of some description yet he's the first to go, the rest are not just bland but have no character. They also decided to do the whole silent protagonist that you put your characters personality into which is just terrible. take the mission where you land in the city and find yourself helping civilians. Just a few simple lines of dialogue, with your character consciously choosing to help out the marines rather than just rolling with it would have been so much more meaningful. Technically he/she should have just regrouped with his/her squad and it really highlights where they don't take what are very simple ways of adding character and story to a shoot em up. Its not like you expect Shakespearre. Which is what I liked about GoW 3, it may have been cheesy and melodramatic at times, BUT, it did have a story, it did have character points that fitted together and most importantly those characters interacted with eachother in a simple but natural way that didn't detract anything from the action. Simple but effective. Less is more; but nothing is nothing. Halo reach was next to nothing as far as story and plot went.


The multiplayer also reminds me of why I didn't like gears of war multiplayer until the 3rd one. I'am actually not as positive about the multiplayer for Halo 4 becuase IMO.
1-Too much focus on the Battle rifle. A long range gun in a game filled with close quarters weapons which is so mandatory and powerful that its arguably better than many of the special weapons and is definetly better than the assault rifle. Its exactly like the gnasher from gow1+2 a simple but over-powered weapon that removes any skill and makes the game bland because EVERYBODY uses it.
2-Unlike every other shooter, you cannot join games in progress. This means that its guarneteed that once people quit from your team you will loose badly. Worse, the game actually punishes you for trying to leave losing games, which only creates a sense of frustration since there are times when you have to leave a game unexpectedly. This makes it much more difficult to have a casual game of Halo than GOW or COD. The medal totaling up isn't an excuse since battlefield 3, among others shows that this can be easily done.
3-Despicable use of forge as an excuse to limit the number of multiplayer maps included with the game. If you look at battlefield, it gave you a sizable number of maps and the special edition actually gave you access to five (outstanding) maps. By comparison, Halo forces you into a protection racket where you have to buy their DLC otherwise you are stuck playing bland maps. This was another issue specific to Reach; most of the maps were dreadful.

All this makes the experience of playing Halo multiplayer a dreadful and frustrating experience. When you consider how good the likes of Battlefield and GoW 3 have been. The improvements they made, then IMO Halo 4 really needs to get it together and sort out themultiplayer.

Ya I know the Covenant is has been broken, I just used that in place of saying "bunch of aliens trying to kill you"

I just don't want at be shooting at sentinels the entire game.

Totalwar1402 wrote:

Grundz wrote:makes me want to play homeworld

What games that?

That looks really good that. Surprised they haven't tried making it into an X-box live arcade game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

bombboy1252 wrote:Ya I know the Covenant is has been broken, I just used that in place of saying "bunch of aliens trying to kill you"

I just don't want at be shooting at sentinels the entire game.

Well, sentinals can combine to form...anything. Remember those giant machines from Halo 2, those were actually multiple sentinals linking together. So they could link into whatever. Including foot based infantry if they wanted to.

My feeling is that the forerunners are coming back in the flesh for Halo 4, I think Anniversary all but stated this in the terminals. Guilty spark, during his inner monologue, specifically mentions Promethiums, which ac to Halo wiki are a kind of Forerunner warrior caste. They're meant to three meter tall armoured yetees from what I read; make of that what you will. But they'd probably also have vehicles and regular troops in addition to something equivalent to a Hunter. Just pure speculation.

Assuming that the thing was in deep space (or at least begins there and floats toward the Haloverses part of the galaxy) hes unlikely to run into UNSC or covies straight away. If he's kept inside the thing. Then I would assume that covenantesque things would try to board it to scavange whatever they can find as soon as it entered their space. These could simply be mercenaries or roving warbands. So yes, you probably will get to chuc noris some brutes.

Apparently, ac to one of my mates, they released a book set after the events of Halo 3 and the book ends on a huge cliffhanger. The characters learn that the Elite homeworld just came under attack by 'something'/was destroyed by 'something'. Whether thats the Shield/Fortress world the chiefs on or if its somethingelse I can only speculate. But if what the cheifs in appears in orbit over the elite homeworld, you are going to see some blue n purple.

For those who don't read the books, here some info on the whole shield world happenings, gained from Glasslands.

I've enjoyed them all, even ODST and Halo 2, which still get poisoned daggers thrown at them in some circles, not sure why.

Some of that sounds pretty interesting though, I need to grab soem more novels at some point it seems. Oh and I will be getting Halo 4 day of release, its a given really.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I've enjoyed them all, even ODST and Halo 2, which still get poisoned daggers thrown at them in some circles, not sure why.

Some of that sounds pretty interesting though, I need to grab soem more novels at some point it seems. Oh and I will be getting Halo 4 day of release, its a given really.

I hated ODST, the only thing I liked about it was firefight, but who makes fun of Halo 2? That was the best Halo game in the series!

The ending, still see folks getting worked up about that on occasion.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:The ending, still see folks getting worked up about that on occasion.

That was always ridiculous to me. You're mad because a game you just played all the way through will have a sequel?

Necroshea wrote:

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:The ending, still see folks getting worked up about that on occasion.

That was always ridiculous to me. You're mad because a game you just played all the way through will have a sequel?

Ever notice that was the only thing people ever critiqued about it?
Can't remember anything that was that bad about it to be honest...

Aye, but I've still seen multiple folks put it in their worst ten games, just because they left it on a cliffhanger.

Like I said, I have no idea why either, just something I see in gaming circles, on console game sites in particular, although I guess some of that might be misguided xbox hate giving form as they heard people moaning about the ending. Who knows.

They're doing a fourth one?

MILK DAT COW!

Yeah, keep milkin that cow. Cause I like that delicious taste of a good sci-fi universe.

Henners91 wrote:They're doing a fourth one?

MILK DAT COW!

Hardly milking it...
Call of Duty has had 8 games.
Final Fantasy has had 13.
Mario alone has had over 200 games since 1982...
Halo has 6.

Aye breaking news in at eleven, Popular games franchises might sell.

'Well thank goodness for that, or we'd be right up gak creek without a paddle' a EA spokesperson was heard to say on our findings.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I've enjoyed them all, even ODST and Halo 2, which still get poisoned daggers thrown at them in some circles, not sure why.

Some of that sounds pretty interesting though, I need to grab soem more novels at some point it seems. Oh and I will be getting Halo 4 day of release, its a given really.

ODST was a novel game, it was just it had a really pointless stroy and they insisted on doing a silent protagonist when they had no reason to. That said me and my friends always laughed at how child-like the Rookie always was. Using a pole to take a sniper rifle off an electric wire and then trying to bend the barrel back. It was like watching Pixar's WALLEE! But basically it amounts to, a couple of cameos by the characters where we shoot brutes and then OMG theres an engineer we need to help! It wasn't that it was bad, it could certainly be fun; but it really had no reason to exist.

Reach was the worst IMO though.

Halo 2 was a brilliant game though, which had lots of action in and is mainly about the Arbiter and the civil war/ revealing the gravemind as the intelligence of the flood. IMO enough happened to keep you interested and move you into a series of climactic fights. The multi battles were definetly my most favourite feature of these video games and their conscious removal in all subsequent Halo games really aggrovated me.

Totalwar1402 wrote:That looks really good that. Surprised they haven't tried making it into an X-box live arcade game.

That made me die a little inside.

If only because new generations of gamers have no idea what the awesome Homeworld games are, and think it's actually possible turning them into console games.

Loved the gak out of Homeworld 2, that game was awesome. To bad were probably never gonna see a new one.

Just as a note don't rely on the Halo wiki (if you're using halopedia). It's primarily edited by a small section of the fan base that likes to make horrible leaps within the fiction that border on making things up. It's not a reliable place for info on the universe.

Not that that matters anymore. Between Karen Travis (who I hate even more now) and Halo: Reach the cannon Nylund built has pretty much been killed, gutted, and burned. There isn't a canon anymore.

purplefood wrote:

Henners91 wrote:They're doing a fourth one?

MILK DAT COW!

Hardly milking it...
Call of Duty has had 8 games.
Final Fantasy has had 13.
Mario alone has had over 200 games since 1982...
Halo has 6.

Call of Duty = Effectively churned out like it's on a factory line and is of grossly questionable quality.
Final Fantasy = Some anime fan crap... I hear VII is the only decent one. But I can't play JRPGs. I don't mean to imply that my intolerance makes it irrelevant, but I frankly know little about it.
Mario = (See Call of Duty, but include total lack of *any* originality and a setting done to ultimate death)

Halo, well, I haven't played Reach but it seemed to me like Halo 3 tied everything off nicely enough. Though I thought the story got totally poor. I had thought that Bungee said they were leaving it there, Reach was just a prequel done for the fans? Is Bungee still the dev?

Get with the times man, the idea of a second trilogy was already around with halo 2's release. Bungie said goodbye to the franchise after reach, it's not in the hands of 343 studio's, who've always been involved with anyway.

I doubt reach was a prequel done for the fans, cause it completely fethed over existing canon about the fall of reach.

Wait, Bungee isn't developing it because they jumped ship when they realised their work was done?

This really *isn't* sounding like a cash cow...

I'm more looking forward to see Bungies new project more than Halo 4