Halo 4: Review

 Promise me you'll figure out which one of us is the machine.

And so do we reach the end of our long journey into the depths of Halo gaming; at least until 343 manage to squirrel off enough free time to start porting 'Halo 5: Guardians.' And by that time I'll probably have run out of excuses not to just go ahead and play 'Halo Infinite' and after that I might just be up to date with the franchise! Wow have I come a long way. In the space of around seventeen days I've played through the entire Halo series and become very intimate with Master Chief's journey, his triumphs, his near failures and now, finally, I've touched on his dark period. Or rather, Halo as a whole's dark period. I'll be honest; I knew going into this that there was considerable general disdain towards Halo 5 and so part of me was glad the games in this Master Chief Collection wouldn't stretch that far just yet. What I didn't know, but would soon find out first hand, is that many of those issues stemmed from the very first Halo to be manned solely by 343 Industries; Halo 4. As such, I want in with high hopes for a fresh take on the series; and what I got was definitely fresh... from a certain point of view.

I like to try and form my own opinions when I come across a game, which is why I can look past things like the ingrained general dislike towards Death Stranding to find a genuinely special experience that I resonated with there, or through the unconditional love for the original Halo games to conclude that Halo 3 didn't quite live up to it's direct predecessor in my opinion. I intentionally avoided reading opinions and pieces about Halo 4 and assumed it was just going to be a more modern take on the franchise that would push things one step further than Reach did, given that this was a newer game. So in that sense I hope you can understand that what you're seeing here actually is my own opinion and not words implanted in my mouth from diehards of the franchise. I'm not a diehard, I'm hardly 3 weeks into my own discovery of these games. Take that to heart as you read through my review, and bare in mind I won't hold back on spoilers because they are important to discussing a lot of my feelings on this entry in particular, and jump to the summary if you don't want details but still wish to know my overall take on the game and grade.

Gameplay

The clear and obvious pursuit of 'modernisation' lies at the heart of many of the design decisions that went into Halo 4, and whilst they may have been criticised over the years as 'attempts to copy Call of Duty', I think a desire to be as accessible-as-the-competitor-shooters was the real driving intention here. For one, this is a game that smothers you in waypoints the way any other shooter would, distinctly different to the way that Halo has, up until now, been a series with notably few waypoints which instead relied on it's general level design to point you where to go unless the objective is really out of the way. (Which has lead to the occasional moment of being utterly lost on some more sprawling levels in the past.) Also new are 'gameplay cinematics' in which something special will happen when you press a Quick Time Event button. There aren't too many of these in Halo 4, but in the places they do appear, it's just as lacking in impact as this practise has often been criticised for. (The final boss is three QTE's away from death; talk about anti-climatic) And then there is the sprinting.

Fans of the Halo games will tear each other's throats out over opinions regarding whether sprinting should be in the series; or rather whether it should be as accessible as it is here. In Halo Reach you could pick up a sprinting power-up, but that would lock you off from the other potential powerups the game had to offer, making it a toss up. And that implementation sort of made sense when you consider the fact that you're piloting a heavy Spartan suit of armour, the light-jog movement of typical Halo play conveys a little bit of that weight. In Halo 4 you can just sprint, whenever you want and with whatever other powerup you want, and I'm fine with it. It brings the movement suite of this FPS in line with other modern FPS', and whilst there is the matter of narrative inconsistencies it's mere presence raises, I don't think it ruins the feeling of the game at all. If anything it added an extra movement tool for dealing with more deadly enemies such as Hunters. Others may disagree that the franchise was free without running, but I don't think the spirit of the series was disgraced in anyway. Topic resolved? Good, let's move onto the weapons.

Halo 4 introduced a whole suite of new weapons, including reworks to all the existing ones, but it's here where some of my problems start. First of all, there's a big continuity error in that these new models of USMC guns appear in the first level despite that mission being set in The Forward Unto Dawn ship-half which has been floating abandoned in space for the past four years; it shouldn't have these new models stocked. Secondly, 343 went out and recorded real gun sounds to try and change up the suite of weapon noises in the game, and in doing so made every single gun sound weaker. Let this be a lesson that realism doesn't equal quality; because so many weapons have had their 'punch' totally yanked out of the all-important sound design that it feels a bit criminal, too many classic weapons flounder whilst lacking that all important satisfaction factor. (There's nothing wrong with sprucing up sounds in the editing bay, come on guys!) At least the new SAW sounds good and the shotgun actually works as something worth a damn again. I haven't liked the shotgun this much since 'Combat Evolved'.

And now we come to the elephant in the room, the one thing we have to talk about when mentioning Halo 4's gameplay; the enemies. The Covenant return, for a reason hardly even mentioned in the entire main campaign, which is welcome even if they didn't bring their Brutes. This Covenant are lighter dressed than the old guard, which might explain why they're generally so much easier to take down, and the Sniper Jackals now sport a helpful red glow to their rangefinders so you can spot them when they're bearing down on you. Grunts still can't survive a headshot (Reach's Grunts are laughing somewhere) and Elites felt much rarer and didn't appear to ever show up in groups like they once did. But the Covenant are such a diverse and fun enemy, it's never not-fun to go up against them, so even when they're not exactly at their toughest I still like stomping their face in. Oh, and their new guns are alright additions, nothing crazy. (I much prefer the new Human gun; the SAW.) But those aren't the enemies we need to talk about. No, it's the Prometheans.

A brand new race added to the lore for this game, or rather an expansion upon the Forerunner guardians that 343 liked to deploy in the original trilogy; the Prometheans are a synthetic race with their own new design and arsenal of weapons, taking on the 'third species' slot from the, presumably-now-extinct, Flood. They are awful. In every way. Their visual design sports this shard-like cobbled together look that is indictive of other 'vaguely advanced alien races' in fiction, and it doesn't look good. It makes shape edges indistinct and ensures that enemies, weapons and the environment (all of which sport this design theme to some degree) meld into one gloop. Their 'white with glowing orange' colour scheme doesn't excite the palette of the game at all, and each level sporting their architecture made me want to fall to sleep just from looking at the uniform chaos of their form. But it gets worse.

The enemies themselves are a nightmare and nowhere near as fun to fight as the Covenant, or even Halo 3's Flood. (I consider Halo 3's Flood the most frustrating out of their iterations. CE's were my favourite to fight.) The dog-like crawlers shoot endlessly out of their head-turrets, climb walls and come in packs of 8 of more. Their heads are instakills, but their bodies are bullet sponges, meaning that whenever you lack a precision weapon you're in for the fight of the week. Knights are beetle like forts that act totally unreactive to any form of player interaction aside from when their shields breaking and the moment they die. They eat bullets like no-one's business, teleport when they're in trouble (and can hang around in non-spawn space just to screw with your rhythm) and can create a drone robot which will respawn them if you don't break them too. And they immediately disintegrate on death, meaning you can't even have fun in piling corpses on the floor.

But at least you get their weapons! Only they all suck too. They have that shard design thing going on making them all indistinct, they sound weak when shooting, don't appear to have anything new in function to introduce to the franchise and for some inane reason a few of them have this really long 'forming' animation every time you pick them up. I assume it's meant for the first time you find them to show how 'new' and 'different' they are, but for certain weapons the animation plays everytime and gets old pretty-much instantaneously. All and all, I hated fighting these annoying, ugly designed, and boring enemies and their prominence in Halo 4, to the point where they even fight alongside the Covenant a lot of the time, makes me actually not want to play through a single mission of Halo 4 again. So that's not a good start considering I haven't even touched on the narrative yet.

Narrative

This part is the kicker, because I had no idea what this game's story held for me and so was just as caught off guard as most fans likely were when this sequel took the Master Chief trilogy and veered far off-course. So far, it fact, that it felt like the writers wanted to make their own franchise and got lumped with a Halo sequel, and so they decided to just try and morph Halo into the Science Fantasy story they wanted to write instead. All of it puts me in this strange position where, by itself, the story that I experienced was a fairly competent tale that neatly introduced a new (admittedly rather lame) enemy with a new style of threat and resolved it, but when placed against the frame of the series it's a part of, it all comes across as an intensely short-sighted and ill-fitting story that fights in poorly with it's integer peers. Even for someone who didn't spend hours reading the volumes of, now pretty much essential, reading material that plagues this franchise; I could tell something was plainly wrong with Halo 4.

The problems really start with the Forerunners coming into the story, this time in the flesh through this enigmatic megalomaniac called the Didact who is trying to- what again? He wants to... umm... use the Composer to turn humanity into Promethean robot constructs in order to... oppose the Flood? Which is, by all intents and purposes, currently deceased? But- that can't be right, he seems to just want to microwave humans in revenge for the accidental war they were involved in 10,000 years ago. Wait, 10,000 years? I thought this game was set in 2500... dammit, did they bring out another book of essential lore? Seems it doesn't matter who's running the show, Bungie or 343, basic storytelling techniques elude them. (Okay, to be fair they do actually give a tiny rundown, but it was so barren that I had to look up a book synopsis online to learn that there was a species of space-faring proto-humans 10,000 years ago who were forcibly devolved by the Forerunners in retaliation for the war.)

All this comes to muddy a fairly straightforward premise that the game already had; Cortana has been in service too long and is undergoing a degenerative AI process known as 'Rampancy', so you need to find your way back to humanity in order to have a chance to save her. Throw in an inexplicable new breed of Covenant in the way and you have a basic kicking off point for a story. But then this Didact gets involved and suddenly the fate of the universe is in the balance and we just sort of forget about the Cortana thing until it becomes too bad to help. I'm not opposed to this style of story, where new stakes slide in to trump the initial ones, but it always creates this uneven feeling to the narrative progression which brings me back to the waviness of Combat Evolved at times. But the biggest issue with the narrative is pretty obvious; it's the Librarian.

Not long after the game settles into it's real plot are we treated to some quick series-changing exposition being shoved down our throat by a godlike Forerunner digital-echo-thing called 'The Librarian', during which we are given a decidedly questionable revelation. This Composer has power over all people except for Master Chief- why? Because the Librarian, presumably when humanity was sent to the stone age, imbued genetic markers in humans to guide the evolutionary process through multiple reiterations until he would be born. Yes, 343 turned Master Chief into the chosen one. Ew. Yes, they would try and argue it's a 'deconstruction' of the chosen one trope, because there were more than one 'chosen one's throughout the history of this plan, but a deconstruction typically demands exploration, and even if there were some sort of clever insight here, none of that distracts from the obvious fact: this doesn't really fit in a Halo game.

Now let me just say that I have no problem with the 'Chosen One' trope, nor tropes in general; I think they become repeated because they are cool ideas and building upon them allows new people with new ideas to glean new shades from them. But they belong in a certain type of story. Science Fantasy stories. Your Dune, your Star Wars, series' of that ilk. Halo tried to give us a Science Fiction lite world, with military dogmatism and interstellar warfare, throwing a messianic prophet-figure in there (even though it thankfully hasn't been too heavy headed on the symbolism so far) suddenly reframes everything the series has done up until now and trivialises it. Think- really think about the events that have led up to Halo 4; do they matter now that Chief has been destined to this? 343 bent over backwards to assure us that "of course they do, this isn't a prophecy!", but it is oh-so hard to have your cake and eat it. The mere introduction of determinism in this hazy god-like framing device cuts through all the excuses and faux-deconstructionism the writers have erected in defence, and turns this story into something it wasn't before; a universe where the everything revolves around Master Chief.

Now the Chief has always been important, a symbol of the strength, perseverance, and of course 'luck', of humanity; but this revelations alters that. Instead of being a person made special because of the lengths he goes to, the actions he does and the achievements he earns, now he's special just because of who he is. Because some space goddess ten thousands years ago rolled some dice and said "This one- this is the saviour!" In fact, our Librarian even implies that the technological tools that you take advantage of, your armour and the AI Cortana, were also preplanned by these Forerunners, so suddenly all of human knowledge no longer belongs to it. In a way, it's almost worse that the series wasn't brave enough to commit fully to this concept, because if they did then perhaps there would be space to explore shades of the concept of 'fate' and 'free will', and explore if all the trials of Humanity, the wars, the suffering, the Covenant, were necessary evils too. You know, do the stuff a 'deconstruction' would actually do. But instead we have this limp half-hearted jab at the idea, aimed to try and take ahold of the series narrative, and not really amounting to much of anything. I mean, what does Chief really do with his 'destiny' in this game? He jams a grenade in some dude's chest in a bad quick-time-event and watches him fall off a bridge; truly the sort of stuff that needed several thousands of years of genetic guiding to achieve!

Ultimately, it feels wrong, short sighted, and fangless of a narrative turn. As a result, what was an alright campaign with a villain that was boring, but at least new; becomes overshadowed with this ugly time-bomb of a plot point, ticking away in the back of your head to infect just about everything else about the series. Oh I want to play ODST, but the Chief isn't in it and now that this universe revolves around him, I guess that game's whole narrative isn't really important anymore. Noble Team died on Reach, but their sacrifice is nowhere near as important as Master Chief's life, so I guess it's weird to care about them anymore. It's a frighteningly obvious consequence for this sort of story twist, but one which Halo 4's writers I guess didn't see or just didn't care about. The more I pondered it, the more crappy this little twist felt, and considering my only relief from thinking about the story was going up against those bloody Prometheans; it's fair to say I didn't have the best time whilst playing Halo 4.

Characters

Finally, a section that I can mark as a genuine bright spot; because in character I actually found Master Chief and Cortana to be at their best yet. Both have considerably more lines than they did in previous games, and both get to become a little more fleshed out because of it; even if the whole 'love story' aspect between the two of them does veer dangerously close to a doomed romance at some points. (Which felt like something this series was not going to do previously. Made me a tad uncomfortable.) Cortana's decent into rampancy is startling, and hearing genuine fear come out the vocal synthesisers of our typically cocky AI co-pilot, rings with a vulnerability I didn't even feel when rescuing her from The Gravemind and whatever he was doing to her. (Seriously, did the Gravemind take a coding course? How could that organic fungal growth mess with the mind of an AI?) The Chief has a harder edge to him as well, dedicating everything to protecting his partner, even going so far as to stand up to a superior officer, thus clearly marking the line between morality and duty which had never even been tested before. I genuinely think this might be our protagonists' best characterisation yet. Oh and Cortana apparently dies for the second time in this franchise, but I've read the box description for Infinite, so it's safe to say it had absolutely no impact on me. (The consequence of reviving the dead in future entries; you ruin your previous emotional highlights.)

We also meet the crew of the Infinity as secondary characters, which gives us Sarah Palmer, another Spartan for the first time in forever, but she isn't around too much, Captain Del Rio, who's a typical cranky 'superior officer' trope that exists to be a wall for the heroes to butt up against and Lasky, the plucky young fellow who has our back when nobody else does. Kinda. They were mostly generic and under explored, I literally had to look up the kids name because I forgot him so badly. Then we have our villain, The Didact, and I honestly don't even know what he wanted. I mean I know he wanted the Composer so that he could use it on Humanity- but why? I know he considered Humanity a threat and didn't want the 'mantle' of protecting the universe to be passed onto them- but why use the Composer to turn them into dust? The Flood aren't a problem, so this can't be about transforming Humanity to fight that virus. Why not just set off a Halo? Surely a Forerunner can do that, right? Maybe there's some 5-part book series that goes heavy into every single last note of Mr Didact's goals; but I needed to know them during the game, because he's dead now so I don't care anymore.  

Level Design

As far as raw level design goes, divorcing the god awful Prometheans who show up in a lot of them, I think the levels were very fun and diverse, ranging in both visuals and objective just like I want from my Halo games. But I didn't quite feel the spark of creative diversity from each level like I did from Reach. Even in their raw design, all the Promethean levels just felt the same. (Except for the special Gondola ride section of course! Halo 2 called: it wants it's level back.) Still I found highlights in the level 'Reclaimer' (that Mammoth section is a literal dream set-up for me, I adore the moving-base-of-operations idea and wanted more.) The Broadsword battle section of Midnight was wild and I simply loved all of it's hectic chaos. And pretty much any fight against the Covenant was okay. Just okay. No miniboss fights to speak of, but then Halo Reach didn't have any either so I'm not exactly running thirsty here; I'm used to Halo 2 and 3 being the exceptions.

But then there are the Promethean levels; and you can likely already tell that I hate them. Numerous sections of enemy spam, aesthetically bland locales and typically no substantial variation in environment. They hardly even played around with verticality at all for those sections. (Unless you count the way the Crawler-dogs would jump on the wall just to be annoying.) Even Covenant filled-Promethean levels felt more annoying to fight through, just by merit of the wide-open bland-but-busy platforms they were all hanging around on, doing nothing on. If I could exorcise all Promethean content from this Halo game, we might have a 'Halo 3 level' contender on our hands here- as it exists now though- the chaff brings the whole package down.

A little bit on Spartan Ops

Yes, this game has a secondary campaign in the co-op focused Spartan Ops mode which 343 had big intentions for! These little mission packs were released in episodes and chapters, with each episode being fronted by a meaty well-made animated movie starring characters like Sarah Palmer, Lasky and even Dr Halsey! (Remember her from the introduction? She's important again!) Whatsmore, this mode actually explained who these new Covenant are and where they came from; doing the main game's job for it. If only the gameplay had any effort put into it. It's just a shooting arena where the game throws stupid amounts of enemies at you with no fail state. If you die, you just respawn. Honestly, this might make a decent shooting gallery mode, if it wasn't for the fact that the damned Prometheans infect this mode with their stink too. I couldn't bring myself to stick it out, nor watch the hour worth of professional-grade cutscenes supplied with the package. 343 discontinued the mode after season 1 and scrapped a reported year's worth of content and lead-in footage to Halo 5. Wise move in my eyes; this package was not the mode they wanted it to be. (Cool idea for a semi-live service system though. I hope they don't scrap that concept forever more.)

Summary

Mechanically Halo 4 is on par with the best of the series yet, and it's character writing honestly surpasses previous games soundly and there's a couple of stand-out missions. Too bad everything else is a bit of a mess. The substance of the story veers from decent to awful, the new third faction of 'The Prometheans' are designed terribly, not fun to fight, and take up far too much of the attention for this game and the main villain is pretty boring. I came into this game wanting, and somewhat expecting, it to be the roaring embarkment of a brand new Halo journey, and what I got was sort of a disappointment after all the serious powerhouse games I just played through. Were it just about one of these problems I mentioned, or maybe even two, I would be able to look past it; but all three and I seriously don't know if I want to ever play this game again. (At least not by myself.) I want to give it a passing grade because the shooting is good, but when even the Covenant feel lacklustre because more effort went into the Prometheans, that effort into nailing the shooting doesn't really have a purpose, does it? The range of problems on display, offset by the competence behind a lot of the backbone of the systems leaves me in the peculiar position where I'm giving this game a C- Grade, which the game just ekes out because I liked the character work, even if the wider story it happened in was poor. Honestly, I can't really recommend this as a Halo game, unless you have friends to play with an simply don't care about the story whatsoever. I did not enjoy myself and if people are saying that 'Halo 5: Guardians' is worse than this- than maybe it's a good thing that 343 are dragging their heels about adapting that one for the Master Chief Collection.

Be that as it may, this marks the end of my Halo journey for the immediate; maybe to be picked up again if Halo 5 ever becomes playable on the PC. And I must say that despite the disappointing latest entry, I found this to be an absolute blast of a franchise to play my way through and totally fell in love with the core pieces of these games. The Covenant might go down as some of my favourite FPS enemies ever, for their variety and personality, and I'm just itching to go mod some of those cool traditional Halo weapons into one of my mainstay games like Fallout, and go shoot up the Commonwealth. I was surprised by the sparse nature of one of gaming's longest lasting love stories, but I suppose when Cortana and Master Chief are two figures you've watched grow together across the space of over two decades, the mind crosses the emotional shortcomings in the storytelling all by itself. It's fair to say that this collection has scored the series a new fan, and I'm actually so invested I might go to pick up Halo Wars someday and see what those strategy games are about. Or maybe... maybe it's about time I break my fast and see what Destiny 2 is up to; see the series that Bungie iced the Chief for... Hmm, we'll have to see if I'm anywhere close to forgiving Bungie yet, and currently I'm not so sure... thank you for reading along with my little journey and I hope my reviews have helped guide you on your own journey to discovering this classic gaming franchise. See you again for this Halo review series in maybe never, depending on that PC port.

Halo: Reach Review

 Make it count.

And so, by my own perspective, do we finally come full circle all the way around with Halo: Reach; the story at the end and the beginning. For Bungie, this would mark the very last Halo game they would make before the company would move on from the series altogether in order to pursue Destiny, which they're still trucking away at to this day. 343 were created after Halo 3, the original end of the series, in order to make other Halo projects such as the 'Halo: Legends' anime, whilst Bungie finished up their tenure with the series with two stellar spin-off games, 'Halo: ODST' and 'Halo: Reach'. As this was the last go around, I can only guess it made sense within the studio to go back to where it all started; neatly bookending the narrative into a cyclical nature and leading right into the beginning act of 'Halo: Combat Evolved'. Few can deny the poetic nature of such a sentiment.

For me, coming around to play this game again was something of a nostalgic twist to this journey into previously untested waters. I mean I had played ODST before, but so briefly that there wasn't a single shade of the game I remembered on the second go-around. Reach, however, was my entire Halo world before this adventure. The only Halo game I ever owned, and the only one that I would go onto complete. My history started with the canonical first entry in the series and it would eventually end with the first entry in the series. Well, actually I fully intend on playing Halo 4, but that's kind of like a new separate branch of the franchise, original Halo dies here. And with that added layer of nostalgia and a little better understanding of the significance of this entry, (most of the overt lead-ins were fairly obvious even for a newbie back in the day) I come to this spoiler laden review here today. Those who don't wish to spoil things can congregate in the summary at the bottom of this post.

Gameplay

Halo Reach has always served as something of the gold standard for what Halo games should play like for the longest time in my head. Which is why when I was praising the gunplay all the way back in Combat Evolved when I commented on it's similarities to Reach. Now I'm here, I can honestly say that in raw content things feel as responsive and satisfying as Halo 2 Anniversary Edition; which is to say they're pretty much peerless. The feel of the weapons, the sounds, the impact; everything sings with a smoothness that makes you just want to keep playing for hours, and that satisfying 'pop' of kicking down the enemies shields is magical. I didn't even realise that was something I was missing from fighting exclusively Brute-led Covenant for so long now, but I was. Sure, Brutes had shields too in Halo 3 and ODST; but it just doesn't feel quite the same. There's not that special moment where the clouds clear and you go "ping, the next one is going in your skull", you know? 

Speaking of; wow, does it feel nostalgic to enter the battlefield with Elites again! I didn't realise how separated we'd been until the achievement popped up for slaying 1000 Elites and I suddenly realised how I'd received the equivalent Jackal, Grunt and Brute achievements beforehand. Only this time marks the first time in the series they share the battlefield with Brutes, and that marks one the many reasons why I consider Reach to be one of the most challenging Halo's I've played (Probably mixed with the bullet-sponge half of Halo 2) and a lot of that comes down to great enemy variety empowered by noticeably tough AI. Enemies seem to know to press the advantage on me once they've knocked my shields down and have sought cover, use splash damage with their explosives in order to ward me away from a shooting position, and even put headshot-foiling helmets on their Grunts. Wait- someone cared enough about Grunts to give them protection? And it only happens in the Prequel game? Who did the Grunt race piss off so badly that they got their life saving protection withdrawn for the entire rest of the war?

These enemy combinations, married with the glorious selection of weapons that harken back to the first Halo titles (such as the single-shot DMR and original Magnum pistol) made moment-to-moment combat both engaging and so rewarding. Bonus points goes to the whole 'health bar under the shields that needs to be maintained with health packs' gimmick that the team bought back with Reach which hasn't been with their series since Combat Evolved. (And it makes canonical sense too; because this is an earlier generation of Spartan armour to the one introduced at the beginning of Halo 2. Geez, the amount of lore I just had to shift through to confirm that one fact is ungodly.) I say this with a little bit of bias but also a lot of confidence, but I think that this is the best feeling Halo in the entire series so far. Just as smooth as 2's remaster, but with a more satisfying spread of aliens to shoot. The best of all worlds.

Narrative

Even if you've never picked up a Halo book or comic or anime in your life, having played through the series in order up to this point it's impossible not to have heard of Reach. It's the planet that The Pillar of Autumn just escaped from at the beginning of Halo CE, the invasion that Earth's is compared to during 2 (pointedly commenting how that huge attack is nothing compared to what happened on Reach), and appears to be something of a dog whistle rallying cry for civilians across the universe as ODST features several 'Remember Reach' graffiti scrawls across the ruined streets of New Mombasa. It's clear that Reach is important, just as it's clear that it was once the sight of a great defeat for humanity. Meaning that in choosing to tell this story, Bungie not just picked up the idea of telling the origin story of the Halo games, but of telling a story that's has a predetermined 'loss' built into it that audience is very likely to be expecting going in. So how did they do in balancing that and still delivering a satisfying narrative?

I actually think they did a bang up job. From it's heart, the doom driven plot of Reach conveys the desperation of a people slowly coming to terms with the fact that everyone here is going to die, and Reach helps wrap the player up in this thinking with the use of Noble Squad. For the first time in a Halo game, you are enrolled in a squad of Spartans that you stick with for the majority of the game, Noble Squad, and your every operation is conducted with them at your side. (Carter even mentions how this posting will be different to the Lone Wolf antics you'd apparently performed before meeting them, subtly acknowledging the solitude hero of the main Halo games.) Noble are your backbone, your strong arm and a symbol of your unity as you start to investigate the new Covenant attacks popping up all across Reach. Thus, when the attacks start to build up into the biggest invasion that humanity has ever faced and sorties slip from dire to deadly, it makes sense that members of Noble start being picked off one by one, representing how battered and bruised the whole of Reach is becoming and the slow break of humanities frontline. It's supremely well pulled off.

Behind the chaos is the narrative delving into what Reach's secret military research was exploring, an inevitable story branch designed to further justify this story as a prequel to everything to come in Halo; even more than the setting already does. No matter in what direction you approach it, there would be something unescapably dour about playing a game which is destined to end in total failure for the protagonists throughout the story progression, so Bungie tied in this secondary goal to show how the actions of Noble Team, and specifically you, lead to the torch that Master Chief would pick up to eventually defeat the Covenant. It's a little bit contrived, but the emotionally correct choice to make in order to frame this story neatly into the wider narrative. Honestly, I think that even after my play around the whole series, Halo Reach might remain my favourite narrative in the series with some of the best stand-out set-piece moments colouring the story in. The cinematic drop from just beyond the orbit, the fall chaotic of New Alexandria, that iconic final post-epilogue last stand- it's all tonally on-point for a story about being on the losing side, but not suffering total, unrecoverable, defeat. 

Characters

With the characters of Noble team I think Bungie wanted to give another shot at doing the ODST group mechanic but with a better swing at more memorable people. Not only are their personalities certainly distinct and a little bit more nuanced, but their designs carry the instantly recognisable colour scheme and silhouette you need in order to create a cover-worthy team. Carter strikes a more serious leader of the team then Bungie's last attempt, neatly selling the act of a man carrying the responsibility of a team coming against insurmountable threats with a believable heft. Kat marks the intelligent second-in-command with the reliable tactician pluck, and knack for out-of-the-box solutions which the team needs to rely on in a fight so helpless. Jun is the quiet sniper type, characterised by stoicism and the occasional thoughtful observation. Emile is the shotgun wielding edgelord with the aggressive combat-lust you'd expect, and require, from the assault specialist. And Jorge is the large humanitarian with a heart swollen with empathy and a permanent role as mother of the group. Honestly, I liked all of them and appreciate the fact that the game gives us the chance to spend time with each of them one-on-one before the end (Except Carter) and fight alongside the whole squad as a unit for a couple missions.

They make up a great team with just enough intricacies and character to them for you to become attached. Even Noble Six, the protagonist, feels like they have a purpose to their intentionally neutral lines that you can feel in their delivery. Now none of these characters are hugely fleshed out, of course, this is still a Halo game where the focus is less on character driven drama and more the action- but for what bonding time we did have with the team, I think Bungie spent each second very well for building that all important rapport that made each's death ring with appropriate sadness. You won't bawl your eyes out about any of them, but that hollowness as another body hits the floor always hits home. (Oh, and Kat's death was especially clever with it's shocking, intentionally non-cinematic abruptness; ensuring the audience is just as emotionally battered by the war as the team are.)

The only other major characters from this game would be Colonel Holland, whom is more of the floating voice on the end of the radio, and Doctor Halsey; an eminently important character in Halo lore that is only showing up in person now. Halsey doesn't get much screentime, but still she does a great job in establishing that hard-shelled and emotionally dim edifice of a woman who orchestrated some truly messed up operations during her career in order to get results. It's never explored explicitly in this game, but you can pick up on the morally-dubious-scientist vibe coming off her from the very first encounter, and I love the ability to exude personality like that. I found her mere aura enthralling. Cameo shout-outs go to Captain Keyes, glad to see his small appearance and not-at-all surprised to see him fly down in an active war zone, in person, just to make a drop-off; and Cortana, who says literally nothing. (Her only voice line is recycled words from the beginning of Halo Combat Evolved.) At least we get to see an example of why she, in Halo 3's ponderous introduction scene, said the defining factor for the Spartan she picked is 'luck'; cool way to call back to that line by making the player character of Reach the unlucky last Spartan who had to stay behind.

Level Design

Reach's levels are designed to a standard just above what was established in Halo ODST and 3, which is to say that they are grand with at least one set-piece moment or iconic battle for all of them often with a little extra spice. Some missions have a lot more verticality in their design to them then we're typically used to, 'Oni: Sword Base' in particular, and some levels capture that sprawling wide-open, almost free-form, design we haven't seen too much of in this series since Combat Evolved. (Like both levels set in 'New Alexandria'.) There's even a series-first thrown in there where we get to blast off from the confines of terrestrial gravity and have a duel in space! Followed by your prototypical Covenant-ship assault mission- but with boarding and execution happening in space! It's another adventure with twists and turns at every moment to keep us hooked and never bored.

Whatsmore, the enemy spread throughout these levels are some of the toughest I think the series has ever put together, which I think was probably due both to conscious effort from the team to represent the fall of Reach alongside a genuine side-effect of improved enemy AI and design. The slight buff to Grunts alone really shakes up the balance of the battle just enough to make you more susceptible to Elites and their flanking strategies, Jackals simply slay with their roaming packs of sniper killers baring down on you with deadly efficiency, Hunters have taken a bunch of painkillers before deployment because they are absolutely hell to take down with typical methods (shotgun to the back is no longer a one-shot) and Brutes- actually the Brutes were a total push over in Reach. Maybe that was the tradeoff for everything else the game was throwing at us, they made Brutes the teddy bears of the Covenant army.

And of course, I can hardly talk about Reach without mentioning that iconic swan song of a final level. Where Noble Six, last of his team on Reach, finds themselves in a Spartan graveyard where they are forced to fight until the endless waves of Covenant forces overwhelms them. It's a great way to portray a player character death, putting the power in the hands of the player, and an opportunity to go down fighting. The mission is tiny in actuality, but as one long set-piece it sells it's dramatism flawlessly- particularly with the damage received finally cracking the helmet of the hero and distorting the HUD, showing wear and tear, until a stray explosive finally takes you down and the final cutscene of the last stand plays. As far as cinematic gameplay goes in AAA games- this is the way to pull it off and make the player and the story synchronise for one glorious moment. Truly a series-highlight moment.

Music

Reach marks the return of the series to the grander scores of Halo mainline entries, and whilst I enjoyed the oddball musical cues of ODST, Reach brings back the power-house scores that I remembered from Halo CE Anniversary Edition. Soaring scores at the beginning of the game which give way to quieter, but no-less noticeable, pieces during more ponderous moments during the fall of Reach. It's undoubtedly a different musical language to what Halo 2 was attempting, but one which sells the world of this game just as well in my opinion. Maybe Halo 2's best scores will stay with me for longer, but Reach still gave me chills in it's best moments, just from playing the right tracks at the right time. Definitely better then the slightly too bombastic lean of Halo 3. 

Summary

Halo Reach is Bungie's last Halo game, and in my opinion it soars as one of their best. Painting one of the most important and formative moments in Halo lore was always going to be a tall ask, and I think Bungie took that task as seriously as they could to make a game that would stand the test of time. Characters, Music and gameplay reach that level of mastery which Bungie had been eking at for so long and I have trouble deciding at the greater experience between this game and the stellar Halo 2: Anniversary Edition. This was my second playthrough, and I'd loved to play through again someday, because this is the sort of title I would return to time and time again to relive those lingering gameplay heights and echoing story lows. As such it's hard to give a game like this any less than an A Grade, with an easy recommendation to anyone, not just fans of Halo or FPS heads. Reach serves as a perfect in-road to the Halo franchise, just as it was for me, as well as a satisfying bookend to the Halo narrative. Having not made another Halo since, it's gratifying that Bungie went out on such a clear high. But it doesn't end here and next, for the rounding out of the Master Chief collection, I move onto the great waking of the big green man himself in Halo 4. So fingers crossed for 343's first Halo game. (Reach is going to be a tough act to follow.)

Halo 3: ODST Review

Take my advice, Rookie. You ever fall for a woman, make sure she's got balls.

Wow, I am really just blasting through these Halo games, aren't I? The second I'm done with one I'm blasting away at another like no one's business and already am somehow onto the one Halo game that I actually did play back in the day; Reach. (But that's for later) This will come of as something of a truncated review, because a lot of what 'Halo 3: ODST' does is covered in my earlier Halo 3 blog, and the series didn't totally reinvent itself this time around, however that's not say there aren't still some points worth going over in all of my usual categories. So join me in defining specifically what made 'Halo 3 ODST', in my opinion, a more satisfying campaign than raw Halo 3. (By a smidge) I know, quite the scandalous take to throw out there, but hopefully you'll get the chance to see what I mean in this lightly sprinkled spoiler review. If you don't wish to see the spoilers, the summary at the bottom of this blog is the place for you. Thanks bunches.

Firstly, this is a game that tells a story from the perspective of one of the many ant-like-marines that Master Chief totally ignores in the best case scenario, or indirectly gets killed in most scenarios, all mere roadbumps on his journey to rescue his blue AI girlfriend from the clutches of personified space Covid. The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, or ODST, are special forces units that don't get fitted with special spartan armour and cyborg implants, and the ways in which Bungie tweaked the gameplay in order to ground the players in comparison to their Master Chief antics is the core of what makes this experience so stark to all of the Halo games. This is the only Halo first person shooter game in which you aren't in direct control of a Spartan the whole time. (Or decent Spartan equivalent; through the Arbiter) and after feeling some of that vulnerability I, in the sado-machoistic way that I often do, felt myself really gelling with that style of gameplay and honestly wishing that there were more games in that vein.

Gameplay

At it's core this part of the review can be summarised fairly easily. You remember Halo 3? This game plays exactly like that. Very solid first person controls, an array of enemies that prove more varied and challenging than typical first person fodder and solid overall gunplay. The improvements and tweaks here are minor but welcome, such as a few new weapons, (with functionally useless silencers) no power-up bonus equipment whatsoever, the ability to hold up to three explosives of each type instead of Chief's two (All those pockets in the marines suits are useful for something!) and slightly less hop power behind those meaty non-super powered legs. The details behind the way that the game controls are where Bungie put in little tweaks to the core game in order to hammer home the human nature of these characters in comparison to the Green Demon of Master Chief. Such as the new health system which relies on 'Stamina' rather than shields (Apparently grunts can shake off damage as long as they've got the 'stamina' to withstand it) and the return of limited health and health packs from 'Halo: CE'. Stamina restoration is slow and causes you to play much more cautiously, and the urban environment allows for much more natural reasons to pepper the levels with health packs. Although, to be fair, I did see one pack inside of dentist's station. Not sure what kind of services they're offering there, but if it requires a first aid kit to be constantly on hand, maybe I don't want to.

This more grounded approach plays alongside generally more sedate selections for the enemies that are thrown at you, which still play very much they way they did in Halo 3 (Brutes that have armour which need to shot off before a finishing blow) and are paired off with much less unpassable odds. Which does feel a bit like a free-pass because the ODST marines don't feel that much weaker than Chief. Yeah, there were a few heavier encounters when the game forced you to hide behind cover and cower like the squishy human that you are, but as long as you know how to deal with them it wasn't too much of an ask to mow down squadrons of Brutes with a Needler or the like. Also, I respect the restraint of the team to bring back the improved vehicle controls of 3 but not add in another bloody moon-buggy obstacle course level. Thank god, I am so done with that trend.

Narrative

This title follows the exploits of the ODST marines, an elite squad of drop shock troopers that are said to be the best of the best. And when I say 'said', I mean in the intro screen. That's right, Bungie actually told me something straight up without sticking it in a comic book and expecting me to find it! Wow, this is a real breakthrough in the therapy, team! I'm glad basic storytelling techniques such a single screen of introductory text has entered their repertoire of presentation, I wasn't significantly contextually loss throughout this entire story! (Can you even imagine that?) Of course, I still didn't realise until the final epilogue that this story is supposed to be set in the time during Halo 2 whilst Earth is being bombarded and actually before The Prophet of Truth turned up in his forerunner ship at the beginning of 3; but I'm sure that's just my own stupidity. I mean, why would I possibly expect this narrative to run parallel with Halo 3? The narrative of 'Halo 3: ODST'? I must just be being unreasonable.

Through breadth, the journey of this story is actually fairly straight forward for a military sci-fi shooter game, less about the 'fate of the universe' and more about the struggle of Humans under siege from an overwhelming alien force. And with that simplicity comes a greater connection with the individual human cost of this war. The game will have you prowl the empty streets of New Mombasa, picking across abandoned apartments and seeing the angry graffiti sprawled on walls, (Which is often as frustrated with the invaders as they are with the USMC; likely for picking this fight to begin with) It's a humbling perspective and one which we rarely get to see whilst jumping across alien planets and squashing Covenant with Gravity Hammers. That's probably why I found it easier to connect with the characters and people that inhabited this space. I believed them more.

Speaking of, I loved the unique way this game told it's story in comparison to past entries. There's this semi-free roam perspective as the Rookie where you wind up on your own and have to find your teammates by following the traces of their crash several hours earlier. You'll find several personal effects and each will inspire a story mission from that character's perspective. Sure, everyone functionally plays exactly the same to one another; but the novelty of having a different voice ring out of that helmet every once in a while is breaking whole new grounds in this series! Plus, it allows us to get to know, even briefly, each member of the team. If only these games were longer and we could use that new found understanding to appreciate the team in full battle, (You literally never fight together as a complete squad once in the whole game) but Bungie still did the 'play their stories' style of storytelling better than 'Call of Duty: Vanguard' ever did; so that's something at least.

Characters

The ODST team are the heart of this game, as their relationships and drives push the bulk of narrative; and they are... fine. Just fine. Pretty much every member of the group is a typical team-member stereotype from the charming leader type who gets a little stern when giving orders, Buck, to the nagging ex who annoys the heck out of everyone with every sentence, Dare. Dutch and Mikey seem to share a love of blowing things up, although Mickey is the supposed specialist in that regard. Oh, and the Rookie, player insert, character doesn't speak. To this game's credit, they pull of each off these characters very well and makes them likeable, and relying on stereotypes and clichés helps the narrative sell these caricatures in a reasonably speedy fashion so that you get to the action, so I don't knock it. Although I will say that personally, I could not stand Dare (as I said, she was annoying) and Romeo, (because he was a total creep) which is quite some feat considering he was rather clearly voiced by Nolan North. You made me hate a Nolan North character, game, that takes doing!

I just wish that these games were a bit longer because it really did feel like this team just got themselves established by the time the credits rolls around. I'm sure there's some extended universe book that follows their post-war adventures (provided they survived Truth's slipspace shockwave from Halo 3) but I'm here to play. 'Homo Ludens' and all that noise- don't make my enjoyment into a book report, Bungie! Also, and this is totally irrelevant to everything, maybe I totally misheard some important piece of contextualisation, but I felt like Buck's story with Dare was just that he had a one night stand with her years ago and fell totally in love with her. The way they interact makes it sound like they were in a big relationship, with hints about 'things not said' and the like, but then Buck turns around and says "What can I say? It was an incredible night." and the original premise you're told seems to back that up. So I'm just saying that I think Buck needs to learn to let things go, falling hopelessly for the first woman he sleeps with after a single night together certainly raises a flag. Not sure if it's bright red or just slight mauve, but it's a flag.

Level Design

In it's entirety, the campaign of Halo ODST takes place in the city of New Mombasa as it's undergoing assault from the Brute-led Covenant, which sounds like it might get old super fast, but Bungie really knew how to take advantage of their urban environs to keep things interesting. From the shifting times of day starting with the Rookie's perspective in the dark rainy night to the various perspectives of his squadmates throughout the previous day, sun soaked afternoon to moody dusk hours. There's also quite a diversity in urban locations, from wide plaza's with little cover to close-quarters hallway shootouts, to building-top rumbles and sewer bug hives. There's a lot more going on in this game's level design then one would typically expect.

My only real complaint would come in the actual number of these missions because like I've been implying, you only really get to play as the protagonist for two out of the eleven mission. During the rest you're in this semi-free roam state which is unlike anything the series has done before, but also not even remotely groundbreaking to anyone who has played a game other than Halo. (still, I guess we got to see the groundworks for what Bungie wanted to do with Halo CE and what 343 managed with Infinite.) I didn't even mind the few vehicle heavy missions that were in the game because they didn't ask me to drive over bloody ramps. (Okay, there was one ramp but that a cutscene trigger, I couldn't possibly mess it up.) It's odd to think that some Marine's had as exciting missions as Master Chief would later, but I had just as much fun, even if I didn't get the customary ice level.

Music

Just to quickly touch on this, I think the music for ODST was non-typical, understated, and simply fantastically scored. Some of the incidentals made me actually stop playing just to soak in the atmosphere for how different they were from anything else the series had to offer. Big call outs go to the noir jazz track which sounds like something out of Cowboy Bebop, (the good one) and that one piano track that sounded like a mix between the Dark Souls Bonfire theme and Resident Evil 1 save room theme. I mean really sounds like them, as in I'm decently sure it was a send-up to Resident Evil in some obscure fashion. There are of course your typical Halo bombastic themes, but none of them especially stood out this time around; I just hope that 343 have time for some quieter bangers like these when they take ahold of the series.

Summary

'Halo 3: ODST' is a rare new take on the Halo universe that manages to refresh a solid formula to the extent that it can surprise you all over again. The story was grounded and simplified, but managed to worm into your steel-trap heart a bit easier, and Bungie learnt how to convey basic simple exposition. (Which they then totally forgot how to do again when making Destiny. Good looking out, guys.) Despite functionally providing a pretty comparative experience to Halo 3, the small improvements and more personable cast led me to actually enjoy this title just a little bit more, but is that enough to equal a whole integer on the rating grade scale? Unfortunately, I don't think so as this game does falter on some of the merits I just listed, in doing them better than Halo 3 but not spectacularly in their own right. Thus I'm giving Halo 3: ODST a B grade, however, I will be recommending this game because I genuinely was impressed with what I played and think it deserves to be looked at as an essential playthrough for those trudging through the series like I did. It won't blow your socks off, but you'll learn to appreciative it's more human stakes and angles yet, just give it the chance.