Current Events > Is this true about Halo?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/0/0/AAbtk3AAEQ7M.jpg

My friend seems to agree

Nah I wouldn't say that. It has drifted away from the tone set in Halo: CE and the older books. I wouldn't really equate Halo to superhero movies though. Current Halo has just been unable to string together a consistent story in the games. But that's more because of 343 Industries' various issues than anything else.

Hmm I dont agree with that at all. If anything the first 3 Halo games were much closer to classic super hero cape shit. They were all built around an existential alien threat with far superior technology pushing humanity to the brink of extinction, and you (Master Chief) are a super soldier the last hope for humanity to stop them.

Since Halo 3 the stories of the books and games have been a lot less focused on a central plot and are all over the place, but it seems they like to concentrate on well ackshually even though Master Chief saved humanity, the humans are bad and the central government is corrupt and everything sucks

Unless they are talking about the modern comics and movies which have tried way too hard to copy Watchmen and tear down the classic good vs evil hero story, no one is actually good, all sides are corrupt, etc. Then that makes sense

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

Since Halo 3 the stories of the books and games have been a lot less focused on a central plot and are all over the place, but it seems they like to concentrate on well ackshually even though Master Chief saved humanity, the humans are bad and the central government is corrupt and everything sucks

That's been a theme since the beginning though. It was never addressed in the games until Halo 4, but it's spelled out pretty clearly in The Fall of Reach (the first piece of Halo media) that the UNSC is far from good. There's the whole kidnapping children to turn them into supersoldiers thing. And of course the Spartans were originally created to squash insurrections, which were seemingly commonplace across human colonies.

Honestly I think the games should have leaned into it more. Would have been cool to fight some humans as well.

I feel like I stopped caring about Halo at just about the right time. I finished the fight in 3, and played ODST and Reach.

Then I played about 5 minutes of the first level in 4 and suddenly thought "Why am I shooting Covenant again on a ship just like Halo 1 after finishing the fight in 3?" and I shut it off and never touched it again.

GeneralKenobi85 posted...

That's been a theme since the beginning though. It was never addressed in the games until Halo 4, but it's spelled out pretty clearly in The Fall of Reach (the first piece of Halo media) that the UNSC is far from good. There's the whole kidnapping children to turn them into supersoldiers thing. And of course the Spartans were originally created to squash insurrections, which were seemingly commonplace across human colonies.

Honestly I think the games should have leaned into it more. Would have been cool to fight some humans as well.

It was in there, but it was far from the focus of the Bungie games/books, because there was a far bigger threat. It was also a bit more nuanced in Fall of Reach, like Halsey did some fucked up shit, but without her and her Spartan 2s humanity would have been completely exterminated. You can make an argument that making the Spartans was a necessary sacrifice.

Once 343 took over after Reach, the nuance disappeared and Halsey is just evil and the UNSC is worse than the Covenant, it was no longer morally gray.

Hyperbole, but it has some truth to it. The Bungie games are WAY more grounded than 343's.

AngelsNAirwav3s posted...

It was in there, but it was far from the focus of the Bungie games/books, because there was a far bigger threat. It was also a bit more nuanced in Fall of Reach, like Halsey did some fucked up shit, but without her and her Spartan 2s humanity would have been completely exterminated. You can make an argument that making the Spartans was a necessary sacrifice.

Once 343 took over after Reach, the nuance disappeared and Halsey is just evil and the UNSC is worse than the Covenant, it was no longer morally gray.

Still, it's not really something the games have put much focus on either. Halo 4-Infinite's stories have suffered primarily because none of them really continued off of the previous ones correctly.

The darker portrayal of humanity and the UNSC does show up more in modern Halo books, but I chock that up more to just Halo as a franchise expanding more than anything. There is much more non-game Halo media being churned out now than under Bungie's era.

I would argue the Bungie games felt relatively grounded as far as Sci-Fi space games go. In 4 they introduced "Gods" and what I'll call, "magic powers" and that's where it flew off the rails a bit to me personally.

as a zoomer the military worship in Halo 2 is hilarious