A Favorite Game/Book/Movie/Band's/Etc Worst Release?

[Saelune]

Game: TES: Oblivion...ok, the game is still greater than most...but it really sunk TES to a lower level than it should be post-Morrowind.

I dont really read books. (I read alot, just not books)

Movie: Well...Thor 2 was whatever, but Im not too into Thor anyways.

Bands: Bloc Party's Hymns. Half the band left and was replaced, and then this album comes out...I will wait for their next, but if it sucks too, I will likely remove Bloc Party from its position as my "Favorite Band"

 

[bdeamon]

I really like the Warriors movie, but I think that the book was the inferior story. It was gritty and had a lot of interesting events, but it kind of felt like sometimes the gang was cruel just for shock value. Not saying that I need to identify with the characters, but some of the gang's actions seemed kind of random when compared to how they acted previously and in the context of having to get back to Coney Island alive as soon as possible. Also, the end makes the whole story pointless at a literal and nihilistic level. It's kind of like Clockwork Orange but without any challenging ideas and less resolution.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

if you have to rely on a video (one that I saw years ago BTW) to make your argument for you, it doesn't reflect favorably on said argument.

Actually I really don't see how. Instead of writing massive paragraphs of explanation, I can just post the video with all the arguments there in a convenient audio/visual format.

You know, if you have to rely on a video (one that I saw years ago BTW) to make your argument for you, it doesn't reflect favorably on said argument. And I'm not spending 40 minutes of my life watching it again. But skimming through it, arguments:

-Campaign Length: Never had an issue with Halo 5's length, and even if it is shorter than Halo 4's, I'd take a shorter but better executed campaign than a longer, poorly executed one.

-Microtransactions: Don't really have a problem with the Halo 5 system.

-Splitscreen: I agree it sucks that it doesn't have one, but it's not a personal issue, since I haven't played splitscreen Halo since Halo 2.

-Locke: As I said, I don't have a problem with playing as Locke, even for the majority of the campaign. Frankly, the dyanmic between them, while not what Hunt the Truth sold, is still more interesting than Halo 4. Which introduces the Spartan-IVs, who become a non-issue. Cortana gets one line ("they replaced you!") and John doesn't utter a word about it.

-Warden Eternal: I like him as a villain. I mean, okay, after the Didact, you can only really go up, but the Warden Eternal is fun to fight, and engages with the player in a constructive way (has charm and personality), whereas the Didact simply gives monologues (e.g. the Pelican mission) that sound like 343 is trying to imitate the Gravemind, but failing.

Maybe he goes more in-depth, but like I said, 40 minutes for a video I saw years ago. That's a large investment of time.

I really do understand, believe it or not that the video is a long watch and on top of that, says things you may disagree with, but please give it another look.

Barring that, Halo 5 is OBJECTIVELY much worse than previous Halo iterations. Sorry but that is the absolute truth. No splitscreen AT ALL, very little offline multiplayer content, very little Arena gamemodes, paywalled online-only Forge, broken Theater at launch, a story that was blatantly lied about, a campaign made way too easy with shoehorned squad mechanics (maybe if you could turn them off, it wouldn't have been so bad), a poor online-only replacement to Firefight, no playable Elites (even though we're on the SANGHEILI homeworld now), only four new weapons (many of them somewhat redundant and/or unimaginative) and microtransactions to top off this whole crap cake. And ALL of this for the standard $60.

Again, Halo 4 had problems. You're absolutely right. No dispute there. But Halo 5 is just... It is literally and objectively the worst Halo release.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Toss up between Silent Hill: Origins and Silent Hill: Homecoming.
I liked the challenge of Origins, the weapon system and the level design. I even kinda like Travis. But the story was all fanservice surrounding The Order, and Travis' own story felt extremely token and irrelevant. At least Homecoming was trying to do its own thing, even if The Order was still hanging around. But still it suffered from fanservice and trying to recapture the spirit of the early games (2 specifically) without really comprehending what was so special about it.

Game:

Silent Hill Homecoming for sure. Just how the hell did that happen? How would anyone attempting to make a decent Silent Hill game end up with something like this? Of course I could say the same for that roguelike that came out on the PSP or something but let's not pretend anyone played that.

Silent Hill has been pretty hit and miss since 3, and I'd say 4 was the last one worth playing more than once. However, I'd say Silent Hill Shattered Memories was the only one barely playable entry so far. Ironically enough it probably would be fine if taken on it's own merits, but the fact that it has the words Silent Hill on it's cover despite having nothing to do with Silent Hill whatsoever either mechanically or storywise just kills what would otherwise be a decent game on it's own. The game is just far too blatant about being a game that they slapped the words Silent Hill on and threw a bunch of references in there just to get it to sell. It also completely fails to be scary at ALL, even Homecoming did better at that than Shattered Memories did.

Aside from that, Final Fantasy 12 is the worst game in the series. It has a terrible protagonist that was outright shoehorned into the plot after the fact, but it could have survived that if it weren't for it's GODAWFUL combat system. The combat is this terrible turned based system that tries to make itself look like it's an action RPG, highlighting that it isn't in the process. It's slow and lacks the flashiness that every other game in the series has, and probably worst of all you have to micromanage your party's every action with this Gambit system rather than the developers simply making the party AI competent in the vast majority of situations in the first place. Xenoblade Chronicles and KOTOR had similar systems, but they had generally smart party AI and most importantly made the combat fast paced, enjoyable to look at, and fun, something Final Fantasy 12 utterly fails at.

 

[Hawki]

Actually I really don't see how. Instead of writing massive paragraphs of explanation, I can just post the video with all the arguments there in a convenient audio/visual format.

-40 minutes isn't convenient. No matter how long your own post is, I can read it in a shorter amount of time.

-It's lazy. It's relying on someone to make your argument for them. I mean, if you're writing an essay, it's one thing to use external material as a cited reference to back your own argument, it's another to rely on the source as the basis for your own material.

It's part of why I rarely, if ever, use videos to back up my own arguments on the net. It's requesting even more of the readers' time, and it's effectively an admission that I'm either too inarticulate or too lazy to put in the legwork myself. Whether people agree with what I say or not, I can at least do so in the knowledge that I succeeded or failed on my own terms.

I really do understand, believe it or not that the video is a long watch and on top of that, says things you may disagree with, but please give it another look.

Fine

Spoiler

-Joke falls flat. John's a soldier. He's gone AWOL, where it's established that it's already known by Halsey that Cortana is trying to lure him in. Nothing Osiris does is out of place.

-Cutscene based fight is iffy. I could have seen it working as a boss fight. On the other, Halo 5 actually gives us boss fight rather than the QTE that Halo 4 gives us at the end.

-Never cared about Forge, but it's in the game now, so whether that should be held against Halo 5 is another matter.

-As I said elsewhere, I agree that splitscreen being removed is a bad decision, but again, haven't played splitscreen Halo since Halo 2.

-With campaign length, if I had to guess, it took me probably around 6 hours to complete it on singleplayer normal. I don't doubt that Joe did indeed beat it in 4.5 hours, but again, I'd rather have a shorter, better campaign (Halo 5) versus a longer, more flawed campaign (Halo 4).

-Personally liked the 'talking missions,' they offered a good break to the flow.

-Halo 5 does rely on the EU to an extent, but not to the extent that Halo 4 does. I found it much more intuitive in getting me up to speed.

-Fine with playing as Locke, for the reasons given above. The Halo universe doesn't revolve around John, and there's been numerous games up to this point where he's absent entirely, or sharing the limelight with the Arbiter (Halo 2).

-Fine with the cliffhanger ending. I've discussed cliffhangers elsewhere, but Halo 5 isn't the first game to utilize a cliffhanger in the series (see Halo 2), and I felt it was well done.

-I agree that the marketing is misleading, but that's more an inditement of the marketing, not the game itself.

-I agree that it would have been nice to have the John vs. Locke scene be a boss battle, but it isn't a dealbreaker. The marketing sets up the expectation for a boss fight more than the game itself.

-The Prometheans feel better fleshed out in Halo 5 as there's more enemy variety, more weapons, a worthy antagonist (the Warden Eternal), and a sense of 'essence' to them (the idea of the Created). I like the Flood more, but I think the Flood are done as an antagonist at this point - there's only so many times you can use them post-H3 before it gets silly. So, I'm fine with the Prometheans.

-I enjoyed the Warden Eternal as a character and as a boss. He is repeated, but it's repetition that's well done given how the difficulty ramps up over time. And if we're comparing it to Halo 4, again, a QTE isn't a boss fight. Even fighting Guilty Spark at the end of Halo 3 was a more satisfying boss fight than the Didact.

-I miss duel wielding as well. Again, Halo 4 shares this problem. I also like the ground pound and jump jet abilties.

-He's right about the multiplayer - some things like Breakout are nice, other aspects are missing, or feel like they're missing.

-As I said, I don't really mind the requisitions system. It only applies to Warzone, you can get the packs by grinding, and you need to be good enough within each game to use your cards anyway. I can understand why someone wouldn't like them, but it isn't a dealbreaker for me.

There. It's done. That's my response to a video posted two years ago that I watched and moved on from.

Barring that, Halo 5 is OBJECTIVELY much worse than previous Halo iterations. Sorry but that is the absolute truth. No splitscreen AT ALL, very little offline multiplayer content, very little Arena gamemodes, paywalled online-only Forge, broken Theater at launch, a story that was blatantly lied about, a campaign made way too easy with shoehorned squad mechanics (maybe if you could turn them off, it wouldn't have been so bad), a poor online-only replacement to Firefight, no playable Elites (even though we're on the SANGHEILI homeworld now), only four new weapons (many of them somewhat redundant and/or unimaginative) and microtransactions to top off this whole crap cake. And ALL of this for the standard $60.

Again, Halo 4 had problems. You're absolutely right. No dispute there. But Halo 5 is just... It is literally and objectively the worst Halo release.

Claiming anything is objectively worse is a bold statement, and considering that Halo 5 functions just fine, it can't really be objectively worse. And if missing content is the benchmark, then something like Halo: Combat Evolved should be considered the worse, considering that it lacks a lot of the features that recent games implemented.

Halo 5 is flawed, but its flaws are balanced out with pros. In contrast, the only pro I can think of for Halo 4 is the John-Cortana relationship, and some musical elements.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Fine

Thank you. :3

Spoiler

-Joke falls flat. John's a soldier. He's gone AWOL, where it's established that it's already known by Halsey that Cortana is trying to lure him in. Nothing Osiris does is out of place.

-Cutscene based fight is iffy. I could have seen it working as a boss fight. On the other, Halo 5 actually gives us boss fight rather than the QTE that Halo 4 gives us at the end.

-Never cared about Forge, but it's in the game now, so whether that should be held against Halo 5 is another matter.

-As I said elsewhere, I agree that splitscreen being removed is a bad decision, but again, haven't played splitscreen Halo since Halo 2.

-With campaign length, if I had to guess, it took me probably around 6 hours to complete it on singleplayer normal. I don't doubt that Joe did indeed beat it in 4.5 hours, but again, I'd rather have a shorter, better campaign (Halo 5) versus a longer, more flawed campaign (Halo 4).

-Personally liked the 'talking missions,' they offered a good break to the flow.

-Halo 5 does rely on the EU to an extent, but not to the extent that Halo 4 does. I found it much more intuitive in getting me up to speed.

-Fine with playing as Locke, for the reasons given above. The Halo universe doesn't revolve around John, and there's been numerous games up to this point where he's absent entirely, or sharing the limelight with the Arbiter (Halo 2).

-Fine with the cliffhanger ending. I've discussed cliffhangers elsewhere, but Halo 5 isn't the first game to utilize a cliffhanger in the series (see Halo 2), and I felt it was well done.

-I agree that the marketing is misleading, but that's more an inditement of the marketing, not the game itself.

-I agree that it would have been nice to have the John vs. Locke scene be a boss battle, but it isn't a dealbreaker. The marketing sets up the expectation for a boss fight more than the game itself.

-The Prometheans feel better fleshed out in Halo 5 as there's more enemy variety, more weapons, a worthy antagonist (the Warden Eternal), and a sense of 'essence' to them (the idea of the Created). I like the Flood more, but I think the Flood are done as an antagonist at this point - there's only so many times you can use them post-H3 before it gets silly. So, I'm fine with the Prometheans.

-I enjoyed the Warden Eternal as a character and as a boss. He is repeated, but it's repetition that's well done given how the difficulty ramps up over time. And if we're comparing it to Halo 4, again, a QTE isn't a boss fight. Even fighting Guilty Spark at the end of Halo 3 was a more satisfying boss fight than the Didact.

-I miss duel wielding as well. Again, Halo 4 shares this problem. I also like the ground pound and jump jet abilties.

-He's right about the multiplayer - some things like Breakout are nice, other aspects are missing, or feel like they're missing.

-As I said, I don't really mind the requisitions system. It only applies to Warzone, you can get the packs by grinding, and you need to be good enough within each game to use your cards anyway. I can understand why someone wouldn't like them, but it isn't a dealbreaker for me.

- OK so one thing I do wanna point out here (although quite admittedly I guess this one isn't an objective reason why it's bad) is the simple fact that they resurrected Cortana. This pretty much makes her sacrifice and death utterly meaningless in H4. It was something I didn't think they had the balls to do but they did it. It's also kinda irreverent too considering the original author of the H4 storyline was going through some really hard times with his mother who had Alzheimer's I believe. It's what he based the Cortana/Chief plot in H4 on when he wrote it. Probably why that side of the H4 plot was much more meaningful and the other parts were not, but anyway. Resurrecting her was incredibly stupid.

- Halo 4 didn't rely on it's EU at all because there WAS no EU in 343's Halo universe yet. lol Not counting Spartan Ops I mean.

- I don't actually care that much either about having to play as Locke.

- You're hung up about the Didact but I wasn't actually that peeved at the sequence. I was honestly just happy I didn't have to blast through more enemies mindlessly and just wanted to see the ending at that point.

- Core combat in Halo 5 is quite nice. One of the few things I can count on my right hand that was good about Halo 5. But even THIS is also a point of contention. The core gameplay is pretty good, which means people will be more forgiving of it's myriad of terrible flaws just so they can get to the actually FUN part of the game. And then you try and tell people how horrible the rest of the game is but you get shouted down because nobody can look past the fact that the core gameplay is excellent and see that everything else is total insulting shit. It's like if you had Halo 3 but could only ever play it on one map with one fixed weapon set and that was it. Oh, and you always have to be online to play it. Would THAT have still been a great game overall? No. Because it's a one-trick pony and a restricted one at that. Same thing for Halo 5.

Claiming anything is objectively worse is a bold statement, and considering that Halo 5 functions just fine, it can't really be objectively worse. And if missing content is the benchmark, then something like Halo: Combat Evolved should be considered the worse, considering that it lacks a lot of the features that recent games implemented.

Halo 5 is flawed, but its flaws are balanced out with pros. In contrast, the only pro I can think of for Halo 4 is the John-Cortana relationship, and some musical elements.

- So because Halo 5 "functions" (actually even with just that requirement, parts of it were broken anyway), it's an objectively great game? So I can make a game where you spawn in, shoot at a wall 5 times, and then spawn out and that would be objectively a great content-rich game if it functions? Although to be a little fair, when I say Halo 5 is objectively bad, I do mean it's objectively bad in comparison with it's past iterations, excluding ODST, and not objectively bad in a vacuum.

- Halo 5 is absolutely EGREGIOUS in missing so much content from it's predecessors. This isn't just some, "Oh, they took a weapon or a vehicle or two away." No. Whole SWATHS of past game functionality that have been there for ages are just totally and completely missing. And so much MORE so during Halo 5's launch. Oh, and I think that Halo 5 barely wins over Halo: CE anyway in terms of actual content and features. A then 14-year-old game almost beats a 2015 AAA game sequel for content. And let's not even talk about the utter curbstomp battle of content that would be Halo: Reach vs Halo 5.

If you enjoyed it despite all that, hey. Who am I to tell you otherwise. But don't tell me that Halo 5 is a good or even a passable game.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

Ok these are very very much my own opinion, but here goes:

Game
Easy. Dungeon Siege 3. For how much I loved the previous games, this was an absolute railroad spike to the testicles.
And Mass Effect 3 left such a bitter taste that I never wanted to see anything to do with the franchise again. With much curiosity, seeing what Andromeda turned out like, didn't see like I'm missing much.

Book
I haven't read a book series since I was about 15, so this would probably be Robotech, about the time were the Zeanetradi become friendly, after SDF-2's unfortunate premature destruction. Dunno if I'm too old for anyone to know what I'm talking about.

Movie
Star Wars, The Phantom Menace and the two movies that followed (award for low-hanging fruit anyone?). Honestly though, I would rather eat my own, or someone else's vomit than watch that again. I also did not really enjoy X-Men First Class, found it rather tedious and boring to watch, out of all the X-Men or Marvel movies.

Band
My favorite band for a long while was Sevendust. Until the album Animosity. I guess they were going for a new sound, maybe following trends or whatever, but I found the album unbearable. Every song was just middle of the road filler, with very little of the impacting stuff that made me love them in the beginning. They did come around and find their niche again after that. Felt very bad about it because my brother got me that album for my birthday 16 years ago, knowing full well how much I loved them.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

It's in my dvd collection, but to be honest I found it quite depressing. I thought it'd be a behind-the-scenes, life-on-the-road tour film, but no. It was quite upsetting to realise that the metal icons I had grown up with were now rather sad middle-aged men, sat around a table in group therapy talking about their 'feelings'. They turned it around in time for Death Magnetic, but I think at the time the band were, for various reasons, in quite a bad place and I didn't really feel comfortable watching all of that stuff just being laid bare like that.

Ugh, tell me about it, as soon as I found out that most bands are comprised of actual humans, music was just ruined for me forever.

Har-di-har. You know what I mean. Everyone has ups and downs, everyone comes unstuck at various times in their lives - it's understandable, it's perfectly human, but it isn't particularly comfortable to watch.

To be honest, I found the documentary very unsettling as well. I mean, yes they were very inspiring to me in my youth, hearing of their coming up story among other things (teenagers touring across the country in a van, sleeping in said van and trying to scam food). And learning that Metallica was Lars first drumming gig, since I was an aspiring drummer at the time (that dream has long gone to the gutter).

But yeah, having so much respect and awe for them as a young 'un, and just seeing them as miserable shitty guys, seeing Lars playing ability deteriorate so badly as a professional, and griping about each other so sick of it all was a bit of a gut punch. But at least they were man enough to splay it all out. Not many bands do that with their dramas, like Korn or Slayer, it's all a bit behind closed doors, you know some bad beef went down but not exactly how.

Having said all that, I don't even think St. Anger is such a bad album, apart from the lack of signature solos, and Rob Trujillo not doing what I knew him for. Incidentally, I was an even bigger fan of Infectious Grooves, where his stature as a funk/metal bassist blew me away in just about every piece he performed.

 

[Battenberg]

I have a few musical acts whose style drifted away from my own taste but the 2 that always spring to mind are Muse and Incubus who both made some of my favourite music ever but then headed in a totally new direction. The Resistance by Muse wasn't awful by any means but it fell SO short of the bar they had set themselves and the following albums, imo, were progressively worse; dropping inspired guitar and subtle but clever lyrics for a much more pop heavy vibe.

If Not Now, When was a real disappointment from Incubus at first but that's grown on me over time but I suspect Trust Fall (Side A) will always be disappointing to hear. Even putting aside the music releasing 2 EPs instead of an album was a daft idea (and they didn't even follow through with Side B in the end) but then the music itself was just utterly alien to me; besides Brandon's very recognisable tone nothing seemed 'Incubus' to me.

As far as disappointing games go Resi 5 and Crash: Wrath of Cortex have to take this one. Both suffered from having exceptional predecessors (Resi 4 remains my favourite game of all time) and under different IPs I would have found them at least average but in both cases something about the experience felt hollow and unrewarding.

Also X Files' later series were just terrible. Anyone who has seen them will understand why.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I have a few musical acts whose style drifted away from my own taste but the 2 that always spring to mind are Muse and Incubus who both made some of my favourite music ever but then headed in a totally new direction. The Resistance by Muse wasn't awful by any means but it fell SO short of the bar they had set themselves and the following albums, imo, were progressively worse; dropping inspired guitar and subtle but clever lyrics for a much more pop heavy vibe.

Muse was awesome, one of the very very few modern rock bands I really dug (classic rock guy here). After Resistance, there's like nothing good. Their latest album, Drones, was supposed to be a return to form, I guess it was in regards to musical style but the only song I dug was Mercy. I think Resistance was still a pretty good album with quite a few great songs on it.

 

[Hawki]

- OK so one thing I do wanna point out here (although quite admittedly I guess this one isn't an objective reason why it's bad) is the simple fact that they resurrected Cortana. This pretty much makes her sacrifice and death utterly meaningless in H4. It was something I didn't think they had the balls to do but they did it. It's also kinda irreverent too considering the original author of the H4 storyline was going through some really hard times with his mother who had Alzheimer's I believe. It's what he based the Cortana/Chief plot in H4 on when he wrote it. Probably why that side of the H4 plot was much more meaningful and the other parts were not, but anyway. Resurrecting her was incredibly stupid.

I can sympathize with that. I'm a bit more forgiving to it though, for two reasons:

-I'm fine with character resurrections if something is actually done with the resurrection. Cortana being brought back does go beyond the mere sake of her returning. She works as a villain in that her motivations are actually reasonable, more or less. She honestly believes she's doing the right thing, and it ties in with the history of the Mantle itself. The Forerunners destroyed the Precursors when it was decided that humanity would gain the Mantle, carnage happened. Humans were designated as Reclaimers, the Covenant nearly wiped them out due to Truth misinterpreting the meaning of the luminary, along with Mendicant Bias's rantings on the keyship. Now the Created seek to enforce the Mantle. In essence, Cortana's actions have thematic parallels with the series as a whole.

-It works thematically. Like Halo 1-3, Halo 5 has a lot of references to the Abrahamic religions (something Halo 4 was missing), and Cortana winding up on Genesis does work in this sense. Her accessing the Domain (a repository of Forerunner/Precursor knowledge) bears resemblance to The Fall as described in Genesis. Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, gain knowledge of good and evil, and bad stuff happens. Parallels exist between Cortana gaining access to this 'forbidden knowledge', and strife happens as a result - it's no coincidence in my mind that the Guardians bear resemblance to angels in their design. It's actually part of why I like Halo when compared to 4 - it taps into the Abrahamic references again (Flood, Covenant, Halos, the Ark, etc.).

Course this is at the expense of Cortana's sacrifice in H4, so I can understand people being miffed about it. Still, per my first point, something's actually done with it.

- Halo 4 didn't rely on it's EU at all because there WAS no EU in 343's Halo universe yet. lol Not counting Spartan Ops I mean.

It's all the one universe, the original EU is the same as the post-Bungie EU. And Halo 4 does rely on its EU. You need to read the Kilo-Five Trilogy to understand Jul 'Madama's Covenant, and the Forerunner Saga to understand the Didact's motivations. Also, I wouldn't call Spartan Ops EU, since it's in the core medium of the franchise (it's like calling something like Rogue One EU).

- So because Halo 5 "functions" (actually even with just that requirement, parts of it were broken anyway), it's an objectively great game?

I didn't say that, and I'm not sure how you could think I did. Saying something is objectively good is as assinine as saying that something is objectively bad. Arguably even more difficult, since something could be called objectively bad if it didn't function. I can't think of anything that could be called objectively good, unless the measure of quality is solely on function. But, H5 isn't objectively good. I don't think any piece of media could be called that.

 

[laggyteabag]

The biggest misstep IMHO was taking the focus off of Master Chief. Reach and ODST aside, I play Halo to be Master Chief; why in Halo 5 is the MAJORITY of the game played not only as someone else, but as someone hunting Master Chief? The guy saved humanity 4 times by his goddamn self, and in the fifth installment of his story, you make me play most of the time as some glorified space cop out to arrest him? Fuck off.

See this plot point was actually the biggest draw for me.

This could have been a fantastic opportunity to have seen the Master Chief and Blue Team as the legends that they have always been presented to us, as. Going where he had been, seeing all of the destruction that he had left in his wake, tracking him down and following clues, with ONI whispering into your ear, telling you all of these half-truths and whatever fits their narrative best, all whilst these massive Forerunner constructs were rising from planets around the galaxy, and destroying them as they awaken.

And then in the background. we'd have Doctor Halsey working with Jul'Mdama and his Covenant remnant faction, working together to get revenge on the UNSC for trying to kill her

I can only dream about the plot that could have been.

But what we got was stupid. It was disgusting.

First of all, in the first level, and in a cutscene, no less, Osiris kills Jul'Mdama, thus ending that entire sub-plot, and everything that they built up with Spartan Ops. Then they rescue Halsey and bring her back to the Infinity, no problems. No questions.

The Master Chief then discovers that Cortana is still alive (which I am fine with), but in a fucking vision (which I am not fine with). The UNSC weirdly already knows that Cortana is back, and they send for Blue Team to come back to the Infinity instead of using them to track her down. Blue Team refuses, and the UNSC sends Osiris after them.

Blue Team and Osiris end up on Meridian, and then the Master Chief and Lock have a shitty fist fight whilst everybody watches. Lock loses, the Master Chief disappears through a portal, and then the UNSC publicly declares the Master Chief to be KIA (which goes against the normal convention of listing dead Spartans as MIA - but whatever).

Blue Team then ends up on a Forerunner planet with Cortana explaining most of her ideas through what are essentially phone calls, meanwhile Osiris is frolicking about on Sanghelios helping out the Arbiter with his open rebellion against the Covenant remnant there,

and

oh

fuck it

Halo 5 is just shit. It ends on a pretty decent note, with Cortana disappearing with most of her Guardians, Blue Team and Osiris have joined forces, and Cortana now (presumably) has control over (presumably) the new Halo ring from Halo Wars 2, and now the UNSC is scattered and on the run,and they could go with the whole "Cortana is infected by the Flood's logic plague" plot line, which would actually be okay.

I hope now that they have got rid of that old writer, they can actually salvage this and turn it into something good. Otherwise, if you want an interesting Halo story, just listen to Hunt The Truth.

 

[Xprimentyl]

What we have here is a difference of opinion; no need to refute or argue or vet my words for any chinks in armor I?m not wearing; you can gladly enjoy Halo 5 as much as you like; wish I could as well, but I can?t. But since you took the time to respond to my points, I shall extend you the same courtesy:

I?ll have to agree with Arnoxthe1; Halo 5 was awful, my personal low point for the franchise. I understand 343 wanting to make the franchise their own, but the franchise is a success for the thing that it has been and done for over a decade before they got their hands on it; they have to give some nod to that fact and respect the expectations of those of us who?ve made it such a lucrative IP for them.

I've never bought this argument, the idea that a creator (or creators) "owe(s)" fans anything. That's not how the world works. If you put out a product, and people buy it, and you're sustained by people buying it, you don't owe the people who consume the product anything, because you're providing them with a good/service. If they don't want the good/service, then they won't buy it. Much as I despise Halo 4, 343 doesn't "owe" me anything for it. I'm not that entitled.

I don?t? mean ?owe? as in literally ?indebted.? I mean given the lengthy and impressive legacy of the Halo franchise, it is smart business when one takes ownership to carry it forward and acknowledge what merited such success and at least attempt to adhere to the most popular fundaments of that formula of success. I don?t mean ?lather, rinse, repeat,? but at least a nod to central selling points over an eschewing of them altogether. We saw the fallout with how divisive Halo 5 was; long-time fans like myself who readily forgave Bungie?s and 343?s missteps throughout the years found ourselves genuinely upset, not that they made changes, but that those changes flew in the face of what was so beloved of the franchise, that there?s a central Halo game out there (omitting Wars and Spartan Assault or any other tangential cash grabs) that [we] personally find nigh irredeemable.

The biggest misstep IMHO was taking the focus off of Master Chief. Reach and ODST aside, I play Halo to be Master Chief; why in Halo 5 is the MAJORITY of the game played not only as someone else, but as someone hunting Master Chief? The guy saved humanity 4 times by his goddamn self, and in the fifth installment of his story, you make me play most of the time as some glorified space cop out to arrest him? Fuck off.

I don't have a problem with not playing as John. If anything, I'd rather the series get away from him more. The Halo universe is bigger than just one Spartan-II - you can add Halo Wars, Spartan Assault, Spartan Strike, and 50% of Halo 2 to games/periods where we're not playing as John, so if you play Halo to play as John, more power to you, but if anything, I welcome a change in POV.

You may not have a problem playing Halo not as John, but Halo is John. The Master Chief is to Halo what Mario is to Mario games, what Sonic is to Sonic games, what Dante is to Devil May Cry (and we saw the fallout when THAT changed twice,) what Solid Snake is the Metal Gear, etc. These type of character even transcend the franchise and become the faces of their respective CONSOLES: Mario is Nintendo; Sonic was Sega Genesis, Master Chief IS Xbox. There are some franchises that endear themselves to the fans for reasons beyond mere gameplay or tight mechanics, and Halo is one of them. And to be clear, I don?t mind missions where I play as someone else (I was one of those who didn?t mind the Arbiter missions in Halo 2,) but when the MAJORITY of the game has the main character take a back seat, all I can say is ?why?!?? Who thought that was good idea?? Who actually sat down and wrote the Master Chief all but out of the story he?s carried for teens of years?? Whether you forgive it or not, I highly doubt ANY of us bought Halo 5 expecting we?d barely play as Master Chief.

And I don?t mind single-player games with squad mechanics, but Halo did NOT need squad mechanics. This fucker fell from SPACE and got up just fine; who thought he now needed three bumblefucks to help him up when he gets a boo-boo or two?

More than a boo-hoo, given the events of Halo 4, and it's established the first time we see him that he's pushing himself to the limit.

Frankly, I welcomed the squad mechanics in Halo 5 (even if "squad mechanics" is a bit generous, more like "three AIs that are always with you"). It's fun on its own, and it's something the series hasn't done before. This is in contrast to Halo 4, which...what exactly DID Halo 4 do differently, or interestingly, or anything other than aping the previous games? Dual-wielding? Gone. Bubble shield and the other power ups? Gone. The Flood? Gone, replaced by Prometheans, which in Halo 4, are lacklustre (whereas Halo 5 gives them more enemy types and thus makes them more enjoyable to play). If you don't like squad mechanics, fine, but Halo 5 at least adds something to the series's gameplay (coupled with the enemy scan function and boosters), whereas Halo 4, if anything, takes away from the gameplay.

The squad mechanics are a personal gripe of mine. Like I said, I like the Master Chief as a badass, the lone hero capable of adapting and overcoming where mere mortals couldn?t hope to dream to; sharing his spotlight diminishes that for me. I for one, don?t like him lying on the ground and hollering ?NEED SOME HELP!? Not MY Chief, not YOU, John. I know the other surviving original Spartans (according to the books) are equally adept and that would have been perfect for a third partitioning of story/gameplay: as John, as Locke AND as the trio of Spartans, but in separate missions. And I don?t buy ?he?s pushing himself to the limit;? if the previous Chief-central Halos have shown us nothing else, it?s that the Chief HAS no limits; he gets the job DONE, hence his ultimate badass-ery. As to the adding/lack thereof of certain mechanics and enemy types, I?m personally not bothered. Halo changes SOMETHING in those areas in every iteration, and I?ve learned to adapt as long as the core game/story met my expectations. (Don?t miss the Flood though; ?The Library? and ?Cortana? still give me nightmares and cold sweats.)

I don?t mind the multiplayer changes that much because after Reach, it was never important to me, but I did try it a few times and was sadden to see them doing that mobile game ?pay-to-win? bullshit that has no place in an established AAA, console-selling franchise.

I've played Halo 5 multiplayer quite a bit, there's barely anything approaching P2W. The only time it even comes close is in Warzone, and even then, if you've unlocked cards, you still need to earn the right to use them within the game itself at the start of each match, and 50% of Warzone is PvE. I've never had to spend any real money on Halo 5's multiplayer to feel that I'm more or less on the level as everyone around me. That, and the smaller multiplayer modes are purely arena shooters.

?Pay to win? was my misusing of terms; I meant ?microtransactions.? I like in pervious Halos where your actual performance dictated your unlocks, cosmetic or otherwise. I could focus and task myself to unlock (EARN) the Hyabusa helmet I so loved by meeting certain requirements; I didn?t need to HOPE I got it randomly, or worse, throw real money at the randomness. This addition of randomness and the chance to simply pay real money to expedite that random process just screams ?parsimonious cash grab? in the faces of Halo lifers who?ve already been saying ?take my money? forever. Why so crass? We?ll GIVE Halo our money; why did they feel the need for the crude smoke, mirrors and arbitrariness? Do you expect us to just keep throwing cash at chance? Isn?t that called a ?gambling problem? in polite society? I wouldn?t have liked it either, but I almost rather they would?ve just made the requisition rewards DLC if rewards for performance was too hard to pull off?

 

[Xprimentyl]

The biggest misstep IMHO was taking the focus off of Master Chief. Reach and ODST aside, I play Halo to be Master Chief; why in Halo 5 is the MAJORITY of the game played not only as someone else, but as someone hunting Master Chief? The guy saved humanity 4 times by his goddamn self, and in the fifth installment of his story, you make me play most of the time as some glorified space cop out to arrest him? Fuck off.

See this plot point was actually the biggest draw for me.

This could have been a fantastic opportunity to have seen the Master Chief and Blue Team as the legends that they have always been presented to us, as. Going where he had been, seeing all of the destruction that he had left in his wake, tracking him down and following clues, with ONI whispering into your ear, telling you all of these half-truths and whatever fits their narrative best, all whilst these massive Forerunner constructs were rising from planets around the galaxy, and destroying them as they awaken.

And then in the background. we'd have Doctor Halsey working with Jul'Mdama and his Covenant remnant faction, working together to get revenge on the UNSC for trying to kill her

I can only dream about the plot that could have been.

But what we got was stupid. It was disgusting.

First of all, in the first level, and in a cutscene, no less, Osiris kills Jul'Mdama, thus ending that entire sub-plot, and everything that they built up with Spartan Ops. Then they rescue Halsey and bring her back to the Infinity, no problems. No questions.

The Master Chief then discovers that Cortana is still alive (which I am fine with), but in a fucking vision (which I am not fine with). The UNSC weirdly already knows that Cortana is back, and they send for Blue Team to come back to the Infinity instead of using them to track her down. Blue Team refuses, and the UNSC sends Osiris after them.

Blue Team and Osiris end up on Meridian, and then the Master Chief and Lock have a shitty fist fight whilst everybody watches. Lock loses, the Master Chief disappears through a portal, and then the UNSC publicly declares the Master Chief to be KIA (which goes against the normal convention of listing dead Spartans as MIA - but whatever).

Blue Team then ends up on a Forerunner planet with Cortana explaining most of her ideas through what are essentially phone calls, meanwhile Osiris is frolicking about on Sanghelios helping out the Arbiter with his open rebellion against the Covenant remnant there,

and

oh

fuck it

Halo 5 is just shit. It ends on a pretty decent note, with Cortana disappearing with most of her Guardians, Blue Team and Osiris have joined forces, and Cortana now (presumably) has control over (presumably) the new Halo ring from Halo Wars 2, and now the UNSC is scattered and on the run,and they could go with the whole "Cortana is infected by the Flood's logic plague" plot line, which would actually be okay.

I hope now that they have got rid of that old writer, they can actually salvage this and turn it into something good. Otherwise, if you want an interesting Halo story, just listen to Hunt The Truth.

I?m not so much gutted over the story as I am at the way it was told [read: ?played?]. Even if we had to exchange control between John and Locke for a few missions, I think Locke?s story would have been better served primarily through cut scenes. It rang really hollow to put long-time Halo fans behind the eyes of some brand-fucking new guy we don?t know who?s chasing down the Chief whom we know like the back of our hand and that he has not a traitorous bone in his reinforced body and worse, for that inherent dissonance to be MAJORITY of the game! I felt no connection to Locke or his mission at ALL, so I feel it was terrible to make that three-fourths of my Halo 5 experience.

And yes, Halo 5 IS just shit.

 

[laggyteabag]

Snip

It rang really hollow to put long-time Halo fans behind the eyes of some brand-fucking new guy we don?t know who?s chasing down the Chief whom we know like the back of our hand and that he has not a traitorous bone in his reinforced body and worse, for that inherent dissonance to be MAJORITY of the game! I felt no connection to Locke or his mission at ALL, so I feel it was terrible to make that three-fourths of my Halo 5 experience.

Out of interest, do you think the story have been better told if Locke was not main hunter? As in, what if it was the Arbiter contracted to find him? Or if Buck was the leader of Osiris? Or maybe if it was Jun from Halo Reach?

I'd argue that for 95% of Halo 5 players, the game was Locke's first real introduction (outside of a couple of cutscenes with Halo 2A), so most people just saw Luke Cage with no personality, chasing one of gaming's most famous icons. I certainly understand why people strongly dislike the fella.

[small]Then again, even if you did watch Nightfall, he is still Luke Cage with no personality, except you know he was responsible for the death of another Spartan-II, and he was awfully sweaty in that film[/small]

 

[Bedinsis]

Well I am hardly the first to opine this(apart from in this thread) out but A Feast For Crows is the weakest novel thus far in A Song of Ice and Fire. As one would expect from the title; the previous novel takes place mostly during a war which by the time of A Feast For Crows has mostly ended, leaving only the slain people on the battlefield as crowfeed. Those aspects actually work, getting to see the supposed moments of triumph of the last novel laid out as the horror that naturally comes with them, due to it after all being a war. The actual plot however felt like it just meandered about without much focus or purpose, and the most charismatic point-of-view characters from the previous books did not appear other than in passing. I also was annoyed how the point-of-view character with the most chapters dedicated to them was mostly an antagonist previously. This is not in itself a new thing; Mr. Martin has managed to pull the trick of making me like antagonists previously. This book though did not develop them by letting them change to the better by their experiences or give a backstory that changed everything; I was mostly annoyed with the backstory Mr. Martin went with.

I've also read the first four novels in the Temeraire series. The first one is easily the weakest one. The premise of the series is that dragons have always existed on earth, and we're in the Napoleonic wars where dragons are used in warfare. The bad part about the first one is that it basically serves as an introduction to the setting, but the author didn't manage to convey the size of the dragons and the battle scenes, so I could not imagine those scenes. Apart from that the plot followed The Hero's Journey so closely that I could see where thing were going way ahead of time. Finally, it ended on a Deus Ex Machina. Groan.

The subsequent novels, on the other hand, are a lot better, mostly due to the ramifications of the Deus Ex Machina leads to an interesting journey where the amount of dragon warfare is greatly reduced. And the plot becomes a lot less predictable as a result.

A tip if you want to pick up the first Temeraire book: start by flipping to the last pages of the book; there is an appendix of sorts where they actually show their scale; had I known it when reading the battle scenes I might have enjoyed them more.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Snip

It rang really hollow to put long-time Halo fans behind the eyes of some brand-fucking new guy we don?t know who?s chasing down the Chief whom we know like the back of our hand and that he has not a traitorous bone in his reinforced body and worse, for that inherent dissonance to be MAJORITY of the game! I felt no connection to Locke or his mission at ALL, so I feel it was terrible to make that three-fourths of my Halo 5 experience.

Out of interest, do you think the story have been better told if Locke was not main hunter? As in, what if it was the Arbiter contracted to find him? Or if Buck was the leader of Osiris? Or maybe if it was Jun from Halo Reach?

I'd argue that for 95% of Halo 5 players, the game was Locke's first real introduction (outside of a couple of cutscenes with Halo 2A), so most people just saw Luke Cage with no personality, chasing one of gaming's most famous icons. I certainly understand why people strongly dislike the fella.

[small]Then again, even if you did watch Nightfall, he is still Luke Cage with no personality, except you know he was responsible for the death of another Spartan-II, and he was awfully sweaty in that film[/small]

I have no issue with Locke as a character (admittedly, Chief is similarly one dimensional,) I just dislike how Locke and his duties took over nearly the whole game. Seasoned Halo players KNOW the Master Chief; we?ve BEEN the Chief for four games now; we KNOW what he?s done and why and also that he?s either been right every time or at least in his right frame of mind and using his best judgement; it made no sense to then task us with the senseless task of tracking him down for justifiable infractions we know he?s doing for reasons based on the judgment we?ve trusted ever since Halo 1. It?d be like you witnessing a murder, then being tasked to prosecute your friend whom you witnessed trying to prevent the murder and oh, btw, you?re also your friend?s defense attorney, but only for a fourth of the time. And this is what we did for the MAJORITY of the game! (Sorry to keep capitalizing ?majority,? but I can?t stress it enough!)

Honestly, the story?s going to be what the story?s going to be. Whether or not we like it has no bearing on its ultimate objective truth; it?s not like these games are being adapted from books or movies and 343 is taking creative privileges with canon we all have prior knowledge of. The story will exists as 343 writes it and will be canon, but the execution is where they fucked it up in Halo 5, IMHO. Honestly, it IS an interesting premise; ?wrongfully accused protagonist? will alway sell some intrigue, but when you know the truth, then the whole story is told from the perspective of ?the prosecution,? WTF?? It?s playing poker with the cards dealt face up then held facing the wrong way in your hand; can ANYONE take ANY bets seriously?

If 343 is gearing up the story to truly make Chief out to be a bad guy, if they really think they can piss him out of his legacy as a mindless love slave to a rogue and rampant AI and Locke can supplant him as the face of the franchise, to that, all I can say is ?good luck with that, 343; that multiplayer better be the best thing since sex on sliced bread because your fan base ain?t sticking for that kind of nonsense.? Interstellar mass extinction weapons I can buy; Master Chief as the bad guy, now THAT?S crazy talk.

 

[Myria]

The Shepherd's Crown [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shepherd%27s_Crown].

I found Raising Steam [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_Steam] to be a bit iffy as it seemed to me to contain way too much fan service and way too little narrative tension or even much real story, but it was light enough, the fan service fun enough, and a third Moist von Lipwig book, so despite seeing it as rather flawed it's also one of my favorites.

The Shepherd's Crown... Not so much. It feels... Incomplete. The major character death somewhat pointless. Things just seem to happen in an often somewhat disjointed fashion. I suspect that reflects the state of it's completion, or lack thereof, at the time of Pratchett's death.

The Discworld books can be a somewhat uneven lot, personally I enjoy the Sam Vimes books miles away more than a lot of the earlier ones, but The Shepherd's Crown was the only one I found disappointing.

Doubly so, given it's the last one there will be.

 

[Hawki]

What we have here is a difference of opinion; no need to refute or argue or vet my words for any chinks in armor I?m not wearing; you can gladly enjoy Halo 5 as much as you like; wish I could as well, but I can?t. But since you took the time to respond to my points, I shall extend you the same courtesy:

I'd actually had a longer post to this, but lost it. So I'm afraid what follows is a truncated version of the original post using point form:

-You don't need to tell me about "long time fans" of Halo, as I was introduced to the series with the Halo 3 trailer (long story), and played the games since Combat Evolved. And, seriously, what changes? Halo has diverged from the core gameplay far more notably than Halo 5. "Making changes" isn't a constructive description of storytelling in of itself.

-I disagree that John is equivalent to Sonic and Mario. He's more akin to Solid Snake, who most certainly isn't equivalent to them. Sonic and Mario are part of franchises that bear their own namesake, said franchises having little time given to overarching narrative or worldbuilding. Sonic/Mario will never age, and will always be fighting Eggman/Bowser, and barring spinoffs, will always be the de facto player character, and even then, they're in most of said spinoffs (I can think of only three STH games where Sonic isn't actually present, all of which are spinoffs). Something like Metal Gear however, has an overarching narrative and time given to worldbuilding - it's called "Metal Gear," not "Solid Snake." Snake has been playable the most, but the universe still exists without him. We've played numerous games without him (Big Boss and Raiden). Metal Gear could concievably continue past Guns of the Patriots (and technically, it did), long after Snake's death. Sonic and Mario can't in the same vein.

-The squad mechanics aside, John has limits. Or, to be more specific, every game from H1 to H5 has steadily humanized him. His amount of dialogue per game generally increases, H4 began him talking outside cutscenes, and H4 leaves him with him not being emotionally broken, but in a world that's pretty alien to him now. If "badass" is the be all and end all of a character, that isn't an interesting character (well, not to me at least). And yes, John is arguably "badass," but it's the flaws of a character and how they overcome them that make them interesting. A character that's never challenged is a hard character to invest in. So, here comes Halo 5 which shows John's own teammates commenting on how he's nearing breaking point, how after Cortana, he's just plunged himself into mission after mission.

And I'll make it clear, I still like John as a character more than Locke. But like I said, the Halo universe isn't dependent on John. You can have iconic characters in a series and still have new ones take their place - Kirk to Picard, Luke to Rey, etc. I don't think Halo really has any existing characters in the wings ready to take up said mantle, but I don't believe that Halo needs a core character to function anyway.