Halo 4: Spartan Ops...Wow!

[Buizel91]

So the first season of Spartan ops has come to an end and has delivered an amazing story, with twists and turns happening all over, the biggest one being

Spoiler

Dr Halsey seemingly joing Jul'Mdama the leader of the Storm Covanent

This story is possibly the best out of the Halo series and i was just wondering (having just completed each episode on my own)what your thoughts on this story was? Where can it go from here with

Spoiler

Requiem being destroyed

 

[Buizel91]

Sorry for the repeat thread guys...apparently there was an error...which clearly there wasnt -.-

 

[White Lightning]

I didn't really like it that much, although I haven't finished it yet. The story seemed interesting but the missions are the same repetitive boring crap we got in Campaign, and it wasn't good then and it isn't good now. I just can't bring myself to finish last weeks missions.

The cutscenes aren't bad though and if the new one is as good as you're making it out to be I might just skip the missions and watch it.

 

[Buizel91]

I didn't really like it that much, although I haven't finished it yet. The story seemed interesting but the missions are the same repetitive boring crap we got in Campaign, and it wasn't good then and it isn't good now. I just can't bring myself to finish last weeks missions.

The cutscenes aren't bad though and if the new one is as good as you're making it out to be I might just skip the missions and watch it.

Yeh they are a little repetitive, however the later episodes are much better, and trying mixing things up a bit. after i'd say the first 4 eps, things get interesting.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

Lets try this again.

The story part was good, but I would be insulted if they really expected us to buy the first spoiler and if they are serious then I am calling shenanigans.

As for the second bit I wish they could of found a better way to resolve the story other than what is basically Halo tradition when more easily could have been done.

Gameplay wise it was a complete disappointment. Only partially new areas for the season finally with maybe two interesting sections. They could have cut almost half of the chapters and completely removed two episodes and it wouldn't have effected the story in the slightest. I would have easily taken fewer missions with less repitition and if they do continue spartan ops(despite my issues I hope they do) I hope they either take the time to flesh out all the areas with little to no repetiiton(within an episode is okay such as episode 3 or episode 7), or just keep the season length shorter with less repetition.

 

[Buizel91]

Lets try this again.

The story part was good, but I would be insulted if they really expected us to buy the first spoiler and if they are serious then I am calling shenanigans.

As for the second bit I wish they could of found a better way to resolve the story other than what is basically Halo tradition when more easily could have been done.

Gameplay wise it was a complete disappointment. Only partially new areas for the season finally with maybe two interesting sections. They could have cut almost half of the chapters and completely removed two episodes and it wouldn't have effected the story in the slightest. I would have easily taken fewer missions with less repitition and if they do continue spartan ops(despite my issues I hope they do) I hope they either take the time to flesh out all the areas with little to no repetiiton(within an episode is okay such as episode 3 or episode 7), or just keep the season length shorter with less repetition.

I'm in 2 minds about the first spoiler, on one hand, in reality, she was targeted and was meant to be terminated, maybe she thought it was the only option...

On the other had this is the Halo Universe...and seems a weird move, however she could be bluffing to the elite in order to stay alive.

 

[skywolfblue]

The story within the pre-rendered cutscenes is fine.

The story within the missions themselves is almost non-existent. 95% of the chatter consists of "hey, more bad guys" or "push a button". There's not much character development.

Mind-numbingly boring gameplay. They could have done interesting things like "Race a mongoose to the finish" "Jetpack platforming" or other crazy stuff, but no it had to be just "kill enemies, kill more enemies, and then kill some enemies". Mass Effect 3 and Gears of War 3 could do that in their horde modes because their gameplay was fun, they had a huge amount of unique weapons, and they have "boss type" enemies that mix it up, halo 4 has none of these.

 

[Terminate421]

The story within the pre-rendered cutscenes is fine.

The story within the missions themselves is almost non-existent. 95% of the chatter consists of "hey, more bad guys" or "push a button". There's not much character development.

Mind-numbingly boring gameplay. They could have done interesting things like "Race a mongoose to the finish" "Jetpack platforming" or other crazy stuff, but no it had to be just "kill enemies, kill more enemies, and then kill some enemies". Mass Effect 3 and Gears of War 3 could do that in their horde modes because their gameplay was fun, they had a huge amount of unique weapons, and they have "boss type" enemies that mix it up, halo 4 has none of these.

Red vs. Blue easter eggs ARE the story. Seriously, It makes it so much better IMO.

I like the pre-rendered cut-scenes and the updated weekly basis for it.

 

[TheSapphireKnight]

Lets try this again.

The story part was good, but I would be insulted if they really expected us to buy the first spoiler and if they are serious then I am calling shenanigans.

As for the second bit I wish they could of found a better way to resolve the story other than what is basically Halo tradition when more easily could have been done.

Gameplay wise it was a complete disappointment. Only partially new areas for the season finally with maybe two interesting sections. They could have cut almost half of the chapters and completely removed two episodes and it wouldn't have effected the story in the slightest. I would have easily taken fewer missions with less repitition and if they do continue spartan ops(despite my issues I hope they do) I hope they either take the time to flesh out all the areas with little to no repetiiton(within an episode is okay such as episode 3 or episode 7), or just keep the season length shorter with less repetition.

I'm in 2 minds about the first spoiler, on one hand, in reality, she was targeted and was meant to be terminated, maybe she thought it was the only option...

On the other had this is the Halo Universe...and seems a weird move, however she could be bluffing to the elite in order to stay alive.

It wouldn't make any sense whatsoever for someone who helped create spartans to crush human rebellion to suddenly be all surprised and angry that the UNSC(and more specifically ONI) would try and kill her after she endangered the Infinity and by all appearances joined up with the enemy.

The only likely outcome I see is a "it was a trick all along" which is why I am not at all impressed with the ending. Are we really supposed to buy that statement?

The other options would be an incredibly dumb direction to take the character, and as I said the only way I see revenge being true motive is if she targeted ONI specifically.

 

[TakeshiLive]

I started to play it without the watching the cutscenes and I felt like it was just repeated all the time and really boring. Then I started to watch the cutscenes and they got a bit better but now there's oh so much to catch up on and I just cba, really.

 

[Lucky Godzilla]

The story within the pre-rendered cutscenes is fine.

The story within the missions themselves is almost non-existent. 95% of the chatter consists of "hey, more bad guys" or "push a button". There's not much character development.

Mind-numbingly boring gameplay. They could have done interesting things like "Race a mongoose to the finish" "Jetpack platforming" or other crazy stuff, but no it had to be just "kill enemies, kill more enemies, and then kill some enemies". Mass Effect 3 and Gears of War 3 could do that in their horde modes because their gameplay was fun, they had a huge amount of unique weapons, and they have "boss type" enemies that mix it up, halo 4 has none of these.

This, a million times this.
And it's not just exclusive to Spartan Ops, the campaign of Halo 4 is essentially a trek from cutscene activating button to cutscene activating button, with the occasional clear all enemies to "spice" things up. After time, I found myself just watching the new cg episodes on YouTube, and not even bothering with the lackluster Spartan Ops.
It's a notable downgrade from Halo Reach's firefight mode, which provided a compelling highly customizable co-op game mode. Whereas with Spartan Ops, there is literally zero motivation to go back to a previous episode unless you want to grind XP.

 

[Trivun]

The reason the levels are repetitive is because they're effectively replacing Firefight, but I think I may be the sole person who prefers Spartan Ops to Firefight. reason being they're similar enough, but Spartan Ops adds a story that I personally found rather interesting in the cutscenes and also adds a distinct difference in each time you visit a particular map. Not to mention, some missions actually open up new areas of the maps, so it's not actually as repetitive as everyone claims.

Regarding the story...

Spoiler: Ending spoilers

I personally think Halsey is in it for herself, yes, but I think her last words were very leading and deliberate. "I want revenge..." Revenge against who? Parangosky is presumably dead given that Osman is now CINCONI, so it can't be revenge against her. Hood has had nothing to do with any of these events save presumably being aware that Infinity is at Requiem for now. Does Halsey want revenge against the UNSC in general, humanity in general, the Spartan-IV division for keeping her in the dark, Osman for ordering her execution, John for 'allowing' Cortana to 'die', or is there something else at stake here? I don't think she's telling Jul 'Mdama the whole truth here. Also, she presumably survives all of this and at least until the 2580s, unless her cameo memorial voiceover in the end of Halo: Reach isn't considered canon.

I also found it interesting whenever Jul spoke to humans, he always stuck to Sangheili instead of speaking in English. According to The Thursday War he does have at least a basic understanding of human speech, and he understands it well enough whenever Halsey, Glassman or Thorpe speak to him, so either he has a well-hidden translation device on his person or he speaks English. I'd imagine he simply refuses to sully his own tongue with the speech of the heathens. Halsey is of course fluent in Sangheili (even more so than Evan Phillips ), unlike Glassman, and understands whatever Jul says perfectly...

Finally, am I the only one who wants to see more of Kilo-Five in the next season of Spartan Ops, or maybe even in the campaign for Halo 5/6? Seeing Admiral Osman here was such a tease, when she only appears once for all of 20 seconds and is maybe mentioned once or twice more, and that's it! And I'd love to see John's reaction to finding out that not only is a Spartan-II washout now head of ONI (though he's probably already found out in the six months between 4 and S-Ops), but also that Naomi (who he thought had died young) is still alive and fighting

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Oh jeez, dat spoiler. Vrex is going to be pissed.

 

[Batou667]

Yeah, Spops has been a mixed bag for me, much like Halo 4 itself was.

The thing that got stuck between my teeth the most was the way the collective UNSC IQ seemed to have been halved since the Halo Trilogy. The new Spartan IVs embody everything I hate about the new direction Halo 4 is taking the canon: obnoxious, cocksure, painfully thick jocks in armour. Considering I was a huge fan of Gears of War, I'm surprised as anybody that this annoys me so much, but it just isn't Halo when the so-called super-soldiers regularly act less professionally than the lowliest UNSC conscripts did in previous games.

If the original Trilogy's plot was a shining edifice then the new canon and fluff is a puddle of mud, and Spartan Ops proceeds to wallow in it.

Spoiler

So, the Infinity has decided to stick around unsupported by Requiem. For some reason the force of rebel Elites still has ample troops and materiel. The UNSC science team's approach to volatile new Forerunner artifacts is "press all the buttons and see what happens" and the ground strategy is to engage in a series of costly and ineffectual piecemeal incursions, tossing away tanks and troops like they're Halloween candy, only for the hard-won battlefields to be instantly re-fortified by Covenant forces as soon as the UNSC withdraws. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a campy space opera, nothing to get bent out of shape about. But Halo 4 is the Jar Jar to Star Wars, the Scrappy to Scooby Doo. It takes a perfectly serviceable and likeable formula and messes around with it for no reason other than to apparently annoy the fans.

Anyway - the plot of Spops. It's disjointed, it's unintelligible, it adds nothing to the canon. What I can remember of the first season: the Spartans find a shiny box, they press the buttons, one Spartan gets teleported away by it, there's some kind of rescue, then Halsey pops up, she presses the buttons, some Elite called MDMA pops up, the Spartans decommission a digger and then immediately decide to repair it, and oh yeah, the planet is being pulled into the sun because RAISED STAKES, LOL.

I'm not sure what ass-pulls the "writers" have planned for us next (my guess is that they make it up as they go along, anyway), but since

Spoiler

the action won't be able to take place on Requiem any more

it'll be interesting, in a morbid kind of way, to see where it goes next.

 

[Buizel91]

The reason the levels are repetitive is because they're effectively replacing Firefight, but I think I may be the sole person who prefers Spartan Ops to Firefight. reason being they're similar enough, but Spartan Ops adds a story that I personally found rather interesting in the cutscenes and also adds a distinct difference in each time you visit a particular map. Not to mention, some missions actually open up new areas of the maps, so it's not actually as repetitive as everyone claims.

Regarding the story...

Spoiler: Ending spoilers

I personally think Halsey is in it for herself, yes, but I think her last words were very leading and deliberate. "I want revenge..." Revenge against who? Parangosky is presumably dead given that Osman is now CINCONI, so it can't be revenge against her. Hood has had nothing to do with any of these events save presumably being aware that Infinity is at Requiem for now. Does Halsey want revenge against the UNSC in general, humanity in general, the Spartan-IV division for keeping her in the dark, Osman for ordering her execution, John for 'allowing' Cortana to 'die', or is there something else at stake here? I don't think she's telling Jul 'Mdama the whole truth here. Also, she presumably survives all of this and at least until the 2580s, unless her cameo memorial voiceover in the end of Halo: Reach isn't considered canon.

I also found it interesting whenever Jul spoke to humans, he always stuck to Sangheili instead of speaking in English. According to The Thursday War he does have at least a basic understanding of human speech, and he understands it well enough whenever Halsey, Glassman or Thorpe speak to him, so either he has a well-hidden translation device on his person or he speaks English. I'd imagine he simply refuses to sully his own tongue with the speech of the heathens. Halsey is of course fluent in Sangheili (even more so than Evan Phillips ), unlike Glassman, and understands whatever Jul says perfectly...

Finally, am I the only one who wants to see more of Kilo-Five in the next season of Spartan Ops, or maybe even in the campaign for Halo 5/6? Seeing Admiral Osman here was such a tease, when she only appears once for all of 20 seconds and is maybe mentioned once or twice more, and that's it! And I'd love to see John's reaction to finding out that not only is a Spartan-II washout now head of ONI (though he's probably already found out in the six months between 4 and S-Ops), but also that Naomi (who he thought had died young) is still alive and fighting

I prefer it to...It is Firefight...with objectives and a story.

The people who are moaning clearly weren't paying attention to the voice acting during missions, especially towards the end, sure the levels themselves were repetitive, as they are only using in game levels and multiplayer maps, but the missions were completely different.

Also we got more Rowland. and Rowland is awesome.

 

[Korten12]

Also we got more Rowland. and Rowland is awesome.

Roland, not Rowland. Sorry. D:

 

[Buizel91]

Also we got more Rowland. and Rowland is awesome.

Roland, not Rowland. Sorry. D:

Knew it was one of them, just couldn't remember :')

 

[Saviordd1]

It was all in all a pretty good turn of events...however...

Spoiler

I find Halsey's behavior a tad...plotholish.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

It was all in all a pretty good turn of events...however...

Spoiler

I find Halsey's behavior a tad...plotholish.

I haven't played Halo 4 yet but I've read the background books. I think her behavior in 4 is because of the way Karen Traviss (Star Wars fans recoil in disgust with me!) pretty much hijacked her character and suddenly gave all of humanity an intense hatred and personal vendetta against her cuz author bias. So if she acts stupid or plotholish I'd blame Traviss.
Then again I'm biased against Traviss so grain of salt and all that.