Halo Lore

[VoidWanderer]

I have played the first two games to completion, and most of the third one (I couldn't be bothered finishing it when going to investigate the crashed ship).

In what seems to be an alternate '300' movie, can you point out the good bits?

I am having trouble understanding why people say that the Halo plot is so good.

Can any of the Halo fans help me out here?

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Its a huge, galaxy-spanning tale of war, betrayal, galatic intrigue, of bravery against impossible odds and heroic sacrifice. Its got interesting characters, cool tech, a bunch of aliens who aren't just the "rubber forehead" types seen in Star Trek and Mass Effect. And the games have a really bitchin soundtrack.

I dunno, if you can't be arsed to look past the word "Spartan" then honestly I'm not sure the story is for you.

 

[Skin]

As a Halo fan, I will tell you that the story sucks. The first one had a semi-interesting plot that would not even plass for a B-grade movie, and it was the best one. Bungie started shooting coke intravenously when they came up with the plot for H2.

At the same time, as a fan of Half-Life, I thought the story sucked balls.

If your playing GAMES for story, your doing it wrong.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Its a huge, galaxy-spanning tale of war, betrayal, galatic intrigue, of bravery against impossible odds and heroic sacrifice. Its got interesting characters, cool tech, a bunch of aliens who aren't just the "rubber forehead" types seen in Star Trek and Mass Effect. And the games have a really bitchin soundtrack.

I dunno, if you can't be arsed to look past the word "Spartan" then honestly I'm not sure the story is for you.

Honestly, the whole Spartan thing didn't bother me, but when the invading force attacks the world where the Spartans are to get to Earth, it does raise the old '300' flag.

Could you point out the interesting characters please? And where is the Galactic Intrigue?

 

[Esotera]

The Halo plot isn't good, but the universe it's set in is absolutely awesome. It's a fun all-round game to play and a lot of people started out on it, so it gets good rep.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Honestly, the whole Spartan thing didn't bother me, but when the invading force attacks the world where the Spartans are to get to Earth, it does raise the old '300' flag.

Could you point out the interesting characters please? And where is the Galactic Intrigue?

Master Chief, Cortana, Halsey, Johnson, Buck, The Arbiter, Rtas 'Vadum, and others. Though honestly, if you want the full effect you need to be looking at the EU. The games are great, but thats not where the story is.

 

[Z of the Na'vi]

If you're playing GAMES for story, you're doing it wrong.

Uh huh.

You do know that video games are, and always have been, another form of story-telling, right? Although early titles weren't the most ambitious in the way of forming a coherent story, all the right pieces were there. Save the princess, collect the seven shiny objects to defeat the ultimate evil, etc. I assume that a video game is nothing more than moving pictures on a screen to you, then.

Some people play games differently than you do. Try to remember that.

[sub]I suppose games like Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Final Fantasy are all just story-less button-pressing fests, then, huh?[/sub]

 

[Sirron Kcuch]

It isn't the plot, although it has an interesting twist in the first game. It's how the plot interacts with gameplay, to get that space opera feel.

Because it really feels like a huge war across the galaxy, full of epic moments and environments. Open and beautiful landscapes are what gives that feeling. Oh, and the music is awesome.

The characters are terribly poor (I don't really like the Master Chief at all), but it doesn't matter, because the story isn't about them, but rather about civilizations themselves.

 

[Jebus90]

I agree with everyone else, most of the characters are very two dimensional until you start getting into the extended universe. The games really didn't have much of a story push behind them, but were fun to play for the most part.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Try reading some of the novels. Halo has a rich Expanded Universe that fleshes out the backstory and general setting a whole lot more.

I recommend starting with The Fall of Reach and First Strike, both written by Eric Nylund. They're both great reads and fill in many of the blanks that the games don't elaborate on. You gain lots of insight into the origins of the Human-Covenant War, secret UNSC projects like the SPARTAN-II program, the Master Chief's personality (yes he has one) and motivations, the goals and motives of the UNSC and its leaders (along with the secretive and at times sinister Office of Naval Intelligence), Covenant society and how the different species regard their enemies and each other, and lots of exciting battles and skirmishes, both in space and planetside.

Just bear in mind that the books were written years before Halo: Reach came out. Because of this, the events of the Battle of Reach play out differently in the novels and aren't considered canonical anymore. I get around this discrepancy by imagining that it's an alternate version of the battle that ultimately reaches the same outcome.

 

[Zhukov]

Waitwaitwait... wait.

People say that the Halo games have a good plot? Where does one find these lunatics?

Don't get me wrong, they're fun to play (except H2, that was arse) and they sometimes manage to convey a pleasingly epic sense of scope, but good plot? Really? Really?

Christ, at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if someone tried to tell me that Just Cause 2 had good voice acting.

 

[Squigle Sheep]

The two things you need to know about the Halo series is that they are inconsistent and each game must be judged as a whole. Example: Halo 3 wasn't the worst game because it had the worst story or game-play, it was the worst one because the two have no relationship with each other. Though Halo mucked up the arbiter levels but made up for it by making him the most interesting character in game and Reach took all the lessons learnt from the other games and applied them as well as it could without losing the fantastic game-play of the original. Halo is not the flawless jewel of gaming that some fans make it out to be and most of the characters are very 1 sided but the truth is that these days there are precious few shooters that can hold a candle to the series. (bear in mind I never got round to playing Halo wars and I dont like to talk about the other one.)

 

[Squigle Sheep]

The two things you need to know about the Halo series is that they are inconsistent and each game must be judged as a whole. Example: Halo 3 wasn't the worst game because it had the worst story or game-play, it was the worst one because the two have no relationship with each other. Though Halo mucked up the arbiter levels but made up for it by making him the most interesting character in game and Reach took all the lessons learnt from the other games and applied them as well as it could without losing the fantastic game-play of the original. Halo is not the flawless jewel of gaming that some fans make it out to be and most of the characters are very 1 sided but the truth is that these days there are precious few shooters that can hold a candle to the series. (bear in mind I never got round to playing Halo wars and I dont like to talk about the other one.)

 

[Fappy]

You know when people criticize Halo's plot I always expect to see more originality-based criticism. Seriously, just mash the Alien movies, Starship Troopers and the Bible together. You get Halo.

 

[ZeroMachine]

You know when people criticize Halo's plot I always expect to see more originality-based criticism. Seriously, just mash the Alien movies, Starship Troopers and the Bible together. You get Halo.

Proof that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

I feel like this is a troll thread... but if it isn't, I could type multiple paragraphs worth of stories that take place within the Halo universe.

My suggestion, if you, OP, are serious, read the books/comics. They're fantastic.

Except for The Flood...

 

[Fappy]

You know when people criticize Halo's plot I always expect to see more originality-based criticism. Seriously, just mash the Alien movies, Starship Troopers and the Bible together. You get Halo.

Proof that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

I feel like this is a troll thread... but if it isn't, I could type multiple paragraphs worth of stories that take place within the Halo universe.

My suggestion, if you, OP, are serious, read the books/comics. They're fantastic.

Except for The Flood...

I read the first four books, own the first Bendis comic series (which was shitty btw, but that wasn't the IP's fault... Bendis is just a hack) AND the graphic novel. I think I may know more than you think.

 

[Batou667]

The two things you need to know about the Halo series is that they are inconsistent and each game must be judged as a whole. Example: Halo 3 wasn't the worst game because it had the worst story or game-play, it was the worst one because the two have no relationship with each other.

What the devil are you talking about?

A lot of Halo fans consider Halo 3 the best in the series. I personally liked the way Bungie used it to wrap up a lot of plot threads, kill off some fairly major characters and draw a line under the trilogy (and then Microsoft decreed that the Halo Cashcow would be getting milked for at least 3 more core games, and I facepalmed with the force of a thousand suns).

Anyway, to address the OP's question: the Halo storyline is more functional than fantastic, but it does a good enough job in driving along the series. As videogame universes go it's one of the most robust and fleshed-out ones.

You know when people criticize Halo's plot I always expect to see more originality-based criticism. Seriously, just mash the Alien movies, Starship Troopers and the Bible together. You get Halo.

Don't forget Larry Niven's Ringworld.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

snips

I read the first four books, own the first Bendis comic series AND the graphic novel. I think I may know more than you think.

You are one of the VERY few. 99.9 percent of the people who criticize Halo's plot have not looked into the universe much at all. And to be honest, your synopsis makes it sound incredibly awesome...

OT: Like several have said, you really have to get invested in the universe, not just the games, to enjoy the story. I'll be the first to admit: The story in the games alone is confusing, bland and fairly stupid. It's only when you throw in the books, comics and articles that it becomes epic.

Though not everyone enjoys the same thing, so there you go.

 

[Korten12]

I love the Halo Story (and heavily invested in the Expanded Universe, got all the books but the Flood, but none of the comics. Just got the book Primordium, and it's great.)

Because of how the things play out and the characters. Johnson, the Chief, ODST Cast, Cortana, Keyes (both), are all great characters. Not to mention the Arbiter being another great one.

 

[Poisoni]

If you need to hear the arguments said before on so many threads you can look them up. I've posted paragraphs before just to see them ignored, so just look up the old threads with exactly the same introductory speech about how they "don't understand why the plot is said to be good" - long story short? Because people have their own opinions, have read more into exchanges ingame than you, noticed things you didn't, read around in the expanded universe and just generally made an effort on their own; considering they liked the gameplay (which it seems you didn't!) to see if they'd like to see more from the same setting. I was going to avoid ranting :/. I console myself with the knowledge that you seem a bit troll-ish.