I believe Spartans are going to start weighing down the series and ruining it very soon. They are probably the most boring characters in the Halo universe, because they have no real involvement with the central problem of the franchise. Spartan II are raised from birth to be instinctive killers who follow orders, they might as well be robots. They care about the outcome because they have been trained to follow orders but they have no real emotional attachment to anything, if they win or lose their lives will remain the same, noting of real value to them is accomplished. There is no character arc.
Now they do have some feelings but they suppress them and it is kind of difficult to seem their reaction to things when they always wear visors. Halo Reach just made it more apparent how boring these supper soldiers could be. This is partially Bungie's fault for not taking any to flesh out the characters but it is also rather difficult to create characters for mindless killers.
The reason I think Master chief worked well was because of Cortana. Master chief was like the introverted husband who kept to himself while Cortana was the social wife who brought out the best in Chief. Essentially Cortana is the perfect sidekick who brought more to the series than Chief could by himself. They are the two halves of the same being; brains and bronze. I really hope that 343 focuses on their relationship in the coming trilogy because it is the only hope of them creating a compelling narrative, if they cop out with some more end of the world crap I will be seriously disappointed. But I digress.
To me the central aspect of Halo, what makes halo halo, is the conflict between the Humans and Covenant. There are so many interesting themes to explore.
The video I linked is called The Return and its just a short video describing an elite's experience in the war and how he feels lost in a world where he once felt he had a purpose. He is forced to cope with the meaningless slaughter that he carried out against the humans many years ago. He has returned to a glassed planet in order to reflect on what he has done.
Exploring how the loss of ones faith affects people is much more interesting than saving the universe. The video just shows the potential Halo has to create an interesting story even from the Covenant perspective.
This video is called The Mona Lisa. This series is a basic zombie story using the flood, however it is presented rather well. Later on you find out that ONI was experimenting on the Flood, which I find rather interesting because it raises the question, how far would you go in order to survive, what are you willing to lose to carry on?
Halo:ODST was another step in the right direction it put the player right in the middle of a conflict as regular soldiers. The conflict is much bigger than they are and are often powerless to resolve many situation. In fact all the missions in ODST revolved around the soldiers being on the defensive and running away. They are clearly being defeated and pushed out of the city. My only major complaints for ODST is that the Rookie had no voice. I think the game would have been infinitely better if they had given him a character. How he reacted to the situation he was in would tell us all we needed to know about the character while fleshing out the story. Leaving a black canvas for a player to project themselves on doesn't work very well and is kind of weak. If Bungie had put the time and resources they used for Reach into ODST, it would have been one of my favorite games of all time. My point is ODST showed me what kind of game Halo could be and the idea excites me.
However by bringing back Master Chief and this whole save the universe business I think a great opportunity is being lost to bring the Halo universe to a new level. Halo could be a whole lot deeper and it is sad to see 343 and Microsoft take the easy road out by by bring back a character that shouldn't have been brought back. I really want to see Halo go out on a high note but I can see that probably won't happen with the way things are going.
Now they do have some feelings but they suppress them and it is kind of difficult to seem their reaction to things when they always wear visors. Halo Reach just made it more apparent how boring these supper soldiers could be. This is partially Bungie's fault for not taking any to flesh out the characters but it is also rather difficult to create characters for mindless killers.
The reason I think Master chief worked well was because of Cortana. Master chief was like the introverted husband who kept to himself while Cortana was the social wife who brought out the best in Chief. Essentially Cortana is the perfect sidekick who brought more to the series than Chief could by himself. They are the two halves of the same being; brains and bronze. I really hope that 343 focuses on their relationship in the coming trilogy because it is the only hope of them creating a compelling narrative, if they cop out with some more end of the world crap I will be seriously disappointed. But I digress.
To me the central aspect of Halo, what makes halo halo, is the conflict between the Humans and Covenant. There are so many interesting themes to explore.
The video I linked is called The Return and its just a short video describing an elite's experience in the war and how he feels lost in a world where he once felt he had a purpose. He is forced to cope with the meaningless slaughter that he carried out against the humans many years ago. He has returned to a glassed planet in order to reflect on what he has done.
Exploring how the loss of ones faith affects people is much more interesting than saving the universe. The video just shows the potential Halo has to create an interesting story even from the Covenant perspective.
This video is called The Mona Lisa. This series is a basic zombie story using the flood, however it is presented rather well. Later on you find out that ONI was experimenting on the Flood, which I find rather interesting because it raises the question, how far would you go in order to survive, what are you willing to lose to carry on?
Halo:ODST was another step in the right direction it put the player right in the middle of a conflict as regular soldiers. The conflict is much bigger than they are and are often powerless to resolve many situation. In fact all the missions in ODST revolved around the soldiers being on the defensive and running away. They are clearly being defeated and pushed out of the city. My only major complaints for ODST is that the Rookie had no voice. I think the game would have been infinitely better if they had given him a character. How he reacted to the situation he was in would tell us all we needed to know about the character while fleshing out the story. Leaving a black canvas for a player to project themselves on doesn't work very well and is kind of weak. If Bungie had put the time and resources they used for Reach into ODST, it would have been one of my favorite games of all time. My point is ODST showed me what kind of game Halo could be and the idea excites me.
However by bringing back Master Chief and this whole save the universe business I think a great opportunity is being lost to bring the Halo universe to a new level. Halo could be a whole lot deeper and it is sad to see 343 and Microsoft take the easy road out by by bring back a character that shouldn't have been brought back. I really want to see Halo go out on a high note but I can see that probably won't happen with the way things are going.
