Halo Series/Bungie

[Solstis]

Okay, there's a fair amount of people that believe the Halo series has no plot, or, rather, has a generic Scfi-fi plot. This puts Halo into the same category as, say, Gundam Wing (seriously. what the hell).

I have heard references to other games (Timesplitters, MGS, Half-Life), which, the people claim, have more thought put in to them and their backgrounds.

Bungie spends a lot of time developing games not only because they want them to be pretty, but because of the extreme amount of importance they place on details.

For example http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Gravemind (yeah, spoilers, it's a wiki) I was unaware that the Gravemind occasionally spoke in Trochaic Heptameter.

I also missed pretty much all of the terminals on my first run-through of Halo 3, which means that I missed a whole lot of backstory involving the Forerunners and an A.I., none of which is mentioned anywhere else.

I haven't bothered to read the Halo novels, which are supposed to be an expansion of the Halo Universe, a highly coded and complicated Universe in its own right.

There are a lot of loose ends left around after Halo 3, and I am excited to see what will happen next. The Flood still pose a menace on par to Star Trek's Borg (and I guess, meh) Stargate's replicators, and there are likely Flood organisms elsewhere. It is highly possible that they have conquered other Galaxies, or (this would be neat... in a horrifying sort of way) have infested every other part of visitable space/reality.

Unlike the Borg, however, the Flood have yet to be Deus-Ex'ed to senility, and have quite a bit of narratological importance left.

So, I am excited about where Bungie will take Halo. Not as excited as I am about Battlestar Galactica, but that's a different subject.

Er, and I apologized for the post sounding so rushed. I will try to clarify (and will probably retract or add statements) as responses come in.

[Shadowpawn]

I'd never thought I would see you defending Halo.

[Eihwaz]

I'd never thought I would see you defending Halo.Yeah, those are my thoughts exactly. :wacko:

If you enjoy the storyline of the Halo series at all, you definitely should check out the books. I've read the first three, and they're pretty enjoyable. You've got The Fall of Reach which provides a ton of background into the Spartan program and functions as a prequel to Halo, then there's The Flood, which summarizes Halo quite well, and then you've got First Strike, which takes place between Halo and Halo 2.

There's a fourth book out as well (the title eludes me currently), but I haven't read it.

[eXo]

i havent played much of TS or HL because im not a big FPS fan, everyone after 007 goldeneye has given me motion sickness so i gave up on them however i have played halo and the story isnt that shabby however i still didnt feel any connection with masterchief.

[ABDUR101]

People only rag on the Halo series because it was well-hyped, and when they got it they must have expected something of Divine Nature that they were so disappointed with it. When I finally got my hands on the original Halo on the Xbox, my brother and I enjoyed it so much, we hadn't enjoyed a FPS like that in a very long time, because we enjoyed the co-op play so much.

We're big fans of FPS, and the Halo series offered a very nice way for us to spend time together. Not to mention that I've read up on the prior games for their story(since I hadn't finished any of them), and there are all kinds of little niceties even from the original Halo. An example, on the Pillar of Autumn, there are bulletin boards with an ad that reference to the original AI trying to SELL a spaceship from the original series.

When all the marines show their exhuberance and feeling at ease when they see you walking past them, it re-invigorates them knowing that they have a true hero to fight with them. I pity anyone who did'nt enjoy the story behind the Halo series, if you really put yourself into it and caught the nuances in the cut-scenes and so on, it was a delight. Quite often during gameplay I'd have to just take a moment to really take in the scenery and what was happening, and from game to game to enjoy how the enemies were being fleshed out and given more character to them.

I really enjoy games/movies that offer the ability to see two sides to the same story, so being able to play as the Arbitor was a delight that few story-tellers could be able to do well. Who DID'NT let out a sigh of releif when Master Chief and the Arbitor worked together for the greater good of everyone?(Doesn't hurt that I've always enjoyed the actor who did the voicework for the Arbitor)

[NPCMook]

So, I am excited about where Bungie will take Halo. Not as excited as I am about Battlestar Galactica, but that's a different subject.Halo is pretty gerenic, no matter how indepth the universe goes, the story for halo is generic at best.

Bungie is done with Halo, they are moving on to a different project

[The_Gio]

Even though I've grown tired of Halo. Halo is a very well thought out story, for those who say its plot is generic is because they only know master chief is trying to fight and defeat aliens and mutants and thats about it. Yeah that may be the games point,but theres a lot back story as to why. The books explain why the Spartans can take more than one bullet, why when you walk up to a flipped over vehicle that you can flip it, why instead of climbing you just jump. I dunno, never thought id be defending halo honestly.

[McLaughlin]

Halo is pretty gerenic, no matter how indepth the universe goes, the story for halo is generic at best.

Bungie is done with Halo, they are moving on to a different project

No, they said they are done with that story ark.

You can't honestly believe they're going to just stop after you watch the Legendary ending. There's clearly more to be told.

[Solstis]

No, they said they are done with that story ark.

You can't honestly believe they're going to just stop after you watch the Legendary ending. There's clearly more to be told.

Halo's story is as deep as you want it to be. If you just want it to be about blowing up aliens, yeah, that's all it is. It you take time to catch the details, it's something more. As far as multiplayer, Halo's multiplayer is hella shallow, but fun.

Yeah, and Bungie is going to do something with the Halo universe.

[McLaughlin]

Apparently Bungie has some stuff lined up for the Penny Arcade Expo. Wonder that that's going to be.

[rogue_robot]

For those who think Halo is "generic" -

Just about every possible storyline in every possible setting has been done to death - a state which fiction reached before the mere conception of video games (sci-fi didn't start with video games, you know). This is just a fact all artists of all disciplines must overcome.

"Originality" is not in doing something 100% new, as "new" and imagination are limited by the realm of human experience - even the most bizarre constructs of your mind are, in some way, a composite and/or modification of much more familiar objects and experiences. Originality is taking both those bizarre constructs and familiar concepts and assembling and/or executing them in a way entirely unexpected to the viewer (in essence, originality is almost entirely subjective - there are still cases out there which are objectively unoriginal, in which people take cookie-cutter approaches, applying as little creativity as possible; I just wouldn't put Halo in that category).

A lot of thought went into Halo's story. Sure, there are the "generic" mysterious entities hell-bent on destroying all other forms of life (Flood), the random alien ray-gun invasion (Covenant), and such "generic" sci-fi elements. Halo, however, puts these together in a way many people thought rather unexpected - the first contact with the Covenant was hostile, to provide just one small example, not because the Covenant just generically hate humans for no explicable reason, but rather because the humans just had the bad luck to run into Covenant privateers before Covenant civilians.

</rant>


Anyway... I must say I'm rather eager to see where Bungie takes it myself. "Halo" itself may be over (as in, using that specific title, and with respect to the Halo/Flood story arc), but they've left plenty of room to start up a new story arc, still following Chief and Cortana.