Halo Reach discussion

[grylsyjaeger]

I'm pretty sure they shot canon to the wind a bit with Reach, JR.


Anyone up for Co-Op or firefight, add my XBL: grylsyjaeger

[JRendell]

I guess, which is a bit of a letdown for me.

Spoiler for End of Mission 3 (ONI: Sword Base):

Dr.Halsey has really lived up to her reputation The way she treated Jorge especially and managed to boss around Spartans even though being a Civilian.

Likewise for me, add me up if you fancy some campaign or something; J Rendell

[Helius]

Originally Posted by Drake

IIRC the final nail was when the studio (Fox?) wanted to drop Blomkampf as didn't the like idea of him directing given he hadn't directed a full feature film at the time.

Bet they're slapping themselves now after the success of D9.

Punch me if you will, but I for once agree with the studio's decision in not having Bloomkamp for the Halo movie.

District 9's success notwithstanding, Halo is a stylistically very different entity. I've seen his Halo shorts and TBH I wasn't all that impressed. His gritty, pseudo-documentary-like filmmaking style isn't something that should be employed in a Halo film IMO. Although I appreciate what he tried to achieve in D9, I didn't enjoy that film as much as I had expected. A Halo movie adaptation in the same vein won't be something I'll be enthusiastic about.

[Kyero Fox]

I want a CGI movie than a RL movie =\

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by JRendell

I guess, which is a bit of a letdown for me.

Spoiler for End of Mission 3 (ONI: Sword Base):

Dr.Halsey has really lived up to her reputation The way she treated Jorge especially and managed to boss around Spartans even though being a Civilian.

Likewise for me, add me up if you fancy some campaign or something; J Rendell

Spoiler for Reply:

Wait a minute.... Dr.Halsey actually bossed around Spartans? Now that is a new thing to see, I always thought civilians would just follow whatever the Spartans say

[Tk3997]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

I want a CGI movie than a RL movie =\

Hell do we even need CGI? Just give me an hour and a half of something like this and I'd be overjoyed. I seriously have no idea why they just don't start using game engines for animation already.

Originally Posted by Hooves

Spoiler for Reply:

Wait a minute.... Dr.Halsey actually bossed around Spartans? Now that is a new thing to see, I always thought civilians would just follow whatever the Spartans say

The S-II basically considered her a mother and treated her as such you can see that in Jorge even in game, the S-III didn't have that experience and so tended to view her differently as we see when Carter basically threatens her outright and questions her repeatedly, it's very unlikely an S-II would have dared do the same. Even if they disagreed it's likely they would have been extremely tactful and polite in that disagreement again as if speaking to your mother. I thought this was a nice bit of writing although it was something you'd only pick up if you knew the novels.

Originally Posted by JRendell

That's news to me Kyero. I'm struggling to work out how this game ties in with all the books and Halo:CE at the moment.

Spoiler for Massive Spoilers:

There is clearly some retcon going on though Bungie has always said the games take precedence. Further The Fall of Reach was written very quickly just before H1 release and numerous details had already been overturned in it even before this. (The entire idea that elites only appeared in 2552 for instance was quickly scrapped, the 30 km/s MAC gun was retconned, and so on) It's pretty clear from the canon policy that we should regard Reach as the "most true" source of what happened at the battle. TFoR can probably now be considered to have painted the overall battle in "board strokes" we can assume most of what isn't explicitly retconned still happened though perhaps not exactly as it did in the novel.

How Keyes and Cortana got to the Autumn for instance has been pretty much totally changed IIRC, it's been awhile since I read it, in the novel he arrives when it's already in orbit via shuttle and before the battle has even started and Cortana is already in place having overseen the refit. Here he boards it planet side and takes off when the Covenant have already overrun most of at least one continent and seem to largely control orbit already.

That said I have to admit I did like some of the Retcons a common nagging bit brought up was how Cortana managed to seemingly just randomly interface with ans subvert Forerunner systems and seemed so massively more powerful then other AIs we see. Her apparently having at least knowledge of (if not being partially derived from) a Forerunner database of some kind handily explains that. Another thing was that in TFoR originally the ground side battle seemed half hearted and pretty weak for some supposed Stalingrad-ish seige of a key world. First Strike addressed this somewhat, but I think Halo: Reach managed to do an even better job of portraying the collapse and hopeless defense planet side.

I also liked the introduction and use of Spartan-III in the games borrowing an element from the novels to allow using Spartans without causing still another continuity snarl since the S-II were all supposed to be accounted for and deployed elsewhere. I didn't really like that the game went and then killed off the entire cast basically then killing that newly introduced element and elminating any chance for future stories with them. (Personally at the very least I would have just ended the game with the last scene before the credits and left out Lone Wolf let us decide what we think happens after that and leave open the chance for a continuation in some other format.)

Too me there's a fine balance between using death to fuel a mood or drive home a message and then it just being gratuitous and pointless. Some would argue that's somewhat the point here, that death in war often is pointless and that's true, but to me that's two faced in this instance. You can't hide behind that message while also glorifying last stands, having the entire fate of mankind rest on the shoulders of stout heroes, etc. To me Reach went too far in trying to be grim dark and somewhat lost a bit of the Halo Feel for it, not terribly, but a bit.

I personally think war stories often work better when a few people live then when everyone dies. In a way it almost makes the entire thing seem pointless since if everyone is dead by the end who's going to remember it? It is to some extent almost like it didn't happen. In this case when you look at wider canon that's basically true; everyone that acutally witnessed Noble teams efforts to get Cortana to the Autumn is dead or isolated unable to tell anyone about it. (It's unclear if Cortana is acutally consciousness while in transport I'd lean toward no since there were certainly times she could have spoken up and been useful if she was active.)

Basically while some of the other Halo games ended in melancholy way someone still survived and there was always a note of optimism in them. Reach's ending seemed very bleak and a bit of a downer way to rap up Bungie's time with the franchise. Artisitclly I also think Six's fate being ambiguous or finding someway off the planet would have worked better anyway. He (I use that pronoun purely for convenience) was said to be a "lone wolf" him being added to a team and it slowly whittled down to just him again, but managing to survive because of the sacrifices of the team along the way would have book ended it nicely IMO.

Instead the entire thing seems pointless in the end everyone on the team dies in often totally pointless ways; including Six who dies in a futile last stand no one will ever even know about. If they wanted to do at least do it somewhat better I would have had the land stand part of the game be the actual final mission (instead a turret level of all things), have the hand off to the Autumn occur at the actual dry dock then have him have to hold some access point into the ship against a horde of enemies while it completes it's final countdown. At least then the death seems to have seem to have some sort of point.

Well that went way off the topic I had planned, but eh it about sums up my feelings on the story. Yeah suffice to say I didn't like ending much I saw it coming, but I was still kind of hoping they wouldn't go with the cliche "everyone dies" trope. I'm seriously pondering an AU fanfic where in Jun comes back at the final battle snipes off the Elites that kill Emilie, they cover the Autumn escape in a big ass battle around the MAC gun, and then they all murder there way out and back to the Pelican Jun flew in on to fly off and link up with Buck somewhere and then murder there way to some ship to get off the planet. Yeah, yeah maybe some might say I'm missing the point, but to me Halo is like Star Wars an actiony space opera and I like my wildly improbable escapes and victories against all odds.

[Afternoon Tea]

I thought this was a joke and there were no Cabela's games coming out same day as Halo game for the THIRD time.

Then I checked vgchartz. It came out the same day as Halo Reach. For the third time.

Cabela's developers really have a sence of humor! They probably saw your videos too

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Hooves

Spoiler for Reply:

Wait a minute.... Dr.Halsey actually bossed around Spartans? Now that is a new thing to see, I always thought civilians would just follow whatever the Spartans say

Spoiler for reply:

Dr.Halsey's neck is so far up into ONI secret projects that in practical terms she barely qualifies as a civillian.

[Kyero Fox]

Spoiler for Spoiler:

So.. what happens to the sniper spartan when he escorts the bossy scientist out?

[Helius]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

Spoiler for Spoiler:

So.. what happens to the sniper spartan when he escorts the bossy scientist out?

Dead or alive. Who knows?

[Kyero Fox]

Spoiler for spoiler:

I felt sad when kat died on my spartan was like "noooo!"

[grylsyjaeger]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

Spoiler for spoiler:

I felt sad when kat died on my spartan was like "noooo!"

I cried tears of joy, they shitted me to tears.


The end of Reach is pretty good.

Spoiler for End Game:

The whole idea of just popping back in after the credits with bugger all ammunition was well done.

As were the damage effects to the HUD as you took fire.

The only thing I didn't like about it was Six's actual demise. Sure a battle royale against half a dozen Elites looks cool but I thought having the player character being shot or stabbed unexpectedly from first person and bleeding out whilst the Covenant glassed Reach in the distance would have been more emotive.

Already saving up for a full ODST armour set and that sexy black visor.

Ooh.

[Kyero Fox]

Why did u cry tears of joy, u didn't like her?

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by Helius

Dead or alive. Who knows?

It's a rather big plot hole. It almost seems like something that'd be dealt with VIA a dlc mission.

[Mute]

Ehh. I was gonna go trade in a few games for reach but.. I didn't feel like going to gamestop.

So I'll be stuck with boring ole halo 3 for awhile.

[Hooves]

Originally Posted by Kyero Fox

Why did u cry tears of joy, u didn't like her?

Apparently not if they were tears of joy.

[Kyral]

*sigh* To bad that my gaming experience will have to wait a little longer.

I ordered the UK Version via a Austrian mail order company...

Long story short, even though it says UK-Import on the bill I got the Austrian PEGI version in full german! >.<
Now I have to wait and see if they take it back...

[gummybear]

Spoiler for .:

I really don't like the way how kat or other noble members die. I mean during the game play, Kat was being sluge hammer to the face while being shot by a hand full of elites with power rifles and she didn't die. She even live after being shot by a fuel rod to the face, yet she can't take a single weak-ass shot from above?! that's complete bullshit.

The only death that make any bit of sense was the big guy who stayed behind to blow up the ship.

I just really feel that they rushed to finish the story. They took so much time to build them up as some kind of supermen, only at half way point to realize they were suppose to die so they just make a bunch of weak ass "oops" deaths. They might as well as end the game with all the members alive and just cut to a black screen with the words "but they all die anyway". I actually would like that better than to de-heroize them like that.

[Kyero Fox]

Originally Posted by gummybear

Spoiler for .:

I really don't like the way how kat or other noble members die. I mean during the game play, Kat was being sluge hammer to the face while being shot by a hand full of elites with power rifles and she didn't die. She even live after being shot by a fuel rod to the face, yet she can't take a single weak-ass shot from above?! that's complete bullshit.

The only death that make any bit of sense was the big guy who stayed behind to blow up the ship.

I just really feel that they rushed to finish the story. They took so much time to build them up as some kind of supermen, only at half way point to realize they were suppose to die so they just make a bunch of weak ass "oops" deaths. They might as well as end the game with all the members alive and just cut to a black screen with the words "but they all die anyway". I actually would like that better than to de-heroize them like that.

woops deaths?

Spoiler for Spoilers:

NOble 1 Kamakazi's a scarab Knowing he was gonna die from the gun shots.

Noble 2's deaht was sudden and shocking

Noble 4's death was heroic

Noble 5's death was bad ass, a Sword through a chest and still takes the bastard out.

Noble 6's death was epic, he went down after taking several elites out, Dual wielded a Rifle and a pistol took out too Elites with swords.

not really woops deaths to me..

[Cub-Sama]

Legendary Solo + Hunters with no AI partners = Me crying in the fetal position

Am I the only one who had this problem?