What Will Halo 4 Be About?

Now that Bungie’s moved on to bigger and better publishers, some say Halo won’t survive for long. Those people clearly don’t understand this industry.

No matter who’s in charge, there will always be Halo fans that legitimately care about the series’s fiction. Bungie and others have spent a decade crafting a pretty fantastic story, through the games, comics, books, anime and more, and despite a satisfactory ending to Halo 3, there are a lot of places the Chief can still potentially go.

A Toast to Onyx

One of the most popular (and probable) guesses so far is that the planet-sized structure glimpsed at the end of the recent Halo 4 trailer is actually Onyx. The “shield world” featured heavily in Eric Nylund’s official 2006 novel The Ghosts of Onyx, and it’s where the few remaining Spartan IIs and IIIs  – including favorites Kelly and Fred – will be found. The all-important Dr. Halsey, who made her first in-game appearance in Halo: Reach, was also last seen on Onyx.

The only problem is that Onyx was sort of destroyed at the end of the book. The entire planet turned out to be made of millions of Forerunner sentinels (the same flying bastards seen throughout the games), who disengaged from one another and decimated a Covenant fleet toward the novel’s conclusion. Halsey and the rest of the Spartans found themselves trapped in a dyson sphere – an inverted planet in a slipspace dimension adjacent to ours – searching for a way out.

The Chief would no doubt be thrilled to reunite with his oldest friends, and Ghosts of Onyx left plenty of unanswered questions. If there’s even a slight chance Halo 4 will answer them, Microsoft’s going to get even more of my money. There are a couple other options I can think of, though..

A Four-Legged Marathon

Halo 3′s ending was hardly ambiguous, but there was one aspect that left some questions dangling in our minds: beating the game on legendary unlocked the briefest of teaser videos showing Cortana and the sleeping Chief’s busted-ass ship approaching a planet that looked more than familiar to long-time Bungie fans.

You see, Halo wasn’t Bungie’s first series. Many of you probably know this, but back in the ’90s the enterprising developers made a series of Mac games (what? why?) called Marathon. Thematically, they were pretty similar to Halo; the Marathon games teemed with lone super soldiers, rampant AIs and millenia-old sci-fi structures. And the planet that makes its cameo in Halo 3′s secret ending has a pretty big Marathon symbol on it. The inclusion of this otherwise pointless scene fueled the already-widespread speculation that the Master Chief and the protagonist of the Marathon series are one and the same. Despite Bungie’s repeated claims otherwise, Halo is in Microsoft’s hands now, and number four may well tie neatly into the Marathon series.

Something Completely Different

Of course, it could always be about something else entirely. Although it seems 343 Studios would be missing out on some incredible narrative opportunities if that’s the case, they’ve probably got loads of perfectly decent ideas that have nothing to do with “the story so far.” Say goodbye to the other Spartans, screw Dr. Halsey’s mom complex, and forget the forerunners ever existed. After all, it’s Microsoft we’re talking about. Selective consumer amnesia is an important part of their business strategy.

I’m sure there are plenty of other good ideas out there, so lemme have’em. What have I forgotten?

There is no such thing as an overrated game

Ocarina of Time is the best game ever. Halo is the best game ever. Super Mario 64 is the best 3D platformer of all time. Final Fantasy VII is the greatest RPG ever made.

Wii Sports is overrated. The Wii is overrated. Ocarina of Time is overrated. And what’s so great about Halo, anyway? Goldeneye is better.

Goldeneye is so overrated. It sure hasn’t aged well. I can’t wait for the Wii remake – I just wish it was on a real console. Everyone knows the Wii is overrated.

Etc. Now, listen. I’ve got something to say.

No game has ever been the best game ever, in any category, ever. There is no best RPG, there is no best shooter, and there is no best motion controlled sports-themed mini game collection (OK, in that category Wii Sports might actually be the best, but only until Sony’s Move comes out).

Likewise (and it may be shocking to hear this), there are no overrated games. There are simply games that garner a lot of attention, people who hyperbolize about those games, and people who can’t understand, for the life of them, why.

But games that attract enough attention to in turn attract the attention of people who like to criticize games that attract a lot of attention – well, they attract that attention for a reason.

And, well, there are only so many reasons a game might attract attention. Some games are given undue attention by the media, like Grand Theft Auto. Some get attention because they’re either nearly perfect (Portal) or pieces of crap (Kane and Lynch); others do it by completely betraying people’s expectations, like Dark Void and Alpha Protocol.

There is another reason why some games get a lot of attention, though: when they do something new. It’s these games that occasion the most hype, homage and hyperbole, and they’re the ones most often written off as “overrated” by those who simply fail to understand their significance, often years later.

Super Mario 64 isn’t the best game ever, nor is it the best 3D game, the best platformer, the best 3D platformer, or even the best game starring Mario – but it sure as hell isn’t overrated.

For people my age, it’s sometimes hard to remember that at the time of Mario 64‘s release, the mustachioed one was already insanely popular. The side scrolling platformer thing was working. The dude practically saved US gaming in the 80s, and it took decades for the Western game industry to catch up with the Rising Sun in the East.

For Mario to make the jump (ha) to 3D was unnerving. No one knew what to expect, and plenty of people probably thought it would be the end of the chubby plumber’s glory days. For the game to be so damn good – that was revolutionary. The simple fact that players could walk forward, or backward, or left, or right, and that it was fun to do so, meant gaming would never be the same.

Halo: Combat Evolved is far from the best game ever, as are Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach (which I played to death last week – and yes, it’s an excellent game). Why all the hubbub, then?

Think about it; comparisons with Half-Life or Quake III: Arena or whatever else was popular on PC at the time are irrelevant. Half-Life fans weren’t buying Xboxes. The big black boxes were being purchased by gamers who had only recently been acquainted with the concept of the first person shooter. Goldeneye started the revolution on consoles, Perfect Dark bested it in every way, and then, a year and a half later, Halo sent millions of console shooter fans to the hospital with severe cases of bleeding from the eyes and ears.

The jump from Perfect Dark to Halo was, for many, many people, an indescribably awesome experience. Halo and the Xbox brought countless innovations to the console shooter: dual analog controls, recharging health, the two gun limit, the grenade button, vehicular combat, physics, a plot that made sense (more than that – the plot was compelling), ingenious A.I., huge environments, layer upon layer of strategy.. the list goes on.

Halo 2 sweetened the pot by adding online matchmaking, oiling the wheels of the Xbox Live experience, which until then had far too closely resembled the online play found on PCs. Halo 3 brought the trilogy to a satisfying conclusion, ODST was a moody spinoff, and Reach perfects the whole formula. People love Halo because it was different, new, and lovingly crafted.

If you still don’t get it, you’re not trying hard enough.

Final Fantasy VII, while rife with imperfections, inconsistencies and, in general, a whole lot of nonsense, brought RPGs to the Western hemisphere, among countless other accomplishments. Can the value of that gaming triumph really be quantified?

Wii Sports gained the attention of thousands – perhaps millions – of people who would have never given gaming a second glance. It may be trite at this point, but your mom and dad, girlfriend, and co-workers playing video games? That’s significant. It’s a huge deal. The Wii (and Wii Sports, which to many is synonymous with the system itself; “I’m so drunk, let’s play Wii!”) has generated more revenue for our thriving little hobby than anything, ever. If you’re wondering why Nintendo’s lineup right now is so incredible, you can start thanking Wii Sports for the very existence of Mario Galaxy 2, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Metroid: Other M, yada yada yada.

Yeah, I got over it after a month, too, but can you really call that legacy overrated?

Ocarina of Time ushered adventure gaming into the 3D era, much as Mario 64 did for 3D itself. Goldeneye was the first console shooter that was even worth anything at all, much less a challenging, engaging, diverse experience. And four player split screen multiplayer? Get out of town!

Petty squabbling and nitpicking aside, there are similar things to be said about any game that’s ever been called overrated. Games don’t warrant that kind of veneration for no reason, and calling classic games overrated comes off pretty ignorant. So next time you feel the urge to drop the O Bomb, try examining a game in the context of what it accomplished, rather than how your jaded gamer’s brain sees it now. We’ll all be better off.

Past Deadline Review: “Halo 3: ODST” is better the second time

There is a very small middle ground when it comes to last fall’s Halo 3: ODST. Although the game was well received by some, many long time Halo fans were disappointed by the apparent lack of content and innovation in ODST. These are people who, like myself, stuck with Halo throughout the years despite ever increasing criticism of series’ seeming inability to evolve in a gaming world filled with sprinting, cover systems and insanely fast paced gameplay.

laser eye surgery in the future is actually a lot more dangerous

I think many of the now disillusioned and bitter fans should go back and try again. ODST, like every Halo game since Combat Evolved, was built up to the point of mania months before its release. Bungie encourages this degree of hype, seeming to bask in it as the tiniest imaginable bits of information to trickle down to starving fans. In this case, they may have standby’d themselves.

With expectations running high, ODST was doomed to disappoint. Fans who weren’t expecting what they got- a detailed, excellently produced, balanced, and interesting expansion to Halo 3- didn’t do enough research and saw too many TV ads. The pacing of the campaign, called plodding by some, I call deliberate; the atmosphere, likewise, is brooding and intriguing. The combination makes for a game very unlike its contemporaries in that players are asked to fill the role of the lost, stranded soldier, outnumbered in a war torn metropolis, and experience the parts that make them wonder what that soldier must be thinking and feeling in addition to what he will be shooting at next.

It requires a certain attitude to fully appreciate what Bungie has done. I would challenge fans who were unpleasantly surprised by ODST‘s campaign to try playing through it again with a different mindset. Notice things like the way the story, especially the subplot heard through the various audio logs scattered around the crumbling city, parallels Dante’s Divine Comedy (hint: the logs are identified in your VISR menu according to which of Dante’s 9 circles of Hell they correspond to- read more here, it is very much worth it). The bottom line is, the best parts of the campaign can’t really be experienced like a normal Halo game.

safari zone is the only place to catch the elusive Tauros

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I’d like to talk about my favorite part of ODST: Firefight! Team up with other players and struggle to survive wave after wave of enemies with limited ammo and health packs, while being subjected all the while to ever shifting sets of variables that force players to think up new strategies after every single round.

Four waves of randomly generated enemies, followed by one wave of heavily armored Brutes and Brute chieftains, make up a round. At the end of each round, ammo and health packs are dropped into the map, and a new variable- in the form of skulls that cause enemies to drop less ammo, throw more grenades, and be more cunning- is added to the mix. After three rounds, a set is completed, and more new skulls are turned on. This may sound confusing, and it is. And on Heroic difficulty, which I recommend for four experienced Halo players to really stretch their legs in, one set can take more than half an hour to complete.

I know this game came out four months ago, but it took me almost that long to actually get on a message board and find three other people to play with. Prior to this I had played with my girlfriend in split screen and with real life friends over Xbox live. However, I have found through experience that yelling at my friends for wasting all the rockets shooting at drones does not go over well. I have no such qualms about yelling at strangers.

Firefight: the best thing since THIS?! you betcha.

The biggest downfall of Firefight is the lack of a matchmaking, lobby browsing, or another in game system of finding strangers to play with. Posting on a message board and waiting for three people to respond is, admittedly, way more effort than should be required to team up with fellow players. And to top it off, it’s borderline maddening trying to connect with players who won’t quit or get disconnected in the middle of the match, sending everyone hurtling back to the main menu, crying all the way. Lagging out after an hour and a half of careful strategizing and cautious progress is enough to burn you out for a week or two.

Find three other compatible connections, however, and the resulting game will be well worth it. Tactics and communication are key to surviving past the first few rounds. Lives run out fast. Heavy weapons must be kept track of, and each player needs to stick to a specific role, from recon to ammo scout, especially on larger maps. Every match with different players will force you to examine your strengths and those of your teammates so you can tweak your strategies accordingly. Everyone on your team will die a lot.. at first. However, once all four players find their roles in the squad and get into the rhythm of the game, frustration turns to satisfaction and the points rack up.

will "Reach" include Firefight? if Bungie knows what's good for them.

Firefight is at its best when you’re playing with a full squad of experienced, intelligent players over Xbox Live. Unfortunately, unless all your friends are Halo geeks, connecting with other players will require too much time and effort to be practical most of the time. Because of this, Firefight will, for most people, remain something that could have been great. If you experience it the right way even once, though, you’ll discover what amounts to the freshest Halo experience since Combat Evolved‘s multiplayer in 2001 forever changed the way I play games with my friends. It is so good that I just wrote about 700 more words than I originally intended to. If Bungie remembers to include Firefight in Halo: Reach with a matchmaking mode, I’m pretty sure I would never have to play another Call of Duty game again, and that would be a relief.