Ask a Halo fanboy anything! Removing common misconceptions.
- Thread starter Jabberwock xeno
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Alright. (I see a Star Wars comparison up above but it wasn't the one that I was thinking of.)
For the record, my opinion on Halo and it's story: I bought Halo 1. Halo 2 was a "meh" rental. Halo 3 was godawful. Halo: Reach restored my faith and I bought it. Halo:ODST is in my Gamefly queue due to Halo: Reach. Thumbed through a few short stories but thought they were meh. I like the stories that Halo Waypoint have presented.
So, now that you know where I'm coming from:
Why do Halo fans continually deflect criticism about Halo's story with the excuse "Well, if you read Fall of Reach/[other book], you'd appreciate the story"?
If I said "Well, you'd appreciate Star Wars: Episode 3 if you read Labyrinth of Evil" or "If you read Dark Horse's Clone Wars series, Star Wars: Episode 2 is SO much better", people would (rightly) laugh me out of any topic, pointing out that the movies should be able to stand on their own.
But, when it comes to Halo, "you need to read the books" suddenly becomes a legitimate thing to say. Why?
For the record, my opinion on Halo and it's story: I bought Halo 1. Halo 2 was a "meh" rental. Halo 3 was godawful. Halo: Reach restored my faith and I bought it. Halo:ODST is in my Gamefly queue due to Halo: Reach. Thumbed through a few short stories but thought they were meh. I like the stories that Halo Waypoint have presented.
So, now that you know where I'm coming from:
Why do Halo fans continually deflect criticism about Halo's story with the excuse "Well, if you read Fall of Reach/[other book], you'd appreciate the story"?
If I said "Well, you'd appreciate Star Wars: Episode 3 if you read Labyrinth of Evil" or "If you read Dark Horse's Clone Wars series, Star Wars: Episode 2 is SO much better", people would (rightly) laugh me out of any topic, pointing out that the movies should be able to stand on their own.
But, when it comes to Halo, "you need to read the books" suddenly becomes a legitimate thing to say. Why?
Unfortantly I don't get the refernce.Netrigan said:
Because, well, it's true. (to an extent)thepyrethatburns said:
If you look for the past few pages, we've been disscusiing this, and whether or not it's fair to solely judge Halo by the games, and if Halo's story is good by only the game.
Netrigan in particular had some good points, you can ask him for more details if you want.
Personally, I DO feel that reading the books make the experience all that better.
Actually, I have a great example!
Watch these:
When I first played that level, WAY after I read Fall of Reach, I thought it was fairly unnerving.
However, when I went to replay that level, right after I re-read it, I was creeped out as fuck
Why?
The Gravemind is literally using psychological torture on you AND cortana: All of here lines, in that level, are quotes, or statement related to when John first met the human Cortana was based off of, Dr. Halesly.
Most of the other Cortana moments are the same, but not as poignent.
Keep in mind, I laughed at Amensia (maybe that's why they didn't affect me at first), so for me to by creeped out at this...
I know some people don't like halo because they don't enjoy it, which is fine.TU4AR said:
But I also know that thats not true for everybody.
Decided to start up a thread where this discussion can be held without completely derailing your thread.Jabberwock xeno said:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.281654-On-Halo-Video-Game-Narrative-and-Expanded-Universes-Ask-a-Halo-fanboy-anything-thread-spin-off
Since me, Tupolev, Waffle_Man, and the others keep trying to derail this thread, we can copy-paste whatever comments we want to respond to there instead of here.
I have been wondering this since halo 3, and now reach has made me confused by it.
Why did the assault rifle start with 60 round mags, then in Halo 3 it was decreased to 32 round mags, and in Reach they are 32 round mags when it's supposed to happen before Halo CE, so shouldn't there be at least one 60 round magazine in Halo Reach.
And why did they downgrade it in the first place?
Why did the assault rifle start with 60 round mags, then in Halo 3 it was decreased to 32 round mags, and in Reach they are 32 round mags when it's supposed to happen before Halo CE, so shouldn't there be at least one 60 round magazine in Halo Reach.
And why did they downgrade it in the first place?
Canonically, the model in Halo CE is the MA5B, while the one in Halo 3 is the MA5C. The one is reach, the MA37, is the UNSC amy designation for the MA5C, like how the AR-15 is labeled the M-16 by US forces.Dawns Gate said:
The IRL reason is that Bungie felt that they had a Assault rifle that acted like a submachine gun, and a pistol that acted like a rifle in the original Halo.
In halo 2, they fixed this by removing the AR, replacing with the BR and SMG, and making the pistol less powerful.
Fun fact: The guy at Bungie who designed most of Halo's human weapons was actually a real firearms guy, so when he designed the weapons, he actually made sure they were pratical.
Sure enough, right before Halo CE came out, the FN2000 was showcased by FN Herstal:
Look familiar?
(Even funnier, it looks a lot like the Halo SMG and BR too, when the scope is removed, and when a normal scope is added, respetively)
I have a few ideas:TU4AR said:Probably. But there's not much point trying to convert those people, because, frankly, they're dumb. That's obvious by the fact they're judging something by it's popularity. It seems silly to try so hard to try and explain things to those people.Jabberwock xeno said:
Any idea why I'm so much better at Halo while drunk, though?
- You only think you play better drunk
...Yeah, that's all I got XD
You are a master at SUIKEN, the art of the DRUNKEN FIST!TU4AR said:Probably. But there's not much point trying to convert those people, because, frankly, they're dumb. That's obvious by the fact they're judging something by it's popularity. It seems silly to try so hard to try and explain things to those people.Jabberwock xeno said:
Any idea why I'm so much better at Halo while drunk, though?
Or that.OhJohnNo said:You are a master at SUIKEN, the art of the DRUNKEN FIST!TU4AR said:Probably. But there's not much point trying to convert those people, because, frankly, they're dumb. That's obvious by the fact they're judging something by it's popularity. It seems silly to try so hard to try and explain things to those people.Jabberwock xeno said:
Any idea why I'm so much better at Halo while drunk, though?
Are you sure you just didn't think you got a higher score?TU4AR said:My higher score and fewer deaths would disagreeJabberwock xeno said:
HIII-YAAAAAAAAAAAA-*falls over and vomits everywhere*OhJohnNo said:You are a master at SUIKEN, the art of the DRUNKEN FIST!
I've been updating the OP, by the way, it has all of the answered questions, in case anyone hasn't noticed.
A question about the plot.
Okay, so the Halo is set up to kill sentient life to starve the Flood, the only way to stop them and perhaps I'm misunderstanding (or misremembering) the plot, but how is killing all life in the universe any sort of plan for battling the Flood?
Is there some hint that the Forerunners are extra-dimensional, so they basically look upon our universe as a sacrifice to save themselves?
Okay, so the Halo is set up to kill sentient life to starve the Flood, the only way to stop them and perhaps I'm misunderstanding (or misremembering) the plot, but how is killing all life in the universe any sort of plan for battling the Flood?
Is there some hint that the Forerunners are extra-dimensional, so they basically look upon our universe as a sacrifice to save themselves?
Interesting question.Netrigan said:
Due to cryptum's recent release, and the sequel coming out soon anything I say likely will change, but as of now:
[HEADING=1] EXTREME SPOILER WARNING! [/HEADING]
After the human - forerunner war, the a group of forerunners who felt that the flood (which had been the indirect cause of said war) required extreme measures to be dealt with, pushed for the creation of a last ditch weapon.
They succeeded, and 12 Halo's were built.
Eventually, the "leader" of the builders (top forerunner caste) ordered that Mendicant Bias test 1 halo on a persucusor planet, where it (oddly) devasted the entire planet's surface, destroying all presucusor ruins present there (which were before IMPOSSIBLE to even scratch by the Foreunner's other most powerful weapondry).
After this, Mecdient Bias and the Halo went missing for 40 something years, during which he was corrupted by the gravemind.
By this time, only the some forerunner "adults" (their life cycle is more like that of insects, with metamorphosis) knew about the flood (outside of the main builder council), who thought of it simply as a virus.
Eventually, during a trial against the previously mentioned master builder, mecident bias came back with the Halo, shit hit the fan, and a really big forerunner fleet came along, and a bunch of halo's got damaged, and only 7 were in working condition.
That's all from Cryptum.
Then the main forerunner - flood conflict we already knew about occurred sometime afterwards.
However, already for a long time, specimens of species were being collected and placed in the Ark (that huge flower petal thing from Halo 3), which was outside of the Halo's range.
Once the flood overwhelmed the forerunners, they had two choices:
- Continue to try to repel them, with a very, very small chance of succeeding. If they failed, the flood would absorb all the forerunners, and obtain all of their knowledge and incorpate it into th gravemind, (who is already a near omnipotent being with telekinetic control over metamorphic space zombies) or....
- Fire the Halo's, which would destroy all the forerunners, preventing the flood from obtaining them, kill all life that the flood could absorb, and possibly kill the flood (It's still not clear if the flood die directly, indirectly, or a mix of the two. It probably only killed the absorbed life, which would leave the flood all as infection forms). With no availble food left for the flood, and most life safe on the ark, the only species totally dead would be the forerunners.
That's what I remember, Halopedian could probably give you more details: http://www.halopedian.com/Halos
[HEADING=1]END MASSIVE SPOILERS[/HEADING]
So, basically the Halo Complex are the Middle Finger approach to war making. We can't win this war, so fuck you, we're going to blow everything up so you can't win either.
And then we'll leave behind robots with explicit orders to do the same if you ever show up again.
And then we'll leave behind robots with explicit orders to do the same if you ever show up again.
More like a group of scientists who accidentally make a super virus, and in order to save the planet, the have to blow up the lab, killing them, the virus, and nearby wildlife, but saving everything else.Netrigan said:So, basically the Halo Complex are the Middle Finger approach to war making. We can't win this war, so fuck you, we're going to blow everything up so you can't win either.
And then we'll leave behind robots with explicit orders to do the same if you ever show up again.
They dystroyed the milky way, in order to ensure the rest of the universe wouldn't be killed.
Honestly, I think that the Halo games are meant to build a vast universe, and each game and book ONLY focuses on the relevant parts because if you concentrate all that stuff into a three games, it all becomes very rushed. If you're a big halo fan and follow the universe, it's this big, much more organic thing. The Halo universe was made to be built upon.Lenny Magic said:
I thought they had pretty much taken out the whole universe. I was never terribly clear on all that. It's sort of like those movie with the Ancient Curse, which no one could possibly know works or not unless someone had done it before... and then everyone would be dead. The sort of circular logic where you just jump on and pretend it makes sense, because someone just told you it did.Jabberwock xeno said:More like a group of scientists who accidentally make a super virus, and in order to save the planet, the have to blow up the lab, killing them, the virus, and nearby wildlife, but saving everything else.Netrigan said:So, basically the Halo Complex are the Middle Finger approach to war making. We can't win this war, so fuck you, we're going to blow everything up so you can't win either.
And then we'll leave behind robots with explicit orders to do the same if you ever show up again.
They dystroyed the milky way, in order to ensure the rest of the universe wouldn't be killed.