Microsoft: We Lost Our Way With Recent Halo Games

[Nouw]

To be honest, I want more gameplay from other characters.

 

[Dark Knifer]

Why does the arbiter get no love from microsoft...Is there a blank personality quota that he doesn't meet so they can't make an entire game for him?

Seriously, what's wroung with having a different main character. I don't think the Master chief character really made a huge impact with anyone. Reach was great and ODST wasn't bad. I guess creativity hurts Microsoft's brain so they have to do the same things again...

 

[sumanoskae]

Master Chief is barely even a character, at least Reach had the good sense to realize that all people were doing was projecting.

I challenge anybody to logically explain to me why Spartan 117 is at all enjoyable to play as.

 

[sumanoskae]

Why does the arbiter get no love from microsoft...Is there a blank personality quota that he doesn't meet so they can't make an entire game for him?

Seriously, what's wroung with having a different main character. I don't think the Master chief character really made a huge impact with anyone. Reach was great and ODST wasn't bad. I guess creativity hurts Microsoft's brain so they have to do the same things again...

Yeah, I'd tend to agree with you. I don't think Microsoft has any real idea of what people love about Halo(Which I don't think is the story, or at least I hope it isn't) or game protagonists in general, so they're just trying to imitate as much of someone who does understand as possible.

On the story side of things, at least the situation the Arbiter found himself in was interesting.

 

[cthulhumythos]

Microsoft: We Lost Our Way With Recent Halo Games
For long-time Halo fans, he said, Reach made perfect sense since it dealt with the franchise's story and lore - but for someone coming into the series it wouldn't make as much sense.

Geek momment

For long time fans, reach made fuck all sense due to it raped its own lore, cortana been delivered to e pillar of autumn by noble 6? no she was already on it

Nobel was first to announce covenant on reach? no it was captain keyes

Oh and there was no Spartans ON reach, they was all strapped up n pillar of autumn to be sent on a secret mission to capture a prophet to help bargain a peace treaty.. 26 Spartans i think?

Pillar of autumn was in orbit of reach when covenant slipped into the solar system

The only reason Spartans landed on reach was to protect the orbital mac guns (only reason covenant landed was to take them out, yes later on they went on to bigger things, but covenants first objective was to take out the mac guns raping them in orbit

You may say "get a life" lol, they are decent sci fi books
But the fact that MS had the books recently re edited to fix the issues created i Reach says it all.

Oh and master chief was taking out that ship with the information that could lead covenant to earth (cant recall its name) and that's where he met Sgt Johnson that was the same time the other Spartans dropped onto reach (losing 4 KIA and was it 6 badly wounded who could not move, taking away chief and the with him that leaves them with 13 Spartans, who is this team noble? made up at last minute, they don't fucking exist.

Sorry about messy post, at work and been asked questions while thrashing that out.

i just handwave it. accounts during war are ALWAYS shit. it honestly makes more sense that the stories conflict, as when shit gets hectic reliable accounts are practically impossible during war.

 

[SextusMaximus]

That and taking away the flood. I loved the flood, such fun enemies!

 

[BlackWidower]

So, he's saying trying something different was a bad thing? Only one way to express my feelings regarding this:

 

[ClarkeJohn]

I paid $32.67 for a XBOX 360 and my mom got a 17 inch Toshiba laptop for $94.83 being delivered to our house tomorrow by FedEX. I will never again pay expensive retail prices at stores. I even sold a 46 inch HDTV to my boss for $650 and it only cost me $52.78 to get. Here is the website we using to get all this stuff, GetCent.com

 

[remnant_phoenix]

So the Arbiter in Halo 2 was a mistake as well?

Geniuses...

I never was a huge Halo fan, but Bungie leaving the creative reigns of the series to the lesser-talented people who worked beneath them (343 Studios) is beginning to seem way too familiar to what happened to Final Fantasy after Squaresoft merged with Enix and the man who created Final Fantasy (Hironobu Sakaguchi) was shown the door.

In short, it went downhill fast, culminating in the huge turd that was Final Fantasy XIII.

I predict that the same thing will happen to Halo.

 

[Monster_user]

That and taking away the flood. I loved the flood, such fun enemies!

Seriously? Not seriously?

I love the grunts, those are fun enemies. All other enemies are boring, but the grunts are awesome.

Suicidal grenade grunts. Exploding jet pack missle grunts. Grunts that stick grenades to their buddies. Grunts that run in terror when I pull a Dukes of Hazzard and land on top of them. Grunts that panic when I turn a corner. The grunts are 80% of my Halo experience.

I love the first level of Halo Combat Evolved. I hated the Guilty Spark and Flood sections of every Halo game, tedious, monotonous, and boring. Once the flood entered, my goal was simply to finish the game and move onto something more fun.

 

[thick doona]

ODST clearly had the best narrative.

It had characterisation. Growth. It wasn't completely riddled with cliches. It presented the story in an intriguing (if a little drawn out) fashion. Set up great tone, atmosphere and motivation.

Reach, the game where everyone tries to die valiantly (I thought of it without Yahtzee) was all over the place and tried way too hard to be awesome. I care more about the characters, level design and motivations than I do about the cutscenes and "woah bro did you see that?!"

But that's just me

 

[Mxrz]

So. Basically.

"We didn't make enough money cause we didn't exploit Master chief enough. Never fear. From now on it's All Chief, All the time. Right here on Chief TV!"

 

[00slash00]

im not a halo fan but i was under the impression that master chief doesnt ever talk or take off his helmet, so whats the difference if you play as someone else. i think microsoft overestimates how much people actually care about the character. i mean in half-life blue shift and opposing force you didnt play as freeman, but no one was like "wait i dont get to play as a heavily armed scientist? this is bullshit!"

 

[Chibz]

But... Master Chief is a non-character. He's only noteworthy for not existing as a personality in the games.

And Reach is the only Halo game I can stand so far... So... No new halo games for me?

 

[airrazor7]

This just goes to show you how much of a disconnection there is between the game industry and its consumers. Do people in the industry implement market research? How many times have consumers said "Hey we really would like A," but then people in the industry say, "Hey, we believe that the people really want D."

I know there are analyst in the industry but it seems as if they just go off assumptions and then take the assumptions as reality.

EDIT: call me a cynic but I believe most gamers felt like Microsoft will ruin the series without Bungie and to me, this statement and the census of most of the posts here confirms that.
Also, doesn't Microsoft release statements like this every time a franchise or a company that started a franchise with them leaves? Remember the "the Xbox 360 is still the best for the Mass Effect experience," after Mass Effect went multiplatform?

In the words of Jeffery "Joker" Monroe, let me put it to you this way: Shut up

 

[RollForInitiative]

That's funny. Not playing Master Chief was part of what appealed to me in ODST and Reach. I was kind of tired of the silent, nigh-invincible protagonist and much more interested in the stories of people that might actually die.

 

[garjian]

master chief is a dull, green refrigerator,
i disagree completely.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Master Chief is barely even a character, at least Reach had the good sense to realize that all people were doing was projecting.

I challenge anybody to logically explain to me why Spartan 117 is at all enjoyable to play as.

He's not.

That's the thing.

The entire reason why people think that Halo has no story and the protagonist is boring in because they only bother playing the game, not using the game as a means to explore the universe.

ODST and Reach allowed the player to explore the universe without having to do this. Your character experienced events differently and reacted.

This guys attutide it the one that's going to make the series worse.

 

[Ryu890]

W-O-W. I still plan on being as optimistic as I can about Halo 4, but if their idea of what we 'like' is 'emotionless, 1-dimensional characters', it just proves how vastly disconnected they are with the fans. Especially when you consider how much Bungie did.

Personally, I want to know what happens to John, purely because of the legacy he leaves behind. I'd rather play as some new character, heck why not the Arbiter, until we can figure out how to get things 'fixed'.

I enjoyed Halo 3's campaign in 2-player, because I always got to be the Arbiter. Seriously....