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The State of Halo
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In this final episode of Halo Month, join Adam and Satsunami as they dive into the state of the Halo franchise. From it's time in Bungie's care to the current tenure of 343 Industries, how does the franchise hold up 21 years later?
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Transcript
Introduction & Guest Welcome
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami. I'm Satsunami and joining me to finish the fight is my very good friend, my Spartan in Arms. The person who is probably cursing me for dragging him kicking and screaming into Halo Month is my very good friend,
Halo Month Reflections
00:00:37
Speaker
Adam. Adam, are you ready to finish the fight?
00:00:39
Speaker
Hello, hello. I am indeed. It's been a long month. It's been a trying month at some points, but we're here at the culmination and I'm very excited. I cannot wait for this episode. We have been actually, we have been talking a lot about like this episode ever since the beginning really of Halo Month. We have been through quite the spectrum of emotions. Would that be right in saying what
00:01:02
Speaker
that's topic oh definitely i mean there's been there's been ups there's been downs there's been uh bits in the middle where we go we've had it we've had everything really so like a halo game pretty much yeah pretty much
00:01:15
Speaker
So yeah, we have talked about probably just a wide range of topics on the Halo franchise. We have talked about Halo Infinite, which of course came out in, well, 2021. I keep forgetting it is 2022.
Halo Infinite & Trivia Insights
00:01:29
Speaker
If I'm honest, we have talked about Halo trivia and all the wonderful facts, which I'm sure you loved that episode, Adam. I did, I did. I learnt so much. I came away a very different man to the one who entered the Who started the episode. Tell me, Adam, was it blinding?
00:01:45
Speaker
The knowledge. I don't know about me saying it, so like... Yes, if you want to find our new podcast, it is at ProphetOfTruthPodcast.com. Nah, I'm only kidding. Please don't look at it. And of course, for our last episode on Halo, we touched on the anime series Halo Legends, which, not gonna lie, was a bit of a weird one. We had to rope our friend GreenShield95, who is a anime aficionado, and yeah.
00:02:13
Speaker
That's the reason he's not on this episode because, yeah, I think he went away and decided to cry in a corner or a very dark room after that episode. But you loved it, didn't you, Adam? Yeah, I did. As I say, I stand by it. I thought it was the best anime that I've had to watch so far. I know, better than Studio Ghibli, better than, you know, Tully animation. Well, no, Tully animation was in that scratch, that scratch. The Joker's room. I've done it in death, though, anyway.
00:02:40
Speaker
Oh, controversial. True, but controversial. Go watch Death Note and then I'll let you tell me, tell me that I'm wrong. Well, yeah, I don't think you're wrong. I must admit, I can't argue with
Comparing Halo and Call of Duty
00:02:51
Speaker
those facts. Today we are going to be doing a very similar thing to something we did a couple of weeks ago. Well, I say a couple of weeks ago, probably months ago. That of course being we tackled the Call of Duty franchise in a very similar way with an episode entitled The State of
00:03:09
Speaker
Call of Duty, so if you haven't checked out that podcast episode, please feel free, you know, you can pause this one, go check it out and then come back, you know, we'll still be waiting. Come on, go, go, go. And yeah, today we are going to be talking indeed about the state of Halo. Now, before we dive into this, our long-term listeners, you will know pretty much our attachment to the series. Is that right in saying, Adam, that we are both fans of Halo?
00:03:35
Speaker
Definitely. I mean, maybe to varying degrees we may be in different places with our fandom of the series now, but I definitely think we can both be classed as quote unquote fans. Oh no, absolutely. Because you started with the OG Combat Evolved, which is quite possibly one of the better games of the series.
Personal Halo Journeys
00:03:55
Speaker
It's definitely classed as one of the better games. I would certainly argue it still is the best of the series, although there's a heavy, heavy dose of nostalgia.
00:04:05
Speaker
least dripping over over my comment there so you can take that for what it is but to me it'll always be the best because while you started with Halo combat evolved I started with of course Halo 3 which diving into the series as a new player Halo 3 is just a fluster clock
00:04:22
Speaker
of who's the covenant? Why are the monkeys trying to batter my brains in with a war hammer? You know, why are these jackals sniping me? It is a loaded game filled with loaded questions but at the same time it was a game I had a
Halo Combat Evolution: Progress or Regress?
00:04:35
Speaker
lot of fun with. I watched like a lot of videos on Halo. I really got attached to the franchise through Halo 3, through my kind of nostalgic memories with playing with friends. Of course this was my very
00:04:46
Speaker
first game that I ever played with people online. So Halo 3 definitely holds a special place to me but would it be right in saying Adam that Halo has to coin a phrase from the first one that combat has evolved?
Bungie's Legacy & Transition to 343
00:05:01
Speaker
It's an interesting question because some people would argue
00:05:05
Speaker
that the combat has to an extent de-evolved from what it was. In the way that when the series first started, it implemented lots of new ideas and concepts that became staples of the FPS genre and actually changed, were actually quite radical changes to the established genre. But over time, and especially when a new studio
00:05:28
Speaker
came to Helm Halo. A lot of those things kind of fell away and I'm sure we'll get into that in more details. It's an interesting question because with the latest entry you could maybe argue it's kind of come back again. You know the combat has the combat evolved and it de-evolved and now it's re-evolved again. I'm sure we'll dive far more into this.
00:05:46
Speaker
It's a franchise that definitely is near and dear to a lot of people's hearts, but I feel as if at the same time it's not the franchise that people fell in love with. There is a very specific reason for that, mainly because the stewardship of the Halo franchise passed over from Bungie Studios, who were, you know, the creators of the game, and onto 343 Industries.
343 Industries' Era Begins
00:06:11
Speaker
There's opinions that there's
00:06:13
Speaker
definitely opinions on how they've taken the franchise, whether they are, you know, their involvement is a positive influence or the like that kid behind, you know, the, honestly, it sounds as if I'm comparing it to like, you know, those 80s like coming of age films, you know, like the Breakfast Club is like 343 Industries are like that creepy kid behind the bike shades who's like, come on, take a smoke, it's gonna be fine. Have you heard about the died act? Come on.
00:06:41
Speaker
I thought you were gonna say there was like the weird kid who by the end of the by the end of the film has gets a makeover from the pretty girl and is like wow you were hot this whole time I never knew
00:06:52
Speaker
You know what, that's probably the better analogy here. So much potential, which we will come into, but yeah, there's so much potential that 343 Industries has, and there have been mixed opinions, I will say. I keep reiterating mixed opinions, but I just want to reiterate, before we go in, you know, head first into this episode, before we ODST drop in, apologies Adam, I should have given you a warning before I brought up the ODST. Oh, I'm getting a migraine!
00:07:20
Speaker
Before we jump in, I don't want to give the impression that this is just going to be a bungee circle jerk. The bungee can do nothing wrong in their tenure as the golden child of FPS games and things, but we're going to try and tackle this very fairly. I say that, but I get the feeling I'm probably going to be a little bit biased.
00:07:41
Speaker
What can I say, sue me? Actually, no. For legal reasons, just not sue me, please. The bold statement. Sue me, I don't even care. I don't even care anymore. What you gonna do, spot of... I don't even go there.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah. Will we jump into this? Will we jump in and give our... I was about to say two cents but I forget we're not American. So our two pence. Our two halo rings on this opinion. I don't know enough about the lore to know what forerunners actually use. So will we jump into it? Let's do it. I've got my armour lock on so let's do it. And of course, as always, we will be right back after these transmissions.
00:08:24
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami, a variety podcast that talks about topics, from gaming and films to streaming in general interest. Previously on Chatsunami, we discussed Game of the Decade, Deadly Premonition, the romantic thriller, Birdemic, and listen to us get all sappy as we discuss our top 5 Christmas films. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can find us an anchor, Spotify, YouTube, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:08:55
Speaker
We are Beer and Chill Podcast. Podcast where we review TV shows, games, movies, and whatever else takes our fancy. So what are you waiting for? If you're a cool kid like us, you're gonna listen to the Beer and Chill Podcast. You can get it anywhere from Spotify all the way to your grandma's radio. My name is Jan. And I'm Cricky C. And we are Beer and Chill.
00:09:31
Speaker
And we are back.
Halo's FPS Revolution
00:09:33
Speaker
So Adam, let's take a stroll down memory lane. The year is 2001 and Halo Combat Evolved has just come out. Now is it safe to say that Halo Combat Evolved was quite frankly one of the most revolutionary FPS's at the time?
00:09:49
Speaker
I think without question. I think this game quite simply is a masterpiece. I think it's a landmark title in the FPS genre and I don't think you can tell the story of gaming without at least referencing Halo Combat Evolved. It's so important I think for three particular reasons. Number one and most obviously
00:10:08
Speaker
this is the game that kickstarted this whole Halo franchise. Since then we've had numerous games, books, anime, there's going to be a TV show, you know, it's spun off so, I think it's a billion dollar franchise now I think. Also as well, this is the game that made the Xbox successful.
00:10:24
Speaker
you know there's there's a again this is maybe counterfactual and we'll we'll probably never know for certain but without something like halo is a good chance the xbox could have been a one and done console microsoft might have just cut their losses and said oh well we tried didn't work out and just left the console space you know so we'd have a very different you have a very different gaming sphere than we have now and thirdly as i said
00:10:44
Speaker
you were correct, revolutionized first-person shooter games, especially on the console. This really was the game that showed that an FPS could work and could work well on a console, and that's no disrespect to things like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, and those games were great for their time, but I would really stress for their time, I do not think they've aged well. Their control schemes certainly have not. They were working with a handy, you know, working with a severe handicap in the N64 controller's layout, but
00:11:13
Speaker
Halo was able to use the twin stick controller for the original Xbox and Bungie refined it and tightened the controls up, added new innovations such as regenerating health, a two weapon limit, levels that focused on verticality, all that played into this, you'd argue, more restrictive control scheme than a mouse and PC. And this was the game that really made FPSes popular on consoles.
00:11:34
Speaker
It's a genre that remains, you know, I think maybe the highest-grossing genre on consoles to this day, and Halo has a large part to play in that, so I think revolutionary is the exact word to use to describe this game. It's quite interesting that you bring up other, like, titans of FPS games. If you think of other games like, you know, Call of Duty, you know, Goldeneye especially, let's focus on that one, because Goldeneye is one of those ones that whenever you talk about FPS games, it is so difficult
00:12:02
Speaker
to get around the conversation without mentioning GoldenEye and how rare we are at the time. I know they're rare, thank you Microsoft. It's amazing to see how that was so revolutionary and again harkening on your point for the time because I remember years ago I
00:12:19
Speaker
dug out my old Nintendo 64 and I played GoldenEye with my friend. He didn't grow up with a 964, so with me bringing him into that experience for the first time, he did not enjoy GoldenEye at all. And it was like the controls were bad, you know, the graphics obviously weren't the greatest. And obviously for the time it was revolutionary, but nowadays it's kind of like, well,
00:12:41
Speaker
it's definitely dated. A bit like Doom. Like Doom still holds up but not compared to some of the games that you kind of get nowadays but I feel as if with Halo and especially now that they've remastered it, the controls have always felt very similar compared to the new
Bungie's Storytelling Approach
00:12:58
Speaker
games. You know it's like you can go back to Halo and you can still get like a relatively similar experience, would that be right in saying?
00:13:05
Speaker
Oh, definitely. I think it shows how good those initial controls were, because as you say rightly, they've not really changed all that much in the intervening games, no matter the fact that we're over 20 years now removed from when Halo Combat Evolved first released.
00:13:22
Speaker
And as well, if you look to see how many subsequent FPS games from different series copied from Halo, regenerating health, BK has become the standard now for basically all first-person shooters. It's rare to see some like bar health now in those games. Two weapon limit as well is now the standard. It was just such a tight control scheme and they did a lot. Bungie did a lot to compensate for the fact that you were working with a controller, so you didn't have the kind of pinpoint accuracy that you could get with a mouse and keyboard.
00:13:49
Speaker
So there was a bit more of a generous auto-aim and as I said the game was designed around this quote unquote limitation. But they did it so well and they showed how viable it was that yeah it did set a standard that the subsequent games didn't need to improve upon that core gameplay from Halo Con Battle because it was so good. I totally agree, I think it still is. Whether you think
00:14:09
Speaker
Halo Combat Evolved is playable now. I know we have a mutual friend who tried playing it and didn't have a particularly good experience with it, but I don't think that's anything to do with how it plays. Whereas something like GoldenEye, I think a lot of that is, as you say, how the game plays. I think Halo is just as playable now because of that core, the kind of solid gameplay at its foundation. And I mean, going back to like
00:14:29
Speaker
play the games with like yourself with our mutual friend who I'm not going to name any shame on the episode. But if you're listening, hello there. Yeah, we played through Halo Combat Evolved together, well you and I in particular, we played through Halo Combat Evolved, our mutual friend and I played through Halo 2 and of course I myself, in fact all three of us actually played through Halo 3, didn't we? That was actually one of the first cool streams that I ever did on my Twitch channel.
00:14:56
Speaker
was it was our first proper whole play through of the game? And if you actually want to see like what that was like, yeah you can see it on our YouTube channel at Satsanami42. It is chaos. Beautiful, beautiful chaos but chaos nonetheless. But that's the thing though, if you watch back that video you can see how much fun we were all having, you know, we were joking around with each other and I know technically, you know, that was the Master Chief collection we were playing it on but it's really the same game.
00:15:25
Speaker
maybe with a few tweaks, but it's the same, hasn't it? It's pretty much the same. It's pretty much the same foundations. It certainly did tweak it. I think, certainly visually, obviously, it's been upgraded because it's based off the anniversary edition that was released for Xbox 360, I think in 2011, 10 years afterwards. But from what I understand, it is basically the same game. Now, I'm sure there'll be some tweaks in it there. I don't know how much that's changed it, but yeah, basically the same.
00:15:50
Speaker
And it's amazing to think that Bungie, they were the forerunners, essentially, of their own franchise where they looked after it for nine years. Would you believe that? So they started in 2001 and then their final game was Halo Reach, which is quite a kind of poignant swan song considering what happens in that game.
Personal Halo Experiences
00:16:11
Speaker
And that was in 2010, that game out. Goodness me, there you go. 12 years now, buddy?
00:16:17
Speaker
It is, isn't it? It's just that it's so weird to think because I remember getting Halo Reach for Christmas because I wasn't sure about the Halo franchise. If I'm honest, this had me putting my cards on the table here. After playing Halo 3, I didn't love it. I played the campaign and I thought that was okay because at that point I'd been playing a lot of Call of Duty games.
00:16:37
Speaker
So I was comparing it to that. I was like, why can't I run? All these kind of nitpicks, which in hindsight isn't really that important, but I wasn't a major fan of Halo 3. I thought it was good, but I just didn't think it was that great. And it wasn't until Halo Reach that I did start to appreciate the game, and I definitely put a lot more hours, I think, into Halo Reach, as opposed to 3. Or maybe they were balanced, but out of curiosity, what is your kind of general impression of this era of Halo?
00:17:06
Speaker
It's funny because the bungee ear I think is clearly the peak of Halo. This is when it was at its height of pop culture, of popularity. You only got to look back at the launches for Halo 2 and Halo 3 to see how hyped they were. And I think Halo 2, its initial sales rivalled
00:17:24
Speaker
film releases of that time I think 2004 it was a huge event Jimmy Kimmel made that it is infamous joke if people know Jimmy Kimmel's one of these late night posts in America had his infamous comment about lots of people leaving their parents basements to go and buy this game buy Halo 2 yeah so it was a huge event and you know it was lines around the corner to get it and stuff in a way that the releases of modern Halo games haven't really had I mean of course things have changed now is it because we buy games mostly digitally now rather than
00:17:51
Speaker
a box copy but as well like the hype hasn't been to the same levels that it was. For me personally I didn't really know a lot about Halo Combat Evolved so when I got my Xbox I'd heard of it because it was obviously the title that was you know it was a launch title and it was the title that most people got when they got an Xbox. So when I bought my Xbox I originally bought it with a part of a racing game bundle so it was supposed to come with like four racing games and one of these steering wheels but I can't remember how but somehow managed to talk the people in
00:18:19
Speaker
What was then I think Electronic Boutique now game into switching out one of the racing titles but Halo in and from and you know That's what I fell in love with this game It's still one of my favorite games of all time and I absolutely adore it as I think it's a masterpiece I think it's so important but my it's funny because I'm such a fan of that game But I don't know how much of a fan of the series I am I was very excited for Halo 2 and I remember getting it on launch and everything and I thought it was fine But it didn't grab me
00:18:46
Speaker
in the way that Halo 1 did. And there is a lot of disappointment about Halo 2, especially with the marketing material that was released at the time, which Bungie had to scrap its initial demo and plans for it. They were trying to build a new game engine, but they couldn't get it to work, so they had to go back to the drawing board quite late into the development cycle, so a lot of promises were broken with it. But I was far more interested in games like the original Star Wars Battlefront that came out at the same time as Halo, and I can't
00:19:11
Speaker
kind of fell away, and I got Halo 3 as well, but I just found Halo 3 a bit disappointing as well. I don't know, it just kind of, I was like, oh, it just feels like a bit of a lackluster ending to this trilogy, and I kind of fell away from it. I didn't get Reach on launch, and it wasn't really until Halo 4 that I kind of came back into the series, but even then, not with any particular passion. So I don't know, it's funny, because it's definitely, the nine years of Bungie's stewardship is definitely the height of the game's popularity, but I don't know, for me, I was just, it was that first game, and then I just kind of fell away from it.
00:19:39
Speaker
For me as well, I definitely agree with you. I think that Halo 3 was very disappointing personally. Well, not disappointing, sorry, no. Let me rewind you before I get shanked. I think that Halo 3 was just quite confusing, and I know that sounds like ridiculous. You know, it's like watching Return of the King, let's say, and being like, who's Frodo? Who's this, you know?
00:20:01
Speaker
I remember going in, and I love campaigns and FPS games. They can be terrible, they can be great, as long as they've got a gripping hook. And the reason I got into it, there's actually a lot of reasons, but I think the main ones was because Halo was so popular at the time, but I never grew up with an Xbox. I had a GameCube. My brothers, they had the PlayStation.
00:20:22
Speaker
and I never had an original Xbox. So my first Xbox was the 360 and I didn't get that until much, much later. I think probably long after Halo 3 had actually come out. It's kind of like the opposite for you because I remember you Adam, you got like a PlayStation, is that right? You got a PlayStation after the Xbox.
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, I have a PlayStation 2 and a PlayStation 3 but I got those like years after their initial launches. Because I got the PlayStation 3 before because my brother had the PlayStation 2 so it only felt natural to get the PlayStation 3 but that meant of course I couldn't play Halo but it was kind of like...
00:20:59
Speaker
OK, whatever. But then all my friends started playing the Xbox, so Santa was very good to me a couple of years later and gave me a Xbox E60, so lucky me, I got the chance to play it. And I think one of my very first games that I got for it was Mortal Warfare 2. Oh man, what a game. Like Mortal Warfare 2 is a fantastic FPS game, but I ended up getting the Halo 3. I think it was like a pre-owned copy I got, and I got it.
00:21:23
Speaker
I played it and I thought, this is okay, you know. And I think it's because I wasn't attached to the series, I didn't grow up with it. It's a bit like Zelda for me. Zelda, objectively, great series and everything, but I've got no emotional attachment. And at the time, I had no emotional attachment to Halo 3. So I was kind of like, hmm, do I really like this game? Is it just, you know, it's not for me kind of thing? You know, a lot of existential.
00:21:50
Speaker
the questions for a game that's about shooting the aliens and firing off genocidal wedding rings. But the point remains, it was kind of underwhelming. Then I played ODST and I didn't mind it. It wasn't like, let me reiterate here for the record, Your Honor, I didn't think it was the best ALO experience. Looking back on it now, it definitely isn't. But
00:22:13
Speaker
it was interesting to see Hero try to flesh out his world and I think it wasn't the best example of it but it was that kind of gateway into seeing what Hero was capable of and by the time I got Hero Reach like I was blown away by Hero Reach the fact that you could create your own spark
00:22:31
Speaker
the fact that you could be the hero, or well I say hero, the inevitable martyr as it were. This is kind of something that I have noticed about Bungie as a whole, because as I said I went back years later to play Halo 1 and 2, they have a terrible problem with storytelling.
Critique of Bungie's Narrative Style
00:22:48
Speaker
and I think it's like a hangover from their first game because I'm quite curious to hear what you think about Bungie's storytelling but I feel as if their priority rightfully so but their priority is make a fun game first and then kind of attach the story around that so it almost feels as if it's something you've brought up before I think in the past where you say do you like games as I correct you like games where you know if it's an FPS game you like to be a soldier character that's part of like a bigger conflict
00:23:18
Speaker
and that's almost what it feels like with the original games. It's like the Master Chief isn't the sole savior of humanity but it was not at this point. It technically does save humanity but it's not as apparent as what's to come later and don't worry we will get on to that but like what are your thoughts on that?
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah, like, I do like to be a part of... I think it depends on a lot of what the game is. Certainly for something like a Call of Duty or like a Battlefield, I like to be, you know, a cog in the machine. I like to be part of something, like, I could see something bigger happening around me but, you know, I'm playing an important...
00:23:52
Speaker
part in it. Then again with other games, your old Medal of Honor used to be you were the lone soldier taking down the German war machine and I was all down for that. I think that depends on the tone the game's going for. I think Halo kind of got a good blend of that because there was a point where the Master Chief was the sole savior and the lone hero who could stand up pre-manity, but also a point where you were fighting alongside Marines and your other allies in these big battles. So I think that original Halo end
00:24:20
Speaker
you know, two as well and three. Bungie once struck a good chord between those two elements. In regards to Bungie's storytelling, yeah, I think they were at their best when they made a rather simple story. The first Halo has a relatively straightforward one. There certainly are some points where it maybe does get a bit too complicated and there certainly are some, like, plot holes and, you know, if you look at it you kind of think, hmm,
00:24:43
Speaker
You know, that doesn't quite make sense, but I think overall it's a relatively simple story. I liked what they did in Halo 2 and fleshing out the Covenant a bit more. It was nice to kind of see a bit more of this faction and, you know, its makeup and how the different races work together and some of its politics and what they're actually trying to do as well a bit more into that, you know, their kind of religious, their religious belief in starting a great journey. It did, I think it does get a bit more complicated. It does get a bit overly complicated in Halo 2, unfortunately, with some things. And I think with
00:25:10
Speaker
I don't know, Halo 3, it just wasn't that the story was complicated or anything, I just kind of felt it was a bit ugh. It's that way of, I get that it's difficult to finish, you know, it's that way, it's difficult to finish a trilogy, and this Halo is not the only example by any means in media of a kind of lackluster ending, you know, we all remember the final season of Game of Thrones, Mass Effect 3 is notorious for its
00:25:31
Speaker
it's ending so it can be difficult to finish a trilogy so I don't know I just I just didn't have that much impact so again I would agree with you story I don't think is maybe Bungie's strongest point there certainly there are good elements I think reach again I think with thing with reaches for me it's more the theme it's more it's thematic elements rather than the actual story I think the actual story itself is kind of oh um but the kind of theme that is working over that about desperate
00:25:54
Speaker
last stand against hopeless odds is what really makes that game great. And ODST tried something interesting by having this squad and fleshing it out and everything. I just don't think they quite pulled it off in terms of story. So I think Bungie are OK with story. But again, I don't know if it's not their main focus or it's just not their strength. But yeah, I agree. They're not the best when you think of great video game storytelling studios. I don't think Bungie are there at the top.
00:26:21
Speaker
as much as we can criticise a series like Call of Duty for example for their very linear storytelling, at least there's kind of like a point A, point B. And there is for Halo, don't get me wrong, but it almost feels as if they started leaning into this kind of characterisation of Master Chief
00:26:40
Speaker
being like, as I said, like the savior of mankind and everything. They didn't do it like to ridiculous lengths, like they still kept that human element of him helping the Marines and things like that. For Halo Reach though, I've always thought that Halo Reach has a very rushed story. I love Halo Reach, I think it's one of my favourite games, but I do think the story is quite rushed. It's like you go to explore the planet and then all of a sudden, oh,
00:27:06
Speaker
covenant, let's go to war!" You know, you're like, oh okay, and you have to, you know, like, gather your forces and things, and it is quite fast pace, but I do think they try to make it more of an experience. I think that's kind of the point that separates it from something like 343, and before we go on to 343,
00:27:26
Speaker
it is almost like bungee. So I'm going to bring it back to ODST as an example, and apologies Adam, but I've got to say something nice about here ODST. Are you okay with me saying that? I'm fine with you saying that if you'll let me have my little piece at the end.
00:27:45
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. The one thing I want to compare compared to like Halo, well technically Halo 2 does this but I think it's only the anniversary edition could be wrong in this. For 343 they have like this weird heavy emphasis on lore, the backstory of everything and don't get me wrong there's a time and a place for it, absolutely. But with Halo I think ODST did something really interesting
00:28:10
Speaker
where they've got actually two stories going on. So the first story of course, you're at ODST called Rookie who gets knocked out, he has to explore the city, and we have discussed this in past episodes. It doesn't work that well, you know, stealth in the Halo game.
00:28:27
Speaker
isn't that great but something that I have to admit does work is if you go around the city you can find these terminals which tells the story about the civilian trying to you know escape new Mombasa and she is you know like she's got her own things going on the fact is you don't have to like find these terminals you don't you can play the game and enjoy it for war that
00:28:50
Speaker
is. Whereas for the newer games it almost feels as if it's like necessary reading. Again we'll kind of expand upon that later but I felt it was like a nice touch if you know what I mean. It was quite nice to see them add that like new bit of lore. Sorry, I'll let you say your piece now. I've ranted on about that.
00:29:12
Speaker
I honestly can't disagree with anything you said, and I think that is one of the strengths. LoDST is having that kind of underlying narrative, and it gives you a reason to maybe go back to the game and explore as well, so I do think that is a really good strength of the game. Honestly, I just wanted this little bit of time, because old-school fans of Chatsunami
00:29:31
Speaker
and also of your streaming may know my storied history with ODST and that this is the migraine game. This is the game that gave me a splitting headache. The one that I've dismissed previously as a blatant cash grab DLC that was charged full price and one that I've just quickly written off as the worst of the series. I've had a little bit of a change of heart on this game.
00:29:53
Speaker
It's still not my favorite, but I kind of admire what it's trying to do. I think it had some really interesting ideas and some really interesting kind of gameplay concepts. I just don't think they were implemented very well. And I think that's partly because this did start off life as DLC that was then
00:30:09
Speaker
kind of grew in scope and scale and got turned into a full game so it didn't have the most time in development and I think if it had more time I think it could have actually been a really really good game but you know looking at it I like the idea of getting away from the Spartan perspective and having this kind of not not the ODSTR average grunts but more like your kind of average soldier perspective and maybe putting some fear back into the Covenant and even this idea of kind of exploring this abandoned city it's a really kind of cool environment in many ways
00:30:35
Speaker
with this almost noir-ish soundtrack. It's something very different and it's quite cool and the flashback structure is interesting, I think. I just don't think it was implemented properly, which is a real shame. So again, it's still not my favorite game by any stretch, but I have had a little bit of a change of heart. So I will no longer look at ODST with disdain. I'll look at it with a little bit of sadness that it didn't quite reach its full potential.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yes, if you want to leave a hallelujah comment on Twitter and Instagram. Praise be the Bungie. I have been saved.
00:31:10
Speaker
I totally get what you mean. You can even look back on the marketing of something like Halo 3, which I think is a perfect example of what ODST wanted to achieve.
Halo's Cultural Impact & Machinima
00:31:20
Speaker
So for Halo 3, there was a lot of marketing where it was like, believe and you know that advert, don't you? Where it was all the diorama of Master Chief in the middle of the field, and it's all the soldiers trying to run away, and it's like the Kingdom Minis.
00:31:37
Speaker
Oh, I think I remember it. And then it's like he looks up at the end and it just says like, believe. And honestly, like I think the marketing for Halo 3 is probably one of the best in gaming. And I don't mean that in like a kind of hyperbolic way. I genuinely think that is some of the best marketing. Because one of the other things they did, and this is like why a lot of people wanted a live action film,
00:32:00
Speaker
was because they had a lot of live-action adverts, so it was like Marines who were looking back in the Covenant War. They were showing you the Brute shots, they were showing you the Needle Air and everything, and they were talking about how the Master Chief saved them. They had videos of the ODSTs and full gear trying to fight off the Covenant. It was so cool. One thing I want to point out before we move on is the role of Miss Shinama
00:32:28
Speaker
Now did you watch a lot of Machinima when you were younger? I didn't, no. So to kind of briefly explain what Machinima is, it's basically like, is it right in saying like movies and TV shows but like made through video games? Yeah, I think that was their staple, wasn't it? Yeah.
00:32:44
Speaker
Because I don't know if the company themselves, because there is a YouTube channel called Machinima, they used to produce all of these shows. And actually one of the shows that I absolutely loved growing up was one called Arby and the Chief. And I have brought this up to you loads of times, Adam's apologies. But like Arby and the Chief was one of those shows where it was a guy who literally had a master chief model, an arbiter model, and it was just like their kind of hijinks in this guy's apartment.
00:33:10
Speaker
with the Master Chief being like the stereotypical dude-bro who was like Halo's the best game of all time and Arbiter being like the straight man to the group and everything. It was, I mean, the humour is kind of touch and go at times, especially by today's standards but I mean it was entertaining and it really like interested me in this kind of, you know, community of Halo.
00:33:30
Speaker
And it's the same with things like Red vs Blue, there's like a whole host of other machinimas, and that's the amazing thing. Like, as far as I remember, machinimas like for Halo kept going on up until about Halo Reach, and I think Red vs Blue still goes on to this day, and I think a few others must have gone on.
00:33:48
Speaker
I think its height was probably around this time and I think that's what helped kind of solidify Bungie's position as you know they I don't want to be like like say the rightful rulers but do you think that's kind of what solidified their place is like the more favorable
Transition to 343 & Halo 4 Changes
00:34:03
Speaker
studio?
00:34:03
Speaker
I definitely think so. I think the community, the Halo community was definitely at its height, especially by the time of Halo 3. I definitely think things like Machinima had a big part to play in that. I think as well, Halo 3 was the first time Forge mode came in, I think everyone was saying, so there was lots of people, a lot of chance to create their own maps. And I think the community was just at such a height there. There were so many opportunities for people to get involved with everything that, yeah, but definitely things like Machinima definitely played a big part.
00:34:29
Speaker
part in that, in putting Halo into the popular culture, you know, and as you say, it remained there for a long time and still does to a lesser extent now, but certainly at that time it was, well, Halo was one of the biggest video game series of that time without a doubt in those years. On that kind of bittersweet note, while we move on to the rather infamous. The awkward face.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much the get out my room mum, it's not a phase. So this began in about 2012. So as we said before, Halo kind of ended in 2010 with Bungie Studios deciding to relinquish their... I don't know if they relinquished it or they just... because I think they wanted to develop Destiny. Is that right and saying?
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah, so the story is Bungie basically wanted to get out from under Microsoft. I think they'd had their fill of being part of Microsoft and had their fill of making Halo games by 2007. So Microsoft made a deal with them that said Bungie would get their full autonomy if they developed two more. So this is after Halo 3. If they get their full autonomy, if they develop two more Halo games,
00:35:33
Speaker
and then also signed over the rights to the Halo franchise to Microsoft. So Bungie were quite happy to do that. So obviously ODST came out, then Reach, and then that was it. And then Microsoft got the rights to the Halo franchise and Bungie went off to join Activision, I think. I don't know if they're still part of Activision, because ironically they'll have come back to Microsoft now, thanks to them. If that's the case, I don't know, maybe they are an independent studio now, but went to partner with Activision to make Destiny, as you say.
00:35:56
Speaker
And of course, between 2010 and 2012, we really didn't get much in the way of content. I mean, we had Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition. That is still pretty impressive, but at the same time, there wasn't really anything new, if that makes sense. And I don't want to downplay all the work that went in for the Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition. I don't want to be like, oh yeah, we'll soon know. But you know what I mean? There wasn't really anything new other than, of course, Halo Legends.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, check out our last episode for that. But in November of 2012, Halo 4 came out, everyone was on the edge of their seats, myself included, to see what would come next in this trilogy. And those are the noises of a man in fear.
00:36:44
Speaker
of what was to come because I played through Halo 4, I remember playing through it. The only thing I will say, I'm going to start off with a positive, I think that 343 did the gameplay of the Halo series better and that might be a bold statement but I genuinely think compared to like Reach and you know the originals but
00:37:05
Speaker
you can kind of give them leeway a little bit. It was like a developing franchise, and as you said, they wanted rid of the franchise. They probably just wanted rid of it, and they're like, yeah, if it ain't broke, don't fiddle about with it. In terms of storytelling, do you want to explain what the kind of issue is with storytelling in the 3-4-3-10 year? L4's an interesting one to me. I think the general problem with 3-4-3 storytelling
00:37:31
Speaker
is that they started to include much more of the expanded lore of the Halo universe which in a way Bungie had never really engaged with and kind of kept it at arm's distance which you might argue was probably the right decision to make because things became quite cluttered in the 343 games. I think one thing that kind of worked a little bit against 343 is if you think about the end of Halo 3
00:37:54
Speaker
By the end of Halo 3, the Covenant have been defeated, the Flood have also been defeated and eradicated. So there wasn't really, if they were going to make more games, there wasn't, you kind of needed to find a new enemy. So the Covenant are gone, the Flood are gone, who's the only kind of existing people who are left?
00:38:12
Speaker
it was the Forerunners. They wanted to obviously try and stay in the existing kind of canon, so they kind of got pushed down that lane. And unfortunately, by getting pushed down that lane, you have to engage with a lot of the expanded lore for better and for worse. With Halo 4, it's not a perfect game.
00:38:28
Speaker
by any stretch and it's got a lot of flaws. I still quite like it though, I have to be honest. I agree with you, I like the gameplay. I think the guns, the shooting's solid, I think the movement's good. The enemy AI has re- this is kind of what I was talking about with it de-evolving to an extent. The Bungie Halos were known for having very kind of
00:38:47
Speaker
say advanced but very good enemy AI especially for the time in that you had distinct enemies who all reacted differently so for instance like elites would would try and would dodge your shots and duck and weave while your grunts who are the more kind of lower enemies the kind of cannon fodder if you were to take out an elite they would scatter and flee in terror so everything kind of worked together and it added to the experience of Halo. The problem was by Halo 4 because there was a lot of focus being put into visuals
00:39:13
Speaker
As with most games, people wanted really high quality visuals and fidelity and everything. That meant there was less processing power available to run more complex AIs. So the AI did get dumbed down. Counters don't feel as good as they did in the Rich in Bungie trilogy. As well, a new faction was introduced here called the Prometheans.
00:39:32
Speaker
who aren't great to be honest the enemies don't look that good the weapons aren't that good but still can kind of can kill you really rapidly and make combat a bit unfair and yeah three four three i think a lot of problems with kind of coding those enemies and trying to get them to work um which kind of
00:39:48
Speaker
explains their kind of unsatisfactory state but sorry I'm going off on a tangent here but going back to the kind of story of Halo 4 it's a game of two halves not in like a first half and a second half but there's two competing storylines one I think is actually excellent and the other one I think is is very dull and so I don't know if you do you want to explain the two storylines or do you want me to go a bit more into it or
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, I'm assuming you mean between Cortana and The Diaduct, those two stories. I completely agree with you there. I think that the Cortana Master Chief storyline is fantastically done. Basically to give a quick, quick, quick, quick
00:40:27
Speaker
lore dump here. The idea is that if you have an artificial intelligence or AI in the Halo universe, they've got a shelf life of, I want to say seven years? Is that right? Yeah, I think it's seven years. I'm no lore aficionado. It was proven in that previous episode.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah after seven years they start to kind of degrade and corrupt and obviously because Master Chief has had Cortana with them for so long she's starting to show these signs of like deviancy and trying to break away from her coding. It is really fascinating. One thing I will say that I love about 343 is
00:41:01
Speaker
their portrayal of Master Chief. I think he's a lot more human in these storylines. And don't get me wrong, I think because at the time that was kind of the character he had to have in the Bungie run. He had the kind of semi-mute protagonists where he would only speak if he needed to, you know, he was like, we've got to finish the fight, giving their covenant the bomb back, you know, and all of that. Great impression. You know,
00:41:24
Speaker
you had all of these bare bones aspects to the character but with 343 they tried to humanise the Spartans to show that they too are quite, you know, they're suffering as well through all this like mental anguish, not obviously just getting punched in the face by a brute. It's like there's a lot more complexity behind that and that is what I love. I love that storyline and I love the characterisation of Chief
00:41:48
Speaker
What I don't love is pretty much the setup for the new storyline, that of course being humanity against the forerunners. And this all kicks off when Master Chief touches a rather, how to put this very family friendly, a suspicious ball in space to which
00:42:06
Speaker
the ball bursts and a man who clearly looks better with the mask on honestly put him in his art room and put a paper bag over he said a forerunner called the Didact who wants to blow up humanity because he's like the big bad evil i totally agree with you i feel as if it's just such a
00:42:25
Speaker
dull, just boring storyline. And what I hate most about it is just the fact that they turn Master Chief into this, to borrow a phrase from you Adam, they turn him from like a cock in like the UNSC machine into the chosen one. I don't get it. What is your take on it? Yeah, as you say, very much
00:42:46
Speaker
leaned more into that savior sort of a narrative. The Bungie games had had that to an extent but it wasn't the overriding, you know, narrative as you say it became in 343. I don't know if this was partially a natural kind of offshoot of the fact that they wanted to give chief more personality as you say and they wanted to show a bit more humanity, which I was actually, I'm actually okay with and I think they did it relatively well. Like I think that, I think some of the dialogue between
00:43:11
Speaker
Chief and Cortana in this game is absolutely superb, like some of the best kind of, I don't know if storytelling's the right word, but the best kind of narrative I think in any of the Halo games is their sort of relationship in this game, and there's some amazing
00:43:22
Speaker
scenes between the two of them. But yeah, I don't know if an actual offshoot of that will make him more of a saviour. As you say, transcending his status as much as he was an important cog in the machine, he was still a cog rather than being
343's Storytelling Challenges
00:43:35
Speaker
the whole. I shouldn't have used a machine analogy because I don't know enough about engineering to begin to say, but yeah, this elevation and status. So yeah, I'm kind of in a mixed opinion of it too. And I just think as well,
00:43:47
Speaker
It's just the diadact is such a boring villain. It really, that whole storyline just falls flat because you just don't care. And I think, am I right in saying there's more, you can get to know more about the diadact through kind of terminal. As with ODST these are optional terminals and they kind of tell you a bit more about the diadact, am I right in saying?
00:44:03
Speaker
Absolutely. This is the main sticking point for me personally as well. But it's the fact that no DST at least they were optional, and they told a completely different story that served to... I mean, maybe it wasn't the best story. It's been a while since I've heard it, but you know, it was a story that fleshed out the world. Whereas 343 seemed to have gone down the Disney Star Wars route, where it's like they have to include every single bit of lore. Oh well, we included this in the previous game, so we have to include it in
00:44:32
Speaker
this game, especially for things like the Didact, it is just tedious. It's like getting extra homework, which, let's face it, the kind of target demographic is teenagers, isn't it? You don't want to give them homework to brush up and understand a character's motives. Is that not what teens aren't into homework now, are they? Well, they weren't into it in 2012.
00:44:56
Speaker
According to the mainstream news, they're into avocado toast and thumbing off authority or something. I don't know. Back in my day we played Halo 3 and we liked it. I do feel sorry for 343. I was looking at some
00:45:13
Speaker
stories behind the development of this game and it does seem like they just got trapped in this this way they didn't feel they could break out of the kind of cage of what Halo was under Bungie and everything and the best illustration of this is is in one of the new enemy types in the Promethean Knights who are the enemy who are kind of akin to the elites in a way and they're kind of enemies that are they're kind of the bigger enemies of the Prometheans and they have swords and guns kind of like the elites
00:45:38
Speaker
And so this enemy design went through a ton of different kind of edits and reedits, and they kept, 343 designers kept running up against problems that, yeah, they really struggled to reconcile the gameplay with the design and then with the existing lore. They'd kind of go down one avenue and be like, oh, this will be the design, but then it would run up against one of these problems. You know, it feels like they were almost kind of handicapped.
00:46:00
Speaker
in many ways when designing this and I think a lot of the failings of Halo 4 and, you know, 343's later entries can be placed in that way that I don't think they, they don't, they don't even have the courage, the want, or like the authority to kind of shelve a lot of the, a lot of the Halo lore, which I think would be a benefit to these games if they just ignored it, you know, it kind of went in a different direction. So I do, I do feel that it's handicapped them. I do feel bad in that way. It kind of has brought the quality down of their products.
00:46:27
Speaker
The one thing I will say about 343, you're about to hear me go on a run later on about 343, but overall I do admire them for trying something different. Don't get me wrong, I don't think they did it well at all, but I don't want to be the guy to sit here and just criticise someone else's work and be like, oh, it's terrible, ha ha, do better. Because there must have been someone here who genuinely believed
00:46:54
Speaker
in this. I don't believe for a fact, I'll get on to heroin for now, but like for the most part I don't believe that it was like a hundred percent, like a corporate, oh let's just churn out like you know something out our backside. I do think they've tried to incorporate the lore into the storytelling but again it's exactly what you said, there's just so much of it. See reading like the extended lore, the Didact is actually portrayed as like this kind of Shakespearean villain who you know or
00:47:24
Speaker
tragic Shakespearean villain who is, you know, he's just trying to save his race from the flood and he's like yeah let's turn our people into robots. Not my first choice personally but okay. And you know he's trying to like go on this kind of noble cause but it doesn't come across in the game and that is the main issue here. It's not even about trying to say oh this is a bad villain. You know at the end of the day it's like they didn't
00:47:50
Speaker
less amount enough. I remember I was watching a video talking about 343 as a whole and their villains and one of the interesting things that they brought up was the fact that all of their main villains disappear. Have you noticed this? They turn up at the beginning, have a very strong, powerful impact, and then they bug it off until the very end of the game when there's the big showdown.
00:48:12
Speaker
It's a really good point. I genuinely didn't notice until I watched this video and I'm like, holy shit, they're right. Halo 4 did act, 4 strokes you, throws you through a wall, buggers off until the end where you have to have a quick time event. Still one of the worst decisions I do not
00:48:29
Speaker
get why they did that. Then Halo 5, Cortana, she like turns up halfway through, buggers off and then comes up at the end with the Guardians. Halo Infinite, Atriox, he pops up, he like bodies Chief and then he's dead and Eshiram ends up like taunting you throughout the game as if he's like Doctor Claw. He's like, I'll get you next time, Master Chief. He's like, come on,
00:48:53
Speaker
Are you serious 3-4-3? It feels as if it is like that Saturday morning cartoon territory with their villains rather than this kind of grand-scale military drama.
00:49:04
Speaker
For a start, can I just say that impression just gave me chills. I was frozen. I thought they'd been hijacked from it. I was getting threats. I do think they struggle. I think they actually do quite a good job for the most part in kind of humanizing and personifying the chief. That was done well by 343 and I do like what they did with Cortana in Halo 4. And I'll stress in Halo 4. I really like what they did with their character.
00:49:29
Speaker
but it does feel a lot of the other characters don't get that. And it baffles me as well why they built this kind of elaborate story for the Didact and then didn't bother to tell you any of it that might have helped flesh him out. And it's not even about making him more intimidating. It's just making him more understandable and relatable and just a more interesting character. That was a weird choice.
00:49:49
Speaker
and I'm gonna give you like a quick, quick lower dump here once again, so apologies. But according to the lore, and this is something that really, really irked me, where, and again, there'll be like Halo aficionados who can like either fact check out there or just say, no Satsanami, you're talking rubbish. But there is like a lore that humanity was progressing and they kind of became like this spacefaring race and they fought the four runners.
00:50:16
Speaker
and then all of a sudden the forerunners kick them down and reset their genome or something and then humanity had to re-evolve again and just talk about the mantle of responsibility and all of this prophecy things.
343 vs Bungie: Narrative Debate
00:50:30
Speaker
So you're telling me they have the power for genetic mutation and everything but these are the same ones who got absolutely bet the you-know-what out by the flood.
00:50:41
Speaker
This is one of the issues I have with the villains as well. It's kind of like anime logic. For any anime fans out there, it's like having to have a bigger and badder enemy. And yes, I know they're not words, but bear with me. It's the fact that they have to have a bigger and badder enemy to fall back on. Oh, we fought the Covenant, who are these genocidal zealots, which obviously other than the alien part, they are a believable enemy.
00:51:08
Speaker
the Covenant are these religious zealots. And obviously all we have to do is look back in our own history to see that this is kind of an archetype that could very well exist in this universe. Whereas for the Didact, he's just there. He's just this
00:51:24
Speaker
Oh, woe is me. I'm going to compose whatever the hell that means. I'm going to compose all the humans." And it's like, okay, well, why? Why are you being such a dick-dyed act? Why, please? Then of course we get to Halo 5 with Cortana, and Cortana's like, I'm going to cause a genocide. And you're like, okay, why?
00:51:40
Speaker
I like Cortana. It's like, oh, because humanity would be better if AIs ruled the world. And it's like, okay. And then, of course, you get the banish, which I have to admit, I laughed at this when I was explaining the banish to use these disposable soldiers of the Covenant who rebelled and everything. And you were like, I had no idea.
00:51:59
Speaker
context dammit 343 gave me some context i kid you not i never played and i think you're the same as well like we've never played halo wars 2 and we've got very limited experience with halo wars 1 is that right insane yep never played two played one for an hour or two i think
00:52:17
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, those are kind of interesting spin-off games. They're not the best, but you know, it's cool what they did. But in Halo Wars 2, I actually had to watch the damn videos and the cutscenes to understand who the hell the Banished are. The Banisher never explained in Halo Infinite at all. They appear for two minutes, they blow up the UNSC Infinity. I will get to Adam, don't you worry. They're just there and, oh, they're the big bad guys now. And it's like, but there's no
00:52:45
Speaker
context and I'll go back to like a point I brought up in our very first episode together. There is actually a graph or it used to be on the 343 website for Halo 5 where it's like if you want to understand this character read the book, if you want to understand that character play ODST and it's like you should not need
00:53:04
Speaker
to rely on external media. It's the same with Star Wars or even like Star Trek or you know any like major sci-fi franchise you shouldn't have to rely on the supplemental material to get the full story of a game and that is something I think that Bungie did well even if you didn't understand the overall nuances of the story at least you could kind of play them and go aliens bad stop aliens got it whereas it's like in this one it's like okay who's Cortana who's blue team who's this or that
00:53:33
Speaker
And I will get onto the UNSC Infinity, but before I go into that, what are your thoughts on it?
00:54:03
Speaker
It's difficult with the 343 trilogy because I think overall I do like Halo 4. I like the relationship between Chief and Cortana. I like the gameplay overall. I think it plays well despite the kind of limitations in the enemy AI and the Prometheans not being a very good faction. I do overall like it. Halo 5, yeah it is what it is. I'm sure we'll get into the cover a bit more and then
00:54:25
Speaker
I do like Infinite, as I said before, I actually really had a lot of fun with Infinite. But again, it's not because of Infinite's story. So I like its general theme, kind of a bit like Reach. I like its general theme by story, Infinite's story is a bit oof.
00:54:37
Speaker
it's it's a bit meh and a bit kind of muddy and like what's going on here so again i i felt like but the gameplay really elevated it for me so it's a funny the 343 trilogy is a funny one it's uh i don't know if i have a definite answer on it but i can kind of say with the bungee one i like it i like the bungee trilogy you know plus reaching odst i generally like it i i don't know what quite what to make of the of the 343 one to be honest
00:54:59
Speaker
Because it is a bit like, this is a blush from the past, you'll remember this episode, but we did an episode like months and months ago about gameplay versus narrative and first of all, great episode, go check it out after this one.
00:55:14
Speaker
the fact remains that we asked the very important question of can you have a game that is solely good with its gameplay? Can a game only survive with good gameplay but not a good story? And I think for the most part, probably there are examples. One of the ones you wanted to bring up and remember was Tetris.
00:55:33
Speaker
Oh yeah, I think Tetris is the ultimate example of pure gameplay over story. Unless you're going to tell me there's a rich, deep Tetris lore that I'm not understanding that is actually about the fall of the Soviet Union or something. But no, I think Tetris is the example of gameplay carrying a whole experience. Oh boy, do I have a wiki page for you.
00:55:50
Speaker
Nah, I'm all again. Yeah, like games like that, you know, it's understandable. But with a game like Halo, where the lore is already being established, as it were, I think that's the problem. Nowadays, people do want that balance, they want like a relatively okay storyline, because I think that's where a lot of Call of Duty games kind of limp along, where, although they don't have like a
00:56:12
Speaker
brilliant story. They have a serviceable story, whereas I think with 343, it's something that I want to touch on as well, is their art direction. I know you have very strong opinions on this as well Adam, but I feel as if much like the storytelling, the art design is very cluttered, especially that I think the quintessential example is the development of the Master Chief.
00:56:33
Speaker
Now if you look at his armour from the old games versus what he looks like in 4 and 5, he just looks disgusting in 4 and 5. One of my friends who is like an absolute Halo fanatic, he actually said that it looks like he's wearing a toilet seat over him in Halo 4.
00:56:50
Speaker
Like genuinely, I cannot unsee that after looking at it. I'm like, oh my god, you're right. It's just so cluttered, so bitty, there's so much going on. And what I do appreciate is it seems as if they learned their lesson in Halo Infinite where they kind of scaled it back. But
00:57:08
Speaker
I do think that, although we've talked about it in length in our Halo Infinite review, although I do like the way they kind of scale back their art direction into a more simplified story, simplified design, they kind of threw everything else that they built up under the bus so the whole trilogy doesn't piece together.
00:57:26
Speaker
you know, and whether that's because of course development issues with the pandemic in 2020, or whether it's just like time crunches with like Halo 5 and everything, what we talk about Halo 5 in Infinite? I feel, I feel wish, I mean yeah, I feel wish, but just before you say it, I think you've actually made a really good point there. It does feel like the 343 trilogy feels very disconnected, as in the way the Bungie trilogy feels like a natural progression.
00:57:51
Speaker
it does feel like almost with Infinite they kind of wanted to jet, they were like right okay even we know that 5 wasn't great let's just get rid of as much as we can. It feels, it does feel weird because it is like for Halo Infinite they definitely tried to like wash their hands of Halo 5 because let's face it I would say personally Halo 5 is the worst out of the trilogy. Like it doesn't play as bad like see gameplay wise again 343 does a great job that way but design wise, story wise,
00:58:21
Speaker
just everything falls flat for me. It's the most, I think it's one of the most unmemorable games I've ever played. When I was looking back at this topic I was like I'm going to have to watch stuff on Halo 5 because I honestly cannot remember anything about the story. I can't remember anything about the characters.
00:58:37
Speaker
Even the gameplay, I don't even remember having fun with the gameplay. Looking back, I'd completely forgotten that they'd implemented some kind of weak squad mechanics into the game. But in such a poor implementation, when these like half-baked, you know, light kind of things, it's like, oh yeah, you can hold a target, a particular enemy and stuff. It's so basic, Cookie Currie. If that was the direction they wanted... First of all, I think Squad Commands is a terrible idea in a Halo game.
00:59:04
Speaker
It kind of goes against what the game is like. You know, this isn't Brothers in Arms or Star Wars or Public Commando. Games actually suit having that kind of squad control. Halo's not about that, so... But if you're gonna go down that route, then at least don't make it so bare-bones and, you know, unimpactful on the game. You don't need to use it at all. But I said I'd completely forgotten that was in. The whole thing is just, I've played it. I know I've played it. I have the achievements to say that I've played it. It says that I've put time into it on my Xbox.
00:59:31
Speaker
I just have no memory of it. Do you know what the worst thing for me was? He going into Halo Infinite. I genuinely, I had to watch a video, like, because I wasn't going to play through Halo 5 again, no bugger that. But I actually went back onto YouTube videos to see what I'd missed from Halo 5, and I kept thinking, why is it such a big deal that the UNSC Infinity was destroyed in say, to Halo? I'm like, surely they could just send more UNSC ships? I genuinely forgot that Cortana had wiped out the
01:00:00
Speaker
entire UNSC." And I was like, oh, that is like a major point. And you're like, oh, how did I forget that? And it goes back to what you were saying. It's just so forgettable. I don't even know if it's a bad game, per se. It's that funny thing. I don't think I could point at it and say it's bad. It's just because I don't remember anything about it. And maybe that's worse.
01:00:22
Speaker
That might be a worse thing. It's so bland that it's just filtered through my brain and my brain has been like, okay, there's no need to hold on to it and there's no need to retain any of this information. So, you know what? Maybe it is a terrible game. To leave so little an impact is probably a damning sign of the state of your game. Well, it reminds me of Gears of War 4 and 5.
01:00:41
Speaker
they're very similar games in terms of like they came out, you know, they were a thing. I don't remember much about them other than the fact that they actually exist in the franchise and it kind of tried to reset everything where it was like, oh no, there's like a covenant remnant. Oh no, the covenant remnant.
01:00:59
Speaker
don't exist anymore. And then for Infinite, they had the Banished who hopefully appeared in a spin-off game, which I think was a bad move. I get them trying to create their own identity and 343 as a company, they want to distance themselves and be like, okay, we're not going to have the Covenant by having a sponsor group of the Covenant and you're like, this is just going to go wrong. And I honestly have not met a Halo fan that likes the idea of Cortana being the villain. Have you ever met a Halo fan that likes that?
01:01:29
Speaker
twist? Not that I can think of, certainly. It's an interesting idea, again, but I just don't think it's been implemented very well, and that's kind of the sin of it. You know, it gives you back to the ODST thing, you know, I like the general idea, but if you're not going to do it well, then what's the point? It feels like that kind of shock value, it's like, oh, let's have a twist to be shocking. Oh, no, now they're a bad person. And it's like,
01:01:52
Speaker
I feel like it goes more into the lore and we have to learn more about why. Oh, Katana is a special AI. Can you just get more into lore and stuff? It's just not a fun thing to explore.
01:02:07
Speaker
in my opinion so I kind of I kind of as much as it's weird infinite does just seem
Spartan Ops & Storytelling Issues
01:02:12
Speaker
to shelve a lot of the stuff I'm kind of glad in the way cuz I'm like you know what I can actually focus on having fun in this kind of sandbox game as opposed to having to be like who's this again who's this team
01:02:22
Speaker
of people who've just randomly shown up. I think that's, you know, I think that's the big problem with Halo 5 is that you'll be able to have more opinion on this than me because you played some of Spartan Ops. Oh yeah. What happened was apparently, well, I think one reason for disconnecting these games is a lot of the people who led on the Halo 4 project left before Halo 5. So basically the people who designed Spartan Ops and kind of made the story of Spartan Ops got drafted in to helm the story and helm the project.
01:02:47
Speaker
and I think they brought a big focus on co-op into it and this is why we have now like we now have rather than having just clones of Master Chief you know or you know the Arbiter and Elites and things like that we now have quote-unquote fully fleshed out characters who aren't fully fleshed out at all but anyway you know separate characters with names and different voice actors and apparently different specializations that don't actually matter in gameplay and stuff and it's a real detriment to the game because I don't know again it just kind of just removed a lot of that classic Caleb DNA
01:03:16
Speaker
just made the game very generic, which again just contributes to this whole feeling of it just being bland and forgettable. Oh god yeah, I keep forgetting that there are like different characters. One of the things like going back to kind of the villains of the piece let's just say, I remember like if you play Spartan Ops or even just save yourself time going to YouTube and watch the cutscenes, there's like a whole story with the Spartan fours which again this is
01:03:40
Speaker
I hate the Spartan force. Okay, I'm going to touch on it. Adam, I'm sorry, but I've got to touch on it. Go for it, go for it. You can only keep the bile in for so long. Basically, to quickly explain, Spartans are super soldiers in here. Spartan twos were soldiers that were, is it right in saying kidnapped as kids? You know, there was that whole AG side to the franchise.
01:04:02
Speaker
Yeah, they kidnapped kids, they cloned them, and then the clones died off, so it kind of covered the tracks of them. Anyway, not important. The point is, Spartan twos and threes had like these kind of tragic backstories, and there was like a weight to the sacrifice. And this is the thing, if you're gonna have like a super soldier,
01:04:21
Speaker
you know there's always going to be kind of this sacrifice and everything and it just gave so much weight that when you saw a spartan pop up you're like oh my god you know you've got the spartans now that are appearing and trying to defend humanity as best they can oh hello
01:04:36
Speaker
4, and 5, and infinite, they introduced a thing called Spartan 4s, which are basically just, I don't know, just genetically enhanced, and it can probably be anyone, can't it? It's just like, yeah, Uncle Jim, come over here, you're a Spartan now. You were in a subpar game before, get over here, you're a Spartan 4 now.
01:04:55
Speaker
I forgot Buck was a Spartan. Oh, what are you doing to us? Yeah, it's like everybody and their mothers are Spartan. And I have to admit, that is one of the things I did laugh at quite a lot when I was playing through Halo Infinite. Because you see a lot of Spartans that are dead, and the Banish, they turn around and they'll say, haha, we killed all the Spartans. And you're like, well, no, you killed the Spartan force. That's like killing Captain America from wish.com. It's not
01:05:21
Speaker
exactly killing the Master Chief or Blue Team or any of the other Spartans that came before that actually did their job in the Covenant War. It just seems as if they were there for a wish fulfillment, if that makes sense. It was like, oh, we gotta fill the gaps with Spartans. So here we go. As we were saying, they had this whole subplot with the Spartanops where they were hunting down the leader of the Covenant Remnants.
01:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, by the beginning of Halo 5, they did just kill off the main villain, like the head of the Covenant Remnant, and that's it. Really no more Covenant, other than like, stragglers, and you're like, okay. Okay, fair enough. You know, that's it. Like, they built up, I think this is a core issue, they can't stick to one concept. Like, I feel as if first they had to die to act, which, you know, do you want to know a fun fact about the die to act, Adam?
01:06:14
Speaker
always one of my fun facts about the Didact, you know me. He did not die. He did not die in Halo 4. He died in a comic. Yep, he died in a comic. He did not die in the game. And that is the issue. It's like, okay, we're bored of the Didact. Where do we go from here? Oh, we've got Cortana. And then they go onto Halo 1 and it's like, okay, we're bored of Cortana. Here's the Banished. And it jumps so much.
Halo 5's Narrative Impact
01:06:36
Speaker
It is terrible. And of course, we've got the Infinity as well, which is another, like,
01:06:40
Speaker
shower of rubbish, but before I go on to that, is there anything else you want to add? I don't think there's anything I'd really add to Halo 5. As much as there's things to not like in Halo 4, I still think overall it's a good game and I just don't know.
01:06:55
Speaker
well I do know a little bit what happened to Halo 5 but it's just it's just a shame that you know this once proud franchise was kind of reduced and it's not even that it's a it's not even that it's a bad game as I say it's just it's such unmemorable it's just so passable and bland that you're like this franchise that was once you know the first game that defined you know the fbn genre and revolutionized it's just now this bland copy and paste by the numbers affair and it's just that's actually more sad to be honest than if it's just then I'd rather they'd almost try to be completely different and failed you're like well at least they were trying to innovate
01:07:25
Speaker
but here it's just like, it's just so bland. It's just a real shame. In a way, I do appreciate the fact that they went back to the bare basics with Halo Infinite, but even then, I think maybe they'd devolved a bit too much with the story. Again, you can listen to our folk opinions on the game, but to briefly summarise, it seems as if they're going for that bigger fish angle where it's like,
01:07:49
Speaker
We've got the forerunners, but before the forerunners there was the Prometheans, or sorry, Precursors. See, I'm getting my themes mixed up, Adam. You know, it's like you've got the forerunners, the Prometheans, and they're all the same, aren't they? They're just all like... I'm sure there are some differences that somebody would be happy to tell you.
01:08:07
Speaker
that person is not me though, so let's just say they're all the same. But then you get people who are like, oh but you've also got the, well you've got the flood too, or like the biggest bad of the entire Halo franchise, and then it's like, oh no there's like an alien species like greater than the flood. Is this always scaling on top of one another?
01:08:27
Speaker
you know it's like oh we have to make it worse and worse and worse and worse and it's like at least with the covenant there was like various levels like you had to deal with the elites mainly then you had to deal with the brutes then you had a kind of combination it was like a nice mix compared to what came after where you've got the forerunners and all their you know problems you've got the you've got spartan lock and his issues and
01:08:52
Speaker
Because this is the thing as well, I keep bringing this up saying I hate the UNSC infinity and things like that. And you might be wondering why do I hate a spaceship? So to kind of briefly explain, after the Covenant war is established that humanity gets the hands and forerunner technology, do you remember how they get a hold of it? Did they order it off of Space Amazon? Yeah, it sounds
01:09:13
Speaker
I'm sure Jeff Bay's also the fourth hook them up with whatever they need. Sounds about right, really. And yeah, they end up slapping that onto their ships. No care in the world, they're just like, bonk, here we go. Every single time I hear about the UNSC Infinity, they always say things like, oh, she's the greatest ship in the entire fleet and everything. She's gonna take the fight to anybody and
01:09:37
Speaker
other than one scene in Spartan Ops where it rams through a covenant ship, it gets bodied every single time it's on screen. Halo 4, it crashes on Requiem. Halo 5, it runs from Cortana. Halo 6, it gets destroyed in under four minutes, and they really emphasise under four minutes. I explain this to you off the recording, but it's basically like the story of David vs Goliath,
01:10:03
Speaker
And if you think of the UNSC like Goliath, it's been built up as this mighty ship, this mighty being. And we never see that. We don't really see that in the story of David and Goliath, much like the UNSC and in the hero. We don't actually see the infinity doing much.
01:10:19
Speaker
every time it's on screen and much like Goliath the only time you see him like you know make an appearance in the story is when they get shot in between the eyes by like a six-year-old or something with a slingshot and that's what the UNSC infinity is like it's like it is just there to take a beating and I don't know if someone just has a thing against spaceships or what
01:10:38
Speaker
it is. But it just seems as if it's like a kind of thing with 3-4-3s storytelling where it's like, do you know what that reminds me of? You know those Saturday morning cartoons where you always get like a carnival episode and you get a dodgy guy who's got a curtain and he's got like, you know, the seven wonders of the world behind said curtain? And he's like, no, no, trust me, I've got amazing things behind this curtain and it's like, can we see these things? And
01:11:03
Speaker
Now he's like, no, no, no, but just trust me. It seems like whether it's the villains, whether it's the heroes, I feel as if that's a core issue. It's like they're telling you to trust them. It just doesn't pay off.
01:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think it is. I think the Infinity is an unfortunate casualty of that, as you say, that desire to establish a bigger threat. And it does undercut its status as apparently an elite ship. It is just an unfortunate casualty of the plot in many ways. Again, I really enjoyed Infinite. Again, not for the story, to be fair.
Halo Infinite: Gameplay vs Narrative
01:11:35
Speaker
Although I think the story starts well.
01:11:36
Speaker
I think it starts well and I like the theme, I like the general theme of, you know, there's been this battle and humanity is lost and humanity is defeated, the Banisher triumph, but the Chief's back and the Chief is the one who's going to, you know, is going to take the fight to the Banished and, you know, and lift humanity back up again. I like that general theme, you know, as much as it leans straight into that idea of the Chief as the Savior. I like it, I'm okay with that because it brings back memories to me slightly of Halo 1 and not to the real extent, but it does bring back that and I think
01:12:05
Speaker
the world as well as very reminiscent of the original Halo Ring. So it was hitting all those nostalgia, hitting all those nostalgia glands for me. But I really loved the gameplay. I thought it was so fun, fluid, frenetic. It was challenging, but it felt fair and I had a real blast doing it. Fortunately, the story winds itself. It doesn't really go anywhere for a while and then stuff happens and you're just like, what? That seems like a big thing that has never been explained before. Or else you're like,
01:12:30
Speaker
what this supposed to be a big thing but I don't get why and then it just kind of ends and you're like oh okay it's just a shame it it doesn't the story can't sustain itself but at least there's really strong gameplay infinite I felt like so I could always return to the kind of sandbox world just have fun you know just charging around and find listening to listening to the grunts and all the hysterical stuff they were saying you know liberating camps and and liberating human prisoners everything it was just it was so much fun to play it but I think infinite really could stand on that it was a really strong leg for it to stand on for as much as the narrative
01:13:17
Speaker
Halo 5 in the middle there. Pure Halo 5, in fact no not Pure Halo 5, it should be ostracized. Rightfully so. One thing I do want to touch on just briefly before we finish up is the multiplayer aspect.
01:13:19
Speaker
buckled as the game went on.
Evolution of Halo Multiplayer
01:13:33
Speaker
So very briefly, as you see compared to like Bungie's run and 343's run, how do you think they've differed
01:13:41
Speaker
I'm gonna be honest, I never really played any of the multiplayer in the Bungie run. I really can't talk about it at all. I played co-op. I played a lot of co-op in Halo 1. I had a friend in school who also had an Xbox and we played a lot of co-op there and I have played some kind of local multiplayer of Halo but I never really touched the online aspects of Halo 2 or Halo 3 or even stuff like Reach so I honestly cannot say what they were like. I know people have a lot of fondness for
01:14:08
Speaker
And as well, I never really touched the multiplayer for Halo 4 or 5. Infinite really has been the first Halo that I've really got into the multiplayer. I've liked it. I think progression is a little bit is quite... I think progression is very grindy and I don't so much like that aspect of it.
01:14:24
Speaker
I don't know. I think I'm just I much prefer games like Call of Duty and Battlefields for their multiplayer. And I don't know if I'm just a bit late to the Halo party. It's just it doesn't grab me quite as much as those other ones do. But perhaps if I'd played it when I was younger, it might have. So again, I don't really I can't really say differences are. I'm afraid you're probably a better authority than me on that.
01:14:42
Speaker
As I said at the beginning, Halo 3 was the first game I played online with my friends. While it wasn't my favourite online game, I think it was more the nostalgia aspect and the fact that I could go away and play with friends and things like that. And I absolutely loved it for that. And I loved being part of this kind of community, which don't get me wrong, sounds like a cult and hindsight. I feel like, join us Adam, join us in the Halo 3 LAN party.
01:15:10
Speaker
At the same time, I loved Reach as well. I played a lot of Reach. While I do think the gameplay is better in the 343 games, I definitely have a fondness of the Bungie games, especially for Halo Reach. I played that game so much. I loved their
01:15:27
Speaker
their progression system, the fact that you could earn tokens and things to unlock helmets, and then replay the campaign as your ideal Spartan. I honestly loved aspects like that, I thought it was fantastically done. Although I
01:15:42
Speaker
have fun playing Halo Infinite, I think it's one of the most bitter disappointments ever. And the only reason they say that, like gameplay wise, completely fun, but the progression system is like disgustingly awful. Normally I'm very, well you'll know this, I'm very kind of reserved when I'm criticising things, but this is the only thing I'm taking the kid gloves off for. I genuinely think it's one of the worst things of all time.
01:16:06
Speaker
The fact that although it's free to play, they've got this very... I don't want to say predatory, but this progression system where they're like, oh, to get forward, you can buy these cat ears and you can become... Don't get me wrong, this isn't like a pay-to-win game. It's not as egregious as that, but it's the fact that Halo went from a game that felt fun. You could just pop it on with your friends, you could kind of progress, maybe get a couple of tokens, and you could unlock a cool helmet and everything.
01:16:35
Speaker
Nowadays, and I think this is more the state of gaming as a whole, I don't think he holds like, you know, the martyr on the cross here for the way that gaming's kind of evolved, but I do think that it's disgusting that a game that is so prolific in carving the way for FPS games as a whole has all of a sudden turned into this game. Of if you want to buy, you know, your child to tell me.
01:16:58
Speaker
you have to sink your mother's credit card into it which I just find it a better disappointment and I know that's kind of off tangent but I just I don't see how a game like Halo Infinite which is already fun as hell has a worse progression system than something like
01:17:13
Speaker
you know, Halo Reach which came out 11 years prior. I just don't get it. Like, I get it. Why money? But it just leaves a bit of a sour taste and I don't want to end the episode to be like, you know, like a very depressing Halo Reach moment where it's like just our helmets lying on the ground and we're just looking up at the sky but I find that bitterly disappointing. Yeah, I don't blame you. I think, don't think you're alone from what I've seen. As I said, the progression does seem
01:17:39
Speaker
say broken but it does seem very much I don't know it kind of puts me off playing a lot I'm kind of like I don't feel like I'm making any progress with it at all so it's a real shame that that's the way they decided to go with it whether that gets changed we'll see you know it's maybe a year's time we can look back and be like oh no it's in a much better state now than it is gameplay wise I've had fun in the matches I did have fun playing and everything but it is a shame that does have that kind of very big
01:18:04
Speaker
black mark on it currently so hopefully they'll change it but we'll just we'll just have to see i guess so as a wrapping up point how do you see halo progressing from now on are you quite optimistic would you say about the franchise would you say that it's heading in more a positive direction
01:18:22
Speaker
I think I'll speak mainly on the single player because that's what I'm most familiar with. I like the direction it went in Infinite gameplay wise. I think the open world was a really good idea. I think that the mechanics they added in to help you traverse that open world and in combat were excellent. So I think if 343, they keep moving in that direction with the Halo campaign, I think they're on pretty good footing. Story wise, again, I never thought Halo has been that good at storytelling, whether it be Bungie or 343. I think Bungie just
01:18:51
Speaker
made it simpler, which made it a bit better. I don't know, I don't have much hope for 343 storytelling, but if the gameplay is fun and it's fun and it's a good world to explore and the combat remains satisfying, I can forgive the kind of weak storytelling and the reliance on the extended lore. I'm slightly optimistic, you know.
01:19:09
Speaker
Halo 5 is not that long ago that I don't. Ironically, Halo 5 is not that long ago that I can't forget it as much as I can forget. I have forgotten all the important details of it, you know, so that does stick in the back of your mind, like, oh god, we could have another one of those on our hands. But I'll stay slightly optimistic, because I do think Halo Infinite was a strong single-player entry. Multiplayer-wise, I don't know.
01:19:31
Speaker
it kind of feels like maybe this might be the direction of multiplayer, but hopefully not. As I said before, I think that the single player is definitely going in the right direction. Maybe, again, the storytelling isn't the best, but I do think that the gameplay is a strongest hand.
01:19:49
Speaker
right now I don't think that they need to like improve on the gameplay but what they do need to like improve on is not only their attitude towards you know their multiplayer side but really just how they're gonna progress from now on and I think at the end of the day we can only just be hopeful can't we? That's all we
Halo's Legacy & Community Celebration
01:20:06
Speaker
can do I say like for me it's a funny one because as much as I'm a huge fan of the first Halo first Halo game I'm not sure how much of a fan I am of the rest of the series so it's a weird one for me I kind of feel like I've become a bit more of a fan
01:20:18
Speaker
with Infinite that's kind of restarted my love for the series. Just for me, as a closing point for me, just as much as I say Halo Combat Evolved, I think it's a really important game in gaming history. For me as well, it's the most important game in my kind of gaming life. It's the game that it made me an Xbox devotee. I still have Xbox consoles, I think largely because of the original Halo. It made me a fan of first person shooters, which is still my favorite genre. And you know, the genre of most games
01:20:46
Speaker
play or from first-person shooters so it's responsible for that and most importantly as well I think it just made me a fan of gaming it ensured that I would you know stick with this passion and you know here I am now on a podcast talking about video games so Halo is a Halo combat evolved I think it generally has a large part to play in that so it's such an important game for me you know as much as I may not be the biggest fan of the rest of the series I will always be a fan of combat evolved I will always lord it as a masterpiece and it'll always be one of my favorite games
01:21:13
Speaker
It just reminds me of that scene from Starship Troopers where it's like, welcome to the Halo community. Playing Halo made me the man I am today and he just wades through like a sea of salt just coming to watch it and you're like, oh, oh no. I would agree. I think that for me as well, Halo is one of those games that while it's not like the best
01:21:33
Speaker
I wouldn't say it's like the best franchise of all time but it would be criminal to kind of understate not only its importance in gaming as a whole but also like how much it means to the both of us really and how it has shaped our gaming lives and don't get me wrong I can't like be overly critical in something like 343 or Bungie or whoever because you and I and our mutual friends we have all played these games on stream we're hoping to play Halo 5 sometime and
01:22:00
Speaker
it has given us like that experience which is all you can ask for nowadays because in this kind of world where gaming has become this you know like corporate like I don't want to be like very happy dipping below your corporate think tanks where it's like how are we going to squeeze the most money out of people those like small moments that you can share with your friends and especially for a game like Halo I think is what makes Halo it's really the community and what comes out of that so whether it's you know
01:22:30
Speaker
the machinimas, the videos, the fan edits, or even just streaming with a couple of friends. I think that's what makes Halo Halo. You know, none of this rubbish about, oh we need a battle royale mode, or we need like more terminals. No, we just need Halo as it is. And yeah,
Series Retrospective & Closing Remarks
01:22:49
Speaker
at the end of the day, that's all you can ask for. It is true, so all we want, make it fun.
01:22:53
Speaker
And, yeah, seeing that note, I think that's the perfect place to leave it. So, as always, thank you so much for joining me and relaxing on Halo once again. My pleasure. I'm always up for telling you why Halo Combat Evolve is one of the best games of all time. So thank you for giving me the platform. And it was really fun to look back at this series and, you know, to reminisce on it, but also to learn some things I didn't know about it, kind of put it in context. Yeah, C343, they take context as an important member.
01:23:22
Speaker
but yeah no it was fun to do that so thank you for thank you for suggesting it and my pleasure always to be here and of course on that note that wraps up our episodes on Halo Month and what a journey it has been if you want to check out our previous episodes on Halo we have a Halo retrospective of course which was our very first episode together so if you want to hear like how our views have evolved over the years or sorry over the years over the year in fact no over two years nearly oh my god it isn't two
01:23:49
Speaker
we did record that episode in 2020 so yeah technically it's two years. Year and a half, year and a half, year and a half smidgen. If you want to hear more of our Halo 1th content you can listen to our Halo Infinite review, our Halo trivia quiz and last but not least our take on Halo Legends which was a fun episode to do. Thank you all so so much as always for listening to this episode and you know what's coming next. Stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly stay hydrated.