I wouldn't say that it's the best shooter ever created, but honestly? I only played it a year ago and had an absolute blast with it. I'm happy to see more 'new' Halo fans such as myself.
CE has the most satisfying weapon sandbox, at least as far as Campaign is concerned. The feedback from shooting enemies also feels way better since they react more to your shots.
The Halo Wars characters were pretty good. But Thel Vadam Arbiter is definitely the best. I believe that Halo 5 did him justice with seeing his influence on Sangheilios and his dialogue was pretty cool.
In further defense to the Library (in my opinion): I get why you don't like the repetitiveness of the level design and the combat scenarios. However, this benefits the Flood concept by making you feel overwhelmed by their numbers and the feeling of hopelessness to actually stop the endless horde. It also helps give more understanding to just destroy the Halo ring instead of just traditional combat to defeat the Flood in Two Betrayals up to the Maw. That's how I see the Library as.
Yep, by the end of the Library in and out of character you're beaten down, besieged, disoriented, and just generally ready to take any lifeline that's offered. Like Guilty Spark saying that if you just activate Halo, you can stop the Flood. So Cortana popping up to reveal the truth is even more of a wakeup call.
you can respectfully be quiet because no one wants to spend 1.5 hours on legendary even with a friend running through the level fighting the same 3 enemies through 1 single room type. While also listening to LightBulb hum to himself for that whole 1.5 hours
The thing I like best in the Library--or possibly the only thing--is 343 Guilty Spark's commentary running through it. It's the thing that more than anything in any Halo sets up the story arc of the whole series.
@@nummiebarry519 the thing is, and this goes for a lot of games in the pre 2010s era, games were not balanced for their hardest difficulties. Another game from this time period is Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, where you have 100 HP and a rifle hit does 30 damage, and there's no regenerating HP. Or what about CoD World at War, which is also infamous for it's very difficult and unbalanced veteran difficulty where the TTK can be as low as 1/5th of a second. As for enemies being repetitive, games were smaller in scope back then. Having 3 covenant guns and a handful of flood types was enough back then for what they set out to do. You can tell how these days games with a "you will not survive" esque difficulty are still reasonably fun and can be completed because it represents a shift in game design. It's no longer about including a hardest difficulty for the sake of doing so or just to mess with the player, they're actually meant for people who want the challenge. Plus, with the internet being much more developed, it's easier for people to give a game a bad reputation (steam review bombing) by pointing out some sort of big flaw, like "hard difficulty is impossible/unfun" compared to the early 2000s where your source for a review would've been a paper gaming magazine like Official Xbox Magazine or IGN.
The age you played it, the nostalgia, means nothing to me. I'm super nostalgic for genres of games that don't exist anymore: Robotron 2084, Sinistar, Ultima III, Wing Commander 2. Playing Halo games when you were 10 is unimaginable to me: when I was 10, Asteroids was brand new. Pacman was a year away. I got started playing Halo under the worst circumstance: Our company was making us work 10-12 hour days. It was the Dot-Com Crash, so I was just thankful to still have a job.They made a lounge we could crash in for naps and it also had a TV set and one of those new X-Boxes (modded by a colleague) with Halo installed on the HDD. I got hooked, on campaign, and playing overworked coworkers. Actually, the multiplayer was not NEARLY as fun as Unreal Tournament II. The campaign was what I stuck around for. I've played every game since. Halo: Infinite was so bad it made me question if continue following the series. I want a campaign that's a challenge, when you think things through, on legendary and not fricking impossible because of boss battles.
More than 44 years old? Cool achievement, man. Especially being in a time where games were pretty new, and when the NES wasn’t real back then. Kinda wish I could show the people back then what games could look like and see their reaction. I don’t but do wanna see the past, and have no real cares for the future right now. Also, mind telling me
I unfortunately missed the post, but my Halo hot take is that ODST is the vest campaign. I love the mystery of the story, all the characters are fantastic with fantastic chemistry, I actually quite like the weapons and enemy combinations, and the diversity of New Mombasa's locations is absolutely surprising. Plus, I like feeling like every combat encounter is an uphill battle, unlike being an unstoppable monster like Chief or Noble.
I've been playing a lot of Marathon recently and honestly it's kinda left me scratching my head as to why there aren't MORE levels like the Library. The Flood ambushes, the drawn-out confusing level design, everything is dark and looks the same, it's all Marathon to a T. You can also get a taste of it in the alien corridors aboard the ship in T&R and the meandering up-and-down you have to do in 343GS, but generally moments where you're just trying to slog through as fast as possible and wishing you had a map are few and far between. It makes me wonder if we could've gotten even worse levels (gameplay wise) than the Library if they hadn't had to reuse level geometry from the first half of the game and actually had time to design new stuff for the last 3 levels
4:19 People value nostalgia differently, so it definitely just depends on the person. I finally played Halo 2 only relatively recently, and it's by far my favorite game in the series.
9:00 SO TRUE, don't understand when people complain about this as being a legitimate issue in modern gaming. People want to talk to their friends, not random people screaming slurs and being annoying. Pre and post game lobbies are overrated, and people chose to use game chat less because the majority of the time it's less annoying and makes more sense to use party chat.
Cortana is a good mission, it just doesn't have any replay value. It's a fascinating change from the usual combat when the gravemind begins to use psychological warfare on you in 2 forms: overwhelming enemy presence and taunting you about how he has tortured Cortana.
3:41 Adrian is absolutely correct! A game needs to be fun before it's pretty. I wish most gaming companies would think like this, but sadly they don't.
I typically would agree too, but what about games that deliberately want to be pretty but not fun? If somebody said "the point of all movies is to be funny" or "the point of all books is to be enjoyable" we'd recognize that's a massive smoothing-over of artistic possibility.
for the main content of the game it does make sense though to focus on it, I feel like other stuff you can skip around on, but just core aspects of the media should be good, the issue is that a lot of studios now focus on making something that looks good for selling preorders and not so much to actually play
It depends on the artistic goals of the game... if most developers thought the same way about design it would be boring. basically all gaming companies do think the same, they just care about money. hearing people proclaim their personal preferences in games to be "the right way" and how everyone else should just follow that mindset... it's basically asking for stagnation in the medium. I do get where you are coming from and do believe Adrian is correct but only in the context of the game he was working on in that moment, not the entirety of games as a whole. An important aspect of Halo is not just it's fun combat freeform play spaces... there's also the beauty of it's visuals and vistas, and so many other strengths. Being visually striking is important to Halo and he isn't trying to say that's not as important as it being fun, just that in this particular area they worked on it was not as fun as it was pretty which doesn't align with the goals they wanted to achieve artistically with that specific area. I think he also doesn't really mean "fun" in the traditional sense when he uses that term I think devs more so mean "engaging" when they say "it needs to be fun", because ultimately fun is highly subjective and people could easily not have fun in a play space designed explicitly to be fun because they have difficulty with some aspect of it's mechanics or any number of factors, there's really nothing devs can do to make it guaranteed to be fun to everybody but it's a lot more feasible to make something that is capable of engaging everybody or almost everybody. Everyone experiences things differently and I think this is the genius of Bungie's Halo games is how much they embrace that and incentivize you to be engaged with it's mechanics and let you experience it in your own way. For example the section in Halo 3's Crow's Nest where you face the squad of jet pack brutes. This can be a difficult section or a fairly easy one entirely based on how you choose to engage with the play space and either way it can be fun depending on the person who's playing and their personality. Trivializing it by arming your Marines with good weapons and letting them do all the work may be more fun to some people and less fun to others and the game lets you have the choice without pushing you in any one direction. Halo 3 in particular is consistently amazing at doing this. It's the prime example of the "Halo is a strategy game" meme, you really can play it like one if you want to, or you can play it like a traditional fps, or you can play it like an adventure game with fps elements focusing more on environment details, lore terminals etc.... within the confines of the game of course, it really is your own experience to create. If it was just trying to be fun and nothing else it wouldn't have a difficulty spike like that because it's not fun in the traditional sense to die a lot but it IS engaging to view it as a challenging puzzle to be solved in any way you see fit and Bungie embraced that in their design while giving options for players who have different tastes to still find some enjoyment through flexible game design and difficulty options. I think this idea of "it needs to be fun" really goes against the ethos of a lot of Halo games for me, cause personally I can recall many sections of Halo games I found to be not fun at all when I first played it and I only came to appreciate them more after I realized the freedom I had to make it much easier on myself and not feel like a chore to get through. The jet pack brutes part of Crow's Nest is an example of that, I used to despise doing that, it was not fun for me. Until I learned that if you give your squad of marines good weapons they will basically do the work for you and then I found it fun to be able to watch these marines I had outfitted with weapons myself go to town on this section of the game that previous gave me a lot of trouble trying to get thru it in the traditional fps manner of just running and gunning.
@@RoyalFusilier If I am not enjoying your video game, it is not a good game. The point of the medium is the interactivity I would argue, which of course allows a very wide net for what is a game. Walking Simulators are valid but are very boring as an example.
It's such a simple concept that so many devs (modern Bungie themselve even) can't understand. And way too many people try defending it going, for example: "Well this game wanted to be dark or sad with its story" or whatever, but then ignore that if a game has a really good sad/depressing tone to it, and is told really well, then you're going to have fun going through it all the same. Either a game is fun and good, or a game isn't fun and is bad. That's all it comes down to.
I agree with the take that Cortana is a really great level. Perhaps not the best, but definitely in the top 5 for me. The atmosphere is top notch, everything is so oppressive, and honestly, fighting the flood isn't anywhere near as annoying as people say
Honestly, I mostly agree about Infinite's campaign. I never disliked it, and thoroughly enjoyed it; but it is definitely lacking in some ways. I really hope that once 343 is done with filling the gaps mp was missing, they work on a campaign DLC (hopefully about something related to the post-credit cutscene). Also it was pretty funny hearing you try to pronounce my username lol (it's pronounced either "so-lo-toe-see-us" or "so-lo-to-chi-us")
CE's magnum isn't OP, the majority of the maps in the original game was meant for 2v2 because CE was made before Xbox live was a thing and thus the only way to play with people was via split screen so its not that much of a surprise that mcc trying to fit the game into the 4v4 design of the other games makes it about as fun as halo 2 is on legendary. host a custom game with 3 of the boys and now your playing the social party game that the designers intended instead of the spawn die spawn die sim that is CE's matchmaking in mcc also its just straight up easier to get a kill with any of the main precision weapons in any of the other games then the CE magnum because of its slow projectile speed requiring leading your shots on any map that is somewhat big like hang em high, low bullet magnetism, and pseudo bloom if you fire to quickly
Here's what I think is probably a pretty hot take: I prefer the Anniversary versions of Halo CE and Halo 2 because I see them as an upgrade. They play exactly the same, it just looks better. And Halo 2 Anniversary in particular has cutscenes that are downright beautiful to look at. Gravemind for example went from a booger in the original to a truly horrifying and disgusting monster in the Anniversary version. I totally understand if nostalgia or a crummy computer makes the Anniversary versions worse for some people, but I like their graphics a lot.
I like the halo 2 anniversary a lot, but the halo ce anniversary feels way too asset flippy, to an amateur modlike degree. I feel like it takes away a lot of the vibe that the original was trying to capture
8:11 I didn't know I could relate so much to a take. (For comparison I get more pleasure from feeling pain and being exhausted than from playing halo 4)
That response to my hot take was better than I thought. Maybe then if there was a spartan ops on infinite that would fill the void you’re looking for? Even more so if they added different environments. Either way thanks for the inclusion Frog! 🐸
for what it's worth I 100% agree that spartan ops was a great addition and I liked what they were going for. tbh I feel like that was where the story the writers actually wanted to tell was at, but hey, it was a halo game so marketing demanded the chief be in it.
Here's mine: Halo infinite is one of the best halos up there with halo 1 2 and 3. The campaign while having repetitive gameplay it has some of the best story telling, music, and art style. Now that they fixed almost everything wrong with the multiplayer and its growing it is just as good as halo three in my opinion. It is the perfect mix between 343 games and bungie games.
Very fun Frog. I hope you keep these videos coming. I don't think I have any super hot takes but here's my best one. I really, really enjoy Halo 4's campaign. It's still my 4th favorite Halo campaign behind Halo CE, 2 and 3 (though squeaking ahead of Reach) and if I had to give it a grade, I'd probably give it a 94 (with CE getting a 98, 3 getting a 96, 2 getting a 95 and Reach getting a 93). To try and get something a little more controversial, how about this one? I can make a better storyline to finish the second trilogy (keeping Halo 4 intact) in five minutes vs what 343 did over the course of ten years. Ready? Here it goes. After the events of Halo 3, the galaxy is fairly settled as after a few years of re assessing their values, the elites have formed a government that basically runs the former covenant but they continue to battle against different factions particularly the brutes who now believe the Didact is their new god after Halo 4 and they continue to ravage any of the Halo rings or Halo defense planets trying to find something that will bring him back. Chief is back with his unit kicking butt when a mission against the Brutes (mission 1) takes him back to a ring where he gets a message from Cortana. After being imprisoned by the Gravemind, Cortana set up a program to monitor the Flood and she discovers that after the events in Halo 3 the Gravemind contacted the Flood home planet. The Flood basically are in hibernation waiting for this contact and have been slowly rebuilding their home world ever since this contact and the events in Halo 3. Chief shares this message with Captain Lasky. Lasky believes him but can't get authority to give Chief an official mission so similar to 4, he slips Chief a Pelican and leaves him to complete the mission on his own. Chief does need help so he first has to travel to the Arbiter and hopes he can get help. With the Arbiter's help, Chief finds another ring he has to go to that contains the rest of Cortana's message and her plan to save everyone. At the same time, a group is formed to chase after Chief like the story was sold in Halo 5. Maybe Palmer is a part of this group to give the voice of reason but they basically follow after Chief and their missions can be on the same stages but show the destruction caused by Chief coming through and kicking butt. At the end of Halo 5 they catch up with Chief just as he unlocks the rest of Cortana's message and they all see the real threat has been the Flood the whole time. We now move to Halo 6. I'm perfectly happy if Chief is still considered a bad guy but think it would be more fun if this information leads to the elites again teaming up with humanity to fight the Flood. The Flood are no longer just mindless zombies as they have had time to evolve and have different levels of soldiers making them more fun to fight (and more similar to the covenant in Halo CE with different tactics necessary for fighting different troops). Cortana's plan involves several tasks before confronting the Flood on their home world so maybe you still have to play as one of the characters from 5 that was chasing chief to accomplish one goal, another mission where you take control of the Arbiter to accomplish another task and then Chief has his own tasks. If you want to pull on some heart strings, Chief finds a piece of Cortana that's still alive and like the end of 4, they have a final showdown with the leader of the Flood on their home world and instead of Cortana saving Chief, he decides to stay with her and they both die while saving the universe. If you don't want that ending, it's perfectly fine for Chief to just get one last message from Cortana before going to kick the butt and save the world as usual. How did I do?
@@francescosmith7859 The part that includes Palmer, but I repeat myself. I think the story would work just fine so long as the game is a proper M rating instead of T, but the real problem is having Cortana back in any actual capacity
@@justiceforjoggers2897 okay, I can see that. My first thought was to try and use the characters they already developed in Halo 4 though I wouldn't say Palmer had any development or any use in that game so she can easily drop. (it's not like she adds any humor or clever one liners the way Johnson did) Yeah, I can also see Cortana being troublesome but I think she's kind of necessary in some capacity. So not alive but keep the program she made to track the Flood and traces of messages she left to keep the story moving and she's the source of the plan to save humanity. I mean they made such a big deal in Reach that Cortana was the key to the survival of the human race and while she was pretty important in the first trilogy it still feels like she was underused based on that hype. Of course none of this really matters since it's not like 343 will do a remake on these games but it's a bit frustrating the first trilogy was at least well told and a connected story where as the second trilogy they just bounce from one story to the next with no connection at all. So again I thank you for reading and commenting.
Halo infinite is better than combat evolved in my opinion Don’t get me wrong, CE is a great game but it’s aged rough with time. It really feels like CE was just a test to see if the franchise could work, and then the following games were when they realised it could work. Like CE has such a bare bones story compared to every single other game. I probably could’ve called this hot take “combat evolved is slightly overrated” but I think saying that infinite was better will sound a lot more controversial.
Hit take: the ma5 platform for assault rifle is leagues better looking than the ma37 and should've been the model for infinite. The ma37 fits reach's art style, but translates horribly outside that
I disagree. Reach and Infinite's picatinny rail designs actually make sense and would be practical for real life military use, whereas the rest of the AR designs are just awkwardly shaped for God knows what.
I have a (maybe) hot take: I much prefer playing with Halo 2 Anniversary graphics. It's a lot easier to see everything and the cutscenes are excellent. (This addition makes it less of a hot take: playing on original Halo 2 graphics gives me a headache for some reason 😥)
These are definitely some hot takes. Don't think I can agree with hardly any of it lol. Also unrelated but saw you were in Crash ep 3 and just gotta say you and Boomerang's team did a fantastic job.
For sure the library is objectively a good level: for a challenging co-op mission. Playing it alone is ass but if you want a hard back to back co-op mission to test your skills you can't beat the library
I kind of disagree about the party chat vs lobby chat issue. Just because people gravitated away from lobby chat and towards party chat doesn't mean that it's on the whole a good thing. There's a lot of examples of people making individual decisions that lead to worse outcomes for everyone, even in just the gaming space. A big example that comes to mind is the predatory monetization policies that consumers reward developers for enacting. One that's not specific to gaming but is related to online social interaction is how fragmented internet social circles have become, which is largely driven by companies taking advantage of consumer preferences. Party chat definitely has advantages; it makes online gaming much more accessible, especially to people who don't like hearing random slurs every other sentence, and can make the online experience more relaxed. But it also has lead to an (ironically, given how the industry has exploded) insular environment, because people rarely interact with people they aren't already friends with. Some people do find others through 3rd party services, but you rarely communicate with random people anymore, and imo modern multiplayer is lesser for losing that. There was something cool about talking with the people you were playing with, who you'd never normally get to interact with in real life, and modern lobbies in a lot of online games often feel soulless. And it's no longer really a matter of choice, because lobby chat only works if more than a few people participate in it. It sort of mirrors how little people who don't know each other talk in real life, and I think in general that effect is one of the most unfortunate developments of modern life. I won't say that moving to party chat has been solely a bad thing, but it's definitely had some major downsides and greatly affected gaming culture.
I think blood gulch's staying power is partly because of the Halo PC freeware demo, which included silent cartographer for the campaign and blood gulch for the multiplayer. So if you were playing Halo on PC in the early days, you were probably playing a lot of blood gulch - likely on freeware to begin with, and later because there were always busy servers and it was an easy place to find noobs to wreck for fun.
Halo 4 for me was ass. Weapon sounds were annoying and ugly and look like the typical sci fi weapons Then vehicles were made out of paper which is dumb because vehicles being weak ruins the gameplay etc for the mp The story writing was good though to be fair. The art style was ugly and too bright which looked almost plastic. The elites look like dinosaurs and don’t start me off about the pelican design and master chiefs armour.
MASSIVLY, MASSIVLY disagree about OG lobby chat. It was a way for poeple to meet poeple they would have NEVER met otherwise and built a real sense of public community and made building massive groups for custom games really easy. Im not saying party chat shouldnt be an option for tightnit groups of friends, but the lack of lobbies has all but murdered the in game social feel, most poeple dont interact with anyone else aside from shooting them and it feels really souless. This would be less of a porblem if there was an equaly populated and easy to use alterative but there isnt, sending messagaes to other players is often really clunky due to bad UI design and while discord servers exist, sadly few of the big ones host regular game nights its a real shame, more halo and FPS yotubers in general need to do this. As for why the devs dont put them in the game anymore I really dont think its becuase poeple wont use them, its due to bad management choices, crunch, and everyone fearing for thier lives about getting calls from angry karen moms that little timmy got called a swear word in game, there is this serious obsession these days in the internet about making everything safe for 4 years olds at the expense of everyone else, im not saying we dont need moderation but this massive overcorrection to the total lack of moderation 15 years ago really pisses me off.
Oh boy, more Halo 3 campaign revisionism. Yeah, totally fine to not have it be your favourite campaign, no problem with that. But the black-white binary that Halo fans use to talk about the games is so damn annoying. "Halo 3 campaign just isn't that good" is so disingenuous that it's hilarious.
so I played halo 3 a few weeks ago, and I learned how to love Cortana. The secret is Never. Take. The. Floods. Bait. Its not like halo 1 and 2 where shooting the flood is correct. If you are in a firefight with the flood, you're gonna have a bad time. but if you stick to the energy sword (functionally infinite ammo vs flood) and save your sticky and burny nades for the god awful ranged form that sticks to the walls while skipping the flood you don't *need* to fight makes it a tense experience that's actually really fun. The one exception to not shooting the flood is the brute shot, It actually kills the spore fuckers with relative ease. but hey what do I know, Quarantine Zone is my favorite halo level. I'm just a flood enjoyer.
6:20 alr so Some ppl like firefight Theyre in the same room the whole time, facing mostly the same enemies again and again Sounds a bit like library to me Tho I understand that generally firefight is still better because of the environment and still bigger variety of enemies
Halo is fun and nice and CE is my favorite game of the franchise. THE ONLY THING that 343 added that I wish was in the old games is picking up and tossing fusion coils.
I agree, it would be cool if we didn’t have the visor at first, allowing the darkness to become a threat. Then instead of Romeo’s busted rifle, we find his headset which gives us the visor upgrade
Imo: All Halo games are good games. (Except the mobile top down Halo games those are not really good) it’s just that when comparing all the Halo games to each other you realize the problems each one has.
Hi! I recently played through the Halo games for the first time so Im speaking from the perspective of a newcomer. Honestly, the good aura around the Halo franchise seems to be mostly nostalgia induced. They are by no means bad games, I think they're good, its just that I havent experienced the level of amazement that it was hyped up to. I'd say 2 & 3 are best overall. Reach had most fun gameplay. ODST is beautiful and being slept on. I liked H4 (it did have its flaws but then again all the games did). H5 is utter dogshit from which it is impossible to recover from
Infinite tried a soft reboot or whatever, but it was executed badly. The intro has a time skip and just leaves you confused on what is happening. The decision to go open world is actually a good one (i prefer linear games btw), although the didnt put in the effort for it, they should have placed portals so you can change biomes across the ring, like multiple regions connected by portals
Okay i never understood the Brutes vs Elites argument for Halo 3. If we were talking Halo 2 or Halo Reach, yes theres a significant enough difference between the two gameplay wise. But in Halo 3 and ODST, they are practically the same encounters. The only major difference I can think of is the Brute Beserk and Brute Chieftains, specifically non-gravity hammer Chieftains. Everyone already defaults to Noob Combo loadouts, and we still use power weapons exactly the same way. So maybe its the Equipment which bleeds into Brutes and gameplay. Maybe its the Brute Choppers. Idk but ive never gotten that issue.
I wouldn't say 2's campaign was bad, per se. The cut levels are noticeably unfinished, but it's supposed to be a plot cliffhanger anyway. The difficulty tuning was kind of wack, though. The sniper jackals obviously, and the brutes are too tanky to anything other than headshot weapons given the level design forces fighting rampaging ones without headshot weapons early in a couple levels.
My hot take is that the worst parts of halo games are forerunner structures, specifically corridors. they always overstay their welcome for how GREY AND BORING THEY ARE. That’s probably why I tend to like 3, ODST, and Reach more than CE and 2
Halo CE was the first halo game I played back when I still had an OG Xbox. Halo 3 I probably played the most due to its massive popularity and being at prime gamer age when it came out. Reach was the first game I ever had pre ordered. My mom got it for me for my birthday the year it came out. I just played ODST all the way through for the first time as an adult this past Sunday. And it went all the way from my least favorite of the games I’ve finished (I haven’t played 5 or infinite all the way through yet. Life happened) to being right behind Reach and 3 for me. With all the being said. Halo 3 and Reach are pretty closely tied as my favorite games in the franchise. I think it was all based on the memories I had playing them because of actually having an Xbox live account for those games. Also: Oddly enough I never played an original copy of Halo 2. I actually never played it until I got MCC my senior year in high school.
The devs themselves in a speedrun commentary have said they made it too long. Hindsight 20/20 of course, but its SO FUCKING LABORIOUS. it went from hated to eh for me, but i dread playing it because its 15 mins of nothing. Firefight is way more fun.
Hot take: Halo 3's change to projectile hit detection, while more realistic, was a bad change. Playing Halo 3 multiplayer is really hit or miss (literally) given different ping in each server/session and internet speed varying from player to player. Hit scan is just more reliable in an online environment.
It's not projectiles themselves being a bad idea, look at grenades or rockets. It's more so the fact that halo 3s battle rifle has a fuck ton of spread past a certain range. You can have straight traveling projectiles like a rocket or plasma pistol shot. Someone just decided to make the gun have spread
343 games suffer mostly not because of bungie leaving but moreso because microsoft doesnt give them enough time and recources to fully flesh out their ideas. I doubt 343 game dev care about adding a store to the game that probaly came from higher up. If the original bungie crew still worked on halo a lot of the same problems would exist in modern Halo anyway.
Well said. Most things people don't like about Infinite are things concerning the marketing and management teams rather than devs themselves. I've just seen that forge AI showcase stream. The dev showcasing it is NOT someone who doesn't care about Halo in the slightest.
I agree w the Halo 4 Cortana take. I liked that she wasn’t this sex symbol in the bungie games and rather was an actual character w motivations and character. Not saying i didn’t enjoy halo 4 cortana’s character but her design in that game and future 343 titles always rubbed me the wrong way w how they made her physique more busty than slim/toned. Ik they tried changing it w 5 and infinite but it still doesn’t look like the same cortana from the bungie era and sometimes hardly acts like her either.
Here’s my hot take, Jorge’s death was not sad. I did cry over Kat’s death, but after that, I could tell Reach was gonna kill off the whole cast of characters sooner or later after that. Also Johnson’s death wasn’t sad to me either
Started on halo 1. Played a lot of halo 2, 3, and reach growing up. Halo 3 is still my favorite. Has nothing to do with which one you grew up with or started with.
I kinda see what he means with 4's Cortana being worst 9:33 She looked nice (hot), but she looked way different than any other Cortana. He's definitely wrong though, Halo 5's is so bad it's not even funny. On that note, I thought it was supposed to be hot takes, not based takes. 10:39
I'm not sure I'm fully on-board with your argument for party chat being objectively better 9:00 You could use a similar logic to e.g. say that mobile games are the best because they bring the most revenue, or that battle passes are good because people are willing to pay for it. Just because something is used doesn't mean it's the best. I think a big reason for party chat getting so big could be that it's simply convenient in a way. Like you are playing with your friend after school, so you form a party and talk in party chat even before starting up the game. Then you will never even be in the place of really choosing between the two. And it may make the game worse for everyone, in a way, since you will not be able to give shoutouts to your teamates, or hear their shoutouts.
I'm not arguing that party chat is better. I'm arguing that it's not a bad thing that game chat fell off in favor of party chat, because that reflects most peoples' preference.
I actually think cortana and the library are pretty good. I like that they feel oppressive and like a horde mode. The rocket flood in the library are trash though.
I also agree that your favorite halo isn’t necessarily the one that came out at the perfect time, do NOT get me wrong, Ive played every Halo game and have loved them all, Especially the OG trilogy, because i was born in 2000, i remember seeing halo 2 as a kid and it looked INSANE, i also lived in a playstation house, so Xbox and Halo were taboo, and i wanted it more, i finally gained enough consciousness to remember things a few years later, and played some games CoD 3 MoH and stuff, but then I remember watching TV and the Halo 3 Believe Ads came on, i LOST it, I was very much in love with halo, spending the earliest days of UA-cam watching TV screen recordings of trick shots and giant kill streaks on H2 and then Bungie creates this live action masterpiece bringing Halo 3 to real life, it was absolutely insane to me and almost felt real, also considering i was the heir to the throne of a third generation of military service in my family and Halo totally had a giant impact on me joining the Marines, I felt like i had to play this game, i was saving for a 360, begging for jobs, watching the Believe campaign again and again on youtube trying to manifest this thing😂. And still to young to really realize when the game comes out, My family goes to my Aunt and Uncles house, and they had a giant TV in the living room, and when we got there i heard it, the Halo 3 Menu theme, i say my “Hi” give my hugs and DART to the living room where my Cousin Aaron is loading up halo 3 for his first time too. this was at about noon, and I dont know if yall know about Cajun cook outs, we party all night long, and Aaron and I played Halo three all. damn. day. and it was the greatest video game experience i have ever had, i soon got my own 360, and mom got me Xbox Live, and my friends and I spent all christmas break running around all day long outside, ans playing halo 3 every damn night. 2007-2009 was awesome, School, Football, Play Halo in the Woods, then play Halo all night. Loved that time in my life. So in short, Halo Reach is still my favorite Halo game.
Blood Gulch does suck compared to most maps. I remember my friends used to try and get me to play it because they never stood any kind of chance vs me in normal combat
Seriously. I could find no reason to dislike Halo 2’s story. It was the best by far. The campaign as a whole is not the best due to the unfair difficulty and questionable level design, but it is still fantastic being a worthy successor to Halo: CE and ends with a great set up for Halo 3.
I actually don’t think your age determines your favorite Halo game. I only played 3 for maybe two hours in junior high and didn’t touch it again until I got my own Xbox in college. Now it’s my favorite Halo game overall.
I wildly disagree with the nostalgia argument at 4:20. reach was my first halo and its in the middle of my halo list. in fact in a list of favorites there is clearly zero relation between first ones played ie most nostalgia for and actual favorites.
I’m not a fan of the Spartan abilities, but the movement feels perfect. I prefer Halo 2 and 3’s map design the most. Aesthetic goes to Infinite. I like Halo Reach’s weapon and vehicle sandbox the most. Combine all of these into one game and it will probably be my favorite for gameplay. My favorite campaign for its story is probably Wars because those cutscenes are awesome and events that happen are perfect. The score makes it even better.
Comparing Halo CE and Infinites campaign and saying Infinites gets old due to repetitiveness is a bold statement. /s Sure Infinite only has one biome which is a real shame, but having genuinely repetitive room after room after room in CE is just monotonous and boring. I understand why it's this way due to limitations but I don't actually find Infinites campaign repetitive at all.
Halo 2 campagin (STORY WISE) is good if, but I think the gameplay, pacing, boss fights, and cliffhanger are not good aspects of it. I have only played through it maybe 3 times and was never really deeply invested in any of those playthroughs. It just feels meh and a bit janky from the gameplay and pacing. but again the STORY that halo 2 is based around (most specifically with the arbiter) is great. I personally think Halo 3 is the best original halo game story wise and gameplay wise. It feels epic, important, youre invested in the characters and plot, and it has some BEAUTIFUL scenery and amazing levels throughout the entire game. Halo 3 feels like a movie and I think the cutscenes in halo 3 are far better than Halo 2 (even ignoring graphics, the cinematic camera work, music, the dialogue, etc. is all collectively good. Halo 2 has good dialogue and story but the cutscenes dont compare to Halo 3 IMO).
Anyway •Halo Reach is one of the best •Halo ODST is better then CE and dare i say it 3’s campaign •Spartan Ops was good but would’ve been infinitely better under Bungie •Reach has the best multiplayer •Halo 5’s multiplayer is brilliant •all halo campaigns should be set in the Human Covenant war and not the turd that is Halo 4,5 Wars 2 and Infishite •Halo Infinite is god awful and it’s campaign is the worst of all the Halo games including the mobile games •Noble Team have the best characters •MCC has kept Halo alive
Hot takes by me: Halo CE is the worst in the series 343 multiplayer is better than bungies multiplayer and it's not even close Halo infinite coating system is the best color customization in the series
Tbh most of em were just opinions people had, not really based in facts which is something I hate about hotcakes because if someone dislikes something they dislike it it's there opinion. Now if they say halo 3s graphics are worse the halo 4 I will burn them on a stake
Okay first of all Xbox Party Chat is not in anyway the reason why “game chat” has sorta died off. People getting offended is combined with the fact some people just want to speak privately with friends and not sit there in a lobby with a spanish kid chatting non stop in Spanish wile his mother in the back his using the hoover. Being in a party auto mutes game chat. The offended part is a big reason though because people went from taking punishment from other players, enjoying the abuse and dishing it to people intentionally trying to get a rise out of you to report you so you get banned or just straight up getting offended and reporting you. We are at a stage now on xbox where you can report someone for saying something in game chat.
This is always such a hilarious take that someone has to bring up any time XBL lobbies are mentioned. "It's just people being offended bro, everybody's so soft now bro, nobody'd survive the MW2 lobby bro." Game chat died because, as soon as they're given the option, every sane person in the world absolutely prefers having a casual conversation with their buddies to having the N word screamed at them repeatedly by a pack of 12 year olds.
So for the nostalgia debate i think Ce is one of the best shooters ever created and I played it for the first time last month so.
I wouldn't say that it's the best shooter ever created, but honestly? I only played it a year ago and had an absolute blast with it. I'm happy to see more 'new' Halo fans such as myself.
I dont like halo CE and it aged horribly but hey that's my opinion
CE has the most satisfying weapon sandbox, at least as far as Campaign is concerned. The feedback from shooting enemies also feels way better since they react more to your shots.
I grew up with Halo 2, played before Halo 3 was out. I've never liked CE too much
@@HorglerI've always had the opposite opinion, that the poor balance of the sandbox means certain weapons feel inadequate
I agree that Arbiter is the best character in the franchise
The Halo Wars characters were pretty good. But Thel Vadam Arbiter is definitely the best. I believe that Halo 5 did him justice with seeing his influence on Sangheilios and his dialogue was pretty cool.
343 Guiltyspark better
MONITOR OF INSTALLATION 04-
I’d say noble six is better but arbiter is good
In further defense to the Library (in my opinion):
I get why you don't like the repetitiveness of the level design and the combat scenarios. However, this benefits the Flood concept by making you feel overwhelmed by their numbers and the feeling of hopelessness to actually stop the endless horde. It also helps give more understanding to just destroy the Halo ring instead of just traditional combat to defeat the Flood in Two Betrayals up to the Maw. That's how I see the Library as.
Yep, by the end of the Library in and out of character you're beaten down, besieged, disoriented, and just generally ready to take any lifeline that's offered. Like Guilty Spark saying that if you just activate Halo, you can stop the Flood. So Cortana popping up to reveal the truth is even more of a wakeup call.
you can respectfully be quiet because no one wants to spend 1.5 hours on legendary even with a friend running through the level fighting the same 3 enemies through 1 single room type. While also listening to LightBulb hum to himself for that whole 1.5 hours
The thing I like best in the Library--or possibly the only thing--is 343 Guilty Spark's commentary running through it. It's the thing that more than anything in any Halo sets up the story arc of the whole series.
@@nummiebarry519 the thing is, and this goes for a lot of games in the pre 2010s era, games were not balanced for their hardest difficulties. Another game from this time period is Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, where you have 100 HP and a rifle hit does 30 damage, and there's no regenerating HP. Or what about CoD World at War, which is also infamous for it's very difficult and unbalanced veteran difficulty where the TTK can be as low as 1/5th of a second. As for enemies being repetitive, games were smaller in scope back then. Having 3 covenant guns and a handful of flood types was enough back then for what they set out to do. You can tell how these days games with a "you will not survive" esque difficulty are still reasonably fun and can be completed because it represents a shift in game design. It's no longer about including a hardest difficulty for the sake of doing so or just to mess with the player, they're actually meant for people who want the challenge.
Plus, with the internet being much more developed, it's easier for people to give a game a bad reputation (steam review bombing) by pointing out some sort of big flaw, like "hard difficulty is impossible/unfun" compared to the early 2000s where your source for a review would've been a paper gaming magazine like Official Xbox Magazine or IGN.
@@nummiebarry519who said it had to be legendary?
The age you played it, the nostalgia, means nothing to me. I'm super nostalgic for genres of games that don't exist anymore: Robotron 2084, Sinistar, Ultima III, Wing Commander 2. Playing Halo games when you were 10 is unimaginable to me: when I was 10, Asteroids was brand new. Pacman was a year away.
I got started playing Halo under the worst circumstance: Our company was making us work 10-12 hour days. It was the Dot-Com Crash, so I was just thankful to still have a job.They made a lounge we could crash in for naps and it also had a TV set and one of those new X-Boxes (modded by a colleague) with Halo installed on the HDD.
I got hooked, on campaign, and playing overworked coworkers. Actually, the multiplayer was not NEARLY as fun as Unreal Tournament II. The campaign was what I stuck around for. I've played every game since. Halo: Infinite was so bad it made me question if continue following the series. I want a campaign that's a challenge, when you think things through, on legendary and not fricking impossible because of boss battles.
More than 44 years old? Cool achievement, man. Especially being in a time where games were pretty new, and when the NES wasn’t real back then. Kinda wish I could show the people back then what games could look like and see their reaction. I don’t but do wanna see the past, and have no real cares for the future right now. Also, mind telling me
I unfortunately missed the post, but my Halo hot take is that ODST is the vest campaign.
I love the mystery of the story, all the characters are fantastic with fantastic chemistry, I actually quite like the weapons and enemy combinations, and the diversity of New Mombasa's locations is absolutely surprising. Plus, I like feeling like every combat encounter is an uphill battle, unlike being an unstoppable monster like Chief or Noble.
Another odst fan, im with u on this statement
@@Optican_Medic king shit
@@FearlessLeader2001 🍷🗿
You pronounced my name right, AND I got to be on the thumbnail? Halo 2 is my favorite game now.
I've been playing a lot of Marathon recently and honestly it's kinda left me scratching my head as to why there aren't MORE levels like the Library. The Flood ambushes, the drawn-out confusing level design, everything is dark and looks the same, it's all Marathon to a T. You can also get a taste of it in the alien corridors aboard the ship in T&R and the meandering up-and-down you have to do in 343GS, but generally moments where you're just trying to slog through as fast as possible and wishing you had a map are few and far between. It makes me wonder if we could've gotten even worse levels (gameplay wise) than the Library if they hadn't had to reuse level geometry from the first half of the game and actually had time to design new stuff for the last 3 levels
4:19 People value nostalgia differently, so it definitely just depends on the person. I finally played Halo 2 only relatively recently, and it's by far my favorite game in the series.
9:00 SO TRUE, don't understand when people complain about this as being a legitimate issue in modern gaming. People want to talk to their friends, not random people screaming slurs and being annoying. Pre and post game lobbies are overrated, and people chose to use game chat less because the majority of the time it's less annoying and makes more sense to use party chat.
Cortana is a good mission, it just doesn't have any replay value. It's a fascinating change from the usual combat when the gravemind begins to use psychological warfare on you in 2 forms: overwhelming enemy presence and taunting you about how he has tortured Cortana.
3:41 Adrian is absolutely correct! A game needs to be fun before it's pretty. I wish most gaming companies would think like this, but sadly they don't.
I typically would agree too, but what about games that deliberately want to be pretty but not fun? If somebody said "the point of all movies is to be funny" or "the point of all books is to be enjoyable" we'd recognize that's a massive smoothing-over of artistic possibility.
for the main content of the game it does make sense though to focus on it, I feel like other stuff you can skip around on, but just core aspects of the media should be good, the issue is that a lot of studios now focus on making something that looks good for selling preorders and not so much to actually play
It depends on the artistic goals of the game... if most developers thought the same way about design it would be boring. basically all gaming companies do think the same, they just care about money. hearing people proclaim their personal preferences in games to be "the right way" and how everyone else should just follow that mindset... it's basically asking for stagnation in the medium. I do get where you are coming from and do believe Adrian is correct but only in the context of the game he was working on in that moment, not the entirety of games as a whole.
An important aspect of Halo is not just it's fun combat freeform play spaces... there's also the beauty of it's visuals and vistas, and so many other strengths. Being visually striking is important to Halo and he isn't trying to say that's not as important as it being fun, just that in this particular area they worked on it was not as fun as it was pretty which doesn't align with the goals they wanted to achieve artistically with that specific area.
I think he also doesn't really mean "fun" in the traditional sense when he uses that term I think devs more so mean "engaging" when they say "it needs to be fun", because ultimately fun is highly subjective and people could easily not have fun in a play space designed explicitly to be fun because they have difficulty with some aspect of it's mechanics or any number of factors, there's really nothing devs can do to make it guaranteed to be fun to everybody but it's a lot more feasible to make something that is capable of engaging everybody or almost everybody.
Everyone experiences things differently and I think this is the genius of Bungie's Halo games is how much they embrace that and incentivize you to be engaged with it's mechanics and let you experience it in your own way.
For example the section in Halo 3's Crow's Nest where you face the squad of jet pack brutes. This can be a difficult section or a fairly easy one entirely based on how you choose to engage with the play space and either way it can be fun depending on the person who's playing and their personality. Trivializing it by arming your Marines with good weapons and letting them do all the work may be more fun to some people and less fun to others and the game lets you have the choice without pushing you in any one direction.
Halo 3 in particular is consistently amazing at doing this. It's the prime example of the "Halo is a strategy game" meme, you really can play it like one if you want to, or you can play it like a traditional fps, or you can play it like an adventure game with fps elements focusing more on environment details, lore terminals etc.... within the confines of the game of course, it really is your own experience to create. If it was just trying to be fun and nothing else it wouldn't have a difficulty spike like that because it's not fun in the traditional sense to die a lot but it IS engaging to view it as a challenging puzzle to be solved in any way you see fit and Bungie embraced that in their design while giving options for players who have different tastes to still find some enjoyment through flexible game design and difficulty options.
I think this idea of "it needs to be fun" really goes against the ethos of a lot of Halo games for me, cause personally I can recall many sections of Halo games I found to be not fun at all when I first played it and I only came to appreciate them more after I realized the freedom I had to make it much easier on myself and not feel like a chore to get through.
The jet pack brutes part of Crow's Nest is an example of that, I used to despise doing that, it was not fun for me. Until I learned that if you give your squad of marines good weapons they will basically do the work for you and then I found it fun to be able to watch these marines I had outfitted with weapons myself go to town on this section of the game that previous gave me a lot of trouble trying to get thru it in the traditional fps manner of just running and gunning.
@@RoyalFusilier
If I am not enjoying your video game, it is not a good game. The point of the medium is the interactivity I would argue, which of course allows a very wide net for what is a game. Walking Simulators are valid but are very boring as an example.
It's such a simple concept that so many devs (modern Bungie themselve even) can't understand. And way too many people try defending it going, for example: "Well this game wanted to be dark or sad with its story" or whatever, but then ignore that if a game has a really good sad/depressing tone to it, and is told really well, then you're going to have fun going through it all the same. Either a game is fun and good, or a game isn't fun and is bad. That's all it comes down to.
I agree with the take that Cortana is a really great level. Perhaps not the best, but definitely in the top 5 for me. The atmosphere is top notch, everything is so oppressive, and honestly, fighting the flood isn't anywhere near as annoying as people say
Honestly, I mostly agree about Infinite's campaign. I never disliked it, and thoroughly enjoyed it; but it is definitely lacking in some ways. I really hope that once 343 is done with filling the gaps mp was missing, they work on a campaign DLC (hopefully about something related to the post-credit cutscene).
Also it was pretty funny hearing you try to pronounce my username lol (it's pronounced either "so-lo-toe-see-us" or "so-lo-to-chi-us")
My hottest take is that Infinite is worse than 5.
@@ano_nym now that's hot
@@Sonilotos a hot truth.
CE's magnum isn't OP, the majority of the maps in the original game was meant for 2v2 because CE was made before Xbox live was a thing and thus the only way to play with people was via split screen so its not that much of a surprise that mcc trying to fit the game into the 4v4 design of the other games makes it about as fun as halo 2 is on legendary. host a custom game with 3 of the boys and now your playing the social party game that the designers intended instead of the spawn die spawn die sim that is CE's matchmaking in mcc
also its just straight up easier to get a kill with any of the main precision weapons in any of the other games then the CE magnum because of its slow projectile speed requiring leading your shots on any map that is somewhat big like hang em high, low bullet magnetism, and pseudo bloom if you fire to quickly
Here's what I think is probably a pretty hot take: I prefer the Anniversary versions of Halo CE and Halo 2 because I see them as an upgrade. They play exactly the same, it just looks better. And Halo 2 Anniversary in particular has cutscenes that are downright beautiful to look at. Gravemind for example went from a booger in the original to a truly horrifying and disgusting monster in the Anniversary version.
I totally understand if nostalgia or a crummy computer makes the Anniversary versions worse for some people, but I like their graphics a lot.
The anniversary versions are hot garbage
@@TheRafark Okay...? Can you at least give a reason?
I like the halo 2 anniversary a lot, but the halo ce anniversary feels way too asset flippy, to an amateur modlike degree. I feel like it takes away a lot of the vibe that the original was trying to capture
8:11 I didn't know I could relate so much to a take. (For comparison I get more pleasure from feeling pain and being exhausted than from playing halo 4)
Infinites multiplayer is amazing now. There is so much content.
That response to my hot take was better than I thought. Maybe then if there was a spartan ops on infinite that would fill the void you’re looking for? Even more so if they added different environments.
Either way thanks for the inclusion Frog! 🐸
for what it's worth I 100% agree that spartan ops was a great addition and I liked what they were going for. tbh I feel like that was where the story the writers actually wanted to tell was at, but hey, it was a halo game so marketing demanded the chief be in it.
Here's mine: Halo infinite is one of the best halos up there with halo 1 2 and 3. The campaign while having repetitive gameplay it has some of the best story telling, music, and art style. Now that they fixed almost everything wrong with the multiplayer and its growing it is just as good as halo three in my opinion. It is the perfect mix between 343 games and bungie games.
lol
@@Freelancer837 ?
Agreed. It's definitely my favourite.
My man! 🤝
Agreed, I loved it. While I don’t think it’s the best, I defiantly think it’s up there with 2 and 3
Very fun Frog. I hope you keep these videos coming. I don't think I have any super hot takes but here's my best one. I really, really enjoy Halo 4's campaign. It's still my 4th favorite Halo campaign behind Halo CE, 2 and 3 (though squeaking ahead of Reach) and if I had to give it a grade, I'd probably give it a 94 (with CE getting a 98, 3 getting a 96, 2 getting a 95 and Reach getting a 93).
To try and get something a little more controversial, how about this one? I can make a better storyline to finish the second trilogy (keeping Halo 4 intact) in five minutes vs what 343 did over the course of ten years. Ready? Here it goes. After the events of Halo 3, the galaxy is fairly settled as after a few years of re assessing their values, the elites have formed a government that basically runs the former covenant but they continue to battle against different factions particularly the brutes who now believe the Didact is their new god after Halo 4 and they continue to ravage any of the Halo rings or Halo defense planets trying to find something that will bring him back. Chief is back with his unit kicking butt when a mission against the Brutes (mission 1) takes him back to a ring where he gets a message from Cortana. After being imprisoned by the Gravemind, Cortana set up a program to monitor the Flood and she discovers that after the events in Halo 3 the Gravemind contacted the Flood home planet. The Flood basically are in hibernation waiting for this contact and have been slowly rebuilding their home world ever since this contact and the events in Halo 3.
Chief shares this message with Captain Lasky. Lasky believes him but can't get authority to give Chief an official mission so similar to 4, he slips Chief a Pelican and leaves him to complete the mission on his own. Chief does need help so he first has to travel to the Arbiter and hopes he can get help. With the Arbiter's help, Chief finds another ring he has to go to that contains the rest of Cortana's message and her plan to save everyone.
At the same time, a group is formed to chase after Chief like the story was sold in Halo 5. Maybe Palmer is a part of this group to give the voice of reason but they basically follow after Chief and their missions can be on the same stages but show the destruction caused by Chief coming through and kicking butt. At the end of Halo 5 they catch up with Chief just as he unlocks the rest of Cortana's message and they all see the real threat has been the Flood the whole time.
We now move to Halo 6. I'm perfectly happy if Chief is still considered a bad guy but think it would be more fun if this information leads to the elites again teaming up with humanity to fight the Flood. The Flood are no longer just mindless zombies as they have had time to evolve and have different levels of soldiers making them more fun to fight (and more similar to the covenant in Halo CE with different tactics necessary for fighting different troops). Cortana's plan involves several tasks before confronting the Flood on their home world so maybe you still have to play as one of the characters from 5 that was chasing chief to accomplish one goal, another mission where you take control of the Arbiter to accomplish another task and then Chief has his own tasks. If you want to pull on some heart strings, Chief finds a piece of Cortana that's still alive and like the end of 4, they have a final showdown with the leader of the Flood on their home world and instead of Cortana saving Chief, he decides to stay with her and they both die while saving the universe. If you don't want that ending, it's perfectly fine for Chief to just get one last message from Cortana before going to kick the butt and save the world as usual. How did I do?
It's beyond better, still cringe though.
@@justiceforjoggers2897 My Cortana and Chief die together ending? Or just the whole thing? Thank you for reading it.
@@francescosmith7859
The part that includes Palmer, but I repeat myself. I think the story would work just fine so long as the game is a proper M rating instead of T, but the real problem is having Cortana back in any actual capacity
@@justiceforjoggers2897 okay, I can see that. My first thought was to try and use the characters they already developed in Halo 4 though I wouldn't say Palmer had any development or any use in that game so she can easily drop. (it's not like she adds any humor or clever one liners the way Johnson did)
Yeah, I can also see Cortana being troublesome but I think she's kind of necessary in some capacity. So not alive but keep the program she made to track the Flood and traces of messages she left to keep the story moving and she's the source of the plan to save humanity. I mean they made such a big deal in Reach that Cortana was the key to the survival of the human race and while she was pretty important in the first trilogy it still feels like she was underused based on that hype.
Of course none of this really matters since it's not like 343 will do a remake on these games but it's a bit frustrating the first trilogy was at least well told and a connected story where as the second trilogy they just bounce from one story to the next with no connection at all. So again I thank you for reading and commenting.
I agree about The Library. People just suck at killing The Flood and get tired of it
Nice description lol. So sorry you had to find out how much of a monster Marty is.
I'ma be honest. I completely forgot I posted that comment.
Edit: It was a really fun video. If you enjoyed making it, it'd be a pretty cool series.
343 definitely has better audio. No question. The guns just sound so much better
For individual sounds, the quality is definitely there, but when all the sounds of combat co-exist, things get a bit pitchy and annoying
Yeah sound design is great, not perfect. The one oopsie is having some guns not sound quite as unique.
It's definitely because everything is recorded live, and doesn't use stock sound effects
I think you mean “better sound design”
Halo infinite is better than combat evolved in my opinion
Don’t get me wrong, CE is a great game but it’s aged rough with time. It really feels like CE was just a test to see if the franchise could work, and then the following games were when they realised it could work. Like CE has such a bare bones story compared to every single other game.
I probably could’ve called this hot take “combat evolved is slightly overrated” but I think saying that infinite was better will sound a lot more controversial.
Hit take: the ma5 platform for assault rifle is leagues better looking than the ma37 and should've been the model for infinite. The ma37 fits reach's art style, but translates horribly outside that
Agreed, the AR in infinite looks goofy af
I disagree. Reach and Infinite's picatinny rail designs actually make sense and would be practical for real life military use, whereas the rest of the AR designs are just awkwardly shaped for God knows what.
I have a (maybe) hot take:
I much prefer playing with Halo 2 Anniversary graphics. It's a lot easier to see everything and the cutscenes are excellent.
(This addition makes it less of a hot take: playing on original Halo 2 graphics gives me a headache for some reason
😥)
8:19 I was surprised to see my map suddenly show up in your video. I hope you liked it!
Oh hey, yeah. Was considering doing a mod video where I talk about it and some others.
@@frogarchist That would be great! I really enjoy your Halo level ranking videos, and I'm curious, if a bit anxious, what you would think of my stuff
Also Frogarchist: Halo Reach is my least favorite Bungie era Halo.
These are definitely some hot takes. Don't think I can agree with hardly any of it lol.
Also unrelated but saw you were in Crash ep 3 and just gotta say you and Boomerang's team did a fantastic job.
For sure the library is objectively a good level: for a challenging co-op mission. Playing it alone is ass but if you want a hard back to back co-op mission to test your skills you can't beat the library
I kind of disagree about the party chat vs lobby chat issue.
Just because people gravitated away from lobby chat and towards party chat doesn't mean that it's on the whole a good thing. There's a lot of examples of people making individual decisions that lead to worse outcomes for everyone, even in just the gaming space. A big example that comes to mind is the predatory monetization policies that consumers reward developers for enacting. One that's not specific to gaming but is related to online social interaction is how fragmented internet social circles have become, which is largely driven by companies taking advantage of consumer preferences.
Party chat definitely has advantages; it makes online gaming much more accessible, especially to people who don't like hearing random slurs every other sentence, and can make the online experience more relaxed.
But it also has lead to an (ironically, given how the industry has exploded) insular environment, because people rarely interact with people they aren't already friends with. Some people do find others through 3rd party services, but you rarely communicate with random people anymore, and imo modern multiplayer is lesser for losing that. There was something cool about talking with the people you were playing with, who you'd never normally get to interact with in real life, and modern lobbies in a lot of online games often feel soulless.
And it's no longer really a matter of choice, because lobby chat only works if more than a few people participate in it. It sort of mirrors how little people who don't know each other talk in real life, and I think in general that effect is one of the most unfortunate developments of modern life.
I won't say that moving to party chat has been solely a bad thing, but it's definitely had some major downsides and greatly affected gaming culture.
I think blood gulch's staying power is partly because of the Halo PC freeware demo, which included silent cartographer for the campaign and blood gulch for the multiplayer. So if you were playing Halo on PC in the early days, you were probably playing a lot of blood gulch - likely on freeware to begin with, and later because there were always busy servers and it was an easy place to find noobs to wreck for fun.
Hot take: halo 4 is the best 343 industries game. And I think, it can kinda of compete against some of the bungie era games
Halo 4 was really enjoyable for me
@@SonicVK yeah it was
Halo 4 for me was ass.
Weapon sounds were annoying and ugly and look like the typical sci fi weapons
Then vehicles were made out of paper which is dumb because vehicles being weak ruins the gameplay etc for the mp
The story writing was good though to be fair.
The art style was ugly and too bright which looked almost plastic. The elites look like dinosaurs and don’t start me off about the pelican design and master chiefs armour.
If there us one thing halo 4 got right it was the cortana model.hahha
Frogman
MASSIVLY, MASSIVLY disagree about OG lobby chat. It was a way for poeple to meet poeple they would have NEVER met otherwise and built a real sense of public community and made building massive groups for custom games really easy. Im not saying party chat shouldnt be an option for tightnit groups of friends, but the lack of lobbies has all but murdered the in game social feel, most poeple dont interact with anyone else aside from shooting them and it feels really souless. This would be less of a porblem if there was an equaly populated and easy to use alterative but there isnt, sending messagaes to other players is often really clunky due to bad UI design and while discord servers exist, sadly few of the big ones host regular game nights its a real shame, more halo and FPS yotubers in general need to do this. As for why the devs dont put them in the game anymore I really dont think its becuase poeple wont use them, its due to bad management choices, crunch, and everyone fearing for thier lives about getting calls from angry karen moms that little timmy got called a swear word in game, there is this serious obsession these days in the internet about making everything safe for 4 years olds at the expense of everyone else, im not saying we dont need moderation but this massive overcorrection to the total lack of moderation 15 years ago really pisses me off.
Oh boy, more Halo 3 campaign revisionism. Yeah, totally fine to not have it be your favourite campaign, no problem with that. But the black-white binary that Halo fans use to talk about the games is so damn annoying. "Halo 3 campaign just isn't that good" is so disingenuous that it's hilarious.
It just isn't that good
so I played halo 3 a few weeks ago, and I learned how to love Cortana. The secret is Never. Take. The. Floods. Bait. Its not like halo 1 and 2 where shooting the flood is correct. If you are in a firefight with the flood, you're gonna have a bad time. but if you stick to the energy sword (functionally infinite ammo vs flood) and save your sticky and burny nades for the god awful ranged form that sticks to the walls while skipping the flood you don't *need* to fight makes it a tense experience that's actually really fun. The one exception to not shooting the flood is the brute shot, It actually kills the spore fuckers with relative ease.
but hey what do I know, Quarantine Zone is my favorite halo level. I'm just a flood enjoyer.
6:20 alr so
Some ppl like firefight
Theyre in the same room the whole time, facing mostly the same enemies again and again
Sounds a bit like library to me
Tho I understand that generally firefight is still better because of the environment and still bigger variety of enemies
Halo CE's campaign is way overrated.
I think the humanizing of chief is a good thing and the best way 343 could have kept the story and character dynamics interesting.
Anything a human does is human. Just because someone doesn't act or think like you do does not make them less human. Chief was already human
Halo is fun and nice and CE is my favorite game of the franchise. THE ONLY THING that 343 added that I wish was in the old games is picking up and tossing fusion coils.
My hot take: visr and the lighting filters in general in odst detract from the experience and cheapen the gamefeel
I agree, it would be cool if we didn’t have the visor at first, allowing the darkness to become a threat. Then instead of Romeo’s busted rifle, we find his headset which gives us the visor upgrade
As a new player, I hope 343 adds social features to whatever the next multiplayer halo game is...the concept and all that was in halo 3 sounds so good
Imo:
All Halo games are good games. (Except the mobile top down Halo games those are not really good) it’s just that when comparing all the Halo games to each other you realize the problems each one has.
Hi! I recently played through the Halo games for the first time so Im speaking from the perspective of a newcomer. Honestly, the good aura around the Halo franchise seems to be mostly nostalgia induced. They are by no means bad games, I think they're good, its just that I havent experienced the level of amazement that it was hyped up to. I'd say 2 & 3 are best overall. Reach had most fun gameplay. ODST is beautiful and being slept on. I liked H4 (it did have its flaws but then again all the games did). H5 is utter dogshit from which it is impossible to recover from
Infinite tried a soft reboot or whatever, but it was executed badly. The intro has a time skip and just leaves you confused on what is happening. The decision to go open world is actually a good one (i prefer linear games btw), although the didnt put in the effort for it, they should have placed portals so you can change biomes across the ring, like multiple regions connected by portals
Okay i never understood the Brutes vs Elites argument for Halo 3. If we were talking Halo 2 or Halo Reach, yes theres a significant enough difference between the two gameplay wise.
But in Halo 3 and ODST, they are practically the same encounters. The only major difference I can think of is the Brute Beserk and Brute Chieftains, specifically non-gravity hammer Chieftains.
Everyone already defaults to Noob Combo loadouts, and we still use power weapons exactly the same way.
So maybe its the Equipment which bleeds into Brutes and gameplay. Maybe its the Brute Choppers.
Idk but ive never gotten that issue.
I wouldn't say 2's campaign was bad, per se. The cut levels are noticeably unfinished, but it's supposed to be a plot cliffhanger anyway.
The difficulty tuning was kind of wack, though. The sniper jackals obviously, and the brutes are too tanky to anything other than headshot weapons given the level design forces fighting rampaging ones without headshot weapons early in a couple levels.
High Charity and Assault on the Control Room are the best levels of all time
My hot take is that the worst parts of halo games are forerunner structures, specifically corridors. they always overstay their welcome for how GREY AND BORING THEY ARE. That’s probably why I tend to like 3, ODST, and Reach more than CE and 2
halo 3 sandbox > halo 5 imo, not every gun needs to be able to directly kill people
Not many people seem to understand this about Halo.
My hot take is that cortanas villian arc could have been really good. As a concept it works imo
Halo CE was the first halo game I played back when I still had an OG Xbox. Halo 3 I probably played the most due to its massive popularity and being at prime gamer age when it came out. Reach was the first game I ever had pre ordered. My mom got it for me for my birthday the year it came out. I just played ODST all the way through for the first time as an adult this past Sunday. And it went all the way from my least favorite of the games I’ve finished (I haven’t played 5 or infinite all the way through yet. Life happened) to being right behind Reach and 3 for me. With all the being said. Halo 3 and Reach are pretty closely tied as my favorite games in the franchise. I think it was all based on the memories I had playing them because of actually having an Xbox live account for those games. Also: Oddly enough I never played an original copy of Halo 2. I actually never played it until I got MCC my senior year in high school.
9:33 putting aside the obvious, Halo 5 cortana existing makes this a really questionable take.
"Halo Wars is the greatest Halo game of all time".
Never have I reflexively said "shut up" to a video.
The devs themselves in a speedrun commentary have said they made it too long. Hindsight 20/20 of course, but its SO FUCKING LABORIOUS. it went from hated to eh for me, but i dread playing it because its 15 mins of nothing. Firefight is way more fun.
Halo 4 isn't that bad
Library and Sacred Icon are awesome
Hot take: Halo 3's change to projectile hit detection, while more realistic, was a bad change. Playing Halo 3 multiplayer is really hit or miss (literally) given different ping in each server/session and internet speed varying from player to player. Hit scan is just more reliable in an online environment.
I hated halo 3 in general
It's not projectiles themselves being a bad idea, look at grenades or rockets. It's more so the fact that halo 3s battle rifle has a fuck ton of spread past a certain range. You can have straight traveling projectiles like a rocket or plasma pistol shot. Someone just decided to make the gun have spread
I love halo 2 it’s my favorite halo game
I can't watch this because I see him trying to use the halo 3 magnum in the background
Those pesky Plasmaposters posting Cortana feet again
The beginning of the video is underrated 😂😂😂
That stroll through hell was pretty fun :)
This comment may be overlooked but in you're live streams I always comment on my progress of the stick stack also love you're vids and streams
Good to see another upload
Halo 4 Cortana thicc as hell
I'm sure the last one came from Plasmaposting 😌
343 games suffer mostly not because of bungie leaving but moreso because microsoft doesnt give them enough time and recources to fully flesh out their ideas. I doubt 343 game dev care about adding a store to the game that probaly came from higher up. If the original bungie crew still worked on halo a lot of the same problems would exist in modern Halo anyway.
Well said. Most things people don't like about Infinite are things concerning the marketing and management teams rather than devs themselves. I've just seen that forge AI showcase stream. The dev showcasing it is NOT someone who doesn't care about Halo in the slightest.
I agree w the Halo 4 Cortana take. I liked that she wasn’t this sex symbol in the bungie games and rather was an actual character w motivations and character. Not saying i didn’t enjoy halo 4 cortana’s character but her design in that game and future 343 titles always rubbed me the wrong way w how they made her physique more busty than slim/toned. Ik they tried changing it w 5 and infinite but it still doesn’t look like the same cortana from the bungie era and sometimes hardly acts like her either.
Here’s my hot take, Jorge’s death was not sad. I did cry over Kat’s death, but after that, I could tell Reach was gonna kill off the whole cast of characters sooner or later after that. Also Johnson’s death wasn’t sad to me either
Started on halo 1. Played a lot of halo 2, 3, and reach growing up. Halo 3 is still my favorite. Has nothing to do with which one you grew up with or started with.
I kinda see what he means with 4's Cortana being worst 9:33
She looked nice (hot), but she looked way different than any other Cortana. He's definitely wrong though, Halo 5's is so bad it's not even funny.
On that note, I thought it was supposed to be hot takes, not based takes. 10:39
I'm not sure I'm fully on-board with your argument for party chat being objectively better 9:00
You could use a similar logic to e.g. say that mobile games are the best because they bring the most revenue, or that battle passes are good because people are willing to pay for it. Just because something is used doesn't mean it's the best.
I think a big reason for party chat getting so big could be that it's simply convenient in a way. Like you are playing with your friend after school, so you form a party and talk in party chat even before starting up the game. Then you will never even be in the place of really choosing between the two.
And it may make the game worse for everyone, in a way, since you will not be able to give shoutouts to your teamates, or hear their shoutouts.
I'm not arguing that party chat is better. I'm arguing that it's not a bad thing that game chat fell off in favor of party chat, because that reflects most peoples' preference.
8:47 thats bc you weren't not around during halo 1 BG
Frog is best halo youtuber
I also love how when u showed a clip of ur live ur put ur frog picture over ur web cam😂
hot take: halo 5 had the best multiplayer
I actually think cortana and the library are pretty good. I like that they feel oppressive and like a horde mode. The rocket flood in the library are trash though.
I should find you some of my comments about this once great Expanded Sci-Fi universe.
I also agree that your favorite halo isn’t necessarily the one that came out at the perfect time, do NOT get me wrong, Ive played every Halo game and have loved them all, Especially the OG trilogy, because i was born in 2000, i remember seeing halo 2 as a kid and it looked INSANE, i also lived in a playstation house, so Xbox and Halo were taboo, and i wanted it more, i finally gained enough consciousness to remember things a few years later, and played some games CoD 3 MoH and stuff, but then I remember watching TV and the Halo 3 Believe Ads came on, i LOST it, I was very much in love with halo, spending the earliest days of UA-cam watching TV screen recordings of trick shots and giant kill streaks on H2 and then Bungie creates this live action masterpiece bringing Halo 3 to real life, it was absolutely insane to me and almost felt real, also considering i was the heir to the throne of a third generation of military service in my family and Halo totally had a giant impact on me joining the Marines, I felt like i had to play this game, i was saving for a 360, begging for jobs, watching the Believe campaign again and again on youtube trying to manifest this thing😂. And still to young to really realize when the game comes out, My family goes to my Aunt and Uncles house, and they had a giant TV in the living room, and when we got there i heard it, the Halo 3 Menu theme, i say my “Hi” give my hugs and DART to the living room where my Cousin Aaron is loading up halo 3 for his first time too. this was at about noon, and I dont know if yall know about Cajun cook outs, we party all night long, and Aaron and I played Halo three all. damn. day. and it was the greatest video game experience i have ever had, i soon got my own 360, and mom got me Xbox Live, and my friends and I spent all christmas break running around all day long outside, ans playing halo 3 every damn night. 2007-2009 was awesome, School, Football, Play Halo in the Woods, then play Halo all night. Loved that time in my life. So in short, Halo Reach is still my favorite Halo game.
The parallels between Chief and Arbiter. Two sides of the same coin.
When you watch the cutscene movie it is just pure art
flyingdoggo with the rage bait 😂😅
9:33 I have to agree, I don’t like the Halo 4 Cortana design, she’s uncomfortable to look at.
That last one tho 😭💀
I stand by my belief that armor lock is not broken
Blood Gulch does suck compared to most maps. I remember my friends used to try and get me to play it because they never stood any kind of chance vs me in normal combat
Seriously. I could find no reason to dislike Halo 2’s story. It was the best by far. The campaign as a whole is not the best due to the unfair difficulty and questionable level design, but it is still fantastic being a worthy successor to Halo: CE and ends with a great set up for Halo 3.
I actually don’t think your age determines your favorite Halo game. I only played 3 for maybe two hours in junior high and didn’t touch it again until I got my own Xbox in college. Now it’s my favorite Halo game overall.
I think Spartan ops was great as an extra co op opportunity
I wildly disagree with the nostalgia argument at 4:20. reach was my first halo and its in the middle of my halo list. in fact in a list of favorites there is clearly zero relation between first ones played ie most nostalgia for and actual favorites.
I think Halo 5 has the best sandbox in the series.
I’m not a fan of the Spartan abilities, but the movement feels perfect. I prefer Halo 2 and 3’s map design the most. Aesthetic goes to Infinite. I like Halo Reach’s weapon and vehicle sandbox the most. Combine all of these into one game and it will probably be my favorite for gameplay. My favorite campaign for its story is probably Wars because those cutscenes are awesome and events that happen are perfect. The score makes it even better.
Comparing Halo CE and Infinites campaign and saying Infinites gets old due to repetitiveness is a bold statement. /s
Sure Infinite only has one biome which is a real shame, but having genuinely repetitive room after room after room in CE is just monotonous and boring. I understand why it's this way due to limitations but I don't actually find Infinites campaign repetitive at all.
Halo 2 campagin (STORY WISE) is good if, but I think the gameplay, pacing, boss fights, and cliffhanger are not good aspects of it. I have only played through it maybe 3 times and was never really deeply invested in any of those playthroughs. It just feels meh and a bit janky from the gameplay and pacing. but again the STORY that halo 2 is based around (most specifically with the arbiter) is great. I personally think Halo 3 is the best original halo game story wise and gameplay wise. It feels epic, important, youre invested in the characters and plot, and it has some BEAUTIFUL scenery and amazing levels throughout the entire game. Halo 3 feels like a movie and I think the cutscenes in halo 3 are far better than Halo 2 (even ignoring graphics, the cinematic camera work, music, the dialogue, etc. is all collectively good. Halo 2 has good dialogue and story but the cutscenes dont compare to Halo 3 IMO).
Anyway
•Halo Reach is one of the best
•Halo ODST is better then CE and dare i say it 3’s campaign
•Spartan Ops was good but would’ve been infinitely better under Bungie
•Reach has the best multiplayer
•Halo 5’s multiplayer is brilliant
•all halo campaigns should be set in the Human Covenant war and not the turd that is Halo 4,5 Wars 2 and Infishite
•Halo Infinite is god awful and it’s campaign is the worst of all the Halo games including the mobile games
•Noble Team have the best characters
•MCC has kept Halo alive
I agree with most of the stuff you said but I really enjoyed halo infinite
Your infinte take is definitely....hot...it is better than reach for sure.
@@deathshot2101 halo reach is my favourite halo game of all time so I do agree with you
@@MRwortwortwortbob-nc4li yeah...um...I hate bloom.
@@deathshot2101 I don't blame you but I like it. It stop from constant spam
Hot takes by me:
Halo CE is the worst in the series
343 multiplayer is better than bungies multiplayer and it's not even close
Halo infinite coating system is the best color customization in the series
Tbh most of em were just opinions people had, not really based in facts which is something I hate about hotcakes because if someone dislikes something they dislike it it's there opinion. Now if they say halo 3s graphics are worse the halo 4 I will burn them on a stake
I see you have never played the H2 elevators and gondolas with nothing but an energy sword on heroic. rip
Okay first of all Xbox Party Chat is not in anyway the reason why “game chat” has sorta died off. People getting offended is combined with the fact some people just want to speak privately with friends and not sit there in a lobby with a spanish kid chatting non stop in Spanish wile his mother in the back his using the hoover. Being in a party auto mutes game chat.
The offended part is a big reason though because people went from taking punishment from other players, enjoying the abuse and dishing it to people intentionally trying to get a rise out of you to report you so you get banned or just straight up getting offended and reporting you. We are at a stage now on xbox where you can report someone for saying something in game chat.
yeah they just want to speak privately with friends
you could say, in their own party
This is always such a hilarious take that someone has to bring up any time XBL lobbies are mentioned. "It's just people being offended bro, everybody's so soft now bro, nobody'd survive the MW2 lobby bro." Game chat died because, as soon as they're given the option, every sane person in the world absolutely prefers having a casual conversation with their buddies to having the N word screamed at them repeatedly by a pack of 12 year olds.
I need to know more about the story told in the description of this video about Marty