Kotaku: The Problem With ... *SP* (Gaming)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Friday, November 27, 2015, 01:28 (3288 days ago) @ Funkmon

Me either, Kermit. Red eyes, not being clear with us. Choosing to stay behind on high charity. Talking to the grave mind and not giving us any info. She's finally playing her part. Have you seen that post on HBO regarding the Cortana letters?

Frankly I think after Halo 2 and Halo 3 it was just too late to pick up that plot thread, which seemingly remained in Halo 1 even though it was never followed-up on. Halo 4 and 5 almost absolutely depend on the player either not really caring why things happen, or reading the novels to understand why things are happening.

To the extent that I even care what's going on in that story anymore, I'm still not quite buying the transitions they are trying to make for Cortana, Halsey and Master Chief. Halsey as mad scientist and Spartans as broken, tragic victims are supported by the novels and deep background, but definitely NOT supported by Halo 1-3-- not in the least.

The "absolute power corrupts absolutely" angle they're pursuing for Cortana works a tiny bit better, but I'm still not buying it. Halo 3, for me, undercuts it completely. I think they're bending over backwards to make her look like a threat, but the only thing in the trilogy that supports it is that one moment were she got a bit sarcastic and insulted the Master Chief for a couple minutes. That's really not much to go on.

Given the danger of the Covenant either activating Halo rings unnecessarily, or humanity failing to activate them when necessary, or the two groups waging a war across the galaxy either with or amongst each other, Cortana policing the beat with a bunch of Guardians seems like not such a bad idea. What's making it look bad in H5 is the collateral damage, but that was seemingly done for no reason... there seems to be no reason other than a show of force why Cortana is collecting Guardians in the manner she's doing so, and Taylor's performance at the moment that is supposed to sell the "crazy Cortana" to us-- when she takes umbrage at the Master Chief's reasonable question about civilian casualties-- just did not work for me. I know they didn't want her to go full moustache-twirling at that moment, and I can respect that, but it's so underplayed it almost feels like what they're going to do is blame the warden for it all. So when he is finally actually defeated, Cortana will un-crazy herself, but she'll have survived rampancy, and they'll return the Haloverse to status quo: Master Chief and Cortana ready to go on more adventures. Which was just what Halo 3 was designed to put a stop to.