: This is a long post and just to be clear, it is not aimed at any post in
: particular. It's more so just extreme annoyance at how any more posts are
: only complaint after complaint after complaint. It's been forever it seems
: since the forum was filled simple enjoyment and loving Halo for what it
: is. Of course its not a perfect game, yes it has plenty of subject matter
: to be critiqued, but damn any more its like the game developers have to
: please spoiled white teenage chicks that have super rich dads.

The funny thing is, just to play devil's advocate, if this forum were filled with nothing but gum drops and butterflies and rainbows and everyone loved everything all the time with only a few complaints, no one would come out with a post or a statement like yours just because everyone loves something and potentially doesn't view it critically and has nothing negative to say about it. Now, you are absolutely right when you say that there is a bunch of negativity, and I have absolutely had my share of negative thoughts critiquing much of the writing, design, and execution of Halo 4 as a whole, but that doesn't change the fact that many of these criticisms are absolutely legitimate.

I can also point you below to a nice discussion I'm having with Def Guru 7777. While we disagree on a lot of it, I feel it's pretty civil. I'm definitely very opinionated, and I'm absolutely backing up a lot of my opinions, but it's not something nasty or designed to try and convince Def that he's wrong or stupid or misguided. He's pointing out a lot of good things to me and really coming up with a lot of plausible explanations for things I've taken issue with. Granted, I'm not giving 343 the credit for coming up with a lot of these explanations based on how other parts of the game and Spartan Ops have been handled (not to mention that Halo Bulletin), but it can very well be constructive (though, clearly, not always, and I'm absolutely to blame for some of that at times).

: I know I am going to sound like an asshole for saying this, but you do
: realize Halo 4 is basically setting the stage for an inevitable test that
: if overcome will be evidence that mankind is capable of inheriting the
: responsibility of the Mantle from the Precursors.

I do. And Spartan Ops tells me that if the rest of the UNSC is anything like the crew on the Infinity, we don't deserve it, we're doomed, and it's time to call it quits. :P

: The books do not portray the Didact anything in the way of an ancient evil,
: or truly evil for that matter. In fact he held great respect for mankind,
: in the way that two great general/warriors/opponents admire and
: acknowledge the talent of each other. The Didact is simply stubbornly
: possessive of The Mantle's teachings and responsibilities being solely the
: duty of the Forerunners, not to be shared with other races. Even when it
: was discovered that ancient humans weren't conquering worlds and greedily
: expanding their nation, but simply running and dealing with the Shaping
: Sickness, he still considered their defeat to be punishment for humans
: ignorantly thinking the Mantle's responsibility was theirs alone to uphold
: and not kneeling before the Forerunners for help.

: I believe the actions the Didact took are a compromise with his wife.
: Something like, if humans can not stand up to a single forerunner weak
: from a 100,000 year slumber, with only a fraction of his true potential to
: wage war, then they will at least serve as warrior-servants to do battle
: with whatever the Precursors set forth to bring their cold and logical
: ideals of unity to our galaxy. Inclusion of the Didact's personality and
: inner turmoil dilutes his indubitable will to wipe out man. The Didact
: spent all the time observing Infinity, letting John live, and scanning our
: technology rather than just outright obliterating all who stood as an
: obstacle before him because he was infuriatingly trying to understand why
: humans were the ones deemed worthy successors. Add on fear from the
: knowledge he gained in his conversation with the Primordial and you have a
: foe that is far to self-conflicted to be a heartless evil hellbent on
: eradication of all life.

: With all that in mind, a mindless, terrifying opponent was not even meant to
: be 343i's intent with Halo 4. However, to say a threat was never felt is
: absolutely ridiculous. I guess that since America and Russia never saw
: large bloodshed from squaring off against each other the Cold War never
: really seemed like a threat to anyone. The possibility of total ruination
: of not just all of mankind but the entire world itself wasn't at all
: distressing for all world leaders and their people. Just because something
: was stopped before any real damage was taken does not mean there was no
: threat. The situation with the Didact was a Doomsday-like predicament,
: total annihilation or minute losses. If it weren't for the Master Chief
: negating the desire of Promethean master, Earth would have suffered a
: different fate.

Everything you've written in the above paragraphs has been masterful, and I've really enjoyed it up until the America vs. Russia part. You know, since we knew the power, knew of the nuclear tests, saw the footage, spied, and were basically a few steps away from war for years. Didact woke up. Didact observed. Didact decided humanity was a joke. Didact decides to just deal with humanity once and for all, converting them to Prometheans. Didact gets beat by light, a grenade, and a nuke all in the matter of a single quicktime event.

You see, what you're talking about here when it comes to the Didact as a threat is based on written content by Greg Bear and a theoretical scenario where he has a chance to, in-game, really be scary. And in what you're talking about, you are absolutely 100% spot on. Unfortunately, in-game, based on 343 Industries and its writing, the threat and impact is never felt. Take away all the knowledge from the novels. Treat this game as a stand alone title where you just have the game itself to rely on. It's not gripping. There's never any urgency to anything. Didact comes off as a paper tiger, and he's easily defeated.

So yes, you're right, if not for the Chief, Earth is probably screwed. Hell, not probably screwed, we're going to say definitely screwed. Thank goodness Chief was there to be the one to release him and to deal with him, because lord knows no one else on the Infinity could have. Too bad 343 wrote the Didact and presented his gameplay execution as nothing more than just some vampire we needed to slay.

: Regarding some other topics brought up in this discussion, the whole Captain
: Obvious stance on how could Master Chief and Cortana be so dim-witted as
: to think a communication device would be at the location they found it is
: a view that is ignorant of Forerunner engineering. When thinking of
: Forerunner design and structural engineering, nothing is ordinary or
: obvious from the viewpoint of mankind's comparatively diminutive intellect
: and scientific comprehension.

Agreed. Like my initial post was all about, I don't view this mistake as anything close to the near galactic destruction of the Flood that was unleashed due to Covenant blunders.

: The 'magic' that saved John was not so. I would say that the hard light
: emitters that create the bridge were quickly converted to create a hard
: light shield around the Master Chief and also phase him out of the
: dimension momentarily. Similar to the tech used in, Halo: Primordium, in
: which to save Halo 07 from obliteration sections of the ring were covered
: in hard light shields and 'phased out' to avoid being damaged. A similar
: explanation for John's survival really is not far fetched at all.

Well it's nice that you would say that, but the suspension of disbelief is still broken and that explanation is still pretty ridiculous. His own hand was on the nuke itself, and the nuke destroyed the light bridge and any power source maintaining it. I'm glad that maybe, just maybe it phased him out momentarily, but in that same moment, the nuke takes out the bridge and the power source and the Chief is right back and obliterated. And even if I agree with you personally, this isn't about my agreeing with you or not, it's about the writing and presentation in a game where perhaps someone has not read the novels and has their suspension of disbelief nuked at that moment. It's an in-game writing failure where the laws of the science fiction or space magic have not been set and presented. Nothing with the light shields maybe helping Chief previously to explain to the player how this would even be plausible. Nothing at all. Or Chief used Action Replay. :P

: If this whole post was actually read, sorry for I'm pretty sure going way off
: topic, just wish people remembered to appreciate something for what it is
: and show love for it rather than pick everything apart like the game
: should be built specifically for themselves and themselves alone. It's
: impossible to write a story that unfold exactly how millions of people
: think it should.

Oh no way! This was an excellent read. Again, I don't agree with plenty of it, but I really enjoyed reading it, and those few paragraphs up above just had me immersed. No sarcasm in anything I just said, btw. I really enjoyed what you wrote, read it all, and I don't think you went off topic at all. And yes, stories don't unfold as people think it should (check out the Mass Effect 3 ending, dun dun dun), but that doesn't mean the writing has to be so poor.