: But candidly speaking, my opinion of you is that you love Bungie more than
: you do Halo.

: It's not that Destiny feels like Halo, its that Destiny feels like Bungie .

: They just gel with what *you* like.

: You like Bungie's Halo because its been around enough that its cemented what
: Halo should be to you- there were no other alternatives. Your art and
: writing style are very Bungie-esq, they are a huge influence on you. It's
: a style that you fit and that fits you.

: When the torch was passed the new alternative was familiar and yet
: fundamentally different to your core outline of Bungies Halo. Its a style
: that while not necessarily bad, doesn't fit you.

: At least that's how I see it as it applies to you individually.

: Loftus would be my counter example- he has stated many, many times that he
: likes Halo because Halo.

: Agree to disagree I suppose? I'm not claiming to know you better than you
: know you (that would be foolish) I just know that sometime what we think
: we see and know about ourselves gets....blurred because of ourselves haha.
: Forrest for the trees kinda thing ;)

: TL;DR

: Bungie could slap Marty's music on just about anything and tease a blurry
: napkin sketch and you'd be hooked :P

and raise up the pie.

I come from a school of thought, that the two are inseparable. Not to say 343 could never make Halo that feels Halo, they did a good first attempt IMO. But they didn't invent Halo, they don't get the luxury to define what it is at it's core.

A good example is Star Wars, the Star Wars games usually kept consistency with their source material. I never had to question myself if that was an AT-AT in the snow. But the prequels, while keeping much visual consistency, didn't keep thematic or narrative consistency. At the end of the day, they didn't feel like the OT, and there is no way to take back that attempt. Every subsequent story will have to deal with this in someway, possibly well, possibly not.

I will say this, I liked Halo 4 for the music, at times the story, the Chief and Cortana, and some other things I can't think of now. A lot of the reasons it is soured in my mind is tied to SpOps, and lack of what I liked in MM and Customs, Theater, and the biggest thing is somehow story ignorance of the previous events in Halo 2 and 3.

And as far as my opinion being the be all end all... it is. I'm the fan, the intended audience, my opinion is what matters. If this is missed, it's because I am not the intended audience, or they messed up on trying to deliver the intended their experience.

P.S. Only now that I have reached the end of this post do I realize how easily darkness can envelope the parts I even enjoyed, and vice versa. I guess I'm that much on the middleground of enjoying Halo 4.