: I don't know if Halo would be better still under Bungie's wing than 343's. Do
: you?
: We know Bungie made mistakes, we know Bungie had different priorities with
: the Halo universe. For me, 343's priorities were more focused on enhancing
: and continuing the Halo universe beyond just the video games. That's what
: I want. I just want them to make sure that the stories they tell are the
: best they can be.

: I hate all this Anti-343 sentiment. Bungie wasn't perfect. 343 isn't perfect.
: We love Halo. So we need encourage 343 to continue and to improve. If you
: (general you) don't want Halo for a while, then take a hiatus. But don't
: take Halo away from me! ;P

I feel that people sometimes forget what Halo 2 and Halo 3 were actually like. Objectively speaking, Halo 2 was a half-finished, super buggy mess of a game. Half the story was scrapped and the other half was very similar to Halo CE's plot ("Not the most original plan..."). BXR, host BR advantage, super jumping? No game should be released with those game-breaking bugs. Halo 2 is only seen as a success today because it was still miles ahead of everything else on the market in 2004.

Halo 3's gameplay was super solid, but the campaign's plot was insultingly one-dimensional. Gone are the Arbiter levels and the Machiavellian Prophet of Truth. Instead we get an AI side-kick and an antagonist so boring that he makes Bond villains look complex. And Bungie still messed up the cut-scenes, with slow loads and poorly timed fades to black that ruined the dramatic tension.

And this is before we get to the fact that Bungie didn't know what the hell they were doing plot-wise in the next Halo game as the previous one was written. They had no long-term plan. We went from humans being Forerunners in Halo CE to Forerunners being a separate species in the Halo 3 terminals. We went from the Flood being a creation of the Forerunners, with their hubris in playing God being their own downfall, to the Flood being an outside force that happened upon the Forerunner civilization. We went from the Ark being Earth to the Earth simply being a portal to the Ark. At least 343i is thinking ahead and has some semblance of a plot planned out for the entire trilogy.

I played over 1000 hours of Halo 2 and Halo 3 is my favorite multiplayer game. But holding Bungie up as the flawless Gods of Halo is to misremember the faults in their games.