: Through all of this, I'm trying to think back to how I was 10 years ago.

: 10 years ago, little Rev was 16.

: At that time, Rev was satisfied and amazed at how everything looked.

: So I think to myself (while others continue to nit-pick every little thing
: incessantly), "If 16 year old Rev was seeing this re-mastered stuff
: for the first time, what would he think?"

Thanks for this, really sums up my thoughts as the MCC approaches.

: The Gravemind is supposed to be this huge embodiment of the
: thing-that-should-not-be.

: It's supposed to be grotesque. Did Blur do that? I think they did.

: It's certainly more fearsome looking than it's more plant-like appearance in
: Halo 2, which compared to everything else was animated horribly.

: Bungie had high ambitions for it. Do you recall the one interview where they
: wanted to give it a slit for a "mouth" and use skulls as
: "teeth" when it talked? Compare that to how it came out. I'm
: sure a lot of it had to do with the technology at the time, but even in
: Halo 3, they just opted to not show him at all!

: Some people will chime in and say that clearly, they wanted you, the player
: to imagine what he looked like blah blah leave it up to interpretation
: blah blah and that's well and good, except that since they showed him in
: Halo 2, they set an image you can't take back. In Halo 3, they just called
: it a day and showed a tentacle.

As much as I love most things about Halo 2, the introduction of the Gravemind wasn't one of them. The first time I played it, I didn't even understand that the awkwardly lip-syced plant monster was even part of the Flood, and I dimly remember a Halo 3-era interview with Joseph Staten that said this was a common problem.

I much preferred the Halo 3 interpretation, where the Gravemind was an all-encompassing presence and a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere. If I were designing its introduction, I'd make it a voice from the shadows, with tentacles appearing occasionally from different directions so that you couldn't grasp the scale of the thing, except that it was all around the Chief and the Arbiter. But failing that, what Blur did is pretty cool.

Now, if I were to make a knee jerk complaint, it would be about the Brutes. They're clearly mocaped, and gives them a gorilla-suit/Chewbacca look that doesn't suit them. I thought the old hand-animated Brutes better conveyed their strength and weight. Oh well.