GamingLives mourns the decline of socialising in online games and explores why.
" If an individual wants to include a social side to their gaming, they must now do so in dedicated communities, gaming clans and guilds, or by restricting themselves to their own friendship groups. No longer can it be found in our everyday experiences of the games we play online."
In Halo 4, 5, and Infinite, Master Chief became a more nuanced, human character.
In spite of the Halo series’ struggles, 343 deserves praise for adding nuance and characterisation to the ever-beating heart of Halo - The Master Chief. Playing through Infinite, it's abundantly clear that the events of the current and previous trilogies have irrevocably changed the iconic hero. He’s no longer the ‘blank slate’ that was previously presented by Bungie. He’s a fatigued, damaged and fallible protagonist, and one who is meandering through currents of grief, while reveling in his newfound agency. Giving the Chief a compelling and meaningful voice was no small feat, and 343 should be proud of that victory.
This article completely misses part of the appeal of the original iteration of character in the original game trilogy. It was the Chief and Cortana vs an entire alien collective. The blank slate Bungie displayed in their games was genius, he was an mysterious hero a wide audience could identify with because he wasn't as clearly defined as most characters.
The books added a lot of lore and backstory but most Halo players just want a fun game with exposition that doesn't get in the way of gameplay, it's why the Cortana level in Halo 3 was derided.
Not every character has to be a damaged soyboy, a soldier has to suck it up and do his duty.
The 343i Master Chief has is based on the books. However, in Halo 4-Infinite, the Master Chief overtime become. gradually becomes more willing to show some emotion.
It’s a law of nature that eventually, every long-running game franchise will have a particular entry that gets dinged for straying too far from what made it so fun in the first place. Your Super Mario Sunshine, your Dragon Age II, Assassin’s Creed III, and so on. Whether or not that opinion changes more favorably over time, the initial specter of negativity will forever hover it. Microsoft’s Halo is no exception, except that negative specter hasn’t hovered over one particular game, but one whole studio.
Halo 4 released 10 years ago today, and its disappointing reception was just an omen of things to come with 343 Industries at the helm.
Halo 4 and infinite have a 87 on metacritic and five a 84🤣. 343i need contents and everything else will play it self out.
Halo 4-6 are like the Star Wars sequel trilogy
They all just seem like a brand new games with small connections to the last one but no solid arc connecting them, you’re just told stuff that happened off screen in between the games and nothing makes sense
It’s like they didn’t plan a new trilogy out
I'm getting a good gaming laptop soon and i'm finally going to play through the Halo franchise again plus Infinite but i never played Halo 4 before .. can anyone tell me how's the campaign in comparison to the games before it and compared to Halo 5 ?
The reason why no one chats in-game anymore is because of three types of people:
1) The assholes that take the game too seriously and insult anyone that's better or worse than them,
2) The trolls that do nothing but teamkill or play loud, obnoxious music through the mic, and
3) The prepubescent snot-nosed children that are a mix of everything above.
If gamers actually had respect for one another and did their best to keep a clean competitive online environment, then maybe more people would be willing to plug their mics in. The odds of that ever happening, though? Slim. Very slim. It's a fact that being an anonymous entity online gives people a scapegoat to be immature; it gives them a mask to hide behind, and it's common for gamers to abuse that anonymity. Half of the stuff gamers say to each other while playing a game, they would never say face-to-face. Try going up to a random person at a gas station or shopping mall and call them a "d***-sucking f***** n*****" or talk about their mother. Odds are they'd deck you in an instant. But online? There's nothing they can do. It's essentially a Get Out Of Jail Free card.
It's a sad reality, but that's just the way it is -- and as much as we want it to change, it probably never will.