It's been five years since the last Gears of War game, which is just long enough to remember how much fun this series can be.
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.
A lot of people give the 343 version of Master Chief a lot of slack.
But Fundamentally he is still the same character, he just has a couple more dialogues. He has not changed in terms of attitude.
"Not every character has to be a damaged soyboy, a soldier has to suck it up and do his duty."
And that's what he has done at the end of the day, he did his duty. Watch his partner die, and was ready to destroy the weapon in Halo infinite....he is still the same soilder that everyone remembers
Halo Infintes one was a nice balance between both.
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.
"However, in Halo 4-Infinite, the Master Chief overtime become. gradually becomes more willing to show some emotion."
Which is awesome! I love how Master Chief become more John and less soldier.
GB: "Nailing an experience's length is easier said and done, and one way or another, these games left a little to be desired on that front."
I always have a problem with games that should have been longer when lasting 8-10 hours.
Here's a question I ask all the time when ppl say that.
How many times have you replayed the story of a great game like Tlou2, GOW, Final Fantasy remake, GTA, Zelda, or any other 20 hours plus game? and usually, the answer varies between 0 and rarely 1.
So what's the point of having great 30 hours plus games if you will never replay them because of level, section, grinding dragging too long?
I agree I’m not sure how people find the time to play all these games. 20 plus hour games are great but for me 8 to 10 is the sweet spot. Those games take to long to finish specially when you have a backlog of games waiting to be played. Plus 20 plus hour games always have downtime and unnecessary side quests that can be boring too much fodder imo.
Being on your phone is one thing you can access websites like this everywhere on your phone or mobile gaming. But games you have to find the time to play them. Which is why I don’t understand why so many people want like ten games it seems In a month.
I think you're missing the point a bit.
A game can be 8-10 hours long and use that time really well, but it can also only start to get good far into the playthrough and leave the player feeling short-changed.
Hotline Miami is only 4-5 hours long but it's extremely well paced and time well spent. But if only got really good towards the end, I'd want it to be longer.
You just look at trophies and se that around 20% or less actually finish their games.
I've replayed all those games except GTA and Breath of Wild because I can never finish them.
The Last of Us 2 i've replayed 4 times. God of War (2018) 2 times, Final Fantasy Remake 3 time (technically Intergrade twice since went on Steam and I wanted 100% achievements), and if we do want to bring in Zelda I've played Ocarina of Time probably 4 to 6 times a few times on N64, another time on 3DS, and twice on virtual console Wii and Wii U.
I am sure I'm not alone in replaying long games and honestly it's like I'm finished within a week or two and that with balancing responsibilities and a social life. Shorter games take even less time.
Without mentioning Skyrim.. I've got two platinum trophies for Persona 5 and am playing it on game pass right now. Beat FF7R on normal twice and hard once and will play it again before the next one. Non story games- MHW I've made characters on PC/Xbox/PS with at least 600 hours on each platform. I don't care to play a mediocre games that are 8 hours long. The reason my backlog is so long isn't because that many good games are released each year it is because I replay the best ones over and over. Same deal with audio books. I've gone through book series multiple times every time a new one is coming out.
Disagree with Days Gone - yeah it took a while to really get going, but I appreciated it when I was done. Jumping right in at 4-5 hrs or whatever would've made the rest feel less impactful. RDR2 and Mankind Divided felt just right too, I wouldn't change them at all.
What needed less time was AC Valhalla. I was more than ready to be done with that by the time it was 2/3 over. Just too much useless stuff, and I hated the Asgard sections.
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 has been lost since bungie left ms
Halo 4 nor halo 5 have made the same impact sales or quality wise and both have had the shortest campaigns in franchise history (and no local co op for halo 5)
Gears 4 looks amazing
Plays amazing
Fun
Fun
Fun
It's actually been three years since the last Gears of War game released.
What Coalition's Gears of War does better than 343i's Halo is that it doesn't rely as much on extended universe lore to tell the story.
Another difference is that Coalition was allowed to let Marcus Fenix step aside so the story could focus on a set of new characters while 343i were restricted to reinvent key characters such as Master Chief(seeing as he's Xbox's defacto main mascot it's no wonder he's still the center protagonist) and Cortana.
MS should give The Coalition double their agreed compensation. They alone managed to change many minds to return to UWP, which is still shrouded in darkness. They saved Microsoft's ass on PC - for now - and I hope MS treats The Coalition like royalty and continues this trend realizing that we will THROW OUR MONEY AT THEM if they hook up this kind of care for GAMING, not microtransations, etc. I swore to myself I would not buy anything else from them, but because of THIS team and the absolute passion they gave to Gears, they brought me back.
I bought the Ultimate edition and feel zero buyer's remorse unlike the past few AAA games - like FH3 after that stuttering, frame drop hell and realizing we don't get all the content from the "ultimate" edition. My gf and I have been having a blast today with it, and my brother just picked it up as well ready to play co-op as well this week.
Hope MS sticks to this kind of quality on PC because we are ready to pay them more money.
It's not really a fair comparison, Halo was a series that many felt needed modernising and trying to get that right without compromising the Halo feel was always going to be a huge challenge. Gears is unique that there still isn't really any other shooter out there remotely like it, sure some have tried utilising the cover mechanics but ultimately none have come close to capturing what makes Gears great. Coalition had a far easier job as they could play it safe and it'd still be awesome after the abomination that was Judgement, a game that was so bad this article either pretends or forgot it even exists. Not to take anything away from Coalition as they've done a fantastic job but pleasing Gears fans while simultaneously making the game unique enough for it's own appeal was always going to be fairly easy in comparison to what 343 had to do with Halo.
I love Halo 4, it's one of my favourites in the franchise. The SP was amazing and I even enjoyed playing the MP.