Examining The Halo Level That Ignores The Actual Halo

[@BenPlaysGames]

Subscribe: kzbin.info Support the channel: www.patreon.com/ben_plays_games Nearly there now!

[@jackgrove4621]

now that I think about, when everyone got zapped, chief just leaves the index on the now desolate sppace station where the covenant could easily just grab it.

[@samueleyton3995]

What index?

[@sa-amirel-hayeed699]

​@@samueleyton3995 in the part of the level where you fight the hunters amongst the civilians, the Index of the ring the station is over is on display in the room

[@samueleyton3995]

@sa-amirel-hayeed699 oh, maybe next time I play it, I will try to find it, thx

[@everybodysfavoritenobody]

I don't think the covenant at this point cared about it. Now that the didact was their leader.

[@alexanderelderhorst2107]

@@everybodysfavoritenobody true, with the didact changing their goal from the ring to releasing and serving him, it was not a problem to worry about. Plus the banished weren't considered at that point.

[@10Anaklusmos]

In the Didact’s defense, despite his major presence being felt through most of the second half of the game, you NEVER see the Gravemind in Halo 3.

[@Inferryu]

In Gravemind's defence, he was NOT the major villain for most of Halo 3, it was the prophet, with the flood turning against you once you've dealt with at the very end.

[@10Anaklusmos]

@@Inferryu And yet, you still heard Truth more than you saw him.

[@blanktester]

I liked not seeing the Gravemind. The Didact was an intimidating person, but the Gravemind is the personification of a force of nature. I don't know if I can really explain it but it felt like the Gravemind was all around us, which made him more interesting and dangerous to me. I wish we had seen more of the Didact, and as others said, I wish they had made him a bit bad across multiple games.

[@Espartanica]

@@Inferryu You're right: Halo 3 had TWO major villains and we barely saw EITHER of them

[@Inferryu]

​@@10Anaklusmos And yet, you still saw Truth more than the Didact, but nevermind that, is not about "how many times", is how significant the appearances where, we got to know Truth since Halo 2, where it had a more than enough share on the screen, for it's significance and first appearance, the Didact's personality had little time to shine, especially considering that this is also his last appearance.

[@jimjam7928]

Easily, inarguably the best Halo 4 mission. It has a mix of just about everything that the game is attempting to do, and balances it all evenly. You've got the theme of Chief and Cortana racing against futility on both fronts; the Didact simply outmatching them in resources, and what he's going to do with the Composer, along with Cortana's rampancy getting worse and causing her to make several mistakes. There is the good ol' variety of Covenant enemies to fight here, including memorably the Hunters, and less of the shitty Prometheans which are a chore to deal with even on lower difficulties. That also means less of an emphasis on using their crap weaponry, which most of the other levels try their best to force you to. And the ending is just magnificent in how it makes Chief and Cortana, the duo that brought humanity through its darkest hours, feel an utter tragic sense of defeat and loss. If the scientists and crew on board the research station had been established earlier in the story, it would have been even better done imo.

[@angryretailbanker5103]

I disagree with the fact that it's disappointing or irritating that you don't explore Installation 03. I'm not anti-Halo, but what were we expecting to find on that ring that we haven't on the two we already saw during the Bungie days? I know a UNSC research station isn't the top destination everyone's been chomping at the bit to see, but it's a change of pace. We've never seen a UNSC research lab, and putting the level on the ring would mean yet another Forerunner environment, which would make Dawn the only level in the game not to take place on a Forerunner construct. The original trilogy took great care to place environmental diversity in their games for a reason. Plus, it makes far more sense in-universe that the UNSC would have moved the Composer to a dedicated research station. The UNSC knows what's on Halo. Remember that somewhere on the ring is an extensive Sentinel security system run by a Monitor that probably doesn't want the Composer being removed. And, oh yeah, the Flood. Every ring, to my knowledge, has samples of the Flood hidden away for research. If I were the UNSC, I wouldn't have anyone on that ring for a second more than needed. So besides mixing things up a bit, this just makes more sense.

[@inductivegrunt94]

Easily one of Halo 4's best levels. Fighting against just Covenant again alongside human forces in a UNSC environment was very enjoyable. It makes for a very fun and nostalgic experience. And having those humans be made up of by security and scientists was a nice change as we haven't fought besides non-UNSC military personnel since the Militia in Halo Reach.

[@danilosardo1179]

So, literally the game before Halo 4. But I agree with the rest, although some parts of the second half were a bit boring

[@CrimsonCoqqk]

I wish they made the didact a trilogy spanning BBEG instead of "killing" him off in his first outing with a quick time event. I know he's still alive and they continue his story in the books but that's also another gripe with 343 is that a lot of the stories and plot points they start in games don't finish in the following game. So everything feels disjointed if you haven't read any of the books. It doesn't help that the narratives for the games after Halo 4 had a lot of scraps and rewrites

[@PackHunter117]

Didact should’ve been Palpatine and Jul Mdama should’ve been Darth Vader for the 343 era of Halo

[@cashisking4691]

​@@PackHunter117well said. I've thought the same.

[@alexanderelderhorst2107]

If I wanted to read I wouldn't have played the games.

[@kidkovak140]

I think halo 4’s campaign story is actually REALLY GOOD. Especially for 343. Then they threw it all away with halo 5

[@PBST_RAIDZ]

Seems to be a trend with 343 spartan ops throws away h4, h5 throws away spartan ops, then infinite throws away h5

[@miniaturejayhawk8702]

​@@PBST_RAIDZ how exactly did spartan ops throw away halo 4s plot? If anything it expanded on the storm covenant.

[@gjtrue]

I thought the same and still do. Toxic bungie fanboys aside, I really like the story mostly.

[@Dorian_Kellum]

I loved the moments with Tilson in this mission. Chief’s interactions with non-military personnel are some of the best in the books, and this does a good job of showing his personality.

[@roywilson4514]

Still cant believe this came out on 360

[@Luke_SkyWalker2187]

Right?! I think Halo 4’s beauty is massively under-appreciated. I was blown away upon seeing the opening cutscene in 2012

[@gjtrue]

Agreed. My issues with Halo 4 aside, which I still enjoyed for the most part, even back then I thought the game looked AMAZING back in 2012. I still think the game looks great and shocked the Xbox 360 didn't burst into flames lol.

[@TheJohnmurphy516]

The promeathons and the game play around them are the biggest problem with halo 4. This level has marines all around with epic fights. too many times in halo 4 you are alone, bored, and in desperate need of another gun.

[@alexanderelderhorst2107]

And forced to use nothing but promeathians guns because they are infinitely better or cause it's more prevelant. Covenant weapons are weaker and even the strong human weapons are few and far between more often than not. I mean barely having enough ammo for a full ar to kill maybe 2 knights or 10 grunts (granted that's legendary but even then) is not really fun.

[@inkursion5868]

​@@alexanderelderhorst2107Never understood the ammo problem. The only level I had ammo issues on legendary and being forced to use Promethean weapons is Midnight. In other levels there is a variety of weapons to use and most of them have ammo scattered throughout the level(dawn weapon crates in Requiem, sniper rifle drops and Mammoth in Reclaimer, Pelican in Shutdown, Infinity as a whole, etc. And unlike Halo 3 on legendary(which I replayed right before 4) there isn't a big chunk of nigh unusable weapons. AR is good for once, magnum got it's scope back, shotgun pallets don't disappear half a meter in front of you, needles is very deadly in this game(probably why they cut it's ammo capacity that much) etc. I think plasma pistol was a bit overnerfed with how fast it's energy depletes from regular shots and the Binary rifle really could have used a 1 extra bullet in its magazine for the final level. Other than that It's hard for me to think of a weapon that felt bad to use or that there was a clearly superior weapon to choose

[@hydrophobia936]

I don't like Halo 4 very much but this level was shockingly good. Definitely one of my favorites.

[@DewItOrDie]

Composer proves that Halo 4 had a lot of potential to be a great Halo game if 343 just gave the fans what they wanted

[@nocomment6421]

Yeah but that was against their aim to shit on the fanbase

[@Espartanica]

@@nocomment6421 Yeah, the fans do that a lot these days

[@OJ9992]

It’s actually impressive how bad 343 ruined Halo. No one wanted the Promethians yet they somehow still convinced themselves they were a good idea. Now they’re doing it again with the Endless.

[@gjtrue]

@@OJ9992 Should the Endless even count yet? Only fought one faction that was a ripoff of Drones and a "meh" boss at the end of Infinite. And I'm legit wondering if this plot point will even go anywhere moving forward...

[@flash-fire117]

From an in universe perspective a research station off the ring makes sense given the flood outbreaks on the previous rings If an outbreak occurs there won’t be as many people to infect and all the important artifacts, such as the activation index, are safely out of reach of the parasite

[@ugipse]

Composer in my mind is one of the better Halo 4 missions. My second fav.

[@PineappleStickers]

This level felt like it introduced the sorely missed staple of Halo where you fight alongside an actually noteable amount of allies (Reclaimer barely counts). The shame being that you just don't care about any of them because they didn't exist before this level and wont again after. Its like you're just some tourist going along for someone else's ride for a brief window, with zero consequences

[@theneoreformationist]

infinity

[@jimjam7928]

Yep. I've always thought that, if the people on the research station had been established earlier, and the Composer mission happened perhaps closer to the halfway point of the campaign rather than at the end, it would have raised the stakes nicely and made clearer what exactly the Didact is doing.

[@exoticbutters4212]

I mean, would it really have been that difficult to just have the science station on the ring's surface?

[@Jacob-360]

Composer is the best of Halo 4 for me personally, it isn’t too long the gameplay is mixed up from time to time, probably one of 343’s finest levels.

[@Cailus3542]

"They'll pair you with another AI. Maybe even another Cortana model if Halsey lets them." "That's not going to happen." Well, this is awkward.

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

"Chief Gets Another Cortana Model" 🎶 _(It's Always Sunny theme)_ 🎶

[@anguswaterhouse9255]

Can’t say I blame them for ignoring the halo, I actually like being able to look at it from an external perspective rather than from standing on it. It just looks more impressive like that y’know?

[@ADRIANSKA97]

Opinions like yours is why we keep getting trash over and over in new halo games....

[@TheActualMrLink]

5:17 I mean, Ganondorf is like that in a lot of the Zelda games. You frequently feel his presence and influence, but the man himself rarely appears unless he absolutely *needs* to.

[@fean2712]

Back when this game first released, one of my friends made a comment that almost the entire game is progressed because you fail at whatever your current objective is, and that none of those failures are even fun; they're just cutscenes. You fail at stopping the Didact being released. You fail at stopping his escape from Requiem. You fail at stopping him from getting the Composer. There are minor successes, like getting the Infinity out of Requiem, but those are sandwhiched between much more significant failures. This level, despite being the best level in the game in terms of actual gameplay, is the epitome of that problem. Any success that you have in gameplay is just rugpulled out from under you in a cutscene. I've never been able to shake that feeling of nothing you do matters in 343's Halo, because that threat of it being rugpulled is always there. That's not to say Bungie's Halo was entirely innocent of it, but they respected your successes in small ways, like Echo 419 extracting marines in CE's mission Halo, which goes a long ways toward feeling like what you do in the game actually matters.

[@mcazares48]

This level is in my top 10 favorite missions in all Halo games.

[@Andrewbaysura1]

not only is it hard to get invested in an enemy, you get introduced to him and kill him in the same game where in all previous Halo games, it takes more than one game until you finally kill the enemy's boss and it builds up to it.

[@thelizardking3807]

7:40 breathtaking indeed

[@BrunerTuner]

LOL I see it now..several breathtaking things there

[@jaykoops9502]

Almost each Halo sequel has to do less and less with being on a Halo ring.

[@ashleykirin3893]

I really can't think of any "villain" in Halo. Sure, there are specific characters who fight against you like 343 Guilty Spark. But the only real singular monolithic entity we have before Halo 4 would be Gravemind, who only appears for a short time in Halo 2 and 3. The Didact was the series first real BBG in my opinion. And honestly, while I didn't and still don't find him much of a compelling villain I don't find his near absence to be too big of a deal. Many games have their big villains make rare and fleeting appearances. The Elder Scrolls, for example; in Oblivion Mehrunes Dagon isn't seen until the end of the main story. Same with Alduin in Skyrim. Most of the big baddies are kept in reserve for a spectacular final battle, their presence being felt rather than seen for much of the game. I think it would have been cool to SEE the Didact more or maybe have one or two small battles with him at least. There isn't even a true final battle with him, just some button mashing.

[@MacBamboocha]

Yeah, hard disagree on the skyboxes. The ones Bungie made were always breathtaking paintings. 343i approache is a lot more realistic, but it can be quite boring because of that. Hi is probably the biggest offender. H4 absolutely had its moments, though, and this might have been my personal favorite mission.

[@silouette65]

Every time I see the Didact... Why are his ... ... fangs? always fully stationary, despite his mouth, face and teeth moving around them.

[@Xtermenator217]

I would like to point out that the main villain not showing up much is similar to halo 3. Truth shows up in a believe 3 cutscenes and the gravemind only appears through his tentacles in 1 level and voice lines

[@brianoconnor9105]

I did like this mission, but it really did feel like “well we gotta have a Halo somewhere in the game.”

[@regularphill]

This was my favorite 343 level. It still is.

[@noahlong3425]

when are you streaming again Ben??

[@andydufresnefromshawshank5866]

I’m not a fan of most of the missions in Halo 4, but Composer is my personal favorite in the game

[@nybergsgarage]

Soldiers and scientists fighting aliens on a research station. now it just needs some portal technology and we've got ourselves a half life.

[@torb-no]

I honestly never noticed the Halo in this level. Great analysis as always! Having story enemies not met in flesh seems to be a 343 thing, we haven't met what is presumably the real antagonist of the story Infinite starts yet Personally the less interesting ai behavior let's down fighting the covenant, though much better than promotheans of course. That said, I now think maybe I've been too harsh.

[@slicer940]

I think it came out that the end scene was the main reason halo 4 got an M rating.

[@TJ_ax]

Man having had one or two missions on Installation 03 would have made this game A material

[@Generaljack117]

Promethians are so annoying

[@John630]

Yeah...... I have play Halo 4 like 4 times (each time increasing rhe difficulty) and Its just nos appealing tobreplay it again, sorry. Its just too bad and there a few thing that make the game good

[@blueguy2128]

When I was like 12 at the time of release, this mission had me HYPED to get back on the ring. I was so pissed when we couldn't get on it. Tho ironically enough this mission became my favorite one of Halo 4 through the combat with the Covenant lol

[@Freelix2000]

I think another reason why the mission had so many ally NPCs throughout was because it made the ending seem more devastating when the Didact activates the Composer. It wouldn't have seemed as significant if you didn't get a full sense of how many people were on the station desperately trying to live.

[@False_Convoy]

At least to me, this is Halo 4’s best level.

[@maineiacman]

Everything about Halo 4 was bad. Its amazing just how throughly 343 butchered what made Halo great.

[@J.H.Lee_]

My favorite mission on halo 4. Such a great palette cleanser with great environments and gameplay

[@miniaturejayhawk8702]

There is no reason for the didact to personally be anywhere near chief and its not like the chief would realistically survive any such encounter. He is basically a god running some chores and the elites are merely pets to him considering he refers to them as beasts. The chief is really nothing more than an annoying insect to him for most of the game. Thats what makes his encounter at the end so noteworthy. Chief is such a legendary warrior that he managed to get the attention of what is essentially a god of war.

[@thecosmicentity5597]

Probably one of 343's greatest sins. There was ZERO reason for the level to not take place on it.

[@MrRyrukMain]

7:40 "You also notice the BREATHTAKING" He says skybox but I thought he would talk about cortana lmao

[@QuarrelsomeLocalOaf]

"Chief... I'm trying to secure the Composer... but I'm dummy thicc, and the clap of my asscheeks keeps alerting the Didact"

[@TheGamingSpoon69]

Lmao XD

[@miniaturejayhawk8702]

How the UNSC manage to secure the index? The same way they intended to in halo 2.

[@steverambo4692]

God I will never not hate how much this game feels like a super hero movie with some wattpad fan fiction sprinkled in

[@Derkiboi]

7:41 breathtaking you say??? nudge*

[@squabblecat]

I don't think you need him visibly there for him to be an investing villain. The purpose of the scientist being emotional about losing her work is to communicate what's at stake in the Didact's arrival. You don't need him in front of you to know he evaporates everyone at the end of the stage.

[@squabblecat]

Same with the Halo ring. The campaign has Chief hopping around enough locales. You don't need him going to the ring when it's unnecessary to the story. Seeing it is fan-service enough imo

[@squabblecat]

What Halo 4 fails to communicate about the Didact is his parallel with Cortana. Cortana is going through Rampancy, while the Didact himself was imprisoned for his ongoing logic-plague. She's dying from Rampancy while he is LIVING Rampancy.

[@edux54]

I think it's time to feed the algorithm

[@_GeneralMechanics_]

Commandeering the Covenant craft would have been a fun sequence to play we never got a chance to.

[@burge117]

Hey, Ben. Another great video on a subpar game 😂 I also found The Mantis a bit bleh 😅 Hope you have been well man 😊

[@limited_2_noone]

Bros at mod is cool af

[@cameronbaum7918]

didnt even know there was a halo in "Game 4" by 343 based on the halo series.