Reacting to Your Halo Hot Takes

[@newton4010]

My hot take is: Halo 1 has one of the best weapon feeling in any Halo game. You can tell that in H2 a lot of weapons got a downgrade when talking about their reload animations and overall feeling. For example, Halo CE's sniper rifle and Pistol have both a tactical and empty reload animation. The shotgun feels so good to use, and the Plasma Rifle feels the best in the series, just makes the 30 seconds-loop of fun very consistent.

[@unknownpack5717]

Halo CE feels the best to play on PC solely for how melee works in that game. It felt more powerful compared to the sequels and has a little bit of range. Most importantly I think the lack of a lunge mechanic when doing a melee attack is better since it felt of eloquent in the sense that your movement/ vector of movement was not disrupted when you melee an enemy, allowing you to continue strafing while you melee. Furthermore it felt more rewarding then simply being pulled towards an enemy, you had to aim and time you melee attacks.

[@newton4010]

@@unknownpack5717 Completely agree 🤜🤜

[@GeeWee700]

I never understood 30 seconds of fun, is it like find a group of enemies and fight them for like 2 minutes then within 30 more seconds find another group of enemies because that’s how some open world games are

[@unknownpack5717]

@@GeeWee700 The difference is the gameplay. Halo's thirty seconds of gameplay is fun because it encaptulates much more of the mechanical aspects of the game. Melee and grenades are much more powerful in halo compared to other fps games and thus a core aspect of combat as suppose to situational backups. Essentially halo is great because of the tools provided to eliminate a group of enemies. It's how you fight that enemy for two minutes which makes it great.

[@nootaboot7042]

i think you're saying that just because of how strong the weapons are

[@chem367]

I found your channel yesterday and I can't stop binge watching ur vids. This is very high quality stuff.

[@ajaisehmbi4481]

or should i say bungie watching... sorry.

[@ThisHandleIsDefinatelyTaken]

About split screen, it was really fun to play couch co-op in multiplayer. In addition to being just plain fun, you could use the two screens and two radars for massive awareness boost. One of my best memories in Halo was an intense camping fest in Sword Base with my >>dad

[@rreprah9515]

I would love to see more of these videos. This was fun.

[@tophboph]

Arbiter’s storyline basically stopping at the end of Halo 2 is one of Bungie’s biggest L’s. I know a bunch of people disliked him in 2 but they should’ve had the stones to keep him an important character. Instead he’s just another gun in the fight for everything except killing the prophet.

[@Froggstomper]

I don't think "most" people dislike the library, it's such a good glimpse into how deep the flood have infested the ring's core systems. Loved it as a kid and this the first instance of hearing that most people hate it.

[@plasteredpuma]

The Library and Assault on the Control Room might be my two favorite levels in the franchise. I love Halo CE forerunner architecture, and the atmosphere for those levels are top notch. AotCR has some of the best soundtracks in the series, and it also has the best encounter design. The Library oozes atmosphere, and is basically Halo CE horde mode. It's just so much fun running and gunning through waves of flood with shotty and AR.

[@VlIl]

Hot take: Halo 5 Warzone firefight is my alltime favorite mode in the halo franchise

[@Piplupz01]

Ngl I agree

[@MisterMilo92]

Halo 3 was my online gaming peak. Those days are cherished memories.

[@paulloughlin3732]

I love that your footage from Infinite is from the Craig trailer! Ah Craig. Also, this was fun.

[@commanderblargh6300]

Halo CE has my favorite gameplay, Halo 2 has my favorite story, Halo 3 has my favorite co-op campaign, and Halo ODST and Reach have my favorite PvE mode.

[@doglegs7]

Imo halo 2 has better gameplay, art direction, enemy variety and story than CE

[@commanderblargh6300]

@doglegs4524 Halo 2 certainly has a wider and more diverse variety of enemies with more fleshed out arsenals that I appreciate, as well as its vehicle sandbox too, but the actual gameplay of being a Spartan in itself, the firepower and utility across all your guns, and how you compare to every enemy type on an individual level, I definitely prefer overall from CE. The balanced health to shielding ratio and fairly decent punishment you can survive from the enemy, how all the guns feel to shoot, how it feels to shoot those guns' bullets into enemies, and although the hunters were easily exploitable, I still like the base principle of their aggressive and headstrong behavior that future hunters lack. There's just a lot about the general flow of Halo CE's combat in itself that stacks together to win me over.

[@tyronus4]

About the Reach DMR, playing dmr starts in BTB really sucks. Vehicles have such little power when 8 people can burst it down with little effort. AR starts feels way better, so that might have been what they were referring too.

[@bulbasaur1534]

I've always been a pve guy, always played through the missions (not naming any in particular) because of the sandbox, level design, and even the scenery is awe-inspiring. I'm a sucker for beach and snow themed areas which are why silent cartographer/Covenant and Aotcr/Two Betrayals,sacred icon/Quarantine Zone,halo 3's Halo respectively are my favorites to look at, (i didn't bother adding the other halo games in here, these are examples). More times than not i find myself frustrated with the multiplayer in general, not the gametypes but usually the people being on my team that are afk and or quit, then there's the unstoppable other team that camps weapon spawns and steals our warthogs and scorpions every time, although that last part usually happens on reach mp, ai are predictable, Bullshit like h2 sniper jackels but predictable.

[@ben501st]

I never tried ODST growing up because my friends who were big Halo fans didn't like it. It's rarely talked about now and tells me that Halo fans have always hated change even when Bungie was at the helm.

[@NOBLESIX-UNSC]

2021: "Number company bad!" "Infinite sucks!" 2007-2010 "Reach sucks" "ODST is trash!" Lesson: bungie fanboys just hate everything.

[@TheMartin1427]

I wish that the health sistem of CE an HR where the standar on Halo, not just the energy shields, it is more thrilling having low health with shields than just waiting behind something and good as new

[@mid.nightrunners8157]

The 4 shot to kill in reach the guy was referring to was the mlg Playlist. Dmr is a 4shot at any range with NO BLOOM. He 100% right in that aspect but that's why I anyways just played the casual Playlist lol

[@AQDuck]

Even casual playlists only has TU modes, meaning it's still a 4-shot and bloom is reduced (not as much as MLG, but closer to that than original)

[@dipoz2254]

quarantine zone is the best mission in halo 2 the snowy atmosphere and the glowing pits made it the most beautiful map on halo 2, i was late to the party I guess but anyways good vid.

[@reflections2250]

Honestly pretty based however that gondola ride at the end is way too long, at least you can skip it.

[@MrWaifuTaker]

Halo: Reach > Halo 3. I'm going to take the heat.

[@DJAdams125]

Um no *respectfully

[@zephyr3638]

I agree, I grew up only playing 3 and when I finally got Reach it blew my mind. I think one of the biggest parts is when I was little I always wanted to be a spartan. Halo Reach I was Noble Six, his backstory was whatever I wanted. Whereas Chief already had a story and he was a character, a character I loved nonetheless, but still, it was just someone else's story I was playing through. Having replayed all of the games now that I'm older, Reach is truly a masterpiece in storytelling and is my favorite campaign followed closely by Halo 2 with it's fleshing out of the Covenant and especially the Arbiter. But 3 isn't close to Reach at all.

[@scattergrunt]

Agreed but they're both two sides of a fine mint coin. I can't really say one is better than the other objectively, I like Halo Reach way more in terms of PVP and PVE but that's just me Halo 3 had the better forge imo though. Not because it was smaller or something but because it had more unique and niche stuff like breakable pallets that let modes like fat kid exist. Glad they came back in Halo 5 kind of

[@TheBabyCaleb]

I actually agree with you. Love reach so much, but halo 3 is great

[@PhluppeHimself]

"destroys the sandbox... no reason to pick anything else up on the map besides rockets or swords" Every CE pvp match : magnum Every h2 or h3 pvp match : BR Ah yes, I can see the diversity in the other halo multiplayer games.

[@LordGame2222]

The BR and Magnum were nowhere near as accurate at long range as the DMR. Not even close. In Halo 2 you can avoid BR fire by just being a fair distance away. You might take the occasional glancing potshots, but the BR's accuracy drops off so much after a certain point that it isn't a huge concern. You can't do that with the DMR. If the enemy can see you, they can kill you, no matter how far away you might be. I don't think it "destroys the sandbox", but I do believe that it has an inherently different - though no less oppressive - effect on the sandbox than those the Magnum and BR have on CE and 2.

[@lettuceprime4922]

me when i don't know about quick camo

[@bulldawgs1177]

It's okay to be wrong

[@mythalieon7829]

My (hot?) take is that the flood got progressively worse to fight during the original trilogy

[@GallowayJesse]

Agree 100%

[@ChrisPTenders]

Mm. Factual, I'd say.

[@reflections2250]

1>3>2 for me

[@vaniellys]

"Every Bungie game has problems and has things it does better than the rest." Totally agree, and that's why I hate people who say that Halo needs to change, because I'm still waiting for the episode that will just the the best of every game without their flaws. I agree with the "splitscreen coop > online PvP" take. I don't like PvP, I'm a PvE player in every game, so I naturally enjoyed it more.

[@benc77]

Halo 2s maps, halo 5s forge, halo 3s level design, the story from the books and a well balanced sandbox would make a perfect halo game

[@gaiusfulmen]

5:00 "Legendary is fair" ≠ "Legendary is unfair and should stay that way". The latter is true, the former is delusional.

[@MasterBurger117]

I am so glad i found this channel. Your videos are amazing

[@barbasmas]

my hot take: halo 4 has good story (and really cool and varied gameplay but i dont think thats a hot take)

[@MistaHoward]

That one about the DMR is really bizarre considering Halo 2 MP is literally just the BR and power weapons, AND the BR is hitscan with no bloom. And that landing every shot with it is relatively easy with a controller.

[@atch4764]

ngl the BlargleBlorf would be a great enemy faction name

[@Freelancer837]

"There's only so many times you can go through a Halo campaign until you just get bored of it" Halo 3 begs to differ.

[@Gabetootuff]

I think halo odst is one of the greatest storys because for once we’re not playing as master chief but just a odst soldier in the human- covenant war and just gives us a darker and more disturbing feel of how hard things were if you weren’t a spartan

[@dndgeek4112]

It’s also worth mentioning that the name “Flood” is enough to make them sound scary

[@axel.1358]

My hot take is that Sesa Refumee is the best Halo character in the franchise.

[@SeriousRyno]

You gotta admit Miguel Ferrer did a hell of a job voicing said character.

[@hammergon587]

Damn I missed that community post. I would have said Master Chief should have died at the end of Halo 3. Good video btw.

[@vaniellys]

I disagree that PvP has more replayability than PvE. I spent less than 10 hours on Halo's matchmaking while I spent 500+ hours on Halo campaigns. I find PvP to be repetitive and boring, no matter the gamemode, while I never get tired of fighting the Covenant and Flood. You say that in PvP you can team up with friends, work towards higher levels, play different modes and grind for unlocks... But that's also possible for PvE. You just need the game to be built for that. Halo Reach did, with campaign and firefight which allowed to unlock new armour elements. StarCraft II offers a wide variety of PvE content that has the same elements. Also I don't think that the majority of people played PvP. I think it's 50/50. I never had Xbox Live because it was a subscription service, and I think it stopped others too. And PvP is inherently a different gameplay than PvE, so it makes sense that tastes are evenly divided.

[@everythingsalright1121]

Hot take? I think halo 5s gameplay (the gameplay specifically, not the story, art or sound design) wasnt that bad. Having ADS meant that guns that youd expect to be viable beyond punching distance were actually effective beyond punching distance, like the assault rifle and the various kinds of SMGs. They also made some nice quality of life changes like clamber (i honestly really hate crouch jumping, since its impossible to tell if youre doing it right/gonna make the jump, but clamber fixes that). I also really liked the variant weapons in multiplayer, they actually felt refreshingly fun while not being too unfamiliar, like the explosive SAW, the black hole plasma pistol, and the electric wave gravity hammer.

[@Jaws75Lover]

I agree that Halo 5’s gameplay wasn’t bad

[@agentmaryland1239]

The hot take about the Sacred Icon upgrade has me rolling. The Brutes show no respect or honor to the Elites in the OG cutscene; one yanks the Guards stave from his hand while two fight over a helmet and then the two at the door give a thousand yard stare to Arbiter as he enters the room. The remastered cutscene portrayed the Brutes very much how Bungie envisioned them; lumbering, kind of dumb, arrogant, and territorial.

[@Golgari213]

For as much as I liked dual wielding, that feature dramatically nerfed some of the most iconic weapons in Halo, plasma P, magnum, the smg. Halo 3, while being my favorite Halo, took away the magic of what those weapons could accomplish.

[@everythingsalright1121]

My 2nd hot take: ODST fans always say you feel more vulnerable because youre a dinky human, not a spartan. I wholly disagree. The gameplay is exactly like the other halo games aside from having a non regenerating health bar. You can still do everything that spartans can. You can jump high, one hit punch things despite just having normal human strength, and rip minigun turrets off their mounts and carry them, or use gravity hammers despite those things weighing like 100lbs, as an ODST you can use them effortlessly.

[@zadeinator2370]

hell yeah i am micro-famous on the internet now

[@zadeinator2370]

@@umairashraf5167 apology accepted

[@maxwllcool]

7:05 i think the point is that when the FOCUS became PvP the design philosophy changed for the worse. Halo was really unique as a pvp experience because it took that floaty and thoughtful gameplay and converted it to pvp. As opposed to designing the pvp first and shoving the campaign in as an afterthought like in the 343 titles. And to an extent reach, the armor abilities feel like shitty gimmicks made for MP, bloom was frustrating and entirely unnecessary when facing the covenant, etc.

[@jamiekennedy1228]

Fun fact: Halo was in fact originally an RTS game.

[@barbaricbri]

Halo reach has easily the BEST campaign storyline

[@IcyTorments]

@@nagger8216 you mean ODST right?

[@barbaricbri]

@@nagger8216 love me some Arby 🤘🤘

[@barbaricbri]

@@nagger8216 ODST is pretty goated, my second pick hands down

[@Kobe_Bryant_real]

I have never, ever, bothered to play multiplayer. Absolutely hate it, probably because I'm bad at it but I always prefer split-screen co-op. I have hundreds of memories of playing with my dad and brother and having a lot of fun fighting against The Covenant And Flood. Campaign and singleplayer is always my way to go, multiplayer is trash.

[@NOBLESIX-UNSC]

Hot take: sure 343 isn't 100% as good as bungie, but that doesnt mean that it wouldve been better off with bungie (destiny 2) Part two: halo 4 and infinite weren't that bad, i like how they made masterchief a human in both instead of just a guy who kills aliens.

[@robotsonn]

I’m honoured that you disagreed with me 🔥

[@BubbyBold]

What do you think would be a better name for the covenant and flood?

[@q.h.s5051]

Halo Reach is my favorite of the entire Bungie series (story, character, and gameplay) Halo CE has the most satisfying weapons and I do indeed love the backtracking Halo 3 needed more focus on the Arbiter to be greater, the focus on him is the single reason why Halo 2 tops it for me

[@mcl4549]

Firefight is my favorite gamemode and should get more content

[@spideydude3697]

I think the hot take about Halo being pve first and losing it's way by focusing on pvp applies better to Call Of Duty. That series started out as a somewhat realistic WW2 shooter with excellent campaigns with multiplayer being an afterthought and almost felt like a tribute to those we lost. Once they started focusing on making the games more futuristic and making multiplayer more crazy and hectic is when it started to lose its way and even the inclusion of zombies kinda made it lose some focus on the campaign (and I love zombies to death). This feels evident to me especially in bo3 as the campaign is very forgettable and pretty lackluster but the multiplayer and zombies are a major focus. Bo4 is when I feel like this trend really started to show it's ugly face. Nowadays you just don't talk about the campaigns they make aside from some memes and jokes which is to be expected. To this day I still see people talking about WaW and even Bo1 and Bo2 for their amazingly crafted campaigns. While Bo2 may not be as realistic as say WaW it tries to at least send a message to it's players and truly cares in making you feel something by the end. OMG this might be the longest comment I've ever put on the Internet lol lol😅😅

[@ink2862]

No way bro said Halo 2 OG Cutscenes are better than Blurs remaster lmao insane. I played that shit on release in 2004 love every second of it, the remastered graphics and cutscenes are untouchable compared to anything the Halo franchise has as a whole

[@SeriousRyno]

Honestly my biggest problem with H2A cutscenes is the cinematography. Whenever it zooms in or out and kind of does this shaky cam thing looks awful. It's way too overdone like they were watching the real cutscenes and just decided to overexaggerate everything. Nevermind that they are disconnected with the rest of the game that looks much worse than the scenes themselves.

[@SeriousRyno]

@@umairashraf5167 Probably beacuse modern action and sci-fi movies and tv shows do that kind of garbage all the time so you would be used to it, but in 2004 that wasn't the way they did things which is why the H2A cutscenes seem out of place with the rest of the game. If you watched H2 Original vs H2A you would notice a big difference between them other than just how they look. It's like they have a completely different director directing the same scenes...oh wait.

[@jelliman9238]

i’m looking back at my hot take but i still stand by it as a person that didn’t play any of the halo games when they first came out and the first one i played was infinite, i still think ce is the best. it’s hard to explain it just feels more unique and different in comparison to all the other halo games from a campaign perspective

[@frost_6836]

The revisionism I see online of Halo 3's campaign is absolutely insane. There's a few missteps (mostly to do with dialogue), but the last couple of years I've seen people trying to paint H3 as this travesty of a story that completely ruined the franchise. I reckon it stems from the counter-jerk to the "omg halo 3 da best halo" circlejerk, which honestly makes it even more annoying.

[@devindalton4688]

Right?! Halo 3's story may be simple in comparison to Halo 2, and there are a tiny handful of silly lines, but it tells a satisfying conclusion to the story. The Covenant and flood are defeated, the Arbiter redeems himself by killing Truth, we get some interplay and tension between humans and elites, sad moments with character deaths, the genuinely intriguing search for Cortana and the discovery of Forerunner history, Halo 3 tells a very solid story.

[@ChrisPTenders]

People replay a game for nearly two decades and they forget what it was like to not know what was going to happen. They forget that H3 is the answer to H2's questions, that a third act is all about closing the book, and it can't ever be the second act of a book wide open. Act one starts the fight, act two makes the fight more interesting, and act three finishes the fight. Act two is always inherently the best part of every story.

[@Mortablunt]

I have a fair amount to do with that. And yes, I did check. It really was a couple years ago. You see there was a thread on r/Halo, where I gave my 25 point list for why I don’t like the Halo 3 campaign. Are you retrieve it but it was more than two years ago and because I got permanently banned off the site even if it’s somehow still there, I would have to manually crawl through years of threads to go looking for it. The good news for H3 fans like you is after my latest replay of the series I cut it down to 22 points for why I think I Halo 3 has the worst campaign. Frog is actually stated in broad strokes significant numbers of my points, starting with easily the front half of the halo three campaign is filler. He also concurs brutes are significantly less fun to fight than elites. And we are of the same mind Halo 3 definitely has the worst story out of any of the bungee games. Anyway, I actually came up with a story treatment for Halo 3 which fix most of its problems in my opinion, namely you don’t spend anywhere near enough time through the portal, The story is poorly paced, and Chief basically does nothing of importance until near the very end. It also gets a lot better uses out of the other human forces and out of the elite allies. Let me know if you want to see it.

[@frost_6836]

@@Mortablunt I couldn't be less interested in your fan fiction schlock

[@DragonaxFilms]

Wait, Halo 3 had PROJECTILE SPEED??? I literally never knew this, no wonder I've always been bad at it and disliked the gunplay. I thought everything was hitscan.

[@DragonaxFilms]

Also dang I got clowned on for my Armor Lock take lmao In my experience playing the game, I never felt like it disrupted the flow. If you corner someone and they lock, they're still cornered, which gives you time to reload, line up a shot, regen your shields, call over teammates, or just saturate the area with grenades right before the armor lock runs out. If they exit lock early their shields probably won't be at max, and there's a delay before they can shoot or melee. It puts you at a major disadvantage if you activate it at the wrong time. Then again I might just be eternally biased, because I deflected a rocket back into a guy's face with Armor Lock in one of the first games of Reach I ever played as a kid, and it felt cool xD

[@commanderblargh6300]

All the Halos actually have travel speeds on their weapons, even if a number of them have too fast velocity for it to even matter in the grand scheme of things.

[@ODST_on_the_saxophone]

*COMPLETE JOKE* The level CORTANA in Halo 3 is fun

[@NOBLESIX-UNSC]

Bu dum tiss

[@megaman37456]

My Hot take: Halo 4 wasn't as bad as the community makes it out to be, it dared to be different, and as seen from Halo Infinites praise over the years, the Halo Community praises stagnation and hates change.

[@pepperz3002]

I didn’t think you would use mine HAHA.

[@AntiCaesarReal]

The first hot take also doesnt take into account the religious tones the series had. And the flood especially plays into it being the reason the halo array and thus the Ark being created

[@master_pretzel8536]

I 100% agree with the take about halo 2a’s blur cutscenes. From a graphics standpoint, they look objectively prettier than original, but graphics aren’t everything. They mess with the cinematography, pacing, animations and sometimes even the voice work. They feel off compared to original because if this. I have specific examples i could point out but it’s not worth doing in a yt comment. The only cutscene that’s better than original is the day at the beach cutscene.

[@gaiusfulmen]

Am I the only one who thinks armor lock is useless? Unless your teammates come to bail you out all it does is slightly delay your death, outside of a few specific circumstances.

[@GallowayJesse]

Halo 3 should've been the last Halo game

[@catrinasmith5311]

Agreed. I know that the ending with Cortana and John in space was obviously meant for a sequel, but I feel like the original trilogy should have ended with ALL three of them returning home. Arbiter says goodbye to Chief, and Chief and Cortana can still work for the UNSC and stuff, but they all deserve rest. Nothing against 343 or the other halo games made by them, but I just feel like the trilogy should have been left with that. It would have been the perfect ending to a series.

[@thomased22legoyodagaming]

Hot Take: Armor lock is worth selling your soul for purely for the ability to reflect plasma grenades. As a kid I once flung a plasma grenade into a packed enemy hog driving past, to which it instantly detonated, turning it and the passengers into ash. And I'll never forget that. Halo 4 having no armor lock and no movement tool as good as the dodge roll made it a much worse casual PVP and forge fuckaround experience. I'd like to see armor lock come back, though obviously heavily reworked. I'd make it entirely about protecting yourself from the blasts of grenades and flinging stickies away. But vulnerable to bullets at the end, and interruptible entirely with plasma fire, causing a large explosion that could multikill shoulder to shoulder enemies next to the armor locking target. Oh and also make it much faster. More like a "flash parry" than whatever it was in reach. Good concept though, I'll die on that hill.

[@Uulfinn]

343 Guilty Spark was the true hero of the series and should have killed Master Chief.

[@ODST_on_the_saxophone]

3:52 I completely agree. BRING BACK SPLIT SCREEN!

[@elleeVee]

100% agree on the DMR take (tho it is 5 shots) but especially with vehicle damage, i quit reach on release cuz every damn game was DMRs only, it ruins the sandbox if it shows up in the loadout every game

[@DsiPro1000]

I cannot beat Keyes, I just get lost.

[@BracketsLowerCaseSevenEight]

I mean who wouldn't mind having a buddy on your lap as you play split screen

[@peteg2715]

Long live 2k5

[@ChairmanKam]

Gonna be honest, seeing my take be here made my night, even though you clearly didn't fall for the "watch my stuff" bait. 😂 But seriously though, CE is the best campaign. Fight me.

[@LordGame2222]

I agree with the DMR take but mostly only because of the title update. Let me explain: 1: the TU severely reduced bloom. This is even worse in MCC as many matchmaking playlists have game modes where bloom is reduced or removed entirely, which wildly increases the long-range potential of the DMR and makes it an obnoxious menace on any map with long sightlines 2: post-TU, most game modes start players off with the AR/DMR combo whereas previously they would have been AR/Magnum starts. The maps were largely designed with that AR/Magnum start in mind, with only 2-4 DMRs per team. Giving everyone a DMR at the start changes the feel of games (especially on BTB maps) as you're always at risk of cross-map fire, which was never a concern with the BR given its inaccuracy at that level of range. Yes MCC has an Autoslayer playlist, but it's a real shame that the original, intended matchmaking experience is relegated to one single playlist that has zero objective-based gametypes and is instead purely for slayer. I say all of this as a lover of Reach Multiplayer, and someone who genuinely likes the DMR and its place in the Reach sandbox. My complaint is not about the gun but about the level of pervasiveness it has within the game's multiplayer formats.

[@unlucky1353]

Halo ODST was fun, but way to short and easy. My friend and I tried legendary just for giggles the first time playing it and we finished it in just over 4 hours. Probably 30 minutes of that was us being stupid and missing the sniper rifle hanging on the powerline.

[@Spar10Leonidas]

I haven't had the opportunity to really discuss this much with anyone, so I don't really know if this is a hot take (it probably is, though), but here it goes: I think that the length of The Library is kind of necessary for the narrative. I'm not saying that I like it, though. I think it's still overly long, but I do think it serves a narrative purpose (one that may not have been entirely intentional). We spend all of that time with the monitor traversing those halls, fighting the Flood alongside the monitor's Sentinels, in order to obtain the key to wiping out the Flood (or so you think) before heading back to the control room to learn the truth. I think all of that time with the monitor and the Sentinels was necessary for Spark's betrayal to have a greater impact (which I think was also served by the fact that he seemed relatively harmless and well-meaning, albeit a bit annoying with his rampant enthusiasm, until you found out what he was trying to accomplish by activating Halo). Like, imagine if the alliance you had with Spark and his Sentinels lasted only as long as the brief alliance that you had with the Gravemind and the Flood in Halo 3. Once you got hit with Spark's betrayal after a 5-10 minute alliance, the whole endeavor would've just felt like a pointless sidetrack. While the Flood alliance in Halo 3 was super brief, it also served a narrative purpose in doing so, since I think extending it too long would've detracted from this being the final sprint that you need to make to finally thwart the Prophet of Truth's plan (he had just forced Johnson to activate the Halo Array, which means that you didn't have a lot of time to avert it, narratively speaking). Plus, everyone (hopefully) knew upfront not to expect the Flood alliance to last, since the only purpose behind it was in pursuit of a common goal/enemy (and it wasn't even the first time the Gravemind used you for its own purposes, it did exactly that in Halo 2 right after you met it). Again, this isn't to say that I'm happy with the final execution of The Library. While I do think it being long served an important narrative/character purpose, it still could have been A LITTLE shorter (like, having to open a series of 10 doors seems a bit much, I don't know why Bungie didn't just go with 7, like they always do, for better or worse), and it also could have been done in perhaps a different way to make it more fun and feel less repetitive. It's a shame that they couldn't go with the "corkscrew" shape for the level design that they initially wanted to go with, where you could always see where the Index was and how close you were to your goal as you progressed (for those who don't know, the reason that they scrapped this is because the XBOX hardware couldn't handle something like that). I should probably end this here, but there's one other thing that I've been wanting to discuss somewhere for a long while, and I feel like this might be the best place to do it (maybe I'll place this next part in a comment replying to this one* just so that this one won't seem overly-long, like The Library) since we're talking about potentially "hot" takes; though, once again, I'm not sure how much people will disagree with me here. *Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

[@Spar10Leonidas]

An aspect I loved about the story of Halo: CE is the fact that you and the rest of the Pillar of Autumn's crew are stranded on Halo. Your ship is crashed, and can no longer fly, which means that you cannot escape, and the UNSC has no idea where you are, nor can you communicate with them to call for help. And, to make matters worse, you're up against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy that's responsible for your current predicament. Vastly outnumber, and vastly outgunned. The only option that the survivors had was to fight a guerilla war against the Covenant while stuck there and try to accomplish what they can and try to survive until... well, as long as possible, really. My "hot take" regarding this is that I feel like the game, itself, kind of underemphasizes it, weirdly enough. I think the first two missions do a decent job of conveying this to you through the events you're experiencing, with the Covenant boarding the Autumn, the ship's main weapon disabled, the Autumn was already vastly outnumbered, and now the order has been given to abandon ship, and you're tasked with keeping the ship's AI safe to prevent the Covenant from learning the location of Earth. Following this, you're the sole survivor of your escape pod, and you spend the rest of the mission navigating unfamiliar alien territory whilst trying to help survivors who've crash-landed on Halo outlast Covenant patrols being sent in to locate and wipe them all out (and then, to top it all off, you learn that the Captain has been captured). This may sound like I'm completely forgetting the point that I was making, but I am reaching a point. You see, those two levels are immediately followed by three levels where you are striking back at the Covenant, and you ultimately succeed each time. You raid a Covenant ship (and not just any chip, but a battlecruiser) to rescue the Captain, and you succeed (if he dies, it's a mission failure, and you simply restart at the last checkpoint). Next, you look for a map room to learn the location of Halo's control room, and you succeed. Next, you head for Halo's control room, and successfully raid and secure it, which, from the look of it, even the Covenant weren't able to do that, since none of them were actually inside the control room; if they had been able to access it, then you'd think that they'd have toops inside to learn more about this relic that they consider to be sacred, as well and to keep out intruders (and, on top of that, no one seemed concerned about Cortana's safety or security; per her insistence, the Chief ran off to find Keyes and just left her there, and even though there were Covenant in the halls outside the control room on Two Betrayals, it seems like they either never accessed/entered the control room, or they somehow never discovered Cortana). The only thing I can think of during these missions that would seem to illustrate the desperate situation that the UNSC forces stranded here are experiencing are the number of Marines that you see killed throughout them all. I'd probably agree with this more, if it wasn't for the fact that I never felt like we really had a grasp of how many people actually made it off the Autumn (or, for that matter, how many were actually on the Autumn in the first place). There are some moments where we see or hear of Marines fighting like hell to fend off the Covenant before ultimately getting wiped out, and I think that those moments are handled really well, but it still doesn't give a full picture that I think would help show us what they're all in for and how desperate this fight is. Another issue with the idea of the Marine casualties fully demonstrating what you're up against is that there are at least a few instances where you are simply reinforced if the contingent of Marines deployed with you are eliminated or too reduced before you reach a certain checkpoint (the two that immediately come to mind are both in The Truth and Reconciliation, the first instance being after you defeat all Covenant forces descending from the ship through the gravity lift to kill you, a Pelican will show up with reinforcements so that you won't be alone ascending into the ship; the second instance being a short time later, where after you secure the battlecruiser's hangar, a Pelican will arrive to deploy troops again; and both of these examples only occur if you lose too many of the troops that are with you up to that point). Of course, another issue that I may be having with this having any notable impact on me, personally, in my perception of the situation that I'm describing is that I never really felt particularly protective of the Marines outside of the second level, where the objective was to actually try and rescue as many as you could (although, as far as I'm aware, how many/few you rescue has no effect on the outcome of the mission, any later mission, or the game). I used to always play these games with a friend of mine as my co-op partner, and we would not infrequently kill a Marine if we ever needed to replenish ammo (this isn't related to what I'm talking about, I just want to relay it because I think it's funny: one time, while we were playing Assault on the Control Room, my friend fired a burst or two at Sergeant Johnson with his assault rifle, and this riled Johnson up enough to raise his fists and shout: "YOU. ARE. DEAD!" before proceeding to engage us in a firefight; it made the both of us crack up at the time). After the second mission, I didn't truly feel the desperation of the situation of the Autumn's surviving crew on Halo until after I met the Flood. And I'm not, by any means, saying that there should have been absolutely no successful missions between landing on Halo and meeting the Flood. Just that it would've helped convey things better had you been forced to experience some more notable setbacks in between your successes, or had a better idea of what toll the Covenant were having on what was left of those who made it off the Autumn. In fact, I think that the novel Halo: The Flood does a pretty decent job on this front, since you also experience other battles that the Chief wasn't present for (such as the Covenant's assaults on Alpha Base), and also learn what was going through the Chief's mind during the events depicted in the game, including some moments that couldn't really be depicted the same way during gameplay; we see the Chief have moments of character development when interacting with his squadmates during some of the missions, which also contributes to the grief he feels at the end when he learns that no one else made it off of Halo, and we also experience a moment where Chief feels guilt over the deaths of a couple of Marines he's fighting alongside against two Hunters, and Cortana has to reassure him that their deaths weren't his fault. Obviously, a game is going to be limited in that regard, it's a vastly different medium from a novel, I'm just using that as an example for comparative purposes. I also want to emphasize that I'm not saying any of this to denounce Halo: CE. It's an absolutely fantastic game, and one of my favorites of all time. What flaws it has, including several that I'm not covering here, are more than made up for by what it does well. If I were writing a review for the game, especially if I were writing it at the time of release, I probably wouldn't think that anything I've written here would really be worth mentioning outside of, perhaps, a comprehensive long-form critique. I'm mostly just using this opportunity to "vent" about a "hot take" (geddit?) that I've been pondering for a while, since I don't have many other avenues to do so in my day-to-day life. Wow, I'm shocked that I actually managed to go on even longer here about this subject than I did about what I wrote in my initial comment. I honestly thought that I had more to say about The Library up until now.

[@dwainecoggins2374]

Hey I live this video you gave the fam an chance to express their feelings. Thank you my personal opinion halo CE is the best halo ever then reach and ODST.

[@SquattingxBear]

The Git Gud comments had me rolling! I always love people who are really bad or low skilled at H2 say the legendary campaign is too hard.

[@ProfessionalJerry]

I'm mental. I love Library and Pillar of Autumn. Also Sacred Icon. And yes H2 Legendary is perfect. Love a challenge. I play with skulls, the AI is easy to predict

[@ChairmanKam]

7:14 Now THAT'S a hot take.

[@danielbob2628]

My hot take is that Halo Infinite's weapon sandbox design is too focused on multiplayer viability at the expense of quantity of weapons.

[@flyingdoggo9887]

hottest takes inbound (no i'm not joking) 1. 343 games are more fun than bungie games 2. infinite has the best campaign 3. -odst was ass, easily the worst campaign- i recently replayed odst and this opinion has changed 4. reach was the best bungie game 5. halo 3's story and writing was hot garbage and the level design was just big open spaces with not much to them, halo 2 was a masterpiece

[@SasoriKeK]

And halo 5 had the best multiplayer

[@gaiusfulmen]

Kind of agree with 5 and 2. I liked ODST but the drones were even more annoying than in 3 and the best parts (rainy city sections) were too short. I feel like a remake/spiritual sequel to ODST featuring expanded stealth mechanics would be great---it would work well as a DLC for Infinite due to the open world structure. Too bad it seems like we won't be getting anything more campaign-wise for Infinite...

[@flyingdoggo9887]

@@gaiusfulmen yeah i would love a remake that makes you an actual odst, not a reskinned spartan

[@NOBLESIX-UNSC]

Agreed (exept for #3)

[@flyingdoggo9887]

@@NOBLESIX-UNSC i replayed odst recently and that opinion has changed, halo 5 is now my least fav

[@thegamingdoge2000]

3:58 THEY REALLY ARE TURNIN THE FROGS GAY

[@gameuinpenguin]

The magnum in Halo 2 and 3 is pretty good despite being nerfed after CE

[@MrMcEggz]

Hotake: halo 4 master Chief looks kinda cool also I like library and t&r *3:58* relatable

[@jouebien]

Hot takes: SPV3 is the best halo campaign, AR start are more interesting and make the maps play better, MCC default keyboard mapping are garbage - all they had to do was copy either Halo CE or Halo 2 Vista default layouts.

[@cmsx1016]

Personally 3 is my favorite of the bungie games with reach as a second (though that's likely because those are what I grew up with and I only played the first two when MCC came out)

[@SchmittyW]

I 1000% agree with ODST being bad, I find that game so boring to play. The story is okay? I don’t really remember anything about it at all apart from Buck, but I get so bored walking around that city. Would unironically rather play Halo 5 than ODST

[@gabgab5437]

FUN VIDEO. I also have couple! I believe that 343 industries messed up their trilogy so bad because of Bungie. (Not really blaming Bungie here just an opinion) As many should know by now, Bungie Forerunner were meant to be ancient humans, or at least the game used to hint it heavily… And here lies the root of all the problems we got in my opinion. The fact they left the forerunners identity so open to interpretation after a whole trilogy and 2 spin off allowed 343 to over complicating things where it shouldn’t have been needed. Halo was about simple and epic stuff all along and mostly about being a great game to play. Forerunners being human was the cherry on the top, it was such a simple and brilliant idea… And Bungie just had to say it explicitly (you know guilty spark screaming it at the end of halo 3 wasn’t enough apparently) but because they thought it was cool to let it an uncertain thing instead we got some ugly ass aliens with even more ugly ass minions for 2 games only for them to disappear to take back the game to its roots. Halo should have expanded it’s games universe by adapting established stories like ghost of onyx. What needs to be done now is just completely rebooting it. I would pay easily 100 euros if they announce a Remake of the original trilogy, all done with open maps, modern graphics and the plot going in interesting direction BUT while remaining simple. This takes us to the second hot take (? Maybe) making Cortana a baddie in Halo 5 was a good idea and had me hyped but I t was just done in a really strange way. Imagine if after rescuing her from high charity because of the logic plague she just went nuts with the forerunners technology and started a war with it. NO Didact, no guardians, no Prometheans, no master chief whining, just her commanding ancient sober looking constructs like the sentinels attacking both human and covenant because reasons… what a dream of a sequel could it have been

[@ChrisPTenders]

I hate the idea of remakes changing up what I consider perfection, but I gotta agree with your latter hot take. Cortana being corrupted was hinted at very heavily in everyone's least favorite Halo 3 level's dialogue between Cortana and the Gravemind, and even indirectly confirmed by Bungie devs in CE commentary. She even has an evil laugh and you can actually see the Gravemind hold off on trying to stop them from leaving because he wants her to escape. He literally says "time has taught me patience, but basking in new freedom I will know all that I possess". Cortana warns Chief, "don't look at me, don't listen, I'm not who I used to be" and then when he finds her she says, "so much of me is wrong, out of place, you might be too late." Nobody talks about it. I always thought the Gravemind imprinted himself on her and Halo 4 was just his way of stripping away the real Cortana to take complete control over her digital format for himself. It was very weird to have her find the Domain and salvage herself, but she was pretty much thinking and talking like the Gravemind in Halo 5, and Infinite really just nuked the entire plot thread. I was absolutely certain the plot of Infinite was going to somehow bring Mendicant Bias back into the mix and be about a battle between him and a twist reveal Gravemind Cortana on the Zeta ring. Maybe that's what was planned at some point but someone forced them to pull the plug and do a "Rise of Skywalker" apology letter for Halo 5. I would wipe out all sentient life in the galaxy to have 4, 5, and Infinite rebooted to be more in line with what 3 set up.

[@gabgab5437]

@@ChrisPTenders I don’t like the idea of remakes changing stuff either BUT I’ve come to the realisation that pumping up graphics of a game that I love without really doing anything else is just boring… An example of this would be shadow of the colossus, yeah everything was beautiful but I wouldn’t say that it was better than the OG in any way. In fact I’m convinced it was worst, a lot of the original aesthetic was lost in the “translation”. Anyway, I Have never considered to view Halo 4 in the way you are suggesting. Sure what you are saying is totally something that maybe has happened in Halo 4 but I feel like that it’s not what 343 was aiming at. From my point of view they just wanted to kill her off to make us emotional and make us see how Human chief really is, they really pushed these aspects during the advertisement of the game too. You have a cool vision of what it could have been… maybe one day ora another they will just make it like there’s an alternate universe where chief is still sleeping and they can go with something like what you said

[@Phillibetrus]

No Bungie was right to leave the Forerunners as mysterious as possible. They stated Humans are Forerunner in the game and left most of the details up to the imagination of the players, which they knew would be far more powerful then actually explaining everything. Serious problem with 343i's Halo was the need to over explain everything that was designed to be mysterious like the Flood and the Forerunner. The Flood was supposed to be some Eldredge horror, and the unknown element to that only adds to the fear, and the Mysteries around the Forerunner and their culture and society only served to add to the mystic and allure to the game. In order to keep this mystery element 343i had to add in the precursors as even more ancient and mysterious, and then later the Endless when they should have just left the Forerunner mystery alone after 3.

[@DJAdams125]

If halo reach had the maps from 2 or 3 it would be the best halo multiplayer despite armor lock

[@ericdybsetter4713]

My hot take: Armor lock usage is a skill and is super easily countered by baiting someone into using it. Anyone who complains seems like they have a skill issue.

[@mcupoplover8848]

here's a hot take: CE is harder than 2 on legendary.... way harder

[@frogarchist]

blocked and reported for heresy

[@mcupoplover8848]

@@frogarchist is it??? Oracle, is halo ce harder than halo 2?

[@hoppeanhelicoptertours]

When can we order that shirt?

[@willyboods5197]

The anniversary graphics in 2 are some of the best graphics ever. Absolutely love that version of the game. It’s how I see halo 2 as a kid. The halo 1 anniversary graphics ruin that game. Too much lighting, especially in 343 guilty spark, which is trying to be scary and dark

[@GW2_Live]

The floods name and the Covenant name are GENIUS level writing. Halo (not the game but the thing above an angels head) is from religion, the covenant, is a religious term, as is the flood, playing off the biblical flood. It's meta, and smart I don't like halo reach either, the bloom annoys the heck out of me, I'm a supersoldier, why is there bloom? I also agree that Halo 1's backtracking and the Library are good, I wish more games would do backtracking, it prevents the budget from ballooning and seeing an area different from when you were first there is neat. The Library is a great level becasue people don't like it, the first time through it's exactly what it should be, there's tension, it's spooky, and the first encounter with the flood. They aren't called the flood for nothing, so fighting them for a long time makes sense to me. Halo CE is definitely the definitive Halo campaign Great video Frog

[@WinterLgndWolf]

My hot take is that the H2 magnum isn't that bad and that everyone justs hates on it because that's the popular thing to do

[@TJR93]

H2 and H3 magnum are hot garbage.

[@davethefreshmaker]

I think Halo Reach was too experimental.

[@TJR93]

It was a tech demo for Destiny.

[@DoctorAllanGrey]

My Halo hot take, purely in response to the person having that first hot take about Halo 3 being bad because of the projectiles vs hitscan: People still talking about Hitscan being a thing in Halo games in 2023? There is no hitscan in any halo game. Not even 343's halo games. Projectile velocity and Magnetism in Halo 2 is just extremely high (400~ world units a second for the BR's bullets), Projectile velocity in Halo 3 is extremely Low (180~ world units a second for the BR) the Spartan Laser, the closest thing to a hitscan in the game, isn't even a hitscan, and projectile velocity in Reach was ultra high AKA bungie saying 'fuck it, the DMR's projectile velocity is 1,000+ world units a second'

[@ST0PM0SS]

the open world is a good idea, but wasn't done well, and the forerunner areas are all basically the same

[@brandonmoncada7666]

All I'm gonna say is Halo 3 has peak multiplayer map design. So many classics. The campaign is worse than Halo 5, which is a hot take but like how I've felt since it was released. It was just the only HD halo for the longest time during and all we had

[@tjmoon1857]

fans of the series are quick to slander h5, but it was the most robust halo multiplayer experience with a wealth of armor and weapon skins to unlock by playing. if you missed it at launch, you missed out

[@lordovthorn2747]

Halo Reach has the best balancing :)

[@winterlock1576]

My hot take? Firefight was underwhelming and boring, and that goes for every Halo game. Fighting against endless waves of enemies got old quick, and there wasn't much in the way of objectives to make it more fun or interesting. It's a shame, as it had a lot of potential. I would have loved to have seen a firefight gamemode where you're an elite fighting against marines and ODST's, or maybe lots of mini objectives for you to do throughout, like defending a specific area for a while, or an NPC, or destroying something specific. I mean, if mods can do it, the devs could have added it. There's no point playing firefight when you can play the campaign of any of the Halo games, or better yet, just multiplayer.

[@zxvoovxz8466]

My hot take is the library is the best level in all halo games

[@tausigmanova]

I don't really agree with any of these. I don't think the DMR is unbalanced, but I think that reach's 4v4 gets boring pretty quick with it being 99% DMR. I think regular BTB in most halos is kinda dull and the heavies versions are so so so much more fun

[@marcofiammeni5036]

Hot take: halo reach is the best non-trilogy game, odst in the first half is pretty repetitive

[@DavidB091]

My hot take: do you like Skyrim? Or Fallout?

[@Blackdog-c2t]

personally i dont like assault in control room