We fight giant space circles in Halo: The Master Chief Collection (now playing: Halo 3)

Let's Plays
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#1

The year is 255X. Humanity has been at war with a conglomeration of aliens known as The Covenant for thirty years. We’re not doing too hot. We had a bunch of big beefy supersoldiers, but now we’re down to one. Pursued by an attack fleet after a blind jump through hyperspace, the human vessel Pillar of Autumn stumbles across an alien superstructure of unknown origin. Forced to land on its surface, we take on the role of the aforementioned lone supersoldier The Master Chief as we blast our way across forests, caves, glaciers, and mysterious alien buildings we may or may not ever learn the purpose of. Then we do that a few more times over a fair handful of games.

Halo’s a real heck of a series, isn’t it? Seven main games, soon to be eight, with nearly as many spinoffs, all over the last nineteen years. They’re console’s biggest shooters, some peoples’ fondest memories, and currently the focus of our ongoing LP.

Hello all, I am Rekkin, or Gareth - one half of Cooperative Conversations, a ‘casually critical’ LP series where my friend Skelzor and I do a lighthearted examination of a game while playing through it cooperatively. We talk narrative, writing, level design, encounter planning, art direction, and where it all may have been inspired from. We ask questions, we try to figure out the answers, and we have fun doing it. We’ve got a lot to talk about, and we hope you’ll like to hear it. Join us every Wednesday at 12 noon eastern for the continuing adventures of the Master Chief and his cadre of colorful allies, and we’ll see this entire series through to the end, or at least to the end of what’s available on PC.

As a random additional note, while the Halo games pre-Halo 4 were all presented without subtitles during gameplay, 343 Industries, the people behind this collection, have added in-game subs to Halo 1. Unfortunately, this addition has not continued with Halos 2, 3, ODST, or Reach. As such, I have gone to the effort of adding these in myself. An unfortunately surprising amount of Halo’s dialogue is delivered by NPCs during combat, so hopefully my work on this front will help out. I’ve certainly learned a couple things that I’d never been able to hear before on previous playthroughs.

Spoiler policy:
Halo’s an old series by this point, but because part of what we’re doing is examining the narrative as it’s given to us, we tend to play as if we don’t know anything beyond what we’ve already been told. We might make some allusions to future events, but for the most part we’re kind of taking everything in the moment. As such, consider this a spoiler-light series, and maybe try to keep the discussion of larger plot revelations to a minimum for anyone unfamiliar.

The latest one: Halo 3, The Covenant

The rest of them.

Thanks for stopping by!

#2

Wednesday is upon us, and so is another Halo video from Cooperative Conversations.

Today, we go on a snowy road trip and take a scenic ski lift in Quarantine Zone. Exciting stuff!

#3

The level Gravemind is where it becomes very obvious that Halo 2 was running out of time, money, or both. Right from the first cutscene, concepts and plot points are introduced that don’t get any payoff, retcons are flying left and right, and the level design reverts to Halo 1 levels of repetition and unimaginativeness. It’s kind of a shame!

#4

Uprising brings us back to the Arbiter’s side of things, and there’s a lot going on. It’s a fun little level and to be perfectly honest, I think he gets the better version of the game’s final act.

We also turn our discussion back to Starcraft for a little bit as we mull over the big goopy guy who’s making us do all this in the first place. Over, Grave, all we know is that great Minds are written alike.

#5

The first of Halo 2’s two endings is a bit of a disappointment, to put it lightly, as we accomplish very little and are rewarded with even less. Ah well, at least getting here was fun enough.

#6

And just like that, Halo 2 is simply…over. The Arbiter easily gets the more interesting of the two endings here, even if the placement of some familiar faces doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s an infamous cliffhanger, and for good reason.

Luckily, our own coverage of the game doesn’t go away quite as abruptly, so check back tomorrow for us talking about the Anniversary treatment, just like we did for Halo 1.

#7

Halo 2’s story might have come to an abrupt halt, but our time with it has a little gentler of an end. Like we did for Halo 1, it’s time to take a look at the game’s Anniversary treatment and all that comes with it. New cutscenes, new lighting, new designs, even new sounds! In general, we’re fans of what was done.

Next week… the big one, Halo 3!

#8

They day is finally here, we made it to Halo 3!

…

So let’s cut the the chase, I don’t think Halo 3 is a very good game. The video gets into why, but I’ll do an enticing little overview: the story is disjointed and not about what it should be, the supporting characters basically aren’t present, and the gameplay suffers from a lack of ideas that actually leaves you with less to do and fight against than in Halo 2.

But this is Cooperative Conversations, so you can bet we get into detail about it.

#9

The thing about Crow’s Nest is that we did not need to experience the level Crow’s Nest. Our stated goal upon starting the level Crow’s Nest is to leave the titular Crow’s Nest. Then an attack on the Crow’s Nest happens, which forces us to leave the Crow’s Nest. The level Crow’s Nest only exists to tick a Halo box, which is “do a level where you escape a place that’s under attack,” and this is the best they could come up with.

Crow’s Nest.

#10

Today we travel down the Tsavo Highway to make our way to the plot. While driving, we get the first real glimpse of Halo 3’s story! Unfortunately, it prompts some questions.

#11

A storm is upon us. The Storm, in fact.

This level is… badly paced, to sum it up.

#12

So, I’m no great fan of the Flood as an enemy faction or plot device; I’ve made this clear before. I don’t really know how anybody could be, to be perfectly honest. They’re lazily designed, they utterly ruin the intended combat flow of the game, the levels they tend to show up in are repetitive and reused, and any plot surrounding them is equal parts plagiarized from better sources and lacking in any sort of forethought or planning - the Gravemind just tends to say words at you that Bungie thought sounded cool without any intention of following up on.

So it’s good to see that nothing ever changes. Here’s Floodgate.

#13

The Ark is basically a perfect encapsulation of all my problems with not just Halo 3, but Halo as a series. You have:

  • An environment built for spectacle first and understandable place within the context of the game’s world last
  • Constant stripping of the main character’s agency by unnamed characters
  • Low-effort encounter design
  • Something that’s supposed to be a plot twist but is readily apparent to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention.

Halo 3 is only halfway done and I’m already getting sick of it. Let’s take a look.

#14

Halo 3’s biggest, most bombastic level might be fun, but it doesn’t address any of the issues plaguing the game so far. This is the final fight, our biggest push, our most desperate hour. How does the gameplay reflect this? It doesn’t. This is also effectively the end of the story, as everything is pretty much solved nice and neatly. Unfortunately, with two entire levels left to go, some Real Nonsense™ has to be pulled out of nowhere at the last second to justify the runtime.

It’s The Covenant.