I like to think the biggest theme in Halo 4 is basically a meta narrative about the passing of the baton. Chief finds himself lost for years and greeted by an era with a plan he doesn't quite fit into, while his only tether to his own existence (Cortana) fades away. This is pretty analogous to Halo going from Bungie to 343. Some fans abandon the IP, others stay, other non-fans become fans. I think it's pretty clever. [quote][b]Posted by:[/b] fez479 Reach had style.[/quote] lolwut Reach was probably the most caster oil Halo we've ever gotten. It was an attempt to swipe away all the camp and theatricality from the previous iterations so we're left with a nice gritty and grounded execution. The problem is that once you take the camp and tongue-and-cheek borderline parody of space opra out of Halo, you're not left with much, because that's pretty much all Halo is. Halo 4 didn't just bring that back, but it -blam!- embraced it. From the Nosferatu design of the Didact to the new John Williamsy musical score (with some good old Davidge Massive Attack sexyness to boot), Halo 4 knew exactly what it came from. I'm not going to argue plot points or any subjective -blam!- like that, because it's a completely inane argument full of points born from the -blam!- of the speaker and whatnot. One thing I will touch on: [quote]Cortana merging with everything blue and holding down Didact, who was beating the crap out of Chief? Can someone say CLICHE?!? [/quote] First of all, all she did was take her messed up copies and project them from a light bridge. You know, the whole hardlight tech that's been a part of the fiction since 2001? She didn't merge with -blam!-. Secondly and more importantly, how is this even a cliche? Please tell me the last time this has happened in a game or a movie. I mean, the closest thing I can think of is 1982's Tron where Flynn jumps into the MCP and distracts him so Tron can deliver the finishing blow, but that's really it. In fact, realizing how analogous Halo 4's ending is to Tron1's ending makes me like it even more. In the chance you mean that simply the act of being in peril and being saved by the person you've been trying to protect is a cliche, then yeah. But the thing is, this is Halo we're talking about. HALO. Are you going to complain about cliches in this intellectual property? Do you really want to go there? I mean, for god's sake, every thread of every story told in the Halo universe revolves around a MYSTERIOUS LOST RACE OF ANCIENT ALIENS. Are you telling me that's not a -blam!- cliche? You play as a genetically modified space marine who just happens to be the only survivor of every plane crash he finds himself in. Are you telling me that's not a -blam!- cliche? Halo is built on cliches and tropes. That's where the god damn charm comes from. Even the gameplay of the first game was a big cliche. It was the ultimate conclusion of every shooter of that generation. It took a bunch of other game's novel new features and shoved them under one roof. Vehicles, COOP, grenade hot buttons, and regenerating shields had existed before, but not all together in the same game. Halo is soup. The gameplay is and always was FPS soup. The stories are and always were Sci Fi soup. Every release of a Halo game is a hodgepodge of the major milestone features that have been made in shooterdom at the time of release. I'm sorry that customizable loadouts got popular this generation, but they did. I'm sorry that writers around the world suddenly have a huge hard-on for the "death and sacrifice" and "personal apocalypse" plot, but they have. Halo goes where the industry goes, dude. That's how it is. That's how it always was. I could have told you years ago that Halo was eventually gonna have a COD style loadout system. If it didn't, it wouldn't be doing it's job. I can predict the next Halo may have some kind of weapon attachment system and some deeper meta-game in the campaign. Perhaps some sort of RPG elements. Maybe an emphasis on stealth since that's been getting big recently. Also of course Halo 4 is a cash-in. It's a cash-in by one of the biggest corporations in the world throwing the most money they've ever thrown at the biggest project they've ever had under the biggest IP they've ever owned with the most elite group of artists and engineers they could buy... and it shows. It doesn't matter what you feel about it personally. They but a billion bucks into the game, and if you bought it, you're playing a billion bucks worth of game. Like it or not. [Edited on 12.08.2012 10:56 PM PST]