-as someone who believes that silent protagonists are one of the greatest strengths of first person shooters, the evolution of chief's character and the contextualization of his silence was incredible. i [i]thought[/i] i detailed it in a previous post but new things that i've found from further analyses are actually making that version obsolete. -[i]spectacular[/i] story from a structural standpoint. we're not necessarily at the matrix level yet, but this is more of an iron man-type ideal: a hero's journey which effortlessly skips through the beats of the monomyth when it's not necessary to the MC's character evolution. instead, it marries the [i]player[/i] to chief's journey by having those beats in gameplay, making it one of the most awesome medium oriented hero's journey's i've ever seen. hell the entire story is a subversion, or hell maybe even a [i]perversion[/i] of the hero's journey given the outcome. -spectacular story from a cathartic standpoint. perhaps it's just my understanding of the game's subtext talking but "wait!" always hits me straight through my soul. -forerunner lore + didact. particularly the mission shutdown. the dialogue bombs there are masterful. and anybody who seriously tries to tell me that the didact was a "flat" villain and had "no development" should post in here as i'll go off on them for a bit. especially if that person is somebody who says that reach had "great and subtle" characters. -dialogue. it's not exactly halo ce/2, but it's the first halo since those two where i can legitimately say i didn't have a problem with any of the lines in the entire campaign. -moment to moment art direction/visuals. in almost every isolated circumstance, the game looks and feels beautiful and resonates with visual intelligence. -individual parts of the soundtrack. absolutely loved damn near every track in the game's OST [both volumes]. -half of the aspects of the audio design. the actual design itself is masterful. listening to the punchy "thud"s as your spartan moves through the environment is incredibly satisfying. -movement mechanics. it's not OT good, but it's light years ahead of the sluggish sh1t that was reach's movement. -melee lunge. drastically reduced. -weapons. they're all fun to use and, well, [i]useful.[/i] granted some might be just a bit too useful [i'm looking at you, SAW] but the point still stands. -a few engagements in the campaign when the campaign is not trying to be a playable movie are good fun and i'm missing a lot but i've gotta gooooooo