[quote]I love how moronic some people are. "Halo's dead" because of aim down sights... *sigh* Even if it was true, it still wouldn't be "dead". How the gaming community can jump to conclusions without any evidence is astonishing to me.[/quote] What evidence do you need other than the halo 4 population stats.

What does that have to do with Halo 5? 343 have stated that the features that were poorly received in 4 won't be in 5. Considering that Halo 4 was the first game developed by 343i and they had to pick up the shambles that Bungie left after Reach, they did a pretty good job. Story wise, 4 was the best in the series since CE... it just lacked a certain [i]je ne sais quoi[/i] in relation to the multiplayer that previous Halo titles had. Demand for TMCC is high and Halo 5 is a constant talking point in gaming. Considering the sales numbers for Halo 4, I think you just unwittingly sunk your own boat.

[quote]What does that have to do with Halo 5? 343 have stated that the features that were poorly received in 4 won't be in 5. Considering that Halo 4 was the first game developed by 343i and they had to pick up the shambles that Bungie left after Reach, they did a pretty good job. Story wise, 4 was the best in the series since CE... it just lacked a certain [i]je ne sais quoi[/i] in relation to the multiplayer that previous Halo titles had. Demand for TMCC is high and Halo 5 is a constant talking point in gaming. Considering the sales numbers for Halo 4, I think you just sunk your own boat.[/quote] Bringing up sales $ on a mp game where the populations dipped below 10,000 after 6 months. As for campaign what was so enticing about it? Hit x to win? People are excited about the MCC because it was the Halo people enjoyed. As for Bungie leaving them in shambles they had 3 years to make Halo 4.

You are trying--and failing--to make the argument that Halo is dead when millions of people are still buying it and while it's worth the most out of every console exclusive (something like four billion). I told you that Halo 4 lacked a certain element that was needed to keep player count high, yet you blissfully ignored that. I noticed that you didn't take it upon yourself to explain how a "dying" game is [i]still[/i] in demand. As far as the story goes - it had really good writing. The Didact was finally an antagonist who could overpower the Chief, the Chief, himself, finally had more of a narrative, other characters like Laskey, Del Rio and the Librarian were great, Requiem finally recaptured that feeling from Halo: CE of stepping out onto the Ring. The biggest thing about Halo 4, however, was the fact that 343 actually explored [i]all[/i] of the lore instead of just referencing it. We finally learnt about the Forerunners, yet 343 still managed to keep the mystery of the canon via the Precursors and their now expanded lore. I fail to see how anyone could deny that the story in 4 was above that of Halo 3 and sure as hell Halo 2.

Halo 2's story was superior to Halo 3's; I feel as though it was on par with Halo 4's. But 3's was just a plot hole ridden mess.

I don't remember any plot holes in 3. In fact, given that so many people have contributed to the franchise, Halo manages to get away without any monolithic plot holes. The only really bad ones I can recall were the ones in Reach until Eric Nylund had to clarify certain discrepancies between Halo Reach and The Fall of Reach. Halsey's Journal also helped.

Why didn't gravemind infect the earth on the way to the Ark? Why did Truth not bring any captured humans with him to activate the Ark instead of waiting for them to come to him in force? He knows he needs humans. We also know that the Brutes were capturing humans, but he just lets them eat them rather than shipping one off to his ship to use as a key for the Ark. So that just got him killed. Why did Miranda act so rashly and crash the pelican into the Ark control room instead of using the forward mounted guns? That got her killed pointlessly, and the rings activated anyway. Why did the Gravemind pull his tendrils away and attack arbiter and chief with normal combat forms after Truth was killed? Gravemind's refusal to use anything more than foot soldiers against chief when he's practically a God--as well as just let him walk effectively [i]inside[/i] him to rescue cortana--just got him killed. The only reason anything happened in Halo 3 was because of rash, or just dumb decisions. Halo 2 on the other hand had fewer outstanding problems and gave us interesting characters on both ends; halo 3 turned Truth and Gravemind from calm, collected and calculating masterminds into hammy Saturday morning cartoon villains, that Chief only beat because they weren't written well. Thankfully Didact in halo 4 was genuinely imposing. But halo 3 easily had a weaker story.

Plenty of those are nitpicking and could be explained via extrapolation. The Gravemind actually did attempt to infect Earth but was stopped by the combined forces of the UNSC and Elites. The Fleet of Retribution actually Glasses most of the area to stop the Flood from spreading. Like I said, many of these points could be explained by extrapolation. It's very possible that Truth in fact had humans ready to activate the Array, but instead thought it to be poetic justice to use Johnson after he was captured. Another theory is that Truth acted carelessly and hadn't taken specific things into consideration. Miranda saving Johnson is an easy one. The Chief and Arbiter were the only ones who were able to make it into the control room, so we can assume that no other units were able to break through the Covenant by conventional means, so Miranda, unable to spare units due to the massive firefight, saw it fit to take matters into her own hands and save her friend. As for the Gravemind, we know that his mind is one (he essentially is the Flood), meaning that while we perceive them as "foot soldiers", the Graemind is actually directly trying to stop the Chief and Arbiter. It's also possible that through practicality it would be easier for the Flood ground units to kill Chief and Arbiter rather than drag them through hundreds of miles of catacombs, giving them ample opportunity to escape. These are all conventional things that happen in all forms of story telling. It's usually not until further exploration through other platforms that small plot conveniences like these are addressed. Halo 4 had plot conveniences too. Through what can only be explained as pure hubris, the Didact actually throws the Master Chief aside thinking that a slip space rupture would kill him. Ironically and coincidentally, just as the Gravemind met his death due to hubris - so did the Didact.

What you call "nitpicking" is just what a plot hole [i]is[/i]. 1) The Gravemind did not attack Earth. If it did, Earth would have fallen. This is confirmed in Spartan Ops, in Halo 3 by Rtas, and by pretty much every other source on the Flood out there. Hood knew Earth would fall, but he wanted to go down fighting it. As Halo 3's ending shows, there is no sign of a battle. Also, no Elites stayed behind with Hood, Lord Hood and his handful of ships were the only people to stay behind. Rtas makes it clear they won't defend Earth. Rtas destroyed Voi to stop the Flood, after that thought, the Gravemind brings the entire High Charity into the Sol system. But there is no sign whatsoever that he attacked Earth--if he had, he would have consumed it. 2) How would Truth consider it poetic justice? He doesn't care who Johnson is, he's just another human to him. Don't mistake who he is to us with who he is to other characters. If Truth already had humans ready (something you can't prove and is just assumption) but decided on same vague "poeticism" to use a random human he has no special affiliation with, then truth is even dumber than the game presents him to be. Not helping your case here. 3) I have no problem with Miranda taking matters into her own hands, my problem with the scene is that she makes a heroically stupid crash landing in an obviously vain attempt to take on the entire Brute honor guard herself, instead of just using the Pelican's frontal mounted 70mm cannons or other weaponry. In the end, she was killed and her death changed absolutely nothing. 4) I know all about the Gravemind, but thus doesn't excuse the fact that while he was using "foot soldiers" he could also have used his giant tendrils to smack Chief and Arbiter clean off the platform into a bottomless pit (as he already sorta did when they were on the Pelican) or just crush them to death but instead, for no reason at all, he just pulls his tendrils back and lets the Flood combat forms try killing them for the thousandth time, something that has never worked. Didact threw the Chief aside thinking that the core collapsing would kill him, which it should have done, seeing as how Didact could in no way have predicted the Phantoms crashing and dropping off a Ghost for him to use. Didact met defeat through being blindsided by external factors outside of his foresight or control (Ghosts, Cortana, and Librarian's mutation of Chief); Gravemind met his end because he refused to use anything other than literally the weakest assets at his disposal (combat forms, when he could have used his giant, mile-long tendrils that can't be killed by the Chief and can smack around Pelicans).

1) It was unclear as to whether you were talking about the Battle of Voi or the period of time during the battle of the Ark. I honestly see all of those points as grasping at straws. Considering that Truth was abut to destroy it's food source, essentially dooming it to death of starvation, I wouldn't think that the Gravemind would take the time to stop at Earth just before it's demise. 2) It's entirely possible that Truth was aware of who Johnson was, considering that he is knowledgeable of most notable UNSC figures and quite a lot about the Chief. It's also possible that Truth chose Johnson purely due to the fact that he was the leader of the team tasked with taking down the third shield generator. 3) As circumstances would have it, it's quite possible that crashing the Pelican was a rash decision made in the heat of a massive battle going on outside of the control room. Considering that all hell was breaking loose outside, it's not too far fetched to assume that Miranda chose to quickly crash through the window instead of risking hovering outside of the windows and being shot down. A quick decision and hesitation resulted in her death. 4) I could pedantically debate this point to no end, but at the end of the day that wouldn't be a fitting conclusion to the game. It's simple - he saw it more practical to use his forces on the ground. Considering how successful the Flood were at assimilating literally everything, do you honestly think that the Gravemind believed that a ridiculously sized Flood horde couldn't defeat two soldiers? As Cortana stated in 4, the Didact created a slip space rupture after leaving in his Cryptum. The Didact was under the impression that the rupture would kill the Chief, yet he could have just as easily destroyed him right then and there as he was about to do at the end of the game. Honestly, even during his death on INSTALLATION 03 he displayed a great deal of hubris. A true plot hole would be something that actually conflicted with the plot, not small plot conveniences that can be explained.

That's alot to read...

I should've brought popcorn.