[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] ryan299 theme of halo 4's campaign is to take every fun mission bungie ever designed and put into the campaign. thats the campaign halo 4 is.[/quote] Yeah, no. That was Reach's campaign agenda. [quote]as for story, 343 overdid mc and cortanas story. they essentially made the game a bromance, which doesn't work in video games.[/quote] Er... I think you need to check the definition of "bromance". You evidently completely misinterpreted the relationship between John and Cortana, and how exactly does romance not work in video games anyway? Mass Effect? Shadow of the Colossus? No, I guess the romance in these games just don't work for the sole fact that they're part of a video game medium... That's logic, right there. [quote]its okay to have the bromance as the b-story but it was the a-story in this game. By over doing the bromance they under developed the didact, the forerunners, and the new war.[/quote] See above point, it's clear you've completely misunderstood the themes of the story. The story of the Forerunners and the Didact has been in constant motion and development since the IRIS Saga in 2007 leading up to Halo 3, then in Halo 3 through the Terminals, then through Evolutions, Legends, the Forerunner Saga and The Thursday War. Not to mention Halo 4's Terminals too, which do a tremendous job and compiling together exposition from these other sources and providing exposition on things. The Didact's motivation as a character and personality, for instance, are illustrated in both the main game and the terminals. Let's take a look at some dialogue, shall we? - "The [humans] must be sent home and taught to stand with the galaxy, rather than rail against us and take what they desire. the Mantle shelters all." - "The humans' actions threatened the galaxy, yet we have treated them as the Mantle requires. Their punishment was just." - "They are closer now to the animals they behaved as." - "The humans were not meant to protect others. The Mantle of Responsibility for all things is ours, and ours alone." - "My finest opponent, the Mantle accepts all who live fiercely, who defend their young, who build and struggle and grow, and even those who dominate - as humans have dominated; cruelly, without wisdom." - "They took the Mantle of Responsibility upon themselves, and in so doing, they brought the sickness to our shores." - Faber: "So you agree that Halos are our only solution." Librarian: "I do." Faber: "And your husband?" Librarian: "My husband has a different opinion on what steps to take against the Flood." - "Didact, if the Composer is our final hope to defeat the Flood, no Promethean would resist." - "Humans, your kind brought the Flood to our shores. Now you will aid in ending its threat." - "Your pets have a nobler purpose ahead of them." There is plenty of exposition on the Didact's motives and 'hatred' of humanity in the Terminals, his transformation from providing humanity with the chance to live but in a degraded form, treating them "as the Mantle requires", to growing desperate in his need to defeat the Flood. Now let's move to the Librarian's dialogue in the campaign when she speaks to John and see how this connects. - "Weakened from our conflict, we were no match for the Parasite which pursued you." - "The Forerunners made plans for a final great Journey, but the Didact refused to yield our Mantle of responsibility." - "Such moral concerns faded from the Didact's attention." - "The Composer would grant the Didact his solution and his revenge." Again, the transformation of character is clear. You have to be completely brain dead to say that there is no exposition either in the game or in the Terminals on this subject. The Didact may not have the enigmatic, Lovecraftian fear factor of the Gravemind or the deluded madness of truth, but he's an emotionally driven villain with clear purpose and intent. His dialogue in the Epilogue connects this all together and sets the stage for the next game. [quote]anybody with knowledge of story and structure will tell you that halo 4 is one of the worst stories written. [/quote] As someone who has ardently studied literature ever since I've been able to read, I can tell you that what you're saying is utterly overblown, melodramatic nonsense. The development and ultimate conclusion John and Cortana underwent in Halo 4 was nothing short of poetic, it was beautifully handled by the writing team and brought out by far the most emotion in a Halo game. The Prologue starts off with the questioning of whether John was successful because he was, at his core, broken. It's continued throughout the game, Cortana asking John to find out which one of them is really the machine, and culminates in Lasky's dialogue at the end where he states that soldiers and humanity (machine and man) are no different. John removing his armour in the Epilogue symbolises the exposure of his humanity for what's really the first time in the series - and it took a machine who really was more human than him to make him realise who he is. The conclusion has finally been drawn that he wasn't successful because he was broken at his core, but the "tools" which Halsey supplied (calling Cortana a tool itself being ironic) helped bring out the humanity in John and turned it into his greatest strength. Emotionally, the only games that have ever struck me so effectively through character development are Shadow of the Colossus, Journey and Mass Effect. The progression of the story itself and seeing how it interweaved with over 5 years worth of fiction left me with nothing short of immense respect for 343i's writing team as the dots gradually connected together. It's a sense of intimate involvement the Halo series hasn't captured for me in any of the games beyond Halo 2 and ODST.