A lot of people seem to think I'm bashing Halo 2 or Halo 4 in this thread. I'm not, I'm just talking about the hypocritical behavior some of you have. First off, I agree that you don't need to read the books to understand Halo 2 or Halo 4. I made this thread though, because a lot of people seem to think you need to read the books to fully understand Halo 4. And yes, you need to read the books to understand some details, but you can still get the gist of the story. I brought up Halo 2, because you needed to read the books to understand the details in the story. I was just pointing out how nobody seems to care that you needed to read the books for Halo 2, but everyone cares for Halo 4.

The problem that people have isn't evil Elites, it's the way that 343i has presented the whole entire issue. The Elites in Halo 4 are not explained to be a splinter faction, it isn't explained who they are [i]at all[/i] actually. And the Kilo-5 Trilogy doesn't help either, as [i]all[/i] of the Elites in that trilogy are cut from the same block and act as if they are a hive-mind. [i]All[/i] of them hate humans and want nothing more than to see them dead and gone. The Arbiter is the only one who doesn't, even his supporters in Karen Traviss' nonsense want the human race dead, the only difference between them and any other Elite is their opinion on [i]when[/i] it can happen. They think they should look to their own affairs first rather than focusing on humans then and there, unlike Jul's mindset where they want to deal with humans right here and right now and kill them all ASAP. That's 343i's problem when it comes to the Elites, they're doing [i]exactly[/i] what you're accusing other fans of, only instead of saying all of them are good or something like that, they take the opposite approach and act as if they're all evil. Thing is you [i]don't[/i] need to read First Strike to understand Halo 2, at that time we didn't know anything about the Longsword, nothing in CE said that a Longsword wouldn't be able to make it back to Earth or all the way to human space in order to get picked up by the UNSC. And First Strike didn't tell you anything about the Brutes either, they show up in that with just as little fanfare as they do in Halo 2 itself and with just as little information. You shouldn't [i][b][u]NEED[/i][/b][/u] the books or anything else in order to understand the games or what's going on within them, the games are the primary medium of the Halo series, nothing else [i]should[/i] be [i]required[/i] to understand the primary medium of a series. That's one of the big problems with Halo 4.

343 designed the campaign to be understood whether or not you've read the books. Your reaction is exaggerated. The books however do add context and to story lovers appreciate that.

[quote]If you hadn't read the book before that, you have NO idea how Chief got back to Earth[/quote] Are you talking about the events between CE and H2? Because you do need to read the book to get the whole story on how cheif ended up at earth. [quote]how the hell Johnson is even alive[/quote] In the book it tells you how johnson is still alive from getting off the ring and surviving "the Flood", its quite the story, Johnson in his past grabbed a covnant crate of plasma grenades and killed a bunch of covnant and stuff like that, and from that many grenades he got this special kind of radiation that pretty much killed his knerves, and would shorten his life span. And from this special kind of radiation he is immune to getting infected by the flood, (explains a bunch of science stuff in the books) and then theres the whole story of how he made it off the ring, I'm not going to take the time to explain all that though.

[quote]Why do people care about reading novels before Halo 4?[/quote] Because they like the Halo universe and want to know more? This is a serious question? *facepalm*

To even kinda understand the story you need to see all of the terminals and they can't even be seen in game!

Some like to immerse themselves into a universe, I see no problem with that.

Because bungie fanbois are nerds ... even bungie had re-release the original books when they wrote Reach ... but that was considered just fine - lol.

Halo 4 did a poor job of explaining the lore from the novels. It throws tangled information right at you and anyone who isn't familiar with the halo universe will be left not knowing what's happening.

What is the mantle? Why was the didact there? How does cortana know his name? Is he forerunner? Why is he so fugly? None of this is even touched upon.

At least it wasn't like in Mass Effect 3 where everyone knew who Kai Leng was except for me. He came in killed Thane, everybody is talking about what a badass he is, meanwhile I'm wondering where the hell he's been for two games. At least with Halo 4, they have another two games to flesh out the Didact some more. ME3 introduces a major antagonist in the last game only for him to die two hours later.

Probably because without the books, people don't understand who the Didact is and why he's evil.

[quote]Do I need to remind you all of Halo 2? If you hadn't read the book before that, you have NO idea how Chief got back to Earth,[/quote]... wut? The end of Halo 2 shows you how he got back to Earth. Sure there are extra details in the graphic novel thing, but you still know how he got there. [quote]how the hell Johnson is even alive,[/quote]Back then it was just assumed he was a stereotype of a military guy. Generic- like there were multiples of him. [quote]what these weird new Aliens known as Brutes are[/quote]Brutes are aliens in the Covenant. You didn't need to read 'Contact Harvest' to know that Elites are bad guys. :/ [quote] Well, if you have an ounce of common sense, you would know that there are different people with different personalities.[/quote]At the end of Halo 3, we have the entirety of the Elite hierarchy siding with humans making a pact of peace. It is implied in the game that the Arbiter then takes control where the Prophets used to be and humanity and Covenant live happily ever after. Then we move to Halo 4 where there aren't just a couple Covenant that still hate us, but an entire Armada with the sole intent of killing us and worshiping the Gods that their entire race acknowledged were false. Saying 'oh people have different opinions' doesn't change how massive a hole that is.

The game didn't do that great of a job of conveying the face that the Didact went batshit insane thanks to his encounter with the Composer. It's nice to know this after playing Halo 4 and wondering whatever happened to the character I read about in Cryptum. You know, the one that wasn't hellbent on wrecking everything?