This is one of the many problems i have with halo 5, that they build this Jul 'mdama character up so well in halo 4s spartan ops and make him feel like a big boss sangheili that you want to fight. And then the first bloody mission on Halo 5 they just kill him off in a cutscene like its nothing. I mean come on, Very disappointing!
most likely it was cut content reasons. H5 had a crap ton of cut content. There were supposed to be 5 or so bosses that were all replaced with warden eternal
I had the exact same reaction to the infinity coming out of slipspace. The main reason I even clicked on this video was to see the reaction to it. I really wish Halo had more moments like that especially the TV show
Fun fact: Thorne was originally going to be the 4th member of Fireteam Osiris in Halo 5 but his actor was too busy, so that's why Buck was in the game instead. sadly, you don't actually play as Fireteam Majestic during Spartan Ops. you play as a fully custom, but canon, fireteam. Fireteam Crimson. also, to answer one of your questions. the cutscene/mission layout was Cutscene Episode 1 (5 missions) Cutscene Episode 2 (5 missions) and so on until the last cutscene after Episode 10. also, yeah. just like Jul M'dama, come Halo 5, Halsey wanting revenge on the UNSC and the Janus Key just completely stopped being story factors. the Janus key had a couple more mentions in comics and that's it.
Very small detail but the recurring fireteam "Crimson" that they mention a couple times (and is the original fireteam that retrieves the artifact) is a fireteam consisting of your playable spartan and three other player characters. So as the story in these cutscenes are playing out, your squad is completing missions. They're mentioned at 7:58, 44:16, 45:23, and their pelican is seen at 46:23
Remember that Halo 4 came out on the Xbox 360 originally (Ran much better on the Xbox One, but they wanted it earlier so it came out near the end of the 360 life cycle, just before the XOne came out) and I think they removed this mode some time after Halo 5 came out, so the cutscenes were never updated for higher resolution hardware, now we just have cutscenes at 1080p sadly, even though this mode was a better TV show experience than the actual TV show... (They also released each mission and cutscene on a weekly release schedule, just like a TV show) Also Jul M'Dama is the leader of an insurgent group of zealous folks that don't want the covenant to disappear, they believe they still are the covenant, even after the faction's collapse. It's partially why their equipment (Armour) looks somewhat rag tag and thrown together, they don't have an organized military or a government backing them. And yes, they did him dirty in Halo 5. The Librarian is a digital lifeform at this point, or at least that's my understanding. In Halo 4 the composer, which was the weapon that the Didact took and fired at New Pheonix, digitizes organic matter and effectively turns them into Ai constructs, which the Didact was then implanting into the Promethean battlesuits and using as soldiers. They don't have free will, although perhaps someone who has read the books and not just secondary sources on the internet might be able to add to this information. I believe that something similar was done to the Librarian, there was a bit when she was explaining to Master Chief that the Forerunners attempted to digitize their soldiers to make them immune to the flood, since digital lifeforms cannot be food for the flood. However, when they tried to change them back into organics, the process left them broken mentally or physically, so the process was determined to be 1 way. She likely digitized herself so that she could guide the "reclaimers" (Humans) of the future and to monitor her husbands "Meditation" (Imprisonment) in the giant sphere. (Cryptum, as Halo 5 calls it) I honestly think they were cooking with some of this stuff, but just didn't present it super well in some cases and in Halo 5, they just got carried away with an ill-fated plot point. (Cortana coming back and being ruthless and essentially playing out the plot of irobot) Additional: You play as fireteam Crimson in the missions.
halo 4s graphics are so good that i can look over the armour change from 3-4 as much as i love and prefer the old armour the 4 armour is just so clean and textured
I think I mentioned this before on the Halo 4 video before, but Halo 4 will always be one of my favourite Halo games. I remember waiting excitedly every week for the next episode of Spartan Ops to release. Episode 1-4 weren't anything special, if anything they were rather generic, but 5-10 really stepped up and started adding variety into it and to boot actually had a really interesting storyline! As for the story differences, the Halo Escalation comic was released after 4 which showed the next part of the Didact story where he was "contained" by Chief, and then most recently had his story finished in the book Halo Epitaph (amazing book). Whereas the Janus Key was also dealt with off screen in Escalation. I really wish 343 had followed through with the storylines they introduced in 4 because they really didn't deserve to be all thrown out for 5, especially all the build up for Jul...
To add to the tragedy of Jul Amdamas character death at the start of Halo 5, he's an entire side of the best trilogy of books leading up to Halo 5, the Kilo 5 trilogy which further rubs salt in the wound
Glad to see you getting in on this! Spartan Ops is where I believe Spartan IVs got their some of their negative reputation among halo fans. The members of Fireteam Majestic exhibited lot of behaviors that we felt pretty unprofessional by Spartan standards (or expectations). Fraternizing with the ladies, collecting souvenirs from defeated enemies, disobeying orders and acting impulsively. Yes indeed previous generations of Spartans have acted so in some cases but here we just see it frequently. In this instance for Majestic, if you recall back to Halo 5,Fireteam Osiris at the start literally dove into a massive battle and plowing through two fighting factions head-on. Majestic took cover and formed a firing line. One can chalk it up to being new to fighting prometheans or their objective isn’t to assault the enemy, but you can really see that they’re relying on their basic Marine training. This is because the Spartan program advanced so much that Spartan IVs are recruits from other branches of military instead of conscripting children. I’d say by Halo 5 and Infinite Spartan IVs have improved in effectiveness and discipline. I won’t try to insult Fireteam Majestic however. Despite their traits they’ve proven their mettle and worth enough that they’re often relied on during the events of Spartan Ops alongside your own custom Spartan’s fireteam Crimson, mentioned here. I’d say Thorne was the best of Majestic.
To explain what Spartan Ops is to Halo 4 as a game. It’s an Episodic co-op collection of missions. You play as your own Spartan, that you’d have customized for multiplayer. Undergoing missions to establish operations for research and military deployment on the planet of Requiem. You and/or your friends play their part to engage and destabilize Jul’Mdama’s Covenant forces and Promethean defenses and assist any UNSC forces. While co-op based it can be played solo but to one’s regret haha. The game doesn’t temper it’s enemy saturation depending on the size of your squad. Solo players will be pitted against a full team’s worth of enemies.
Now that you've said they come across unprofessional, they really do! Almost like normal soldiers or people stuck in Spartan armour. They don't show the same grace as the ii's or iii's.
Well, this got posted while I was asleep, but I had already planned to watch Halo 5's reaction first since as of last night, I was under the impression you hadn't seen the Spartan Ops story which meant there'd be a lot of questions... This just means I can go on a few-hour long streak of Kai Zammit goodness! Love your reactions and breakdowns, man! Always brings a smile to my face to see someone who can appreciate things from a fan's perspective as well as a filmmaker's perspective. It adds a whole other layer of depth to these that people don't often notice.
Super happy to see this, got yourself some context and one of the best bits of Halo media out there. Really unfortunate that it pretty much got written off at the start of Halo 5 (they definitely don't repeat this trend with infinite smh). Seeing Halsey say 'Revenge' and then nothing to come from it was the most disappointing. Sad to think this is the last major bit of Halo media for you to react to other than infinite and Nightfall now, what a journey and thank you for sticking with it!
For Spartan Ops - While we see a lot of cut-scenes featuring Fireteam Majestic, when you actually played Spartan-Ops, you and, if you did co-op, the other players made up Fireteam Crimson. During missions, you would sometimes hear callouts or radio chatter from other Fireteams, including Majestic. And in some of the cut-scenes here, you frequently hear or see the results of what you did as "Fireteam Crimson". Like when Thorne asked Palmer about the artifact at 8:00, she mentions that it was collected by Fireteam Crimson...which during one of the missions as Crimson, you have to collect and retrieve that artifact. 1:15 - "Hinge Head" is sort of a derogative term/slur that the UNSC gave Sangheili/Elites given their mouths opened up with hinged mandibles. They also use to call them "Split Lips". 4:28 - Yea, the "lore" behind the PvP/Matchmaking mode in Halo 4 was that it was actually simulated "War Games" so the Spartans were testing their skills against one another and not actually killing each other. 9:10 - She ran up and kicked it. 10:20 - Yep, Lasky's name is Thomas Lasky. He is the main character in the live action Halo movie: Forward Unto Dawn, which shows Lasky in his cadet point in life attending Corbuelo (spelling) Academy when it's attacked by the Covenant. 15:15 - It's been a while since I played Spartan Ops, but the missions originally were released episodic. Each 'episode' consisted of a fully cinematic cut-scene which we see here, along with 5 playable missions. When they first released, once you played through an episode, you had to wait (I believe it was a week) for them to release the next episode. In total, there were 10 episodes (50 missions total). 39:20 - The helmet that Majestic Team Leader has is called the Soldier helmet. And yep, the one before does have the "newer" version of the Recon helmet introduced in Halo 4.
So Spartan Op's consists of 50 missions broken into 10 chapters referred to as "episodes". From memory, Each episode has a cutscene at the beginning and end. You follow fireteam Crimson during Spartan ops as opposed to Fireteam majestic.
The 5:35 part There is alot to say about 343 industries and their halo trilogy. But I kinda like this part because once in time mankind were on the run from the Covenant. They had certain protocols etc to not lead the Covenant to any human planets and their ships were always superior. But mankind endured even in the darkest hour and now the playing field is more leveled, to the point that mankind has the slighter upper hand. Those once dangerous Covenant ships are now just being rammed by a ship of even higher tonnage while it is on its way to more pressing matters
As just some funny things. The Infinity is about 5 kilometers long. If you remember the Covenant Assault Carriers from previous games, those are the same length. The Long Night of Solace from Halo Reach, was a staggering 28 kilometers long. And still not the biggest ship. That goes to the Didact's ship from the campaign. Called Mantle's Approach. It was 371 kilometers tall and around 150 kilometers in width and length. The standard CCS Battlecruiser, like what the Infinity bulldozed through are about 1 kilometer long.
That is interesting what you said about Palmer, I don't like the one we get in the actual campaign, but the Spartan Ops one is likely be favourite version of her. Maybe it's because she's no insulting Chief.
Never noticed this before, but it appears that Gek has many UNSC dog tags attached to his left front collar armor, probably to showcase his many kills he pulled "trophies" from.
5:26 "... the way i see it, if those freaks want to meet good.... It's our duty to help them along." goes way to hard with the ship just going through another xD
Fun fact, this was supposed to be a chapter story released in mission bundles. But budget and time constraints ended this on a cliffhanger. But the story continued In a comic called Halo: Escalation. My personal favorite moment between Halsey and Palmer. Now, a Halo RUclipsr called Halo Canon covered each issue on his channel. Maybe not for a reaction, but I would recommend his videos for a conclusion to the Janius Key story arc.
36:55 Osman is a Spartan 2 but had medial issues (I forget the details) but long story short she is now the head of Oni and does not care much for Halsey.
Jul was a miss opportunity. He wasn’t much into the Forerunners until his wife death in Halo Glasslands. His motivation to awaken the Didact was purely revenge learning Didacts history while a prisoner on a Forerunner planet that has UNSC occupation (Onyx/Trevelyn)
The Janus key was resolved in a comic. Halsey ends up using the key at the Absolute Record but after a battle with Jul 'Mdama, the AI in charge of the Record basically deemed Halsey not worthy and took the key with it into slipspace.
Glad you're seeing how good these cinematics are. Spartan ops is a very forgotten part of Halo, mainly cuz the gameplay was simple & repetitive - at the end of the day Halo is a game
Fun Fact: The woman Lasky is talking to at 36:49 is a Spartan-II, Serin-019. She failed the augmentation procedure though wasn't crippled like some others and was taken in by the head of ONI at the time.
@kaizammit Yeah, she first appeared in the book Halo: Grasslands and it's two sequels. It follows Kilo-Five, an ONI team of her, an AI, two ODST''s and a full fledged Spartan doing operations set between Halo 3 and 4, trying to get the two factions of the Elite, the Arbiters Swords of Sangheilois and Jul 'Mdama's Covenant, to kill each other in true ONI fashion.
Spartan ops was genuinely the most fun and interactive part of halo 4s story imo, but my main critique is that fireteam crimson (the team you play for the missions) does most of the heavy lifting and has the cooler stories gets overshadowed by Fireteam Majestic (the cutscene ones) and is never mentioned outside of one reference. I didn’t expect crimson to appear in cutscene but it would’ve been nice for them to have a little bit more recognition since they saved the infinity TWICE, found the artifact, escaped from a covenant prison, took down a lich, and found the missing nuclear warheads. They also didn’t have to end the Spartan ops story since they could’ve just given the Spartan 4s more missions in the future halo games since some are still around. Could’ve even given us a new fireteam to follow as well since there’s several others referenced in game.
Palmer is annoying because she has to be imo. I do agree that they give her a bit too many moments of sass and anger tho. But her getting mad at Halsey makes sense when you realize Halsey just caused the deaths of a lot of UNSC personnel aboard the Infinity when the Prometheans came for a smash and grab just to grab her. Should also be noted that Palmer was apparently much more laid back before the events of Halo: Spartan Assault. Where you play as her and another Spartan named Davis. He dies during the game and they were really good friends. Halsey is not liked by basically anyone in this series. Captain Keyes and Miranda Keyes were the only ones she could actually consider family, and they're both dead. Even Cortana, a literal A.I. version OF Halsey hated her. Even O.N.I. have basically decided to use her as a scapegoat in terms of responsibility for the Spartan program using children
I remember me and my arma group did a Op aboard UNSC infinite where our group of marines had to rescue Glassman but the boarding happened and got retasked to Defend infinite.
Please react to the halo infinite cutscenes. I think it marries the better bits of halo 4 and the first 3 games. I think it was a return to form in terms of the campaign
The Fours are children in a sandbox. The Twos, however few are left remaining, are the silent professionals. I loved H4 and Spartan Ops. Back in late 2011 with my crap office job, Spartan Ops weekly episodes were the sole reasons I looked forward to Monday nights when they released. I have never been so enthralled with a mini story line, really just a sidekick campaign when you think about it. And I was disappointed that they not only killed off Didact in a comic but that the main villain of Spartan Ops was so easily killed (in a cutscene no less) in Halo 5.
😊@@kaizammit Yes, as they say, "Mistakes were made." Though, I know exactly why it was executed such a way. Spartan Locke is the new sherrif in town and Fireteam Osiris always gets a green light, blah, blah. Sometimes I think the H5 development team roster might be markedly different than the H4 roster, because if they're the same... man they really pissed on their own boots. They didn't do their own story much justice. Anyways, really do appreciate your unique takes on these Halo cinematics. I've learned some interesting perspectives watching this channel that I never considered and never even noticed before. It kind of makes me rethink every one of my memorable movie and/or vid game experiences. The little details that are usually just innocuous but they really do add up and enrich the experience.
Watching the cutscenes like this is literally the best way to enjoy Spartan Ops tbh. 50 whole missions, a lot of which are just reused campaign sections, is SO tedious. I did them all Legendary Solo for the achievements in MCC and it genuinely took a toll on my psyche 🤣 But the story is actually quite intriguing I think, it's just a shame it didn't go anywhere else beyond this game
I'm unsure if it was obvious, but the character we play is part of fireteam "Crimson". Spartan Ops can be played solo, but is best enjoyed with 4 players. (Mainly due to enemy density) 😁👍
The main reason I prefer Halo 4 over Halo 5 is how they expanded in the story with Spartan Ops, while the missions where not different from the main campaign and the team you use doesn't even appear on the cutscenes, this was actually well made. Even for 343i standards lol
You play as Fireteam Crimson in Spartan Ops, a fireteam that is in a friendly rivalry with Fireteam majestic (Main characters of the cutscenes). It's pretty cool, because while in game, you can see Majestic as a bit of an inferiority complex compared to Crimson, with Sarah Palmer always giving compliments to our Fireteam to the annoyance of Majestic. Halo infinite released a Fireteam Crimson emblem and armor decal too not too long ago, so it's kinda cool that you can kinda hold the idea that you're using the same Spartan in Infinite that you were using in Halo 4
The amazing thing about Catharine H. as a character is that she has the intellect to move mountains and the will and desire to wield it like a sword. The under current of her character is that about 60% of the UNSC tech base is either directly her work or work that she is very well versed in. So, the UNSC can cry foul and call her a war criminal all they want, it will not mean a damn thing to her.
While the animation team was generally the same as Halo 4's campaign, the need to deliver weekly episodes via 2012 internet to Xbox 360 hardware required the use of Bink Video for the codec - and Bink just isn't great by modern standards, but it was the most compact video encoding solution at the time... which doesn't play nice with modern hardware without assistance, and that causes the stream disruption Many have tried to reconstitute the Spartan Ops from their data libraries within Halo 4, but they were stored at 640p widescreen that could functionally uprez to 1080p via the Bink parameters, but every line of resolution beyond 1080p compromised image clarity - so with The Master Chief Collection able to go to 4K/60, these episodes really show their age when re-encoding for RUclips
Spartan Ops was my favorite part of Halo 4. I wish they continued that in the next games, small episodic adventures about spartans happening around themain story of the game. Imagine if it was in Hal Infinite- You see all the aftermath as masterchief and then see what happened as the Spartans in their ops. A really missed opportunity.
Just in case no one else has mentioned it yet. Spartan Ops cutscenes follow Majestic, however, the game play you are in Fireteam crimson. There is plenty of banter in game with Crimson one upping Majestic.
I find it curious how the Sangheili despite using their how language still refers to the forerunner stuff by the English name like Didact, Librarian, Prometean Knight and even artifact.
Now I didn't read the books or anything but I must say it has always been weird to me what spaceships can and can't do. For example: How does ramming work? It gets portrayed very differently across the series.
I never knew his name till now, but Spartan Thorne is portrayed by Ethan Peck! If anyone has watched Star Trek: Strange New World you may know who I'm talking about. To think I'd have my mind blown all these years later....
Spartan ops is fine if you don't have to play the missions and you don't mind a cliffhanger. The missions were, unlike the campaign, made with 4 people in mind, even though I think a lot of people were interested in playing them solo, and they turned into huge grinds because of it.
Halsey's one of those characters that 343i did NOT do justice. It's hard to get into if you haven't read the Eric Nylund novels where she was originally introduced into the franchise but a LOT of the flak she gets is because the head of ONI - Margret Parangosky - had it out for her from day one. ONI basically used her to accomplish their goals, laid all of the decisions they either greenlit or gave to Halsey as orders at the Doctor's feet and then locked her up as a scapegoat for their crimes. Parangosky basically blamed Halsey for every decision she ordered the Doctor to undertake since Parangosky was the one who greenlit the program in the first place and put the pressure on Halsey to meet deadlines - and Admiral Osman who you saw here was one of the Spartan II washouts that Parangosky would take on as a protege entirely for the purpose of indoctrinating the child to keep her policies in place when Parangosky retired, and that included the Admiral's very personal hatred of Halsey. Halsey's a deeply controversial figure for obvious reasons but she was always human in the sense that she had a conscience, and the things she did deeply weighed on her. You can see it in her reaction to the news that John (the Master Chief) was alive, and much of the reason ONI was able to jail her in the first place was because she broke a lot of military laws trying to ensure the survival of as many Spartans as she could in the last years of the war when she reasonably assumed humanity was about to go extinct. As far as DnD alignments go she'd be Chaotic Neutral at worst, Chaotic Good at best - literally everything she ever did was with the intention of improving lives, even if it meant sacrificing her own soul to do it. Your judgement of Palmer is right on the money, though. Former ODST who absolutely despised Spartans as glory hungry bullet catchers that took all the credit for the enlisted men and women of the UNSC... until she became one herself. After that she would constantly talk down the normal men and women she once used to "champion". Constantly screwed her teams over during the initial training after augmentations trying to show up her fellow Spartans (why the bell test was one of the FIRST things the Spartan IIs and IIIs went through to teach them the value and importance of teamwork), and after that was promoted straight from something like Corporal all the way to Commander well before she was ready. That massively inflated her ego, and it would take until the Escalation comics bridging Spartan Ops to Halo 5 for her to get very much humbled by Halsey and circumstances in general.
Word of the wise, if you play spartan ops on your own: -as others have said, the game does not make it easier if you play on your own, so you want to play with other people. -The marine AI are useless. Unless they’re going to be getting in a vehicle with you don’t even bother to try giving them Power weapons because half the enemies carry weapons that can one shot had shot them. -spartan AI are better in the sense they don’t die die easily -The only human power weapons that can be resupplied from the random ammo boxes left everywhere are the railgun, SAW, and I think the sniper rifle.
I've seen the unreal engine 5 teaser, I did that in my own time. Infinite is coming this month!! I'm kind of sad as that means, no more halo left for me.
Halo 5 should have been about retrieving the Janus Key and getting to the Absolute Record. But instead we got the whole "Cortana returns" plot, Chief becomes a side character in his own story and The Domain becomes essentially the exact same thing as the Absolute Record, an epicentre to control all the Forerunner tech. And no... the Janus Key has never been mentioned again... ever. It's so dumb. Such a big plot point. Presumably, the 2nd half is just gone forever, either in a ditch where they killed Jul 'Mdama or on a random Covenant ship that could have exploded years ago... who fuckin' knows.
There was supposed to be a season two of Spartan Ops, but it was cancelled. The story was completed in comics, not very well either. It was cancelled because people didn't like Spartan Ops. Not because of these awesome cutscenes and story, but because the game play was extremely boring and repetitive. They clearly spent the entire budget on the cutscenes. The game play was: you get put on Requiem, and you kill some enemies. The same few locations get reused again and again. They tried to hide it by going through the locations backwards a few times.... I honestly think mostl people didn't see all these cutscenes, because people didn't get through the boring game play sections. Should've just been a tv-show instead. I have no idea why they didn't just make a tv-show like this. It's so damn good.
What killed Spartan Ops was the timed release... it was spread out among several months and each week you came in for a mission or two, and then had to wait another week... I quickly lost interest because of that, but still completed it for the story - the entire reason I play Halo games. I did like the story in Halo 4... even if I didn't care for the art direction that 343 took and eventually gave up on. and ya... they built up Jul in Halo 4 and then in 5 they literally just killed him off unceremoniously in a cut scene like he was a novice elite. Granted that wasn't the ONLY issue with Halo 5's story.
I'm pretty sure the choppy framerate is from the re-upload. I have my fair share of criticisms of Halo 4, but the cutscenes have never been one of them. These were butter when playing them in-game.
Halo 4 was a step in the right direction and yes the Promethians could have been swapped out later for another enemy to fight and spartan ops was so good I loved waking up early just to play and learn more of the story sad that it didn’t pan out well with the community and the halo tv was doomed from the start saying it’s a silver timeline and not using established characters we have I mean I love the actors they did good but the writers didn’t know halo didn’t understand it and sadly we may never get a chance at it again
That show was such a let down, visuals were there but the writing was not, a few of my biggest gripes have to be 1. chief, they literally could’ve used a new character to take his place and I would’ve been fine with it. 2. Miranda, oh man do they not do her justice in the show, honestly don’t know why they didn’t stick closer to her game version. 3. The Spartan 3s, ugh. And that’s just a few
@ there were good parts of the show mainly the action scenes, but the actual story was kind of crap. The sad thing I see is that most people who don’t know Halo think that’s what it’s all about how those characters are when there’s so much more in the game and novels
my biggest problem is the how badly they neutered the Spartans in terms of skill and power. in the books a bunch of spartan 3s kicked the shit out of some elites so badly in close combat, that the elites literally decided that close quarters with them would be suicide. these spartan 3s being on average 12 years old and wearing armor much less advanced than the spartan 4s. and here you have a fully grown adult spartan 4, decked out in full Mjolnir, getting mopped by a single elite.
I'd say that with every new release of Halo, the previous one seems better. Halo 4 stuff definitely felt better after 5. And not gonna lie, Halo 5 felt slightly better after Infinite. But this Spartan Ops right here? It was a damn shame it never came back, no matter what bad points there were.
Spartan Ops lead up to a great potential plot for Halo 5. Then 343 butchered the marking material by dumping a completely different campaign than what was implied.
I love that you pointed out how annoying Palmer is, she is one of the most disliked characters in the halo universe and is a big reason why people didn’t like the Spartans 4’s when they released. Thorn was supposed to be the 4th member of Osiris in Halo 5 but they turned fan favorite Buck (ODST) into a Spartan 4 to try and boost the likability of the 4’s and Osiris. Also it’s insane that we haven’t seen or heard of the Janus key at all since Halo 4 (maybe in the books but I don’t read every single one).
@ that’s always been my issue with 343 is they do so much in the comic and the books, imagine if in halo 3 truth was already dead and they don’t explain it at all because he died in a book. They were always gaps in between the games but the important plot points were in the first trilogy.
@@hunternicholson9953 I'll agree Didact should have been composed in a game or atleast had a cutscene showing and explaining what happened to him but not every big event can or should be in a game like the Rookies death
In this video you talk a lot about how sci-fi and such should be done, and I have to ask: Have you watched The Expanse? And if not, I cannot recommend that show enough.
I've not no, heard a few people tell me this. I might check out an episode and put it on the Patreon. Could be a good one to cover. Thank you for the recommendation.
@@kaizammit Fair warning, it's got a little bit of a slow start. The first couple of episodes may not do the trick for you, but it quickly becomes addicting, for lack of a better word.
Saying that you liked how Halo 4 looked is actually a pretty hot take. It got so much backlash for it's drastic change in art direction. I do think some of the designs were good, if it was a different franchise, but nothing looked like Halo imo.
@kaizammit Btw most of the missions are boring, repetitive, hard. Mostly because of the incompetent AI, endless hordes of enemies, lots of button pressing and maps being reused. The mode was rushed and wasn't tested at all. Palmer, Miller and Roland don't act like professionals on the comms. They are annoying and cringe to listen at.
Man I think spartan ops had to be the worst thing for 343 halo, Its brilliant, but it means most players missed out on lasky and palmer's best moments which is probably why they were dropped for infinite
343 biggest failure was not sticking with a story. They panicked at each reaction from reviews/players, then changed things/retconned between each release.
Spartan Palmer was such an unlikeable character. They needed to give some kind of explanation for her rank and status. As a player you see a petulant child who just whines, and fails constantly, in charge of a bunch of spartan fireteams.
Spartan palmer in the books started off a Lt in the UNSC she fought in the 1st human covenant war before that she nearly drowned as a kid but her best Friend John saved her and promised to marry her one day. Lets see if master chief keeps his promise to her.
the missions in this didn't feel like halo to me, maybe because it was such a drastic change from reach and halo 3 to this. Also Halo 4s multiplayer was amazing but the forge was so bad so no good custom games came out
Spartan Ops was a great addition despite its hate. It was like an interactive TV mini series. How they built up Jul Mdama and Majestic to only kill off Jul in a cutscene n move Majestic to comics was such a waste. Just like what they did with the Didact, Halseys revenge and the 2 Forerunner artifacts. Halo 4 was good and didnt deserve all its hate and negativity. Shame ppl realize this only after Halo 5s dissapointing story telling.
Love this story of halo 4 Spartan ops is repetitive back and forth on the same maps but I’m an bungee halo fan played hale CE when I was six years old so halo 4 good halo five has a good storie build but halo infinite is terrible to me so yeah
Halo 4 spartan ops was very well known for having really terrible gameplay. It was literally just multiplayer maps with AI slapped onto them. Kill them and move onto the next part. Also, you’re right, the elites do look bigger. From Reach onward, the elites were significantly bigger. That was one of the more controversial changes to the art style that Halo Studios made. They fixed it in Halo Infinite though.
Per usual the “fans” ruined things, spartan ops was supposed to get many more seasons but people complained and so they turned all the other spartan ops story points into a comic so the whole thing got handled off screen before 5
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![FILMMAKER REACTS: HALO 4 (2012) | [ALL CUTSCENES!!] | IS IT ANY GOOD!?](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/62MDyAj2unU/mqdefault.jpg)
This is one of the many problems i have with halo 5, that they build this Jul 'mdama character up so well in halo 4s spartan ops and make him feel like a big boss sangheili that you want to fight. And then the first bloody mission on Halo 5 they just kill him off in a cutscene like its nothing. I mean come on, Very disappointing!
I think they were like, yeah, no one played it (ops), let's bring in Locke and have him chase Chief. Done! How well did that turn out?
@@kaizammitJul even had a novel to characterize him. I was so disappointed when they killed him.
most likely it was cut content reasons. H5 had a crap ton of cut content. There were supposed to be 5 or so bosses that were all replaced with warden eternal
Or be Like me and get invested in mdama from the kilo 5 trilogy and then watch that abysmal handling of his character in halo 5
Halo 5 has my favourite multiplayer but the campaign is so bad
New Phoenix is the city the Didact shot with the Composer at the end of Halo 4 btw
Yes, I knew that part. Maybe I should have made myself clearer, sorry about that.
@@kaizammit np, some people get confused so that was just in case! Love your content btw
I had the exact same reaction to the infinity coming out of slipspace. The main reason I even clicked on this video was to see the reaction to it. I really wish Halo had more moments like that especially the TV show
People can hate Sarah Palmer all they want, but they cannot deny that bad ass speech with that bad ass scene
@@SpartanT6 also her VA is the GOAT.
Fun fact: Thorne was originally going to be the 4th member of Fireteam Osiris in Halo 5 but his actor was too busy, so that's why Buck was in the game instead.
sadly, you don't actually play as Fireteam Majestic during Spartan Ops. you play as a fully custom, but canon, fireteam. Fireteam Crimson.
also, to answer one of your questions. the cutscene/mission layout was
Cutscene
Episode 1 (5 missions)
Cutscene
Episode 2 (5 missions)
and so on until the last cutscene after Episode 10.
also, yeah. just like Jul M'dama, come Halo 5, Halsey wanting revenge on the UNSC and the Janus Key just completely stopped being story factors. the Janus key had a couple more mentions in comics and that's it.
Cool fact: Admiral Serin Osman of ONI.
Is formally Spartan - 019.
Cool to see Spartans outside combat.
Very small detail but the recurring fireteam "Crimson" that they mention a couple times (and is the original fireteam that retrieves the artifact) is a fireteam consisting of your playable spartan and three other player characters. So as the story in these cutscenes are playing out, your squad is completing missions.
They're mentioned at 7:58, 44:16, 45:23, and their pelican is seen at 46:23
Remember that Halo 4 came out on the Xbox 360 originally (Ran much better on the Xbox One, but they wanted it earlier so it came out near the end of the 360 life cycle, just before the XOne came out) and I think they removed this mode some time after Halo 5 came out, so the cutscenes were never updated for higher resolution hardware, now we just have cutscenes at 1080p sadly, even though this mode was a better TV show experience than the actual TV show... (They also released each mission and cutscene on a weekly release schedule, just like a TV show)
Also Jul M'Dama is the leader of an insurgent group of zealous folks that don't want the covenant to disappear, they believe they still are the covenant, even after the faction's collapse. It's partially why their equipment (Armour) looks somewhat rag tag and thrown together, they don't have an organized military or a government backing them. And yes, they did him dirty in Halo 5.
The Librarian is a digital lifeform at this point, or at least that's my understanding. In Halo 4 the composer, which was the weapon that the Didact took and fired at New Pheonix, digitizes organic matter and effectively turns them into Ai constructs, which the Didact was then implanting into the Promethean battlesuits and using as soldiers. They don't have free will, although perhaps someone who has read the books and not just secondary sources on the internet might be able to add to this information. I believe that something similar was done to the Librarian, there was a bit when she was explaining to Master Chief that the Forerunners attempted to digitize their soldiers to make them immune to the flood, since digital lifeforms cannot be food for the flood. However, when they tried to change them back into organics, the process left them broken mentally or physically, so the process was determined to be 1 way. She likely digitized herself so that she could guide the "reclaimers" (Humans) of the future and to monitor her husbands "Meditation" (Imprisonment) in the giant sphere. (Cryptum, as Halo 5 calls it) I honestly think they were cooking with some of this stuff, but just didn't present it super well in some cases and in Halo 5, they just got carried away with an ill-fated plot point. (Cortana coming back and being ruthless and essentially playing out the plot of irobot)
Additional: You play as fireteam Crimson in the missions.
Jul Mdama was built up in books, halo 4, comics. And then is killed off in the first cut scene of halo 5.
They really messed that one up
Halo infinite does the same thing to half a dozen story threads. These people have no idea how to handle a franchise.
@@JasonJraketbf it’s Microsoft that doesn’t let them do half the things they want
halo 4s graphics are so good that i can look over the armour change from 3-4 as much as i love and prefer the old armour the 4 armour is just so clean and textured
I think I mentioned this before on the Halo 4 video before, but Halo 4 will always be one of my favourite Halo games. I remember waiting excitedly every week for the next episode of Spartan Ops to release. Episode 1-4 weren't anything special, if anything they were rather generic, but 5-10 really stepped up and started adding variety into it and to boot actually had a really interesting storyline!
As for the story differences, the Halo Escalation comic was released after 4 which showed the next part of the Didact story where he was "contained" by Chief, and then most recently had his story finished in the book Halo Epitaph (amazing book). Whereas the Janus Key was also dealt with off screen in Escalation. I really wish 343 had followed through with the storylines they introduced in 4 because they really didn't deserve to be all thrown out for 5, especially all the build up for Jul...
To add to the tragedy of Jul Amdamas character death at the start of Halo 5, he's an entire side of the best trilogy of books leading up to Halo 5, the Kilo 5 trilogy which further rubs salt in the wound
Glad to see you getting in on this!
Spartan Ops is where I believe Spartan IVs got their some of their negative reputation among halo fans. The members of Fireteam Majestic exhibited lot of behaviors that we felt pretty unprofessional by Spartan standards (or expectations). Fraternizing with the ladies, collecting souvenirs from defeated enemies, disobeying orders and acting impulsively. Yes indeed previous generations of Spartans have acted so in some cases but here we just see it frequently.
In this instance for Majestic, if you recall back to Halo 5,Fireteam Osiris at the start literally dove into a massive battle and plowing through two fighting factions head-on. Majestic took cover and formed a firing line. One can chalk it up to being new to fighting prometheans or their objective isn’t to assault the enemy, but you can really see that they’re relying on their basic Marine training. This is because the Spartan program advanced so much that Spartan IVs are recruits from other branches of military instead of conscripting children.
I’d say by Halo 5 and Infinite Spartan IVs have improved in effectiveness and discipline.
I won’t try to insult Fireteam Majestic however. Despite their traits they’ve proven their mettle and worth enough that they’re often relied on during the events of Spartan Ops alongside your own custom Spartan’s fireteam Crimson, mentioned here. I’d say Thorne was the best of Majestic.
To explain what Spartan Ops is to Halo 4 as a game. It’s an Episodic co-op collection of missions. You play as your own Spartan, that you’d have customized for multiplayer. Undergoing missions to establish operations for research and military deployment on the planet of Requiem. You and/or your friends play their part to engage and destabilize Jul’Mdama’s Covenant forces and Promethean defenses and assist any UNSC forces.
While co-op based it can be played solo but to one’s regret haha. The game doesn’t temper it’s enemy saturation depending on the size of your squad. Solo players will be pitted against a full team’s worth of enemies.
Now that you've said they come across unprofessional, they really do! Almost like normal soldiers or people stuck in Spartan armour. They don't show the same grace as the ii's or iii's.
@@kaizammit i mean the IIs and the IIIs had their whole lifetime to train while the IVs were veterans of the war
Well, this got posted while I was asleep, but I had already planned to watch Halo 5's reaction first since as of last night, I was under the impression you hadn't seen the Spartan Ops story which meant there'd be a lot of questions... This just means I can go on a few-hour long streak of Kai Zammit goodness!
Love your reactions and breakdowns, man! Always brings a smile to my face to see someone who can appreciate things from a fan's perspective as well as a filmmaker's perspective. It adds a whole other layer of depth to these that people don't often notice.
That's awesome to read and thank you for watching/hanging out with me! I appreciate it.
Super happy to see this, got yourself some context and one of the best bits of Halo media out there. Really unfortunate that it pretty much got written off at the start of Halo 5 (they definitely don't repeat this trend with infinite smh). Seeing Halsey say 'Revenge' and then nothing to come from it was the most disappointing.
Sad to think this is the last major bit of Halo media for you to react to other than infinite and Nightfall now, what a journey and thank you for sticking with it!
For Spartan Ops - While we see a lot of cut-scenes featuring Fireteam Majestic, when you actually played Spartan-Ops, you and, if you did co-op, the other players made up Fireteam Crimson. During missions, you would sometimes hear callouts or radio chatter from other Fireteams, including Majestic. And in some of the cut-scenes here, you frequently hear or see the results of what you did as "Fireteam Crimson". Like when Thorne asked Palmer about the artifact at 8:00, she mentions that it was collected by Fireteam Crimson...which during one of the missions as Crimson, you have to collect and retrieve that artifact.
1:15 - "Hinge Head" is sort of a derogative term/slur that the UNSC gave Sangheili/Elites given their mouths opened up with hinged mandibles. They also use to call them "Split Lips".
4:28 - Yea, the "lore" behind the PvP/Matchmaking mode in Halo 4 was that it was actually simulated "War Games" so the Spartans were testing their skills against one another and not actually killing each other.
9:10 - She ran up and kicked it.
10:20 - Yep, Lasky's name is Thomas Lasky. He is the main character in the live action Halo movie: Forward Unto Dawn, which shows Lasky in his cadet point in life attending Corbuelo (spelling) Academy when it's attacked by the Covenant.
15:15 - It's been a while since I played Spartan Ops, but the missions originally were released episodic. Each 'episode' consisted of a fully cinematic cut-scene which we see here, along with 5 playable missions. When they first released, once you played through an episode, you had to wait (I believe it was a week) for them to release the next episode. In total, there were 10 episodes (50 missions total).
39:20 - The helmet that Majestic Team Leader has is called the Soldier helmet. And yep, the one before does have the "newer" version of the Recon helmet introduced in Halo 4.
SpartanOps was fun - in parts - some of the missions had been pretty boring but it made up with nice cutscenes
So Spartan Op's consists of 50 missions broken into 10 chapters referred to as "episodes". From memory, Each episode has a cutscene at the beginning and end. You follow fireteam Crimson during Spartan ops as opposed to Fireteam majestic.
28:10 Gek has a bunch of UNSC dog tags on his shoulder. Cool detail establishing his status.
The 5:35 part
There is alot to say about 343 industries and their halo trilogy.
But I kinda like this part because once in time mankind were on the run from the Covenant. They had certain protocols etc to not lead the Covenant to any human planets and their ships were always superior.
But mankind endured even in the darkest hour and now the playing field is more leveled, to the point that mankind has the slighter upper hand.
Those once dangerous Covenant ships are now just being rammed by a ship of even higher tonnage while it is on its way to more pressing matters
As just some funny things.
The Infinity is about 5 kilometers long. If you remember the Covenant Assault Carriers from previous games, those are the same length.
The Long Night of Solace from Halo Reach, was a staggering 28 kilometers long. And still not the biggest ship.
That goes to the Didact's ship from the campaign. Called Mantle's Approach. It was 371 kilometers tall and around 150 kilometers in width and length.
The standard CCS Battlecruiser, like what the Infinity bulldozed through are about 1 kilometer long.
That is interesting what you said about Palmer, I don't like the one we get in the actual campaign, but the Spartan Ops one is likely be favourite version of her. Maybe it's because she's no insulting Chief.
Never noticed this before, but it appears that Gek has many UNSC dog tags attached to his left front collar armor, probably to showcase his many kills he pulled "trophies" from.
5:26 "... the way i see it, if those freaks want to meet good.... It's our duty to help them along." goes way to hard with the ship just going through another xD
Fun fact, this was supposed to be a chapter story released in mission bundles. But budget and time constraints ended this on a cliffhanger.
But the story continued In a comic called Halo: Escalation. My personal favorite moment between Halsey and Palmer.
Now, a Halo RUclipsr called Halo Canon covered each issue on his channel. Maybe not for a reaction, but I would recommend his videos for a conclusion to the Janius Key story arc.
Spartan ops was great
BRO been waiting for this episode so BADLY!
I hope you enjoyed it!?
@@kaizammit i very much did dude, love the bits where this should have been the show and 100% agree!
36:55 Osman is a Spartan 2 but had medial issues (I forget the details) but long story short she is now the head of Oni and does not care much for Halsey.
Jul was a miss opportunity. He wasn’t much into the Forerunners until his wife death in Halo Glasslands. His motivation to awaken the Didact was purely revenge learning Didacts history while a prisoner on a Forerunner planet that has UNSC occupation (Onyx/Trevelyn)
The Janus key was resolved in a comic. Halsey ends up using the key at the Absolute Record but after a battle with Jul 'Mdama, the AI in charge of the Record basically deemed Halsey not worthy and took the key with it into slipspace.
Really enjoyed that comic series but what a anticlimactic end that was...
Glad you're seeing how good these cinematics are. Spartan ops is a very forgotten part of Halo, mainly cuz the gameplay was simple & repetitive - at the end of the day Halo is a game
YES!! I love this short film so much. Majestic is awesome. Thorne would make a great main character for a full game.
Yes he would but he reminds me of a puppy, he needs a dry slap!!
@@kaizammit XD He's only a rookie after all. He does go on to become the leader of Majestic.
Fun Fact: The woman Lasky is talking to at 36:49 is a Spartan-II, Serin-019. She failed the augmentation procedure though wasn't crippled like some others and was taken in by the head of ONI at the time.
Oh really!!?
@kaizammit Yeah, she first appeared in the book Halo: Grasslands and it's two sequels. It follows Kilo-Five, an ONI team of her, an AI, two ODST''s and a full fledged Spartan doing operations set between Halo 3 and 4, trying to get the two factions of the Elite, the Arbiters Swords of Sangheilois and Jul 'Mdama's Covenant, to kill each other in true ONI fashion.
Spartan ops was genuinely the most fun and interactive part of halo 4s story imo, but my main critique is that fireteam crimson (the team you play for the missions) does most of the heavy lifting and has the cooler stories gets overshadowed by Fireteam Majestic (the cutscene ones) and is never mentioned outside of one reference. I didn’t expect crimson to appear in cutscene but it would’ve been nice for them to have a little bit more recognition since they saved the infinity TWICE, found the artifact, escaped from a covenant prison, took down a lich, and found the missing nuclear warheads. They also didn’t have to end the Spartan ops story since they could’ve just given the Spartan 4s more missions in the future halo games since some are still around. Could’ve even given us a new fireteam to follow as well since there’s several others referenced in game.
Palmer is annoying because she has to be imo. I do agree that they give her a bit too many moments of sass and anger tho. But her getting mad at Halsey makes sense when you realize Halsey just caused the deaths of a lot of UNSC personnel aboard the Infinity when the Prometheans came for a smash and grab just to grab her. Should also be noted that Palmer was apparently much more laid back before the events of Halo: Spartan Assault. Where you play as her and another Spartan named Davis. He dies during the game and they were really good friends.
Halsey is not liked by basically anyone in this series. Captain Keyes and Miranda Keyes were the only ones she could actually consider family, and they're both dead. Even Cortana, a literal A.I. version OF Halsey hated her.
Even O.N.I. have basically decided to use her as a scapegoat in terms of responsibility for the Spartan program using children
I remember me and my arma group did a Op aboard UNSC infinite where our group of marines had to rescue Glassman but the boarding happened and got retasked to Defend infinite.
Please react to the halo infinite cutscenes. I think it marries the better bits of halo 4 and the first 3 games. I think it was a return to form in terms of the campaign
Wish Halo TH show looked like this
The Fours are children in a sandbox. The Twos, however few are left remaining, are the silent professionals.
I loved H4 and Spartan Ops. Back in late 2011 with my crap office job, Spartan Ops weekly episodes were the sole reasons I looked forward to Monday nights when they released. I have never been so enthralled with a mini story line, really just a sidekick campaign when you think about it. And I was disappointed that they not only killed off Didact in a comic but that the main villain of Spartan Ops was so easily killed (in a cutscene no less) in Halo 5.
Must have sucked as a fan. All I can see is a waste of opportunity! Glad you've got a core memory for it though.
😊@@kaizammit Yes, as they say, "Mistakes were made."
Though, I know exactly why it was executed such a way. Spartan Locke is the new sherrif in town and Fireteam Osiris always gets a green light, blah, blah. Sometimes I think the H5 development team roster might be markedly different than the H4 roster, because if they're the same... man they really pissed on their own boots. They didn't do their own story much justice.
Anyways, really do appreciate your unique takes on these Halo cinematics. I've learned some interesting perspectives watching this channel that I never considered and never even noticed before. It kind of makes me rethink every one of my memorable movie and/or vid game experiences. The little details that are usually just innocuous but they really do add up and enrich the experience.
Watching the cutscenes like this is literally the best way to enjoy Spartan Ops tbh. 50 whole missions, a lot of which are just reused campaign sections, is SO tedious. I did them all Legendary Solo for the achievements in MCC and it genuinely took a toll on my psyche 🤣
But the story is actually quite intriguing I think, it's just a shame it didn't go anywhere else beyond this game
50 missions! I bet it did. Who did you play in those missions?
@@kaizammityou play as fireteam crimson
Same here, good thing they let you respawn all the times that you need, because I DID need it haha
I'm unsure if it was obvious, but the character we play is part of fireteam "Crimson". Spartan Ops can be played solo, but is best enjoyed with 4 players. (Mainly due to enemy density) 😁👍
The main reason I prefer Halo 4 over Halo 5 is how they expanded in the story with Spartan Ops, while the missions where not different from the main campaign and the team you use doesn't even appear on the cutscenes, this was actually well made.
Even for 343i standards lol
You play as Fireteam Crimson in Spartan Ops, a fireteam that is in a friendly rivalry with Fireteam majestic (Main characters of the cutscenes). It's pretty cool, because while in game, you can see Majestic as a bit of an inferiority complex compared to Crimson, with Sarah Palmer always giving compliments to our Fireteam to the annoyance of Majestic.
Halo infinite released a Fireteam Crimson emblem and armor decal too not too long ago, so it's kinda cool that you can kinda hold the idea that you're using the same Spartan in Infinite that you were using in Halo 4
Infinity tearing through those Covenant ships like they're made of paper is honestly one of the sexiest things in the entire franchise.
Every time I think you’ve reacted to all the halo content u post a video of halo 😂
It's almost over and that makes me sad... very sad!
@@kaizammit Maybe that means we're closer to seeing some Gears of War? 0.0
The first gears video is this month 💪🏻✌🏻🔥
@@kaizammit 😲
The amazing thing about Catharine H. as a character is that she has the intellect to move mountains and the will and desire to wield it like a sword. The under current of her character is that about 60% of the UNSC tech base is either directly her work or work that she is very well versed in. So, the UNSC can cry foul and call her a war criminal all they want, it will not mean a damn thing to her.
Always good to see Osman still having nothing but unfiltered hate for Halsey.
She does have a good and very personal reason to
Would love to see you cover armored core stuff. Especially the later generations.
I can do that for you.
@@kaizammitawesome. Games don't really have cutscenes to check out but the trailers/opening cinematic have always been really good.
Someone say armored core, Allow me to introduce myself
@@kaizammit Armored Core intros are very cool :)
While the animation team was generally the same as Halo 4's campaign, the need to deliver weekly episodes via 2012 internet to Xbox 360 hardware required the use of Bink Video for the codec - and Bink just isn't great by modern standards, but it was the most compact video encoding solution at the time... which doesn't play nice with modern hardware without assistance, and that causes the stream disruption
Many have tried to reconstitute the Spartan Ops from their data libraries within Halo 4, but they were stored at 640p widescreen that could functionally uprez to 1080p via the Bink parameters, but every line of resolution beyond 1080p compromised image clarity - so with The Master Chief Collection able to go to 4K/60, these episodes really show their age when re-encoding for RUclips
Spartan Ops was my favorite part of Halo 4. I wish they continued that in the next games, small episodic adventures about spartans happening around themain story of the game. Imagine if it was in Hal Infinite- You see all the aftermath as masterchief and then see what happened as the Spartans in their ops. A really missed opportunity.
Just in case no one else has mentioned it yet. Spartan Ops cutscenes follow Majestic, however, the game play you are in Fireteam crimson. There is plenty of banter in game with Crimson one upping Majestic.
We deserved the new seasons for this series it was so good
It is absolutely unbelievable to me that they did not continue this series. One of the biggest fumbles in gaming.
They continued it in a comic series which the only reason they did that is because there was a loud group of people who didnt like/want Spartan Ops
I find it curious how the Sangheili despite using their how language still refers to the forerunner stuff by the English name like Didact, Librarian, Prometean Knight and even artifact.
Thorne is played by Ethan Peck who plays Spock in Star Trek Discovery and Strange New Worlds
Ok, now imagine this in unreal
I am cautiously hopefully for the future of Halo and its franchise or if we are close to the end
Now I didn't read the books or anything but I must say it has always been weird to me what spaceships can and can't do.
For example: How does ramming work? It gets portrayed very differently across the series.
I never knew his name till now, but Spartan Thorne is portrayed by Ethan Peck! If anyone has watched Star Trek: Strange New World you may know who I'm talking about. To think I'd have my mind blown all these years later....
Looking forward to your review on Halo 6 story campaign
Coming this month. Stay tuned.
Spartan ops is fine if you don't have to play the missions and you don't mind a cliffhanger. The missions were, unlike the campaign, made with 4 people in mind, even though I think a lot of people were interested in playing them solo, and they turned into huge grinds because of it.
I Never Finished Spartan Ops. I've Heard It's Alright (Nothing Too Special)
Fireteam crimson is the player Fireteam in Spartan Ops
Halsey's one of those characters that 343i did NOT do justice. It's hard to get into if you haven't read the Eric Nylund novels where she was originally introduced into the franchise but a LOT of the flak she gets is because the head of ONI - Margret Parangosky - had it out for her from day one. ONI basically used her to accomplish their goals, laid all of the decisions they either greenlit or gave to Halsey as orders at the Doctor's feet and then locked her up as a scapegoat for their crimes. Parangosky basically blamed Halsey for every decision she ordered the Doctor to undertake since Parangosky was the one who greenlit the program in the first place and put the pressure on Halsey to meet deadlines - and Admiral Osman who you saw here was one of the Spartan II washouts that Parangosky would take on as a protege entirely for the purpose of indoctrinating the child to keep her policies in place when Parangosky retired, and that included the Admiral's very personal hatred of Halsey.
Halsey's a deeply controversial figure for obvious reasons but she was always human in the sense that she had a conscience, and the things she did deeply weighed on her. You can see it in her reaction to the news that John (the Master Chief) was alive, and much of the reason ONI was able to jail her in the first place was because she broke a lot of military laws trying to ensure the survival of as many Spartans as she could in the last years of the war when she reasonably assumed humanity was about to go extinct. As far as DnD alignments go she'd be Chaotic Neutral at worst, Chaotic Good at best - literally everything she ever did was with the intention of improving lives, even if it meant sacrificing her own soul to do it.
Your judgement of Palmer is right on the money, though. Former ODST who absolutely despised Spartans as glory hungry bullet catchers that took all the credit for the enlisted men and women of the UNSC... until she became one herself. After that she would constantly talk down the normal men and women she once used to "champion". Constantly screwed her teams over during the initial training after augmentations trying to show up her fellow Spartans (why the bell test was one of the FIRST things the Spartan IIs and IIIs went through to teach them the value and importance of teamwork), and after that was promoted straight from something like Corporal all the way to Commander well before she was ready. That massively inflated her ego, and it would take until the Escalation comics bridging Spartan Ops to Halo 5 for her to get very much humbled by Halsey and circumstances in general.
14:44 “he looks like a talker” bro 💀💀
Word of the wise, if you play spartan ops on your own:
-as others have said, the game does not make it easier if you play on your own, so you want to play with other people.
-The marine AI are useless. Unless they’re going to be getting in a vehicle with you don’t even bother to try giving them Power weapons because half the enemies carry weapons that can one shot had shot them.
-spartan AI are better in the sense they don’t die die easily
-The only human power weapons that can be resupplied from the random ammo boxes left everywhere are the railgun, SAW, and I think the sniper rifle.
Waiting for the Infinite cutscenes and the Unreal Engine 5 teaser
I've seen the unreal engine 5 teaser, I did that in my own time. Infinite is coming this month!! I'm kind of sad as that means, no more halo left for me.
@ can’t wait, I love your filmography explanations!
19:02 Jul is also a really good character in 2 books that led up to Halo 4. He was wasted in Halo 5 unfortunately.
I can't believe this thought just came to me, but I don't think Master Chief is gonna like what Palmer did if he ever finds out
Trust me, the dual pistols ain't a bad choice lore wise... considering they're basically dual .50 cal hand canons... that's a lot of fire power
Halo 5 should have been about retrieving the Janus Key and getting to the Absolute Record. But instead we got the whole "Cortana returns" plot, Chief becomes a side character in his own story and The Domain becomes essentially the exact same thing as the Absolute Record, an epicentre to control all the Forerunner tech.
And no... the Janus Key has never been mentioned again... ever. It's so dumb. Such a big plot point. Presumably, the 2nd half is just gone forever, either in a ditch where they killed Jul 'Mdama or on a random Covenant ship that could have exploded years ago... who fuckin' knows.
There was supposed to be a season two of Spartan Ops, but it was cancelled. The story was completed in comics, not very well either.
It was cancelled because people didn't like Spartan Ops. Not because of these awesome cutscenes and story, but because the game play was extremely boring and repetitive. They clearly spent the entire budget on the cutscenes.
The game play was: you get put on Requiem, and you kill some enemies. The same few locations get reused again and again. They tried to hide it by going through the locations backwards a few times....
I honestly think mostl people didn't see all these cutscenes, because people didn't get through the boring game play sections. Should've just been a tv-show instead.
I have no idea why they didn't just make a tv-show like this. It's so damn good.
I agree, this would have been a good series for TV.
What killed Spartan Ops was the timed release... it was spread out among several months and each week you came in for a mission or two, and then had to wait another week... I quickly lost interest because of that, but still completed it for the story - the entire reason I play Halo games.
I did like the story in Halo 4... even if I didn't care for the art direction that 343 took and eventually gave up on.
and ya... they built up Jul in Halo 4 and then in 5 they literally just killed him off unceremoniously in a cut scene like he was a novice elite. Granted that wasn't the ONLY issue with Halo 5's story.
I'm pretty sure the choppy framerate is from the re-upload. I have my fair share of criticisms of Halo 4, but the cutscenes have never been one of them. These were butter when playing them in-game.
Have you seen the Halo 4 terminal video?
You would learn more about Liberian in the terminal video.
I've not covered those yet.
These were co-op missions, lots of fun, but only one set. A real shame.
My dude there are 4K versions out there!
Halo 4 was a step in the right direction and yes the Promethians could have been swapped out later for another enemy to fight and spartan ops was so good I loved waking up early just to play and learn more of the story sad that it didn’t pan out well with the community and the halo tv was doomed from the start saying it’s a silver timeline and not using established characters we have I mean I love the actors they did good but the writers didn’t know halo didn’t understand it and sadly we may never get a chance at it again
That show was such a let down, visuals were there but the writing was not, a few of my biggest gripes have to be
1. chief, they literally could’ve used a new character to take his place and I would’ve been fine with it.
2. Miranda, oh man do they not do her justice in the show, honestly don’t know why they didn’t stick closer to her game version.
3. The Spartan 3s, ugh.
And that’s just a few
@ there were good parts of the show mainly the action scenes, but the actual story was kind of crap. The sad thing I see is that most people who don’t know Halo think that’s what it’s all about how those characters are when there’s so much more in the game and novels
Hope you can do a Dark Soul Trilogy trailer reaction.
Lol I just started your Halo 5 watch earlier this evening.
I hope you enjoyed it!
@@kaizammit I did and this video too!
my biggest problem is the how badly they neutered the Spartans in terms of skill and power. in the books a bunch of spartan 3s kicked the shit out of some elites so badly in close combat, that the elites literally decided that close quarters with them would be suicide. these spartan 3s being on average 12 years old and wearing armor much less advanced than the spartan 4s.
and here you have a fully grown adult spartan 4, decked out in full Mjolnir, getting mopped by a single elite.
Is this an actual game or just like a mini movie for story telling?
I'd say that with every new release of Halo, the previous one seems better. Halo 4 stuff definitely felt better after 5. And not gonna lie, Halo 5 felt slightly better after Infinite. But this Spartan Ops right here? It was a damn shame it never came back, no matter what bad points there were.
Spartan Ops lead up to a great potential plot for Halo 5.
Then 343 butchered the marking material by dumping a completely different campaign than what was implied.
I love that you pointed out how annoying Palmer is, she is one of the most disliked characters in the halo universe and is a big reason why people didn’t like the Spartans 4’s when they released. Thorn was supposed to be the 4th member of Osiris in Halo 5 but they turned fan favorite Buck (ODST) into a Spartan 4 to try and boost the likability of the 4’s and Osiris. Also it’s insane that we haven’t seen or heard of the Janus key at all since Halo 4 (maybe in the books but I don’t read every single one).
The Janus key popped up a few times in the Escalation comics and after some less the great things occurred Offensive Bias took the key and ran
@ that’s always been my issue with 343 is they do so much in the comic and the books, imagine if in halo 3 truth was already dead and they don’t explain it at all because he died in a book. They were always gaps in between the games but the important plot points were in the first trilogy.
@@hunternicholson9953 I'll agree Didact should have been composed in a game or atleast had a cutscene showing and explaining what happened to him but not every big event can or should be in a game like the Rookies death
In this video you talk a lot about how sci-fi and such should be done, and I have to ask: Have you watched The Expanse? And if not, I cannot recommend that show enough.
I've not no, heard a few people tell me this. I might check out an episode and put it on the Patreon. Could be a good one to cover. Thank you for the recommendation.
@@kaizammit Fair warning, it's got a little bit of a slow start. The first couple of episodes may not do the trick for you, but it quickly becomes addicting, for lack of a better word.
10th like!
Love your Content!...40k next?? XD
What would you like from 40K please?
Saying that you liked how Halo 4 looked is actually a pretty hot take. It got so much backlash for it's drastic change in art direction.
I do think some of the designs were good, if it was a different franchise, but nothing looked like Halo imo.
I really liked the grown up art direction, the lighting was on point too.
What's weird is you play as crimson team in the game but the story is about fire team majestic
Of course it is, that's so Halo writing for you.
@kaizammit yes it is isn't it
When side missions are better than some main game story. :(
You play as Fireteam Crimson so these cutscenes have little to do with the gameplay.
Oh!!
@kaizammit Btw most of the missions are boring, repetitive, hard. Mostly because of the incompetent AI, endless hordes of enemies, lots of button pressing and maps being reused. The mode was rushed and wasn't tested at all.
Palmer, Miller and Roland don't act like professionals on the comms. They are annoying and cringe to listen at.
Man I think spartan ops had to be the worst thing for 343 halo, Its brilliant, but it means most players missed out on lasky and palmer's best moments which is probably why they were dropped for infinite
Fuck yeah!!!
343 biggest failure was not sticking with a story. They panicked at each reaction from reviews/players, then changed things/retconned between each release.
Spartan Palmer was such an unlikeable character. They needed to give some kind of explanation for her rank and status. As a player you see a petulant child who just whines, and fails constantly, in charge of a bunch of spartan fireteams.
Spartan palmer in the books started off a Lt in the UNSC she fought in the 1st human covenant war before that she nearly drowned as a kid but her best Friend John saved her and promised to marry her one day. Lets see if master chief keeps his promise to her.
btw this is xbox 360 in 2012
a console that came out 2005
Mind blowing right!? Best console I think.
the missions in this didn't feel like halo to me, maybe because it was such a drastic change from reach and halo 3 to this. Also Halo 4s multiplayer was amazing but the forge was so bad so no good custom games came out
Spartan Ops was a great addition despite its hate. It was like an interactive TV mini series. How they built up Jul Mdama and Majestic to only kill off Jul in a cutscene n move Majestic to comics was such a waste. Just like what they did with the Didact, Halseys revenge and the 2 Forerunner artifacts. Halo 4 was good and didnt deserve all its hate and negativity. Shame ppl realize this only after Halo 5s dissapointing story telling.
Thats fucking Spock
Love this story of halo 4 Spartan ops is repetitive back and forth on the same maps but I’m an bungee halo fan played hale CE when I was six years old so halo 4 good halo five has a good storie build but halo infinite is terrible to me so yeah
Halo 4 spartan ops was very well known for having really terrible gameplay. It was literally just multiplayer maps with AI slapped onto them. Kill them and move onto the next part.
Also, you’re right, the elites do look bigger. From Reach onward, the elites were significantly bigger. That was one of the more controversial changes to the art style that Halo Studios made. They fixed it in Halo Infinite though.
Per usual the “fans” ruined things, spartan ops was supposed to get many more seasons but people complained and so they turned all the other spartan ops story points into a comic so the whole thing got handled off screen before 5