Halo CE (PC version)
Halo 3
Halo 2
Halo Reach
Halo 4
Halo Wars
Halo ODST
Halo V
Halo is a fantastic series. I have close to 500 hours logged on all most each of the games multiplayers. Reached max level in Halo 4, and that doesn't even come close to what I played with each of the games in the trilogy. Halo PC has some of the greatest maps in a multiplayer game, those big maps are hallmarks for the series.
Unfortunately, for me. Halo V was horrible. I don't even understand how anyone can call it a Halo game. The mechanics and design was very poor and I was done with the game within 2-3 days. I'm not even joking about this. The multiplayer was incredibly boring, the single players story was off beat and had terrible pacing. The mo-cap acting and dialogue was so cringe worthy that I couldn't even bare with it. The game play was stale and had very few epic moments. I'm not even going to mention the frame rate and pixilation issues I came into with in the campaign. The game felt very unfinished and unpolished. I am going to give the Warzone game mode some serious credit. It was fantastic but it wasn't enough to keep me. The competitive side of the game felt way too CoD like and rather casual for my likings.
The ending of Halo V was however BRILLIANT. The whole Cortana going bad was something that's been in the makings for a very long time. She was originally planned to be the main villain of the Halo series and it was going to be revealed either at the end of Halo: CE or possibly 2, though I head it was only going to be in CE and then the idea was apparently moved over as the massive plot twist for Halo 3. Things changed after Alex Seropain (the founder of Bungie) left the company. Not to mention that I believe that the leaked Halo 3 plot script was real. A lot of the level quotes in the released Halo 3 were referenced from that script. There was just no way in hell that they could pull of some of the ambitious parts from that game on a last gen console, hell I don't think the 3 way war bit would have been attainable on this gen consoles as well. There just isn't enough memory. I am also saddened that Bungie dropped the concept of having all of the covenant races fighting along side you like at the end of Halo 2. I did not find it confusing at all and apparently it was a core part of Halo 3's original design. A huge peace declaration between the UNSC and most of the covenant who realized Truth was a liar who was being played. Apparently when Chief escaped Delta Halo, Regret was dragged out on the opposite side by a bunch of elites and he too lived. Any ways completely irrelevant. I think that the final version of Halo 3 was changed in the last 6-12 months of it's development. Hell, the chief actually jumps down the hole that was the Ark in the original Halo 3 reveal trailer in the script. Something that was oddly gone from the game. The other thing was a lot of people didn't like playing as the Aribiter, which in the scrip he had 1 more level than the Chief did.
Most Halo fans should know this, but they were originally going to end it at Halo 2 and have Chief kill Truth on the ship he escapes on at one point. Bungie kind of wanted to move on at that point. I can't blame them though. Too much was changed. One thing about Bungie is they will ALWAYS change a game to focus on the game play. They've openly admitted this after the whole change in Destiny. That wasn't the first time they rebuilt a game within a year of it's release. After all, the assets of the original build are still there to be used.
Anyways. Cortana was originally meant to be evil. Evil to the core. My god did she sound scary, and yes. These links are legit.
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/cortana.html
http://marathon.bungie.org/story/blam.html
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cortana_Letters
Halo evolved a lot over the years. It's story and scope kept getting smaller as things did not go as they originally planned due to over scoping. We still get amazing games, it's just a shame that we don't get stories as brilliant as originally planned that would but Halo as one of the best sci-fi stories ever told imho. If anyone can track down that Halo 3 leak. I'd be very happy. I remember most of it, but I have a friend that really wants to read it. Fuck it was long xD
Oh and here's a really cool tid bit of the Halo 3 legendary ending. There is speculation that the released Halo 3's legendary ending would tie into Marathon hundreds of years later. Of course it's only a theory, but dat hand tho. I feel like 343i really changed the story way too much, of course it has a lot of nods to what it was originally planned to be. Something that I really like. The Didact also strongly resembles the description of the Forerunners in the leaked Halo 3 script. A little too much. He wasn't in it, but the descriptions were there. Considering it was real, which there is too many coincidences for it not to be.
