Q&A: January 29th, 2025

Majin Brandon Asks
When it comes to the general public's opinion on the Halo series overall, how do you feel about the interesting shift to view everything Bungie touched as gold and everything by 343 being worse? Or is my perception wrong, and it was just always like this? Because I swear 2's and 3's campaigns were seen with more mixed reception among the fans, and ODST was more mixed as a game by critics and fans. I could joke it's just kids who grew up with total nostalgia of the Bungie games, but I swear some of these people are around your age or older.

The Halo games are so popular, that I've seen people give effectively every single perception of the series that's possible, no matter how incompatible some are with each other.

Bungie being viewed favorably compared to 343 I think is accurate, but really... can anybody blame them? As somebody who liked Halo 4, Halo 5's multiplayer, and binged Halo Infinite at launch, I can't say they've held nearly the impact of the original trilogy or Reach.

Some of that of course has to do with Halo innovating the console FPS genre, but 343 walked into that challenge.

They invited that comparison from day one.

People dogging 343 and praising Bungie also doesn't immediately mean people view the former as faultless, those comments exist, but there's comments for everything on the internet. Lots of people don't literally mean when they say, and what I'm seeing is not unlike the division in other big franchises like Need for Speed, Star Wars, or Nickelodeon's Avatar.

That the issues those older works had are preferable to what we have now.

In the same way NFS Carbon's brief campaign doesn't mean much in a world where most are downloading it from My Abandonware, ODST's mixed reception at launch has faded when it's just in the same collection as Halo 3.

There's one last aspect to it that I don't think gets highlighted enough in coverage. Halo games have become retroactively unique. While many Sci-Fi shooters have come and gone, nothing really plays like Halo's bespoke take on Arena FPS Combat. The 343 games carry on a lot of Halo's DNA, but many of the developer's big additions, loadouts in Halo 4, REQ's in Halo 5, and Battle Passes in Infinite are a lot more generic, and a sign of the times rather than a meaningful evolution.

Personally, I am and have been bored of Halo's discourse, which is why I haven't really delved into it.

Dzera Asks
If you had to pick one console manufacturer out of them all, which one would it be and why?

This sucks...

I don't really like any of them. Not in their total history at least. Were I to pick Microsoft... I'm basically picking 2001-2012 only, as everything after that has just been an Apple TV+ with Halo.

Were I to pick Sony... they've been boring for 10+ years, and only getting more boring with seemingly each passing year, as well as a lot more obnoxious about their eco-systems and online functionality.

And Nintendo...

I'll just leave this here.
https://youtu.be/1vid63S6jL8

Hold a gun at my head and I'll go Sony... then regret it when trying to figure out which HDMI splitter bypasses the PS3's HDCP.

ibi Asks
Which of your videos are you most proud of and why?

One of the most satisfying moments was seeing people comment in my Mass Effect 3 video that they were able to let go of their anger towards the game after I dissected it's development and conclusion.

However, I now only really like my videos that released after Metro Exodus Years Later. I think it's when I really found my voice and started to be more confident as opposed to just fumbling around """""""objectively"""""" critiquing shit like when I started.

From that selection, I've been really proud of all them.

Why? Because nearly all of them were things that'd been in my head for 5+ years, and I felt I realized them to almost their full potential. I'll never be totally satisfied, but I'm no longer in that position of making a video, and then hating it the next week.

If I had to pick one, I'd say the Racing Games video, because that's the one I've seen the effect of. It's down to how much more niche the Racing Game genre is, but I do think it's also my most impassioned video to date, and without weeping on Oprah's couch, I am trying to inject more of that energy into my work from now on.

Submit your questions in the comments below, for future Patreon Q&A's.