Halo 4 (2012)
Best: The Chief-Cortana relationship. There’s a lot to like about Halo 4, from the new guns (the SAW! Promethean weapons!) to the setting (you’re inside a Dyson Sphere) to the loadouts (which, unlike in Reach, were implemented correctly and with balance). But Halo 4’s best trick is how deeply it explores the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana. Throughout Halo 4, Cortana slowly devolves into rampancy—the Halo term for when an AI is about to die, basically—as Master tries his best to stop it, all the other intergalactic threats be damned. Their bond was always the soul of the series. With Halo 4, it became the heart, too.
Worst: The Didact. Okay, so a resurrected ancient dude with sun-dried beef jerky for a face decides to wipe out existence for…why exactly? Just to “finish what he started” or whatever? Without, I don’t know, brushing up on any of the events that had transpired in the 100,000 years he’d been asleep? I know, I know: “But you just have to read the–!” Stop. If you have to rely on ancillary material for the villain to make sense, then you’ve got a poorly thought-out villain.
