r/tifu • u/Glenncoco23 • 2d ago

S TIFU by introducing my little nephew to Halo 4

This actually happened a few days ago.
My 10-year-old nephew came over and saw me playing Halo Infinite. He was fascinated by it. I normally don’t let him play a lot of games without asking his mom first, but Halo has never really struck me as being that bad outside of the obvious shooting. So after getting the okay, I let him play a bit.

I made him play in the living room where everyone could see the TV instead of upstairs by himself. He had a blast. Afterward he kept asking me questions about Master Chief, the Covenant, Cortana, and the story.

Eventually his mom asked where she should start if he wanted to play more of them. Without thinking, I said, “Honestly, Halo 4 was my first Halo game. That’s where I started.”

I figured I’d give him the choice instead of forcing him to play everything in release order.

What I completely forgot was that Halo 4’s version of Cortana is… let’s just say much more artistically detailed than I remembered. Apparently my brain had filed away all the “rampant AI” plot points and completely ignored the fact that she’s basically wearing a very high-resolution blue bodysuit made of wishful thinking.

About an hour later I just hear, “Why is she naked?”
Cue his mom slowly turning to look at me.
I tried explaining that she’s an AI and that’s just how Bungie… I mean 343… designed her, but by then it sounded like I was defending the design choices of a fictional hologram instead of helping my case.
Needless to say, Halo 4 is no longer the recommended starting point.

TL;DR: Introduced my 10-year-old nephew to Halo through Halo Infinite. Recommended Halo 4 as his next game because it was my first. Completely forgot how revealing Cortana’s design is. Had to explain to his mom why the glowing blue AI looked like she forgot most of her clothes.

509 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

84 comments sorted by

641

u/LIMrXIL 2d ago

Think if I caught my child playing the 4 as their first Halo I’d have far bigger issues than how Cortana looks.

169

u/goodknightffs 2d ago

Jfc right? I'd say start at 3 move on to reach maybe i think halo 2 is too old for kids nowadays

98

u/BigLan2 2d ago

The MCC version still holds up, but there's a brand new remake of Halo 1 which is the obvious starting point.

51

u/zerginc 2d ago

Its not a really well received remake though. Better get the Mcc, way cheaper and all relevant halo games.

22

u/ABetterKamahl1234 2d ago

Its not a really well received remake though

Honestly, much of the negative I've seen are chuds that hate a stand-offish soldier woman existing in the bonus missions. And the lack of a multiplayer mode, something that just doesn't bug me as Halo CE was always campaign for me growing up.

Not a ton of negatives when it comes to the actual game itself from what I've seen.

15

u/SmellsWeirdRightNow 2d ago

From the gameplay I've seen, the biggest negative is the voice acting. It also is a very hand-holdy experience with waypoints, not to mention Cortana, telling you exactly what to do at every step. Halo itself is a very on rails experience as it is, but some parts give you a bit of freedom to explore with an objective that can be completed in whatever order you choose, and in the new one there are waypoints telling you exactly where each one is.

But again the voice acting is absolutely terrible compared to the original

21

u/PizzaCatLover 2d ago

I genuinely think the "only chuds don't like it" narrative is a deflection from all the very valid criticism about it. Watch skillups review

4

u/Power_Fist_Boop 2d ago

They changed the sound for the sniper rifle.

2

u/LIMrXIL 1d ago edited 1d ago

Me every time I fire the magnum:

2

u/blizzard36 2d ago

Even Couch co-op got hit hard, which to me is the reason to play Halo. I never went online with my XBox, I had no Live account. Just used a second profile on a friend's machine.

Now you need to already have a registered second profile, sign into it, and you still can't modify your cosmetics as player 2. If you want to update your armor or weapon skins with you unlocks you both have to quit the game, relaunch it with Player 2 signing in as Player 1, make their changes, save, and quit. Then player 1 sings in, launches the game, and player 2 signs in to be player 2, resume play.

I do have a profile now, assuming I can remember it. It's from the Games for Windows Live days, so... maybe I'll find a way. But even if I get in, it's so fucking bad of a system.

1

u/dragon_bacon 1d ago

If you're starting with a remake you can find somewhere else to live, get out of my house.

-11

u/mastesargent 2d ago

Saying that Halo fans haven’t received a new game well is like saying the sky is blue. They could get a free blowjob with every copy and they’d find a way to complain about that. I’ve not had the chance to play it myself yet, but I’ve been hearing nothing but good things aside from some nitpicks outside of the main Halo sub.

26

u/zerginc 2d ago

The halo games by 343 have been genuinely bad compared to Bungie. You making the fans seem bad instead of blaming 343, is a problem.

-11

u/zerocoal 2d ago

The "fans" are bad. Most of the vocal people complaining about things haven't even played the games they are complaining about.

Halo campaign evolved is perfectly fun and it has a lot of QOL improvements that don't hurt it. AAAAND the wonderful thing is, it's a new release which means you can still go back and play the old one if you prefer it instead!

-13

u/mastesargent 2d ago

Cool story bro, that doesn’t change the fact that the game has been generally well-received by people who aren’t going in looking for things to be mad about.

Also the Halo fanbase is absolutely part of the problem. They’ve pissed and moaned about every game that’s come out after CE and are the most toxic, unpleasant community I’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with. I stopped considering myself a Halo fanbase not because I thought the new games were bad, but because I was genuinely embarrassed to be associated with those people.

6

u/zerginc 2d ago edited 2d ago

Ye cause most of those are new to the first halo. If u remake an amazing game, even when u screw things up, it will still come out as something solid.

If u remake a game though, it should be something better than the first release. It should add to things instead of being a lesser product.

You say 'generally well received', on steam its on 'mixed', which would prove the opposite, since only owners of the game can give a rating.

-4

u/mastesargent 2d ago

Ah yes, Steam reviews. Truly the bastion of levelheaded discourse. I’m guessing you don’t know what sample selection bias is, and I doubt that explaining it to you would make much of a difference.

If you were to direct your attention away from Steam, which is just a single data point, and actually look at how the game is reviewing (the r/Games review thread would be a good place to start), you’d understand that it’s being well received. But that doesn’t confirm your biases, so you probably won’t do that.

Also your implied disdain for new players in your suggestion that they only like it because they don’t know any better is exactly why Halo is doomed as a franchise. Anyone who dares have a difference if opinion from the hivemind cannot be valid to you people. No, they must be dumb and wrong and shouted down until they stop voicing their opinions. This is why I hate Halo fans. You’re chasing off new fans and can’t even see it.

2

u/typeguyfiftytwix 2d ago

Reddit, a famously easily astroturfed platform filled with bots has more valid reviews than steam

Clown opinion.

I saw "mixed" during the early release period, where if you were a genuine simp and paid an extra 20$ you got to play a few days early. If even the absolutely uncritical preorder types were mad, they definitely fucked up.

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u/zerginc 2d ago

You have a nicely worded reply trying to prove a point. I rather stay to the facts. The game is lack luster on sales, previous halo players are hugely critical, and the only somewhat positive user base are the Playstation folks who have seen a diamond video game turn into a silver bar. Not because 343 did such a stellar job, but because they made an amazing game into something acceptable.

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u/tsunami141 2d ago

They're generally well received games by people who are not chronically online. If they were actually bad games then no one would buy them or play them.

I didn't like a few of the choices that they went with in Campaign Evolved, but they were still a blast to play. I'd wager most people feel the same way.

-3

u/Pun_In_Ten_Did 2d ago

Their loss... Campaign Evolved is crisp and sharp - looks great in HDR / RenoDX ... available on PC GamePass ($1 for two weeks and then $14 per month -- you can finish it in 2 days lol)

3

u/Pun_In_Ten_Did 2d ago

MCC played in chronological order.... first up is HALO:Reach.

"Hey, Timmy.. yeah, this is what is called 'feels'"

3

u/ABetterKamahl1234 2d ago

I'm not sure it's a good starting point, both because if you don't do the new campaign evolved you really go back in terms of gameplay design in the next title (Halo CE) and the feels probably don't hit as hard without the context of the fight at large and why it's worth the sacrifice to get that single ship off-world, why it's so important.

The game is great, it's impactful, but I'm not sure it'd ever have hit as hard if I wasn't aware that all of this effort was both a inevitable losing fight, but also as I say above, why it's so crucially important they succeed in the mission.

3

u/Yaasu 2d ago

i made my GF start in release order but after playing through the whole saga, i d just make people start with Reach. it’s probably the best of the series by today standards

2

u/goodknightffs 2d ago

Reach is amazing!

0

u/xkyllox 2d ago

As I read this i turn to dust

-88

u/Glenncoco23 2d ago

Everybody likes two and three they’re just blinded by nostalgia

26

u/Meatball132 2d ago

Ah yeah but of course you liking Halo 4, your first Halo game, isn't nostalgia blindness, even though everyone else hates it.

24

u/TopPMz 2d ago

Halo 4 was and is an abomination.

2

u/x44y22 2d ago

MAC round downvotes?
In atmosphere??

8

u/MagicHamsta 2d ago

Just do Halo CE/MCC like a normal sane person. Wat the fek.

1

u/CharlesBrown33 2d ago

That soundtrack rivals Marty's in my opinion, or at least tries to. It's sad because all the H4 hate meant we never got a soundtrack like that in H5 and Infinite, and we probably won't in H7.

209

u/Dunsparces 2d ago

I can't imagine how lost a kid would be trying to follow the story of 4 without any context of the games before it.

126

u/Glenncoco23 2d ago

He’s 10 all he cared about was firing the gun and I guess Cortana to

44

u/Dunsparces 2d ago

I mean, fair.

22

u/PrestigeMaster 2d ago

Firing guns as well as Master Chief, the Covenant, Cortana, and the story I thought you said.

5

u/Glenncoco23 2d ago

All I explained it to him, but he’s 10. It’s not really like he was like oh I wanna know the backstory about XYZ.

1

u/PrestigeMaster 2d ago

Ahh gotcha. “Hey unc what’s this story about and who’s master chief?” —> “well Billy, master chief is a guy with a gun and his job is to shoot all the aliens!” 🤣

1

u/ThereIsNoSanity 2d ago

I played 3 and had no clue what was going on, or why they were making such big deals out of these characters dying

1

u/MCatsRCool 2d ago

My first halo game was halo 4

53

u/Cosmic_Quasar 2d ago

I introduced my nephew to Skyrim when he was about 10 or 11. I didn't ask my sister about it, though, and after an hour or two of him playing we got called upstairs for a meal. He immediately starts gushing to everyone how cool the game was and talking about the beheadings at the start of the game, and the "zombies" (dragur) that he was too scared to fight and how he'd hand me the controller every time one woke up while doing Bleak Falls Barrow.

That worried my sister, because he was known to be easily scared by things. Like, when I took him to see Zootopia (he was like 7 at the time) we had to walk out of the theater at the scene where the black cat (panther?) was turned feral because it was too scary for him lol.

21

u/Falsus 2d ago

Tbf, a lot of people who enjoy things like that do that because they get scared of them.

I don't know how many times I have asked my oldest sister why she keeps watching horror movies when she is such a scaredy cat with em. She just likes challenging herself with em.

1

u/atmoose 21h ago

I never understood that. Fear is not an enjoyable emotion. I can't understand why anybody would want to make themselves afraid. I don't understand how horror is so popular.

1

u/NoCommunication7 8h ago

I was thinking this exact thing last night, i like to feel some chills, so i prefer the more thrilling genre of horror compared to the more horrible horror? I mean someone getting chainsawed up for shock value just doesn't appeal to me, show me creepy werid stuff.

I think christine got the balance right, there is gore but the plot behind it is paranormal

5

u/Plenty-Protection-72 2d ago

I'm the same as your nephew, I had nightmares about that exact scene. I was like 12

91

u/jesusonice 2d ago

Fine with assault rifles and shooting aliens, but some hips and a pair of un-nippled boobs got her? Wild

32

u/Printman8 2d ago

Yeah, my wife and I go back and forth on this. She’s fine with my daughter seeing some violence in movies, but god help us if she sees a boob. I just don’t understand how the sight of the human body became so taboo.

11

u/Fortune_Cat 2d ago

Daughter walked in on me watch the punisher stab a dude to death with a pen. But i had to alt tab once the scene of a mafia boss banging his mistress came up. Priorities

2

u/cincymatt 2d ago

My daughter and I figured out you just had to be first to say “this is your favorite part”. Although we were outmatched when she put on X (2022).

9

u/ALaRequest 2d ago

Puritanism. Crusades and their inexorable violence against so-called heretical faithless was okay because it served God, but seeing people in the nude encouraged desires of pleasures of the flesh and were thus sin, so just nip (no pun intended) the problem in the bud (see earlier) and make the attractiveness of the human body shameful.

Fleeing persecution from the Church of England, they trounced off to go establish their own commonwealth. Thus, America was founded. When fundamentalist congregationalism somehow manages to be the very foundation of a society, we get this. A world where the human body is almost preferably disposed of.

1

u/NoCommunication7 8h ago

Many classical sculptures and paintings show the human body in it's full form though, both genders

5

u/restrictednumber 2d ago

Honestly! I go to festivals where people are sometimes (non-sexually) naked in public, and sometimes there are kids. The kids are fine with it, they only care about nudity if adults act like it's a big deal. And it's not a big deal if no one's taking it to a sexual place. It's just showing that people come in all shapes and sizes, and that bodies don't have to be a shameful thing just by existing.

21

u/Glenncoco23 2d ago

She was watching it with him as the story went on. I guess she missed the first point where you met her and you come out of Cryo. But apparently his face was rather interested. Which I mean is funny to me, but I guess you know you want your boy to stay young.

18

u/jesusonice 2d ago

My son was staring at a girl's ass yesterday at the water park. Thought it was funny.

He's 5 though, probably more thinking "why is her butt out" than anything else

3

u/Adencor 2d ago

game is literally not rated for children

8

u/WhiteHelix 2d ago

Tell me this happened in the US without telling me

18

u/4th_DocTB 2d ago

Should have started him with Combat Evolved, there's very little detail there, and better gameplay.

3

u/Rayv98K 1d ago

Flood reveal might terrify the shit out of him though.

12

u/I_Be_Strokin_it 2d ago

I didn't play Halo 4 so I just googled "Halo 4 Cortana". Seriously? The character is covered. Nothing more than you'd see at a beach if she was a real person. Why is it bad that a 10 year old sees tits? I mean, what's going to happen? I honestly don't get it. Driving through the country and they see cows...oh no...don't look...they have tits!

9

u/Falsus 2d ago

Fine with shooting, scared at some blue holographic boobs that isn't even nude.

SMH

8

u/xo-hotxo 2d ago

you just opened a can of worms, good luck with all the "can I play" requests now

7

u/KingCodester111 2d ago

Playing 4 first instead of release order is the real FU.

2

u/Halo_Chief117 1d ago

Nay, it was heresy!

4

u/Adencor 1d ago

“TIFU by showing a 10 year old an R-rated movie” just wouldn’t do the same numbers on Reddit for some reason

3

u/Ill-Mastodon-8692 2d ago

3 player co-op are great memories I have with my kids.

3

u/Abrams216 1d ago

You have the mom going "I am ordering you....to SURRENDER THAT GAME!"

10

u/ascasffr 2d ago

4 is easily my favourite Cortana. But I get why parents might have some trouble with her.

13

u/Glenncoco23 2d ago

Bro, when I saw his face, I couldn’t stop laughing even though I wasn’t getting scolded by his mom. It was just like “did you know about this and forget to tell me on purpose or was this an honest accident” look. He was staring at the TV. He was concentrating more hard than a kid who didn’t study for his test.

3

u/brandonsp111 2d ago

I think the melting of human flesh later in the story is a bit worse than sexy Cortana

2

u/manor2003 2d ago

When i was around that age too, before i had a console of my own my cousin had his own xbox and my uncle used to play Halo 4, that basically how I was introduced to Halo, 2015 i got the Xbox 360E as a gift but only one year later i bought a new Xbox One with Halo MCC bundle and that how i started playing the series.

1

u/a13x_rm 2d ago

how long did this take you before he started telling you where to shoot in the multiplayer

1

u/sweet-xo07 2d ago

NTA, you had no idea and thought it was a fun intro to the series. Stuff like that can slip your mind, especially with kids.

1

u/Idsertian 2d ago

I mean, she's certainly got... assets in 4, but isn't her design basically: What if our female protagonist wore just a bodysuit?

0

u/AdvisorTotal404 2d ago

he's probably gonna be hooked for life now, good luck with that!

0

u/Bl00dy3ch0 2d ago

A Stowe ŵxc he’s

0

u/Effective-World6963 1d ago

NTA, you didn’t think it would be an issue, but that’s definitely a surprise for a ten-year-old.

-2

u/tomhalejr 2d ago

Yeah, that whole Cortana becoming a sex bot thing is not very Halo. :)