Me and my friends have this discussion about once a week, so I was curious what your opinions on the subject were.
Halo 1 Armor:
Probably the oddest out of the bunch. You can really see the inspirations from Aliens in the general style and especially the eyepiece and helmet. Generally he looks the most sci-fiish out of all five of them, and the metal plates nailed into his arms and legs are a testement to the art direction of Halo 1.
Halo 2 Armor:
Although very different from Halo 1, you can still see the similarities. Instead of metal plate being welded to the Marines body, the Marines now have what looks like kevlar vests over light ceramic armor. I don't see how fabrics will help you much against a plasma bolt but hey, holding shit is cool too. The helmet is almost identical to previous versions except the side has been maded more uniform and the HUD is removed. This is really where we see the armor that will basically be the Marine Corps for the next three or so games come up, and the evolution becomes fairly clear.
Halo 3 Armor:
My personal favorite, this one keeps a lot of the good pieces of both the Halo 1 and 2 armors and throws its own spin on it. The kevlar of Halo 2 is nearly removed entirely and is instead thigh and elbow pads which seem to be made of a rubber substance. The metal armor from Halo 1 sort of makes a return though it looks much more sophisticated and like something a person would actually reasonably use, and if you stretch the imagination you could probably say it helps against plasma to an extent. The camoflauge also comes back, and although pretty much useless, makes it look all the more militaristic. The helmet is probably where we can see the biggest inspiration from Halo 2, remaining largely unchanged besides a bit on the side just as Halo 2's was changed from Halo 1.
Halo Reach / Halo 1 Anniversary Armor:
Basically just the UNSCDF Army armor but made sort of brown and with a visor cause Bungie couldn't give a shit, and then turned back into Army armor for the Marines in Anniversary cause 343 couldn't give a shit. The art direction from the previous three games sort of goes haywire with this one and although we can see the inspiration is there, it looks very different at the same time, the biggest change yet. The helmet has been made much more covering and now covers most of the troopers head, even without the visor. The breastplate from Halo 3 is there with some greebles and some much needed pouches, and the camo is more or less removed in order to allow the Marine to have a white rag stuffed in his pants. Generally just leaves me wondering how much shit he had to stuff in his armor to look as puffed up as he does and how long he has till he overheats.
Halo 4:
And basically they then said fuck it and redid basically everything from scratch, for better or for worse (for worse in my opinion.) the armor drops off from the art direction more or less held up by the previous few games and goes for a much more scifi look, even more than the one from Halo 1. Although this can be excused as the UNSC advancing post war, it's still odd to see them go through such a drastic uniform change with little changes after such a short time. The armor, although clearly not kevlar, is no longer shiney in almost any way and the helmet was donated by a time traveler from the 21st century who decided the UNSC looked too distinct in its helm. I should note the picture is the most decent looking one I could find by the way, as all the other armor designs were so ridiculous that I couldn't be bothered to add them.
Also I just want to bring light to the fact that they brought back the Halo 3 helmet for Halo 4 and it was glorious and then they said fuck it and changed it to what we have now: http://www.halopedia...rine_helmet.jpg
