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Back Hack posted:You guys are updating? Must be a fever dream. Who the gently caress is Scraeming update at my house? show yourself, coward. i will never update
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Jun 8, 2021 04:46
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 05:39 |
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Not enough Helghast rations in the world or my kitchen to fatten this thread up unfortunately. We clearly need the assistance of our fellow viewers and/or commentators
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Jun 8, 2021 04:52
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That's right everyone! Show you support for Sally and shitpost with all your might! If you DON'T post something, we'll consider it a betrayal and never update the LP ever again.
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Jun 8, 2021 04:54
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Has CJacobs made his bed yet
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Jun 8, 2021 05:02
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When are you going to move out the bunker and kill some Vektan like your father? Karen's boys across trench are committing warcrimes like good little space-Nazis and they're not even conscripts yet. Joking aside, it's so dumb so many people try to depict the Helghast as the good guys. The the literal first cinematic trailer for the Killzone literal has them executing civilians in the streets. Back Hack fucked around with this message at 05:17 on Jun 8, 2021 |
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Jun 8, 2021 05:10
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I was biting my nails throughout the mission to save the ambassador's son because I knew that there would be a plot mandated event where he gets kidnapped while clearing a path.
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Jun 8, 2021 05:17
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This game; is Good
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Jun 8, 2021 05:38
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nine-gear crow posted:That's right everyone! Show you support for Sally and shitpost with all your might! If you DON'T post something, we'll consider it a betrayal and never update the LP ever again. hahaha, thank you, crow! also, CJakes' diss when I asked crow to help push it over before I posted the update is too good not to share (and also he is giving trivial spoilers to future Shadow Fall updates): 
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Jun 8, 2021 05:47
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also, i've never been explicit about it, but please, feel free to shitpost about how ridiculous this game or the series in general is. Killzone, for all its pretensions, has always struck me as an inherently silly series. Guerrilla just absolutely love taking the piss out war and the people who fetishize villains like the Helghast. as back hack said, it's wild that people play these games and take away "Helghast good!"
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Jun 8, 2021 05:49
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(also, crow will have his revenge)
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Jun 8, 2021 05:50
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I'm genuinely glad to see that you three knuckleheads are LPing again.
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Jun 8, 2021 05:55
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feels good to be back.  and so you know we aren't full of smoke, here's the next update:
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Jun 8, 2021 06:01
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   As always, gotta complement these briefings. Excellent ways to recap what went down (or what failed to go down, in this case--we failed to extract two of our targets) and where exactly the current conflict is taking place. We're still on the coast of Pyrrhus City, bit further north-east of where the embassy and the invasion were going down. This is a great looking level and it gives us a much more lived-in look at what actual life on Helghan is (for some segments of the population) than what we saw in Killzone 2. It's more colourful, at any rate.  And here we are off to a vaguely sci-fi Hong Kong-style Helghan island!  What's interesting about this level is that we won't be facing a ton of Helghast soldiers. Instead, we'll be facing off against their oppressive and militarized police force! (Also, see this bridge? It's the final battle of the mission! This is where we need to get Justus and Dr. Savic to for extraction--and where we'll eventually hold off wave after wave of Helghast).  And before we start the mission proper, just a reminder that Benoit only cares about one thing: Money.  This bit of dialogue here is a bit of a blink and you'll miss it information. Though it hasn't been made clear to the player, I think we've been talking about bioweapons in this game and Shadow Fall long enough that we can all agree it's a bit strange that a doctor that develops bioweapons is just going around giving injections to children. I mean, you could write it off as Justus being confused about how vaccinations work--and maybe kids need more vaccinations on Helghan, who knows? But this nugget of information is actually extremely plot relevant.  Fitting that our first experience with police on Helghan is to see one execute an unarmed civilian. And the civvies here? Look an awful lot like the "Miners" from Killzone 2:  If you don't remember them, when Sev and co. have to head to the outskirts of Pyrrhus to find and disrupt the petrusite grid, they wind up having to fight off groups of'em. No idea if they are affiliated with the Helghast military--I lean towards "no". However, they all have some sort of combat training and appear to want to kill the ISA dead on sight, so this tracks with the martial aspects of Helghan society and its constant stream of anti-Vektan/ISA propaganda. And as I suspect fashion for the lower classes is not a thing, the civvies here and the miners in KZ2 are all dressed alike.  Gotta love what Mercenary lets you do to boot-licking fascists, though! Huzzah!  And Justus's reaction afterwards! Ahahahahaa! Blackjack is also quick to warn Danner about the cops:  Anyways, much of this level--aside from the bits where we start to actively pull the disparate strands of the plot together--is spent ogling at how good a PS Vita game can look. Lots of verticality here. Lots of fascinating locals, from the alien beaches, to the neon fish markets. There's lots to look at. This is Helghan at its better. Fun level to play and to just walk around and look at. Reminds me of the weirdness of exploring the Helghan jungle back in Killzone 3, though more urban obviously. We get a chance to see some lived-in markets, for one:   The market slums of Killzone 2 had an issue where they looked as though they had been abandoned for a length of time. I'm not sure how much advance noticed of the invasion the Helghast had, though, so perhaps the government evacuated its people? Considering it's Visari, that seems a bit hard to believe... no, I like this depiction better: The idea that Visari was letting the people go about their lives, only initiating a lockdown once the ISA actually showed up on his doorsteps. (It's too bad they're all going to be nuked, anyways!) Clearly it's not like this place is well cared for. I'm thinking back to the likes of Radec Academy and Visari Palace while noticed that the people of this island can't even afford bridge walkways that don't have massive rear end holes in them:  Like, what the gently caress? now OSHA in space, I guess. You can't even chalk this one up to Stahl cutting safety corners for his factories, this is just depressing poverty and exploitation. The Helghast loving suck.   It's partway through this area that we come across a Blackjack box where Blackjack lets on a bit more than he usually does. So yeah. This is a thing. Further and further into the game, Blackjack starts giving off hints that things aren't going to roll out the way we might hope they will. I mean, this is a Killzone game. But we've all had the benefit of already having gone through four of them. We know what this series is about and it's not about to disappoint us here. So Admiral Gray may not care about Justus's ultimate safety, yeah? I can buy that. With Harkin gone, I don't imagine she'd have much desire to keep around Justus. But I suppose we're getting ahead of ourselves no... after all, we still need to get him out of the city.   The elevators here serve a three-fold operation: Not only are they transporting us from Point A to Point B, but we get more plot development AND we get to take in the neon sites of this island. Also, I don't know what Doc Savic thought was going to happen. Seriously. I mean, its been a while, so let's just remind ourselves what Kratek looks like:  He's a god drat Resident Evil villain. Guy is cartoonishly evil looking, even by Helghast standards!  And between this and Shadow Fall, what is it with mad bioweapon scientists? More scenery:  And we eventually make it to Savic and he explains how he's been trying to right his wrong:  So even though Grey/Kratek may wind up playing a horrifying game of hot potato with this bioweapon, it's going to be useless unless they have the plasmid trigger. Which is now inside Justus. So, uh, loving weird, doc, just injecting bioweapon triggers into children--but here we are.  Moving along, we've finally reached the bridge from the intro video!  As you can see, Savic and Justus are a much higher priority than Danner. I think it's funny that the Phantom Talon intruder just pisses off when Danner is right there! Ah well, Benoit comes back for Danner. He always does.  Assuming it's profitable to do so... You... you wouldn't leave us high and dry if a better deal came up, would you, Benoit?  Benoit? Benoit???  District Police Orders "Hm... I think Kratek has more in mind than law and order. He didn't lose interest in bioweapons when he got his rear end kicked out of Vekta. Hah! Me, I prefer things that go 'bang'..." —Blackjack "Got his rear end kicked out of Vekta", ha! I like the way you talk, Blackjack. Given what this order says about arrested civilians disappearing to Kratek's weapons lab, Facility X01, it's probably a twisted kindness that the Helghast officer at the beginning of the video was just summarily executing them instead. Sounds like Kratek isn't above experimenting on his own people. quote:ORDERS TO ALL DISTRICT COMMANDERS Directive DB67H "You ask me, Ambassador Harkin wasn't the real target at the embassy. And this Savic, he's no ordinary defector. Find out more, Danner, I'll make it worth your while..." —Blackjack Yeah, as things were hinted at in the last mission, Harkin and his wife indeed were not the targets. At this point, this is not news to us... just confirmation. Funny that Kratek would take an interest in ensuring the survival of Justus, no? Anyways, I wonder who this "ISA mercenary" that's being referenced is? Hmm. Who could that be? I wonder if we'll come across this "dossier #VR95VV". I suppose we'll just have to wait and see... quote:ORDERS TO ALL SENIOR OFFICERS -- #01367H A Living Resource "It's simple. Whoever controls Helghan, controls the Petrusite. This poo poo is the future of the energy business - and not just for weapons." —Blackjack A bit of lore fluff in this one. Provides some background on the discovery of petrusite, Stahl's role in its development, and details around just what this weird smoker tower island we're on is supposed to be. Explains why it's so built up. quote:SMOKER TOWERS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Arrest Order XV32U "Grey, she always said the ISA weapons program was deterrent until Kratek invaded her back yard. Maybe, But I never sold a gun to anyone who wasn't thinking about pulling the trigger." —Blackjack Always with the pithy remark, Blackjack. This is again just confirmation of stuff we've already suspected. This is the source of the information on Dr. Savic I posted in the previous update. quote:ARREST ORDER #XV32LJ Report VR95W "Looks like you make a name for yourself, Danner. Good for business... maybe not so good for your health. Someone might decide they like you better dead." —Blackjack Well, poo poo. Kratek's onto Danner. Credit where it's due, the Helghast intelligence service seems pretty drat competent at their job--at least how they're portrayed here. Their information is always relevant to the task at hand, no? Hope you can keep your head above water, Danner. It wasn't long after we saw that the Helghast had a dossier on Ivanov that he kicked the bucket. Couple of things here... It's hilarious that it cites Danner as "instrumental" in driving out Helghast forces from Southern Vekta. Just from a pair of missions, too. Not, y'know, the entirety of Killzone: Liberation and the combined efforts of Jan Templar, Rico Velasquez, Luger, and Evelyn Batton. Nope. Just Aaron Danner, loving Earthman supreme over here. But again props to Helghast intelligence because those last few lines happen to detail all of Danner's exploits in the game so far. They're paying attention to what he's doing. And my favourite part of all? The "might this unresolved loyalty be exploited?" bit. Aaron Danner is running around absolutely loving poo poo up for the Helghast and they're sat there wondering "Hmm, how do we get him to play for our side?" More props to the calculation pragmatism there. I love the details of this game! quote:MILITARY INTELLIGENCE REPORT - #VR95W Stinger Field Assessment "Nice... specs on those 'Stinger' craft. Law enforcement Is gonna be big business in this poo poo hole when the war ends. Whoever wins..." —Blackjack Ahhhhhhh, not if the ISA nuke the entire loving planet, Blackjack! But how could he predict the Terracide? Anyways, just some more fluff. Deets on the cops' riot craft. quote:DEPARTMENT OF WEAPONS RESEARCH  The heavy trooper looks menacing, but is not. If you've been playing through the series up till this point, you've faced them in a couple games by now and know their pattern: shoot in the head until they spin around, then shoot the tanks on their back until they explode. If you're accurate enough, you can do this with a single clip of the ISA Assault Rifle. It's a little more challenging when there's more than one of them in an area, but not by much. (Hint, hint). Boris was the best of them.   This mission introduces us to the Helghast Police. Much like the Helghast military, they are evil bastards! We only see them in Mercenary and then only in this missions... and all that we see of them here is how authoritarian and brutal they are. They go down like chumps, tend to carry compact guns, and fly around in their little riot helicopters. Otherwise, they're basically just your bogstandard Helghoon. Dunno if this speaks volumes for the training and budget of the police or poorly for how effective the average Helghast soldier is--they all go down like chumps before Danner's knife of justice. They only get annoying when strapped to a Stinger, but as there's no armour on those, they're easy to shoot down.  Also, there are barnacles on the beach. Not an enemy, no. Just some "harmless" wildlife. That's in quotations because while they can't actively harm Danner, I can't imagine a situation where at some point in Helghan's history a human being HASN'T died to one of those monstrous fuckers. The only real thing of note about them, besides being appropriately alien, is that if you shoot all 14 interactable ones on the beach here you get a Vita trophy.    The Stinger is a Helghast police urban enforcement vehicle. It's Powered By PetrusideTM, giving it speed, maneuverability, and the ability to hover. The open seats at the back give up to two officer a full 360 degree view of any conflict. As you might guess, this means the thing is fragile as all hell. Tactics for these are to shoot out the two expose officers then just lay into it with small arms till it explodes. Unless you have rockets. Oh, this thing just lights up if you have rockets. No contest. Easy multikills, which means easy cash.   M42 Sniper Rifle Cost: 5200V Fires very powerful armor piercing rounds; guaranteeing a one-hit-kill on all but the toughest of enemies. Requires reloading after each shot Not to be outdone by the Helghast sniper rifle, the ISA put out this monster. But to be honest, I'm not that big a fan. Sure, it's powerful. It does exactly what it says on the box. However, the single-round ammo capacity just feels out of place in the future. I suppose this is a personal preference thing once again. If I'm going to have a slow-firing and powerful sniper rifle, I'd rather the Helghast's version. Sure, it's not quite as strong, but I'm a decent enough shot that its larger clip size means I can be an angel of death. Harder to do that here when I'm having to reload after every shot. Solid gun regardless, but make sure to have a secondary gun with some ammo capacity. You're shooting yourself in the foot if you bring along the grenade or rocket launcher with this.  LS57 Submachine Gun Cost: 3900V High damage and rate of fire, coupled with signfiicant recoil and a small mag result ina weapon specializing and fast paced, close-range combat. This is the ISA's attempt at capturing the greatness of the Helghast submachine gun. It does alright. It shoots so quickly and has such a small ammo capacity, that you will basically always be in a state of reload. If you like running into the heat of things, this gun actually works out pretty great. Because it shoots so many bullets, it kills enemies fast. Running into a crowd with this, a shotgun, and your knife is actually quite satisfying. There's not much utility for this gun outside of that specific close-combat gameplay, so, uh, use it for that or don't use it at all is my recommendation.  STA-11 Submachine Gun Cost: 6000V A solid performer in close to mid-range encounters, this gun features moderate fire rate, recoil, mag size, and damage output The classic Helghast submachine gun. It's stats may look weaker than the ISA equivalent on paper, but it's a better gun imo. The improved accuracy, range, and ammo capacity makes it a much more flexible weapon and superior overall. It works best in close range, but if you need a bit of distance, this works well. I suppose the biggest problem is that with so many guns at your disposal and with your choice of loadout, there doesn't seem to be a lot of reason to use it anymore. If I'm playing loud, I'd rather have the Stahl Machine Gun or the ISA Assault Rifle. If I'm playing up close, I prefer the high-risk/reward of the ISA Submachine Gun. Regardless, it's still a solid gun.  Mantys Engine Cost: 105000V A Remote controlled, covert killing machine. Lightly armoured, but deadly, this small device has free flight capabilities. This thing is hella fun! Not super practical, but god drat is it fun! It's a remote melee drone. It kills by stabbing its arms into either side of an enemy's head. It's super gruesome, but holy poo poo is it satisfying. When you get into a groove you can just whizz this thing around a room getting headstab after headstab. As it's remotely controlled, you need to make sure Danner stays out of sight. Also, the Mantys itself is not cloaked, so if an enemy spots it they can shoot it down--the Mantys is super fragile. Plus, once it's spotted you can guarantee the alarm is going to be set off. Still, if you can get in the flow, it's a lot of fun to play around with. Does have a limited battery life, so kill while you can.  VULTUR Cost: 7500V Aerial drone that scans the battlefield and pinpoints the location of enemy targets and equipment on your HUD and radar. Yet another drone. This one lets you see enemies through walls. This is the early prototype version of OWL's Echo ability. It's fun to use for infiltration mission. Needs space to operate, as it's a drone. It flies around the battlefield much like the Sky Fury does. Oh, and it's not cloaked, so it can be shot down if an enemy takes notice of it. Stops running when battery runs out.  Concept art for the Mantys Engine:  And yeah, Danner definitely has a real player model. Not just for show, either, as it's the multiplayer skin (bottom right):  Zoomed in: 
Sally fucked around with this message at 06:59 on Apr 9, 2024 |
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Jun 8, 2021 06:01
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Can't fool me, I see the mirrors.
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Jun 8, 2021 06:03
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Does Savic have a Stahl logo on his shoulder?
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Jun 8, 2021 06:56
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Philippe posted:Does Savic have a Stahl logo on his shoulder? Yes, he definitely does. Which raises some very troubling questions about Stahl's other possible weapons development ventures and where exactly Savic and Kratek fit in the grand scheme of the at-this-very-minute-in-uinverse diminishing Helghast state hierarchy.
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Jun 8, 2021 07:06
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it's wack how the space bizon is objectively better than the space mp5 in killzone
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Jun 8, 2021 16:47
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Now I can accept the IQ joke, but you take back what you said about Blood Dragon.
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Jun 9, 2021 02:06
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benoit, like a good leader, needs his men around to help him print money so it would have to be a retirement-level deal for him to backstab anyone And I don't peg him as the retirement sort.
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Jun 9, 2021 05:43
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biosterous posted:it's wack how the space bizon is objectively better than the space mp5 in killzone riiiight? hilariously, it's been one of my low key favourite guns in all Killzone games.
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Jun 9, 2021 06:38
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SIGSEGV posted:Now I can accept the IQ joke, but you take back what you said about Blood Dragon. we only recorded this last month and i already forgot what Cjakes said about Blood Dragon. it was disparaging, right? i never played it. The only FarCrys I've played was the first one and the XBOX360 remake of the first one, FarCry Instincts Predator, which is one of my top 3 XBOX360 FPSes of all time. i freaking loved it and think it's criminal that it hasn't been ported to another platform.
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Jun 9, 2021 06:40
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Blindsided Sally posted:we only recorded this last month and i already forgot what Cjakes said about Blood Dragon. it was disparaging, right? i never played it. I played FarCry 3 and the demo for Blood Dragon. Blood Dragon wore out its welcome really quickly with its tryhard self-awareness so I didn't even finish the demo. 3 I played all the way to the end and just tried my damnedest to ignore how loving gross it reeked of Mighty Whitey Saving The Dark Continent. Great gameplay with a couple of really amazing moments to it like burning down Vaas's pot fields, and it rightly put Michael Mando on every casting director's radar, but holy gently caress what abysmal tone-deaf politics that game had. It was like Avatar for lovely people. It's no wonder that FarCry 4 made sure to feature and Asian protagonist in an Asian setting, and then 5 had a white dude in an American setting, and 6 having a Hispanic protagonist in a Caribbean setting. UbiSoft learned their lesson from 3 (but not enough to stop covering up the rampant sexual assault happening throughout their company though). nine-gear crow fucked around with this message at 06:51 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 06:46
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God those stupid rear end VTOLs with the dudes hangin' on like they're on a rope swing at the kids' playground. Blind Sally's explanation makes complete sense but those hook chair things still look flimsy enough to snap off with a good rock toss. edit: Or a particularly devoted gust of wind. CJacobs fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jun 9, 2021 |
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Jun 9, 2021 07:18
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Helghast design treats the human operators as mostly expendable. It's world-building, you see.
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Jun 9, 2021 07:55
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Jun 9, 2021 08:15
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I am afraid that you are incorrect. The best videogame shotgun is the one from Bulletstorm.
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Jun 9, 2021 12:15
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nine-gear crow posted:I played FarCry 3 and the demo for Blood Dragon. Blood Dragon wore out its welcome really quickly with its tryhard self-awareness so I didn't even finish the demo. 3 I played all the way to the end and just tried my damnedest to ignore how loving gross it reeked of Mighty Whitey Saving The Dark Continent. Great gameplay with a couple of really amazing moments to it like burning down Vaas's pot fields, and it rightly put Michael Mando on every casting director's radar, but holy gently caress what abysmal tone-deaf politics that game had. It was like Avatar for lovely people. Also, not like the Far Cry games *stopped* having questionable politics, just they managed to dodge that particular issue going forwards.
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Jun 9, 2021 15:49
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I see your point, but I'd take "sitting on top of a ship" above "being strapped into a rollercoaster seat" any day.
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Jun 9, 2021 16:12
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The Helgast are actually strapped in instead of just whiteknuckling the railing for dear life.
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Jun 9, 2021 17:05
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the vektan on actually has non-zero protection from somebody shooting up, which seems kiiiiiiinda important for aerial insertion
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Jun 9, 2021 20:40
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Philippe posted:I see your point, but I'd take "sitting on top of a ship" above "being strapped into a rollercoaster seat" any day. You say that but Carrell... Poor, poor Carrell....
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Jun 10, 2021 02:39
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sb hermit posted:Has CJacobs made his bed yet sorry i procrastinated on answering this, was busy procrastinating on making my bed
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Jun 10, 2021 02:41
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CJacobs posted:sorry i procrastinated on answering this, was busy procrastinating on making my bed 
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Jun 10, 2021 03:12
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SIGSEGV posted:The Helgast are actually strapped in instead of just whiteknuckling the railing for dear life. i like to think the Helghast are not strapped in. i mean, they just sorta fall out when shot. CJacobs posted:You say that but Carrell... Poor, poor Carrell.... Carrell was safe until he jumped out of the intruder. he ate a rocket to the face midair, bay-beee!
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Jun 10, 2021 06:46
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Blindsided Sally posted:i like to think the Helghast are not strapped in. i mean, they just sorta fall out when shot. Given the trajectory of the rocket it kinda seems like he actively chose to hit it. Maybe he saw it coming and was sacrificing himself to save his fellow soldiers like jumpin' on a grenade. Thank you, Carrell. I will never forget your noble deed.
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Jun 10, 2021 09:58
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We'll see you back at The Office, Carrell... the Merc Office!
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Jun 10, 2021 14:58
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Carrell is the Killzone equivalent of Ollanius Pius
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Jun 10, 2021 15:08
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As an fyi, I've finally gotten around to gathering the various concept art that was floating around for earlier missions. Lightning Strike and on now have stuff in the MISC sections.
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Jun 11, 2021 23:34
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 Aight, so Admiral Grey thanks us and extracts Justus and Dr. Savic. Meanwhile, we've got to do a little more work to help her invasion plans keep going. If you recall the opening half of Killzone 2, the ISA have just been consistently getting their asses kicked by the arc towers. Again, props to the map here for contextualizing where we are. On the righthand side you can see both the previous mission location (smoker tower) and the current one (refinery). This whole time on Helghan we've just been futzing around this one coast at the delta of the Corinth River, just on the periphery of Killzone 2. I appreciate the smaller scale here.  Ha, I am also having a laugh at Grey's line here. "Used to secure peace", yeah, sure.  We also get to see the aftermath of our efforts in Mission 3, Lightning Strike. It's still burning! But the ISA, bless'em for trying, were never quite able to knock out the remaining arc towers. Which means, we get to go on a mid-game "destroy the petrusite grid" mission in a parallel to Killzone 2. The refinery here is on an island right between the one we were on last mission and the one from Mission 3.  The fix for this seems easy enough. Benoit gives a nice break down on how we're going to do it, though. The prime objective is to knock out these reactors and cause an chain reaction to destroy the refinery:  We can fly in through the exhaust port, but we need to overheat the reactors first to get it to pop open:  So first real step is blowing up the pipes hear that cool it with seawater. We'll start the mission here, set some D-charges, then then head into the reactor.  And once the reactor is overloaded, the whole thing will blow sky-high!  Uh... wow, hold on. That's pretty destructive. There are, what, two civilian zones at this refinery? And we're estimated to kill nearly 1200 civilians in blowing this all up? Are these just workers? Like, there families aren't living with them, are they? Not that we should just be blowing up workers. Uh, hold on, Benoit, are you sure this is a contract for the ISA? Don't they like to pretend they're the good guys? Admiral Grey is really paying us to do this, huh... and... I guess we're going to do it. gently caress. And, y'know, I feel like you glossed over the whole detonate the refinery thing too, Benoit. Like, you need to FLY me into this reactor and will drop me off to start a chain reaction and then... and then what? Y-you're gonna be on stand-by to pick me up, right? Because this mission seems excessively dangerous. Like, when Ivanov went into a reactor that was an unplanned event. Here it's the main draw. Seems really like a one-way trip to me, Benoit. You wouldn't have anything to say about that, would you? Benoit? Benoit?  Ahh, gently caress it, Danner, you're a silent protagonist. You don't get to complain about it or ask questions... let's get in there! So we go flying in through this neon billboard section of the refinery which, well, really looks more like the urban civilian quarters we saw in the last mission. Right out of the gate the game reminds that lots of innocent people live here and we're flying in to vapourize everything. Whatever it takes, right, Grey?  Inside the refinery, it's an area reminiscent of the Citadel from Half-Life 2, in my opinion. I make a similar comment back in the refinery level, for Killzone 2: Blindsided Sally posted:Moving on, welcome to Tharsis Refinery, where Helghan's rich deposits of petrusite are refined for use as an energy source for the cities and military of the planet. Lots of vertical backgrounds, low lighting, we're moving along an automated transport to get to a destination consisting of walkways, there are creepy monster drones floating in the background--there are a few similarities. This refinery has the windmill petrusite gathers going for it, at least. Anyways, here's the grid of walkways we hop off at. The pipes we need to detonate are on either side:  And as I don't really stand around looking at the scenery too much here, as dodging Helghoons takes precedence, I'll just note that there are lots of conveyer belts of petrusite being moved around here. It's at this point I'll remind the viewers that Killzone lore stated that the discovery of petrusite should've been considered a modern miracle that could have ended concerns around energy in all of human-colonized space and instead it's been weaponized by the metric ton in order to continue a horrific and destructive pissing contest between two factions of assholes.  *sigh* Moving on, we place the charges, blow up the cooling pipes, and fight of a few waves of Helghast. At one of the ammo dumps, Blackjack warns us that destroying this grid will probably really annoy Kratek. But, who cares? Kratek has been the primary antagonist thus far. What's more interesting is the bit of dialogue we get from Benoit while going up the elevator: Anders Benoit posted:"Grey's got no qualms blowing a reactor. My guess, she won't settle for Savic's stalemate. It was his research she wanted at the Embassy, not the Ambassador. Now she has the trigger, she's gonna want a round in the chamber. The VIRUS. Man who gets that for her wins the war. Put a price on THAT..."  What are you trying to say, Benoit? Moving on... we go through a pair of small arenas, both without radar due to a deployed enemy JMR. First one we take solo and the second is where Benoit swoops in to provide covering fire with his big gently caress off gun. Once that's clear, he flies up through the now open exhaust port mentioned in the beginning. He then drops us off in the reactor that we need to detonate and immediately peaces out because of the drones flying around.  Um, yeah, okay, no worries. Just like last mission, right? Benoit will be back to pick us up once we start the chain reaction. No biggie, right?  You're not making this feel any weirder, Blackjack--though perhaps you're onto something. Honestly, if you haven't noticed the writing on the wall by this point, Blackjack's line here is to really shine a light on it.  But back to shooting: the generators themselves are your bog standard "push button, shoot glowing bit" FPS objective. We need to do this for three reactors, each with three glowing rods. Notice the blue bars at the top? Those reflect how many rods are remaining. As you blow them up, they turn red. Helps you keep track of where you need to shoot as this firefight gets more intense:  On that subject, I kind of no-sell this fight. The constantly swarming Helghast are annoying enough, but the drones that keep swooping in are the pits. It's doable without the Porcupine system, but it's exponentially easier with it. Once we've blown up the reactors and triggered the chain reaction, Benoit helpfully chimes in to let us know that Admiral Grey indeed paid him extra to leave us to die and that he would indeed be taking her up on that offer. I'd say, "gently caress you, Benoit," but this is entirely expected and in-character for him. Way to be true to yourself, Benoit, you absolute fucker!  We're only a little over halfway through the game, though. There are still three missions to go. This won't be Danner's grave, no siree! Of course, we won't be fighting for either the ISA or Phantom Talon Corp. No, this is where the premise of Mercenary really takes off. Kratek calls up, gloats a little, and offers us both a ride and a job. So we take it!    We're fightin' for the Helghast now, folks. Orders to Security "Petrusite is lifeblood of the Helghast war machine. Stop the heart pumping and it dies. They know it, and so do the ISA. High stakes, my friend." —Blackjack Great bit of lore here as it's one of those nice tidbits that helps contextualize the events of Mercenary with the greater Killzone universe. So as it turns out, the botched operation at Tharsis Refinery has just gone down. Garza, Batton, and Natko have all been captured. The fact that Radec hasn't mentioned Rico or Sev means they haven't tried to rescue them yet--so at this point in the timeline, Garza still lives. For the time being... But it's another dig at the effectiveness of the ISA. They failed to complete a key objective so once again Aaron Danner, Earthman Supreme, has been called in. To quote the late Boris: ""ISA using mercs to do their dirty work? Typical Vektans. Yellow as piss."" quote:ORDERS TO THE HEAD OF SECURITY, Refinery Schematics "Engineering plans for the refinery—show EXACTLY how they use Petrusite to generate power. Should fetch good price, especially after you blow this place sky high." —Blackjack I appreciate that this bit of fluff is detailing exactly the steps we needed to take to get to the reactor core and destroy it. I suspect this is the kind of intel Benoit was looking at when he gave us the breakdown. I'm a fan of the detail put into all this intel; just about every intel is a PYF little things in games for me. quote:ENGINEERING SCHEMATICS Pyrrhus Refinery "You know, this Petrusite is LIMITLESS source of power. The Higs could do anything with it. Lucky for me, all they want to do is fight war and kill people." —Blackjack This bit of lore details the history of the refinery. I don't have much to say about it, other than I am nodding in agreement with Blackjack's assessment of it. quote:DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING Report JL28X "The ISA come a long way in two years -- and not just the mileage. They got plenty of manpower, impressive hardware too. Lucky you're on their side, no?" —Blackjack Big invasion force, going by this. As we all know, they get decimate over the course of Killzones 2 and 3. Though of course, given the end of the third game, the Helghast First Army gets absolutely decimated too, so no real winners in this one. Maybe they shouldn't have chosen Pyrrhus City as a battleground... The addendum there is a review of the opening half of Killzone 2. Those place names mentioned are all the missions we go through as Sev with Alpha Squad up to the mission to the petrusite grid and Tharsis Refinery. quote:MILITARY INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING -- #JL28X Meltdown Projection "The Higs build this place in populated area - so the ISA won't attack it. Maybe a few years back it would've worked. But Admiral Grey, she change with the times." —Blackjack Ha, that's a pretty grim assessment there, Blackjack, but you're not wrong. Yeah. crow and CJacobs aren't wrong for focussing on the bullet to the head Grey received. Even if the head trauma didn't substantially change her personality, she like all Vektans are beyond pissed at the Helghast for their invasion in Killzone 1, not to mention the personal beef she has with Kratek. But it wouldn't be a Killzone game if we didn't inflict some sort of horror upon a populace. This intel is really rubbing our faces in what we're doing. Note that the immediate fatalities are the only ones touched on in the briefings. 1500 civilian and military personnel casualties is grim number, but are a drop in the water compared to the killing currently going on. Those long-term effects though? Those are loving dire. An estimated 100,000 deaths over the course of three decades due to radiation? And the similar environmental impact of a body of water immediately bordering a city? We've made a big deal about Visari nuking the city, but as it turns out the ISA had already boiled the coast. Visari was just finishing what they started. Christ. And the fact that the Helghast were aware of the dangers and did it anyway because they intended it to be a deterrent? Well, Grey certainly called their bluff. quote:MILITARY INTELLIGENCE REPORT - #FW92V Seized Correspondence "This war, it has no winners - the Higs start to see that now. And still they follow their emperor right over the edge. Pah - as long as it pays..." —Blackjack And if you were thinking we hadn't read enough killzone.txt in these intel docs, here's another one-act tragedy... reminder, Facility X01 is Kratek's personal bioresearch experimentation lab. quote:EVIDENCE SEIZED FROM CIVILIAN TRAITOR, At the start of the mission we get what I am fairly certain is the StA-62 Minigun on the side of the intruder. It's the same thing we saw in Killzone 3 so many years ago. Sev and Rico used it on the intruders there so it seems Stahl's weapons just sort of get around and are used by the enemy side. We only use it for this segment. It's kind of finicky, even on easier difficulties, in that if you aren't immediately laying into the stingers here you can find yourself being killed before Danner has a chance to regen any health. There's no way to take cover, so you've just got to memorize where they fly in and be on them. I'm not a huge fan of that opening segment. On-rails shooting ones are never fun, especially if it's easy for the player to be killed.  VC39 Accelerator Rifle Cost: 15,000V Requires charging by holding down the trigger, before delivering a devastating burst of three explosive rounds on release I spoke of the earlier sniper rifles as if they were the only three options-- That is not the case. I mean, first I want to applaud Mercenary once again for its wide array of guns. It's not often that a game gives me FOUR different options in sniper rifles that are significantly different gameplaywise. But this gun. Man, oh man. This gun. There might as well not be any other guns when this one is around. Certainly not any other sniper rifles. This is the big gun. This is the point and they die gun, more so than other guns. This gun is hella good. This is the space laser gun that needs to make an appearance at some point in a Killzone game and thanks to how this one operates, you can choose to bring it on every mission. Low clip size and low rate of fire limits how often you can fire, but that's okay. You don't need a lot of rounds to make your point. Charge up for each shot it fairly quick, so the rate of fire stats for this gun are kind of misleading, but combined with the constant reloads I can see that is. Still, the game kind of downplays how rad this gun is. The 3-round explosive burst is huge. You can wipe out a clustered wave of Helghast in a single salvo. There's no point in taking this gun anywhere stealthy, but if you're on a Demolition or Precision run it sure speeds things up. You don't even need to aim with this. Hell, if you stand facing the general direction of the enemy, this thing will kill them. 10/10 would use this gun all the time. Fun Fact: this is Benoit's gun. Every time he rains sweet death on the world? It's with this. It's real nice watching him work. Benoit's aim is immaculate and as you've seen in the video, the rifle he uses doesn't gently caress around. It's great watching someone else use it:  Line'em up...  ...and knock'em dead!  Bit of gameplay that only surfaces a couple of times, but they're here so I'll mention them:  Vents! Danner will sometimes come across vents that he can pop in and out of if you like doing the whole stealth gameplay thing. They work exactly how you'd expect them to work. I don't think they are placed nearly enough in the game to ever be memorable enough to be truly useful, but hey, they're there. More interestingly is that the enemy is now deploying JMRs against us:  As you can see, it kills our radar. I'm not in too much trouble to start with at this section since the enemies are filing in to my elevator killzone (ha). Once I'm out in the open, I need to be a bit more careful as I won't be able to "see" enemies flanking me as I normally would. The radar HUD can become a real crutch. If you're not ready for it to go out due to a JMR deployment, it can really mess with you. In this regard, the JMR was a great Vanguard to use in multiplayer. Super annoying. Good news is as long as you can find and destroy it, you're all good. In singleplayer they don't have a time limit though, so if I don't blow it up then my radar is gone until I move on to the next area. Here's what they look like out in the wild:  They don't take too much to knock out. It's worth doing so, if you can. Nothing worse than being killed by a Helghast that snuck up on you. Though their gloating animations are pretty great. Just taking a moment here to appreciate the pun game Guerrilla has got going on here. The mission is entitled "Lights Out." Your objective it to blow a power refinery to kill power to the arc cannons. At the end of the level, Aaron Danner gets his lights knocked out of him. And if you get killed, Benoit has this to say:  Well done, Guerrilla. Well done.
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Jun 12, 2021 23:05
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All nightmare cable squids made for LP purposes need to be posted in the thread. (I think the Syndicate LP had a pretty gnarly spider as well? That was a long time ago though.)
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Jun 13, 2021 01:24
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