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Wait so what's the difference between the various spartans?
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Jul 15, 2020 20:37
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 15:46 |
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S-Is don't exist, it's a retroactive moniker for Project Orion (Johnson's one of them) S-IIs are the Chief and Jorge, hand-picked child soldiers with a shitload of augmentations S-IIIs are mostly orphans promised revenge in exchange for service who get even more invasive augs and then get a suicide mission (NOBLE are CAT2, basically peeps who got pulled off the line because they were too good to waste like that) S-IVs are Orion 2.0, volunteers with next-gen augs and theoretically more ethical
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Jul 15, 2020 20:45
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Lawman 0 posted:Wait so what's the difference between the various spartans? Spartan IIs are a supersoldier program meant to win the war against the outer colony insurrectionists, helmed by Dr Catherine Halsey. They would kidnap candidate children and replace them with flash grown clones who would die shortly after to avoid suspicion. They used extensive psychological conditioning and invasive augmentations to make them into hyper efficient soldiers and peak human specimens. Physically they are the strongest humans ever seen except for maaaaaybe the pre-forerunner human civilization. Spartan IIIs were made as a response to the Spartan II program to make more supersoldiers on a budget. Instead of kidnapping children, the Spartan IIIs were made up of volunteers ranging in age from as young as 4 to as old as 15, and all of them were orphans of the covenant war. The idea was to make up the lack of mental conditioning with vengeance driven motivation. Their augmentation process was far less invasive (but still pretty drat rough) and had a much lower failure rate as a result. Theyre not as strong as Spartan IIs and also lack the same accelerates growth that makes guys like Chief or Jorge into 7 foot tall giants. They're still extremely strong and bigger than non augmented humans. To make up for the not as extensive augments, the training program was ramped up to make them tougher soldiers. The best of the best Spartan III candidates are equal in combat skill to Spartan IIs. Noble 6 is the only Spartan after Chief who was given the Hyper Lethal designation. The cheapness of the program actually came from them using cheaper non Mjolnir armor, the Semi Powered Infiltration armor or SPI. Spartan IIIs were specifically made to fight the Covenant and were sent on suicide missions. Two full companies, Alpha and Beta, were rendered inoperable after massive assaults on Covenant targets. Most surviving Spartan IIIs were from Gamma Company or were pulled from Alpha and Beta before their suicide missions. Gamma company spartans are kinda crazy due to some extra illegal augmentations added in their training. Spartan IVs are adult volunteers pulled from the UEF armed services branches. Many are ex marines or ODST troopers. Their augmentations are much much safer than II or III programs, but they are far more reliant on the Mjolnir GEN2 armour to make up the difference against the more physically powerful Spartan IIs and IIIs. The most notable thing about Spartan IV augmentations is that they stretch the bodies of adult candidates, whereas II and IIIs were augmented as children so their physiology is more "humans big bigger" while IVs have some stretch armstrong looks because their fully grown adult skeletons were altered. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jul 15, 2020 |
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Jul 15, 2020 20:54
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FPzero posted:
Seconding this one to just play the campaigns in order of release. Reach isn’t hard to understand but its moments of significance are rooted in nostalgia and winks towards the audience, and I think you’d definitely lose something if you played it first.
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Jul 15, 2020 20:56
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Arcsquad12 posted:Spartan IIs are a supersoldier program meant to win the war against the outer colony insurrectionists, helmed by Dr Catherine Halsey. They would kidnap candidate children and replace them with flash grown clones who would die shortly after to avoid suspicion. They used extensive psychological conditioning and invasive augmentations to make them into hyper efficient soldiers and peak human specimens. Physically they are the strongest humans ever seen except for maaaaaybe the pre-forerunner human civilization. the key thing with S-II's and S-III's is that S-II's were also selected based on certain Genetic Flags and a lot of the SIII's had these flags but weren't qualified in other ways most of the Spartan III's were chosen from the same list Halsey had created for spartan II's however they also asked the children that became spartans III's to volunteer to become Spartan III's
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Jul 15, 2020 21:00
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One of my favorite S-II stories is how the OSDT Corps came to hate the Spartans (which makes Buck joining the S-IV program all the more interesting). When John was 14 and had just healed from his augmentation surgery, they sent him to an ODST training gym to, in theory, see how strong he was, but also put some particularly jealous and nasty ODSTs there who they knew would pick a fight with the kid. The troopers jumped John and in self defense he killed two and crippled two others leading to a longstanding ODST hate of the Spartans. Lawman 0 posted:Wait so what's the difference between the various spartans? Edit: Everyone else has given good descriptors, but if you want a really well-made production that goes into how loving shady ONI is and how hosed up the S-II process was, listen to the HUNT THE TRUTH podcast which was made in the lead up to Halo 5. The Season 1 lead is voiced by Keegan-Michael Key and it's a really fun listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hunt-the-truth/id979998616 JerikTelorian fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jul 15, 2020 |
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Jul 15, 2020 21:30
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Roluth posted:So, what's the verdict on the quality of the Halo 3 port? Any significant fixes for previous games, beyond just the Reach audio bug? I've had no trouble at all with H3
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Jul 15, 2020 21:37
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Yeah outside of the games the UNSC and ONI are more than a little fascist.
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Jul 15, 2020 21:42
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The one thing I liked about H4 and 5 is that the reinstated civilian govt immediately goes "Halsey is a monster and the Spartan 2 program was hosed up and she doesn't even have the excuse of human extinction since it predated that, what the gently caress" once those docs got unsealed.
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Jul 15, 2020 21:47
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There are parts of 4 and 5's stories that I like, but most of them concern the interaction between characters rather than the world itself, which is kind of the reverse of the Bungie titles. In a bungie game I'm way more invested in the big picture going on outside of the gameplay and I can take or leave the personal character moments, but in the 343 games characters like Lasky and Chief and even Thorne from Spartan Ops are great for fleshing out personal relationships in the setting. The trouble with the 343 games is that they feel they need to up the stakes from the Bungie games, but they just do not have the chops to make it work or achieve the same sense of impending annihilation that appealed to me for the Bungie Halos. I care way more about Cortana's mortality and her final moments with Chief than I do about a Forerunner using a skellyman digital laser beam or AIs going all Skynet.
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Jul 15, 2020 22:05
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Arcsquad12 posted:I care way more about Cortana's mortality and her final moments with Chief than I do about a Forerunner using a skellyman digital laser beam or AIs going all Skynet. And they couldnt even get that part right by just bringing her back in Halo 5
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Jul 15, 2020 22:11
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The overall world of the post-Halo 3 setting falls onto the same issue i have with the post Geara of War 3 setting. They feel they need to go bigger and it ends up making everything forced. I also think that the UNSC suddenly having a mega dreadnought and hundreds of active Spartan IVs a mere handful of years after a 30 year long genocide campaign represents an unwillingness to meaningfully expand upon the setting. We need to have spartans and they need to fight the Covenant or else people won't know its Halo. 343 does great work when it comes to character interaction and its a shame they don't make that the entire focus.
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Jul 15, 2020 22:24
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RBA Starblade posted:The one thing I liked about H4 and 5 is that the reinstated civilian govt immediately goes "Halsey is a monster and the Spartan 2 program was hosed up and she doesn't even have the excuse of human extinction since it predated that, what the gently caress" once those docs got unsealed. Ah yeah the other bit about the S-II program is that it was conceived as a means of suppressing a rimward system liberty movement using the Spartans as wetworks commandos to kill the leaders. It just happened to be that turbomurder aliens showed up. Arcsquad12 posted:The overall world of the post-Halo 3 setting falls onto the same issue i have with the post Geara of War 3 setting. They feel they need to go bigger and it ends up making everything forced. I also think that the UNSC suddenly having a mega dreadnought and hundreds of active Spartan IVs a mere handful of years after a 30 year long genocide campaign represents an unwillingness to meaningfully expand upon the setting. We need to have spartans and they need to fight the Covenant or else people won't know its Halo. I agree about the size of the threat, it feels like the "Death Star" escalation with Star Wars. I don't think the mega-dreadnought or the S-IV's is that unexpected, since a major theme of the books is how humanity gets these little scraps of covenant technology and makes huge technological leaps; as the underdog they have to evolve or die. At one point where Cortana gets hold of a small covvie frigate she obliterates several larger vessels simply because the covenant never bothered to learn how to optimize their plasma or shields. Edit: Also, to your point about making things feel forced: Can we just be friends with the Elites? They are super loving cool and I want so spend more time fighting side-by-side with them. JerikTelorian fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Jul 15, 2020 |
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Jul 15, 2020 22:44
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But the thing that makes humanity engaging is that thsy are the underdogs. Like I said earlier, the unsc is more than a little fascist outside of the games, so they are a hell of a lot less sympathetic in the post Halo 3 world because they've suddenly got power and they're more than willing to abuse it. While that in itself isn't bad, it doesn't make for the most appealing Halo story to me. Its harder to ignore the shady poo poo ONI does when you peel back the fun atmosphere of the Bungie titles that don't take themselves super seriously. Humans as top dogs are assholes.
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Jul 15, 2020 22:55
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I like Buck (I mean, not much of a character, really saying I like Nathan Fillion) but IMO making him a Spartan was a mistake. But 343i have completely trampled over the tone of the Bungie writing completely and what we have now is... power rangers in space. Arcsquad12 posted:But the thing that makes humanity engaging is that thsy are the underdogs. Like I said earlier, the unsc is more than a little fascist outside of the games, so they are a hell of a lot less sympathetic in the post Halo 3 world because they've suddenly got power and they're more than willing to abuse it. While that in itself isn't bad, it doesn't make for the most appealing Halo story to me. Its harder to ignore the shady poo poo ONI does when you peel back the fun atmosphere of the Bungie titles that don't take themselves super seriously. Humans as top dogs are assholes. Yeah I agree. Also changing Master Chief from some badass John McClane character who just would not die into ~ the chosen one ~ marked with magical Librarian DNA is similarly the wrong move. He needs to be a struggling warrior, not be a pre-ordained god.
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Jul 15, 2020 23:31
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Guess it's been clear that they've been cribbing more than a little from marathon source material. The Cortana detail is literally lifted straight from it.
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Jul 15, 2020 23:37
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The seasonal challenges appear to be bugged and reset on me lmao
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Jul 15, 2020 23:53
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Zaphod42 posted:I like Buck (I mean, not much of a character, really saying I like Nathan Fillion) but IMO making him a Spartan was a mistake. Halo 4 turning Master Chief into a literal space jesus was so goddamn cringy and bad lol.
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Jul 15, 2020 23:59
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Solaris 2.0 posted:Halo 4 turning Master Chief into a literal space jesus was so goddamn cringy and bad lol. "Oh, Spartan Armor was actually designed 100,000 years ago by an alien who encoded the recipe into your genes."
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Jul 16, 2020 00:31
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All that planning and power and he still can't shoot the AR without the recoil bouncing all over the place
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Jul 16, 2020 00:40
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JerikTelorian posted:"Oh, Spartan Armor was actually designed 100,000 years ago by an alien who encoded the recipe into your genes." Which is crazy because 343 Guilty Spark says that Mjolnir armor barely qualifies as a Forerunner combat skin, and the Forerunners weren't THAT much more advanced than ancient humanity.
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Jul 16, 2020 00:41
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Less Fat Luke posted:All that planning and power and he still can't shoot the AR without the recoil bouncing all over the place He's basically an xcom rookie
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Jul 16, 2020 00:48
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Arcsquad12 posted:Which is crazy because 343 Guilty Spark says that Mjolnir armor barely qualifies as a Forerunner combat skin, and the Forerunners weren't THAT much more advanced than ancient humanity. Bungie also said just as much in the original Halo game. Here is a quote from 343 Guilty Spark during "The Library" level. quote:"May I suggest that you upgrade to at least a Class-Twelve combat skin? Your current model only scans as a Class-Two, which is ill-suited for this kind of work."
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Jul 16, 2020 00:49
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JerikTelorian posted:"Oh, Spartan Armor was actually designed 100,000 years ago by an alien who encoded the recipe into your genes." That's embarrassing
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Jul 16, 2020 01:08
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the story of halo 4 was so forgettable that I don't remember a single reference you guys are making to it despite having it beaten it maybe 3 times (normal, legendary, legendary co-op?)
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Jul 16, 2020 01:16
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Went into the Halo wiki to see whats changed since last I checked in with the series and discovered that apparently Halsey is Miranda Keyes' mother?  And the weird Nightfall thing about the one chunk of Installation 04 that apparently went through a slipspace rupture that happened invisibly when the Pillar of Autumn's reactor exploded. This also created a unique-to-the-universe element which degrades only human DNA.  And its so serious about it all... I can't even begin to understand why these decisions were made.
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Jul 16, 2020 01:23
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Okan170 posted:Went into the Halo wiki to see whats changed since last I checked in with the series and discovered that apparently Halsey is Miranda Keyes' mother? I wish someone would activate the halos irl now.
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Jul 16, 2020 01:29
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The thing to remember from Halo 4. - Chief and Cortana have their best moments in the entire series in this game and the drive to find a cure for her rampancy is more engaging than the Didact. Lasky is a great character who came from the forgettable Forward Unto Dawn miniseries and he's a solid replacement for Johnson. Palmer is an rear end in a top hat who is too caught up with trying to be badass while simply coming off as a stuck up prick. The AI Roland is voiced by the male Sole Survivor from Fallout 4 and hes actually really good in the role???? Everything to do with the Prometheans and Forerunners is laaaaame. Spartan Ops has a surprisingly okay story that makes Palmer not so much of an rear end in a top hat but replaces her douchebaggery with Fireteam Majestic, though Thorne is a decent protagonist. Naturally most of this stuff got tossed out the window in Halo 5. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Jul 16, 2020 |
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Jul 16, 2020 01:29
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Man Halo really peaked with Reach and then it was all down hill. I loved the extended universe stuff, all of the books were really good then it all... It just all went to poo poo.
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Jul 16, 2020 01:37
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I dont necessarily think it peaked with Reach, and as far as the games go, I'm kind of optimistic for Infinite. Halo Wars 2 was pretty fun and had a decent story. I haven't really read many of the post Eric Nylund novels though. Seeing Karen Traviss pegged to write stories about an ONI black ops team trying to ruin Human/Elite relations for stupid reasons was a turnoff, and now Troy Denning is applying his usual "ultraviolence in place of actual drama" writing style to books based around Chief and Blue Team.
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Jul 16, 2020 01:42
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Arcsquad12 posted:
yea most of Halo 4's story is directly following this and references it a lot same with Halo 5 traviss is terrible about respecting lore that already exists
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Jul 16, 2020 01:53
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The worst offense with plot to me was playing Halo 4 and fighting Covenant again, despite having won the war. I think the excuse was something like "oh, they haven't heard the war's over so they're fighting you".
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Jul 16, 2020 02:12
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So I'm playing through the Halo 3 campaign, it is my favorite entry in the series and goddamn is the nostalgia coming back. I haven't touched this since...college? Man Halo 3/ODST my college roommates and I just burned so many hours on those games. Coop, multiplayer, firefight, goddamn is this bringing back some memories. Anyway. I am up to "Floodgate" which is about the half-way point for the game, so some thoughts. Playing on Heroic. Things I like -This plays like what Bungie wanted to do for Halo 2, but couldn't because of technical limitations and the time crunch. -The levels are well detailed, and are well laid out and diverse. I love the initial jungle setting of Sierra 113, the cramped industrial setting of Crowes Nest, followed by the expansiveness of Tsavo highway. While each level is obviously linear, the battles are setup almost like an arena shooter. There is vertically to take advantage of, plenty of cover/debris to hide behind, plenty of ways to flank enemy positions, ect. The layout of the levels allow for a strategic aspect to how you approach covenant battles that the strict linearity of Halo 2's level design did not. You will rarely be hiding behind cover trying to pop-off headshots with the BR with no way to flank, unlike in Halo 2. -Battles are large, frantic, and just so much fun. Some of the largest set-pieces in the series are encountered in Halo 3. Often times you will get whole squads of Marines fighting alone side you, and the arbiter! Marines are relatively tough, at least on heroic and can easily hold their own. For the Covenant, you will face waves of Grunts backed by packs of Brutes, but your weapons all pack a punch and combine with grenades you can mow through whole platoons of Covenant and feel like a badass doing so. -The dialogue is Halo 1 levels of frantic. Marines yell, Grunts panic, and Brutes taunt. For whatever reason in Halo 2 the Marines seemed subdued in their speech, the Grunts never said much, though the elites talked a bit. I'm glad the Grunts/Marines are vocal again. -Breaking chaingun turrets off their mounts and mowing down whole groups of Grunts?  -The Scarab set piece still owns. -You feel like a true, goddamn badass in this game when you take out 3 Wraiths, half a dozen Brute Choppers, and two dozen Covenant infantry / Brute Chieftans after a particularly harrowing battle -Graphics wise the game is very smooth, and plays great at 1080p. The levels feel expansive, but not overly large. There is a lot of detail, which is a complete opposite from how bland the interiors of builds/structures looked in Halo 1/2. Things I don't like -Textures are muddy. But it is an Xbox360 game from 2007 so I can't complain too much. -Checkpoints can be inconsistent, but this is a problem the entire Halo series has. Sometimes, you get a checkpoint every other minute. Othertimes, you will take out 5 brutes, a wraith, and a goddamn Fuel Canon Brute, die because you forgot about that one grunt and his grenade, and then have to re-do the whole thing because for whatever reason the game didn't trigger a checkpoint.  -Brutes can be too easy...until you get one of the goddamn fuel-rod wielding ones. Brutes are more fun to fight in Halo 3 than they were in Halo 2 where they were cheap assholes. That said, the Elites are more challenging and there are times you miss fighting them. Otherwise for me there's not much to dislike. It's Halo 3 on PC. Something I thought would never happen. It is my favorite game in the series, and one of my favorite games of all time. I finally get to enjoy it at 1080p/60fps! I haven't touched the multiplayer, but I'm sure I'm still awful at it like I was at Halo 2's MP. I'll post more thoughts when I finish the game Solaris 2.0 fucked around with this message at 03:07 on Jul 16, 2020 |
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Jul 16, 2020 03:05
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idk if it's b/c of the new update or what but my progress got reset in the middle of two betrayals and when i loaded the game it started me at the start of the mission fuuuuuck i guess now there's little achievement meters? is that new in the update or was it just broken before, i'm willing to believe anything with the master chief collection
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Jul 16, 2020 03:48
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abraham linksys posted:i guess now there's little achievement meters? is that new in the update or was it just broken before, i'm willing to believe anything with the master chief collection those are new for the challenges that were added with this season but they're broken and reset every time you close out of the game
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Jul 16, 2020 04:04
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Okan170 posted:Went into the Halo wiki to see whats changed since last I checked in with the series and discovered that apparently Halsey is Miranda Keyes' mother? This was actually revealed as of or possibly before Reach. I know it's in the journal that comes with the special edition. Solaris 2.0 posted:-Breaking chaingun turrets off their mounts and mowing down whole groups of Grunts? My 100% favorite thing to do is to get onto the scarab and then use one of the dismounted plasma cannons to obliterate the core. I do it every time even if it is a huge pain in the rear end and there would be an easier way to win. Arcsquad12 posted:stories about an ONI black ops team trying to ruin Human/Elite relations for stupid reasons was a turnoff Same. I pretty much want to play Human/Elite/Grunt/Hunter Halo: Chimera Squad; my favorite Halo 2 levels are the ones at the end where as Arbiter you ally with all the good species and hack down all the lovely ones (I'm looking hard at you, Jackals). All the other aliens suck and I'll shoot them.
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Jul 16, 2020 05:26
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Update on finding forge maps, this new site allows you to just search every map/game mode uploaded to everyone's file share all at once, with filtering by template map/type.
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Jul 16, 2020 05:27
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halo 1: what in the absolute gently caress are you supposed to do in this Final Run encounter where there's two tanks guarding some banshees you need and a million dudes and a massive no man's land between you and them there's a sniper rifle but im gonna need way more than 16 shots, plus theres a bunch of fuckin flood at the start and i have to hold on to the rocket launcher so i can defeat the tanks, and 100 bullets in the pistol is way too few for how many dudes there are aaaa e: oh my god I just ran to the right edge and they all ignored me as I stole the Banshee why did I not do this 45 minutes ago abraham linksys fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Jul 16, 2020 |
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Jul 16, 2020 05:29
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Arcsquad12 posted:- Chief and Cortana have their best moments in the entire series in this game and the drive to find a cure for her rampancy is more engaging than the Didact. Really? I think simple dialogue like "Betcha can't stick it" "You're on" from H2 and H3 were better than anything I remember from H4. Also... how does that whole "save Cortana from rampancy" story end? I mean, definitely, rampant AIs and Cortana possibly "dying" in a fashion are great ideas for a Halo story. But the actual execution.... yikes. Basically nothing happens but Cortana is like, having headaches, until the end and then she's dead. Bam. Gone. Except H5 means she's not dead after all! PSYCHE. Except now she's super rampant evil but its also badly executed. Arcsquad12 posted:Lasky is a great character who came from the forgettable Forward Unto Dawn miniseries and he's a solid replacement for Johnson. Lasky is okay but he gets no screen time and has less personality than Johnson. He's just "Friendly Soldier". And the *checks wiki for name* Admiral Del Rio character was SO terribad it ruined all the scenes with Lasky by proxy. Arcsquad12 posted:Everything to do with the Prometheans and Forerunners is laaaaame. The Prometheans are like the worst most generic enemy in any videogame ever. They're so strictly terrible. They make Brutes and Drones look like amazing designs. Boba Pearl posted:Man Halo really peaked with Reach and then it was all down hill. I loved the extended universe stuff, all of the books were really good then it all... It peaked with Bungie and went all down hill with 343i Swapping studios will do that to a franchise
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Jul 16, 2020 06:26
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| # ? Jun 2, 2024 15:46 |
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The prometheans were the worst possible enemy design I could imagine in a FPS. Harassers and heavy armor, all made of metal? Jesus christ. At least bleed oil or something when I shoot you, god. Halo 4 sucked so much.
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Jul 16, 2020 06:58
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