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I'm a little sad I hadn't spotted this earlier. Halo CE was the game that got me into gaming. We never had xbox live but I played the campaign of H:CE (and H2) over and over again both single player and co-op, just about every detail was burned into my pre-teen brain far harder than anything I ever learned in school or university. The soundtrack in particular gets me the nostalgia feelings like nothing else. I then got really into the speedrunning scene when I was at university - I wasn't good enough to actually get on any leaderboards but playing and watching streams was like 75% of my free time for a couple of years. It's such a part of my childhood that I actually find the new graphics really difficult to look at, it's all just wrong. All the dark things are too bright, and all the bright things are too dark. Truth and Reconciliation in particular, everything in that level was so dark and atmospheric and it's just lost it. Meanwhile the bright red and gold elites, and the blue and orange hunters, are all muted and washed out. And they're so visually busy on the internal sections, military installations aren't supposed to have so much poo poo on the walls! Thinking of the graphics, are you going to show off the old ones in action at any point? So far you've gone mostly for landscape shots, it would be cool to show off the old enemy models and how it looks to move around in those environments. In particular a look at the old energy swords is interesting, the translucent twin-pronged one is almost iconic at this point but in the original they're totally different. Also I want to nerd out about the grenade stack you showed in episode 3. A key part of halo tricking is that while the overshield is charging you are immune to damage, otherwise you would probably die there on first three grenades, let alone the two following grenade jumps. It's the same thing that enables the fall mentioned in episode 4, you get the overshield just before landing. The other interesting thing about it is that on higher difficulties they scale down damage (rather than increasing enemy health), and on legendary you actually get out on full health. Can I ask, how much practice did that take? Because when I learned the speedrun it took me basically a whole weekend to get it remotely consistently and you looked totally effortless.
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Feb 4, 2021 17:51
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I really love this level. There's a real feeling of suspense as you go deep underground into an alien base while slowly realising you're in there with something really awful, then you find the flood and realise you're surrounded and have to escape and it becomes a frantic, desperate escape, as you push deeper hoping to find another way out. Then when you finally do get out, you see the sentinels using the same colours and shapes as all the forerunner buildings, and realise the ring isn't quite as dead as before, and then it caps off by thwarting your escape at the final second and teleporting you somewhere presumably even worse.Ablative posted:I have a confession to make. This level has a bunch of large arena rooms that are very similar, so it's really easy to get turned around and then not notice you're running through somewhere you've already been. AotCR's rooms are the closest comparison, but there's an obvious path through most of the rooms, and arrows on the floor in case you do lose your way. I'd say it adds to the "escape" feeling I mentioned but it's probably just another example of CE's many level design issues.
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Feb 20, 2021 16:40
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I can't believe you had to euthanise all those flood buddies  The floods are loads of fun to fight. Adding in the human weapons on enemies makes some of these fights a lot more exciting, and you get a ready supply of ammo for whichever toys you feel like using. It didn't happen in it's full glory but the carrier forms can trigger chain reactions when their explosions catch grenades on the floor, which can get really crazy in the bigger arena fights. And the infection forms flooding (no pun intended) the motion tracker adds an extra level of hazard if you lose track of the combat forms. All in all, they do a lot of really fun stuff the convenant don't. I have a dirty confession, which is that on my recent replay (I was trying to keep pace with you but accidentally had too much fun and made it halfway through H2) I really enjoyed this level. I'm not a big fan of the new graphics but they go a long way towards making this level better, both with the arrows and just putting definition on all the surfaces. It's thematically reall cool how the flood are literally coming out of the walls, and the floor, and the ceiling, from every direction. Added to that, most of the game you're basically just doing a fight and then walking forwards and then doing another fight and so on, but in this level there's a lot of bits where you just kill what you have to and keep pushing forward. Also just the overall variety of spaces, the rooms look boring but they're a pretty good range of shapes and sizes. Overall it's just a really good showcase for the game's combat, and with the new graphics a lot of my big problems with it are much reduced.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:06
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CzarChasm posted:(which, if Halo was actually effective, should not be a thing) It was effective in killing off all the Flood outside the testing labs that the forerunners kept them in, just like how we've kept smallpox samples around. Halo is actually a cautionary tale about scientific ethics that got way out of hand. From 343GS' point of view, everything is going according to plan until the Covenant turn up and let the flood out. Then the Chief, exactly the person he needs (although that's not fully explored for a while), turns up heavily armed and armoured in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to activate Halo again. That's exactly what he'd expect to happen in the event of a containment breach, so it wouldn't be unreasonable for him to assume the Chief is there to activate Halo and just rush into the process.
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Feb 28, 2021 17:07
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FrenzyTheKillbot posted:This is a really good post. Only minor correction is that from Spark's point of view, we're actually under-equipped. True. At the very least, we're closer to what's needed than any of the other humans.
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Feb 28, 2021 21:49
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The Door Frame posted:Remember, the rings were presumably activated by their creators because the Flood aren't a controlling force in the galaxy when the game starts. I don't know exactly what constitutes "sufficient biomass", but I can only assume that everything with more biomass than an infection form was wiped from the galaxy at least once If anything, it's weird there are trees. If I had a lab experimenting on something that eats biomass, I'd make it rule number one not to have any unnecessary biomass around. I'd also probably not put that lab too close to the last resort weapon. It's got a 25,000 lightyear range, could maybe keep it a solar system over or something so I don't need to run through the outbreak to stop the outbreak. The forerunners were kind of irresponsible.
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Mar 6, 2021 12:35
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One extra cool thing that wasn't shown is that the banshees at the end have no collision once you fly off. The level doesn't end until Cortana stops talking so if you just drop right down and climb into it as soon as the elite climbs out you can safely ignore all those spec ops covenant by flying straight up through the ceiling to wait for the fade out.
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Mar 20, 2021 11:04
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At this point I think the covenant still think they can win the fight against the flood, so are actually intending to fully retake the ship. Alternatively maybe they realised the reactor could blow and wanted to stop that to protect the ring itself?
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Mar 20, 2021 22:12
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I really like the comedy bits, Halo just doesn't have enough backing it up to take itself that seriously. I feel like they kind of lose that throughout the series, it gets pretty joyless later on. And absolutely gently caress getting those grenades in the holes, it's so tricky. Especially with plasma grenades which don't even have the good grace to bounce in occasionally even if you're not right on target.
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Mar 27, 2021 11:35
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Having spent close to a decade making GBS threads all over the CEA graphics at every available opportunity, I was absolutely blown away when I played H2A. Everything feels very faithful to the original game and what I feel it "should" look like. And wow the cutscenes in particular are incredible. Look at that explosion the Chief flies through with the bomb, holy poo poo.
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Apr 23, 2021 23:06
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I think it's a reasonable guess that even if the colonising is done by a multicultural UNSC, the general populace would keep grouping together, at least loosely, based on national identity. It's how colonisation and immigration have tended to work in real life. It's definitely a conscious decision to pack the series with people from all over the world, including a lot of places that don't normally get much mention in sci-fi. It's nice to have a setting which goes out of its way to demonstrate that the united earth really is people from over, and not just the US or China or Western Europe.
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Apr 30, 2021 22:54
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The problem is that the covenant know what Earth is (and humanity must have a home world, obviously) but they had no idea where it is, or how heavily defended it is. One of the big points in CE is that they need to keep Cortana from the Covenant to stop them finding Earth. It's worth noting that at this stage the covenant have been overwhelmingly the victor. Mankind's only ever had minor successes accompanied by heavy losses, and almost entirely off the back of throwing Spartans at the problem. Reach was packed with Spartans and one of humanity's most heavily defended colonies and it lasted a little over a month. Regret had no real reason to expect that he'd run into anything he couldn't handle.
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May 11, 2021 13:36
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The terminals in aren't quite as spoilery as the terminals in 1, but they're still something you should not watch at this point.
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May 17, 2021 19:04
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The Heretics and Sentinels working together makes a bunch of sense to me. Lore wise, the Heretics don't learn the truth until after Halo is already destroyed, so whether they actually want to fire the ring isn't really a factor. The goal here is to fight the Flood, and anyone who is making the Flood problem worse (i.e. the Covenant) and they've both got that in common. Also 343 just loving loves to talk about Halo to anyone who'll listen and the Heretics are all about that. My hot take for why there are Flood labs on the gas mine rather than being
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May 21, 2021 22:13
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That's pretty cool, I've never seen the warthog sword fly. The method I originally learned was done on foot, as a result of a glitch where the reticle stays red for a couple of frames after you swap weapons and lets you lunge at whatever it thinks you're on target for. You aim your gun at an enemy, swap weapon, hit reload to cancel the swapping animation and then hit attack. It's a good example of 343 Industries being pretty cool, because despite being fixed in patches for the original xbox version, the vista release, and the first versions of MCC, they ended up adding it back to MCC in 2018 deliberately, in the campaign only, so people tricking and speedrunning could have their cool toy back while multiplayer could stay not-hosed. It's framerate related so I'd guess it's basically impossible at higher framerates but at 60FPS after 20 minutes or so of trying I can get it 10-20% of the time.
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May 28, 2021 23:24
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My assumption is that the ruins aren't forerunner ruins, since they're very obviously different to the forerunner architecture we see close by. Some other civilisation who were there at some point built around the existing forerunner stuff. Doesn't really explain the bridge, maybe the designer was just feeling a bit arsey while doing that piece.
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Jun 4, 2021 23:07
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My understanding is the covenant view the Flood as an obstacle on the way to activating the rings, rather than the whole point. The primary purpose of the ring was to allow the Forerunners to become gods ~somehow~. The first actual meeting we know about is in Halo Wars (set near the beginning of the Human-Covenant war) where they find a Forerunner world where they've broken containment, but aside from that and Halo 1 they're basically just a thing they've read about. There's absolutely propaganda involved to keep the other races in line, and to keep stomping on the Humans, but the Prophets totally believe their own bullshit about the Great Journey.
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Jun 12, 2021 09:33
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White Coke posted:Does any of the expanded universe material expand upon Covenant theology? I’m curious about their soteriology and cosmology. The basic gist is that the Forerunners, already an incredibly powerful race in total control of the galaxy, built and activated the sacred rings which unleased a divine wind which transforms the worthy into gods and carried them to the divine beyond, leaving the lesser races and non-believers behind. The Covenant believe themselves to be the rightful heirs, their destiny being to rule the galaxy and eventually activate the rings themselves and take the Great Journey to join their predecessors in heaven. The Halo EU is much more concerned with history and fact than the series' religious themes, there's as much about the story if it's founding as there is about the actual beliefs. It's more like listening to a preacher than reading the bible.
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Jun 13, 2021 09:58
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White Coke posted:So is it ever explained what the Covenant thinks happens to those who die before the Great Journey? I assume some kind of Purgatory/Sheol or reincarnation . And do they think some other God created the universe, or are they materialists who think the Forerunners figured out immortality? Unfortunately it's not really discussed. Their interpretation of the Great Journey is that it's an ascension to a higher form of being on another plane of existence (hence the total absence of any actual Forerunners), so it follows they believe in some kind of soul, and therefore spirituality. I think it's a fair assumption that they expect to be rewarded in death, and there's no mention of any other afterlife so I'd guess some kind of limbo state until the rings are activated and the divine winds carry them onwards. As for the wider cosmology, there's not much to even speculate on. There just is no mention of where the Forerunners came from, nor what will happen after the Covenant undertake the Great Journey themselves, beyond that everyone else will be stuck here. Considering how significant it is, it's pretty disappointing how little discussion of the religion there is. Halo very much focuses on history and politics. We could talk all day about how the religion evolved, but there's just not much about what it actually is. Deformed Church fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Jun 13, 2021 |
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Jun 13, 2021 22:10
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Yeah generally the issue is that the Covenant are specifically fighting humanity as a whole. The very existence of humanity is an affront to them. I think they would need to explore it from the Covenant perspective, which they could totally do by writing about the Arbiter.
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Jun 14, 2021 13:49
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It's really weird how hard the tonal whiplash is, both in terms of it's magnitude and speed. Fall of Reach apparently came out before CE was even released, and was immediately incredibly hosed up. None of this is in the games. I have a friend who's just finished CE and has found the audiobook and I'm really looking forward to the "Are we the baddies?" moment  .
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Jun 20, 2021 11:08
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Same reason we still have smallpox hanging around, basically.
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Jun 27, 2021 14:54
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I'd definitely be interested in seeing Halo Wars, I played the first ages ago and have never touched the second.
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Jun 27, 2021 17:09
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I had no idea about the alternate booklet, that's cool as hell.
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Aug 28, 2021 17:26
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FrenzyTheKillbot posted:I remember it being pretty easy to find a PDF of it with some googling. I'm not on my actual computer this weekend or I'd link it for you. The whole thing is kind of interesting to read, all of it written in that sort of overly formal prose. Oh, that was the first thing I did. It's pretty cool, I like the kind of begrudging respect in the writing about human weapons/vehicles, like he can't come out and say "the humans made some good guns" but the warrior in him has to accurately report they're pretty drat effective. edit: oh, here's the link for anyone who is looking: https://halo.wiki.gallery/images/0/09/H2_Covenant_Manual.pdf Deformed Church fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Aug 28, 2021 |
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Aug 28, 2021 23:53
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"I have listened. Through rock and metal and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen." is my personal favourite line. That whole cutscene is so good. His flappy lips in the anniversary graphics are also a personal highlight of the upgrade.Ablative posted:The Brute Shot does in fact do more melee damage, but only like two points more. My understanding is that's in halo 3, but it's a more significant boost in this game. It's also slightly faster than a regular melee attack, which is probably its more useful feature because if I'm meleeing and it wasn't already an instant kill I'm usually pretty hosed.
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Sep 4, 2021 09:27
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Fantastic Foreskin posted:Figured this might be of some interest to the people in the thread. If anyone didn't click on this, turn back. It's loving incredible.
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Nov 15, 2021 20:14
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This is where I kind of dropped off Halo a lot. We didn't get a 360 until about 2012, by which point I was PC gaming, so I just played it once (until it came out on PC), and then never had the nostalgia to get so deep into it later on. I'm looking forward to learning more about it!
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Nov 26, 2021 21:13
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If you're really stupid (definitely not speaking from experience, no sir) you can produce an almost endless amount of flood by being a bad shot and popping the pustules constantly. That hallway that gave you trouble at the 17 minute mark prompted a reload on my recent playthrough because I literally ran out of bullets and couldn't deal with the sniper forms. It made me an absolute convert for the brute weapon melee attacks. The spiker isn't a particularly exciting gun but it sure does gently caress up any flood dumb enough to get within arms reach.
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Feb 4, 2022 21:33
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FoolyCharged posted:Which one the note of the ship getting cut in two: Well, the portal is on Earth and he crashed the ship into the ocean, so all he really had to do was maybe a bit of steering.
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Feb 13, 2022 00:50
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... I never noticed the signs were actually directions. I spent a bunch of time lost both times I played. I feel like such an idiot.
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Mar 5, 2022 00:12
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The UNSC are the bad guys, repressing dissent is their thing. Hardly surprising the police have a bunch of military hardware for their crackdowns.
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Apr 17, 2022 20:20
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 04:14 |
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Getting into the gauss hog and discovering I'd never be able to actually use it was the most heartbreaking moment. I've been waiting for this video just so I can vent about it.
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May 20, 2022 21:54
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