What's your favorite Halo: CE map? (Progress: COMPLETE)

Get ready for some nonstop fun with the most irritating companion in the history of fictional entertainment, joined by endless waves of flood flooding up the place.

The Shotgun is your friend.


All praise the M90

Back when Infection Forms actually did something besides act as moving popcorn.

Heading in.

unless you'd rather have me talk about 343 guilty spark first

I want to hear what you have to say first.

I want to hear what you have to say first.

c00l


Well, what a pleasant surprise! This level was actually pretty fun. I'd say it's on-par with Silent Cartographer in terms of its fun-ness. There wasn't very much I disliked about it at all (mostly), besides the gripes I've had with how the game plays in the first place. But even those aspects were given a nice spin here, for obvious reasons.

When the level starts, I somehow knew that it was gonna be cool. The dark, eerie setting in the forest was very neat, and the soundtrack being mostly absent introduced a delightfully creepy atmosphere. The level design was obviously inspired heavily by Endor. In general, the entire game has been giving me that Star Wars vibe, but this is the level where one of the marines actually cracks the line, "I got a bad feeling about this." I don't have much love for Star Wars as a franchise, but that line made me smile.

I knew this level was gonna introduce the Flood as soon as I entered the room with the ceiling that was dripping green shit perpetually. I was disappointed with HOW the Flood was introduced, though—they couldn't have went a more cliche/cheesy-ass route. A piece of found footage depicts the marines getting fucked up by the Flood. Surrrrrre. Convenient. MC was sitting there for so long watching that stupid thing—I was wondering how the fuck he didn't get flanked by the Flood while he was sitting on his ass all like, "Wow, I wonder what happened!?!" So that was dumb.

I actually expected the Flood to be a lot scarier, too. I remember people back on b.old talking about how scared they were of the Flood when they first saw them. Not only are they not scary... They're kinda funny, too. And weak, but maybe that's just because of my difficulty setting. But they're hilarious—I thought it was hysterical when some of them started picking up weapons and shooting them at me. It was a little bit ridiculous. Really, I like the Flood, though. The whole level has given off this cheesy horror-flick kinda vibe that's hard not to like, but I'm not gonna pretend that it isn't a little bit silly and hard to take seriously.

In terms of the weapons, I finally started to make peace with the stupid assault rifle. It's still a boring-as-fuck weapon, but I made short use of it, until... "Ooh, is that a shotgun!?"

The shotgun... It rules. Enough said. Best weapon in the game.

Like I said, the level was a little difficult to navigate at first, but once I started memorizing locations, which didn't take very long, I was out of that joint immediately.

So, plot-wise, here are my questions (plz don't answer):

1. I think I saw Sgt. Johnson in that video clip. Everyone likes him for some reason, because he's a black Samuel L. Jackson type motherfucker, I guess. I guess that means I'm supposed to like him, too, because he's black, and he swears a lot, and he uses colorful metaphors, and... that makes him likable, I guess. Did he die? Is he still around? I bet he's still around. They wouldn't just kill him off like that.

2. What the fuck is the Flood, anyway? I mean, this is my NAMESAKE, damn near. This is where I'm coming from. I gotta know this.

3. So that's why Cortana wanted to stop Keyes, right? She detected something amiss in this sector? She was eerily silent for this entire level. Didn't say a damn word, even after she witnessed Keyes and his posse being attacked. So, where is Keyes, and what was he doing on this sector anyway?

Good level overall, enjoyed it.

I'm just glad I'm finally starting to see some enemy variety here. It'll be fun seeing how many other Flood forms there will be.


also, i apologize for the updates themselves being of low structural quality
i don't really have any way of organizing them besides just typing up all my thoughts all at once in random order, so

the review is gonna be a lot more calculated, of course

I'm pretty sure cortana decided to stay behind at the control room while chief went to get  keyes

Also the library isnt really that bad. Even as a kid I always thought it was fun.

I'm pretty sure cortana decided to stay behind at the control room while chief went to get  keyes

that would explain it then

dont forget, there arent that many flood forms, besides like, what, 5? halo 3 had a good variety of them

dont forget, there arent that many flood forms, besides like, what, 5? halo 3 had a good variety of them

I've seen three so far. I suppose that's plenty. I remember seeing a big fat one that explodes into those smaller squidlets when shot at, and maybe that's the last form. I like all the forms, really. What I'm mainly concerned about is where they came from and what purpose they serve in the story, which I assume I'll be finding out soon.


Playing now. After I beat the Library, I think I'm gonna start doing what Snake did before MGSV came out, and asking a bunch of random questions that pertain to CE as we head towards the end. Just for added discussion value.

"Wait, it gets worse!"

Oh, good.

Long answer that you won't want to read because its long and boring:

Spoiler

Alright, Potato, I'm gonna do my very best to explain to you what the Flood really is. Ready? Cool.

The Flood's existence began with its end. Millions upon millions of years ago, the Precursors (the creation gods of the Halo universe) created the life on the Milky Way galaxy, they treated the galaxy as an experiment of sorts. When both humanity and the Forerunners (the two being the Precursors' greatest creations) gained space-faring and space magic capabilities, the Precursors decided that they were going to exterminate the Forerunners because they deemed them unworthy of the Mantle of Responsibility (basically a religious mantra they gave to the apex species of each galaxy). Not wanting to be wiped out, the Forerunners counter-attacked. The Precursors being so friggin flabber-gasted that one of their creations lashed out at them allowed themselves to be murdered by the Forerunners in galactic genocide. But some of the Precursors decided that that was wack yo so they manipulated their forms, turning themselves into dust.

Millions of years pass and the Forerunners come to believe the Precursors as their deities and that the Mantle was peacefully passed down to them by the long dead Precursors (they forgot their own ancient history because corruption and political tomfoolery). Over time, the dust that once was the Precursors became defective, and their long lost ships were discovered by Ancient Humans. These humans were super advanced by the way. They found out that the dust made their home pets act better and shit, so they spread this magic dust throughout the animal population of their cities. But what you know it, the dust made all of the animals turn to super-aggressive, they began eating each other, and through that began to shape into monsters. This infection spread into the human populace and thus...the Flood was born.

Well, after all that shit, the humans were able to fend off the Flood by sacrificing like half of their galactic empire to them in order to find a cure. Which, they believed they did after their supposed victory. Some more years past and the Forerunners kicked Humanity's ass in a war that lasted a millenia, and turned them into cave retards. Then boom! The Flood come out of hiding or dark space in Ass Effect terms and began to fuck the Forerunners in the butt. And how you ask? Well, when the Flood mass biomass into a single point, it becomes a Gravemind and the Gravemind coordinates the Flood into a military force that grows with each victory. And not only that, since they are indeed Precursors still, they began to manipulate ancient Precursor sites and tech, particularly the Star Roads, the Star Roads were immense invisible rings that tied solar systems and stars together. They were made of neural physics (space magic) and were indestructible. The Forerunners didn't have anything to defeat the Flood, even the Dildact was like "shit nigga." As their last option, the remaining Forerunners decided to built the Halo Array in hopes in defeating the Flood.

Blah blah, they activated the Rings killing all sentient life in the galaxy. But since Forerunners didn't want to just end everything just yet because the Mantle told them not to, they conveniently rescued all life they deemed cool and rad enough to the Ark which was outside the Milky Way and safe from the Halos' effect. All Precursor tech was destroyed because the Halos destroyed neural physics. Unluckily, the Forerunners being the short-sighted dummies they were stored some Flood samples in the Halos... not a bright idea.

Short answer:

Spoiler

tl'dr: The Flood were once asshole gods that came back as parasites to fuck shit up because lolz.

dont forget, there arent that many flood forms, besides like, what, 5? halo 3 had a good variety of them

I've seen three so far. I suppose that's plenty. I remember seeing a big fat one that explodes into those smaller squidlets when shot at, and maybe that's the last form. I like all the forms, really. What I'm mainly concerned about is where they came from and what purpose they serve in the story, which I assume I'll be finding out soon.


Playing now. After I beat the Library, I think I'm gonna start doing what Snake did before MGSV came out, and asking a bunch of random questions that pertain to CE as we head towards the end. Just for added discussion value.

carrier forms (one you mentioned), infection forms (small little dudes), and combat forms are are there are. halo 3 had like that plus 5 more. the flood is what koala basically said. used to be powder, put on pets waaaaaay back then, they fucked shit up, shit happened. funny enough, humans made a cure to the flood.

Alright, Potato, I'm gonna do my very best to explain to you what the Flood really is. Ready? Cool.

The Flood's existence began with its end. Millions upon millions of years ago, the Precursors (the creation gods of the Halo universe) created the life on the Milky Way galaxy, they treated the galaxy as an experiment of sorts. When both humanity and the Forerunners (the two being the Precursors' greatest creations) gained space-faring and space magic capabilities, the Precursors decided that they were going to exterminate the Forerunners because they deemed them unworthy of the Mantle of Responsibility (basically a religious mantra they gave to the apex species of each galaxy). Not wanting to be wiped out, the Forerunners counter-attacked. The Precursors being so friggin flabber-gasted that one of their creations lashed out of them allowed themselves to be murdered by the Forerunners in galactic genocide. But some of the Precursors decided that that was wack yo so they manipulated their forms, turning themselves into dust.

Millions of years pass and the Forerunners come to believe the Precursors as their deities and that the Mantle was peacefully passed down to them by the long dead Precursors (they forgot their own ancient history because corruption and political tomfoolery). Over time, the dust that once was the Precursors became defective, and their long lost ships were discovered by Ancient Humans. These humans were super advanced by the way. They found out that the dust made their home pets act better and shit, so they spread this magic dust throughout the animal population of their cities. But what you know it, the dust made all of the animals turn to super-aggressive, they began eating each other, and through that began to shape into monsters. This infection spread into the human populace and thus...the Flood was born.

Well, after all that shit, the humans were able to fend off the Flood by sacrificing like half of their galactic empire to them in order to find a cure. Which, they believed they did after their supposed victory. Some more years past and the Forerunners kicked Humanity's ass in a war that lasted a millenia, and turned them into cave retards. Then boom! The Flood come out of hiding or dark space in Ass Effect terms and began to fuck the Forerunners in the butt. And how you ask? Well, when the Flood mass biomass into a single point, it becomes a Gravemind and the Gravemind coordinates the Flood into a military force that grows with each victory. And not only that, since they are indeed Precursors still, they began to manipulate ancient Precursor sites and tech, particularly the Star Roads, the Star Roads were immense invisible rings that tied solar systems and stars together. They were made of neural physics (space magic) and were indestructible. The Forerunners didn't have anything to defeat the Flood, even the Dildact was like "shit nigga." As their last option, the remaining Forerunners decided to built the Halo Array in hopes in defeating the Flood.

Blah blah, they activated the Rings killing all sentient life in the galaxy. But since Forerunners didn't want to just end everything just yet because the Mantle told them not to, they conveniently rescued all life they deemed cool and rad enough to the Ark which was outside the Milky Way and safe from the Halos' effect. All Precursor tech was destroyed because the Halos destroyed neural physics. Unluckily, the Forerunners being the short-sighted dummies they were stored some Flood samples in the Halos... not a bright idea.

tl'dr: The Flood were once asshole gods that came back as parasites to fuck shit up because lolz.

I think discretion should have been used here. Verb's asking what the flood are and you're basically dumping a few games worth of content along with the heavy novels on top of him.

It's a bit to process. And Verb's still at ground zero. He hasn't even finished the first campaign yet, yet alone if we know he'll be up for the others in the future.

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to simpler explanation for the moment. Don't spoil all the man's fun now.

and you really dont get much plot from the flood besides, "theyll take over the galaxy, lets stop them!" type of explanation.

Alright, Potato, I'm gonna do my very best to explain to you what the Flood really is. Ready? Cool.

The Flood's existence began with its end. Millions upon millions of years ago, the Precursors (the creation gods of the Halo universe) created the life on the Milky Way galaxy, they treated the galaxy as an experiment of sorts. When both humanity and the Forerunners (the two being the Precursors' greatest creations) gained space-faring and space magic capabilities, the Precursors decided that they were going to exterminate the Forerunners because they deemed them unworthy of the Mantle of Responsibility (basically a religious mantra they gave to the apex species of each galaxy). Not wanting to be wiped out, the Forerunners counter-attacked. The Precursors being so friggin flabber-gasted that one of their creations lashed out of them allowed themselves to be murdered by the Forerunners in galactic genocide. But some of the Precursors decided that that was wack yo so they manipulated their forms, turning themselves into dust.

Millions of years pass and the Forerunners come to believe the Precursors as their deities and that the Mantle was peacefully passed down to them by the long dead Precursors (they forgot their own ancient history because corruption and political tomfoolery). Over time, the dust that once was the Precursors became defective, and their long lost ships were discovered by Ancient Humans. These humans were super advanced by the way. They found out that the dust made their home pets act better and shit, so they spread this magic dust throughout the animal population of their cities. But what you know it, the dust made all of the animals turn to super-aggressive, they began eating each other, and through that began to shape into monsters. This infection spread into the human populace and thus...the Flood was born.

Well, after all that shit, the humans were able to fend off the Flood by sacrificing like half of their galactic empire to them in order to find a cure. Which, they believed they did after their supposed victory. Some more years past and the Forerunners kicked Humanity's ass in a war that lasted a millenia, and turned them into cave retards. Then boom! The Flood come out of hiding or dark space in Ass Effect terms and began to fuck the Forerunners in the butt. And how you ask? Well, when the Flood mass biomass into a single point, it becomes a Gravemind and the Gravemind coordinates the Flood into a military force that grows with each victory. And not only that, since they are indeed Precursors still, they began to manipulate ancient Precursor sites and tech, particularly the Star Roads, the Star Roads were immense invisible rings that tied solar systems and stars together. They were made of neural physics (space magic) and were indestructible. The Forerunners didn't have anything to defeat the Flood, even the Dildact was like "shit nigga." As their last option, the remaining Forerunners decided to built the Halo Array in hopes in defeating the Flood.

Blah blah, they activated the Rings killing all sentient life in the galaxy. But since Forerunners didn't want to just end everything just yet because the Mantle told them not to, they conveniently rescued all life they deemed cool and rad enough to the Ark which was outside the Milky Way and safe from the Halos' effect. All Precursor tech was destroyed because the Halos destroyed neural physics. Unluckily, the Forerunners being the short-sighted dummies they were stored some Flood samples in the Halos... not a bright idea.

tl'dr: The Flood were once asshole gods that came back as parasites to fuck shit up because lolz.

I think discretion should have been used here. Verb's asking what the flood are and you're basically dumping a few games worth of content along with the heavy novels on top of him.

It's a bit to process. And Verb's still at ground zero. He hasn't even finished the first campaign yet, yet alone if we know he'll be up for the others in the future.

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to simpler explanation for the moment. Don't spoil all the man's fun now.

Oh.

I'm not editing that glorious wall.

Thats a pretty nice wall.

And the Library is fun.

Alright, Potato, I'm gonna do my very best to explain to you what the Flood really is. Ready? Cool.

The Flood's existence began with its end. Millions upon millions of years ago, the Precursors (the creation gods of the Halo universe) created the life on the Milky Way galaxy, they treated the galaxy as an experiment of sorts. When both humanity and the Forerunners (the two being the Precursors' greatest creations) gained space-faring and space magic capabilities, the Precursors decided that they were going to exterminate the Forerunners because they deemed them unworthy of the Mantle of Responsibility (basically a religious mantra they gave to the apex species of each galaxy). Not wanting to be wiped out, the Forerunners counter-attacked. The Precursors being so friggin flabber-gasted that one of their creations lashed out of them allowed themselves to be murdered by the Forerunners in galactic genocide. But some of the Precursors decided that that was wack yo so they manipulated their forms, turning themselves into dust.

Millions of years pass and the Forerunners come to believe the Precursors as their deities and that the Mantle was peacefully passed down to them by the long dead Precursors (they forgot their own ancient history because corruption and political tomfoolery). Over time, the dust that once was the Precursors became defective, and their long lost ships were discovered by Ancient Humans. These humans were super advanced by the way. They found out that the dust made their home pets act better and shit, so they spread this magic dust throughout the animal population of their cities. But what you know it, the dust made all of the animals turn to super-aggressive, they began eating each other, and through that began to shape into monsters. This infection spread into the human populace and thus...the Flood was born.

Well, after all that shit, the humans were able to fend off the Flood by sacrificing like half of their galactic empire to them in order to find a cure. Which, they believed they did after their supposed victory. Some more years past and the Forerunners kicked Humanity's ass in a war that lasted a millenia, and turned them into cave retards. Then boom! The Flood come out of hiding or dark space in Ass Effect terms and began to fuck the Forerunners in the butt. And how you ask? Well, when the Flood mass biomass into a single point, it becomes a Gravemind and the Gravemind coordinates the Flood into a military force that grows with each victory. And not only that, since they are indeed Precursors still, they began to manipulate ancient Precursor sites and tech, particularly the Star Roads, the Star Roads were immense invisible rings that tied solar systems and stars together. They were made of neural physics (space magic) and were indestructible. The Forerunners didn't have anything to defeat the Flood, even the Dildact was like "shit nigga." As their last option, the remaining Forerunners decided to built the Halo Array in hopes in defeating the Flood.

Blah blah, they activated the Rings killing all sentient life in the galaxy. But since Forerunners didn't want to just end everything just yet because the Mantle told them not to, they conveniently rescued all life they deemed cool and rad enough to the Ark which was outside the Milky Way and safe from the Halos' effect. All Precursor tech was destroyed because the Halos destroyed neural physics. Unluckily, the Forerunners being the short-sighted dummies they were stored some Flood samples in the Halos... not a bright idea.

tl'dr: The Flood were once asshole gods that came back as parasites to fuck shit up because lolz.

I think discretion should have been used here. Verb's asking what the flood are and you're basically dumping a few games worth of content along with the heavy novels on top of him.

It's a bit to process. And Verb's still at ground zero. He hasn't even finished the first campaign yet, yet alone if we know he'll be up for the others in the future.

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to simpler explanation for the moment. Don't spoil all the man's fun now.

Oh.

I'm not editing that glorious wall.

I never asked you to.

I was just saying that it seemed like too much of the token overload bestowed upon newbies.

Ever been introduced to a series by somebody who then completely bombarded you with a million different points all at once that lead to way, way farther into the stories and plot lines?

And you just sit there like, "How does this relate to the main character who just got their ass handed to them by a crab?"

I think discretion should have been used here. Verb's asking what the flood are and you're basically dumping a few games worth of content along with the heavy novels on top of him.

It's a bit to process. And Verb's still at ground zero. He hasn't even finished the first campaign yet, yet alone if we know he'll be up for the others in the future.

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to simpler explanation for the moment. Don't spoil all the man's fun now.

Oh.

I'm not editing that glorious wall.

I never asked you to.

I was just saying that it seemed like too much of the token overload bestowed upon newbies.

Ever been introduced to a series by somebody who then completely bombarded you with a million different points all at once that lead to way, way farther into the stories and plot lines?

And you just sit there like, "How does this relate to the main character who just got their ass handed to them by a crab?"

Sigh, you have knack to make people feel bad about themselves. My bad.

I think discretion should have been used here. Verb's asking what the flood are and you're basically dumping a few games worth of content along with the heavy novels on top of him.

It's a bit to process. And Verb's still at ground zero. He hasn't even finished the first campaign yet, yet alone if we know he'll be up for the others in the future.

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to simpler explanation for the moment. Don't spoil all the man's fun now.

Oh.

I'm not editing that glorious wall.

I never asked you to.

I was just saying that it seemed like too much of the token overload bestowed upon newbies.

Ever been introduced to a series by somebody who then completely bombarded you with a million different points all at once that lead to way, way farther into the stories and plot lines?

And you just sit there like, "How does this relate to the main character who just got their ass handed to them by a crab?"

Sigh, you have knack to make people feel bad about themselves. My bad.

Aw for fuck's sake. I didn't come in that hard did I? God dammit.

That's the opposite of what I was going for.

I think discretion should have been used here. Verb's asking what the flood are and you're basically dumping a few games worth of content along with the heavy novels on top of him.

It's a bit to process. And Verb's still at ground zero. He hasn't even finished the first campaign yet, yet alone if we know he'll be up for the others in the future.

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to simpler explanation for the moment. Don't spoil all the man's fun now.

Oh.

I'm not editing that glorious wall.

I never asked you to.

I was just saying that it seemed like too much of the token overload bestowed upon newbies.

Ever been introduced to a series by somebody who then completely bombarded you with a million different points all at once that lead to way, way farther into the stories and plot lines?

And you just sit there like, "How does this relate to the main character who just got their ass handed to them by a crab?"

Sigh, you have knack to make people feel bad about themselves. My bad.

Aw for fuck's sake. I didn't come in that hard did I? God dammit.

That's the opposite of what I was going for.

In any case I placed spoiler tags on the explanation, a long answer and a short one.

Surprisingly, the library was the easiest ride for me on Legendary

Sigh, you have knack to make people feel bad about themselves. My bad.

No, it's okay. I appreciate the effort put in to your lengthy explanation. It IS a lot to take in, but I mean, it's not like that's a bad thing. No big deal.


ONLY DIED ONCE BITCH WHAT'S UP

cortana, what are you talking about

who gives a fuck

ACTIVATE HALO

ACTIVATE HALO


ugh

As a fun fact, you can shoot the arms off the combat flood forms and they can't hurt you.  They'll just follow you around.

cortana, what are you talking about

who gives a fuck

ACTIVATE HALO

ACTIVATE HALO


ugh

Lmao

As a fun fact, you can shoot the arms off the combat flood forms and they can't hurt you.  They'll just follow you around.

Didn't think of that.

there were so many


Overall, because my expectations were set so low, I'm pretty indifferent towards this level. I don't know what to think. It really wasn't that hard, for two reasons: 1. The shotgun kicks way too much ass, and 2. The sentinels are pretty OP, too. The level was almost like purgatory, in the sense that I kinda felt invincible, and there was no tension whatsoever.

The ending pissed me off for obvious reasons. We learn that the Flood can only be destroyed if we starve them to death, and the most efficient way of doing that is to destroy all sentient life with Halo.

...Which is clearly the best solution ever. And of course, they don't go for it, because "muh sentient life".

Bull fucking shit.

I think someone mentioned that I'd find 343 Guilty Spark (the character) annoying. I didn't, really. I kinda liked him. Not only was he kinda funny, he's the one taking the most LOGICAL route: Activate Halo. I'd rather be fucking dead than be ravaged by the Flood. Honestly.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

So yeah, not gonna write up a full update of this level. I don't really have much else to say about it anyway.

I mean, the fact that they have you go through the same area, like, five or six times was pretty bullshit, but I've come to just accept that that's part of the game. A bad part, but I'm not gonna say that it's bullshit, because everybody already knows that it's bullshit. *shrug* I'll mention it in the review, for sure, but yeah.

"Here are a few questions I've been pondering, please don't answer them."

>Mikasa promptly gives an in-depth, four-paragraph (+ two lines) answer

Well.