Quote from: Verbatim on August 20, 2015, 08:51:24 PM

Like, what are some ideas that you might have, or have heard of before, that are worth looking into? In your opinion.

I've already discussed one with you. Sapor alteration. Strength, metabolic alteration, perfecting vision/hearing, etc.

Right, right. Those are all fine and dandy with me. I think we basically already have the vision thing pat-down (contact lenses), unless you're looking for ways to perfect vision without needing them, which I don't think is a huge priority.

We also have hearing aids, which are kinda neat, because if you don't want to hear anything, you can just turn it off. That's awesome. Deaf people are lucky.

Once we start getting into drugs and shit, however, I will always strictly disapprove of them until all risks and side effects are completely extirpated. I don't want none of that shit. That's something I'd like to happen see in the near future--make it so the list of side-effects make up 5% of the infomercial, rather than 80% of it.

Quote

And one quack wanted to "cure aging" and have everyone live hundreds of years

why would you do that

Because life is AWESOME!

More years = more LIFE!

Who WOULDN'T want to live forever!

Like, what are some ideas that you might have, or have heard of before, that are worth looking into? In your opinion.

To play devil's advocate, we haven't had a great track record with self-development through life extension/drug augmentation.

Eeeexactly.

Don't worry about it

Which one were you thinking of doing

all

from the beginning

Oh ya. Taking all bets.

Verb is gonna like the shotgun in CE. Callin it. If he liked the one in Half-Life he'll like the one here if we're talking about stupidly OP.

full disclosure--it was my one of my favorites in MP

looking forward to using it here

Are you going to play Halo 2 as well?

Not immediately after.

Do you have the Duke controller or the slim controller?

ummmmmm

i love how OG xbox shit is impossible to google, because if you just type "xbox", it assumes you mean 360
but if you type "xbox 1"...

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it's an S, yeah

I play CE with the D-pad

That's weird.

I can't stand how bulky the Xbox controller is, by the way.

As if "GREEEEEEENADE"  also wasn't an indicator.

Considering that shouting "grenade" gives me no concept of its relative location or blast radius, I wouldn't really consider that much help. It only happened a couple times--it's whatever.

I should make it clear that I am indeed playing on Normal difficulty, as I always do. "Normal" to me means... standard. As in, this is how the developers intended the game to be played--hence "normal".

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Ended up ditching the warthog, because that's how much I hate that thing. Destroying those banshees was simple enough--I hid behind a couple of trees, and the dumbass flew right into it, giving me ample opportunity to stick it with a plasma grenade. I love using these.

I tried to use the assault rifle a lot more to see if I can get any use out of it, but nope, it still kinda sucks. Every single other weapon in the game so far is just so much better at doing the same exact thing it's supposed to do, but in a much more... I don't wanna say "interesting", but it's a lot more fun using the plasma pistol and the needler than it is using this boring-ass assault rifle. Guess I'll just avoid it from now on.

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All right, now for the level that everyone was saying I would like, but it actually kinda sucked. I seem to be catching some disagreement here, and I don't really understand why.

Well, the level certainly got a lot more engaging after I actually boarded the covenant ship. Prior to that, everything was balls. I couldn't see anything because of how fucking dark it was--even with the flashlight turned on. The sniper rifle was kinda cool--I like how it has nightvision; I never noticed that before in MP (unless it didn't have that in MP). The sniper quickly becomes useless as soon as you're inevitably spotted, however, so it's back to the boring ol' assault rifle and plasma rifle for the next skirmish.

This battle wasn't fun, at all. It wasn't that it was hard, or anything, but the game's mechanics really started to bite me in the ass here.

There are turrets that the grunts use to fuck you up from all angles. There's no strategy here--it's just shoot, shoot, shoot the whole way through. So while taking out these turrets, you may feel the need to reload and regroup for a second. So, you press X, and... Fuck. Now you're in the goddamn turret yourself, and now you're sustaining more fire. Wonderful. So you I jump my hamster-ass off of the fucking turret, which takes way longer than it should, and now I'm in danger of dying. All because I wanted to reload immediately after killing someone. Bullshit.

Now, here's a major flaw that most of you should probably agree with, considering that they fixed it in all future installments, to my knowledge: Fall damage. Jesus H. Motherfucking Goddamn Christ, is this mechanic retarded as fuck. Now--I get it. When you fall from great heights, you're gonna get yourself hurt. That's a given. But literally--Master Chief cannot fall two fucking meters without hurting himself.

"Oh, yeah, I can totally make that jump. I don't even need to think about it."
>dies (or comes very close to dying)

fucking... uuuughgh

You could argue that it's my fault for simply not learning the general height at which it's safe for me to land, but think about this--I'm wearing a fucking suit of super armor. I should be able to take any fucking fall. It's ridiculous enough that MC can't handle being punched in the back--he can't even fall from a small house's roof without dying.

That's retarded. Another thing that bugs me is that grenades--plasma or regular--don't have any way of warning you before it explodes. In Half-Life 2, grenades made a faint beeping noise when they were about to explode--frags in this game do nothing (as far as I know), and plasma grenades make a very faint hissing noise before they go off. It's difficult to hear during a firefight, so, on at least two occasions, I spontaneously combusted, because I couldn't see or hear what was being thrown at me.

Hunters are fun to fight, I guess, but I mean... not really. They're basically just bigger elites with more health. Oh, and they have accompanying music. Whoop-dee-do. It just makes you feel like it's a bigger fight, when it isn't, really. They run up to you really close, just to scare you, but they never catch up. Unlike the fucking zealots. I'll talk about these shitheads later.

Speaking of the music--I know, I know, I know that Marty's music is generally praised to high heavens, and everyone just loves to suck Marty's musical cock. But I'm sorry... I just can't get into this game's soundtrack. Either the music is laughably over-dramatic to almost cheesy extents, or completely unfitting for the scenario (there was this ethereal, atmospheric piece that was playing as I was fighting an army of grunts, jackals, and a zealot). And compositionally? It just doesn't impress me whatsoever. Sorry.

Now, what made the covenant ship part of this chapter slightly more compelling and engaging was simply the fact that it just kinda felt like a maze--but it only FELT like a maze. The entire level is linear. Doors either opened up, indicating that you're supposed to go there, or stayed closed, indicating that you're not supposed to go there--for no rhyme or reason. It didn't feel like I was actually exploring the ship--I was following a set path, paved with trails of enemies to let me know precisely the direction I'm supposed to be going. It felt like a guided tour. Bleah. Boring as fuck.

At least the enemies are growing in variety--if only just a little bit. But not in ways that I like. We have two new forms of elites--gold ones (which BaconShelf told me were "zealots") and white ones ("Spec Ops"). Sometimes, they carry energy swords, which was my favorite weapon--in Halo 2. You can't use them in this game. Shitty.

I don't like either of these enemy types. I get that they're supposed to be strong--I don't really have a problem with that. And maybe it's just because I suck, and I haven't figured out another way to beat it, but it seems like the only way to defeat the zealots is to stick it with a plasma grenade. Which is tricky, because even though they're big and dumb, they're agile enough to dodge them when you throw them--and it's generally difficult to stick anyone outside of point-blank range anyway. But since being in point-blank range will always result in your death (because, unlike hunters, zealots WILL outrun you, and if it gets close enough to you--you're done, it's curtains), you wanna make sure your sticky toss counts.

I think this makes zealots just a little bit too strong. Obviously, I beat them, but did I have fun beating them?... No, not really. Maybe I planned on conserving my plasma grenades, and didn't really feel like I should have to waste one on an arbitrary zealot. Maybe they shouldn't be able to outrun you, or maybe you should be able to avoid their sword strike somehow (though, like I said, maybe you can, and I'm just not good). So yeah, those guys were lame.

The Spec-Ops guys are okay, though, when they're not using active camo. Of course, when I use active camo, it's basically completely useless, but when enemies have it, it's a much bigger ordeal. Simply put--I can't see the fuckers. That's not a substitute for a challenging game mechanic--that's just... cheap bullshit. I don't think anyone can really argue with me there, except to the point where active camo doesn't make you completely invisible. But the level is dark enough to the point where beating them wasn't exactly a birthday party, either.

This game is just mindless combat. I don't believe I've come across a single puzzle. It's so rare that I'm not just mindlessly shooting at aliens, it's like, when I'm finally at a point where I have to do something passive, like flip a switch to open a door, I'm like, "Wow!" It just feels so... shallow. I don't wanna say "lifeless"--the music is dramatic, and the marines (and even the aliens) all have things to say during battle, cheesy or not ("I'll take you back to school!" -_-).

But still, it's just... putting me to sleep.

So yeah, sucky level. Not sure what's so great about it. I'm glad it got a little bit better, but still...
This is a pretty boring game so far.

I will say that I saved and quit just before taking a quick glimpse at the Silent Cartographer's level, and I'm relieved to say that it actually looks pretty fun. The island you end up on looks pretty nice, actually. I'll continue either tonight or tomorrow.

easiest joke ever

fair enough

how far are you in the lvel?

i don't know

second big gold elite w/ an energy sword

It's all good. No spoilers whatsoever. Just having pun with the fact that you say the level sucks. I have stayed direction and spoiler free.

anything

I'll go into it later... but yeah, this level is bad.