HALO CE’s basic pistol was pretty damn good too. We had on guy in our LAN group who could win with just it.
Gaming thoughts, bite-size chewables - new orange flavor!
- Thread starter pauli
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Wasn't the pistol (at least in the original halo) bugged with some hilariously OP headshot modifier? At least in the campaign I remember it being able to take out the huge tanky guys with a single shot if you hit the right place.
The single shot Hunter kill was canonized into Halo lore. It didn't one shot anything else, but it was stupidly powerful and long range.
It would one shot every covenant enemy except a shielded Elite with a headshot. And it would drop the elite if their shield was down, hence the dual pistol loadout being the go-to for all covenant levels. Charged plasma pistol takes the shields off in one, then a pistol headshot for the kill.
It was pretty crap against Flood though. Shotgun and Assault Rifle was the flood sweeper combo.
After CE they changed the hunter so they weren't as weak in the back, and they had faster recovery meaning it was harder to exploit after a melee.
Dual wield didn't come until Halo 2 and the pistol was significantly nerfed. Yes, it would headshot, but my point is that the pistol literally one-shots Hunters if you get anywhere in the armor.
The pistol is middling against the combat forms and the exploding carrier forms until you can get a shotgun, it just tends to take a serious backseat to the shotty/AR combo. The sniper rifle is what really sucks against Flood.
Yeah, Bungie wanted "the experience" to be heavy weapons or a bunch of melee. Part of me gets super annoyed when devs do something like this after a first-game fuck up leads to something bizarre like the pistol one-shot.
You couldn't dual wield, but you carried both pistols. It was the best loadout for covenant.
Hunters died if you shot them in the orange in the gap in their armour at the back, that's always a weakspot for them in all games but it's harder to exploit in games where they're faster.
Hah, If you don't move for a long time in boltgun, the servo skull start yelling at you. Then you pull out a book and start reading and the poor servo skull gets so distraught that it tries to self destruct and fails
Yeah, Hunters were only vulnerable on their back - the pistol was useless against them from the front. It wasn't as effective in the later games.
thrillgore
Ars Tribunus Militum
I dunno about you, but the older I get, the harder it is for me to kill hunters. Either they got better, or I got worse.
Smart here, but I realized you can sometimes just push past them to get on with the mission, rather than having to take them out.
I also usually play on a lower difficulty level these days playing coop with my kids which helps a lot. I'm here for the story these days, not a challenge!
Based on legend from the old Penny Arcade spin-off comic "The Trenches," the studio lead for Halo (likely Jason Jones) decided that the opening level should be made easier by making the pistol much more powerful. This was done late in development during to Halo's infamous crunch period, and when a tester showed that he could beat ANYONE in the studio using just the pistol the team had to decide whether to revert the change and keep multiplayer balanced (but need to go through and rebalance the first mission again) or keep it and ship in time for the Xbox launch, Bungie/Microsoft made the obvious choice and kept the pistol as a god-killing cannon.
Another example of decent writing from Eurogamer. This time, it’s about the fatalistic and often brutal results of playing Six Ages 2. A thematic, narrative RPG thing where checks the article, you can:
… There’s a screen shot of just that.
I was tentatively looking at Six Ages 2, and after reading the article? I am very, very intrigued.
Article:
www.eurogamer.net
… There’s a screen shot of just that.
I was tentatively looking at Six Ages 2, and after reading the article? I am very, very intrigued.
Article:
A brutal story RPG beat the save scumming out of me
A look at how Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out teaches you to live with your fate.
I'm hard stuck in Animal Well at 60 eggs. I should probably take a break but I just can't move on. I've always been obsessive where I have to finish a game before I can start playing another one.
Finish or 100% clear?
Because I often roll credits and finish the game and almost never 100% it.
Getting all the eggs and finishing what that opens up is cool, even if you have to look up a few. There's a great egg helper that will show you only what map tile a missing egg is on, so you still have to figure out exactly where it is and how to get it.
What comes after you reach the second credits roll is a lot harder to recommend, though. If you get that far, only continue if you're up for some seriously crazy impossible puzzling.
Horizon: FW/BS and now God of War Ragnarok, back to back. And I think I'm pretty burned out on gear upgrade systems that require three quarters of a million different ingredients. You need a ton of hacksilver, and then some Asgardian ingots, and then some Purified Crystals, and then some Smoldering Embers, and then some Slag, and then some of the Bonded Leather you have had no use for since level 1, and then a Mountain Root... just to upgrade one piece of one armor set.
I'd much rather they just lock those higher upgrades behind the blacksmith guys "coming up with new ideas" or something. I pick up everything i can! ...and I still have to site there and min/max what thing I want to spend my Dust of Realms on or whatever.
I'd much rather they just lock those higher upgrades behind the blacksmith guys "coming up with new ideas" or something. I pick up everything i can! ...and I still have to site there and min/max what thing I want to spend my Dust of Realms on or whatever.
Yeah, the amount of gubbins required for the higher tier weapon/armour upgrades in Horizon Forbidden West were pretty egregious.
It feels like a lot of it is designed for new game plus.
It feels like a lot of it is designed for new game plus.
Horizon is worse because of the random drops affecting your ultimate success rate. And they decided to put dozens of weapons in instead of the old game had a handful of each type.
God of War they created a segmented system to keep you from somehow rushing ahead of your level by concentrating all your resources on one set of armor. You know, to get past the third upgrade you need Magic Dust that's not available until you are very near the end boss. It's just mildly irritating. Feels like too much of my attention is spent on the spider-web of required loot, I should just relax and assume a thorough search as I go will grant me everything needed.
God of War they created a segmented system to keep you from somehow rushing ahead of your level by concentrating all your resources on one set of armor. You know, to get past the third upgrade you need Magic Dust that's not available until you are very near the end boss. It's just mildly irritating. Feels like too much of my attention is spent on the spider-web of required loot, I should just relax and assume a thorough search as I go will grant me everything needed.
I got that, but Skinner Boxes are usually for games with repeat monetary compensation - e.g., subscription models, gacha systems, etc.
Roll failed. Your mail, and the mail carrier, were eaten by a kobold. Better luck next campaign.
Sure, when done deliberately for that purpose. But it's entirely common for game devs to copy something because "it's popular" without knowing the reason why it was done in the first place.
Went to play Still Wakes the Deep on Game Pass and noticed that DLSS and FSR are not options even though it says that they're supported right there in the settings. Turns out GP is the only platform where DLSS doesn't work out of the box.
According to the developer they have to do some extra fancy coding to get it working, something they didn't have to do for the other versions. DLSS will come in an update next month. Lame. Especially for a UE5 game, since it's going to run heavy anyway.
Looks like I'll be sitting on it for a bit. Thanks Phil.
According to the developer they have to do some extra fancy coding to get it working, something they didn't have to do for the other versions. DLSS will come in an update next month. Lame. Especially for a UE5 game, since it's going to run heavy anyway.
Looks like I'll be sitting on it for a bit. Thanks Phil.
I've started playing Everspace 2 again. Well, I say that, but I really had only played the introduction mission back in February, I think. Hadn't even GOTTEN into the tutorial. So I managed to get myself to play it some more. I think they had a big patch since then. So far, I think I'm doing okay. The way I survived my first fights wasn't viable in the long run and I started blowing up. Now I've learned a few more ways, and I don't die as often. I've gotten to level 5, and everything has been upgraded at least once.
I'm hoping that as things start to open up, I might start getting that Privateer vibe that I remember from three decades back or so.
I'm hoping that as things start to open up, I might start getting that Privateer vibe that I remember from three decades back or so.
The reviews for Everspace 2 have me on the knife's edge about it. I nearly got it on the last sale, but held back. When you get deeper post again about how it opened up. Or didn't.
I've been pretty clear that I dislike rhythm games - I just can't get the timing and the visuals to match up right in my brain. Like, I couldn't figure out the parry in Hi-Fi Rush, I'm that bad.
So, color me freaking surprised as shit that I've found a rhythm game that I can actually play... somewhat! Enough that I'm trying and trying to the point where my thumbs hurt and I need to stop. This is from an upcoming post in the Demo thread, but that post won't be done for a few days yet. And I felt like the general gaming audience shouldn't sleep on it.
From the makers of Crypt of the Necrodancer and Cadence of Hirule... link is to steam, and Yes, there is a demo.
Rift of the Necrodancer - (link) - A RHYTHM GAME I ACTUALLY LIKE! It's guitar hero, but each button press on the track attacks a monster. I spent a rather large amount of time retrying the first two tracks in order to slowly work my way up the score/ranking until I felt good enough to move one. Changing difficulties slows or speeds up the beat and affects monster type. Different monsters require different button combinations. Some die in one hit, some get knocked back a beat and you have to basically double tap a button to beat them, some get knocked back but also jump to an adjoining lane, others you have to hold... You get the idea. There is a surprising amount of depth here. You can also double map the controls. Each track has three lanes, and you can map each lane to two different inputs. Makes it pretty easy to deal with crazy combinations on a controller or a keyboard. It also does both visual and audio calibrations with your input / sound device of choice. I like it rather a lot, and that's RARE AS HELL for me and rhythm games. Actually freaking wishlisted!
My thumbs hurt. I should have played on the keyboard
.
So, color me freaking surprised as shit that I've found a rhythm game that I can actually play... somewhat! Enough that I'm trying and trying to the point where my thumbs hurt and I need to stop. This is from an upcoming post in the Demo thread, but that post won't be done for a few days yet. And I felt like the general gaming audience shouldn't sleep on it.
From the makers of Crypt of the Necrodancer and Cadence of Hirule... link is to steam, and Yes, there is a demo.
Rift of the Necrodancer - (link) - A RHYTHM GAME I ACTUALLY LIKE! It's guitar hero, but each button press on the track attacks a monster. I spent a rather large amount of time retrying the first two tracks in order to slowly work my way up the score/ranking until I felt good enough to move one. Changing difficulties slows or speeds up the beat and affects monster type. Different monsters require different button combinations. Some die in one hit, some get knocked back a beat and you have to basically double tap a button to beat them, some get knocked back but also jump to an adjoining lane, others you have to hold... You get the idea. There is a surprising amount of depth here. You can also double map the controls. Each track has three lanes, and you can map each lane to two different inputs. Makes it pretty easy to deal with crazy combinations on a controller or a keyboard. It also does both visual and audio calibrations with your input / sound device of choice. I like it rather a lot, and that's RARE AS HELL for me and rhythm games. Actually freaking wishlisted!
My thumbs hurt. I should have played on the keyboard
.
Frosty Grin
Ars Legatus Legionis
I do miss the excitement of Steam sales, when they had daily deals, and there were "limited" time deals.
Now it's check at 1:30(give time for the servers to recover), figure out what I want and then buy it.
Now it's check at 1:30(give time for the servers to recover), figure out what I want and then buy it.
Agreed. It's much safer for my wallet this way though. And I very much appreciate the returns system, which I thought was related to the daily deals going away?
Pretty much - if you bought something on day one of the sale and it was then a flash deal later in the week you're just going to refund the initial purchase and rebuy at the cheaper price.
Those old sales, especially with the cards and metagames were a ton of fun though.