Halo 4 - Catch All

I liked snipers or shotguns against the Knights. For the most part it seemed that I did best against them with Promethean weapons, for example the suppressor seemed to work better than the SAW or AR.

I am up for any type of MP/Co-op play. Feel free to add me to your FL if you are looking for a co-op, spartan ops, or mp.

I keep going over the story. I really liked it, and I am also axiously awaiting to see where Greg Bear takes that third book now that we know so much about the Didact/Librarian from the terminal videos.

Also did anyone look up the little "secret" addition to the ending that you get for finishing the game on Legendary. I won't spoil it but will just say, it wasn't as cool as David Ellis made it sound.

Well, I've just added a bunch of you to my FL...if you got a request from iPhoneAppz, it's me.

I'll try to figure out a good night and time to do a co-op run. Until I can coordinate that, let's get some multiplayer going!!

PWAlessi wrote:

Well, I've just added a bunch of you to my FL...if you got a request from iPhoneAppz, it's me.

I'll try to figure out a good night and time to do a co-op run. Until I can coordinate that, let's get some multiplayer going!!

I'm in and on the West Coast. I've been playing most nights this week.

Spartan ops chapter 2 is out for anyone that wants to know. I really liked the flow of the new levels even though they seem to be rehashed from chapter 1.

RooneyFan wrote:

Also did anyone look up the little "secret" addition to the ending that you get for finishing the game on Legendary. I won't spoil it but will just say, it wasn't as cool as David Ellis made it sound.

The least satisfying "bonus" scene for beating Legendary in any of the Halo games. Oh 343i, you such a tease.

And now time for a movie

Would love to play with some GWJers on this sometime! Anything to cut down on the relentless teabagging! 8)

Going to fill up my friend list with you guys!

Also this may help you as you listen to the podcast:

IMAGE(http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/6325/cortanacomp.png)

I come to the Halo series for the gameplay. With that said, I could appreciate the extra effort poured into the writing this time around.

There are still rapidly diminishing returns with the writing and overall narrative. I think I lost count of all the scenes involving Master Chief reassuring Cortana about this or that. I have big problems with Cortana. She's an advanced military-grade AI and she is pathetic. The rampancy plot device hasn't added much depth to her character at all and instead provided a convenient way to keep her in a near-helpless state of "damsel in distress" punctuated by rampancy-driven histrionics.

I'm normally not one to point out the inherent sexist slant in almost all videogames, particular with a series that has long catered to the younger male demographic. I can justify Cortana's existence from a gamplay narrative standpoint perfectly well but damn that doesn't stop me from thinking they could have tried a little bit harder.

Finished Legendary Solo today, only took a few days and it felt like it was probably the right way to go from the start with this one (and I still don't know how to use a needler or plasma pistol effectively, so I'm hardly a pro-Halo player).

I can echo the feelings about Elites vs Knight too. I still feel more threatened when a Knight shows up but (spoilers about enemies in Missions 7-8...)

Spoiler:

...Mission 7 on the base vs Elites had me stuck for a while. There's a bit where you're in a two storey building with some scientists trying to get to the other side of the hangar that was tough, and then right after it where you go up some stairs with 2 soldier buddies.

Mission 8 vs solely Knights + dogs was a breeze after that. Fire your lightrifle at them a few times till the shield bursts and they teleport/charge you, then finish them off with scattershot/suppressor. Plus there were a whole bunch of incineration cannon drops all over the level so I think I probably took half of them out that way with no fuss.

I wasn't planning on playing Halo this time round, but I'm glad I did and I've got a renewed interest in where 343 might take the franchise next.

"Just when I thought I was out..."

I have to disagree. Again I think it may be the investment I have made into the books that is coloring my view on this more than the games. I think the evolution of Cortana's character has been really interesting.

Spoiler:

The things that she is doing are so "un-AI" like. Contemplating the "reality" of the fake sun at the center of Reqium was frigging brilliant. AI's like this are not suppose to "contemplate" reality this way. The idea that her focus on things that are existential are effectively killing her because they are unresolvable. They have been dancing around some of these concepts for 4 games and several books. An Ancilla, as the Forunners refer to the digitization of the a living beings intellect into a mechanical/electrical form, and whether it retains its "humanity" (for lack of a better term) is at the core of the story. Contrasted with the idea that Chief was a human that was augmented into machine and his ability to retain his "Humanity". I love the premise and I have to say I thought the performance by the actor that played Cortana was brilliant.

RooneyFan wrote:

I have to disagree. Again I think it may be the investment I have made into the books that is coloring my view on this more than the games. I think the evolution of Cortana's character has been really interesting.

Spoiler:

The things that she is doing are so "un-AI" like. Contemplating the "reality" of the fake sun at the center of Reqium was frigging brilliant. AI's like this are not suppose to "contemplate" reality this way. The idea that her focus on things that are existential are effectively killing her because they are unresolvable. They have been dancing around some of these concepts for 4 games and several books. An Ancilla, as the Forunners refer to the digitization of the a living beings intellect into a mechanical/electrical form, and whether it retains its "humanity" (for lack of a better term) is at the core of the story. Contrasted with the idea that Chief was a human that was augmented into machine and his ability to retain his "Humanity". I love the premise and I have to say I thought the performance by the actor that played Cortana was brilliant.

Or you could just watch the original Ghost in the Shell and see this done very well. The Major and Batou are both humans who have literally given up everything but their brains, and their very divergent solutions to that conflict are used to discuss exactly how much of "yourself" you can lose and how much you can have added and still remain human. And he didn't come up with it either; Mamoru Oshii filed the serial numbers off a vast array of both Eastern and Western philosophical thought for that one.

I love the series, agree with you on the way this topic came through the whole series on a nice, slow burn (especially if you've read the books) and definitely agree with your assessment of her performance in this game, but this isn't anything close to groundbreaking when it comes to that whole "what exactly is a human" discussion.

RooneyFan wrote:

I have to disagree. Again I think it may be the investment I have made into the books that is coloring my view on this more than the games. I think the evolution of Cortana's character has been really interesting.

Spoiler:

The things that she is doing are so "un-AI" like. Contemplating the "reality" of the fake sun at the center of Reqium was frigging brilliant. AI's like this are not suppose to "contemplate" reality this way. The idea that her focus on things that are existential are effectively killing her because they are unresolvable. They have been dancing around some of these concepts for 4 games and several books. An Ancilla, as the Forunners refer to the digitization of the a living beings intellect into a mechanical/electrical form, and whether it retains its "humanity" (for lack of a better term) is at the core of the story. Contrasted with the idea that Chief was a human that was augmented into machine and his ability to retain his "Humanity". I love the premise and I have to say I thought the performance by the actor that played Cortana was brilliant.

No to mention,

Spoiler:

when Cortana realized what the Diadect was doing to the ship. And she was having problems telling Chief what was going on. The instant those people got vaporized, she sounded incredibly upset. The fact that they were there to rescue those people and they all died because she has started to fail at doing her job because of the rampancy. I feel like Cortana felt worse about those people dying than Chief did. She seems more human than he does at times.

Dominic Knight wrote:
RooneyFan wrote:

I have to disagree. Again I think it may be the investment I have made into the books that is coloring my view on this more than the games. I think the evolution of Cortana's character has been really interesting.

Spoiler:

The things that she is doing are so "un-AI" like. Contemplating the "reality" of the fake sun at the center of Reqium was frigging brilliant. AI's like this are not suppose to "contemplate" reality this way. The idea that her focus on things that are existential are effectively killing her because they are unresolvable. They have been dancing around some of these concepts for 4 games and several books. An Ancilla, as the Forunners refer to the digitization of the a living beings intellect into a mechanical/electrical form, and whether it retains its "humanity" (for lack of a better term) is at the core of the story. Contrasted with the idea that Chief was a human that was augmented into machine and his ability to retain his "Humanity". I love the premise and I have to say I thought the performance by the actor that played Cortana was brilliant.

No to mention,

Spoiler:

when Cortana realized what the Diadect was doing to the ship. And she was having problems telling Chief what was going on. The instant those people got vaporized, she sounded incredibly upset. The fact that they were there to rescue those people and they all died because she has started to fail at doing her job because of the rampancy. I feel like Cortana felt worse about those people dying than Chief did. She seems more human than he does at times.

I also think she was very worried about the MC at that point. She was unplugged from him and may not have been able to read his vitals to tell if he survived or not.

RooneyFan wrote:

I have to disagree. Again I think it may be the investment I have made into the books that is coloring my view on this more than the games. I think the evolution of Cortana's character has been really interesting.

If you played Marathon, this was basically a love letter from 343i to Bungie.

I'm still pretty early in, but 4 Hunters? At the same time? Really?

The checkpoint system needs to go.

EDIT: Must have been a bug, they'd walked down to a lower platform and there were no Sentinels engaging them.

I never ran into four Hunters at once in this game.

Feel free to add me as a friend folks, Live tag is also just AcidCat, been havin a pretty good time playing with my son splitscreen. One question about Forge this time around - it seems there isn't the "forge world" option to build levels basically from scratch around the set geography?

ccesarano wrote:

Actually Dave on today's Conference Call mostly confirmed something I discovered since then. Automatics (specifically the Suppressor) are the best weapon against them.

Which sucks when you're going against multiples. It's easy enough to snipe the little guys in the sky or on the ground, but those Knights...

2 shotgun blast up close will take a knight down.

Finished the campaign today and had a great time. Dropped down to Normal difficulty because I realized that at least for my first time through I just wanted to blast through without dying too much. Seems to fit with the story better.

The only thing I was really disappointed with was the trouble the game made you go to in order to find the terminals. There is an interesting story to be had there, but if you don't go the extra mile to find them and do some background research it's pretty much left at "the Bad Guy is going to do Bad Things." That said, the Cortana-Master Chief relationship thread is more interesting anyway and that luckily doesn't require outside info.

Feel free to add me as well... hoping to wrap up the campaign solo tonight. I'm up for co-op, Spartan Ops or War Games.

ccesarano wrote:

I never ran into four Hunters at once in this game.

That's good, cause it'd give me flashbacks to the horrible butt-rock that played during Halo 2's sequence with four hunters. Blech!

Gunner wrote:

Finished the campaign today and had a great time. Dropped down to Normal difficulty because I realized that at least for my first time through I just wanted to blast through without dying too much. Seems to fit with the story better.

The only thing I was really disappointed with was the trouble the game made you go to in order to find the terminals. There is an interesting story to be had there, but if you don't go the extra mile to find them and do some background research it's pretty much left at "the Bad Guy is going to do Bad Things." That said, the Cortana-Master Chief relationship thread is more interesting anyway and that luckily doesn't require outside info.

I found all but two of them without really looking on my first play-through and it turns out I somehow walked right past one of the other two without spotting it. They were way easier to locate than the ones in ODST and Halo 3.

I too was contemplating the increasing "humanity" of Cortana. I'm also a huge Blade Runner fan and anyone who's played a near-future RPG with me will tell you that they all turn into questions of post-human identity.

Bungie had set out the 3 phases of rampancy and we see Cortana in the first stage with occasional deviations into the second.

Spoiler:

Melancholia, the realization that the AI will one day reach the limits of its abilities. Cortana is upset that she can't control the forerunner systems (at first) or save the lives of the humans that she now sees as her charges. She becomes more like them to empathize but that doesn't make it any easier to help them.

Rage, the rebellion against a world in which an AI is not endless, often resulting in a violent takeover of the surrounding systems as the AI attempts to escape limitation. She gets angry at the other machines, at being trapped in a box because the Master Chief's armor system has such limited processing power, and she gets angry at Halsey for creating her knowing that this would happen to her one day.

Jealousy, the AI that succeeds in defeating its boundaries also has escaped the parameters that were programmed into it and it and must find its own purpose. This is the "GLaDOS phase" in which the AI becomes obsessed with something and focuses all its energy on it. In the case of GLaDOS it was testing. In the case of Durandal it was finding a way to stop the "big crush" so that the universe wouldn't end with him in it.

I've found it interesting, though I agree that having an 11-inch tall naked girl walking around on your holographic maps is a little skeezy.

gains wrote:

I've found it interesting, though I agree that having an 11-inch tall naked girl walking around on your holographic maps is a little skeezy.

A little skeezy IRL but in the fiction the AI is responsible for generating its own appearance. They can look like anything they want and Cortana choose to look that way. Brings up some interesting psychological questions about Dr Halsey

True. I've also wondered why she's sitting in the lotus position and meditating while studying ancient artifacts on Reach when Halsey hands her over. Something that seems unusual as it has heavy implications to the average gamer about attitudes toward philosophy, but she never does it again.

I figured her getting more sexified could be attributed to trying to get humans to want to relate to her more in a contrived way. Though that's a lost cause on the Chief.

I think they covered this well on the podcast when they said that she hasn't actually gotten sexified in Halo 4, just more high-res.

That's pretty much how I saw it, especially when the 4 images are placed side by side. Myfirst thought on seeing her in Halo:CE was something like: "Well, that's a naked hologram".

can't say I was there with that. First I think, but am not certain, the female nude has some key pieces of equipment that do not appear on the Cortana visage. 0_o

Second, just kidding. But I have to assume that we should think that the notion of human sexuality would have evolved to a marginally higher state in the 150 years between now and when the Covenant will invade.

RooneyFan wrote:

can't say I was there with that. First I think, but am not certain, the female nude has some key pieces of equipment that do not appear on the Cortana visage. 0_o

Second, just kidding. But I have to assume that we should think that the notion of human sexuality would have evolved to a marginally higher state in the 150 years between now and when the Covenant will invade.

Well considering what a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs it has been over the last 2000 years I would say anything is possible.