Noted and added to the pile. Thank you for keeping my procrastination mind goblins well fed, they'd have a much harder time without your recommendations.
Essence_of_Meh
joined 2 years ago
It's interesting when devs changes a relatively minor thing once between multiple titles and don't standardise it with the rest when re-releasing the whole thing. It makes sense but it always feels a little weird when experiencing the games back to back. Thanks for the info!
Most of my experience with Halo comes from the first game and some of the books, I was never part of the craze during the heyday era. Guess I'm finally catching up with the games I'm interested in (and 4).
I'm mostly planning to stick with Heroic + skulls for now but thanks for the warning, I'll keep that in mind. I feel like this is a good enough spot for me though I'm not sure I'd go for legendary solo run anyway (does difficulty scale in co-op?). Besides, I have my Cyberpunk playthrough to serve the role of a "torture machine" at the moment, I don't think I'm ready to go for multiple experiments like this at the same time.
I'm sure playing these games in co-op must be a fun experience. None of my friends are interested in Halo so I probably won't get to try it any time soon but it's fine - this go through all of the MCC games was always planned as a solo adventure as I prefer to explore and take my time, especially with things I never played before.
Cyberpunk 2077
My new playthrough is slowly progressing. Just finished act 1 as I was focusing on "easier" jobs (fit to role-playing my current character) and simply enjoying the city.
I haven't stumbled upon any difficulty spikes that would make me question what I'm doing which is a positive sign. We'll see how things go now that I got to the "real game".
Before I jump into the proper playthrough however I still have a little bit of a set up to perform - purely role-playing adjacent things, not something affecting the game story or anything like that. That's actually the more interesting part of playing RPGs for me and the reason why I rarely bother with main stories in series like (3D) Fallout or The Elder Scrolls. Playing a hero is neat by cosplaying as a normal part of the world is way more interesting for me.
Halo: Reach
I didn't expect to play this any time soon but since I managed to catch The Master Chief Collection on a 75% sale I decided to pull the trigger. Why Reach? I wanted to play the games in chronological order, simple as that. Well... mostly, as I won't be pausing H2 for ODST for example. Still, the core idea is there.
Game holds up really well both graphically and in terms of gameplay. I do think the space flight missions were some of the worst gameplay segments I played in years but other than that it's great.
I wish I went into the story completely blind but even despite that it manages to convey the emotions really well. One thing I forgot about (and really appreciate) is the ability to customise your Noble 6 - it's a small thing but it does a lot to make the character feel mine. It also makes me wish future Halo games moved away from the Master Chief and focused on other, less exceptional characters. There's so much potential for drama, tension and even horror like segments if only we got to see the world from the eyes of normal(ish) people. It could be neat.
I just think that MC really limits the storytelling potential at this point - with him at the helm devs have to come up with more and more out there reasons for yet another world ending catastrophe instead of writing more human and personal tales. That's just something I'm personally interested in though, I'm not sure if the general public would be interested in this kind of Halo game.
Halo: Combat Evolved
I played the original PC release years ago so I expected this to be mostly a refresher - boy was it. I completely forgot A LOT of the actual levels (except for caves not being a natural formation) so it feels more like a new experience than expected.
I feel like they did a pretty good job upgrading the graphics for this title, I keep switching between the two modes and while the OG art looks neat, it's also pretty freaking dark and drab a lot of the time (in a bad way).
Difficulty wise the game feels a bit harder than Reach, despite playing both games on Heroic difficulty - I think some of it has to do with absolute trash enemy spawn points (so many spawns right behind you, in places that were empty when checked, it's not even funny) but I'm not going to use it as an excuse for all of my problems. I also have harder time trying to keep an eye on my HP by that's just general mind goblins making me distracted rather than game's fault.
It's still really fun overall, but I do have two things I'm not too fond of. The first one are the long sections of the same corridors (as in literally copy and pasted sections with minimal adjustments) on certain maps. They actually remind me of ONI, another Bungie title from that era. I won't say Halo didn't improve on that aspect but some parts are almost just as big and empty as the ones in that game, making them the worst part of the experience.
The second "issue" are the 343 Guilt Sparks videos you can find hidden on each level - I understand their purpose but I don't find them particularly interesting to watch. Marathon (I think?) data pads from Reach were much cooler, even if I found them to be a bit difficult to parse at times - there's something about how they're written that just shuts down my brain so I end up having to read some of them multiple times before things click.
Last but not least: the flood. I remember this level being pretty unnerving in the past but playing it now I can't help but see them as easily kiteable silly little goobers. There was zero tension this time, only routine. Oh well.
Things like this make me feel less bad about my backlog - got plenty of things to play while waiting for a price drop!
It probably happened way earlier for me as well to be honest, I'm just mainly into older and indie games so I don't really pay attention to new (mainstream) releases. Seeing this was a bit of reality check.
Man, I appreciate this happened but seeing the price all I can do is chuckle and move on since this thing is almost 3x the reasonable price in my local currency. Never expected to get priced out of AAA gaming but here we are.
Still, nice catch for GOG. I hope this is a good sign for the future.
Oooh, can't wait! I won't say no to more reading material.
I'm glad I finally got to reading the series, it's great. Thanks for recommending it!
Just to clarify - my reaction to the twist has more to do with my expectations than the twist itself. I'm also not finished with the arc focusing on it so things might turn out to better than they appear right now. I'm just not entirely sold on where I think this is going but I might be completely wrong.
I do agree with the general sentiment though.
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I finally took some time to start migrating my library after Comick's closure. It's been a rather mixed experience so far - some series aren't up to date on other sources while other turned out to have multiple chapters I wasn't aware of. I still have a few of titles to go through but things are slowly moving forward.
Now onto this weeks updates.
::: spoilers A Cool Girl and a 12cm Promise I finally caught up with the amusement park arc and... well, what can I say - it finally happened!
The whole thing was really sweet to read through and I'm glad it didn't take another 100 chapters to get to this point. I've seen people theorise that this is because waning sales (volume 3 didn't have a physical release supposedly) but it doesn't really matter, it's not axed yet and we got the fluff, that's that. Another good thing is that, according to the afterword, this isn't the end - if nothing terrible happens we should have plenty of story left to expand on the blooming romance. I can't wait. :::
::: spoilers Please Bully Me, Miss Villainess! I finally caught up to with the all currently available chapters. While I like it overall I'm not quite sure what to think about the recent twist - it makes sense and is relevant to the plot but at the same time it doesn't really feel that important? Even MCs kinda move on from it pretty quickly when you'd expect it to be more of a big deal based on how it was presented.
I don't know. I need to think about it for a bit, I guess. :::
::: spoilers For Better or For Worse I love Dillon, I love how she's written, I love how she's drawn and I can't get enough of all the smug and gremlin faces she does - she's great! I also absolutely adore her relationship with Emily (her sister). It's so sweet and heartwarming I'd be more than happy to read a version of this series with an extended prologue focusing on the two.
As for the story itself... I really like it but, again, I'm a bit mixed on the twist at the end. It felt unnecessary and didn't bring anything worthwhile to the story in my opinion. It didn't ruin it either to be fair, it just kinda happened. Maybe my reaction has to do with the fact I don't really care about "fate" as a plot point, I'm not sure. :::
::: spoilers Fool Night I just caught up with the last few chapters. I know I've mentioned this before but I'm really not sure why I'm still reading this. This series started as an interesting mystery in an apocalyptic scenario only to turn into some over the top action nonsense with a sprinkling of misery on top.
I'm really tired of the current arc and if it doesn't end soon, or is followed by another action focused one, I'm done. This isn't what made me interested in the story and it's definitely not why I'm still hanging around from time to time.
It sucks because I did like it early one. It is what it is, I guess. :::