Don’t Think, Just Jam
I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.
I did play it actually! I’m doing a chronological playthrough so I went with Reach > 1 > 2 (partial) > ODST > 2 > 3 and now 4. And yeah, I agree it’s closer to what I like in Halo media than the mainline entries. It was fun but, unfortunately for me, I’m playing on Heroic so gameplay (or health) wise there’s not much difference between playing as a spartan and ODST. Presentation and story did their job though.
I totally get that. While my situation is different there are plenty of times where all I want is to play on autopilot, it’s just not something I do when playing something for the first time. I’m also very hard to please when I get to this state so I end up jumping between multiple titles until I find one that’ll grab me, (which can take longer than the actual playtime but whatever).
Bouncing off on the other hand is something I still suck at but I’m actively working towards. There were way too many games I chose to stick with for the sake of completion despite not enjoying them enough to not feel like I’m wasting my time after certain point. I’m slowly getting better at it but it can still be a tough decision to make (and even more difficult to stick with it).
I have a similar experience with Morrowind as well, though in my case it has to do with the fact it sits in a weird middle ground where it doesn’t feel as immersive as Daggerfall but also isn’t as enjoyable to play as Oblivion, making it very difficult to stick with long-term. The fact that I don’t really care about main stories in TES games and tend to treat them as sandbox playgrounds doesn’t help either. Maybe one day.
Good luck with your attempt!
Having it live up to these expectations years after the whole Halo-mania was over is pretty much an impossible task so I’d be more surprised if it did manage to sweep me as much as it did everyone back in the day. Most parts of those games holds up pretty well from an objective standpoint, personal biases on the other hand are a different issue.
It also doesn’t help that you can feel game’s chaotic development in the its story (both 2 and 3 actually), which is unfortunate since that’s the main reason why I play games like these. It wasn’t terrible or complete let down but it did feel a bit undercooked and disjointed at times. At least the trilogy didn’t made me do a 180 on a franchise like what happened with Mass Effect, so there’s that.
Seriously though, I think I liked it as much as I possibly could. I came out of this playthrough with a very positive experience and that’s more than I can say about many other classics, regardless of whether I played them on launch or years after the fact. Weird brain thinks how it does, there’s not much I can do about it.
I’m slowly progressing with my themed playthrough. While I wasn’t “cheating” during gameplay I haven’t fully committed to the new approach (no cyberware, no hacking) and still kept the default parts “just in case”. Well, no more - I finally sold all of the remaining gear and left only the basic eyes (can’t remove them, unfortunately) and the tiger claw tattoo (I’m only using it as a… well, tattoo and a background detail for my character).
I’m in the middle of act 2. I’m done with Aldecaldo’s and most of Evelyn’s side of things, still waiting for Takemura to finish playing recon for the parade floats (first time I’m not doing it with him). I was a bit surprised because it looks like my different approach started to change things in the story - I’ve noticed V taking small cues from Johnny in a few places despite the fact I tried to act in a way that doesn’t give him control. I might have to work harder to avoid that going forward.
Other than that things go pretty smoothly, even if I need to be reminded sometimes that I’m way more fragile this time around. Even then, it’s more manageable than I though it would be (until I get to some of the Phantom Liberty missions that is). I hope I can keep this up until the end.
This might sound like I’m joking but I finally had my first noticeable issues with the game during this playthrough.
Some things that caught my attention:
This is it for the original trilogy. All in all I’m a little underwhelmed - not because the games were bad, far from it. It’s just… after hearing so much about H1-3 it’s impossible not to build up some steep expectations towards those games and, as I mentioned last week, I tend to be way more demanding from stuff hyped to such degree.
Finally, there’s simply the case of my own bias. In case of Halo I simply prefer the sombre/bittersweet/tragic/whateveryoucallit tone of Reach and the few books I read. Action Halo is cool but it doesn’t speak to me the way those other entries do.
With whining out of the way let me say that the journey through these games was a pretty enjoyable one. I had my criticism towards some of the gameplay segments and the difficulty of H2 but neither of those soured my time with these titles in a significant way. All 5 entries I played so far hold up better than expected.
Next (and last) stop: Halo 4.
Just started this one so here are my initial impressions:
Lets see how the rest of the game fares.
Well, I forgot I even had this thing installed so that pretty much sums up my interest in the game. I gave it a shot but it’s just not for me apparently. Oh well.
Hmm, I think that’s a later version than what I tried. Makes sense though since that was one of the most “finished” of the old versions, I believe. Sounds good.
No worries, it’s not your fault - I simply found the tracks in the second half of the game to be weaker than the early ones. If anything I’m the opposite and tend to be way more critical about stuff that gets hyped up by everyone while trying to keep an open mind about things others complain about.
I remember surfing from one of the trailers, I think, I just hoped there’d be at least a short sequence on the ship and that surfing itself would be a part of the game (I expected a cutscene honestly). As good as these games are there are still some parts that feel a bit rough and unplanned. Oh well, it’s not a huge issue.
The fact these games hold up as well as they do is a testament to their quality. There’s plenty of even newer titles which can’t boast about similar results.
Also, I’m a bit “specific” (well… weird) in terms of what does or doesn’t gel with me and I often tend to prefer less popular or worse options. Going back to hugely successful titles can be a rather unique experience for me - every game is a surprise in that way, I guess.
Eh, I survived retail A-life I can survive an imperfect one in a mod if it means no fanfic additions. They might be interesting for later playthroughs but I’d rather play something closer to the original vision. Actually, did they specify which version they’re basing this on? Oblivion Lost had quite a few changes during development if I recall correctly, I’m curious which was the chosen one.
Anyway, as long as older versions are available it’s fine. At least they aren’t trying to justify those new changes as “lore accurate” and push them on everyone like a certain Skyrim modder who shall not be named, right? Please say yes.
Ohh, that’s some important info. Appreciate the warning.
Yeah, I spent WAY TOO MUCH time with Crysis (both playing and modding) so I’m familiar with the CPU issue. Can’t predict everything, unfortunately.
Good to know about the Oblivion Lost remake - I did play one of the leaked beta builds before so seeing a more finalised version of what could’ve been should make for an interesting experience. I have a lot to look forward to, thanks!
Yeah, you certainly did. It’s not a huge issue honestly - difficulty was high? That sucks but I simply lowered it, whatever.
My main problem, which isn’t even a real problem, has to do with the atmosphere. Playing MCC made me realise that I simply prefer the (early?) book and Reach approach of subdued, bittersweet and somewhat tragic tone over the “action hero saves the day” of the mainline games. That’s just personal preference though.
Overall, my issues with the game aren’t with its quality, it’s more of a “me” thing.
I have no doubt multiplayer, whether co-op or versus, would be a good fun, it’s just not something I can comment on. I have no one to play with in co-op and I don’t really care about PvP any more. Gameplay does feel like it would work great in that environment and the nostalgia factor can not be understated - I also have plenty of games that might not be my favourites (or the best at what they do) but my memories with them leave me with a soft spot that doesn’t care about objective facts.
It was an engaging experience and that’s exactly what I hoped for when starting MCC for the first time.
Sounds exciting, especially the multithreading part since CPU has always been my main bottleneck. Hopefully it’ll make it in by the time I decide to give it a shot. Not gonna lie, while I was hopeful about Stalker modding in the early days I didn’t expect it to go this far. It’s a nice surprise.
I only heard a little bit of Anomaly in the past but I’m glad it got to such point now. Looks like I’ll have plenty to play with once I get back to it.
Does Anomaly use the updated open source version of the engine or is it running on the game one?
Anomaly? Never tried it. The only big Stalker mod I played was Call of Chernobyl, other than that I dabbed with small balancing mods, gear additions etc.
Besides, all of my Stalker modding experience happened 5 or so years ago, I’m sure things changed quite a bit since then.
There’s a reason why heavily moddable games tend to bring comments like “yeah, so I played the game for 3 hours and spent 20 modding it” - the latter can be just as fun as the game itself.
I’d be curious about more of your thoughts about Anomaly as you continue your playthrough. While I’m not planning to jump back into Stalker any time soon, I’m always on the lookout for what to do when I do so more info could be useful. No pressure though!
I’m gonna be honest, “Gravemind” broke me, I wasn’t able to finish the game on Heroic. It just made me miserable and not wanting to play at that point - I like challenge but this ain’t it.
This sucks because Normal was both too easy and the unnecessary tip pop-ups often showed up in the middle of combat, blocking anything in the centre of the screen.
Outside of difficulty, this level, as well as the rest of the game, was really cool. Infighting was a nice mix-up of the usual game flow, Covenant city (both versions) looks great, though that’s pretty much a given. All in all a solid experience, even if I’m kinda meh on the story (and I definitely could not care less about Gravemind itself).
The ending was as sudden as I’ve heard, I’d probably be pretty annoyed if I wasn’t able to jump straight into 3.
I appreciate them doing something new with switching between the Chief and Arbiter but It feels like they could do more to differentiate the two, if only gameplay wise.
Anniversary soundtrack is a bit more of a mixed bag compared to H1A. I find myself more prone to switching to the old style just due to music - something that didn’t really happened before. It’s not bad but there are times where it’s noticeably worse than classic.
One thing that caught my attention when flipping between the new and remastered presentation was the art styles, specifically Cortana’s. I finally had a chance to take a closer look thanks to her showing up as a decently sized hologram and all I can say is: something about her face just looks off.
All in all, it was an enjoyable experience but also my least favourite one among the four games I played so far.
Just started the game so things will probably change but so far playing on Heroic feels way better than anywhere in H2. Lets hope it stays that way.
As for the game, it started rather weirdly if taken in context of H2’s ending. Dunno if this will be explained or not but it gave me a bit of a whiplash. It looks really good though.
I’ll write a bit more once I get a bit further into the game.
I decided to check out the game on a whim and haven’t really spent too much time with it but so far my main takeaway is “man, this music makes me want to play The Sims”, which is exactly what I did (I went with TS3 this time). I mean… it nice, I guess?
I like my cosy vibes as much as anyone but SV doesn’t really do it for me. I have no idea why but something just doesn’t gel with me in this game.
What I do know is that I hate games that make me feel like I need to constantly be on the move and trying to “catch up” due to time speed - SV’s time scale does exactly that. Thankfully this issue was easily resolved since there’s a mod that let you control this part of the game in a pretty granular fashion. I’d say this should be a basic option in every single game with day/night cycle but people (especially devs) can be really touchy about giving players the ability to customise their experience so I’ll take what I can get.
I want to like it and I do think it’s a good game so I’ll give it a bit more time. Maybe it’ll work out once the early game adjustment passes.
I’d still like to have that option but it’s completely understandable.
I don’t think I had this issue with H1 (or at least not to such extent) so I didn’t even think of it until now but I finally realised why I’m leaning towards remastered soundtrack as much as I do - original is more muted/less audible for some reason. I’m not sure if it’s the compression of old audio files or something else but when switching between both versions, original just doesn’t pop up as much. I might have to play around with sound levels.
Thanks for making me think about it, it actually made me stop to figure it out.
Speaking of cut scenes, I was a bit bummed there was no option to switch art styles during those (the in-engine ones at least). It would be just as, if not more, interesting comparison (depending on how much they changed) so I was really curious about that but alas.
I think the new versions of atmospheric tracks are pretty decent alternatives. Better? I can’t say I compared them this way but I’d say… a bit different and fitting with the new visuals for the most part. Dunno about the licensed stuff as my only experience with classic releases was playing the first game a few years ago.
I did find a few spots over all the games I played so far where I felt like the music was lacking a bit but I’m not sure if that’s just a normal experience or something exclusive to MCC/updated versions of the games. It wasn’t something that affected my enjoyment too much so I just moved on and focused on the good.
Article already mentions it but folks behind No One Lives Forever Revival project are the real MVP. Hosting both games + Contract Jack, all updated for modern hardware and widescreen resolutions.
Can’t buy it? No worries, piracy saves that day! Again.