Support NeoGAF

[backflip10019]

Hahahaha...I like it though. You pricks can really fuckin hunt me down though. All I hear through proximity chat is, "Tashi has rockets in hill!!!!" or "I killed Tashi!!!" or "oh my god, Tashi just 4 shotted the shit out me, man I suck" I usually hear the last one hahahahah

hahahahah I think I said each of those in that Construct King game that we played. You had rockets all the fucking time.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Playing once every three months doesn't count.

 

[KevinRo]

K, just finished reading the flood. Took me two days. The insight on the other fronts when you were on halo was pretty cool but overall the book mirrors the game. Oh and the whole mckay dooming everyone in the end kinda sucked.

Oh well, hopefully first strike is good.

 

[Blueblur1]

Playing once every three months doesn't count.

I'll play with you, Shake. Anyone is welcome to send a friend request my way. GT = Total Sacrifice

 

[backflip10019]

Playing once every three months doesn't count.

Yeah, I'll play with you pal. I just never see you on.

 

[CrazedArabMan]

Anytime HaloGAF feels like playing some H3 or something, send me an invite (I might not join if I'm playing with some other friends though), GT is same as name, I'm also on the Halo 3 GAF friends list. Only problem is that I haven't played H3 in a while, so I might be a little rusty. Already had some fun games with GAFFERS before.

 

[vhfive]

lol at thread
2 pages back: blah blah cliques blah blah im cool blah blah
now:blah blah lets be friends and play blah blah

 

[urk]

lol at thread
2 pages back: blah blah cliques blah blah im cool blah blah
now:blah blah lets be friends and play blah blah

no u

 

[backflip10019]

lol at thread
2 pages back: blah blah cliques blah blah im cool blah blah
now:blah blah lets be friends and play blah blah

Well you can just go to hell!

Spoiler

lol

 

[Mr Vociferous]

Oh well, hopefully first strike is good.

I've heard that most people enjoyed First Strike and Ghosts of Onyx better than The Flood, but ultimately, it's the same scenario. Most of the Halo novels revolve around Spartans and UNSC scenarios which involved heavy-hitting characters like Keyes, Johnson and Halsey.

As I read more and more into the fiction of Halo, I become less intrigued by the Spartans and the UNSC and more fascinated by the Covenant culture, the history of the Elites, Prophets and after Contact Harvest, the fiction behind the Brutes and the Jackals. I'm not entirely certain why that is or if its the fact that we have been overloaded with information about the human's perspective, but that's just my general vibe with the fiction itself right now.

For example, there's a story in The Cole Protocol which I found fascinating. The dramatic majority of the novel is focused around the Admiral Cole's protocol enforcement by Keyes, an insurrectionist base on an asteroid and the calamity that erupts between them and the localized Jackal conscript BUT -- there's a story that one of the leading Elites tell about an ancient kaidon (Sangheili leader) who had a war with another Elite. The latter won the war and took power while this particular kaidon was jailed for humiliation. The honorable among those who were imprisoned killed themselves in shame, but some lived their days in pity. This kaidon eventually escaped and traveled into the wilderness and across a desert, eventually building a force of mercenaries strong enough to challenge his supplanting enemy. He returned with his forces and took revenge, killing every last enemy and their lineage. Then he returned to the cells where his former allies were - the ones who had not killed themselves for their own failure -- and murdered them.

Now, that's the kind of story I'd like to see in a Halo book. A sweeping epic which revolves around these incredibly interesting characters who may be alien within the constraints of the fiction but are in many ways emphatic meta-reflections of ourselves and the cultures of humanity, both past and present.

Unfortunately, as I stated earlier, the Halo novels are being marketed to a specific crowd of people. I'm no expert, but I'd gather that the majority of people who buy these novels are young males between the ages of 14 and 17 and for them, the Spartans are still the most interesting thing about Halo. For example, one of the biggest complaints about Contact Harvest, I am told, is that there are no Spartans. For me, Contact Harvest is the best Halo novel yet and largely for the reasons explained above.

 

[The Librarian]

I'm no expert, but I'd gather that the majority of people who buy these novels are young males between the ages of 14 and 17 and for them, the Spartans are still the most interesting thing about Halo. For example, one of the biggest complaints about Contact Harvest, I am told, is that there are no Spartans. For me, Contact Harvest is the best Halo novel yet and largely for the reasons explained above.

I must be an abnormality within that age group, then. I really enjoyed Contact Harvest. Without going through each book again, I'm not sure I can say which one is my favorite and which one is my worst (and everything in between).

 

[rollingstart]

just curious, but does installing Halo 3 to the 360 cause any problems other than longer load times?

 

[Mr Vociferous]

I must be an abnormality within that age group, then. I really enjoyed Contact Harvest. Without going through each book again, I'm not sure I can say which one is my favorite and which one is my worst (and everything in between).

Yeah, I'm not pointing fingers at a specific age group necessarily, but rather a maturity level and mindset. I mean the Halo novels are a great read for their target audience, better than I had growing up and I wouldn't necessarily want Microsoft to change them for what it's worth (even though I'd like to see some of what I mentioned above in addition to it). I was reading the Hardy Boys and B-quality mystery novels in the late 80's and early 90's and I'd have given my right arm for something like the Halo novels at the time.

And for what it's worth, I enjoy the core stories regardless of the writing style. For example, I think The Hobbit is an amazing piece of literature -- just finished it for the first time a few weeks ago so it's fresh on my mind. That book is so clearly driven toward a specific age group that it's obvious (plus, my library only had the Large Print version available so you can imagine the looks I garnered reading that thing). But the core story was awesome.

The same can be said about the Halo fiction and that's one of the reasons Ascendant Justice, as least in my mind, exists. I really believe that there's a significant base of fans out there who love Halo's core narrative and the subsets which follow it, but maybe they feel like the novels aren't delivered in a way which is immediately compelling to fiction fans in their 20's and 30's. If that is the case, I'd hope that some of the work being done on Ascendant Justice bridges that gap because that's the audience I think we're trying to target.

And hopefully my comments aren't being perceived as a slight against Nylund, Dietz and Buckell. Those gentlemen are far more talented that I am and the fan base is fortunate to have such people with their shoulders to the yoke when it comes to Halo fiction.

 

[Slightly Live]

just curious, but does installing Halo 3 to the 360 cause any problems other than longer load times?

It takes up room on your HDD.

 

[Blueblur1]

I think now's a good time to apologize to Cocopjojo and Mr Vociferous for being a dick earlier. You guys do indeed write great stuff and its content that I'm sure many people appreciate. I'm no one to tell you what you should and shouldn't do. I'm sorry for my ignorant comments before. I respect what you do and I should have just said that the content of AJ was just not for me.

 

[The Librarian]

And hopefully my comments aren't being perceived as a slight against Nylund, Dietz and Buckell. Those gentlemen are far more talented that I am and the fan base is fortunate to have such people with their shoulders to the yoke when it comes to Halo fiction.

Nylund is suppose to write one more book, right? Hopefully it is the sequel to Ghosts of Onyx. I remember going to the airport one time, and seeing this guy reading Ghosts of Onyx while waiting for his plane to arrive. He must have been in his mid to early twenties.

 

[Mr Vociferous]

I think now's a good time to apologize to Cocopjojo and Mr Vociferous...

No worries, bro.

 

[Trasher]

YO

Dom, Blood, Eazy, Ram, Nutter: Find me a 1 month card or something!



Oh, and Nutter... You are in big trouble, sir...

 

[Blueblur1]

No worries, bro.

I appreciate it. I felt like an absolute douche for what I said.

 

[KevinRo]

*edit*

I would like to read a halo novel or get some insight on the life if sgt. Jonson and how he got off of instalation 04 anyone with me?

 

[CrazedArabMan]

*edit*

I would like to read a halo novel or get some insight on the life if sgt. Jonson and how he got off of instalation 04 anyone with me?

Read Halo: First Strike

 

[Sibylus]

*edit*

I would like to read a halo novel or get some insight on the life if sgt. Jonson and how he got off of instalation 04 anyone with me?

The Graphic Novel (or whatever the hell it's called) and First Strike (might be mistaken here) fill in those gaps.

 

[Brainboy]

Playing once every three months doesn't count.

It's not my fault the only times you want to play are when I'm not at home. Also I was there last Monday. Also we can just play L4D instead now.

 

[EazyB]

Im also hoping for a more advanced Foundry. I dont see why it would be so complicated. Just add more items for that map, like small buildings or something. Its doable.

Im going out on a limb and saying that Sandbox wont even have sand in it.

Foundry, with its rectangular flat surfaces works fine for small, indoor maps but large, vehicular maps rely on their changes in elevation (e.g. hills, dropoffs, and cliffs). Forge has had no such tools to create natural changes in elevation. Crafty forgers have found painstaking ways to interlock flat walls into smooth curves (see foundry racing maps) but that's impractical and resource heavy. There needs to be a better way of changing elevation and interlocking objects if Sandbox is to fulfill its potential as a foundry for large vehicle maps.

 

[Captain Blood]

Foundry, with its rectangular flat surfaces works fine for small, indoor maps but large, vehicular maps rely on their changes in elevation (e.g. hills, dropoffs, and cliffs). Forge has had no such tools to create natural changes in elevation. Crafty forgers have found painstaking ways to interlock flat walls into smooth curves (see foundry racing maps) but that's impractical and resource heavy. There needs to be a better way of changing elevation and interlocking objects if Sandbox is to fulfill its potential as a foundry for large vehicle maps.

That racetrack is insane!

 

[Tashi]

hahahahah I think I said each of those in that Construct King game that we played. You had rockets all the fucking time.

You gotta time those rockets man. That's how I got them every time. I wish it was last night that we played those games. Last night I was playing some MLG with some of the guys on friends list and Juices, man for a while there we just dominated. My BR was really on. I love that, when things are just going right. Out BRing people for nasty double kills. The clutch factor makes this game soooo damn good.

 

[Merguson]

Since the workload is not heavy, I'm free for Halo tonight with a different crowd.

 

[Kibbles]

Foundry, with its rectangular flat surfaces works fine for small, indoor maps but large, vehicular maps rely on their changes in elevation (e.g. hills, dropoffs, and cliffs). Forge has had no such tools to create natural changes in elevation. Crafty forgers have found painstaking ways to interlock flat walls into smooth curves (see foundry racing maps) but that's impractical and resource heavy. There needs to be a better way of changing elevation and interlocking objects if Sandbox is to fulfill its potential as a foundry for large vehicle maps.

I can't believe the patience people have with forge. :lol Sometimes I just want to kill myself.

Random thought: If only the custom game settings allowed you to force certain armor on the infected. Flight Infection ftw? It would be beautiful.

 

[neoism]

K, just finished reading the flood. Took me two days. The insight on the other fronts when you were on halo was pretty cool but overall the book mirrors the game. Oh and the whole mckay dooming everyone in the end kinda sucked.

Oh well, hopefully first strike is good.

I stopped reading the books after the fourth one Ghosts.... and First Strike is my second favorite after Fall of Reach

 

[Tashi]

oh and yesterday, we beat the guy who made Amplified for MLG, on Amplified. It was pretty cool. And then we shat on them again on Guardian.

 

[Shake Appeal]

EazyB, psychokitten wanted to know if you were that 'Flight helmet' guy, and for me to tell you that she's "not normally a bitch". I guess she lurks here.

 

[EazyB]

Random thought: If only the custom game settings allowed you to force certain armor on the infected. Flight Infection ftw? It would be beautiful.

I think flight would be more appropriate in a juggernaut game but I like your thinking.

EazyB, psychokitten wanted to know if you were that 'Flight helmet' guy, and for me to tell you that she's "not normally a bitch". I guess she lurks here.

Oh, no, that was good fun and everyone seemed real nice. But then again I'm comparing that to the time a bunch of Halo gaffers got together and tried played against each other; friendships were broken that night. :lol

 

[Shake Appeal]

Apparently GAF has been batting away her attempts to join for over a year now. Which is a shame, because she plays Halo.

 

[BladedExpert]

Apparently GAF has been batting away her attempts to join for over a year now. Which is a shame, because she plays Halo.

A girl Halo player on GAF? I can only imagine that ending badly. For her at least :lol

 

[KevinRo]

A girl Halo player on GAF? I can only imagine that ending badly. For her at least :lol

psssh, girls don't play video games... let alone HALO.

they're really little 7 year old boys.

 

[xxjuicesxx]

oh and yesterday, we beat the guy who made Amplified for MLG, on Amplified. It was pretty cool. And then we shat on them again on Guardian.

I wouldn't say "we" beat them. You guys beat them while I took the Sponge role. Its actually more important then it sounds. I soak up all the damage and deaths and that allows you guys to blow up.

I'm basically the Walshy of Sponges. :lol

 

[CrazedArabMan]

I wouldn't say "we" beat them. You guys beat them while I took the Sponge role. Its actually more important then it sounds. I soak up all the damage and deaths and that allows you guys to blow up.

I'm basically the Walshy of Sponges. :lol

At least your good for something.

 

[Slightly Live]

Ugh, more shitty Standoff games ruining the fun. And heavies.

 

[Tashi]

I wouldn't say "we" beat them. You guys beat them while I took the Sponge role. Its actually more important then it sounds. I soak up all the damage and deaths and that allows you guys to blow up.

I'm basically the Walshy of Sponges. :lol

couldn't do it with out you Juices.

 

[Blueblur1]

A girl Halo player on GAF? I can only imagine that ending badly. For her at least :lol

My thoughts exactly. Prove us wrong, GAF.

 

[GhaleonEB]

 

[PedroLumpy]

Repair Status

Ah, good stuff. Welcome back.

Has your daughter missed it at all?

 

[GhaleonEB]

Ah, good stuff. Welcome back.

Has your daughter missed it at all?

More than I have. She was just getting into Banjo and almost had her castle in Kelflings built.

My current backlog:

1) Start Castle Crashers now that the patch is out
2) Fable II DLC
3) Shoot some dudez in Halo 3. Probably BTB.

I might be off Halo 3 after the new Genesis collection comes out - going to play through all four Phantasy Star games in sequence. That will probably get me through to whenever Bungie is allowed to release the Mythic pack on XBLM. And at the end of March, Fallout 3.

My Halo play time will likely be quite light until Mythic hits. Not that it matters.

 

[PedroLumpy]

More than I have. She was just getting into Banjo and almost had her castle in Kelflings built.

My current backlog:

1) Start Castle Crashers now that the patch is out
2) Fable II DLC
3) Shoot some dudez in Halo 3. Probably BTB.

I might be off Halo 3 after the new Genesis collection comes out - going to play through all four Phantasy Star games in sequence. That will probably get me through to whenever Bungie is allowed to release the Mythic pack on XBLM. And at the end of March, Fallout 3.

My Halo play time will likely be quite light until Mythic hits. Not that it matters.

Jiggers you've trained her well. I still have a dream that I will one day school my own kids at video games, like my dad did with me when I was young. But he never really kept up much past the Colecovision era.

 

[Domino Theory]

YO

Dom, Blood, Eazy, Ram, Nutter: Find me a 1 month card or something!



Oh, and Nutter... You are in big trouble, sir...

LOL you know I almost always got you, dude.

Spoiler

Although it is kinda funny when you sign on to use the first day of the 1 month then you're gone for the rest of the 29 days. :lol

 

[bistromathics]

IMO Flight should be a bullet point on the back of every copy of Halo 3.

Not sure what turned you off on Halo 2; if you could elaborate it'd probably make easier to say whether you'd like Halo 3 or not. The SP plays a little more open and "sandboxy" than Halo 2 but still not quite as well as Halo 1. The MP from CE to 2 had its share of changes; not sure if that's the part you got turned off on. Halo 3 plays extraordinarily well in large, vehicle maps but many would say it currently lacks a healthy variety of smaller maps.

I would generally recommend Halo 3 to anyone who loved Halo CE so much but you're throwin me off by saying Halo 2 was such a letdown.

So with xbox connect, I only really played 2 gametypes: 2v2 Blood Gulch CTF or 4 player FFA Hang 'em High. Some of my suitemates also played quite a bit and we would usually play on a 2v2 team against some random internet scrubs. There was this one time we were playing CTF - my suitemate was on a roll. I hear "Double Kill!". A couple seconds later "Triple Kill!". The spawns worked out in such a way that he was able to get four kills in a row - although I think I was smoking by the window or something at the time. He kept saying he got a "killtacular". I called bullshit on that...there was no way that the line for 4 kills would be something as ridiculous as "killatacular". I never witnessed a quadruple kill in halo 1 again.

Some months later, after getting halo 2, I hooked that shit up to xbox connect (didn't have a live account at the time). The online was a clusterfuck. I found a rocket launcher, shot it into a crowd of people, and the first goddamn thing I hear is "killtacular". I couldn't believe it...they really did say killtacular.

I don't know though...something about how easy it was to get that shit turned me off kind of immediately. This criticism probably seems stupid, but this was like 3 or 4 years ago and this anecdote is all that really stuck with me. I remember a big plant. I remember not liking seeing the covenant as a society. I remember there wasn't a zoom pistol :'(

 

[KevinRo]

So with xbox connect, I only really played 2 gametypes: 2v2 Blood Gulch CTF or 4 player FFA Hang 'em High. Some of my suitemates also played quite a bit and we would usually play on a 2v2 team against some random internet scrubs. There was this one time we were playing CTF - my suitemate was on a roll. I hear "Double Kill!". A couple seconds later "Triple Kill!". The spawns worked out in such a way that he was able to get four kills in a row - although I think I was smoking by the window or something at the time. He kept saying he got a "killtacular". I called bullshit on that...there was no way that the line for 4 kills would be something as ridiculous as "killatacular". I never witnessed a quadruple kill in halo 1 again.

Some months later, after getting halo 2, I hooked that shit up to xbox connect (didn't have a live account at the time). The online was a clusterfuck. I found a rocket launcher, shot it into a crowd of people, and the first goddamn thing I hear is "killtacular". I couldn't believe it...they really did say killtacular.

I don't know though...something about how easy it was to get that shit turned me off kind of immediately. This criticism probably seems stupid, but this was like 3 or 4 years ago and this anecdote is all that really stuck with me. I remember a big plant. I remember not liking seeing the covenant as a society. I remember there wasn't a zoom pistol :'(

I feel your pain brother.

On xbc I stayed away from Blood Gulch. I loved to play 2v2 Chilly(chill out), Damnation, Hang 'em, Wizard, and Battle Creek(beaver creek). But, xbc was host HEAVEN. Atleast you could lead your pistol off host unlike xbl where you stupid shots don't even register in the game!

Apparently some stalker on here messaged my friend who was playing on my second account while I was sleeping over his house. Now, no one one here has the account named nystateofmind so I assume it's a lurker, but lurker if u want to play with him be my guest.

 

[The Librarian]

More than I have. She was just getting into Banjo and almost had her castle in Kelflings built.

My current backlog:

1) Start Castle Crashers now that the patch is out
2) Fable II DLC
3) Shoot some dudez in Halo 3. Probably BTB.

I might be off Halo 3 after the new Genesis collection comes out - going to play through all four Phantasy Star games in sequence. That will probably get me through to whenever Bungie is allowed to release the Mythic pack on XBLM. And at the end of March, Fallout 3.

My Halo play time will likely be quite light until Mythic hits. Not that it matters.

Remember that you and I are suppose to get a couple of games together.

 

[Shake Appeal]

For the last week or so Eurogamer has been running previews of games coming in 2009. They finally covered 'Shooters & Racers' today, and their 'Star Attraction' in the former category is ODST (which has caused some bitching and moaning from the usual quarters in the accompanying comments thread).

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/coming-attractions-shooters-and-racing-article

Strange to think of a Halo game as an unhyped, unheralded underdog. More than strange - unthinkable - for its announcement to be leaked, postponed, teased out, fumbled and eventually made to a Tokyo Game Show audience that didn't particularly care. Once the victor, with ODST Halo finds itself the victim: of an awkward name change, of an unfortunate child-abduction gaffe, of franchise fatigue, of dampened expectations, and mostly of an undignified divorce spat between Microsoft and Bungie. But forget all that.

Yes, it's only a brisk three to five hours' entertainment, not counting the new multiplayer maps. That didn't stop Portal topping game of the year lists, including ours. Surely, in 2009, we no longer measure quality by the yard. It's not the contraction in length that interests us, but the contraction in scale.

Halo has always been the ultimate in sci-fi bombast, the epic tale of an invincible superhero and insurmountable odds against the backdrop of a raging interplanetary war. ODST is a side-story, a vignette about a future paratrooper picking cautiously through the rubble of a ruined city after the Covenant leave Earth, looking for his lost comrades. Part shooter, part mystery, the tone of the narrative and the gameplay are necessarily going to be worlds away.

Expect open-world map design, storytelling through playable flashbacks of multiple characters, player-defined waypoints, and even a little light detective work. Oh, and the great Nathan Fillion in the voice cast. Bungie's outrageous talent with muscular, unpredictable combat can be relied on, but this is the super-developer stepping quietly - almost surreptitiously - into new territory for the first time in eight years. That automatically makes Halo 3 ODST the most intriguing and exciting prospect in the shooter genre this year.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Yes, it's only a brisk three to five hours' entertainment, not counting the new multiplayer maps.​

*cancels pre-order*