It Ain't Over Until The FAT32 Lady Sings - Let's Play The Halo Saga

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Reposting this from my YT Comment since I think this could be good discussion
This is gonna sound weird, but I wonder if the game design was part of the decision to avoid having the Arbiter engage human troops too?
Human Weapons are in-general, really fucking good save for SMGs, and in particular they have a bigger spread of precision and power weapons like Snipers. Magnums, and Shotties compared to the surprisingly small list of Covenant offerings, they also don't have an obvious caste system, remember the flood mooks in Halo 1 with their random weapons being super spooky to fight because of surprise rockets and shotties?
Humans would be entirely that since its not obvious who would have what, meanwhile Covenant is clearcut, Grunts get Plasma Pistols, Needlers, and occasionally Fuel Rod Guns, Jackals get Carbines, Beam Rifles, Elites tend to get Plasma Rifles and Swords, or power weapons, etc, similarly, Humans lack "power" units to field that aren't vehicles, like high-rank Elites or Hunters
Human weapons also lack the obvious weaknesses of the bigger guns the Covenant use, that effectively strangleholds the AI, like Plasma Rifles overheating and Needlers being terrible unless they get a supercombine trigger, every single Human weapon does one thing, no tricks, no artificial weaknesses, they do DAMAGE, a squad of 6 dudes with Assault Rifles or BRs would tear the player apart if they got clean fire because they're never forced to stop or deal ineffective damage save for reloading, and you've seen how aggressively the marines can just unleash bullets at things if given a tough enough target before
Additionally, the Arbiter Chapters tend to give you minimal allied troops compared to Chief's regular entourage, so avoiding combat with humans helps keep the player's Friend or Foe reflexes tuned towards the Covenant and Sentinels, and makes the swapping less disorienting for combat
Last edited by Syrelian on Tue Mar 22, 2022 4:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

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09 - Quarantine Zone

The Arbiter continues towards the Library and the Sacred Icon, hoping to get there before the Humans do.

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Cloudmonkey98 wrote:
Mon Jun 28, 2021 9:03 pm
Reposting this from my YT Comment since I think this could be good discussion
his is gonna sound weird, but I wonder if the game design was part of the decision to avoid having the Arbiter engage human troops too?
Human Weapons are in-general, really fucking good save for SMGs, and in particular they have a bigger spread of precision and power weapons like Snipers. Magnums, and Shotties compared to the surprisingly small list of Covenant offerings, they also don't have an obvious caste system, remember the flood mooks in Halo 1 with their random weapons being super spooky to fight because of surprise rockets and shotties?
Humans would be entirely that since its not obvious who would have what, meanwhile Covenant is clearcut, Grunts get Plasma Pistols, Needlers, and occasionally Fuel Rod Guns, Jackals get Carbines, Beam Rifles, Elites tend to get Plasma Rifles and Swords, or power weapons, etc, similarly, Humans lack "power" units to field that aren't vehicles, like high-rank Elites or Hunters
Human weapons also lack the obvious weaknesses of the bigger guns the Covenant use, that effectively strangleholds the AI, like Plasma Rifles overheating and Needlers being terrible unless they get a supercombine trigger, every single Human weapon does one thing, no tricks, no artificial weaknesses, they do DAMAGE, a squad of 6 dudes with Assault Rifles or BRs would tear the player apart if they got clean fire because they're never forced to stop or deal ineffective damage save for reloading, and you've seen how aggressively the marines can just unleash bullets at things if given a tough enough target before
Additionally, the Arbiter Chapters tend to give you minimal allied troops compared to Chief's regular entourage, so avoiding combat with humans helps keep the player's Friend or Foe reflexes tuned towards the Covenant and Sentinels, and makes the swapping less disorienting for combat
Ah, I didn't realize you posted it here too. I think you have a really good point about the Covenant being clearly "tuned" to be enemies, while the humans really aren't. The one thing I thought of is that since Covenant use mostly plasma weapons, they do a lot of shield damage but relatively little health damage. That way the player gets the shield warning and has time to take cover. If you were fighting humans (or a lot of flood with assault rifles) by the time you register the shield warning, you're probably almost dead since those same bullets are now chewing up your health.

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Thats an aspect I didn't think of, yeah, and its one the player can actually experience in some games, I don't recall its name, but there's a Skull that flips Shield/HP damage resistances, so you take minor shield damage from energy and plasma, but almost immediately melt once they break it
Similarly, the obvious Covenant physical weapons all kinda stink, the only normal one is the Carbine, and its a bit weak, Needlers rely on their crack ping second hit, or Supercombine explosion, the former of which is more effective at being suppressing fire on shields due to its delay, Needle Rifles are slow, and have the same issues, and while from the future, Spikers and Spike Grenades are kinda low on damage and fire rate, feeling like a straight-damage cousin of Needlers in specs, which actually reminds me, a lot of Covenant weapons have flight time, most human weapons are hitscan, the exceptions are like, Carbines and the Covvie Sniper weapons, which is a very Quake/Doom design decision, since it means movement can still have a greater influence on survival
It also means that "human" weapon drop-points are genuine breaths of relief, as you get weapons that work quickly and reliably, and have good specs, rather then having to juggle Plasma Rifles that are struggling to actually execute targets, I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but it feels like you close in for melee far more often when using plasma weaponry

In a non-game design discussion, thank you for your continued uploads, this series has been great!

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So I found out yesterday from watching a friend play Halo 1 for the first time
Marines might not be willing to drive Warthogs in that game, but you know what they WILL drive? Ghosts, they will happily snag Ghosts you leave empty and run you over because they have no sense of space

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Cloudmonkey98 wrote:
Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:48 pm
So I found out yesterday from watching a friend play Halo 1 for the first time
Marines might not be willing to drive Warthogs in that game, but you know what they WILL drive? Ghosts, they will happily snag Ghosts you leave empty and run you over because they have no sense of space
lol yeah I'm pretty sure it's the exact same pathfinding for the Marines when they're driving Ghosts as it is while walking. They just don't realize they now move really quickly and hover and slide. You can see a Marine driving a Ghost way back in my Assault on the Control Room video, but I think I got distracted and forgot to point it out and he got blown up by a Wraith pretty quickly.

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XX - The Covenant and Arbiters

We've been given an inside look at some of the Covenant's workings, but how about some broader context?

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10 - Gravemind

After a very awkward meeting, the Master Chief takes the fight to the Covenant's home turf.

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11 - Uprising

Time for the Arbiter to get a little payback on the traitorous Brutes.

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12 - High Charity

This neighborhood has really gone downhill. The Chief needs to find Truth and get out of here!

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13 - The Great Journey

The Arbiter has to stop Tartarus from activating Halo, and he'll take all the help he can get.

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XX - Bonus Content

To finish off Halo 2, here's some extra stuff that I didn't get the chance to show off yet.

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Alright, time to start gearing up for some more Halo. Today we're starting off with some of the promotional stuff for Halo 3. This might be the last game where I share a bunch of teaser videos like this because while I could still remember all of these from memory, promotional material for later games is a lot more hazy. And also most of it was released directly to YouTube in high quality by that point.

Announce Trailer - This was of course the first official confirmation that Halo 3 was a thing that was being worked on. The music in this one, especially the piano, still gets me.

Starry Night - This special commercial only aired once during a Monday night football game. I actually remember convincing my whole family to watch the game that night so I could catch it, and afterwords they were all like, "that's it?" They are not Halo fans.

Believe Diorama - Another video with excellent music. This diorama was actually built and is large enough to take up a whole room. There are a few videos to go along with it, that are faux documentary interviews with veterans of the Human-Covenant war talking about their experience for the Museum of Humanity. You can find them by searching "Halo 3 Believe Museum" but I think the diorama is the most interesting part.

Halo: Landfall - This is the first official live-action media created for Halo. It was originally three short films called Arms Race, Combat Part 1, and Combat Part 2, but was eventually combined together. This was also made at a time when a Halo movie was being pitched with Neil Blomkamp and WETA attached, and these videos were kind of a proof of concept. The movie never got made and those guys moved on and made District 9 instead.

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Developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, as per usual, Halo 3 was released on September 25, 2007. Halo 3 is the conclusion of the original Halo trilogy, where we finally get to continue the story after Halo 2's disappointing and somewhat abrupt ending. The Halo array is primed to fire, the Covenant has fractured, and the Master Chief has made his way back to Earth to "finish the fight". With Cortana in the hands of the Flood Gravemind, and the Arbiter and his fellow Elites now having to find their own path, there are a lot of unknowns to contend with.

Halo 3 had absolutely sky-high expectations. Everyone knew that it would be a conclusion of some sort, and fans had been waiting for years to know how this story would end. Halo was secure at the top of the Xbox's flagship titles list and despite releasing 2 years after the Xbox 360, Microsoft was still depending on it to sell a lot of consoles and Xbox Live memberships. To further crank up the hype, Halo 3 had a public multiplayer beta and a $40 million advertising blitz that included live-action short films, an alternate reality game, and the birth of Mountain Dew Game Fuel. All of that effort must have worked, since Halo 3 became the best selling game of 2007 and made $170 million just on release day.

The Xbox 360's improved hardware allowed Bungie to drastically improve graphics and increase the scale of maps and encounters. Like in Halo 2, they were able to add new weapons, vehicles, and game mechanics that fit the existing formula and managed to keep that Halo "feel". Halo 3 also saw the debut of some other very impressive features. A theatre mode that allowed the player to go back and watch previously played campaign levels or multiplayer games, and dynamically change camera angles and record clips or screenshots (this is how I created my thumbnails for this game). The most important addition was Forge mode, an editor that allowed players to create their own maps and gametypes. People were very creative, creating race tracks, jumping puzzles, escape rooms, and all sorts of other fun gimmicks. Halo 3 is a game that largely met its high expectations, and even found new ways to keep myself and many others coming back for more.


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00 - Separate Paths
01 - Sierra 117
02 - Crow's Nest
03 - Tsavo Highway
04 - The Storm
05 - Floodgate
06 - The Ark (Part 1)
07 - The Ark (Part 2)
08 - The Covenant (Part 1)
09 - The Covenant (Part 2)
10 - Cortana
11 - Halo
XX - Bonus Content

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Announce Trailer
Starry Night Trailer
Believe Diorama
Halo: Landfall
Last edited by FrenzyTheKillbot on Thu Aug 11, 2022 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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00 - Separate Paths

One last thing before we get into the game for real. This is a short video to explain what all of our main characters got up to in between games.

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01 - Sierra 117

After a short "rest", the Chief is back to defending Earth from the Covenant invasion.

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02 - Crow's Nest

With the return of the Chief, the Covenant goes hard on the offensive.

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03 - Tsavo Highway

Time to return the favor, as the Chief takes a road trip to bring the fight to the Covenant.

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04 - The Storm

The UNSC strikes back, as the Chief clears the path for an attack on Truth's Dreadnought.

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05 - Floodgate

As if we didn't have enough to deal with, now the Flood have joined the party in the Battle for Earth.

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06 - The Ark (Part 1)

We follow the Covenant through the portal, and what we find isn't quite what we expected.

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07 - The Ark (Part 2)

The Human forces continue their push towards the Ark's Cartographer.

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08 - The Covenant (Part 1)

The UNSC and the Elites stage a joint operation to bring down the defenses around Truth's stronghold.

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09 - The Covenant (Part 2)

The Master Chief leads the assault on the Citadel to stop Truth from activating the rings.

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10 - Cortana

We've put this off for too long. It's time to rescue Cortana from the Gravemind's clutches.

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11 - Halo

It's finally time to finish this fight.

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XX - Bonus Content

A round-up of some secrets and easter eggs in Halo 3.

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Halo 3: ODST, released in September 2009, is the first real "departure" from the main Halo formula. While still developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, this is the first Halo game that does not have the Master Chief as its protagonist, and also [spoiler alert] doesn't involve any Halos. We play as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) known only as The Rookie, separated from his squad during the Covenant invasion of Earth. We must wander the eerily quiet, occupied city of New Mombasa and try to figure out what happened to the rest of the squad, and the top-secret mission they were supposed to be carrying out. A much more grounded and atmospheric experience than previous Halo games, Halo 3: ODST actually channels a film noir detective story vibe which works really, really well.

The other major difference from previous Halo games is the lack of a PvP multiplayer. Halo 3: ODST actually shipped with a separate disk that contained Halo 3's multiplayer instead, as well as all of the DLC maps up to that date. That being said, it introduced a new co-operative PvE multiplayer called Firefight. Firefight is a wave defense mode where players must fight against increasingly difficult waves of enemies with a limited number of lives shared between the entire team. The goal of this mode is to survive for as long as possible while racking up high scores using kill streaks, special kills, and difficulty modifiers.

As the titling would suggest, Halo 3: ODST (previously titled Halo 3: Recon) was originally planned as sort of an expansion pack. It was intended to be a smaller project to fill the time before the next major Halo release, but they ended up with enough content that Microsoft insisted on selling it as a stand-alone, full-price game.


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01 - Prepare to Drop
02 - Tayari Plaza
03 - Uplift Reserve
04 - Kizingo Boulevard
XX - Norvinsk Region (April Fools)
05 - ONI Alpha Site
06 - NMPD HQ
07 - Kikowani Station
08 - Data Hive
XX - Sadie's Story (Audio Logs)
09 - Coastal Highway
XX - Bonus Content

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'Keep It Clean' Trailer
'The Life' Trailer
Last edited by FrenzyTheKillbot on Fri Aug 12, 2022 9:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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01 - Prepare to Drop

The Covenant have attacked Earth and occupied the city of New Mombasa. It's time to drop feet first into hell to stop them!

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02 - Tayari Plaza

A drop gone wrong and a city under attack. First things first, save the girl.

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03 - Uplift Reserve

Scattered marines take a scenic tour through an unlikely battlefield.

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04 - Kizingo Boulevard

A high-explosive, heavily-armoured rampage through the heart of the city.

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XX - Norvinsk Region (April Fools)

The Rookie takes a detour through a mostly abandoned military base.

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05 - ONI Alpha Site

The Covenant really wants this building (and its secrets), but we aren't going to let them have it.

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06 - NMPD HQ

A rendezvous gone wrong. No plan survives contact with the enemy.

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07 - Kikowani Station

Everything has gone to hell. Time to get out of the city.

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08 - Data Hive

The mission is still on. Searching for secrets hidden beneath the city.

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XX - Sadie's Story (Audio Logs)

The hidden story behind the story.

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09 - Coastal Highway

The city is lost, but Vergil has been found. The only thing left to do is make a dramatic exit.

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XX - Bonus Content

A handful of extra stuff that I wasn't able to show in the main LP.

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