The Gamer's Quarter

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

lestarde what happened to posting the ilovebees stuff somewhere
_________________

Lestrade · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 6:13 am Post subject:

What's the best way to host a large Zip file?

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

a website like sendspace will let us grab it easily, but it won't be up forever. which sholdn't be a problem i guess?
_________________

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

I logged on to see what you guys were saying about this, but I guess you're all busy playing it Sad

Lestrade · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject:

Okay, Cycle, I'll try to get this up sometime tonight. I'll include digital album artwork. This way I don't have to pay for the packaging and shipping of a bunch of discs.

I might jump in on some multiplayer tonight, but I imagine most of my time will be spent in the campaign.

boojiboy7 · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 1:28 pm Post subject:

I will be jumping in on this whenever my copy shows up in the mail, which will probably be tomorrow. So yes!

Intentionally Wrong · Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:13 pm Post subject:

Slonie · . Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 141

Lestrade · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 5:52 am Post subject:

Cross-posted from SB:

Lestrade · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:29 am Post subject:

i love bees!

Okay, I've uploaded the entire ilovebees saga. Included with the MP3 files is digital and for-print artwork. The tracks are all tagged so you'll see the cover artwork in your music software. You can print out the for-print files to recreate the same CD set that I have. (use a maroon CD jewel case for best results!)

The files are completely organized, so pop them in your favourite software, press play, and get ready for two hours of fucking awesome radio drama.

I used Sendspace, so this link is temporary. Download all 157 MB here!

dmauro · . Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn

Hey, anyone that is playing Halo 3 should send me a friend request, xbl username dmauro.

kuzdu · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 9:07 am Post subject:

I've mostly been playing through campaign, but I played a few multiplayer games last night as well and was having terrible issues. It actually said that there were only ~250 people playing Team Objective! I guess the campaign is more popular than I thought.

Lestrade · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 4:21 pm Post subject:

Intentionally Wrong · Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 8:39 pm Post subject:

Somewhere between chapter 2 and 4, you're cruising along a busted-up highway in New Mombasa, and you come over a rise to find another section of highway largely in control of the Covenant. Brutes with jetpacks are soaring around in the distance, Banshees fly by overhead, and somewhere a brute with a fuel rod gun is blasting green plasma at some entrenched marines. A more skillful player would have charged right in, taking advantage of cover and incrementally superior weapons; I dorked around on a distant hill with a couple rifles. Twenty minutes later, I managed to get into a brute chopper and rammed everything I could.

I spent two hours last night with my record of that playthrough in the replay theater. Freezing the action, spinning the camera, switching over to free camera and zooming over to watch the grunts scrambling away from my sniper fire, and then a quick hop to the bunker where a pair of soldiers are ducking from the frequent explosions from that fuel rod gun--one of them tried to reposition at the wrong time and got hit, while I was disappointed to learn the other one fell from a grenade I'd tossed at a bunch of grunts. The brute chopper sequence was the real highlight, with a lot of great moments that I caught in screenshots.

As soon as someone finds an easy way to send static videoclips from the game to a computer, Halo 3 is going to be all over Youtube.

Lestrade · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 5:39 am Post subject:

I actually beat the game last night. Holy short play-time, Batman! I also completely forgot about any screenshot- or video-taking abilities, which is too bad. I did some pretty cool stuff in some encounters.

Granted, knowing that I can save films of the game means I probably will go back and do it all over again.

Also, I started listening to ILB after uploading it yesterday and man, it's still incredible. I'm at home sick today, so I will probably listen to some more.

EDIT: Dess! You'll be happy to know that in Halo 3 I found Marathon-style terminals that provided me with interesting (and confounding) back story.

Intentionally Wrong · Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 8:39 am Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

dmauro · . Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn

The terminal I found reminded me a lot of I Love Bees actually...

They are these terminals that are sort of hidden or just a bit out of the way and you access them and break into the computer and access some text conversations between two entities (AI?).

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Oh God, I'm going to have to get the game just for that.

Does the entire campaign take place on Earth? How shit is the voice-acting and how forgettable are the characters? Considering how poorly a story-telling job Halo 2 did, all I would like to see is Master Chief being a mass-murderer of ungodly proportions and leave the rest of the cast in the backdrop, because who cares for Whedon Lite rip-offs, honestly?
_________________
"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dmauro · . Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

I always found that the Earth missions were the most memorable part of Halo 2, actually. They didn't come off as repetitive as the rest did. But all the same, cool.

I can't help but feel, seeing all these cutscenes, and skipping them as I did in the previous games, that the stunts of pure bad-assery the Chief pulled off would be far, far more effective if the player did them, much like Half-Life 2 does. Imagine if instead of watching a dull shot of space, you, the player, had to navigate a Covenant bomb into one of its own battleships, all the while a space battle going off around you.

But if it reminds people more of the first game than the second, then that's great.
_________________
"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

dmauro · . Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn

Slonie · . Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 141

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

To be honest, I'm glad it's all in cut-scenes. It would make the game loose it's focus! Half-Life 2 really takes the game in a different direction and I'm glad Halo 3 steered clear of it. Extralife said that Half-Life 2 has no cut-scenes for a reason. My response was going to be, Halo HAS cut-scenes for a reason, but then decided to stay out of the arguement.

Those dive segments in MDK were totally awesome, though. Can't believe there was only one in the sequel!

SPOILERS

And YES, terminals are back! Which are more interesting than the main story so far! They look very classy, but it's also a bit weird! When you first log on to them, you see some text which I suspect may be Covenent communications, but before you can read it all, it's hi-jacked and you're taking to the conversations between the two entities. The dialouge is a bit cheesy, unfortunately, but it's all very interesting and I look forward to see where they go! The last one I read was a rather aggresive message which sounded very... similar to the kind of things a certain AI once said, and at the end of the message it confirmed that the AI in question is indeed RAMPANT. Also, the chapter I just started is called RAMPANCY but I guess that's referring to someone else. But yeah, terminals! Alright! Woo!

Also you get an achievement called MARATHON MAN for finding all the terminals (they are hidden in rather obvious places).

END SPOILERS

The game isn't as elegant as the original game, but it's very close. The first level is kinda meh, but once you finally get outside, BAM, it's awesomeville. The story is indeed very minimal which kinda bugger me at first but I think I'm starting to prefer it. I liked the Arbiters story, though, and kinda pissed that he's just forgotten about. OH WELL.
_________________

Slonie · . Joined: 28 Nov 2006 Posts: 141

I just it "the silent cartographer TWO" and I'm loving this campaign hard. Even though I am dying a lot (on Heroic).

These people that are cruising through the game in no time flat are either playing on Normal, or they just possess vidmaster skills greater than mine. Plus I just found my first terminal.
_________________
-Slonie

Lestrade · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:50 am Post subject:

Yeah, I realised when I first beat the game I missed half the ending; stupid me. I went back and beat it again and yeah—the ending is perfect. The Legendary ending (via YouTube) is fascinating too.

I discovered Theatre mode while sick at home yesterday—and how. Now I can't stop monkeying around in it. It's genius. I've got some nice shots on my Bungie.net profile, but here's my favourite:

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Hey guys, the main campaign is fairly boring. The story is about as unforgetable as it can be. (considering I finished four main chapters last night in one sitting and I really don't know what's going on at all).

Unfortunately I didn't play Halo 2 and probably never, ever, will. The game isn't courteous enough to give you any kind of back-story/explanation-of-what's-going-on at all. Good job Microsoft! Good show Bungie.

Also, team slayer is a fucking mess. If you play this in ranked matches online you have no control over either the level or the weapons. about 90% of the time the game will throw you into a Sniper/Shotty match. I have no problem with the shotty part, but the snipers are bullshit in this game. Well, ok, everything's fucking bullshit in online. It's exceptionally frustrating. I'm debating on going back to Shadowrun because of this shit.
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Lestrade · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:18 pm Post subject:

Wow, we are obviously having completely different experiences with this game.

SuperWes · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:42 pm Post subject:

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

He was.

Yeah, Slayer is fucking terrible. Seriously, it really damaged my opinion of this game. I've gone back to SOCIAL SKIRMISH and BIG TEAM BATTLES which are much more enjoyable, especially when I was playing with thatbox and boojiboy since we acted as a team and kicked as thusly. Also, yeah, the story is pretty weak unfortunately, but the level design is top notch apart from RAMPANT which sucked.
_________________

Lestrade · Posted: Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:20 pm Post subject:

I've actually quite enjoyed Slayer so far. I've actually done not-bad at it so far, which is pleasant.

purplechair · . Joined: 28 Mar 2005 Posts: 378 Location: in my pants

I think Halo 3 is pretty excellent, and I didn't really like either of the first two games all that much. With all the customisation options and stuff, and how user-friendly Theatre mode is, people are going to be making/playing/watching/talking about this game for a billion years to come.

I mean, the campaign story is terrible, but playing it is pretty nice. I can't wait to do four-player co-op with Free For All scoring on and have a turkey-shoot high score battle with my friends.

boojiboy7 · Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject:

I actually like the story a ton.

But oh god, playing it is amazing. I actually enjoy using team scoring, just because we all work together then to keep it going. 4 player Legendary is such a thing of beauty.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Lestrade · Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject:

I just had a revelation after spending a few hours—yeah, seriously—poring over the transcripts from all the "Marathon" terminals and what they may mean, etc. I also spent a lot of this time going through the Halopedia.

Thing is, I fucking LOVE this kind of shit: the huge, HUGE storyline and all its myriad forms. After going through everything, what I realised is this: Halo may have earned its money catering to drunken frat boys and Xbox Live subscribers, but at its heart, buried well beneath the blam-blam-shoot-shoot facade is the same nerdtastic, secluded, epic-biblical-story-loving geeks who created Marathon for a fairly small pool of fans back in the 90's.

Once you go over all of this (the books, quickie online comic and ARGs help), you realise how rich and interesting and—well, thrilling the Halo universe is. Ilovebees is what sold me, but the ARG for Halo 3 (I missed it entirely) plus all these terminals and auxiliary bits of story—they really seal the deal.

Halo 3 alone; I can't believe how much stuff is in there, that 90% of the game's let's-go-online-and-shoot-me-some-gay-faggot-niggers demographic will never even notice. I suspect that had they not fucked up the production schedule for Halo 2 so much, Bungie would have made that game as rich in hidden canon as this.

"Love, Bungie," indeed!

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

dessgeega · Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 6:12 pm Post subject:

bungie, i want to believe, but your fans these days scare me.

give me marathon infinity on live arcade and we will be cool.
_________________

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

SuperWes · Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject:

Big ass helmet!

-Wes
_________________

dmauro · . Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn

For anyone that wants that Hammer Joust variant I made, I've got it up on my file share now. I also put up a quick ten second or so clip if you're not familiar with it. Or here's a picture of me and my roommate knocking Isfet right off his goose:

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

I like how the other green guy is just looking back, like "oh shi..."

I was meant to go through that three way we had too see if I could get a good pic of that time all three of us were heading straight for each other from different directions. The movie is probably gone now.
_________________

Lestrade · Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:20 am Post subject:

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Yeah, it's the cross-media backstory and world-building which has me interested in this game's plot, and it does seem almost purposeful, maybe even cynical, that it's hidden beneath a truly shit main story and forgettable characters.
_________________
"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

kirkjerk · . Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1227

I barely started 3 yet.

Thinking way back to 2., after reading the insruction manual to 3, I remember how much Gravemind reminded me of Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.

Although new to me, this is probably not a very original observation.
_________________
=/ \(<D)_/
==/\/ >_ kirkjerk.com

Lestrade · Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:14 am Post subject:

Yeah, that's become something of a pet name for it. You'll be happy to know the Gravemind has no such appreciable presence in Halo 3. What you see is much, much more sinister and interesting.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

This game really lost me on being "intelegently written" when one of the <s>space</s> marines in my Warthog said "Whoo, Ghost Ride The WHIP! Whoo." Or something like that.

I agree with Dracko on this: the world building and though put into the story is amazing, but the in-game execution of such is just forgettable.

Anyways, the game is good at being a entry to FPS games. It’s working very well as a gateway drug for my wife because of the amount of advertising they put into the game. Like, my wife was hooked on Bioshock because of the early video of the Big Daddy fight. But Halo has always been this beast that she never saw the attraction to. A long time ago I tried to play Halo 1 with her Co-Op but that was before she’d played some FPS style controlled games. Following up from Bioshock it’s not a huge stretch for her to begin playing Halo 3.

The best part is that she really enjoys it! Not the story (which she has laughed at many times, but the little enemy guys with the high voices have grown on her), but more the straight forward shooting gallery aspect of it. She gets the empowerment feeling from the game and really digs melee attacking some foo’s.

Anyways, on Saturday she had a friend over and was like “we should play Halo 3 together!” and I was so shocked that I gave over the TV for about 5 hours total for them to play. They only played on Normal (even though her and I are playing on Heroic) but they made it through the section past picking up Cortana after the Flood. It was fun to see them being able to enjoy something that complex (FPS games are probably the most complex game that you can play with a controller).

So, yeah, next step is getting my wife to play Shadowrun!
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Harveyjames · the meteor kid Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636

dessgeega · Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 3:11 pm Post subject:

i have a hard time considering halo's story to be intelligent because i can't help comparing it to marathon's.
_________________

Dracko · . Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613

Marathon pulled a similar stunt, honestly: Straight-forward space opera action set-up belies a fascinating, and eventually post-modern, tale of warring post-human psychologies and philosophies.

Both could be admired in their own way, is the point. Halo is just far less obvious about it, and does require some understanding of the ARGs and such to get the full picture. And I do think it is mainly a question of making quick monies without fearing alienating all that many people.
_________________
"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Interestingly enough, Legendary changes some of the lines in the game. Some of the lines are actually pretty amusing. One of the skulls also makes the dialouge even more entertaining, such as the grunts singing WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS when they kill you.

The terminals also have more pages if you play on Legendary, and completely changes the text on one of them (from lame to actually pretty cool).

Only one level to go on Legendary. I'm doing it myself, not like you other pussies. None of you should have gotten the achievement for it on co-op, what a load of bull.
_________________