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[2004-11-15]

Halo2: More Of The Same, with sloppier controls.


Halo was always more of the same. I mean, it's an FPS. It's an FPS with
the first ever non-shit FPS interface on a joypad, but it's still an
FPS. It has aliens that you shoot. Surprised me in that, without a mouse,
I didn't find playing it an actively painful experience. I'd recommend it
to anyone who's not played it, but be aware that it's just high-quality,
more of the same.


I felt the story left a fair bit to be desired in Halo. Not dissimilar
in depth & quality to Quake3's story.

Spoiler warning: If you don't know this shit by now, you may as well
just read what I have to say.

Halo's story, slightly expanded:
There's a big round thing. You find it, it has aliens on it. Turns out
it was only actually made to hold some other aliens in check.

Pretty much everyone involved in this exercise hates or attacks everyone
else. You blow up the big round thing.

Watch for Bungie's standard plot tricks, including a computer with a
personality disorder.


Now that Halo2 is out, I'm playing this one through, co-op with the
girlfriend [again]. The story's non-trivial, which is great.

When you creep up on someone and *BAM, MOTHERFUCKER* the back of their
head, the skin textures look much better than before, although from a
distance I don't notice much. The aliens are campers, get used to it.


Thing is, the controls feel a lot sloppier.
In order to do the dual-wielding trick, you actually have to hold down
a button for a while.
To switch weapons, it's not just hit-the-button, it's
hold-the-button-for-an-instant.
That's prohibitive when 8 guys are jumping on you. This is obviously on
purpose, I just don't like it.

Anyways. While I'm very much enjoying Halo2, it's mostly More Of The Same.


*BAM, MOTHERFUCKER*. You liked that, didn't you, you camping fuck.


[2004-11-04]

Note that date.

Today, someone arrived at work with a Starbucks cup... With Christmas
branding on it.


This year's "christmas-comes-too-fucking-early, and-earlier-every-year"
entry comes to you three days sooner than last year's did.

Statistical anomaly? Let's find out next year.