Weekly Uploads #5

This "week's" vids took so long as I was fighting The Warden Eternal and gave myself a stress hernia.

1. If a tree falls in the Battlefield does anyone stop to fix the engine?

2. AI using next level trolling tactics. (Credit: CapnLeigh)

3. No hunters; no problem. (as of 9/11/15 this bug still works)

4. Ah the classic Elite-Hijack-and-Smack 1-2 combo.

5. I wasn't very good at this game.

6. I will hurt you for this. A day will come when you think you are safe and happy, and your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth,

Thanks for watching.

-Norris

Halo 5 - And see how our faith has been rewarded

Halo 5 has been out for just over a week now so it’s time to share some thoughts. What I think will strike fans first is how much 343 has brought the series into the modern era of shooters. Chiefly (pun intended) is how aiming down sights has been mapped to the left trigger which for eons has been the home of the grenade. Clicking right thumb stick to bring up your sights is a thing of past and brings Halo in line with more common controller layouts for FPSs. Whilst initially jarring it does make sense. Clicking right thumb stick has always required grace and a steady appendage which in the heat of the moment can be difficult. Countless times have I depressed the thumb stick when I did not mean to and although it was a defining feature of Halo it is a good decision. With infinite sprint and boosters also being standard issue the movement of Halo 5 is also slicker and faster. They’ve also nabbed that handy slide manoeuvre from Destiny. Dare I say it but Spartans actually feel like Spartans now; fast, agile and powerful.

This makes multiplayer a different kettle of fish entirely and 343 have made efforts to distinguish Halo 5 even further through the game types. Depending on your preference the modes are nicely grouped up and locked down in veto-free servers. Arena caters for the E-Sport types whilst Warzone appeals to the BTB fans. I’m split between both which surprises me; I thought I’d be a Warzone purist. Arena offers some of the most satisfying payoffs for winning just a single round of the Tron-meets-paintball style maps. And when you’re bored of being dominated by other teams you can relieve the stress by trouncing AIs in Warzone. The contentious REQ system works well I think; packs are easy to come by as points are doled out consistently for all types of gameplay and the REQ level stops players from simply paying for the best gear and benefiting immediately.

The campaign is a different story though. I enjoyed it as I have enjoyed all Halo campaigns but I was not blown away. Locke and Osiris dominate most of the play-time which is fine in a post ODST / Reach world where we don’t NEED to play as the Chief to have a good time. However, chasing Blue Team and the Guardians just does not fill me with the same sense of discovery and lend itself to moments of mysticism as being Chief on a Halo ring. Perhaps this is where a division appears in the fans though. 343 is clearly moving in a new direction for Halo and are fleshing out the universe nicely but we’re left with a campaign that mentions the Halos maybe twice in a game called HALO 5. I don’t mean I want a physical Halo to justify the title but that there should have been a greater connection to the core concept. In defence of 343 though; like Halo 2, Halo 5 is the middle piece of a trilogy and for me Halo 5 has set up a game I cannot wait to play. Maybe the true pay-off is yet to come. Much like the Godfather 2 for the original Halo 5 has also made Halo 4 and its story better. If Halo 6 gives anything like the satisfaction of Halo 3 I will be giving 343 a well-earned pat on the back.

There are a few more larger points of debate but I will leave them for a second post when I have uploaded some of my capture footage. For now, here a couple bullets to end on:

• The cut-scenes need a serious overhaul. On the major end of things I don’t think there are any that even come close to the “giving the Covenant back their bomb” scene from Halo 2. On the minor end each scene ends in a piss-poor “fade to black” transition which is either inappropriate, lazy or both.

• At longer distances some of the character animations lose a serious amount frames and seems blocky and mechanical. This is particularly true of the Crawlers who frequently stutter around the maps.

• Spartan Charge in multiplayer does not promote good, tactical play and rewards players who sprint around constantly.

Thanks for reading.

-Norris

EDIT: 5/11/15. So it seems I spoke too soon. Having been stuck trying to beat Legendary Solo because of THAT Warden fight I had not yet seen the Legendary ending when I wrote this post. So now with so much egg on my face I take back what I said about the Halos. Bravo 343. You redeemed yourself at the literal last possible moment.

Spectre: Not the Ghost at the Feast

Watch the film before reading this if you care about spoilers.

So it turns out if you go to a premiere there are no adverts before the film. If you take nothing else away from this post at least you have that useful knowledge. Therefore, if you have serious disagreement with anything you read here it’s because I missed the first four minutes of the film which would have changed my opinion to align with yours if I’d seen them.

Let’s get it out of the way then; Spectre is a good film and, more importantly, it is a good Bond film. I feel this distinction needs to be made for a few franchises. For instance, Iron Man 2 is not a good film but it is a good Avengers film. Spectre lays to rest a question that has been hanging over the reboot; are they just rolling the dice and having on/off luck or does someone really know what they are doing behind it all? With Spectre in the mix we’re up to 75% good films.

Now admittedly, everyone has their own opinion of what makes a good Bond film and it boils down to what is the essence of Bond for them. In broad terms I find the division to be along the lines of:

Gadgets: Sci-fi and Deus ex Machina vs Minimal and practical

Cheesy one-liners: Prolific and not funny vs Occasional, mild and self-aware

Extravagant villain: Lives in a volcano/space or has a diamond face vs mildly psychotic with additional flair

(I fear my bias may have slipped in there)

Spectre for me plays the lines nicely. His watch is a gadget but it doesn’t have a laser or a grappling hook; it’s a bomb. The dialogue is genuinely funny (Bond interrogating the rat) and the plot is straightforward (depending on how deeply you look at the cuckoo thing). The villain is odd and pays tasteful homage to the canon (actually maybe the cat was too much). The pacing was also spot-on and does not make the film’s length felt. Although the action may not have been jaw-dropping or even scored by the classic Bond fanfare it felt grounded and real which added tension and grit. Perhaps the highlight of this is the henchman fight on the train. Mr Hinx dominates and throws 007 around with ease. His raw strength and power poses a genuine threat to an aging Bond and it is only with Madeline’s intervention that James escapes.

Of course I do have some minor observations. As I mentioned in my first post about Spectre (http://oldsirnorris.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/inspectre-gadget-lets-hope-not.html) any attempts to retro-actively crowbar in an overarching puppeteer organisation is going to go poorly. The three films are self-encompassing and standalone albeit with carry overs (e.g. Vespyr). There is no suggestion of an as-wide a picture as Spectre suggests in any of them which makes Blofeld’s revelation somewhat difficult to swallow. What’s more the only justification for this is a gallery of pictures of characters in the basement of MI6. It does not detract from the overall experience but in age where post-credit scene Marvel films are an accepted method for linking films together it seems just a bit more fore-planning and effort could have made the overall package that more rewarding.

Bond’s torture by Blofeld is sickeningly visceral. One poor lady left the auditorium in our viewing. If you felt uncomfortable watching Bond’s Double Ohs getting smashed at the end of Casino Royale then this will likely make you writhe in your seat like I did. However, I’m fairly sure Blofeld mentions the operation would affect James’ vision, hearing and balance and yet during the escape Bond displays superb marksmanship and coordination. Again, the second intrusion into Bond’s skull should have influenced his recognition skills as planned but it just… doesn’t… without any real explanation as to why. Well… they DO “explain” it which brings me to:

Piss-poor romance. Bond gets the girl. We all know that. It’s a staple of the franchise that 007 beds at least a handful of women per film. Must we suffer through a LOVE story though? She LOVES him. Really? I know the screen writers need to be mindful of an “out” for Craig’s Bond but the rapid change in Swan’s attachment to James is difficult to contend with.

Some other tertiary thoughts to wrap up on:

·         I loved seeing M doing spymastery spy things. It refreshes the character following Judy Dench's departure.

·         “It’s like poetry; they rhyme”: from hollowed crater vs hollowed volcano to M sitting in the dark office v 007 sitting in the dark office there is a lot of self-referencing in this film and if there’s one thing I love it’s a good reference.

·         We’ve “killed” the henchman (Quotation marks because he didn’t die ON SCREEN so…) “What should we do now?”… sex? My eyes almost rolled out of their sockets.

Thanks for reading.

-Norris