The arrival of Halo 2
Well, it's official, my academic career has once again been hijacked by a video game. This past weekend was my first foray into the realm of Halo 2, and I have to say, I'm once again plagued by mixed reactions. I found out that you can actually link more than one XBOX without using a router, either by a crossover ethernet cable or an ethernet hub
( Read more... )
i do think that the sword is overpowered in multiplayer (with it having unlimited energy) but there are numerous weapon sets that don't have the sword in them. also i've found that if the timing is right you can dodge the lunge attack simply by jumping. i'm not saying its easy, nor am i saying that i can consistantly do it but it can be done. in anycase we should rock a "all swords" battle in richmond, i bet that be crazy as shit.
as far as the weapons go i think bungie did some things right and they did some things wrong. dual smgs suck, its much more effective to carry a plasma pistol in one hand and a smg in the other. a fully charged up shot from the plasma pistol can completly disable any players sheild. follow that up with some smg fire and it'll kill everytime. the brute shot is not like a conventional grenade launcher in that the grenades don't bounce, they pretty much explode on contact. i think of it as a weaker rocket launcher without the lock on capability. the needler *sigh* i don't know how i feel about the needler. they said it dosen't suck anymore but i think it still sucks, just less. if you can get at least 8 needles into someone they'll explode with as much force as a grenade but if you get 7 in and the last one misses, it just takes away the shield. you can't put four in and then miss and then put four more in either because the original needles will explode before the rest get in and make it less effective. there is no good all around assault weapon in my opinion. the battle rifle only fires in 3 shot bursts and the covanant carbine is a single shot weapon. i miss the old assault rifle. i also wish that you could use the iron sights on the weapons that don't have zoom features.
but yeah, i'm gonna go run some tests on it now. i'd love to talk more about this in perhaps...a ride down to richmond? let me know if you need a lift.
Reply
You can, feasibly, kill someone in a tank with two rockets. The key word here is someone. The first rocket will take their shield, the second will kill them. But in a real match against someone of any skill whatsoever, especially split screen, you will be dead if you stay in view long enough to loose that second rocket. And since shields regenerate faster it's extremely hard to finish them before the their shield comes back.
The match that prompted me to run this test was a split screen slayer match on coagulation. Once he got in the tank all I could do was zip away in a ghost, hit him with a homing rocket, retreat to another firing position, rinse and repeat. I got so frustrated that after hitting him over and over, that fucker was still rolling. I can't tell you how many times he killed me.
But yeah, two direct hits will kill the driver, but it takes eight to drop the tank itself.
About the sword, I think you hit the nail on the head. If it had ammo like in the campaign, one person could only kill about 10 people before he had to give that cheese up, but the way it stands it is very unbalanced. If you say you can jump and dodge lunges, you just haven't played against anyone of any real skill yet. In our 8 player free for all, there was one guy who ever since he got the game has focused on using nothing but the sword and grenades. I got second place with 22 kills that game, he had 50.
He'll jump into the air and then lunge down at you, or if you jump he'll just look up and pick you out of the air. Out of around 8 hours of playing with this fucker, I never saw him miss with it, not even once.
I usually use dual smg's because the guys I play with like to throw grenades at the start of a fight, so I just rush them and mow them down. I've used a plasma/smg combo though, and I agree it's badass, but I just haven't gotten used to the timing of charging with the left trigger, then holding the right trigger, then tapping the left. I just get confused.
And brute shot grenades do bounce, they only go off on contact if they hit an enemy. My problem with them is that they are weak as hell, it takes something like 8 of the fuckers to bring down a banshee, the weakest vehicle in the game. It only holds four shots in a clip, the reload time is awful, it has no zoom fire, and the "underslung blade" is a joke.
The needler is bad, true, but it does have limited capabilities. On a big game, where others can't see your screen, it's fun to loose a double torrent of needle death and pincushion someone from like 100 yards away while they have their back turned. Lots of people like manning turrets and having a couple people stand near them with snipers or rockets for support. Putting 40 needles in the turret man will put an end to all fo them. But other than that, it sucks balls.
The battle rifle has limited capabilities for mid range fire fights, and 3-round burst keeps it from being innaccurate as hell from recoil. If it had a selector switch for full auto though, it would be bad ass. The carbine is actually decent, but since they made head shots not mean shit until the shield is down, it's not as deadly as, say, the pistol was in Halo.
That's a cool idea about the iron sights. Really fuckin' cool actually.
I don't need a ride, because both me and my friend Robert are coming up, and he's going to drive us up there. I'm probably not going to stay as long as you are, so it will work out better this way I think.
Also, since I now have an ethernet hub, we don't have to rock it out at your house if you don't want, but I think you still havethe most big TVs. But I have a mobile network, so we could set it up anywhere really.
Give me some feedback and let me know what you wanna do.
Peace,
-Keen-
Reply
yeah i'm a big fan of the jump kills with the plasma sword, i just wasn't thinking of that when i typed it up. also in another multilpayer test i did i charged at a guy with the sword but i made the guy move to the side. it completly missed and left the sword carried open to attack. its still hard as hell to do though in a real game. DAMN IT I WILL FIND A COUNTER FOR THE ENERGY SWORD!
brute shots are pretty gay they only bounce from a certian range. i.e. if you look down on the ground and fire one it will bounce but if you shoot it at a building thats 10 feet away it will explode on contact.
i'm gonna talk to the rents on wednesday to see about rocking my house. you should still bring your hub down though so we can hook up even more xboxes. also a tv wouldn't hurt.
on a side note:
i created a game called awesomeball. i tried to do it with oddball but i couldn't get it how i liked, instead i used assault. basically theres one bomb in the level that either team can pick up. its 5 minutes long (i haven't decided how long i actually should make it) and the object is to get the bomb to the enemies base as many times as you can within the 5 minutes. the bomb is set to do "massive" melee damage when you hit someone with it. also, the bomb carrier has damage resistance. the only weapons are swords and grenades (but thats not carved in stone yet either) to make it more frantic. if you want hook up a game with those rules and tell me how it work out.
Reply
Dodging the energy sword is an exercise in futility against a skilled player, trust me, I know this all too well. The only counter I've found is a quick head shot with a sniper weapon (extremely hard against a zig-zagger), or to stick them with a plasma on their way in. With the grenade option you'll still die, but at least their reign of terror will be interrupted.
I don't have a TV, at least, not one bigger than 17", and I don't think that will do us any good. My hub has 6 ports and I have two 25" ethernet cables, so now our only limitation is XBOXs, TVs, and people. I'd really love to rock a 16 player blood fest, but finding that many players will be a stretch.
Also, I may get a live headset for easier commo with my team mates, does anyone else have one? The headset alone isn't that expensive, we should rock them.
Awesomball sounds fun as shit. Assault is one of the few game types I haven't messed with yet.
-Keen-
Reply
can you use live headsets with a lan? i thought it was just for xbox live.
oh yeah also in awesomeball the bomb carrier can't pilot vehicals but he can ride in them.
Reply
Leave a comment