- Avalon Drew
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- Absent Member
Posted by: x Foman123 x
Posted by: shastaa
dude ur retarted...its been pushed back enough to be at 2007 so thats that hah.You spelled retarded wrong.
The group arrives at the Sergeant's location, and is ready to kick some ass when suddenly the situation becomes all too clear. Dozens and dozens of characters roam the canyon below, with a marine encampment up and to the left of the highway, completely surrounded by four or five Brute packs. To the right, there's a massive structure of some sort which gives a good overview of the entire area. Frankie and Luke begin working their way toward this large structure (kind of like a retaining wall, now that I think about it) and pick off Brutes antagonizing the marines on their way. There's tons of fire raining down upon the poor blokes, with no less than four or five fuel rods in the air at time, in addition to the obligatory hailstorm of spikes, Brute Shots, and Plasma/Spike grenades. There were so many marines it was hard to take a good count, but I'm going to guess around 20 of them were entrenched, lobbing grenades and desperately spraying AR and BR fire into the crowd of attackers. Luke tore off in a different direction than Frank. He must've been throwing himself into the crowds of enemies, because I noticed he was respawning a lot. Pretty humorous, really. Frank moved up onto the large wall structure (on which we met the rather depressing and bloody scene of what was obviously the scene of a massacre, with dead marines everywhere) and picked up a sniper rifle, sliding in a new clip into place (with that oh-so-awesome clinking sound). Before he began picking off the Brutes, who had since turned their attention away from the marines and toward this new, larger threat, we could clearly observe the way that equipment really changes up the campaign. There were at least four bubble shields deployed, a couple of flares going off, and I thought I saw a power drainer or two in action. Mind you, this is all at the same time Anyway, back to our Brute friends. They began advancing in droves, as Frank tried to pick as many off as he could. He's hilariously bad with the sniper, actually. After pissing a few off, a gaggle of Rangers took to the skies, flying through the air and returning fire on Frank, who missed every single shot aimed toward the flying foes. The crowd found this pretty amusing. Anyway, the Brutes landed opposite of the marine encampment at the far end of the canyon, where the road winded off to the next area. Luke was nearby and engaged the Brutes as they tried to cope with the two targets. One of the Rangers spooked and took off, he didn't get far though, as Frankie finally landed a headshot, knocking the sucker out of the sky. The crowd cheered him on as he moved in to regroup with the marines. There were about a dozen or so left alive. After a short breather, Miranda tells the group that Pelicans with heavy weapons are on their way and they should hold tight while they wait. BAD CHOICE. Literally moments afterword three or four Phantoms come swooping in from the horizon, and begin raining death down on the poor bastards stuck below. Frankie and Luke quickly take cover, heading for some weapons stashed nearby. Of all the things in world, Luke DUAL WIELDS PLASMA WEAPONS as Frank gets on a nearby turret. The Phantom's extremely powerful turrets once again become a factor here as Frankie quickly has his shields knocked down, and he yanks the turret off, trying his damnedest to scramble deeper into the bunker to seek cover. After the Phantom is done dropping it's troops off, Frankie heads out of the bunker and engages the enemy forces in earnest. Wave after wave, they approach, quickly running Frank out of ammo and pushing the marines and Team Heroes back. Frank's shields drop again, as Luke drops a Bubble Shield. After recuperating his shields, Frankie tries to remove himself from the battle and instead finds himself in the middle of a Brute pack, staring face-to-face with a Chieftain. It didn't take long for him to high-tail it out of there, grabbing and tossing a trip mine into the midst of another pack of Brutes, and running off, his shields being cut through like butter once again. He doesn't make it far, and is made short work, as he lie face-down in the dirt only ten feet from a nearby bunker. After respawning, we get to see Luke tagging the mine Frankie dropped, and the ensuing hilarity as the flying of the bodies began. This was short-lived, however, as three more Phantoms arrived and, literally, there were Brutes flowing out of them, as if someone had just turned on a giant fountain of hurt and pain. When all was said and done, there must've been at least another 30 Brutes added to the fray. More desperate fighting, and before we know it, the marines are shouting to look out for the Wraith. At this point, everything has gone to hell. Battle cries, screams of pain, explosions going of everywhere, spikes, grenades, and lead making the air so thick with hurt that you could practically take a knife to it. So then a Wraith comes down the highway, and Frankie desperately engages it, tossing grenade and trying to get close enough to board. It losses its mortar onto a group of hapless Brutes and marines, all being blown to pieces indiscriminately. The gunner opens up on Frank, nearly killing him, as Luke moves in to engage the sleek purple tank. After the gunner is offed, a couple well-placed grenades make short work of the now helpless Wraith. Some mop-up work, and finally a respite from the relentless fighting. The group is informed that the Pelicans have almost arrived, and sure enough, they soar in from over the hills and swoop down, delivering some fresh Warthogs in an extremely epic manner. But way, it just isn't meant to be. Luke makes short work of the Warthogs with an FRG, and Frankie begins engaging him. It degrades into a massive friendly-fire of hilarity, as everyone starts shooting everyone. It's there they end the single-player portion to a standing ovation and much cheers and happiness all about.
As for some general things, there was a lot of combat banter. The Grunts were always screaming about the Arbiter, telling him to "get away while he still could" and to "save himself" (shaky loyalties... a sign of things to come, maybe?), and going on about "How could the Demon be here?!" "The Demon is alive?", and all around Grunt banter. The Brutes were quick to anger and were constantly shouting taunts, orders, and just making quite the racket. Jackals were still (from what I could tell), illegible. Drones were downright -blam!- scary, their shrieks are still burned into my head. The graphics were, again, this bears repeating, amazing. The best looking game I've ever laid eyes on. Even when I take my Halo blinders off, the game is a technical masterpiece. The HDR, scale, and attention to detail is phenomenal. There's tons of objects littering the environment. From what little we saw of it, the water looks incredible. The framerate is as smooth as butter and most probably above 30FPS. The motion blur is incredible, and does wonders for the game. The foliage system is even better than it was in the Beta, with the draw distance bumped up significantly and the overall lushness and plentifulness of it a thousand fold what we saw before. It swayed in the wind, and actually moved as the player traversed through it. The same applied to the bigger foliage, which has reached Crysis-levels of interactivity, gently brushing aside as players moved through it, or violently snapping around as vehicles traversed nearby. Leaves and such now respond as well, moving out the way to make way for characters. It should also be noted that throughout the entire level, there were tons of Banshees and Phantoms removed from the fight streaking toward the Ark. The sense of scale you get from this game is unprecedented. It's truly a masterpiece. Sounds were another huge thing, vastly improved from what I could tell (even through the terrible speakers they had set up). It loud and abundant, really adding to the experience. This game is going to be INCREDIBLE on a good surround sound system. I really need to invest in a new one, because really, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not having only the best setup to run this baby on.
All in all, it was INCREDIBLE. This was hands-down the most fun I've ever had with Halo, and I wasn't even playing. I don't know what's going to happen to me on the 25th, because I think that my head my damn well explode when I boot it up for the first time. -blam!- incredible atmosphere, graphics, combat, flow, everything was perfect. Everything was a thousand times better than I was expecting. I really don't know what to say other then, Bungie, you are -blam!- Gods. All of the people shouting for you guys to have their babies were right on, because, seriously, I want you guys to have my manbabies. Holy -blam!-. Well, that about sums up my single player impressions. It's 4AM in the morning, and I've got to go to work in two hours, so I'll save the Forge and Save Films impressions for tomorrow. Hoped you guys enjoyed this fairly in-depth rundown, as I know a lot of guys were looking for detail.
[Edited on 08.22.2007 6:54 AM PDT]