If there is one level that I despise Bungie for creating, it was Truth and Reconciliation. The Library was a better level in my opinion.
With the whole which Halo is better the first day I played Halo 2 I really didn’t like it at all. But after playing a Team Slayer game in Water Works up to 250 kills with only four people you really grow to love the game.
Also, is Headhunter any good? I’ve heard mixed responses.
[quote=“fmalinkevich”]If there is one level that I despise Bungie for creating, it was Truth and Reconciliation. The Library was a better level in my opinion.
[/quote]
Completely opposite, I loved Truth and Reconciliation!
The Library just annoyed me with the whole glass smashing and me ‘accidentally’ being pushed in by my team mate.
Then there was the locked doors…oh the mass pile up of frags…then one clever person decides that they don’t want to wait to reload, they’ll just throw a good old plasma grenade in…
Sky high would be a good explanation of what happened next.
Meh (shrugs shoudlers), The Library to me was just a chore, like many I think believe. But to me atleast, Truth and Reconciliation was absolute torture. Maybe I just suck at the game. But I could never stay alive more than like 10 seconds after entering a new area, and Captain Keyes, stop dying please.
I managed to complete the entire “Shut up and get behind me… sir” stage (the rescue of Captain Keyes) in just one attempt on the Heroic setting… maybe you do just suck. 
(sorry, fmalinkavich, I couldn’t resist…)
Anyway, lots of fun was had today with my Halo sessions - I’ve activated The Silent Cartographer, and am currently engaging on my subterranean aerial insertion. Who would have thought that the humble automatic pistol would make a fine sniper rifle? 
Hey anti-slang fellow, you haven’t answered my question
Apologies, Gehn, I suppose I was just caught up in describing bizzare ways for an NPC to exclaim “I am dead!”
As for the Myst cycle, I suppose the best way to describe my stance towards them is “they’re the best games I’ve never played”. I’ve wanted to be a Myst-erious gamer ever since I read the review for Riven in the venerable S.S.M. - no-one can deny that they’re painstakingly-crafted adventures with gorgeous visuals and a delightfully original setting and storyline, and the cerebral challenge they presented appealed to me. However, I’ve simply never had the opportunity to get hold of a copy. I couldn’t afford the Uru compilation pack when I saw it in the shops, and although I did buy a Myst-Riven combined edition on EBay, the former was designed for Windows '95 and so was barley functional on XP, and whereas Riven was playable, sound was badly out of sync which did hamper the gaming experience substantially. I’ve bought Exile now to finally fulfil my long-standing resolution to know all things to do with Myst, and I’m scouting out for Saturn copies of Myst and Riven - where I know that there’ll be no compatibility problems - on Ebay. I might even get the books! 
As for fmalinkevich’s question on Headhunter: Redemption, it’s too early for me to give a direct comment as I haven’t played it that much yet. I can say, though, that Edge magazine’s complaint that the control system made it completely unplayable is greatly exaggerated. I think it’s fine.
[quote=“Robert Frazer”]I managed to complete the entire “Shut up and get behind me… sir” stage (the rescue of Captain Keyes) in just one attempt on the Heroic setting… maybe you do just suck.
(sorry, fmalinkavich, I couldn’t resist…) [/quote]
Yeah I’ll admit it, I do suck at halo 
And I never knew they released Riven on Saturn. Myst, yes, but Riven? If this is true I would be very happy too.
Yes, fmalinkevich, there was a Saturn version of Riven - the great Leadbetter even wrote a long strategy guide (which I won’t re-read!) in S.S.M. with details of how to secure about half a dozen alternate endings, from trapping yourself in the Prison Book to goading Gehn to point where he kills you, or calling Atrus without liberating Catherine… “not a happy ending, but at least you don’t get shot, trapped, or called stupid in this one!”
I should have a review online soon. In my humble opinion, Headhunter: Redemption left a lot to be desired. Having said that, it’s by no means a bad game. In the very least it’s not as bad as its harshest critics claim it is.
Rather than expand on the winning gameplay of the original Headhunter, Amuze made a number of what I would describe as questionable changes. It’s a classic case of a developer taking old gameplay in a new direction, and doing more harm than good in the process. The wobbly targeting reticle is only the beginning.
On the bright side, the game looks stunning. It would be a real shame to see Amuze go under simply because Headhunter 2 failed to make waves in mainstream circles.
Hell, even Spy Fiction flopped, and that was good game with excellent visuals by PS2 standards, which belonged to a popular genre no less. Sammy didn’t make a mistake by localising the game outside of Japan.
Let’s put it this way, if Headhunter 2 and Spy Fiction had “Metal Gear Solid” in their respective titles, each game would’ve sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Yeah I have Riven and bitch hard it is too.
I told my self I was going to complete it once…I played from 9 in the morning till 3am the next day and still didn’t complete it!
Damn game…I had a mate with me to who had completed it once with his dad and even he had trouble with it!
Gah 4 discs…it’s a complicated game…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that starts on disc 1…goes to disc 4…then goes back to disc 3 and so on.
I didn’t want to use the guide…stupid me.
Riven was the first game I bought after PDS for my Saturn.The first Myst game I ever played and one of my favourite games of all time.
I keep trying to get people to play it because I really think it’s something else.
Oh and btw Robert : I strongly recommend you to read at leats the Book of Ti’ana and the Book of Atrus (there is also the Book of D’ni).They are both great books and not just great Myst books.The Book of D’ni is of course a must for everyone who read the other two but it’s less powerful then it’s counterparts.
Thanks agehn Snowie for getting me these books 
Berserker : Riven’s puzzles might be hard but the cool thing is they are all sound.
PS:For everyone unfamiliar with the Myst series start by either playing realMyst (which btw I recommend to everyone since it’s basically a graphical enhanced version of the first Myst with some other extras) or Riven but never Uru.
Uru is not really a Myst game altho it is set in the same world.
Yeah I agree with you…but you need a hell of a lot of paitence to work through it.
Always loved the look and the stuff that was in it though…especially the means of transport! Now that was cool.
Thanks for the responses, I should go look for a cheap copy of Riven.
I got an XBox or Christmas too, Ive got obsessed with KOTOR (Excellent RPG + Star Wars, can it get any better???), so I haven’t bothered to play Halo or Shemue 2 much, even though I no I should. Ah well, something to enjoy later… (after Ive done the lightsight path as well…)
My, haven’t I hit a nerve?
To an extent, I agree with you, Sodon - in an ideal world I would have both an X-Box and a Gamecube. But in an ideal world, amongst other things, foxes would be waving placards saying “PLEASE HUNT ME!”, and neither I or my parents have access to unlimited supplies of money for such indulgences. A decision had to be made, and on balance I thought an X-Box was preferable.
Please remember that I acquired this console for the primary reason of playing newer Sega games, and in this situation the X-Box offers me the greatest choice. This includes both the attractively bright, immediate, arcade titles (Puyo Pop Fever, Outrun 2, Sonic Heroes, etc.) and the more dedicated and involving hardcore that’s always appealed to me (Shenmue IIx, Panzer Dragoon Orta, &c.). Only the former wing of Sega features in the Gamecube’s library, so limiting my ability to acquire new titles if I had one.
Also, Sodon, when people start whinging about “Micro$oft”, “The Machine”, and so on, I can’t help but equate it either to the envious jealousy (or supercilious condescension) of Apple users, or the rabid, frothing bigotry of Linux users. 
Really, what is so objectionable about Microsoft entering the console market? I readily admit that Bill Gates probably views the X-Box as more of a commercial venture than Nintendo does with its Gamecube, but it’s grossly unfair to equate Microsoft’s effort with the Filthy Abomination (Colloquially referred to as the “Playstation”). If Microsoft’s game studios acted like that other agent of Lucifer, Electronic Arts:
penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20040209l.jpg
With apologies to Penny Arcade
–then you’d have a point - but that’s simply not the case. The fact remains that Microsoft has a damn sight better grasp of what constitutes a good game than S*ny ever could. Take Microsoft’s first ever commercial game - it wasn’t a generic, factory-line common or garden driving game, platformer, or sports sim - it was of the genre that usually demands the amongst the highest levels of commitment - the strategy game. To name it… Age of Empires.
You can visit the forum (It has very good and involving trade-off stories! [/plug]) and read the full thread here.
Good point (AoE 3 out soon…), but in terms of the console market Xbox is (for good or bad) as “new generation” as Sony’s effort, different beats to the “old skool” classic consoles of ninetndo and Sega. Still times change (shame a few genres get destoryed along the way mind…)
Well, I’ve just completed Halo: Combat Evolved with a full thirty seconds to spare in my endeavour to avoid being subjected to a heatwave of such immense magnitude that no amount of Flake '99s and ice-cooled, gently-effervescing colas could hope to compensate for it.
And, altogether, I’m rather glad that I embroiled myself in that situation in the first place - other than the execrable level in the Library (trudging through which was nothing short of a day-trip to Purgatory. “Wait, it gets worse!” cried the stage’s title. Ho ho.), Halo was, indeed, a very enjoyable game.
It’s a rare example of a first-person shooter perfectly adapted to a console and the limited buttons on a joypad, and the result was quite marvellous. It was a game with a solid feel - diverse weapons; naturalistic voice acting; a strong artisitic style; authentic sound; a thrilling musical score; A decent, hardcore challenge! And I’m willing to forgive the fact that the Warthog jeep’s handling is about as loose as Falstaff in a Franco-Indian brothel with an illustrated copy of the Karma Sutra - although it made the final stage infuriating as it insisted on catching itself on every piece of furniture, whirling into a mud-churning powerslide and flattening half-a-dozen Grunts and Jackals in the earlier levels was just so much fun…
My only gripes with this otherwise sterling game was that the story was rather basic and the fact that polt-expositioning dialogues from the Monitor or Cortana tended to be drowned out in the midst of a firefight. Yet, beyond the fact that there wasn’t really any identity behind the Covenant (something Bungie’s fortunately rectified in the sequel, as far as I’ve played it [trundling up to the Library in a ‘liberated’ Scorpion, for those interested].), it was executed well - I particularly liked Private Jenkins’ helmet-recording and how the Monitor suddenly transforms from a bumbling eccentric robot into a coldly calculating monstrosity in “The Two Betrayals”.
Halo: Combat Evolved was given the rare accolade of full marks by Edge magazine, notorious for being the most savage and uncompromising reviewers in the U.K. with enough green ink to drive a thousand writers to suicide. It genuinely deserved it, even if I think the more polished Halo 2 is the better title. A pity I can’t afford X-Box Live…
Halo 2 sucks compared to the original, in my opinion. It’s like, Panzer Orta all over again.
Except that Panzer Orta didn’t suck…
It’s a matter of opinion.
I of course have not played it yet, so I’m completely neutral.
