Opinions are not my own.
Nowhere but Somewhere
Joined November 2021
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*Posts a game written by, and a book overseen by, Frank O'Connor after 343i's founding and Bungie's separation from Microsoft, where they exchanged charge of who worked closely with partners.*
What's next? The 2009/11 encyclopedia? Halo Legends? If so, I've got bad news for you.
I was actually kind of interested in this novel because of Rythaze's art and the idea of a self-contained war-horror story set during a Bungie-era game—presumably sheltering it from the usual 343i/HS narrative buggery. But alas, it's worse than the usual; it's overtly malicious.
For my review of Parasites Wake, I’m gonna start with the pro’s.
@Rythayze did an absolutely excellent job on the artwork as always.
Throughout the book there’s mentions of cut content from Combat Evolved that rightfully should’ve been in the “Devolved” Remake.
Such as wildlife like Blindwolves and Thorn Beasts, and the diamond energy shield wielding elite’s.
Marvin Mobuto is a decent character and his death at the end is rather tragic.
And there are some decent concepts that could’ve been written a bit better.
Sadly, those are all the pro’s I could mention.
The cons are widespread and downright baffling.
You are lead to believe the Marvin Mobuto is the main character of the book.
However it is a 16 year old boy named Charlie that was smuggled onto the Pillar of Autumn by a field medic and handed off by his mother to prisoners from the Autumn’s never before mentioned brig that just so happened to be in a singular escape pod.
Marvin ends up coming across this group and leading them through less than half of the story until Spark ships him alone to The Library where he inevitably dies.
And while some of the Prisoners are interesting as characters, their plotlines fall short and are fairly mediocre.
With the plotline of Halo CE, you expect them all to die including Charlie.
And of course, this does happen.
Charlie is a rather interesting case though and I’ll get back to that soon.
Anyways, there are litters of lore references shoved in here.
Many of them retconning Bungie’s renowned Halo Combat Evolved that everyone knows and loves.
But many of which simply feel like jingling keys for 343 shills that view Halo as a book series with some additional games on the side.
Many of these references will not be understood to a first time reader of Halo novels unless you have read a variety of others such as Greg Bears retconned Forerunner trilogy, Halo Evolutions The Mona Lisa, and Halo Waypoint Chronicles.
Even the Halo CE Terminals are referenced here.
I was rather skeptical about Sparks addition in the story of course.
And in typical 343i fashion, Sparks identity is absolutely disgraced.
Spark is retconned once again to be a lonely human-in-a-shell lunatic and is purposefully claimed to be unreliable or untrustworthy in writing through the characters to purposely tick off Halo fans.
The only reason Spark takes Marvin to the library is because he has a gesh, aka genetic bullshit rather than the simplicity of just being human.
There’s also an Elite thrown in the story that ends up befriending the group out of sheer chance.
The Elite is part of an underground lowkey group in the Covenant called the Truthseekers that remain skeptical about the Great Journey and the human/covenant war.
After Mobuto dips, he pretty much leads the group from there despite being a prisoner that they hardly trust.
Eventually they make it to a mausoleum, and this section has to be the biggest offense of all the retcons in the story.
They basically threw in the cut Halo 2 storyboards where the Arbiter/Dervish discovers a coffin with a human skeleton aka Forerunner inside.
But instead of it being a human like it should be, it’s just a retconned 343 era forerunner.
They attempt to justify it by claiming it LOOKS human, therefore humans and forerunners must be genetically related.
Regardless it’s still a massive middle finger towards any Halo fan that still respects Bungies games and lore.
The Elite has a marine record it all through a helmet cam, that way he could pass the data over to the Prophets to end the war with the evidence.
Later on after the Autumn is minutes to detonation, the remainder of the group makes it to an area with a teleporter.
They end up getting overwhelmed by the flood and the same marine gives the helmet over to the Elite.
The marine and Charlie’s mom stay behind while The Elite and Charlie escape to the furthest part of the ring.
The ring explodes, however-
The fragment of that part of the ring breaks off and instead of that section(cont):
Evidently, Respawn's future did not hold much for Titanfall, given that it's the 10th anniversary of Titanfall 2 today and we're over 5 years out from this post. But don't worry, I hear you can get a... complimentary sticker(?) in... apex legends... to desecrate such an occasion.
The other day, I was thinking about how Battlefield has progressively become indistinguishable from freemium Russian/Chinese games after BF3; mostly due to how messy the UI/UX are, along with increasingly inauthentic art direction. This has done little to dissuade my observation.
The Battlefield 6 Dead Space event is now live! Here’s gameplay of the new event mode and Dead Space Pulse Rifle.
Video by Reddit user -Hyperplane- #Battlefield6 #BF6
I was about to joke that he's going to make Marathon But Slightly Different again for the 4th time, but then I checked out the synopsis for the comic for the sake of due diligence, and yeah, it's Marathon But Slightly Different for the 4th time. Mad man.
EXCLUSIVE: @Bungie cofounder Jason Jones and author Margaret Stohl are building a new studio around worlds designed to live across multiple forms of media.
@Stonekitestudio brings together creators from games, film, television, comics and literature to develop original universes from the ground up rather than adapting them from one medium into another.
Its first universe, One Zero One, launches today as a four-part comic series, with prose, audio and screen projects planned to expand the world, illustrating how entertainment franchises can be designed for cross-media growth from the start.
@deantak covered the launch of Stone Kite, founded by @mstohl and Jason Jones, and its approach to world-building across entertainment.
“Stone Kite is about breaking down those old media silos. Instead of starting in one medium and adapting outward, we bring the best global creators from different disciplines into the room from day one to shape the world together,” Stohl said.
Read the full story at @GamesBeat:
gamesbeat.com/bungie-cofound…
#Gaming #Entertainment #GameDevelopment #GameIndustry
Lead bumbledunce of the cultural terrorists preempting his "classic Halo game" suggestion with "None of these are easy, guaranteed or necessarily viable," is so quintessentially 343i. He really was foundational to everything wrong with that company and its farcical restructuring.
Halo's former franchise creative director, Frank O'Connor, has weighed in on the franchise's future at Activision, suggesting three viable paths forward. bit.ly/4AGHyBW
The funniest part about this Halo shake-up is watching idiots try to list how Activision will sully Halo when every possible misdeed has already been done by 343i/HS.
"They'll ruin the story, gameplay, music, art, and fill it with microtransactions!"
Ah, business as usual then?
Astounding that Tim Schafer looks down on Xbox, even though the main reason Double Fine is still around (see crowdfunding #3) is thanks to them being the #1 charitable beneficiary of Phil Spencer's era of coddling, game dev welfare via Game Pass subsidies and general favouritism.
Welcome to Amnesia Fortnight 2026, Indie Reboot! | Double Fine
Studio Head Tim Schafer welcomes you back to Amnesia Fortnight 2026, Indie Reboot - A Double Fine Productions Game Jam, Documentary, and Kickstarter Campaign! Join him as he introduces 26 unique pitches from Double Fine's very own team.
Kickstarter:
kickstarter.com/projects/dou…
Uninspired art direction aside, I'm shocked a superhero game past the 7th console gen has piqued my interest. Granted, it's made by Motive—they have a great track record—but I still assumed this would be your typical soul-sucking, committee-made Insomniac/DC game from the outset.
What a week it's been: from a beaming philanthropist to a refined actor to a role model. Generational, the lot of them. Rest in peace to all.
Spastic who anchored his entire livelihood to Bloated Unremarkable Series, renowned for its technical innovations a quarter century ago and not much else, desperate for public approval of new corporate product to avoid diminishing monetary returns on Bloated Unremarkable Game #5.
Just completed Luna Abyss, and I feel like Eli from Why we need Half Life 3, except that Kwalee Labs got shuttered less than a month after launch. They likely didn't even have time to begin meaningful ideation on a sequel, so you can't even learn what could've been. What cruelty.
Making a post critiquing Rockstar Games or Grand Theft Auto is like casting a spell as a wizard, except instead of summoning skeletons or lightning, you summon insecure turd worlders and wiggers with PS5 install libraries consisting mostly of CoD, Fortnite, and sports ball games.
I've always known gaming suffered a crippling demographic shift in the 2000s, particularly with the commodification of 7th gen, but seeing the numbers is as vindicating as it is saddening. No sports in the top 10, and GTA noticeably lagging behind. Higher standards. Better games.
The definitive way to experience Halo CE, according to 343i/HS, is to play a glitchy Reach mod with HR/H3 AI behaviours in pseudo CE areas; Infinite sprites; HI/HR/H5 player animations; H2/H5 vehicle mechanics; H2/HR/HI weapons; with out-of-the-box UE5 visuals and no multiplayer.
Don't miss your chance to play "one of the best remakes of all time."
Halo: Campaign Evolved is the definitive way to experience one of gaming's greatest adventures.
Get it now: aka.ms/HCEBuyNow
343i/HS manage to add a net positive—if mechanically unrefined—addition to the Covenant roster on the Hunter of all things; An enemy both they (ESPECIALLY they) and Bungie spent years struggling to improve, and the layman's response is to misread the post even when given a video.
There are few modern audience sub-species as humourously angry as the 343i/HS fan when they see a former Bungie or Ensemble dev who's vaguely right-leaning (median member of society) and voicing disapproval in any way towards the games after Reach (also median member of society).
Pierre Hintze just read this 2 bottles into his regular day drinking and cried tears of joy, envisioning a future where everyone speaks like a bad anime dub in every language. He cried for so long that he forgot his other daily habit of degrading the remnants of the Digsite team.
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One may think having 3.3 million Gamerscore would lead to a greater understanding of the craft and artistry behind creative works, but it turns out treating games like achievement farms is yet another pathway to thinking like a lizard-brain normie—interesting bell curve in that.
Halo Campaign Evolved is the definitive way to play the original Halo. The game looks and plays incredible, and the Unreal 5 glow up is pure chef’s kiss. Adding sprint genuinely improves the flow, and the level design tweaks make the entire campaign more enjoyable. I was grinning ear to ear the whole way through.
There is far more customization than the original ever offered, from Master Chief skins to weapon skins, and you can really tailor the difficulty. With the added skulls, you can shape the experience exactly how you want. The new Campaign Remix mode shakes things up by randomizing enemy placements and pre set weapons, giving every mission a fresh feel.
There is even a third person mode that is surprisingly solid, and if you do not want sprint in your Halo, there is a skull that disables it. I will not spoil too much, but let’s just say Master Chief gets into a dogfight during one of the three bonus missions.
I hope they continue this remake trend, and they definitely hint at Halo 2 being next. If we are lucky, maybe they will give the entire original trilogy’s multiplayer suite this same modern shine.
Halo Studios handled the original source material with real love and care, and everything they added makes the game better. You cannot ask for more.
Score: 9/10
