Lynx7725

Huh. Not so keen on the Diatron now. I was thinking it rapidly shot two from a internal mag, not two at a time.. Not sure how to apply that.

I might get the Strongarm, because it's likely to be more compatible with the clip-system darts than the Maverick. Gotta see if need to mod it to get more swing out of the cylinder though.

Diatron might be worthwhile, but doesn't look to be a clip system, so somewhat more limiting.

Offhand -- The DMR and BR are very similar, but used for different playstyles. DMR is more for long ranged, deliberate fire. BR gives a good mix of accuracy vs. close-in firepower. It's a good gun but needs a certain playstyle.

Human shottie, it's still a powerful weapon but its rarity in SP (early part) and MP makes it hard to use. Some MP maps also makes a mockery of the shottie -- I've came across a shottie on Raganork before and it's not very useful there.

Covenant Carbine is nice, better in some areas than the DMR. Storm rifle, not my cup of tea but still decent. Plasma pistol remains a good stand in due to its EMP effect.

Boltshot is difficult to use well. It's, IIRC, like the plasma pistol in that you can either plink with it or power it up to shoot for more damage. Problem is that it's not easy to line shots up with it, and truth be told I like the magnum better for a pistol weapon.

I like the Suppressor, nice and large mag with decent damage. The Light rifle, not so much.

Well... nothing like a SWAT match with people WAAAAAY better than you are to make you realise how big a gulf there is in performance. I got my backside (head actually) handed to me. Some of these guys take headshots like they know nothing else.. they probably know nothing else.

Episode Two Spartan Ops are out.

I've also got in a few Wargames. Frustrating when I kept getting dropped into games already in progress and teams already losing.. badly. Wasn't able to work the Gauss'thog on Exile because a wheelman decided he got more skill than he got... I was stationary, sniping rushing Spartans with the Gauss, he decide to drive over to the other corner into the midst of a enemy squad.

Spartans aren't dumb brutes. Gotta know how to deploy the weaponry, yah?

Still, not too bad as Big Slayers go.. I got to know Vortex better, particularly good sniping corridors. I got to know Longbow better, including an new and incredibly good range where my teammates can tank for me while I DMR the enemy away (and this is on a bunch of Spartans who, for some reason, like going around in jetpacks). Managed a Raganok game where I had decent sniping results with an actual sniper rifle -- including a Snapshot medal for taking care of a Red who followed a screaming Blue back around a rock.

The Big Slayer map I hate most is Meltdown. No good range, you're basically bunched up or going over ridges. It's an assaulty map, good for people who have better aim in close than I do. Just unlocked the Suppressor, hopefully that'll get things sorted on Meltdown.

EDIT: Oh a couple of things, since the discussion came up.. The Incinerator cannon is very powerful, yes. But it is also a slow moving projectile. Once you know it is on the field, you just need to keep out of its arc.. about 35 degree from each side? It does have a decent blast radius so you do need to keep lively.

Also, the Binary Rifle is an incredibly powerful rifle, being able to kill a fully shielded Spartan with a good shot (I don't think you need to have a headshot to do this). However, zooming into the scope would activate very obvious light beams towards your target, and every experience Spartan on the field would immediately backplot. Just scoping activate this, so you need to be aware to avoid getting backplotted to death using this rifle. Once I figured this out, I tend to avoid the rifle.. It's great as a takedown, but the risk is incredible.

For those you who are more into the relatively mild insanity of Big Slayer matches, one thing to watch out for if you are playing on Exile map..

.. that little Gauss'thog sitting in the corner of the map mostly ignored? Don't ignore it. Aside from the fact that it's an anti-armour weapon (which would two-shot any Banshee or Scorpion that falls into the wrong hands), it will also One-Hit-Kill any Spartan, and it has a decent AoE effect that is murderous. And its sights are amazingly accurate for sniping Spartans.

And it's perfectly parked, straight out, to cover two major avenues. If someone is manning that cannon, even as a static mount, the opposing team is likely to hurt. Bad.

How do I know? Well... I got a replay clip of me sneaking up onto it (as a Red, IIRC.. Gauss'thog is at the Blue spawn camp, BTW), manning it, waiting for a wheelman... and killing at least 8 Spartans on foot, one in a Banshee while I was waiting. This turned the match around to a tie. Then with the driver, proceeded to kill a Scorpion (with two passengers), another Warthog, and at least one more Spartan on foot for a Running Riot medal, and pushing the scores up enough to win the game.

(I'll upload the clip and screencaps once Halo 4 Fileshare is opened.)

And just repeated it in another match. Was Blue, and got onto the Gauss'thog early with a good driver. Ran all over the place killing things, including an incautious Banshee that came under a stone arch instead of over it -- two shots and took that out of the equation early. Then cheekily hit the enemy Scorpion as it came out, ran the other way, got behind it and blew it up. Total 15 kills for that run -- went on to win that match.

So.. Exile -- control the vehicles. Especially the Banshee, Scorpion and Gauss'thog.

Hey Ben, good to meet you in lobby. Guess you saw how bad I suck at Halo MP. Sorry about the accidental removal from the game -- I'm not used to XBox party groups, so not sure what to do with it.

I just came out from a session. Played a few Team Slayers, and a couple of Spartan Ops chapters. Spartan Ops chapters are like Reach missions, you go in alone or with a team, then you just kill all the way to the end. Decent, even entertaining solo, though some of them is obviously a bit over the top. (1 Spartan vs. 6 Elites is not funny. Died 6 to 8 times there. Respawns so it's more ok.) So far, it's not like Master Scavenger Chief who steals stuff from everyone. Earth weapons are relatively easy to find, and ammo is there. Covie weapons in the first few missions are also reasonable to come by -- take them off corpses if you need to.

I actually won a Team Slayer game today. Basically, at least on Exile, who controls the most vehicles wins. You don't get enough Anti-tank to work against vehicles and most are travelling too fast to hit them easily. I managed to nail one Warthog only because I nipped for a rocket launcher and he flipped int a pothole. The second match my side got slaughtered even with more players -- just couldn't control the vehicles, and it doesn't help when the team (and myself) kept trying to cross open and exposed ground.

The third, lost 1000 to 990 points. I helped to turn the game around midway through when I respawned next to a Scorpion. Earned 9 kills there just randomly blowing things up, and put the Blues on their back feet. Got caught in terrain and had two Spartans board me. If your side (I won't even call it a team) has people who work together, covering each other, and make an effort to keep vehicles in control (preferably use them properly too), then it is a lot easier.

EDIT: Huh, is that Jennifer Hale doing Sarah Palmer? If so, good to hear her again.

EDIT EDIT: Huh, this Smartglass thing is useful offline. From the records, I killed 9 with the Scorpion, 1 more with the rocket launcher (was from that match), 1 in a random explosion, and killed something with a Warthog turret. And that was one of my better matches. Why do I even bother with infantry weapons?

For me, Halo has one of the more fleshed out storyline of games nowadays. If you bother to follow up on some of the sideline stories outside the game, the universe is pretty rich. Personally, that's why I play the game to see how the Master Chief gets by.

I also think the story is a bit too grimdark for me, and prefer Mass Effect's background story. Both are good stories though.

PvP? Manic. It's closer to Reach than Halo 3 (though I hadn't play 3). Otherwise.. pew pew pew. If you're not really hot, be mentally prepared to die. A lot.

Large scale Slayer (8 a side) is really fun to die a lot throughout the game though. I prefer those to the smaller Slayer matches.

Spartan Ops is essentially a enhanced Reach MP -- no reason to change things too much. You get more points for non-killing work, like wheelman and assists (and even distractions), but kills is where the points are. Nothing changed much in this aspect.

One good thing is that you can call for ordnance drops. But I rarely survive long enough to use those. So.. meh. I just suck at Halo MP.

I poked a bit, there seems to be some game modes missing. Things like sniper rifle matches, etc. The server's also quite unstable, but I expect that to sort itself out.

The nice thing about MP hdd space is that if you don't intend to play MP, it seems that you don't need to install MP, which is from Disk 2. Looks like the SP storyline is contained on Disk 1.

Just getting into the second mission. Overall have to credit 343 for making it a prettier game -- it looks very good. Gameplay is still similar to the last Halo game. Too early to talk about the strength of the writing.

Multiplayer doesn't work for me, but still need to check out the coop play part.

I would love to here the explanation on why there is a huge tech change in plus. And wherer rick hunter is and what that whole fleet thing is that Isamu comes from LOL!!!

I think the whole "operational SDF-1" thing is a bit harder to explain...

Ok, my Play Arts Kai Garrus and Ashley came in.

Overall they're ok. Good mobility/ posability, but as usual some joints are weak; ankles, usually. Also, the guy at the local store I ordered at warned me about sticking joints, saying that Play Arts Kai is a bit hit and miss. Turns out quite ok, except that one sticky foot -- on both. Annoying foot.

Each comes with one pair of extra hands and two weapons. Happily, all weapons looks to be interchangable, though not all are ideal -- will get to that. Ashley came with the Avenger AR and the Katana shottie, while Garrus came with the Vindicator AR and the Incisor SR.

Time out. Incisor SR for Garrus? Oh come on. A Mantis or Viper would have been better...

Anyhow.. Ashley first.

Here is the lovely Ms. Williams with a "borrowed" Vindicator. As can be seen, she can't quite flex the lower arm back, but the wrist helps to cock the weapon back fully. The Vindicator grip actually feels a bit too big for Ashley's smaller hands, since they came from Garrus' big mitts.

Here she is with the Incisor. I prefer Ashley with SR, pity about the Incisor, but still. Details are nice, the silly thing about Ashley is that her front skirt is from some rubbery plastic which has a tendency to curl... up. So, upskirts galore in the future, not that there's any details underneath.

Another angle, more action-y:

Ashley could grip the Incisor fine, the problem is that the stock is just a tad bit too long and she can't actually shoulder the weapon well. Other than that, it's a good match.

What does the back look like? Well:

The shirt/skirt lays over the armour, so not very much there.. shoulders are interesting, the upper part is actually a separate plastic "U" shape with a pivot so that you can get the arm up, and there is considerable forward swing at the shoulder that I didn't see on Ashley at first (it's obvious on Garrus).

One major problem is that the makeup is a bit odd:

When I first saw it I was quite thrown off. It looked like a movie star dressed in combat armour -- very off-setting. After looking at it on and off, it sort of remind me more of Jessica Chobot than Ashley Williams... Incidentally, the hair is not very flexible. It works ok when the head is tilted down or level, but tilting the head up brings the curled hair along, so a bit odd.

On to Garrus:

Do you feel lucky punk? Well do ya?

Garrus with Ashley's Avenger:

The thing is, I didn't realise this in game, but Turians have very odd feet. It's reverse-articulated but very short at the ankle -- that meant that Turians need to hunch a bit to stand normally. The big clumsy boots that Garrus is wearing makes it obvious -- and he's difficult to balance partially because of the leg layout, and partially because he's massively top heavy.

His top is really a bit barrel. Wonder what's inside...

Back look. One slight problem is that Garrus has two joints in his belly, so sometimes the belly misalign.Also, his groin armour feels quite loose, as though he's going to drop his pants at any time....

Because of generally the top heavyness of humaniods, I find that these are better posed in a crouch:

Garrus with Ashley's Katana.

Just to note, it's not often seen in the game, but Garrus is a BIG boy:

Ashley's not a small girl by any description, but Garrus is at least a full head above her. He's big!

As stated, I find the pair better in crouches. Firstly, top heavy. Second, Garrus has a weak ankle and Ashley has small shoe size. Low contact points.

Included an extra shot to show that you can line up the head with the scopes... about just... and Garrus I think can pretty much forget about aiming:

Lastly, a bit of artsy-fartsy with Ashley:

Lemme know if you guys have any questions about these two.

Got it last night. Eh it's not terrible. In some ways better than the original movie (not the original book). It's not a great movie by any length, GTA and a lack of proper explosions... Passable story, passable designs, ending's a little too predictable. Sort of see it as a "what the heck, I hadn't seen this GTA show for some time..." kind of movie.

Idling thoughts on how I'd have wrote ME3 (tired at work and trying not to fall asleep). Spoilers ahoy.

TL;DR: A lot of ideas.. ah well.

I have to admit, on reflection that's a very valid point. I was hoping for some widly different endings depending on the choices I made. Humanity standing alone against the Reapers or with a combined fleet to meet them head-on? Would humanity be the sole inhereters of the wasteland that was the galaxy after the war or what? How would giving Cerberus the Collector Base in 2 affect 3? Would I be working with Cerberus in one playthrough and against them in another?

I think, to be fair to the writing team, the decision we individually made in ME2 did make a difference -- if you chose to make your squad loyal in ME2, a lot of the cameo that the squad makes in ME3 will come out different. Important ME2 plot points did make a difference for ME3, such as the Collector Base -- it does change the "default ending", if you chose to go back to Earth with very low military backing.

The problem is twofold -- one, lazy (or rushed) writing to some degree, no excuses there -- and two, that from Shepard's perspective, s/he will never see the differences the choices made. Partly because the writing team made the differences very minor (

), and partly because

.

So what if Shepard doesn't get the Salarian fleet support? (I didn't, still went in and kicked butt.) What happens if Aria never got the mercs together? What happens if the Krogan didn't get what they wanted? The difference in choice boils down to a number (military strength) and there's nothing emotional to bond the player to the game. I really don't have any interest to replay the game just to see a blip in the number...

... And Leviathan's announced for Aug 28.

http://blog.bioware....ficially-dated/

EDIT: I wonder... Leviathan looks to be mostly underwater. Would we get swimwear for our teammates?

For those of you still following, the Play Arts Kai FemShep has became available for pre-orders at my local, with a street date of November.

As for the game, I'm still shooting things in MP, but things are winding down. SP's Insanity run is stalled, since I find it more fun to shoot things in MP than in SP.

I can see that being an issue sure, but do you really see Aria wanting that much power, she always just seemed to want Omega and that was it. How about this for another DLC, and one that could make the ending truly badass... you go to the Elcor homeworld, recruit the Elcor for the earth fight, and in the final push, ride the freaking Elcor into battle. Ok maybe that would be silly, but I want to see Elcor "walking tanks" fighting. Though I don't think they ever actually rigged the Elcor to move, at least we never see one move.

Aria doesn't come across as a power-hungry Asari, but she does want security for Omega, and she can't leave the Cerberus-controlled Omega-4 relay alone. In the comics, she was shown to have gone across, so she is aware of the potential and risks for Omega there. End of day, she will have to cross over to take the facility. Or at least destroy it.

Problem for the Alliance and Citadel Council is that they can't rely on Aria's word for things. It's a potential source for a Reaper indoctrination and really, nobody needs Reaper tech floating around in Aria's underworld connections. It's a plot point that can escalate into a major game by itself, since, if Aria T'loak plays her cards right, she is practically the one "civilian" person with the most fleet and military asset, potentially even more so than the Alliance and almost certainly the Asari and Krogan fleets. (The Turian possibly still have enough ships wandering around -- having more of them to begin with, and the Salarian seems to have survived fairly intact). Empress Aria, anyone?

As for Elcor, I need to find the reference, but yes, I do believe the rigging for Elcor animation was too difficult for the engine that ME works off. So we might never see them. As it is, in lore, the Elcor didn't have many colonies and their homeworld was badly hit by the Reapers. You get 2 side-missions in SP for that, and it sounded pretty bleak.

Man I want some more storyline DLCs. Leviathan sounds interesting, but what I would love to see... Aria Taking Back Omega from Cerberus. Even if its just one mission, imagine the huge freaking battle that would be.

It won't be one mission. Omega was lost because Cerberus had a base literally right next door -- the Omega-4 relay. To secure Omega, you need to take the Cerberus base in the Collector's system.. given the enormous amount of debri surrounding the exit, and the need for an Reaper-style IFF, it's likely a big effort.

It'll be an interesting plot to follow, to be sure. Somehow though, I don't think Shepard would be involved. We might be looking at ME4 for this one.

EDIT: Having said that... I think the Alliance and probably the entire (ex-)Citadel Council will be kind of nervious about Aria T'loak possibly gaining access to Reaper technology if she ever goes through the Omega-4 relay in force. That will probably be something that's high on somebody's list to take care of.

The abilities are dark channel and biotic sphere. On top of that the N7 adept and vanguard can "go banshee" with their heavy melees: short teleport dash (even through solid walls) followed by asari-like biotic shockwave

Their are also some more very interesting abilities from the N7 crew.

Demolisher Engineer has an Ammo drop ability for moar dakka and grenades.

Paladin Sentinel has a cryo-thrower and an immobile guardian-esque stance.

Destroyer solider has a missile launcher ability. Probably no where as powerful as the limited cobra missiles, but probably still very useful..

I'm in no hurry. Usually, the abiltiies are a bit overhyped. You are supposedly still vulnerable during the teleport, so a sprayer can still tag you -- the disappearing is a animation effect. It's good, especially as an objective grabber (as you can phase right through walls to get to the objective), but without a tacscan effect, doing that is at your own risk -- if you run into a Geth Prime on the other side of the wall it'll be over very quickly.

Generally Bioware are quite decent with balancing, so I don't expect these classes to be so powerful as to obsolete the older classes. I'm kinda sick of using "heavy", unrollable classes, so hopefully the heavier new classes doesn't lose the human roll ability. To be honest, from the Destroyer and Fury's demo trailer, I find both a bit slow at taking down Bronze level mooks (which was what the clip was about). The Fury didn't really trigger any Bioplosion as far as I can recall; Destroyer was more traditional, just the AR taking its own sweet time killing things. I'm more keen to see what the infiltrator brings to the table. Looks to be cloaked melee build, not my favourite but we can see how it goes.

Ooo that FemShep is better. And with a Valiant too! Should be on my buy-list.

Freiflug88: If some Bioplosion can be triggered off shielded enemies, then most likely can.. so long the primer can stick. Warp seems to stick on everything, so Boom.

The new human Adept coming on next week looks a bit strange. Two warp-like ability. appears to be close-combat related. One other power, pull or throw, looks to be. Not sure if she can trigger BE on her own though.

Continued my Insanity run.

Really, Insanity is much, much simplier in ME3 than ME2 at this stage. The ability to do Biotic Explosion off many combinations (rather than the restricted set in ME2, the ability for Biotic Explosion to happen off non-shielded enemies (perhaps even shielded enemies -- got to test), even armoured ones like Brute, and the scaling factor of Biotic Explosions means.. as an Adept I was kicking Reapers around.

Some spoiler-ish talk.

I've also managed to pick up in MP the Reactor Gold part of the achievement, so with the Gold-Reaper event this weekend, it becomes a race to see whether I'd get that achievement from SP or MP.

I was thinking of doing an Insanity run with the Sentinel but also considering the Adept. Not sure which would be better for the difficulty level.

I'm personally having a lot of issues with the Sentinel class on Multiplayer. Prefer the pure Adept class due primarily to the better CD. Sentinel's quite good in that it can handle everything, Biotic, Tech, Armour, Shield, Barrier -- but it's a tad bit too flexible, IMO, and has too slow a CD for my taste even at 200%. SP might be better, of course.

Tonight, did the Mars mission. basically only had one bad spot. Otherwise Cerberus Troopers packed into narrow corridors is just Bioplosions waiting to happen. Clearance was easy, and the one bad spot was the last defense before getting to your goal. That had one too many grenades and on Insanity that's tough.

Managed to accidentally bull through -- should really use Ashley's Infernos more. So far, Insanity run's fairly tame. (I'm going to regret saying that...)

Starting on my ME3 Insanity run. Doing as a Level 1 Adept, so it's a bit easier. Right now starting on the Mars Archive, so I've got a ways to go.

Truth be told, a Biotic, at level 1, doing a Insanity run on ME3, might be just a bit too easy. It's amusingly annoying that I could clear all the Cannibals back on Earth before the "Cavalry arrives".. eh Joker, nothing for you to clean up already.

So far, Bioplosions are my weapon of choice... Warp/ Throw aren't high level enough, but the "BOOM" is still satisfying. 200% CD makes it relatively quick. And If I meet shielded enemies... I have Energy Drain from the Bonus Power to handle that.

As far as I can remember, ME3 Biotics are not as restrictive as ME2 Biotics. ME2 had Shielded/ Armoured/ Health units, which prevented you from touching these until only the Health is left. That made a high-difficulty run more dangerous, as you get hit by mulitple and improved units -- Biotics felt a bit crimped then.

Now, in ME3, a lot more powers can affect or go through armour, and there's a lot more ways to get rid of shields. If memory serves, no ME3 units get improved protection, which makes it a lot easier -- I won't care about the basic Cerbie Troopie, because he's going to go away with a Bioplosion.

I have to say, having gamed the Multiplayer portion obessively, I got to understand the combat mechanics decently. It helps a lot in tactics. I don't expect the Insanity run to be too difficult, but might be grindy getting through the enemies again.