First Impressions: Halo PC

[Drasca]

Idunno if you already know this, but a little note:  There's a relatively large area of the Hunter's back that's orange instead of the grey-blue of the rest of their skin.  Shooting them there is an instant kill; it may take a burst from an AR due to its' innacuracy to hit the right spot, but ping it with a pistol or sniper rifle and the Hunter goes down.

I'm aware of the vulnerability in the back, as well as the orange stripe-- as told by other friends. However.. I'm too motion rather than detail oriented. I feel with my body, going with motion. Rather than looking at targets, I'm tuned to their motion. Only paying attention to the movement, not what they look like. So I've never actually bothered to see the stripe myself, I just hit that area as I'm moving. And I do enjoy pinging it in the back ;) Guess what I used to snipe those hunters with... muahahaha. I really should get used to dancing around them and pistol-whipping (melee'ing) their back though. That's generally recommended.

Hunters are annoying, but not bad ass at all. Walking battering rams. My best battles were always against Elites. Boy do they challenge me when I don't have the right weapon prepared for their encounter. Pistols and invisible (non bladed) silvers? uh uh. Not unless I got the jump on them. I need sheer volume of fire to ID their position.

Actually with Jackals in normal difficulty, they don't run away from my plasma grenades. They're oblivious to them, and tend to pop. My aim doesn't have to be good, in the vicinity. Plasma Grenade is golden to take them out--- when they're surrounded by grunts or other undesirables at range. If solo, and in medium range I do a cavalry charge and melee them. Who needs to bother taking down their shield when you can conk them on the head, dead?

My favorite combination in general is Plasma Pistol and Regular pistol. AR not as much, since I tend to melee when at close range. I do like volume of fire when doing a close-up running fight (from zealot-esque sword toting elites).. But I get my thrill from being a sneaky SOB. Sneaking around Grunts, charging Jackals (with arm-shields) and silencing them before they can call alarm (because they do patrol). It seems (I may be wrong) that there's additional damage when running and meleeing, because I can KO the jackals when charging them (and not missing). Sniping everything. It takes a full clip from the pistol to take out a Blue Elite, but it works wonders at range when they can't even see you.

I took the Warthog from the beach assault level (Getting the map to Halo Control) fully into the first entrance-- until the security door (just before the cutscene of Master Chief kicking a rock down the pit). There's "plenty" enough room to take your girl warthog down comfortably--scraping, but easy to get around in that tunnel. Getting back up was bunches of fun too, and swash hoggling through the expectant Convenant...expectant of a solo infantryman, not mechanized squad of machine gun goodness.

Marines, while fun, are cannon fodder. I wish they were smarter and knew how to work as a team but no... This isn't Operation Flashpoint or Rogue Squad or the other Tom Clancy Rainbow Six programmable A.I. Behaviour tactical squad that's absolutely deadly, pulling off the near impossible. They're only human...children's programmed bots. Bungie really could do better should they wanted to. I understand, if the Marines were great, who needs the player, the master chief? But its still disappointing.

As to how "unconventional" I was. I don't know. I guess I'm more conventional than I thought, because the banshee manuever (I read the gamefaqs Mission suggested victory after I went through it) recommends the high action banshee steal as faster, funner and easier in general. For me, it was a helluva lot of fun because the banshee steal is hinted through the computer voice with "If only I had a way to get up on the ledge..." heh heh.