Blackstar of Blackstar Productions and Narcogen of Bungie fansite Rampancy.net run through the Halo 3 level "Floodgate", covering gameplay and story, as well as the usual three elements: something that made us Angry, something that made us Sad, and something from another game that we Envy and wish Halo 3 had that it doesn't.
Show Highlights:
What is Gravemind after?
Gravemind Speaks
Cortana Rescued... Sort Of
Glassing the Flood
The Sound of Music
Left Open Portals and Half Baked Solutions
Anger, Sadness & Envy
This is the MP3 version of the podcast, without chapter markers, art, or hyperlinks.
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OldNick (not verified)
Re: Anger, Sadness and Envy Episode 6: Floodgate (Part 2 of ...
Thanks for continuing the ASE series - I for one enjoy it, and I'd regretfully concluded that it would probably never be completed. Your remarks on fighting the Flood in Halo 3 tempt me to offer some tactical tips from my own experience, since my own Flood-fighting tactics are clearly rather different from yours, and they work well for me.
Bungie undoubtedly realised that the Ranged Flood form was so dangerous it needed balancing vulnerabilities. For this they used the 'stun mechanic' we've seen elsewhere in the Halo series. Hit a Ranged form with enough fire and it'll stop shooting for a few seconds. Hit it harder and it will lose its grip and fall to the ground where you can reach it. Smack it with a hard-hitting melee weapon and it dies.
Balancing effective firepower against availability, I find that the two best weapons to use against the Ranged form are the Plasma Rifle, which can do the stun and drop (carefully demonstrated by Bungie in your first Ranged form encounter in The Storm), and the Brute Shot, which can do all three - stun and drop with grenades, kill with a melee strike.
I've found the Brute Shot melee so effective against all Flood forms that I'll often hang on to the weapon even if it's out of grenades. It's my weapon of choice for killing Tank forms, since it's more versatile than the Plasma Sword, which also depletes its charge even in a melee strike and turns into a useless lump when the charge is exhausted.
OldNick
(It's quite a while since I tried to log in here, and I found that it just wouldn't work for me, despite multiple attempts in both Safari and Firefox. Has my account been deactivated as dormant, or have I simply forgotten my password?)
narcogen
Re: Anger, Sadness and Envy Episode 6: Floodgate (Part 2 of ...
In reply to: Re: Anger, Sadness and Envy Episode 6: Floodgate (Part 2 of ...Think it's just a password issue-- the account is still active.
You should be able to get the site to re-set your password by sending a mail to you at nmascall@btinternet.com. If you can't get that to work email me at narcogen@rampancy.net and I'll reset it manually for you.
Rampant for over se7en years.
Rockslider
Saving the first indoor Marine
Thanks for the podcast, and I'm glad to see the series continuing. It's a long time since I did this level, but after listening I played the level through to remind myself about it. There's one thing I'd like to pick you up on. At 00:13:57 in Part 1, Narcogen says:
"So, you walk through this door and there's a Marine being infected by Flood forms, and even if you destroy all the Flood forms with a shotgun blast, the animation still proceeds, and the only way to stop that from happening is actually to melee the Marine on the back of the head and kill him to stop the sequence, because they want you to see this transformation, which is actually pretty creepy to watch."
I assume you're talking about the first Marine you see indoors. However, there's no problem saving this guy if you've got an AR or SMG, or dual SMGs. As you run towards him, just make sure to open fire as soon as you see the spores (it may help if you're hugging the right wall to see them slightly earlier). They'll be a little way away from his ankles and it's not hard to wipe them out before they get to him, even on Legendary. With a shotgun I'm guessing it would be a lot harder because it's clumsier. That might explain why you formed the idea that it was impossible to save him.
By the way, Blackstar's voice sounded considerably closer to the microphone a lot of the time (on the MP3 version I was using), so I think the voice balancing could do with improvement next time, to keep things more comfortable. There will be a next time, right?
Rockslider
My play-through
After a slight delay of a couple of years, I've finally posted the article I wrote after listening to your podcast and having a play of the level. It's advertised here in the HBO forum. Just thought you'd like to know.
http://www.badcyborg.net
narcogen
Re: My play-through
In reply to: My play-through[quote=Rockslider]After a slight delay of a couple of years, I've finally posted the article I wrote after listening to your podcast and having a play of the level. It's advertised here in the HBO forum. Just thought you'd like to know.
http://www.badcyborg.net[/quote]
Awesome! I've posted a link on our front page.
Rampant for over se7en years.
Rockslider
Re: My play-through
In reply to: Re: My play-through[quote=narcogen]Awesome! I've posted a link on our front page.[/quote]
Woo-hoo! Thats great, thanks.