Monday, November 30, 2020

Halo 2 - Fall, to Rise - A Blind Playthrough - Part 3

The race for the Index/Icon has officially begun, as Humanity and the Covenant compete over the fate of the next Halo ring. Both factions understand that the fate of what is likely the entire universe is at stake, but only one of them has full knowledge of the situation.

Let's find out what happens when their champions meet for the first time, real life sickness be damned.

So first off, as of the time of writing, my condition is improving. By the time this goes live, I will most likely be fully recovered. That being said...

I couldn't help but suffer flashbacks to that massive section with the Flood in Halo 1 when playing through the first part of this episode with The Arbiter. Thankfully, it doesn't last nearly as long before being broken up by more fights between The Flood and 343's robot drones. In both cases, there's a core root problem of going through many cycles of the same-looking rooms against the same enemy groups and formations, which makes it difficult to gauge whether or not any tangible progress is being made.

In addition to that, the Flood aren't terribly fun to fight. Their major gimmick is that they're easy to kill, but make up for that weakness by being swarm fodder. Unfortunately, Halo 2 is already lethal in terms of combat, so their reduced stamina doesn't make an appreciable difference when fighting them here. The increased numbers also make it hard to find good spots for cover, and while cloaking helps it doesn't stop a single lucky hit from stray fire from deactivating it and making us vulnerable again.

Once that was done, I was glad to go back to fighting the Covenant again.

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