Thanks very much for the detailed information about HI. This about jives with what I have seen elsewhere, and from what I have observed in the cutscenes. The plot, in particular, does appear to be a lot better than H:5G, and it does seem to redeem a lot of the outright idiocy introduced by Brian Reed and others into the series.

I look forward to your long-form review (assuming it’s coming)!

I hope I get a chance to play it soon, for sure. The major problem for me is that ALL of my electronics, and I mean ALL of them, are sitting in storage in the USA right now. And I need to get around to bringing all of that shit over. Until I can do that, or until I can get a decent second-hand gaming laptop with a 4GB video card, I don’t really have much of a chance of playing it.

My current laptop is an old warhorse – it’s a nearly 4-year-old Lenovo T470p with a 2GB GeForce 940MX, which isn’t enough to run HI. I love this old beast, it’s served me very well, but it’s not up for the latest games – and was never designed to be a gaming laptop anyway.

So it might be a while before I can get around to dealing with HI, unfortunately…

Whenever I do, though, you can be sure the review will follow.

Here’s my spoiler-free breakdown. I LIKED:
+The story is easy to follow and actually makes sense.
+The new characters are pretty great. I kind of hated the Pilot at first but he grew on me by the end, and Escharum is a fantastic villain with lots of layers.
+The production values (graphic and sound design) are first-rate. All of the guns feel awesome. This has never been a problem in the 343 era.
+The open-world stuff is a blast, and it’s neat to think up new ways to tackle firefights that aren’t what the designers intended.
+NO WOKE BULLSHIT. Sarah RBF Palmer is blessedly nowhere to be found (maybe killed off-screen?), and the audio logs (I found every single one) are all laser-focused on the backstory, and don’t go off on worthless tangents like Tanaka’s remarks on female Sangheili shipmasters. There was no woke preaching that I could detect. Bonnie Ross must have been kicked upstairs.
+Even the multiplayer is fun, and I HATE online multiplayer! I bought the battle pass and ranking up the levels is addictive. Since it came out I’ve gone from “sucks” to “can usually place in the top 50%”, which is good enough for me, and I’m good enough to complete most of the weekly challenges.

I DIDN’T LIKE:
-Most of the important events happen off-screen, and several story setups aren’t paid off.
-A couple of the boss fights are frustrating as hell. They might be fun on a lower difficulty, but on Legendary they are very much trial and error, and even then the game will sometimes just kill you instantly because **** you. The first, second, and last were particularly frustrating for me. My advice would be to always bring a weapon that can break shields.
-Hunters might be even more OP than they were in Halo 5. There’s an encounter with two of them near the end of the game which was so awful that it made me want to give up.
-There isn’t a ton of environmental variety in either the open world or story level settings. The shooting is so fun that you won’t notice, but the scenery differences of Halo CE’s first six levels is nowhere to be found here.
-There’s a bit of missed potential in the open-world stuff. Ranking up your FOB drops is nice, but it would be been neat to, for example, blow up a Banished airbase and ground all of the dropships in that sector for the rest of the game, or blow up an ammo factory that makes them not have Skewers anymore. You definitely feel like you’re making a difference, but other than the FOBs you don’t really see it in the world.

I look forward to your long-form review (assuming it’s coming)!

The new Grand Tour Carnage-A-Tois episode was a riot.

I’m actually very far behind in terms of my TGT-watching – I still need to finish watching the last several specials AND the whole of Season 3. But those guys just get better and funnier with time.

A 4xbodyweight Squat is unfathomable. Let alone 4 as a set. Good Lord.

Yeah. That is why I never, EVER critique or make fun of a genuine powerlifter. I don’t care if he’s juicing or not. I just respect the hell out of guys who can do those things – it’s incredible.

I am lucky if I can pull off a 2XBW squat these days – VERY lucky. A 4XBW squat is unthinkable. And yet, there are great lifters who can do precisely that. They are demi-gods among men.

Now you shared the clip this all comes from. It gave me chills watching it. No wonder the ancient auxiliaries still bring this artillery, it was probably more resonant the day it was made for the g-g-generation it was made for than it is for this distracted millennial. Great share.

The new Grand Tour Carnage-A-Tois episode was a riot. My wife and I both laughed consistently the entire way through. I have no experience with French Motoring beyond the Michelin tires on our cars. I think my favorite moment, and the most ‘TopGear/GrandTour’ moment is when the interns are trying to defuse a bomb in a BMW racing down cobblestone. They fail and the BMW goes up in black smoke and flames. Cut to Clarkson, May & Hammond watching from the side.
Clarkson: They were such nice young fellows, really seemed to have the world ahead for them.
Hammond: “Well, yes, but I didn’t want to inhale them”

A 4xbodyweight Squat is unfathomable. Let alone 4 as a set. Good Lord.