Well, so much for that weekend… it came and went faster than the average Taco Bell meal passes through one’s digestive system, and now we are left with a Monday which hardly makes the effort seem worthwhile. The days are getting shorter and a heck of a lot colder – well, in the northern hemisphere, anyway – and every day just brings us closer to the gloom and misery of winter.
And, of course, this is before we get to the fact that Halloween is coming up on us PDQ. Now, I used to celebrate that fake holiday, just like everyone else does from the secular world. But, these days, I recognise it for what it is – the night of the year in which the daemonic realm is the closest to our physical one, and the one that witches and warlocks (these are absolutely real) love the most.
Be that as it may, it IS Monday, and it IS time to get on with another week, so let us struggle through it with another Great Mondaydact Browser Smasher.
The big news that dropped last week was the demo of the next HALO project. And, I have to say, HALO: Campaign Evolved looks – to use the technical term – SUPER DOOPER AWESOMESAUCE AMAZEBALLS.
However, there are a lot of details in the campaign demo that may, or may not, presage serious problems for the reboot, so let’s go through some of the videos and opinions on the subject:
While we are on the subject of HALO, it was the franchise’s LEAST favourite instalment’s 10th birthday recently:
That is the one HALO game that I don’t think I will ever play again. I just have no patience or time for it any more.
As for the latest version of HALO: CE, all I can say is that I desperately hope “Halo Studios” doesn’t f*** it up.
That is my honest opinion. I LOVE the original game – for all of its flaws, and they are considerable, it is an incredible experience to play through. That game fundamentally changed the landscape of FPS, both on consoles and PCs. It introduces ideas, innovations, lore, world-building, characters, gameplay, and an element of balls-out fun and creativity that, very sadly, the HALO franchise has largely LOST by now.
HALO Infinite was a brave, if poorly executed, attempt to return to form. But it was hamstrung by technical debt, an overambitious attempt to build an entirely new game engine from scratch, and over a DECADE of abuse of the lore and the fans by Microsoft.
There is now a real need to right the ship, rationalise the lore, and get back to basics. Again, HALO Infinite tried to do that. It came kind-of-sort-of-close. What the franchise really needed was a bold, definitive vision of the way forward, that built on the tentative, shaky steps of that game (and got rid of all the nonsense from HALO 5: Guardians), and pointed to something amazing.
Instead, we get another reboot of HALO: Combat Evolved – and we get it BEFORE a remaster of HALO 3, perhaps the greatest FPS game ever made.
I can see that Microsoft does have a strategy in all of this. HALO: Campaign Evolved is basically the cornerstone on which Microsoft and Halo Studios will build future reboots of the classic games, as well as the game engine on which they will build HALO 7.
I am just not sure they have the first clue how to carry out that strategy. We have seen too many failures from Microsoft already, for over 15 years, to have much faith that they have any clue what they are doing.
Time will tell. I will look forward to playing the new version of the classic game. But I have a feeling that we are taking one step forward to take another three back.
#BasedTucker is Based
Dawn of Battle
The Male Brain
Mind-Expanding Drugs
Death Smiles At Us All…
Culture Beats
Veterans’ Day
Judge’s Ruling
MUH RUSHIAN KAHLOOOOOOOZHUN!!!
Новый-Царь Приказывает
Профессор Бровкин Учит
Дед Сварливый Говорит!
Дядя Стас Объясняет
Polonium
Timeo Danaos Et Donna Ferentes…
Bad Medicine
Warriors of Faith
Manly Men of Manliness
Burn Paedowood to the Ground
Reading Too Much Into Things
Linkage is good for you:
- Dmitryi Kornev is singularly unimpressed by the British Poodle’s yapping about its military, which is actually highly dependent on the ‘Murkins;
- Sergey Poletayev analyses the increasingly rapid collapse of Ukrainian defences across the front lines, as the inexorable Russian pressure becomes unbearable;
- Doomberg takes a look at Ukraine’s books, and the picture that emerges is extremely dire for the Western economy;
- Henry Johnston points to the deficiencies in planning and thinking surrounding Ornj Boi’s attempt to stop Russian oil on global markets;
- Ian Proud expounds on the rather obvious fact that the SANKSHUNS!!! against Russia have failed and backfired – as someone who actually implemented them;
- A panel of Russian experts sounds off on the latest anti-Russian sanctions from Drumpf, which are unlikely to be particularly effective;
- Murad Sadygadze shows how Russia’s continued presence in Syria is actually a triumph of pragmatism and forward thinking over emotions;
- Alexander Mercouris unpacks the whole sordid story behind Bashar al-Assad’s supposed WMD programme in Syria, before he was deposed in the civil war;
- Farhad Ibragimov looks at the rapidly improving ties between Russia and Iran, and how they will affect the region;
- Andre Benoit points to the new Japanese Prime Minister – who markets herself as an Asian Thatcher – as a sign of deep institutional decay in the Land of the Rising Sun;
- Graham Hryce observes the death-spiral of the cuckservative parties across the West, and their rapid displacements by rising nationalist populist alternatives;
- Rachel Marsden offers some trenchant thoughts on the rather rich irony that the Doomstache has been indicted;
- The American nuclear triad is in woeful shape, particularly on land, and the latest military exercises do nothing to hide that fact;
- The Russians lead the world in the production of tanks for export, which is what happens when you make weapons that really work, and then test them in combat against everyone else’s best;
- First we had the Great Resignation, then the Great Clinging, and now we have the Great Freeze, as employees don’t leave and companies don’t fire;
And some more from Dawn Pine:
- The Chinese may have a dual-array radar that can track F-22s via satellite, which nullifies America’s single most capable air superiority asset;
- Goolag wants to lure you away from Microsoft’s locked-in model – to their own locked-in model;
- Jeff Bezosoy has neutered the Bond franchise by removing all guns from it – at least, in the Prime movie posters that you see on the platform;
- To precisely no one’s surprise, the Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation has once again breached its own rules of impartiality in its coverage of the Gazacaust;
- Scientists are puzzling through the mystery of the peoples who settled Colombia some 6,000 years ago – and then vanished;
- The US government has been shut down for longer than at any point in its history – the rest of us are, of course, ecstatic;
- Vegans are so insufferable that they now need a magazine article telling them how to behave in front of normal people;
- For all the evils of apartheid, Sefrica was a first-world country back then, but now it is a shithole ruled over by Wakandans;
- The Swedes prove, yet again, why we call them Scandicucks, by allowing a literal rapefugee to stay in the country, in spite of what he did;
- Turns out, you CAN actually have ice at room temperature – though under VERY specific circumstances;
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!
Big Boyz Toyz
Oh No! Anyway…
Comedy Hour
Meme Warfare
We begin with some dank memes from The Male Brain:
And now, as LRFotS RobertW likes to say:
Real Men Watch REAL Sports
REPS FOR JESUS!!!
Ass-Kicking of the Eight Limbs
They See Me Rollin’…
JUST BLEED!!!
Facefisted
Palate Cleansers
Cats Against Humanity
Pawsitivity
Murder Machines
Derpskies
Axe Me Anything
Knives Out
All This and Brains Too
Arrow to the Knee
Saber Rattling
Drumlines
Dad Jokes
What You Otter Do
Guitar Heroics
Engrish
MOAR DAKKA!!!
Keystone Kops
(Almost) Wife Material
VERY STRONGLY!
Mambo Italiano
Life Lessons
Jump-Starts
Gingervitis Injections
Livin’ in the Land of the Metal Gods
Let’s have some TYR for this week:
Rock Out With Your Glock Out
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