Ben Vs. The Library

As far as I can read, the only changes for the Anniversary version of the Library are lighting and navigational changes, not length of the level...

Nice. I can get behind this!

Whatever Jan is being paid, he deserves a raise

More Halo on this site please.

As a kid the flood part freaked me out. I didnt kill flood fast enough so they seemed like they were crawling all over me. I and many others around this time were just getting use to dual controls for shooters since most games if you didnt get a ps1 dual shock, most games were auto camera and i had trouble on normal mode. I guess if you can beat destiny raids then even legendary isnt bad these days. its like when i use to think splinter cell 1 stealth was super hard and you go back knowing what you know now and wreck it. Still fun. And I think old (good at the time) games get too much criticism 20 or 30 years after they come out. Most of the time the stuff they are criticed for wouldnt even be an issue if you put your head away from comparing it to shooter 120202 from the blah blah series.

Every morning there's a Halo™ hangin

From the corner of my girlfriend's four post bed

I know it's not mine but I'll see if I can use it for

The weekend or a one-night stand

The Library is a fine level. Don't understand why it's so derided. It's a level that encourages forward momentum because of the constant enemies. You fight less enemies if you just plow forward. Move forward and shoot! I even think it's kind of fun.

My favorite part was how large and easy to see Jan & Jeff were.

Yeah - the whole "let's make fun of this bad thing" shtick is only good in small bouts, not the entire essence of a series.

It's why I didn't like the Kingdom Hearts thing that they did some time back. And hell, KH always seemed like convoluted nonsense to me, and even I got tired of it.

@fontelroy said:

I know what you mean, though as far as GB not being for you anymore, as someone who's also an old school member it's worth remembering all long-running sites are going to ebb and flow over time in terms of quantity and quality (subjectively) of output. I do feel like there's a sense of a need for a refresh of certain things lately though. For me, things like UPF and even the Bombcast have been the same for years and maybe risk appearing stale, for want of a slightly less harsh word - I'd love to see some kind of shake-up of some the longer-running themes. Though there's always the change vs familiarity debate of course.

I'm not one of these East vs West coast comment-type people - I still think of GB as a combined whole, even if I'm sad it's hard to get my old favourites in the same videos very often. But imagine if someone on the East coast said they'd never played Halo and thought they might like to. There'd be a custom intro and logo, a dodgy pun title and a playthrough where they can talk but also take in the story of the story-based game they were playing. It'd be a Mass Alex-esque thing that stands on its own, rather than being roughly folded into an existing, nebulous sort of feature. Now, I know a) Ben said he wasn't sure how much he'd play up front, and b) this isn't exactly an RPG or story-based in the way a Mass Effect is, but I feel like that willingness to commit to an idea, see it through and form it into a polished thing is what sometimes separates the content between coasts at the moment. Maybe that's ok. Maybe some more "high" concept stuff from one place, and more off-the-cuff style stuff from the other, all on one site, is ok. Just personally, I'm a lot more of a Mass Alex-type content appreciator than the Twitch stream-style, chat-heavy, see-how-it-goes type thing appreciator. Between Jason and Jan (and also Ben, I know he's done video stuff) there's definitely the production talent to make more of the former.

I hope, as it does matter to me, that if any staff read this it comes off as constructive in some way, even if it's not something you agree with or want to act on. It's certainly subjective feedback on content, not people, and I'm only bothering at all because I care. It might be obvious from the above but these aren't thoughts inspired by this video for me but just things percolating at the back of my mind lately. Also it's really late and I should be asleep and not rambling on the internet.

Break-In Ben: Ben plays through all Halo MCC campaigns in order of release. Ben can invite a coop partner. Between campaigns Ben examines the context of each release and recaps the game's story.

I Never had a problem with the library. like its structure or length, even its design, and aesthetics. Its a giant data facility, or course it would be boring as shit. Running through it on Legendary co-op was a blast.

Of course its no 'assault on the control room'. but what is.

Surprised how much Jeff had to say about Halo. It just never struck me as a game he cared much about, but I suppose the original trilogy was unavoidable.

I loved this original campaign, since the open tactical choices were a revelation at the time but it clearly feels dated now. Halo 2 is pretty bad and always has been, with some really tedious campaign combat. Luckily Ben will get the cool Anniversary experience, but I hope he sticks with it to get into some of the later games. The level pacing improves so much.

As a huge fan of the series, I loved what they did with the movement in 5. The sprinting and dashing made it much faster, but the core combat still felt like Halo to me. Plenty of options and some kick ass AI, just more modern. If Infinite improves on where Guardians was then I'll be there for hundreds of hours. Feels like the biggest complaints people had were fighting the same boss too many times (valid) and the card system in Warzone (after an hour, you had more cards then you'd ever need). The story takes some turns but at least it's going somewhere new.

Thank you for reading my essay. Halo rules and I'm glad to see it hit the site again!

psst, hey, kid, come 'er, you wanna jump through some hoops? I got those halos I know you kids love to hoop jump nowadays

14 minutes in and I'm pretty sure Ben doesn't see the blue dude floating around, at least I haven't seen him look at him

I have no clue why they keep talking about the Burger King and are creating some dumb lore about him being in the Halo universe.

I think, in general, the touched up graphics are the better option for 99% of the game.

But I dunno dude, something about The Library makes me appreciate the original graphics so much more. Just that harsher lighting, the scarier flood design. It just works for that level a lot more for me.

At some point when Ben started getting frustrated with the game, I thought to myself, "You don't know half of it. Literally."

I really really disliked this level when I played the game way back when. It would have been bearable if it had been maybe a third as long. Considering how much of Halo's other levels consisted of long corridors of copypasted and rearranged prefabbed pieces, the library starts feeling like a joke at some point.

I did not intend for the tone of this as "let's make fun of this bad thing." I'm playing Halo because I'm having fun with it.

The Library was one of my favorite levels on an easier difficulty setting. The shotgun was just so satisfying! If I recall correctly, the red tentacle-like things are harder to see in the old graphics - but still there - and indicate where to shoot with the pistol for more damage on the humanoid flood.

Lol at people being down on Ben for having a rough time in the library level, which is notorious for being a downer of a level in the middle of an otherwise good game. Guy played it well, and was as entertaining as anybody could be in this part imo. It's a frustrating and challenging section.

You made it pretty clear in the podcast (or was it aftermath?) that you were enjoying it, hell, not even 4 minutes into the video you mentioned you only had small gripes with it.

I'm still on board with making fun of bad games though.

I know its dumb but i'm 20 minutes in and FREAKING OUT that Ben's not grabbing a different weapon, specifically a shotgun for this. It's bringing back past trauma from playing the library so many times :P

Cool to see someone taking a first crack at the Halo series though.

Clearly, you should have been reeling back, leaping out of your seat and yelling "THIS GAME IS SOOOO GOOD" every five minutes.

/s

Thanks for the vid man. Keep at it <3

This section of the game was unbearable. I remember just hopping forward to the checkpoints.

It was neat to see Ben learn "Running in and unloading a clip" is not the way Halo campaigns work. By the end he was using melee to save bullets, backing off to recharge shields and focusing on the flooded marines who can actually hurt you and than just kiting the others. Well mostly.

it is so hokey that the flood can just fire ROCKETS right at you while standing completely still, wow, cool spooky scary disintegrating fleshy zombie that can operate intricate personal weaponry

F

Man the Library is a slog and goes on longer than it should have considering you're running around the same looking corridors fighting generic enemies. Also shotgun is a must.