[11/14 - i stopped caring about the engineering hull, but still think the nacelles don't work. new teaser looks totally sweet though.]
first reaction to the (almost definately) first shot of the new enterprise in the wild - not good.
[nerd]
the engineering hull needs to slide back so that the deflector rim is flush against the saucer strut. the tips of the nacelles need to be farther back than the rear edge of the saucer. if you want the 1701-a deflector, just copy the 1701-a design wholesale. if you want the classic protruding deflector, make it glow yellow, not blue. the ramscoops should glow red. kill the blue running lights along the nacelles or make them red as well.
remove the spotlights and archaic black painted insignia, and install white luminescent panels.
replace the portholes and bay windows with four foot thick transparent aluminum, tinted gold. from the outside, there should be two glowing yellowish stripes along the entire rim of the saucer, and matching banding along the primary hull and neck.
there are blast shields and panic rooms on the inside of the windows in case of depressurization, and the yellow/gold tint deepens all the way to opaque in the event of heavy starlight / radiation / weapons fire. the yellow interior compartments are a visual cue that you have left the securely pressurized blue zones of the ship, and entered a potentially hazardous area.
[/nerd]
should look fine when it’s flying around blowing shit up, but much like the movie design for optimus prime, liking it just fine in the movie doesn’t mean i’m buying the toy.
i have four versions of the 1701-a. this design is nowhere near that slick, and i say this knowing full well that 75% of you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
i don’t really have anything to say. we can pretty much start calling him president obama now, and we never have to stop.
still a lot of work to do, but this is a big start. the last eight years of failed opportunities ends now.
the short answer versus bungle’s call and response jumble is that halo 3: recon is a first person expansion pack to halo 3, using the halo 3 engine, where you play as an odst who drops into new mombasa after truth’s ship jumps away in the middle of halo 2. this is ‘the end’ of the halo trilogy. this is one of several games underway at bungie, the only one close enough to release that they’re willing to discuss it.
now, given the cliffhanger on the legendary ending of halo 3, the potency of the franchise, the size of the fanbase, and the fact that they specifically say recon is by a small internal team, this means bungie’s recent hiring drive is feeding into other, larger projects, one of which is almost certainly ‘master chief saga volume two episode one: the awesomeing’, which will not be part of the halo trilogy by a technicality and nothing more.
so. halo 3: recon. technically this should be called halo 2: retcon, since it’s going to cover the ground everyone expected to see in halo 2, ie unsc defense forces versus the covenant in an urban environment, but instead of using the crap halo 2 engine it’s rendered in glorious halo-3-o-rama, with hd, excessive visual flair, and full access to saved films and screenshots and whatnot.
this also means you’ll get halo 3 brute packs instead of halo 2 bullet sponges, halo 3 weapons and equipment instead of broken dual-wielding and nerfed everything, and actual playable mongoose instead of a video on the deluxe bonus dvd showing you the most fun thing ever that they cut at the last minute, because it was simply too good and made the rest of the game look bad by comparison.
ten bucks says we’ll see a level based on the halo 2 new mombasa demo level, and the yellow civilian ‘hog as a driveable vehicle. (since it’s just a yellow repaint with no turret, i’m surprised we didn’t see that in halo 3, actually…)
there will be a new map pack as well, the ‘mythic’ pack, which includes the recently revealed assembly / purple reign, which will be released on live in ‘winter’ 2009 (jan feb mar), while recon itself including the mythic pack will hit shelves as a retail game in fall of 09.
this is the silliest part, because nobody who cares about playing a halo 3 expansion pack is going to pass on the chance for new halo 3 maps to slayer and forge with, in order to save a few bucks by waiting six months for recon proper.
(there are new multiplayer achievements coming independantly, and recon’s campaign will have it’s own set as well, but i’m not the market for that, since if i could turn off achievements and gamerscore, i would.)
in any case, the new maps are standard halo 3 maps, no new odst multiplayer model, so they’re entirely divorced from recon except possibly being drawn from recon campaign locales, which would make the early release even more ridiculous. still, new maps is new maps, no complaints from me.
i hope we run into computer terminals all over new mombasa and can interact with the superintendant ai shown in the trailers and promo wallpapers. he seems not exactly rampant, but just a bit peculiar, ala holly on red dwarf. running about doing side missions and bantering with a slightly crazed ai sounds like a lot of fun, and frankly, the more marathon nods the better, since fighting brutes without mjolnir armor is likely to be a bitch and a half.
this is why we need regulation, in any case. not to restrict market possibility, but to restrict market abuse.
we can’t raise taxes on the richest 1%! if we take all their money, there will be nothing left to trickle down!
as the global imaginary credit economy continues to collapse in on itself, and the icelandic economy evaporates around them, icelanders turn back to their viking roots and shrug and go back to work.
they could turn off the phones and close the ports and just weather out the financial storm ala edo-period japan if they really wanted to.
no such luck for the rest of us.
rocketboom presents rjd2 - work it out
