Nanite still has its limits. Afaik it only works for static objects so it can't be applied to moving things like characters or interactive foliage yet. Will be that much more amazing if they can figure that out, though.

So I finished Halo Infinite and I got some thoughts.

I'll break it into 5 parts but before spending your time reading it, I'll just say it. It felt meh for me.

Part 1: Initially it feels great and what I come to expect from a Halo game. The level feels good, the mechanics feels solid, sound is excellent and the setting is interesting.

Part 2: This is when we get out to the open world. The grappling hook feels great and traversing the world with it is awesome. You get introduced to the world and your main objectives and starting roaming around taking over bases. There is a certain charm of having Master Chief swing around the world like Spiderman, especially when you get the grappling hook cooldown upgrade.

Part 3: This is where it becomes not so good. The problem is that the world doesn't feel all that interesting. You are kinda just doing the same things over and over again. The level design feels very samey. You have a few abilities but you can only equip one of them at a time. But since the grappling hook is so op, other than very rare occasions, you really don't feel like equipping anything else even though it's very easy to change. The Cortana clone and the Pilot also don't feel all that care worthy. It really doesn't help that Cortana clones facial expressions look so horrid throughout the game. The boss fights also don't feel all that unique and some of them are just bullet sponges.

Part 4: This is where some emotional parts start to happen but the problem is that some of it doesn't feel earned. The "open world" portion basically kills this portion because, least for me, I didn't feel invested in Cortana clone or the Pilot all that much. I think this would have paid off if they gotten rid of the open world aspect and kept it to a more linear and tightly controlled level design with better chemistry between the characters.

Part 5: This is where it goes back to the "old" level design and the story really starts to pick up. This also has some pretty good moments somewhat ruined by the awful facial animation. It's a good enough ending for the game but man, if they executed the game well, it would have been far better.

Other thoughts:

There are times where it feels like an intern made this based on some of the execution. Here is what I mean. There are some sections where there is an in game first person cut scene where you can still move your character and what not but the area is locked down since there is a cut scene happening. So obviously since you can't do anything besides watching the cutscene, you would you know... Not move the character and... Watch the cutscene... But for some dumb reason, the idle animation kicks in. So you get into this situation where you are watching this serious cut scene and Chief starts inspecting his big ass gun he is carrying that blocks half the screen until you move the mouse/controller... Like why???

Then you have the other issues like 30 fps cutscenes, stuttering during cutscenes for some reason, god awful facial animations, performance issues in general and apparently:

To me, this is not acceptable in the 9th gen. A flagship game shouldn't have any of these issues.

I think overall, this isn't 343's redemption Arc. If anything, it goes to show why 343 shouldn't be handling a flagship game. It has some good ideas but it's not executed well enough to reach their full potential. I wouldn't recommend anyone buy this at full sticker and instead, give it a go on Gamepass. It's good enough to be entertaining but not good enough to be on the box of the Series X.

Overall 7/10 for me.

Thanks for the impressions Yuri. As someone who stopped playing the main campaigns since Reach. The Series has been pretty much skip. Like the draw for Halo CE campaign for me was the Sandbox fun and the beautifully crafted levels and pacing. And this totally goes against that. Like I hate that a lot of open world games are full of filler and empty apart from scattered enemies and bases and this doesn't buck the trend. In that after you do a base or two the repetitiveness of these types of games kicks in. I mean the whole biome and outdoors is basically a giant level based on one of the chapters of CE - The Cartographer.

Its a shame because the actual gameplay and mechanics are so much fun (judging from the multiplayer). And 343i still can't pull off a semi-interesting story and focused campaign. I'd wish that MS would give the campaign so someone else like The Coalition, but knowing MS they'll keep funneling money into 343i for some odd reason.

Price of Final Fantasy 7 Remake removed from Epic Games stor -https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-price-of-final-fantasy-7-is-now-removed-on-epic-games-store.1625887/

Epic/SE be like

Or maybe Epic "asked" S-E to drop the price since they already get a bigger cut from their store and have also given them money for the exclusivity. After all, I doubt Epic will see a lot of sales on their store with that price, and they need to sell some copies to get some of their money back.

There's a new rumor/leak convercing AMD GPUs, but maybe not RDNA3:

Next-Gen AMD RDNA Gaming GPUs Could Include A Stacked Accelerator Die On The Primary GPU With Machine Learning Capabilities
https://wccftech.com/next-gen-amd-rdna-gaming-gpus-could-include-a-stacked-accelerator-die-on-the-primary-gpu-with-machine-learning-capabilities/
AMD's next-generation RDNA GPUs are getting more technically advanced each iteration and MCM technology is just the start. In a patent published by AMD, the chip maker discusses the addition of a stacked accelerator die on board next-gen GPUs, as discovered by Coreteks.

AMD's MCM solution for GPUs is already using bleeding-edge technology & there are also rumors of next-gen RDNA GPUs featuring 3D Infinity Cache technology in a chiplet-based architecture. The latest rumor is that another technology might be coming to next-gen RDNA GPUs and that is APD or Accelerated Processor Die. Think of it as a die integrated within the main GPU (possibly a stack chiplet), designed to execute machine learning tasks.

Here's the original source from Coreteks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgc8hK4UL6s

One thing to keep in mind is also mentioned in the last paragraph of the article:

With that said, patents such as these don't come to fruition all of a sudden. This one was published on 2nd December and AMD is already rumored to have taped out its flagship RDNA 3 GPU. It could be entirely possible that if APD ends up being a stacked chiplet, it could easily be integrated later on when RDNA 3 is mass-produced, or otherwise, we may see it end up with RDNA 4 or something entirely else. It's definitely one interesting technology that we would like to see integrated on our gaming GPUs if its going to help boost performance.

I've seen this thread in my feed forever but never clicked on it... until now. I JUST realized that is said "Carzy" instead of "Crazy".

Wtf!?

Yeah Epic might have seen the reactions and revoked the pricing for now. To stop the negative press against the new pricing. Hopefully this will get changed because once people find 80 Euro games acceptable others will likely follow. Like prices for PC games have already seen a gradual rise in cost the past several years.. I don't think many PC gamers will take kindly to another price bump. 

@d21lewis

Never noticed that lol.

If I remember correctly, it was an honest mistake, but zarx likes it and left it because it reinforced his crazyness.

I really doubt Epic was concerned about the reactions and what that can mean for the future. They're only the owners of the store, not the publisher, and all the blame went for S-E.

After all, Forspoken was also 80€ on Steam.

wtf, I've always read it as Crazy.