Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we finish our series on Halo: Combat Evolved. We talk about some of the major story beats here towards the end, the repetitive aspects good and bad, letting the fights play out in front of you, music, and more! Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Finished the game!

Issues covered: why is the Flood on Halo, a floor wax and a dessert topping, how do you prevent people from visiting dangerous places, proper noun series, wiping the galaxy of food, Sentinels working for and against you, the deeper meaning of Halo and religious resonance, dealing with big archetypes and lending timelessness, explaining/contextualizing as you move on, losing the mythic, having to get Keyes's authorization codes, using the enemies against one another, engaging and becoming the focus, detecting when the player should be the focus of attention, sandboxes and thinking you can do more than you actually can, stealth and not for Halo, the repetition of the Library, the strength of the original graphics, the golden triangle, the dance of combat and the depth of multiplayer, switching grenade types, tactical choices behind weapons for the enemy types you'll fight, going out and returning to the Pillar of Autumn, feeling different if you have vertical movement, the confusion of the engineering space, having to find the armory, finishing the game co-op, Brett's many failures, requiring skill checks along the way to lead you to the challenge, art/architecture getting in the way, payouts getting drowned out by frustration, time pressure, high skill ceiling, smoothing out the experience, orchestral accompaniment, combining disparate musical elements, the impact of music, the theme song matching the character, setting tone and mood with the Flood themes, pairing opposites, conservative plus primal.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Destiny, Portal 2, Stephen Merchant, Wesley, Star Wars, Legend of Zelda (series), Bruce Willis, Looper, Call of Duty (series), Medal of Honor (series), DOOM (1993), Resident Evil 4, Star Trek, Andrew Kirmse, Skyrim, Death Stranding, Marty O'Donnell, Michael Salvatori, John Williams, Indiana Jones, ET, Harry Potter, Nintendo, Myth, Resident Evil VII/Village, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.

Next time: A little bit of Infinite

Errata: Brett realizes it's not a beholder but a cacodaemon in DOOM, but has D&D on the brain. We regret the error.

Also, the Covenant ship is the Truth and Reconciliation.

Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @timlongojr and @devgameclub [email protected]