See, there's one of the things that Gears did right. :)

Yeah, well I saw "peugot" and my brain totally read poignant, so you are alllll good.

I once totaled a Peugeot. "Poignant" is definitely not an adjective I'd use.

1978 Fuji America. Was my grandfather's, he gave it to me a couple months ago.

It is so choice. Thumbs up.

I only just realized that what I said sounded like it was dripping with sarcasm :-)

Whoops. I actually agree, Halo Reach had some awesome weather effects.

Oh you're good bro. I was actually referring to uberfoop's bicycle avatar. Also it's spelled Peugeot. Fail.

Uberfoop, what brand of bike is that?

Yeah, well I saw "peugot" and my brain totally read poignant, so you are alllll good.

I only just realized that what I said sounded like it was dripping with sarcasm :-)

Whoops. I actually agree, Halo Reach had some awesome weather effects.

Oh you're good bro. I was actually referring to uberfoop's bicycle avatar. Also it's spelled Peugeot. Fail.

Uberfoop, what brand of bike is that?

Whoops. I actually agree, Halo Reach had some awesome weather effects.

They've had drizzle since ODST. Rain, never.

ODST's rain effect is basically the same as Halo 3's. And Halo 3 is certainly not the series' first outing with rain.

For instance, The Great Journey in Halo 2 I think qualifies as a moderate violation of your "rain, never" comment.

I also think you need to take a good look at Reach. The game really cranks up the downpour sometimes (check out parts of Winter Contingency!), and it's using an enormous amount of falling particles with vertex-based motion blur to create much of the streaking, and said particles actually turn into splash decals that even feature normal-mapped rippling when they hit the wet ground. It's absolutely nuts, looks amazing, and even holds up well if you slow-mo it in theater.

I believe everything he just said cause he used a lot of fancy words.

They've had drizzle since ODST. Rain, never.

ODST's rain effect is basically the same as Halo 3's. And Halo 3 is certainly not the series' first outing with rain.

For instance, The Great Journey in Halo 2 I think qualifies as a moderate violation of your "rain, never" comment.

I also think you need to take a good look at Reach. The game really cranks up the downpour sometimes (check out parts of Winter Contingency!), and it's using an enormous amount of falling particles with vertex-based motion blur to create much of the streaking, and said particles actually turn into splash decals that even feature normal-mapped rippling when they hit the wet ground. It's absolutely nuts, looks amazing, and even holds up well if you slow-mo it in theater.

I thought Gears did a lot of things right, TBH. It's one of the most cohesive and well-done game series I've played, and consistently so. It's a bit of an over-the-top brofest, but it knows that, and has fun with it.

Agreed. I'm a fan. If anyone wants to play through Judgment co-op, I'm willing.

I might want to take you up on that, since I downloaded it when it was free.

Me, too. That would be great!

EDIT: Unlike Halo, I never minded playing co-op through Gears on my first playthrough in part because I wasn't as heavily invested in the story.

I thought Gears did a lot of things right, TBH. It's one of the most cohesive and well-done game series I've played, and consistently so. It's a bit of an over-the-top brofest, but it knows that, and has fun with it.

Agreed. I'm a fan. If anyone wants to play through Judgment co-op, I'm willing.

I might want to take you up on that, since I downloaded it when it was free.

I thought Gears did a lot of things right, TBH. It's one of the most cohesive and well-done game series I've played, and consistently so. It's a bit of an over-the-top brofest, but it knows that, and has fun with it.

Agreed. I'm a fan. If anyone wants to play through Judgment co-op, I'm willing.

A Raid but with skull modifiers?! Could you imagine?

I think this would be an excellent way to keep the older raids relevant. Imagine you could get a 365 Fatebringer by running a level 34 Vault of Glass (Hard) with the Epic skull.

Replaying on higher difficulties? Yes. Skull modifiers? Yes. Making that the only way you get up-leveled OG-Legendaries? NO. That's not an "upgrade path", that's "play again and hope you get it ... again".

They've had rain since Reach.

They've had drizzle since ODST. Rain, never.

Several shooters do much better rain. GoW, for instance, for whatever all its other flaws and shortcomings might be, had good looking rain.

Guess it depends on your definition of drizzle. ODST had drizzle IMHO. It did a great job of creating the illusion of drizzle with sound anyway. I remember they specifically talked about how they wanted rain but the engine couldn't handle the particle effects.

I think the last area of the Pillar of Autumn had what I would call rain and that Venus has rain.

Somehow I didn't make the connection either. Seems so obvious now.

They actually had really awesome random weather during the Alpha, I never really see it in the final game. I remember playing a game on Rusted Lands with so much snow that it actually impeded your view.

Alpha was PS4 only. Probably didn't run so well on the PS3.