Thursday, September 23, 2010

My Reach Experience A Review(Spoilers)

So Halo Reach has been out for a while and I've been playing it since the release. This post is simply to note both the good and bad points of the game. Between campaign, multiplayer, and firefight, Reach has a lot to offer.

Let’s start with the campaign of Reach, you play Six. Six can be either male or female and has about double the lines Master Chief had, which isn't saying much. The campaign entails Team Noble's exploits during the fall of Reach and yes, everyone is either MIA or KIA by the end, including you; overall the campaign is a challenging and enjoyable experience; promoting both CO-OP and single player experience with an achievement for completing it solo.

Firefight which first debuted in ODST is back in Reach and better than ever. You have the choice of going into it through matchmaking, which gradually increases in difficulty the more rounds you play or you can make a custom game, fiddle with the settings(you can tweak just about everything) then invite your friends and have at it. Firefight is an amazing mode that gives a little extra flavor to the experience as a whole; although I lost interest myself after completing all the firefight related achievements.

Now finally the multiplayer experience, this is the meat of the game and what people are going to be playing years from now. There are essentially two modes here, Competitive and Arena. Essentially competitive is basically the social playlists from Halo 3 and Arena is the ranked matches. Arena in itself is an interesting prospect, your personal stats are tracked and you get a rating as a result, you play 3 games a day to be rated for that day, and after 10 days of being rated you earn a division rank. Many people, myself included miss the level system from Halo 3. Arena even without the current bugs (assists not awarded even when taking peoples shields down) promotes bad sportsmanship at times. Sometimes its better to blindly go for kills, ignoring your K/D because three deaths is equal to a kill. Now I won't go into all the logistics of arena but overall I find it lacking and would much rather have levels. The game itself though is plenty of fun.

Now most reviews assign a game a numerical value typically on a scale 1-10, I fucking hate that. Basically if you own a 360, like FPS games, buy this game. There’s really no reason to not play it unless you're terrible, like me but instead of blaming yourself you blame the game.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

My Appologies and Redemption

My Reach launch video will not be aired as there is not one. Instead of attending the launch my friends and I went to a send off Halo 3 tournament. While one of my friends did take first and take home a free legendary edition, I failed rather hard. Guess that's what I get for never touching the game. Anywho after leaving the tourny we went to the gamestop we had preordered our Reach copies at and waited a whopping 10 minutes for our copies.

Without a video I realize I have failed my followers so I offter this.


If you have ever wondered what 100 chicken nuggets would look like in a bowl, you now know. The four of us tried but we were not able to overcome all the nuggets even after having some for breakfast at 6:00am before shortly calling it a night, morning, whatever.

So, followers, I must break this to you, my activity on here will be somewhat limited for the next few days. I will try to post a blog once a day and respond to most comments but I can't make any promises. I'll be playing a certain game if you need me.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Blam, 200

Thanks for all the support guys, glad to say I'm over 200 and have time to respond to comments, until tonight that is.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Your Reach Plan

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So let's say its Monday night 12:04 and you're just now returning home with Halo Reach securely in your hands. You walk, briskly into your house, apartment, dorm, whatever and you put that son of a bitch in your Xbox. The question here is, what are you going to do next?

Will you play the campaign? Along? With friends online? Or are you even throwing a Halo party?

Will you play matchmaking to get a head start on those doing the former? Again will you be alone or with friends?

Of course you could always go to bed after picking up the game. Even if that would defeat the purpose of going to the release but maybe you have a life and have work in the morn.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Pro Mall Tips, Episode 2

Typically when you're at the mall you're there to buy stuff. Sometimes, though, you end up buying stuff you don't even need or want. This episode is aimed at keeping you from doing such a thing.

  1. Never ever stop at a stand in the mall. These people are almost like cons, they can and will trick you into buying the useless crap they have. They'll reel you in with free samples and make you feel good about yourself then all of a sudden you're paying for not one but two of the same item and wondering how it happened.
  2. Go to the mall with a game plan. Unless you're going to hang out with friends and window shop you need to know what you're in there for. You don't want to walk around thinking to yourself "oh that's nice I could really use that" at every store in the building.
  3. Shop clearance. You know why the shops always have 50% sales? Because no logical person is going to buy a 70 dollar pair of jeans. So in a few months they need to get rid of the excess items that no one bought and they usually end up going half off. This is when you swoop in, find your size, and walk out feeling good about your purchase for once.
  4. Don't be impulsive. Impulsive buying can get you into a lot of trouble. You go into the mall with a 100 dollar spending limit and you walk out knowing you just charged your credit card to the max or drained your checking account. Again, know what you need, just because something looks amazing doesn't mean it always will be.
Hope this helps you from going into a financial crisis. Have fun shopping!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Pro Mall Tips, a series

When at the mall sometimes you can leave items laying around when browsing clothes. In this terrible ocassion there are several things you should do to ensure the best chances of finding your lost merchandise.

  1. Don't panic, panicking will cause you to not think logically. This is the most important step and yet the hardest to do.
  2. Retrace your steps. Think about the last time you remember having your lost items and go there, then repeat every movement you made from that moment, if your stuff is still where you left it, you'll find it eventually.
  3. If retracing your steps doesn't work ask a store associate if anyone has seen it and maybe turned it into the lost and found. More often than not the person that finds your lost merchandise with either be A, an upstanding citizen and turn it in or B, a shady person but has no use for your items.
  4. If all else fails become a detective, if you can remember anything particular about your bag or whatever keep that in mind and take a look at what the other people in the mall have, if you have your receipt on your person and get lucky enough to find the dick that picked up your stuff, you'll have no problem proving its indeed, yours. 
Hopefully these tips help you in your future mall escapades. Happy shopping!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

One of the few tv show I watch


Lie to me is one of the few good shows left on television. All the actors are top notch and seem realistic which may just be a byproduct of the show's premise.

Essentially Lie to me follows the story of Dr. Lightmen and his company. Lightmen himself is an expert in being able to tell if someone is telling the truth, not in a bullshit lie detector way instead he picks up on subtle ques that everyone shows. Anger, guilt, fear Lightmen is able to decipher what a person is really feeling or trying not to feel. His team are all able to pick up on the ques as well, although they are not as experienced as him. They each have a different background and at times wind up being deeply involved with the story.

One of the things this show has going for it is how all the characters, even minor ones react and interact. Its like watching something in real life, people exhibit emotions true to what you would see in an everyday conversation. This is most likely because the shows selling point is that these people are trained to see these ques and if the actors didn't show them it would fail. None the less acting of this caliber on a tv show no less is refreshing to see.

With tv clogged with low production value shows, ridiculously bad reality shows, and actors that really shouldn't be televised its nice to see a program making strides to entertain with unique and believable characters. If you've never seen or heard of Lie to me before check it out on www.hulu.com

Tramp Stamps for Jesus(a friends work)

One of my followers work. She is a very creative young lady who puts up entertaining posts, daily. Check her out at http://urseriousrightnow.blogspot.com/




Nothing says you love Jesus more than getting fake crucifix tattoos all over your lower back. This particular tramp stamp was given at a youth event for a Methodist church. The people in charge made the mistake of asking me to do face painting and fake tattoos. It wasn't long before I had convinced a few impressionable teenage boys to embrace their inner tramp in the name of Jesus.

Remember that old maxim...

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever gets tramp stamps for him, shall not perish (unless the needle was contaminated), but have everlasting life. Also, they will probably be hated by the Westboro Baptist Church. Something to do with 'sacrilege and faggotry.'" - The Unwritten Gospel of John

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Bucky Balls


Basically these little fucks are magnetic balls that you can play with and make different shapes and objects. Personally when I first hear of them I thought they were the most amazing things around BUT they are ridiculously hard to master, which is both good and bad.

For me I hate something that I can mess with for hours on end and never get good at and this happens to be one of those things. About the only "shape" I can make with these, is the original cube it comes packaged in, GG right? Even with the help of online guides I continue to fail at any venture I take on. Partly because I'll try for about five minutes and decide the Xbox is a lot more fun and leave it.

But if you like challenging toys that are somewhat grown-up and like magnets these balls are your best friend. They aren't too expensive and you can find the fucks on www.thinkgeek.com (an all around amazing website for odd/geeky items).

VOTE

Take a loot at my poll there. Did you vote yet? No? Don't you care about me?!

Anyway if you think a Halo Reach launch event video would be interesting to see tell me and I'll make it happen.

Another MW2 post

So like many others I have yet to buy either DLC map pack. Mostly because I don't have the 40 bucks just laying around. Yet at the same time I don't think I'd buy them even if I had the money.

Both map packs include five maps, both having a COD4 remaster. With the 1600 microsoft point cost the maps are worth about five dollars each. That's right, five dollars for a single map and unlike packs from other games like Halo they will never become free. So even when Black Ops launches you'll have to pay for these.

Even with the somewhat ridiculous price a lot of people have purchased both of these packs. Now I can't blame people who make a living off of Call of Duty videos and those that compete in tournaments for buying these but as an average gamer I could never bring myself to purchase these.

I dun broke it, 100 followers

Just hit 100 followers! Thanks for the support guys, making me feel like you all somewhat care about my opinions! =D

MW2 moments

Honestly, MW2 is a lot more fun with friends. Even when losing you can all still laugh, telling your last teammate to pick up some ice cream from the convient store in Karachi; while he's last standing in search and destroy.

He never did get that ice cream though.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Darkspear Event

Well this event was released today and while not the longest quest line in the game it serves it's purpose, to keep players interested, if only for a half hour or so and to serve as a prelude into Cataclysm before the actual Cata event that will come with patch 3.9. Oh yeah, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.

The event itself is pretty epic like most of its kind the first time you do it you'll smile, after the first time though, it gets stale. It starts with a standard gathering quest but the item is somewhat unique, frogs. The next quest takes you on a ungodly long flight to throw said frogs at white smoke markers and if you're like me you'll be spending about 3 minutes tabbed after you're done with the quest because apparently you really need that second trip around the islands. After that ungodly "bombing" quest you take on the form of the tiger and fight a Troll Druid. A few average quests later you're on the epic retake of the isles.

 Ready to take on the "Tiger" Matriarch

Both the Darkspear event and Operation Gnomeragon events are here to set the tone for Cataclysm, showing change throughout the old world is taking place even before Azeroth get's skull fucked by Deathwing. While the 3.9 event is sure to be more amazing,especially with the all of the zones changing with the patch(or so I've been told) this event, in its own right was pretty cool and worth the time to complete it. I'm sure a few people will be resubbing just to get the Feat of Strength for completing it.

Rage, something I threw together this mornin'.

While playing Modern Warfare 2 I've noticed that people rage pretty hard at the game, even while winning. It makes me wonder why people get so angry at this game more often than other FPS titles. Could it be due to the lack of control a player faces at time, the "cheapness" of some tactics, or could everyone just be on their period at once?

Often a MW2 player is not in control of what's happening; for example, you're running out in Wasteland trying to rush the enemy spawn, one kill away from your Harriers when all of a sudden a Predator Missile come out of no where and ruins your plans. This moment causes anger in the player not only because their killstreak was ruined but they had absolutely no say in it. If it had been another player they could rationalize the event, "I should have taken it slower", "I need to be more aware of my surroundings", ect. In this case, however, there is little the player can do other than just taking it, which leads to rage of the nerd.

How often does one find themselves on the receiving end of a camper, perhaps the giving? One of the problems with MW2 is the massive camping that takes place in the game which, at times, can be perplexing as to why the person was camping in the first place. A game of Domination, your team has A and B but for some reason the entire enemy team is camping at their spawn. Have they given up? Are they trying to prevent themselves from getting spawn killed? Or are they just dumb? In most cases its the latter of the three, most players in random games go for kills and that's it; if the opposite team is winning but at the same being funneled right to their spawn, that's fine. To be killed by someone camping a choke point or randomly prone on the ground causes anger in the average player and can cause them to tunnel vision revenge making their overall experience lessen with every death on the road to vengeance.

Some gamers will just be angry no matter what. Your teams winning, Johhny is 11-0, he pulls up his AC130, gets to 23-0 but while he's raining death from above, someone from the other team knifes him. All of a sudden the world is ending. Johhny just lost his chance at a nuke and is screaming the chain of events in your ear. The game is sabotage, you're on offense, and Johhny was just kill whoring to try and get that sweet emblem. The point to this story is simple, Johhny, while ignoring the objective was still contributing to his team winning but when things don't go his way its the fucking apocalypse. Online gamers just tend to have a short fuse; one death and shit hits the fan. Never mind his team is doing a great job overall. Gamers just tend to get mad easily and always have.

So next time you find yourself raging at what seems like an unfair match in any game, remember it really is just a game. Unless you're in MLG or some random tournament where there's money on the line the outcome really doesn't matter. Just have fun with it; after isn't that what video games are about?

Monday, September 6, 2010

Gender Confusion.

Yum, just yum

One has to admit that bacon is the best animal ever scienced.

Well hell

So I was all like then she was all like and then I was all like then this random guy was all like, not really sure where he came from.

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