Some Thoughts...

It has been a while since I've done any sort of ranting post on here.  While I won't completely rage like I did in some posts I made on here in the beginning; I needed a place where I can speak my mind in more than 140 characters.  This post won't be completely rage induced either, I'll talk about some stuff I have in mind to do in the future.

A couple weeks ago I went down to Peoria, IL to see The Pretty Reckless, Adelita's Way, Alter Bridge and Five Finger Death Punch in concert.  It was a really sick show to see, all of the groups that performed were amazing.  During the 5FDP set they introduced the next song they were going to play as "Burn MF" off of one of their newer albums.  When doing so Ivan Moody (the lead vocalist for 5FDP) mentioned that some of us may be familiar with the news going around about the band performing this song live.  At that time I didn't know what he was talking about, so I paid no attention to it; it wasn't until a few days later when I was listening to the radio and a radio DJ said what the whole deal was about.  When they perform the song, they bring several kids on stage to sing the chorus.  Apparently at one of the earlier tour dates some parent got all bent out of shape that they do that and started complaining.

I have this to say about it.  You knew exactly who you were going to see when you bought the tickets.  If you know anything about Death Punch you know they don't sing happy go lucky lyrics, so you cannot complain about your children being exposed to that.  You most likely bought the album for them when they asked for it and if you didn't stop and think "Hey, should I maybe be a parent and find out if my child should really be listening to this?" after seeing the albums title (Wrong Side of Heaven, Righteous Side of Hell) you should probably rethink of your definition of parenting.  I understand a parent not wanting their kids to swear up a storm every time they speak as my parents raised me to not do that.

Looking Back...

I don't know why I always start posts on this place with trying to reason away my absence.  Simply put, since my last post a lot of good (and an equal amount of bad) has happened to me in my life.  Last year I had decided to join the staff of Inside View Gaming, got a position on the review team and then became their community manager.  Almost one year later I'm still helping out around there and I have no plans on leaving any time soon.

The Return to Bowl Games

Ah yes, one of my favorite times of the year; where all the college football conference title games and bowl games are coming into full swing.  This means my annual series of blog posts entitled "Bowl Bound" is now returning!  This year I decided to add the conference title games to the mix as a lot of these decide where each team goes in terms of bowl games.

Moving onward, on todays agenda is the MAC title game which is pitting the 11-1 (8-0 in conference play) Kent State Golden Flashes against the Northern Illinois Huskies with an identical record.
After that, are the games that will decide who wins the Big East title.  The actual games that will determine this are Louisville at Rutgers and Cincinnati at Connecticut.  In order to make things not as confusing as possible, here is how the Big East title winner will be decided and who gets the BCS bowl bid courtesy of CBS Sports.

Scenario: Rutgers wins the outright Big East title with a win over Louisville on Thursday. If Louisville wins the conference title is shared with Syracuse (and possibly Cincinnati). In the case of a three- or four-team tiebreaker Louisville would earn the Big East's BCS bid.
 

Because...Grifball and Minecraft

Would you look at this, a post that isn't two months after my last one!  I do believe I am getting into the habit of posting on a regular basis.  As of lately I have been busy planning a bunch of cool stuff for Inside View and working a little bit behind the scenes on getting ideas up and running.  We have our second game night coming up on Minecraft; our first one was on Forza 4.  We also have our own clan that we started up recently, you can find out some info about that here.  There's the contact information for one of our clan leaders and my own in case you want that also.  Lastly, we have our own Grifball team we have started.  We plan on gathering people now and working on some basic team fundamentals; then once Halo 4 is released entering in all kinds of leagues and tournaments.

I've been working on on planning some details for a Halo 4 campaign challenge once the game is released for IVG as well.  I know that skulls are returning in the game thanks to the achievement list that was released a few weeks ago; but I do not know whether or not campaign scoring returning.  I hope it does otherwise I'm going to have to figure out a makeshift scoring system to tally results...and needless to say math never was one of my best subjects.  There's still plenty of time for me to find out if its returning...and work on one if it isn't.

I've also been playing a bunch of Minecraft when I have had the time to game.  It's interesting looking back at the first "shelter" I made.  I had no clue what I was doing so it was actually made out of a bunch of sand and the living space was very...cramped.

Small living space eh?

Community Content

Ah yes, the usual "it's been a while" rambling.  Well, it has been a while hasn't it?  Anyways, I've been busy a lot lately with the Inside View.  Why?  I've been trying to help brainstorm ideas to get our community off the ground.  From simply giving ideas of articles to post, things for the other staff members to look into and getting a Halo themed team off the ground.  About a week later I was just talking with the owner about an idea we had floating around and after giving him my input, I get another email back.  This time, this email is offering me a spot on the management team as their Community Manager.  Knowing I would be able to do this, I gladly accepted the offer.

We have some pretty neat stuff planned for the near future, so keep an eye on our main page.  Plus, why don't you sign up for our forum; we have a few game nights coming up that I'm sure you would enjoy.  And I would love to play with some of my blog readers from here.

I am going to wrap up this short post with a video I took from Minecraft.  Yes, I broke down and bought Minecraft; I remember the time when I used to say "I'm never going to buy that game as it looks pointless."  Well it's good if you have a few minutes or a few hours to waste.  My world I thought sucked at first, but going back to it a few days ago I found some pretty good stuff.  Also, I hate cobblestone...


Yeah, it's not supposed to be snowing on one half of the house and raining on the other...  Oh, and my house (which is the one shown in the video) has a second story to it now.  It's not so bland anymore.  I'm also thinking of doing a bunch more to it, but the massive amount of dirt around it needs to go away.  There's also a river (not seen in the video as it wasn't there until this past Friday) on the side where I am standing at the start of the video.  No idea what I'm going to do with that as of now, but I'll figure something out.

Bound for Carnage

Yes, it's been a little while hasn't it?  Surprisingly not a lot has happened with me in the meantime, I am still planning on doing the idea I mentioned in my previous post.  I have yet to start them though as I have been busy, but this did give me time to think of another idea!
You remember the original Xbox right?  No?  I'm disappointed in you reader, not really.  Anyways, as you may or may not know most of those games are backwards compatible on the 360; meaning I can take original Xbox games and play them on the 360.  So what does any of this stuff have to do with me?  Well, nothing in particular really except for the fact that I am going to take an original Xbox game, play through it and reminisce on all the amazing times.  Once that is accomplished I will talk about the game a little bit and what made it such a classic for me.  I also plan on giving you some pretty pictures to look at (aka screenshots) and even capturing a few minutes of footage to showcase what the game was like.  The only problem I am really having with this is I can't decide which game to play first.  I was thinking of leaning towards the first Mechassault (since it was my first game), but I had also been thinking about the second Mechassault game as I really love it.  However....Mercenaries has also crossed my mind as well as a few other games I used to love playing all the time.

As I mentioned earlier, I still plan on doing what I mentioned in my previous post.  I just have yet to start it as I have been diligently working on some things with the staff over at IVG.  We have some huge plans in the works regarding getting our own Halo themed community up and running.  Right now we're looking for contributors who would be willing to deliver consistent Halo themed content for us.

I know this is a short post, but it's late here and I don't have too much to discuss.  I will leave you with my first montage I did though!  It was done in Forza Motorsport 4 (I would have done a Halo one, but couldn't find clips that made me happy) and involves tons of crashes and carnage.  It lacks a proper name but I think Project CARnage sounds pretty decent based on its theme.  The editing is fairly simple and I think I went a tad bit transition happy as well; but I am happy with the end results.
So I present to you, Project CARnage by StoredGrunt360 (aka me!)

Anyways, that is all my friends.  I hope to have my first "Look Back" post up either this week or next, depends on when I am able to get it done.  If I don't have it up this week, I'm positive I'll have my first series of videos regarding NCAA Football 12 up.  It'll be from my second trip to the national title game as Illinois...I'm not sure who I was playing in it though.  I think it may have been Boise State, but I am not sure honestly.  Oh!  And I may start working on a Forged map in Halo: Reach next week if I can.  If I do, I'll keep you updated on regular basis.

News and Reviews

Hi everyone, I come to you today with some exciting news and thoughts.  In my last post I made reference to Inside View Gaming and how I applied for a reviewer position.  I am officially announcing that I have joined the staff over at IVG permanently as their Lead Reviewer.  I am very excited to bring all of my followers of Twitter, here and those that come across IVG reviews for games and the latest gaming news!  You can keep an eye on the IVG front page for all the latest news and a bunch of reviews for games.
They also are looking for content writers.  So if you enjoy playing games and writing about them in your free time then hit this link to send in an application to join.

My other news I have to tell you, is I finally got a capture card.  What's a capture card?  You know, those things that people use to record footage from their gaming consoles that help them make those awesome montages and walk throughs for levels?  I haven't had a lot of time to play around with editing videos (Lord knows I need to...) but I have had the time to simply upload three short clips from both Sniper Elite V2 and Halo Anniversary.  I'll post them in the order that I uploaded them in...starting with the first clip from Sniper Elite V2.



Now, I know the audio is actually ahead of the video.  I'm not sure exactly why that happened but I did figure out a way around that.  It simply involved me exporting the raw file (MP4) into a WMV file and then uploading it to YouTube that way.  See, I was so excited to use the capture card and that I could upload videos directly to YT from the capturing software that I had to wait four hours for this video to completely upload.  So yeah, not making that mistake again anytime soon.  The next two videos tested my theory, which was to export the files out of the capturing software and then upload them.  It drastically cut down on the upload time (a half hour compared to four hours, I'll take that), my only concern was when exporting the file if the video quality would degrade.  See for yourself if it did or not.

I personally don't think so that much, especially if you watch it in 480p.  Next subject!

More Sniper Elite V2 gameplay, showcasing my terrible sniping skills.  It's odd because I used to be decent at this game when I first got it...hmm.  Anyways, if you can I suggest watching it in 720p HD as that will provide the best results...obviously.  I need to tinker around with the settings yet and figure out what caused the delay in video from the very first film I took.  I love the quality of the video from that film, but I don't want the delay between audio and video all the time.  It will be a learning experience from here on out for a while.

I hope to get the editing down so I can create montages and walk throughs for certain games at some point in the near future.  Editing for montages will be simple enough all it will basically be is capturing the clip, use the software that came with the capture card to trim the clip down then import it into the full fledged editing software to add titles and transitions.  Walk throughs will be a little bit more difficult but follow the same premise as a montage.  Only with those I might have to add some form of commentary, which won't be a problem as I believe the HD PVR will be able to capture my own voice if I simply plug in my Xbox LIVE headset.  That is something I will have to toy around with and get the hang of.

With that said, I hope you have enjoyed this little (and short) post containing some exciting news from me.  I hope to see anyone who reads this over at IVG now and then!

A Bunch of Stuff

Yes, just like the title says, a bunch of stuff has happened in the what two months since my last post?  Where to begin?  Ah, well we can start with this.  I finally reached 20,000 Gamerscore with an achievement from Forza 4...after all this time I don't remember what it was even...  I'm not sure if I want to continue my quest towards the amount of 30,000 or give achievement hunting a rest for a little while.  I am trying to get all the achievements from Halo Anniversary; however, some of the achievements are proving a little difficult.

I also completely missed making a post on here, which does sadden me to some extent, but life had taken over at that time.  On March 29th of this year, it marked my 5 year "anniversary" for joining Bungie.net.  I didn't follow the semi-tradition of creating a thread stating my opinion on the moderation in my time being there or anything else, besides I have to wait another two years before it becomes mandatory.  Honestly because I was so busy at that time I almost forgot about it, only remembering it halfway through the day.

My next piece of news is in regards to my last post where I mentioned I was joining a Grifball team with Storm.  Well we changed our minds on joining a team shortly after I posted that.  Instead we decided to start our own team.  Very long story short, neither Storm or I had people on our friends lists that enjoyed playing Grifball so in order to find teammates, I went to this place called GrifballHub and they had a thread for players looking for teams and teams looking for players.  The day after I had posted that I received a message from this person with the name of oObeX asking about our runner position.  I replied back with my Gamertag and the best day to catch us online to get some games in.  A couple days later I was browsing through the same thread and saw that UCCxZAKORE was looking for a team.  I sent him a message asking if he wanted to join the team and he was interested.  Farther into the future we came to an agreement on a name and thus The Light Redcoats were created.
So far we had our first experience with league teams in a Vanilla GRUNT...it didn't go too well for us.  Sadly our only win was by a default as one team dropped out.  Since there was an uneven amount of teams that signed up we got a first round bye, once the second round rolled about we got to play our first game; which was a really close game.  We jumped out to a 2-0 lead and were getting ready to score a third time to technically take the game, but we let that game slip out from underneath us.  Our last two games of the tournament were rather...embarrassing.  We got shut out 5-0 in each of them.  Granted they were against veteran teams and we're only a rookie team.  I still stand by what I have said before, with some time, patience and practice I know our team will be able to hold their own during actual league games.

The last thing I will quickly cover in this very short post has to do with my passion for both gaming and writing.  A couple months ago, I was sitting and browsing through the gaming news blog that a few of my friends and fellow Xbox Ambassadors had started and noticed they were looking for staff members.  So I sent a tweet away to the owner and founder asking if they were still accepting applications, he got back within a few minutes stating yes.  So I sent in an application and they gave me a two month trial period to see if I had what it took to become their lead review.  Nothing is official on that yet, but I have wrote a couple of reviews for them (one on Forza 4 and one on ODST) in that time and they were happy with them.  I'm pretty sure I'll at least be a reviewer for Inside View Gaming for a little while.  They are looking to expand greatly in the near future, it sounds like they are hammering out the details for some big stuff as well.

That does it for this short post, but it was at least something right?  Remember, always keep an eye on the ever so elusive Grif.  He's very sneaky if he takes over the right person.

Oh Internet, You Amaze Me

This first paragraph is most certainly a rant so you can probably skip to the second paragraph if you don't want to read my ramblings.  I cannot bring myself to the understanding of how someone can think a game that has a bug or glitch that erases your story progress completely game of the year material.  Recently there was a thread in a group I am in on Bungie.net that was in regards to I believe IGN's GOTY article, which they deemed Portal 2 as theirs.  One person in that thread seems intent on trying to convince me that I am wrong in my ways of agreeing with their decision and not jumping on the "Skyrim is teh best gaem evar!!1!" bandwagon.  Okay, so that may not be their main goal but it sounds like it based on the way their posts read.  I guess I just can't grasp my mind around the fact that someone can think a game is GOTY material when it has a serious bug that erases your story progress.I know in the past I have said the no game is perfect, and I still stand behind that.  I can understand it, if it is something on a little smaller scale such as a character disappearing randomly.  But take and ask this question to yourself:
Do you really want to spend 100+ hours playing a game only to save and quit one night then come back the following day to find everything, all your leveled up skills, weapons etc. gone?  While you ponder that, I shall move onto the next topic.

A couple days ago I finished my first season in the Dynasty I had started.  I finished the season at 14-0 and took the team I always use to the National title game.  I bet you can take one guess as to who it is.  Can't guess?  It's the Fighting Illini.  I found out that I evidently have the game on the lowest difficulty...which explains why I can go undefeated through the season.  That does not explain however why I have troubles with Purdue, Penn State and Michigan each time I play them.  At first it was only Penn State that would give me fits (you know, the magic player that would come out of nowhere and sack you or come up with an interception) but now it seems that Purdue and Michigan can be added to that list.  I played Purdue at home in the (with "e" being stressed) Memorial Stadium and they managed to pick me off three times and score on twice of said three times.
I faced Michigan twice.  Once in the regular season and they gave me probably the worst trouble.  I thought this game was going to be whose kicker would be the best.  In the first three quarters it was each team trading a field goal.  It was only until the fourth quarter where we picked them off and returned it for a touchdown.
Since I did rely heavily on my running game throughout the first season I ended up getting my starting running back in the race for the Heisman Trophy.  Unfortunately he kept getting injured in our last few games so his average yards per game went down plus we had a bye week.  In the end the quarterback of Houston won.  I'm not disappointed really, except for the fact that I lost out on a 15 point achievement.

Speaking of achievements, I'm only 599 points away from breaking into the 20K Gamerscore club.  I'm hoping that with finishing up Bulletstorm and Dead Island I'll be able to snag at least another 100-150 more points.  I need to go back and check to see which ones I can get easily.  Plus this weekend I am going to pick up Gears of War 2 (hey, it's only ten bucks!) and from asking someone I know on Twitter what it's like they said it has easy achievements.  As I told them, I'll take easy achievements any day.  I've also thought about picking up CoD4 (aka the first Modern Warfare) however I'm still on the fence about that one.  The only thing I would be playing would be the campaign for it as I am hearing the multiplayer is chock full of modders and hackers.  I'm just not sure honestly.

I leave you with this short post, but at this time I don't have much more to add to this post.  Hopefully I can finish Bulletstorm up this weekend and grab some more achievements in one of three games.

Island of Paradise

My first post since I finished the "Bowl Bound" series, granted it is a tad later than the few days afterwards.  But hey, why should it be any different from before right?  During the time I was doing the Bowl Bound series I got a couple new games.  One of which I already used for the previously mentioned series, NCAA Football 12.  I haven't played a lot of it to form a solid opinion of it, from what I have played of it though I like it much better than NCAA Football 10.  I like the stadium introductions for home teams, it actually feels like a Saturday morning college football game.  I started the usually dynasty on it as well, so far I like how you have to be more involved in recruiting and the like.  Needless to say though, I still kind of suck at doing that.
The other game I got was Dead Island.  Picture Left 4 Dead meeting Fallout in terms of RPG/Shooter combo.  I've played Fallout so I know how the RPG elements work in that game and it is rather....slow with how quickly you rank up.  I'll admit I was expecting the same thing with Dead Island when I first found out that it was going to have that element. When I started playing it I was proved wrong in my assumption (see, they're not always that great) and was leveling up rather quickly.  I love how huge the game world is, I am about halfway through the game and still have yet to fully explore the island itself.  And (Spoiler Alert!) since that is the case I made into the city, which might be larger than the island itself, but I still have yet to explore it completely either.  Needless to say, if you enjoy exploring large maps and hunting for hidden items this game will certainly cure that itch for a while.  I never really used to explore the maps until I was watching Storm do it in Bioshock and saw that he was finding all these cool things hiding away in dark little corners.  I went and played later on and did the same and found all this cool stuff that Storm had previously ran across.  Not that I would ever commit some of those spots to memory and go back to them when I played...nope, never.

The other game I have been playing recently is Bulletstorm.  It's a fun game I like it from what I have played of it.  If a sequel is ever released there is some work that should be done to the basic gameplay and I'm sure the developers would do that.  They do know how games work after all.  There are times where you are fighting an enemy and all of sudden you glitch through the floor and can't do anything.  Or there's the time where the "sidekick" walks over a bridge and starts to float towards the sky only to get caught in a tree.  Yeah so the game isn't perfectly polished, but it's still fun to play nonetheless.  The leash is really sweet, I like how you can yank enemies towards you and kill them that way.  Or if you want you could leash them your way and then kick them into the nearest cactus...or over the closest ledge.  Or even back in the direction he came from and back into the group of enemies he was around.

On a quick closing note, I am currently sitting at 19,091 Gamerscore.  If you remember a while ago I started a quest for 10,000 Gamerscore, currently my new goal is for 20,000.  It might take a while, but I'm sure I'll eventually make it.  There you have it, a somewhat short post but I am hoping to have posts out on a regular basis.  So until next time!

Learn 2 Fly

While I am sitting here watching the Ghost Hunters Live event on the SyFy channel, I decided to try my hand at this wonderful thing called multi-tasking.  I hear it does wonders for people.  Anyways, a few days ago I already announced that I became an Xbox Community Ambassador.  Since you already know about that I will completely skip over that and head for the flight deck.

About a week before Kinect Sports Season Two was released everyone was going to get Battlefield 3 and I wasn't.  Well, technically I didn't get it, a family member did and I ended up playing it.  The campaign was good, I liked it; you really have to play it tactically...if that makes sense.  You can't go in all Halo like thinking the enemy can't kill you and you can just nail them with a shotgun...although at times it does work.  It is hands down the most realistic game I have played, the weapons actually sound like their real life counterpart.  Which makes me very happy.  I did feel though that the campaign could have been a little longer, but it does get the story through.  I also wish you would have been able to use more vehicles during the campaign.  The level Going Hunting is a very fun level as you get to partially fly a jet, but it needs more of that I think.  After I had completed the campaign I decided to hit the multiplayer and give it a shot.  Well...that was after EA's servers had decided it woud let me.  After they did decide to let me join a server and play some games I got stuck playing this gametype called Conquest.  In my first two or three games of it I had no idea what to do so I just ran around the map following my teammates.  Yeah that probably wasn't the best idea either as they seemed to have a magnetic attraction to RPG's.  Once I found out what I was doing and that each team had a set amount of "tickets" that were depleted with each death on one team.  Oh yeah, you could also deplete said tickets by capturing certain points on the map.  Think of a cross between a modified slayer variant and Territories from Halo.  Plus if one team controls over half the points on the map the opposing team starts loosing tickets automatically.  It's an interesting gametype and I find it fun at points.

I also had an interesting time flying a helicopter in a game of Conquest.  I know how to fly a helicopter in most games and it's pretty straight forward.  You sometimes use the left and right triggers to ascend or descend and use the left stick to move around and the right one to look.  Well in BF3 it's a little different story.  The triggers are still used to control your altitude, but the right stick controls your pitch, yaw and roll.  Wait...what?  That's exactly what I was saying when I hopped into the pilot seat.  About twenty seconds into the game I was about 50 feet above the ground so that's a plus...wait is that a hill coming up on my right?  Dear God it is!  Once I start hovering over said hill I gently set it down ontop of it.  Okay, not bad I think I'm getting the hang of this.  Let's try taking off and actually go help my teammates.  I end up taking off and then landing really hard on the side of the hill I just took off of.  Yep, so count that as my first suicide of Battlefield 3.  After that experience of flying the helicopter I cannot wait to fly a jet now.

Speaking of jets, I have been wanting to play one of the "run around and blow everything up" games I have.  I haven't though as I'm not sure exactly which one to play.  There is Just Cause 2 with its large game world and all the possibilites it can hold.  Plus you can fly jets and in this game I know how to fly them somewhat properly.  I jut have to remember that the nearest body of water acts as the Bermuda Triangle.
On the other hand though, I have been thinking on popping in Mercenaries 2 since it is almost the same thing.  It has attack helicopters (that I can actually fly) and the equivalent of each vehicle in JC2...minus the jets and Bermuda Triangle.  However to make up for this lack of aircraft and mysterious bodies of water, it has airstrikes.  Which I love to use whenever I get the chance to, because you know causing a huge explosion is always fun in a video game.  I really don't know, the sound of airstrikes is winning me over slowly.  That and I haven't played Mercenaries 2 in a while and I do enjoy it.

Again not much of a post, but I at least got two posts within a weeks time frame.  Anyways, until next time!  Hopefully I'll have more stories of an endeavour in flight and perhaps even a failed airstrike or two.  Danger close!

Some News...

Going to give out a short little post here, but I really want to share this with...someone.  Anyways, on Monday I read a tweet from both the Xbox and XboxSupport Twitter account directing us to the new Xbox Community Ambassador website.  After seeing that and checking out the new website I contemplate about clicking on that shiny "Apply Now!" button.  After clicking on it and then reading the extra notes that were on that page, I decided to think about my decision and put it off for a few minutes.  Ten minutes to be exact, after that time had passed I went back and applied for it.  I knew I would hear back with three business days as to whether I was accepted into the program or denied.  Sometime this afternoon I receieved an email stating that I was officially accepted into the Xbox Community Ambassador program.  What is an XCA you ask?  I have a simple answer for that.  We are fellow gamers and Xbox LIVE community members that have volunteered to help fellow community members with questions they might have.

Also since the other day was Tuesday the 25th, that means I was able to pick up a new game.  That game was Kinect Sports Season Two, from what little of it I have played it is fun.  I have only played darts, skiing and tennis so far.  The only one of those games I've played in real life has been darts...and that was an....interesting game to say the least.  Since I've played it before, I'll start off with it.  From the whole two and a half games (don't ask about the half a game...) I have played of it, it is kind of hard to get the hang of.  You have a reticule if you hold your arm out a little bit and you can move it around by moving your arm around as well.  I guess if you move your arm back slowly to "throw" the virtual dart it "locks" the reticule in place and you'll hit the part of the board that is within the circumference of that reticule.  However, if you move it too fast or move your arm from the way you were holding it, your reticule will disappear.  It's kind of finicky really, I'll have to play around with it some more and find a way to compensate for it.
Tennis is much like table tennis was in the first game, only on a larger scale.  You don't have to worry about moving around the court yourself, the game does that automatically based on where the ball is going to be.  It's actually a pretty clever system, they had it back in volleyball in the first game as well.
I didn't play much of skiing either, but this is certainly a sport you'll want to have plent of room if you play it with another person.  I couldn't get through a lot of the gates as when I would go to turn, I would end up standing behind the person I was playing with...yeah not good.  It's not the games fault, no far from it actually.  It's just the fact that we didn't have the correct amount of width space at that time.

Anwyas, that's all for now as that is all I have.  I will hopefully have another post out next week as I'll have played a bit more of Kinect Sports: S2 and perhaps another game as well.  Then I should have more to talk about.

Three Months, but Who's Counting?

Right if you answer yes to the question of who is counting the amount of months since my last post, you can stop counting now.  So why the lack of posting for the past three months?  I do have a life outside of gaming you know.  Anyways, in the past three months I haven't done a whole lot really.  I've been playing the usual Reach, but I also went back to playing Fallout: New Vegas in hopes to finish it sometime....soon-ish.  And by "soon-ish" I mean sometime within the next several months.  In that same time I also went back and finished my third season in my first dynasty I started when I first got NCAA Football '10.  Interesting story about that actually.

So why not start with said interesting story, I agree, lets.  Resuming my third season as Illinois about half through the actual season (makes sense right?) I was still undefeated and ranked about sixth or seventh in the nation.  I'll admit, I did suck when I first started playing again as I haven't played it for ages.  With that being the case, I would just so happen to draw Purdue as my first opponent back in conference play...this should be fun.  Fast forwarding to the actual game, we had home field advantage (I love when we play at home, both in a video game and in real life) and it was a back and forth game to go along.  We won the coin toss at the start of the game and I decided to defer until the second half ( I know, not a smart choice) but I was confident that our defense would be strong right out the gate.  I was right, we held Purdue off from scoring...not before they could move down to within the five yard line though.  Once that happens we hold them at a quick three and out with pushing them back a few yards on a couple plays; then they bring on the field goal unit...only to miss.  I'm still puzzled as to how they missed about a twenty yard field goal.  Anyways, that results in us getting the ball at their end, we march it all the way down the field and score.  After avoiding what should've been an easy three points for them at the start of the game and returning the favor by scoring our own seven points I'm thinking "Great, we can take these guys easily now."  Kickoff to Purdue coming, fielded at about 24 yard line.  Okay return coverage lets them get it to about their 35, moving a little bit ahead, they manage to throw these short passes on our secondary and eventually make it back down to the five yard line again.  Deja vu anyone?  This time we're not so luck as for holding them off though, they make yet another short pass over the middle into the endzone to tie it up seven a piece.
Continuing on to the second quarter both teams basically end up wasting each time they had the ball.  Closing in on half time that is, I manage to take a forced fumble back for a TD and a 14-7 lead.  Thinking a little more conservatively this time around on defense and knowing that with time running out for the first half I predict the short passes to the sidelines.  Purdue does exactly that...and it still works for them.  They manage to tie it up going into the half.  Skipping ahead to the middle of the third quarter I manage to take over on offense and put another couple scores to match Purdue's one score they put up.  Going into the fourth I'm up by a score making it 28-21, proceeding later into the fourth I am able to get two interceptions and take them both back for a final score of 42-21.  It was really an interesting game...I'm glad I escaped with the two interceptions in the fourth.

After escaping that game I moved up to number two in the nation and then had a road game against Indiana and then back to Champaign-Urbana for Penn State.  Oh boy...Penn State, EA always has something for them being a really good team each year.  I don't remember how this game went, but I know I beat them by double their score.  I'm always happy when that happens since they are the only team that actually threatens to beat me each season.  After all this is said and done I end up getting bumped down in the polls to number three.  A few "weeks" later they release the bowl predictions with second ranked Florida taking on the first ranked NC State (seriously...where did they come from in that season?) playing in the BCS Title game.  Fine and dandy and all that extra stuff, I don't care about Florida or NC State, I end up getting sixth ranked USC in the Rose Bowl.  That sounds fine to me, it'll be the perfect revenge for the '07 real-life Rose Bowl destruction they handed us.  I finish the season up and we proceed into the post-season, all the conference playoffs are going on and since the Big Ten doesn't have those (until now anyhow) I just sit there.  I sim the final week of the post-season and find out that both NC State and Florida lost their conference championship games...this in turn places me into the first seed taking on number two Miami in the title game.  -blam!-  At this point I would have much rather played in the Rose Bowl against USC as I wanted revenge badly.  Forwarding into the title game I take it 27-13, and now I am currently in the off season.  The part I hate about playing through a dynasty.

After I had completed my third season, it got me to thinking that I wanted going to play Nebraska in my next pre-season games as they are not part of the real life Big Ten conference.  I did some research into NCAA Football '12 and I found out when setting up your dynasty you can customize the conference.  This got me a little excited as I knew once I had that game I could have the Big Ten conference created to perfection complete with the Leaders and Legends divisions with the appropriate teams in each.  So, sometime in the near future I will be talking about NCAA Football '12 instead of '10.

Moving onto the rest of the topics I'm hoping to cram in here.  Unfortunately I can't comment much on New Vegas as I haven't played it enough yet to form a solid opinion of the game.  I can say this though, I -blam!- hate the Radscorpions, I swear they come out of nowhere when I am playing the game.  I'm also not sure if I want to side with the NCR or someone else yet.  I've been told that I can side with Mr. Hand (whoever that is...see I'm early in the game yet) and I might to do that as I'm not hearing much good about the NCR throughout the wasteland.  I know, I know, I can also side with Cesar's Legion (spelling for the in-game character is not correct most likely.)  Last time though I saw someone using fur for a head cover was back in the 1400's when I was Ezio.  Yeah and they tried to stab me...a lot.  I don't take kindly to people who try to stab me.  On the other hand, I've heard from someone on the CRF forums (shameless self promotion I know) that they think the NCR suffers from the usual "fight the powah", as they put it, that governments face.  So who knows really, I sure don't.

Yesterday I downloaded the demo of Forza Motorsport 4.  I really don't play racing games much, but I do enjoy them when I decide to crash, er, I mean race around a track in a half a million dollar exotic sports car.  I have the first Forza for the original Xbox, so I sort of knew what to expect from this demo.  I would get a game that was more realistic and focused on tuning your car in order to make it handle the way you wanted it to.  Sadly since I'm not a gearhead I could never be that good at it, it was fun yes but unless you knew what you were doing you would totally mess something up.  So I pretty much left my cars with their stock parts.  Back to the demo, the virtual cars handle great.  In the demo you were only allowed to play either a race or take on a friends' challenge on beating course within their set time.  This doesn't sound like much of a demo does it?  Well, thankfully for the races you could choose between three different cars to race in, you in turn would race against cars within your class.  If you usually play an arcade styled racing game, the same thought process you would use for one of those won't work too well here.  Say you want to drift into the next turn after speeding down a nice long straightaway, sure I suppose you could do that but you might slide into the wall conveniently located to your immediate left...or right.

So what's the point of all that rambling?  Well in a more technical sense, you really have to slow down if you want to go through the upcoming turn while maximizing your...well whatever special technical term that goes here.  The physics for this game are awesome, easily the most realistic racing game I have played.  If you over steer going through said corner (yes, that corner again) you will start to spin out and crash...not that I know from experience.

The Rival mode is what I was previously talking about where you race a copy of your friend(s) and try to beat their fastest time.  I didn't play much of this, but it looked interesting.  Think of a classic arcade unit where you try to beat the highest score, I can easily see this promoting some friendly competition amongst the people on your friends list.  The graphics look really impressive, the sheen of a what looks like a freshly waxed Ferrari is very nice.  I know that is not much of a "first impression" of Forza 4, but it's only a demo and there isn't a whole lot to do.  In the future though I can see this game easily raising the bar for simulation style racing games and becoming the go-to game for those that throughouly enjoy racing games.

I have a goal set for myself and is to grab 20,000 Gamerscore.  Currently I'm stuck at 17,788...yeah it's going to be a little while yet before I can get it.  Luckily though the other day I went through my game stash and found there are some games I have yet to play on my LIVE account and earn some achievements for.  There are also others that I can go back and grab some extra points from to help my "cause".  Also something else that'll help is I'll be getting three new games within the next couple of months.  In turn will grant me access to more points to help out.

I believe that is all for this post, I am honestly running out of words to throw in here in a semi-logical order.  I will however, leave you with a parting gift.  Do you remember the web based flash game called Warthog Launch?  Well, I swear in a game of Firefight there were a group of Grunts playing that this game.

Into The Mist..er Space

In the almost four months it has been since I made a post on here, I actually haven't been doing a whole lot. Since that time I've gotten a few new games(like three...) and a ton more achievements(Bleep Bloop!). A lot of the time spent recently have been going over old projects I had worked on over the past couple years in the Halo community and various other places. The most notable one that I take a large amount of pride in was HGA. Or some of you may know it as the Halo Gaming Association, unfortunately the group and idea never took off. Twice, I might add. Another event is the Campaign Challenge I ran for The Upper Echelon....which has now also stopped. Hmm, I'm noticing a pattern here. Anyways, more words inbound!


See, told you more words inbound. First the games that have been wasting my time. In April Portal 2 was released, a couple weeks later Gamestop had a sale for it. Being a fan of the Portal series, I couldn't resist picking up the sequal for almost half the price. Brought it home and played a few levels of the single player. It was so nice to hear the banter between GLaDOS and Wheatley throughout the entire game. The humor that Valve has also was very awesome to see in it, with achievements named "The Part Where He Kills You: This is that part." truly express this. The introduction of the two different types of gels also really make you think about how to work those puzzles without falling into an abyss...not that I would know from experience at all...nope. The addition of co-op as well was something that I think Portal fans wanted for a little while and Portal 2 delivered that. You really have to communicate with who you are playing with if you want to beat the co-op portion of the game. Having to place all of your portals in order to set up an "infinite" loop is awsome, just make sure your timing is right otherwise you'll be crushed...or worse. Being able to sabotage your buddy is also fun at times...not that I would know about that either. What's that? You want to cross that chasm while I have a shield being looped in front of those turrets. Okay we can do that, but wait! You're halfway across and now you have to deal with the fire coming from those turrets I previously mentioned. Ha! That's what you get for throwing me into that pit before! Oh...ahem...sorry. Moving on, but first. I'm in space!


The second game I picked up was the third installment in the Fear series. Simply named Fear 3; actually, F.3.A.R if you want to go according to box art. So far I think it is easily my favorite in the series. The campaign is a little shorter than the previous games, but it is also really fun. Storm and I sat down and played until Interval 8(the last inverval) in one day, but then went back to start searching for the Alma dolls hidden throughout each level. We did this several times before actually completing the game a week later. The ending also leaves a possibility for a fourth game, or at least some future DLC. This was also another game that was originally single player in previous titles, but then added co-op into it. The co-op has one player play as the main character Point-Man where the second player plays as his brother Fettel. Needless to say it is awesome playing as Fettel as you can take over bodies of enemies and use them to fight their used to be allies. It really brings a new perspective on the co-op much likie Portal 2.

Final game I picked up was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Not really a whole lot to say about it; it's a continuation of the storyline from the second game. They added a few new things to it, like you can now find people across the city and rescue them and recruit them into your assassin...brotherhood...thing whatever you want to call it. Then you can send them on their own missions or call them out to help you within the city. It's a really cool feature that I am glad is returning for Revelations. The dual hidden blades returned and I love using them against unaware guards. They also did add a multiplayer, but I can't say I have really tried it out aside from a couple games. It'll take some getting used to before I can really enjoy it.

I do have some stuff I want to talk about, but if I post all it two things will happen. A) It will be really late by the time I have finished and that would suck plus B) I won't have a reason to delay a post by four months like last time. However this I will share, a long time ago I'm sure I made reference of a Completely Random Forum. Well, the very first version a Completely Random Forum is starting to make a come back. So might I suggest taking a stop by the Completely Random Forums? Also with the return of the forum, RandomProxy(admin/owner) decided to set up a Tumblr account and Twitter page for it. If you have either feel free to check out the CRF Tumblr and our Twitter for updates on stuff happening in the forum. Yes, I know, that was shameless self promotion, but hey consider me sharing a site I like to you to check out.

Top Ten Awesome Games

Yep, late as usual on getting a post out. By now I'm sure you already aren't following my suggestions as to when I'll have a new post out as I can never manage to get one up by then. Anyways, this time you can blame all the Grifball, Assassin's Creed...and maybe Need For Speed. Onto the point of this post though. Normally, you wouldn't mention what you are going to talk about in an English paper at the start of it...however, this isn't an English paper. By the time you have managed to read through this wall of text; I hope to have given you my top ten games/game series that I have played in my total of 7, almost 8, but still 7(!) years of gaming. Although, I'm pretty sure you already know what game will take number 1.

To kick things off at number 10: the Ghost Recon series. I may not have always been able to beat the single player side of it, but it was an awesome game to play nonetheless. It was really the first game that I played where you could use modern and even futuristic weapons. It was also always a blast to sit down with a friend and go through the hunt and kill levels(post for reference.) And no...I still cannot use an RPG in that game.

Number 9: Another series along the same line of Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six. More specifically, Rainbow Six: Vegas. For the exact same reasons as Ghost Recon. It's fun to play, especially with friends. Another series that you get to use modern weapons in. The Terrorist Hunt mode is really fun, it takes a good amount of teamwork and communication in order to get through each level. The first game I was ever able to use a P-90 and SCAR-H in also...

Number 8: The somewhat unheard game of the Xbox 360: Full Auto. Take your normal arcade style racing game with a handful of cars. Now, take those same cars and attach a various amount of firepower to them. Sure, it may not have been the best game out there; but it was still sweet drifting around a corner in a high performance exotic while filling the air(and fellow cars) with rounds from your two mounted .50Cals attached to the front of it. The amount of destruction you could omit to certain things in the game environment was pretty awesome as well. Oh snap! The guy in first is about to cross the finish line? No problem, just drop the nearest water tower on them. Hehe, that was always awesome to do...not that I ever did that to anyone...

Number 7(!): Just Cause 2. I've always been a fan of the Mercenaries series and JC2 takes the best of that series and expands on it. I always wanted to fly a jet in Mercenaries, but never could. With JC2, I can do that fairly easily. Although, it doesn't help that I still crash them into trees. I swear I didn't see them! My only regret, needs more tanks and the bullet absorbing enemies either.

Number 6: The Mercenaries series. This was really my first "open-world" game when I picked up the first game in it for the original Xbox. The amount of destruction you could do in the game world was really awesome. The second game I fell however, didn't live up the potential that it could of had. Sure, it was awesome and the potential destruction within the game world was ramped up from the first one, plus the game world was a little larger(for the record, JC2 has the biggest game world that I have played in.) It is easily one of those games that you go play if you want to mess around doing stupid stuff in.

These are the top five games that I have had the most enjoyment of. Some surprises in here if you don't cyber-stalk me and have no idea what games I play. On the other hand, if you do, you may already know where I am going with these.

Coming in at number 5: The Left 4 Dead series. You can never go wrong with some classic zombie killing fun. So, the doors are a little "difficult" to get through; but we can blame that on the Zombie Apocalypse instead. It's just an awesome series, I really don't know how to describe it. There's just something about blowing a zombie's head off with an auto shotgun that makes me love this game. The random banter that goes on between the characters is awesome as well. Some of it is rather funny.

Number 4: The Assassin's Creed series. I actually picked the first game up on sale while I was out of town for the day, brought it home and have enjoyed it since then. Well, actually only about mid-December did I actually complete the game for the first time. It's another one of those games that has a real deep storyline to it and you have to start at the first game in order to understand anything about it. I really like the timeline that they take part in as well, although it doesn't help that I enjoy history a lot either. There's also so much stuff do to once you have completed the game. From going back and collecting flags of the different Kings(the first game) to collecting eagle feathers strewn about the game world(second game).

Number 3: The places for spots 2 and 3 were rather difficult to decide. I truly enjoy both series, but the Mechassault series takes the third spot. 30+ feet tall robots that walk around blowing anything up that gets in their way. 'Nuff said. I got this game along with my original Xbox back in December of '03. The other game is soon to be mentioned. If you already played this game, you know exactly why it's in my list. The story is awesome, the way the other Mechs blowup when you destroy them is awesome and the weapons are awesome as well. All the different kinds of Mechs you have to choose from is awesome. I prefer the assault class mechs over any of the others; especially when you can manage to upgrade their weapons to level three. Overkill to the lower classed scouts? Oh yes, but who cares when you have four others of them shooting at you and more on the way?

Number 2: Another "if you've played this you know why" series. The complete F.E.A.R series. The only horror/shooter game I've played, the storyline is twisted with plenty more twists as the story progresses to keep you guessing. It also is home to the best shotgun in any game ever. Plus it gives you plenty to do if you are a completion-ist with looking for answering machines in the first few games; to looking around for data pads that uncover and add to parts of the story in the second one. The environment is really nice as well.



For the game series I have enjoyed the most since 2003...probably no surprise here: Halo. Surprised? No? Didn't think so. Anyways, I have always been a huge fan of the story side of the game. Nothing beats sitting down and playing through a level or two of the campaign in the original game. When Forge was introduced in Halo 3, I thought that was so cool. I'd finally be able to make maps for friends to play on(more like only one friend) without having to build one from the ground up(literally) like in Far Cry. Well, so I can make maps, but not real good ones...or finish them for that fact. Then ODST came along which introduced Firefight into the franchise. When I first saw the video and the first few details I fell in love with it. Like killing an endless amount of zombies can never get old, neither can killing an endless amount of Covenant. The fiction behind the story is truly amazing also, I don't get into it a whole lot, but I do enjoy reading about certain aspects in the backstory of the series.
With the release of Reach some of the settings for the game modes have been taken apart and reassembled to give you much more customization than in previous games. Especially with Firefight in Reach, you can decide which enemy you fight in exactly a specific wave in a game. Plus you can have custom skulls on which either give you, or the enemies(or both) an upper hand in the battle. I could have an entire post dedicated to nothing but Firefight material...I might have to do that at some point.
The multiplayer is great also; I'm not a huge fan of the multiplayer(online part mainly) portion of any game to begin with, but I find a lot of fun with it in this series. I remember so many awesome games of Oddball with a few friends back in the days of Halo 2. Then going back and playing the same thing and a few extra custom made gametypes in CE also. There was always the awesome games of Crazy King or Juggernaut.
In short, the two things that really make this game series enjoyable to me is the deep storyline and Firefight.


So there you have it, my ten games/game franchises that I have had the most enjoyment out of for the past 7(!), going on 8 years of me gaming. But wait, there's more! Yes, I said more. There are a few(read: a lot) of games that I have played that have had these really awesome moments that deserve to be listed as well.
I enjoyed Modern Warfare 2, however it just isn't a game I can play on a daily basis(even though I did for like a month after I got the game...); however, the co-op Spec-Ops mode was pretty awesome. One level in particular keeps coming to mind. The Spec-Ops level entitled "Overwatch" is the one I'm thinking of, but anyways; you and your buddy are split up basically. One of you is one the ground and have to fight towards an extraction point, meanwhile; your friend is up in the sky in an AC-130 gunship providing covering fire. I cannot count how many times I played that level with Storm when we first got the game, it's just pure awesomeness getting to help your teammate reach their destination with that amount of firepower at your control. I dare say it, but it is my favorite thing out of all the CoD game I've played.
Then there's the first Bioshock, where you're swimming to the lighthouse in the middle of the ocean/whatever it is and then taking the Bathosphere(I'm surprised I remembered that...) down to Rapture. Maybe not extremely awesome, but nonetheless it's still pretty epic.
Another one that comes to mind is from Half-Life 2: Episode 2. Getting the gnome that is shoved underneath a nearby table at the start of the game and keeping track of him throughout the entire game and locking him away on the rocket at the end of it. Most annoying 30 Gamerpoints towards my gamerscore ever. I'll admit though, it has to be my favorite achievement that I have earned.
Going back to my roots here, the first encounter with the Flood. I'll admit I was younger when I first started playing Halo so they did freak me out at first. The level, 343 Guilty Spark, is the perfect setting for what happens later on in the level; plus all the winding chambers and tunnels that you have run through in order to escape really adds to the atmosphere of possible impending doom. And, you can't forget the video of the previous squad of Marines that travel to where the Flood is being contained that you get a hold of to find out why everything is the way it is. However, right now that is one of my favorite levels of the entire Halo franchise.
Speaking of Halo, another immediate awesome moment comes to mind via Halo 2. The game was full of them, but the one I'm thinking of is at the end of the level High Charity(I think...) where you face off against Elites and their minions that are fighting Brutes and their minions as well in the mausoleum. If you have played this part of the level, you know exactly why I am listing it here. Personally, I think it has that classic "Halo battle" feel to it with having to fight both sides of the Covenant.

Okay, so now there you have it. My top ten games I have enjoyed plus the few epic moments I can remember right now. I might have to post some more epic moments from games when I remember any. Now, feel free to post any of your favorite moments if you want.

Hour of Reckoning

No, this won't be some long drawn out post about Reach. However it will be about Reach. I have decided to post my experience of the midnight release that I attended at my local Gamestop. It's only four pics of that, but I am also adding in some pics of what I got and my first screenshot and video from the game. Which were taken from the campaign, but shouldn't have any spoilers in them in case you have yet to finish the game. Anyways, on to midnight release stuff. A forewarning though, some of these people might seem a little strange in the one picture. Okay, so they're in reverse order but oh well.

The time should read 1 hour, 38 minutes and 20 seconds until release.

Poster hanging in the window.

The larger-than-what-I-thought it would be crowd.

Time of departure for the game store.

The next group of pics will be of what I got that night. One item which I new I was getting since I payed for it and the other, which I had no idea of.

Picture of both the Legendary edition box and the limited edition Xbox 360 "Slim" model with a Reach design on it.

And a side view of the actual console itself. I have more pics of the seal on the Legendary edition, but I would like more with the contents and a better view of the box. Anyways, onto a screenshot and quick clip I took the other day. First up; the screenshot.

And lastly, here is the embeded version of the film clip I took from the campaign followed by a direct download link for Reach and WMV.

And here is the direct link to the file for download in Reach or WMV.
Anyways, hope you enjoy it and expect some more pics at a later date and maybe even some more clips also.

If Only it was True

So, some of you may be wondering where I've been the past few days...or weeks. It's simple actually(isn't it always?), a few weeks ago I played the demo for NCAA Football 11 and that made me want Fall to come even quicker and it also made me want a football game for the 360. So a couple weeks ago I went down to my local game store and picked up NCAA Football 10. Yeah I know it's not the new one with all the fancy features and all; but hey, it was 20 bucks cheaper! So far, I have had several intense games and a couple blowouts also. Anyways, what's all in this post? Well, hopefully I'll be able to talk about a bit the football game and how I've done it. Maybe I'll even manage to fit it some talk about Reach. Yeah, pretty sure I'll be able to fit that in there somewhere; I'll make room. Anyways, moving on.


Like I said, a couple weeks ago I picked up the football game(I can find a way to use it this sentence again) and have enjoyed it so far. It is by far one of the best Collegiate football games I have played. Before I continue though, you might be asking(more likely not) "What is the team you chose to use?" Well, that team is my favorite college team; Illinois. There really isn't a whole lot to say about it though. I did start a Dynasty on it, which kind of has you playing as the coach of the team; but you're still actually playing the game. On my first season(Which I started three days after getting the game) I went 8-0 in conference play and 12-0 overall. But wait; that's not it though! I finished that season rated #1 in the Coaches' poll and all that stuff, plus went to the BCS National Title game against #2 Boise State with the same record. Despite it being a video game, I was actually nervous a little when playing the game knowing that something would happen. So, the kickoff happens and Boise State is receiving for the first half. Okay skip all that and go ahead several downs and Boise State is close to scoring a touchdown. Luckily our defense held them off at our own 15 yard line and they only escape with a field goal. Okay, so now I'm wondering what to do now since we're down 3-0 and I'm not having much luck getting my running game going. So I decided to start passing on them with the occasional option run play thrown in there. Well it works I then take the lead 7-3 and build on it from there. In the end the final score is Illinois 63 - Boise State 3. Yeah...umm, owned. After winning that bowl game, I ended finishing the season and 13-0 overall. At the end of my first season I still had another two years for my contract with Illinois, however; I got a couple job offers also. One was with Alabama, which had a really good season that year(in that game that is) and another one was North Carolina I believe though I'm not sure how they did. I also had the choice to renew for another six years with Illinois, well I decided to renew my contract for the other six years. Right now I am currently in my second season of it and am ranked #5 in the Coaches' Poll with an overall record of 7-0. So far in the second season and in conference play I am 3-0 already beating Michigan, Minnesota and just recently, Indiana. So far the only team that has shown any sign of possibly beating me was the game against Minnesota. I still won that game, but the final score was 62-24. I know, I know; that's still double their score so why should have worried about that? Well they scored a TD first, which put us down 7-0; however on the kickoff I return it for a touchdown thus evening up the score. Fast forward into early in the second quarter I score another TD taking the lead 14-7. Soon afterwards they score yet another touchdown and tie the game up. Halftime rolls around finally and I have the lead at 21-14; second half starts and I just take off from there and finish the game with the previously stated final score.


Really the only thing else I have done was started a "Road to Glory" mode thing.... What you basically do is create a player and start with your state's high school championship playoffs and try to get a scholarship to a college. I did that, won the Illinois State playoffs with a local high school and got scholarship offers from a whole bunch of places. I decided to sign with....with.....I can't say it....with Iowa. That left a bad taste.... Yeah, so since I'm an Illinois fan I don't care a whole lot for Iowa. However, I was guaranteed a bunch of stuff by signing with Iowa, one of which was being a starter for them. I would have liked to sign with Illinois(obviously), but they wanted me as a second string and I was hoping for a starter position. What I am thinking of doing is creating another player(probably someone on defense) and seeing what I can get there. I don't know really, it's the least of my concerns since I want to see how I can do in the Dynasty I started; that and Reach is only a couple weeks away, but hey who's counting right?



Moving onto that map I said I was going to make before Reach came out. Yeah, so that was like two weeks ago and I haven't started it yet. So obviously by now I have decided to scratch the idea of creating it in Halo 3's Forge and just wait until Reach comes out(two weeks!) and start it in Forge World. I don't know where I will build it exactly, but I am thinking about going to The Quarry and building it there. I know it's an open area and all that so how will people know where the boundaries of it are? Well, they're called death barriers for a reason. Since it's in an open area that obviously means that some stuff might change, however this could be a good thing in the long run. Luckily that means it should give me the chance to make it a little larger than what the Sandbox version currently could be. I can see some really cool stuff being worked into the new version of it with all the stuff we'll have at our hands in Forge World. As of right now I don't know if I'll try to make an exact remake of it(with the general geometry and weapon placement) or if I'll make some changes to it. However, it's going to be along the same concept of the one I was planning on making in H3's Forge. I know, it sounds like I just contradicted myself there; but if you read it carefully I'm basically stating that since I'm planning on building it in a different place some of it might change if I can't make it work properly...or something like that at least. Anyways, moving on before I confuse you even more.

So, after reading Bungie's weekly update for August 20th, 2010 I am really excited for Firefight even more. So if you watch the one video showcasing the Firefight gametype called "Skeet Shoot(-ing)" I really liked the way that one looked. After seeing that video though it made me start hoping that they included in the game the option to save custom Firefight settings(which I'm sure they did), but also the ability to upload them to your file share for the game and download other variants and such. A lot like the way we can download custom maps and gametypes in Halo 3 already, but only with Firefight 2.0 for Reach since we are going to be able to edit all sorts of settings for that mode. I have already mentioned a few ideas in earlier posts that I have made about some settings that I might change in order to make a game of Firefight interesting. I have yet to see some gameplay of the one built-in Firefight mode called "Gruntpocalypse." I guess it's nothing but Grunts and whatever load-outs you have to choose from. Sounds like a real good version to play when you want to waste some time or just have fun and don't want to play a regular game of Firefight. I have seen some footage of Firefight Versus and it looks fun. I'm honestly note sure how often I will play it, but I'm sure I will at some point just to check it out even.
Something that I think would be really cool to do, but I think it's not going to happen and is to late implement is if you could make your own Firefight maps using Forge World. Now at first I was against the idea of being able to create your own maps and using them in Firefight; but honestly, I think it could possibly be a really cool feature to have. I can easily see it being used and some great community Firefight maps being made in the end; especially from the more "known" Forgers in the Halo community. The one thing I would have done if you could have been able to do it is make even just a part of an old Firefight map from ODST. I would leave the basic geometry and layout of said section if at all possible and just adding maybe some extra cover if I wanted to and certainly adding some more weapons laying around the main area of the map. Like I said though, I doubt it we're going to be able to do and since the game comes out in 10 days(again, not counting...) it is most likely too late to put it in the game right now.

Anyways, I think that is all for now. I am hoping to have another post out possibly before Reach comes out; but I'm not going to guarantee anything. I can guarantee that I will have a post out sometime shortly after Reach is released as I'll be wanting to talk about all the neat new stuff in it and I can do so here. So until then, keep killing aliens...or whatever it was your were doing before arriving here. Oh yeah, I also got around to changing the picture for the header of my blog. It's a screenshot I took from the Reach Beta. If I remember correctly I am the Elite that is on the right hand with what was left of the laser blast in my face. I swear when that happened I was dead...

No, the Zombies Haven't Taken Over Yet

Like the title says, zombies haven't invaded the earth yet. Or come into existence for that fact. So why no new blog post as of lately? Well, I've been doing my part at keeping the zombie/alien invasion at bay....kind of. Simply put, I've been busy and haven't had a whole large chance to get a new post out at all. And remember that detailed breakdown I'm working on for HGA? Well, it's still being worked on; however, I feel it will be worth the wait. I've also been playing some Half-Life 2 again as I really enjoyed playing that game. Same way with Left 4 Dead 1 and 2 and with ODST. Wait, do I ever really stop playing that last game? And lastly, I'm still planning on uploading and posting the last few Reach Beta clips I have, all in a matter of time though.

Fearing 10,000

Okay, so a week or two later than what I had planned on, but it's not out of the normal for me. I'm pretty sure you can guess the point of this post by simply reading the title of it; if not, I'll fill you in a little bit. A while back ago(maybe a month or so) I got 7,000 gamerscore and set out to met goals in increments of 1,000. A few weeks later I hit 8,000 then went for 9,000 and so on. Well on April 12th, 2010, I broke the 10,000 point mark I was originally aiming for. The day before(the 11th) I was playing Fear Files to get the last points I needed, well by the time I was done for the day I ended up with only needing seven points in order to get 10,000 even. I couldn't find any games that I owned with a seven point achievement except for Marathon: Durandal which had one, but I already had it. So the following day I played the Fear 2: Reborn expansion pack that could be downloaded, keep in mind I already had it for a week and earned all the easy achievements in it, and earned the "Foot Soldier" achievement for it. It requires you to get through the first level of the expansion without using the armor you drop in. Which is actually a lot harder than it sounds since there are way too many enemies shooting at you with rockets. Anyways, once I got it, that put me over to 10,023 I believe and I've continued on since then. Granted a little more slowly since I don't have a goal to reach, but still.

My first achievement for my gamertag(which I might consider changing it back, not sure yet) was from Halo 3 and that was "MVP: Earned the MVP in a ranked playlist.", worth five points and earned on November 14th, 2007 in my first game of Halo 3 online.



Anyways, moving on. I recently picked up Bioshock 2 and have played it. It's pretty good, I think I close to completing it though. So in order to combat that, I started a new game and am currently playing through it again being "evil". With the Bioshock series you can either choose to harvest or rescue the Little Sisters you come across, on my first play through of the game I decide to rescue them and get all the stuff they give you. For what reason? No idea. Anyways, once I've completed it at least once like that, I go back and start a new game and then harvest them all. Now with Bioshock 2, there are people you meet and they've done something(I know what they've done, but hey, trying to keep it spoiler free in case you haven't played it) and you have the choice to either leave them alone or kill them. Well on my second play through I am going to kill them and see what's different from my first play through(when I don't kill them) once I finish it. Now if none of that makes any sense to you, I don't blame you. It makes little sense to me either and I'm the one doing it.

Tomorrow I will probably be putting Bioshock 2 down for a little bit as Left 4 Dead 2's "The Passing" DLC is going to be released. I'm really excited for it and it's fairly cheap also. It's supposed to come with a couple new weapons(an M60 and a golf club) and a new uncommon common. Plus it is also bringing back the original four survivors from the first game; I cannot wait to see what part they play in it.

I think that's pretty much it for now. It's not much, but it's something at least right? Oh and my Xbox Live profile is currently undergoing changes. As in my bio, motto and possibly gamer picture might change. Maybe even later on I may change my tag back to StoredGrunt360. I haven't left TUE and don't plan on it for quite some time, but I have a feeling that it might disband after Reach is released. Anyways, that's all for now.

Exalted? Nope.

So what's the point of putting the exalted in the title you ask? Simply put, it's a prefix for the member titles on Bungie.net which means you have gone three years without a ban or warning. What does that have to do with me though? Well this past Sunday I gained that prefix for my title. So now instead of being an Intrepid Legendary Member(Intrepid prefix had to do with a high post count I guess) I am a Exalted Legendary Member. Both of which can make some pretty interesting acronyms if you do it right. The only logical reason I can think of for gaining that title is that the next day was March 29th and marked my three year join date. Personally, I've always liked the sound of the Exalted prefix.

Anyways, moving on. I thought about sitting here and going on some little rant about how people act and if you are wrong about something they make sure you and everyone else knows about it, but you know what; that's what they want. They want you to do that, that way they can get the attention they think they deserve. Just remember though, this is the internet after all and it shouldn't be taken seriously.

Moving on...again. I am very close to breaking the 9,000 gamerscore mark; however, that is not my goal though 10,000 is. I was able to get close to it by playing Fear 2(more on this later) and completing it. I only see a couple problems with getting to 10,000 though. The first is the one game I wanted all achievements for is taking a lot longer than I had expected, so I really don't know if it will happen. The second problem is that once I get done with the original Fear and Fear: Files, I really don't have many games that offer many achievements. There are a few games that I haven't played in ages though that could offer up some points, like Assassin's Creed, which I have yet to finish, and a few others that I can't think of. If I don't have any that offer up some points, I'll have to wait until Reach comes out in the fall or whenever it is; or breakdown and buy a cheap used game that I like and play through it. I've thought about picking up a copy of the original Mass Effect, but I'm not a huge fan for sitting there for hours upon hours collecting things and then investing them in my character. I didn't mind it at first with Bioshock, but I quit doing it after a while because it got boring.

If you remember earlier in this post I mentioned that I played and completed Fear 2. I can't get over the fact of how awesome the shotgun is in that game. I understand why now after reading up on it in the game. It's a 10 gauge and it's larger than the 12 gauge...or something like that I'm not completely sure. The way the game ended we certainly......interesting to say the least. However, I'm lost on the complete story since I didn't play the first Fear nor Fear: Files; which I plan on playing both in order to understand the story and earn some achievements from them.

Anyways, that's all for now. Another short post, but it's at least something as I normally say. Just remember, it's the internet and you shouldn't take it seriously. Which if you aren't taking it seriously that means that what I just said is a mute point to you then. Or something like that... Also, the spell checker on here says I spelled "internet" wrong...I'm pretty sure I know how to spell that.