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.

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...

Fun With Brutes in Firefight

Quick and short post here, but I wanted to share part of a film I rendered earlier tonight from a game of Firefight I played with Storm. This happened several times throughout the game, but the best part was at the end. I know from somewhere I will take ridicule for it and yes; I also know that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do since we had no lives left and a fairly high score going. But hey, what's the point if you can't have some fun with the enemy at least once in a while right? Anyways, here's the embedded video plus the direct link to the file in case you don't have Silverlight installed, you can at least watch it in Window Media Player or whatever it's called now. Also, I know it's cut off on the right side of the video; so you might be better off going to the direct file link and watching it in WMV. Your call.




Direct link to file for download in ODST/Media Player.

Set Start, Tough Luck On

If you have every played even a little bit of Firefight from ODST, you know exactly what I mean. If not, I'll quickly explain it here. Each time a new set starts in Firefight, the Tough Luck skull is turned on in the first round and stays on in the following rounds. Now with that out of the way, you're wondering why the title is that way(most likely not though); well I have been playing a huge amount of Firefight lately and now I realize how awesome it is. So in this post I was going to dig through my games of Firefight and post the ones I thought were good. Maybe even through in a screenshot from it or two. And, if I can think of what to talk about it, maybe even discuss some more Firefight 2.0. I'll kick things off with the very first game of Firefight I played, which also happend to be the first time I played ODST the night it came out. http://www.bungie.net/Stats/ODSTg.aspx?gameid=777802&player=StoredGrunt360

Didn't do too bad for the first game, however; it's nothing compared to what I could do now. When I played later that day, I did have one decent game. 87,428. Next day when Storm and were trying to make the campaign last on Normal, we decide to hit Firefight co-op for the first time on the map Windward and here are the results. We also grabbed our first Firefight related achievement by getting par score(which is set at 200,000) for that map. Still though, we can do better than that. So we continue to get the par score for each of the maps fairly easily, until we have one map to do; and that map is Last Exit. First try we get 58,902, second game only a small 11,756, third game we think we finally might get it with 64,700 only to fail there and in the next game getting 12,994. Well we finally get it after like 6 tries. Traveling back to Windward we get our first high score above 200,000 points. Set 5, Round 2, Wave 4; 740,804. Moving forward a couple months, here is our first game where we reached one million points. Yes it was on easy, but so what; we were aiming for massive amounts of kills not points that game. Although the points were a bonus. I would like to note that that game was the only time I thought we would reach a million points. However, this game begs to differ and so would this one. Okay, so I was wrong and we have been able to get to a 1.5 million points at least twice and one million points once. This next game was our first(and only) attempt at the Vidmaster: Endure achievement. Which is to pass the fourth set on Heroic four player co-op over Xbox LIVE. Sound simple right? Well I thought so at first since at the start of the third set we had a decent amount of lives stockpiled until we used them all up. I was left as the last man standing on the fifth wave of round three and got owned horribly by the never ending amount of Brutes. So yeah, we were close since all we had to do was get out of set three and get past set four. This last game was played just yesterday and we almost made it to a million points four a fourth time. We could have kept going except I was the last man standing and was trapped in a corner by a Brute, but when I was finally able to get away from him to reload I jumped right into a suicide Grunt. I hope to get a screenshot of that soon.

Moving onto Reach's Firefight 2.0. If you played the Beta back in May, mainly in late May that is, you probably played the playlist that was dubbed Network Test 1? Well that was meant to test the network coding I guess for the game, however it turns out that the basic gametype for that playlist is going to be a Firefight gametype. From the games I played of it in the Beta it was awesome and I can't wait to see how it is going to work with an endless amount of aliens coming after you not only trying to kill you, but also take out the generators as well. The other gametype I'm interested to try out is "Rocket Fight" I think it may have been called, but anyways; it's nothing but rockets with infinite ammo for them. One thing that I am sure will happen with that version of Firefight is chaos will ensue. I've already talked a bit about the customzation in the new Firefight, but let me elaborate a little as to why I like it so much. Probably the main reason is you'll be able to do pretty much whatever you want to in it. If you want to fight nothing but Grunts then go ahead and do so. If you are tired of being screwed by the Elites in the campaign and just want to slaughter a couple hundred(or thousand if you're like me) then you'll be able to do that also. I'm pretty sure you get the point by now. I know a lot of people that are actually against us being able to do all that; however, their only argument is this: "People will be able to get high scores easily and no skill is involved." Well you know what, fun > skill. Yes it helps to know how to play the game at points, but really if you are just wanting to have fun are you really going to care how far you get? And yes, I also know that to some people, doing to good is having fun and that's fine, but to me it really isn't worth getting mad at a game because you aren't doing good. I know, "But I'm still not having fun." well maybe you should reconsider your current definition of fun.

Anyways back on topic here. Besides what I mentioned in my last post about what I plan on doing in Reach's Firefight. Another thing I think I might end doing sometime in it, is having at least one wave or round dedicated to Hunters. I really think they could be a challenge in Reach and from the screens I have seen of them; they also look larger than they were in ODST. Also, I would easily settle for a round or two of Jackals and their counterpart, Skirmishers.

On a closing note; I'll leave you with some screenshots I have taken over the past few days from Firefight.

Reach Beta Clips or Firefight?

Remember how a while ago I posted saying that I had taken several clips from the Reach Beta and I was going to render them, upload them to youtube and post them here? If you do, good; if not, then look here. I know, at that time I didn't have many uploaded yet and I kept promising how I was going to get the last group of them up and posted and yet, I never did. Until now that is. The other night I took the time to upload the last three film clips that I took from the Halo: Reach multiplayer Beta. So where are they you ask? I suppose you could click this link and get all the Reach videos I have. Now you might have to find a way to play the video outside of my channel page thing, as it tends to lag and looks horrible. I need to find a way to organize them better maybe.

So E3 is already long gone and done with, however we did get some interesting campaign footage of Reach and with that we also got the confirmation of Firefight returning. I do wonder though if there was any doubt if it would return or not since I'm assuming it was very popular in ODST, even to this day. The one thing I am very excited about its return is the amount of customization you are going to be able to do in it. From what I've gathered you will be able to decide which enemy and how many of them you want in each wave. Same with rounds and sets I think also. You'll also be able to decide how much damage you and the enemy deals out to each other and if you can be killed or not. Much like you can with certain things in Halo 3's custom games. I was already brainstorming and idea for it the other day with Storm after being owned horribly by a couple hammer Chieftains with their invincibility turned on. If you've ever played ODST's Firefight, you know exactly what I'm talking about on how it seems to last forever when you are so close to making par score and they end up killing you in the end anyways. Well, in Firefight 2.0 I plan on changing that. Right now I know you're probably thinking something like this: "You're crazy Grunt, there's no way you can mimic a Chieftain as a Spartan-III!!!!" Well with the amount of customization, I can! Give myself a hammer and turn on invincibility and set the enemy in the wave to a Brute Chieftain and there you go, one instant rebuttal for all those times you got ripped off by that hammer or fuel rod Chieftain in ODST. Plus if you always got behind the ones with the hammer as they were invincible and assassinated them, just imagine that with the new form of assassinations that are in Reach. Hold B to own Brutes!
Another thing that I've also thought about doing if they return is setting up an entire wave or round of suicide Grunts and see how long we can hold out against them. They get very annoying in ODST currently, but I really want to see how long we could last against just them.

Anyways, I think that is finally it. However, don't be surprised if I comeback with another post mainly discussing Firefight from ODST and possibly Firefight 2.0. Lastly, the complete breakdown post on HGA is still in the works. I haven't had the motivation to work on it as of lately and I still plan on delivering it sometime in the future. With any luck, before Reach falls.

Reaching for Beta Part 2

Yep, that's a part 2 that you see in the title and no, it's not a mistake....or something like that. As most of you are sure the Halo: Reach multiplayer Beta was released on the 3rd and I'm also sure that you've done your fair share of providing feedback to Bungie to fix the broken things right? If not, oh well, no big deal. Anyways, I'm going to give my true feedback about the Beta here.

Be warned though, if you are a super-competitive person and think that Reach sucks and that I have a 1.03(which is still positive, but barely) K/D ratio and my opinion doesn't matter; you may want to stop reading after the next paragraph as what I'll say will most likely not agree with you think. That said, let's move on shall we?

Firstly, I'd like to redirect to this post here. In which case I stated that I was going to change my gamertag from StoredGrunt360 to TUE StoredGrunt. Well I did that, obviously, but now I have decided that after May 19th(the day that the Reach Beta ends) I am going to change it back to StoredGrunt360. No, I'm not leaving TUE and no I'm not losing interest in the group; I just want my old name back. So after the Beta is over with, I am going to become StoredGrunt360 again. Heh, right now I'm listening to the ODST soundtrack and the tempo increased right as I started typing that last sentence. Oh the irony of that.



Anyways, here's the start of what I currently think of the Halo: Reach multiplayer Beta. I'll start of by being general, I love it. It really brings back the fun that is Halo multiplayer. When I first started playing it, it brought back some memories from playing the first Halo on splitscreen with some friends. I cannot remember the last time I had this much fun playing the matchmaking side of Halo. However, there are a few things that could be changed I think. Some of them have already been addressed and are going to be fixed for the final game in the fall. I personally think the grenades are a bit overpowered, but it's not bother me if it doesn't change for the fall. Even though they already addressed the issue and are going to fix, they just don't know how though. I'm also not a huge fan of the spawn on Sword Base for 1 Flag CTF. The starting spawns for the attacking team are a little close to the flag. I mean, I don't mind the initial rush at the start of the game to see which team can get the flag first, but if the defending team doesn't choose the Scout loadout(which has the sprint armor ability), then the other team is almost guaranteed to get the flag first and be off before you can do anything about it. Like I said, it's fun and it scream Halo fun, but it gets annoying after a while when the other team is there and gone with your flag every single game. I also think that the spawns for the gold team I believe it is, in Invasion need to be changed or at least some more cover added to it. I don't like Elites in the least bit, but when your playing as them and you get stuck on this side, it's kind of hard to get away from you spawn before you get killed. Over and over again.... Other then those few things, I'm really enjoying the Beta so far.



Onto things that I like in it, besides the fact that it brings back the fun in Halo multiplayer. The new assault rifle in Reach is awesome. Other then the fact that it sounds real for once(which is a big complaint of mine in any shooter game where the weapons don't even sound real) it is actually effective and kills people. Well I was going to say that in the 3 years I have played Halo 3 I had less kills with the AR than I do in the few days of the Reach Beta, but I can't do that as I actually have more kills with in H3 than Reach. However, it's still much better in Reach. I also started to like the new Needler for Reach. It'll actually kill people now and not just annoy them...or me for not killing them. The new shotgun is different from the one in the past Halo games. That one is an M90 Close Assault Weapon System(or for whatever reason you want to call it by it's acronym; CAWS) while the new one in Reach is an M45 Tactical Shotgun(TS). Yes, that was the Halo canon(story) nerd in me there. I'm not sure what I think of the grenade launcher yet. I can say this though, I don't know how to use it correctly and I haven't blown myself up with it yet; which is actually good considering my luck in Halo games and blowing myself up with explosives. The Focus Rifle is really sweet also, I always enjoy using it and always hate getting hit by it. It really drains your health and shields quickly if you're caught out in the open with no cover in sight. I really can't describe what it's like to have, it's just super-awesome!



Now that I am done with the weapons, let's discuss the gametypes in the Beta. So the big hype of the Beta that I'm sure half of the community was really wanting to play was Invasion. Personally, regular Invasion is awesome and with a few tweaks to how the Elites spawn(for example, gold team has the worst spawn since it's right in the open pretty much) it can be perfect. I'm not a huge fan of Invasion Slayer though. I mean, I understand how it works and all that, but it's still confusing. I at least understand what the territories are for now, you capture them and hold them for an extra 15 seconds I believe it is and you are rewarded with a weapon or vehicle drop. Stockpile is something that will be awesome to play if you have a good team. The only thing I can see that would get annoying with it, but it's a totally legit tactic to do; is the teams that don't really want to play it just go in and take your teams flags out of the collection area for the entire game. As I said before, it's not cheating or anything, just rather cheap and annoying after a while. The return of 3 plots from Halo 2 is awesome, I've always enjoyed playing that gametype with friends, never got to actually play it online against other people though. Anyways, it's awesome and I like it, glad to see it return. It really is full of chaos and fun, which is Halo to me. 1 Flag CTF is still awesome, however; I don't like it on Sword Base. I already stated why I don't like it, but maybe it'll change. It's really fun on Powerhouse so far. SWAT is also in the Grab Bag playlist, but my opinion of SWAT does not change from Halo 3. I hate it. I mean, it's okay, but unless you see person A first, you'll most likely die from someone hiding away in a corner. So, in short, I still don't like SWAT. Team Oddball is still awesome and personally, I think it requires more teamwork now as the ball carrier doesn't have a radar now. Did you ever have one in Halo 3? Was there even a Team Oddball gametype in Halo 3? Covy Slayer is a new gametype to Reach also and I actually like it more then I thought I would. It's basically like regular slayer only with Elites versus Elites with Covenant weapons on the map and for the loadouts. It's simple, but I actually like it more then normal slayer. A new gametype that was added yesterday called Spartan vs. Elite Slayer(or as it actually appears, SvE Slayer) is pretty cool. However, I've only played it twice so I'm not exactly sure what I think of it exactly.

Headhunter in FFA is fun, however, not as fun as I thought it would be. Not a whole lot I can say about it really, so moving on. Juggernaut, an instant favorite of mine. I have no idea how long it's been around in the Halo series, but I got hooked on it back in the early days of Halo 3 when Storm would load up Mad Dash on The Pit or something. It's really cool how the Juggernaut sticks out this time around. They still have the basic waypoint above their head that tells you where they're at, but you also are on fire to. However, I'm sure the being on fire part is just for cosmetic purposes only, but it still looks sweet. I do think though that the Juggernaut needs a little reduction in damage resistance. I understand the definition of a juggernaut, but at points you just can't kill the person who was made the Juggernaut at the start of the game. And that's no fun after a while. Especially if you go in with a full party of 8 and get the game multiple times and the same person is the Juggernaut for most of those games. Oddball is still Oddball as I stated before. It's still fun, but still the same way it was in Halo 3...and 2...and CE, a camp with the ball in the corner of the map that no one can get to festival. I still enjoy it though.
I think that's all for the gametypes.

I really hope Firefight returns in Reach. I guess there have been videos posted up on youtube of people that have hacked the Beta and have found that Firefight does exist in the code, we just can't play it. That's fine and all(even though I'm against people hacking and modding their consoles) I just want official word from Bungie about it returning is all. It can really expand from ODST's version of it with the new sandbox. If it does return, which I'm sure it will with how popular it is in ODST currently, all I really want is more than ten maps. More vehicle based maps like Lost Platoon was in ODST. I think it would be also cool to have perhaps two versions of it, one where you play as Spartans and maybe the other could be where you play as Elites. I know it sounds cruel wanting to play as an Elite and kill endless waves of humans and all, but it would offer a different style of gameplay and you could play as them more then just in the multiplayer when you absolutely have to.

I think that is finally all I have to say about Reach so far. In a few days I'll be post some screenshots and film clips I took from the Beta so far once I have them situated and all that. I'd talk about the campaign a little bit, but we don't know anything about it...therefore I can't theorize about it yet. Oh and one last thing, I will be overhauling my blog a bit. It won't be anything major, but some of the tags are going to change(read: may or may not disappear) and maybe even the picture at the top might change again. We'll have to see. Hope you enjoyed this little read if you are currently reading this.

"KEEP IT CLEAN!"

Ah yes, the age old phrase of the Superintendent. Remember him? The one random green dude that appeared all over Halo land about May of last year. Well you all probably know that it lead up to the announcement of Halo 3: ODST and all that good stuff. Well ODST came out about 2 weeks ago, I'm sure most of you have picked it up and had your fun with it already. I have completed the campaign with my friend(whom you are familiar with as Storm) on Heroic right now, we still have to beat it on Legendary. I have almost beat it on Legendary solo, I have just one more level to do. He's working on Heroic right now and I think is almost done with it also. Granted it's a short game, but if you don't sit there for 7-8 hours on easy(like most people I know did, at least not on easy though) and actually take a break to do something else you would be surprised at how much play time you can get from the 7-8 hours of campaign. Plus if you want it to last about double that time, just explore the city, look for the audio logs or more Covenant to kill or just walk around mindlessly admiring all the cool looking architecture and stuff.





Anyways, moving on. I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but it should be interesting...



I'll start with the new multiplayer/co-op mode called Firefight. It's kind of like Gears of War 2's Horde mode...I guess, I've never played that. It's meant for a full team of 4 people, but if you're bored enough and have plenty of time, you can go in on your own. Now what I find cool is that going in solo and going in with 3 other people, the amount of enemies do not change at all and I think that is really neat.

The two things I don't like about it are these: it only has 10 maps, 7 of which are available straight out of the box. I mean yes, they're good maps and I enjoy them, but seriously 10 isn't enough. Granted Bungie has said that there are no plans on releasing any DLC maps since they are mainly focused on Reach right now, but if the demands arise, they might start considering it. I seriously hope they think about it even for a second.

Also the skulls needed to be randomized. Tough Luck, Catch and Black Eye are good selections for round skulls, but when you complete a set and start with the same three skulls again with just adding a new skull, it gets boring after a while. Don't get me wrong, I think the skull selection is great, but making them random would be more interesting. So I guess this is more of an idea of improvement then a complaint.



Onto a little bit about the campaign. Note: there are possible spoilers here, so if you have not completed it yet, just skip over this section here. I'll let you know when you can start reading again.



*Spoilers ahead!*

Most people I know felt it was short, and it was somewhat, but it wasn't meant to be an actual game. The story was really good, except the drama between two of the characters, that just isn't Halo I'm sorry. I enjoyed the flashbacks, they lead to a lot of interesting gameplay and memorable moments. Take for example the end of Uplift Reserve when you're playing as Dutch. You are supposed to escape the area and get into the city, or whatever it is I forgot, and you drive through this hole in a cliff wall and all of a sudden, you're flying from 1,000 feet in the air(or something like that) and crashing into building. Now I'm sure most of you are familiar with the classic crash the Banshee you're in to the nearest wall, well this is the same. It's another one of those classic moments that you'll remember a while down the road.

Another thing I liked was the fact that since you're not the Chief anymore, some of the Covenant are actually larger then you. Like the Hunters, remember how in Halo 1 the Hunters were about as tall as you were? Then they gradually increased in size in Halo 2 and 3. Now they're actually these 12 foot tall walking tanks. Roaming around the city is really nice, since you can pretty much go anywhere and explore the majority of the city is great. Plus with the hidden audio files, it gives you a reason to explore the city.

*Spoilers end.*

Yep, that's it for spoilers. I really enjoy music in the game, it sets the mood for it perfectly. It still has the "Halo" sound to it. Granted it's not like the music for the past three games, not the more uplifting sound that they have had, it's more quiet then the it has been before. So far my favorite piece is "Finale", though "The Menagerie" is slowly becoming my favorite. I first started off by liking the overture the best, but once I got the actual soundtrack the previously stated tracks sound really good and I like them more now. I think that Neon Lights is becoming a favorite of mine also, it's really good.

I think I'll close of this post with a few screenshots that I took over the weekend. Most of them were taken in campaign, but again, are free of spoilers. They're just some pretty sweet action shots that I thought were cool. Also, instead of seeing them right here embedded into the post, I'm going to give you the link to them. You know, make you work for them.

Okay, not really, but I've noticed that pics I have uploaded and posted as of lately you have not been able to click the picture to get a larger version of it. Well a couple of these need to be seen in more then just a small 2x2(or something like that) thumbnail. So by giving you the links, you shall be able to see them in all there juicy digital color.
I'll start off with my favorite out of the bunch I took called, "Green and Dark."
I really like how that one turned out with the lighting of the Hunter's cannon blast mixed with the pitch black background. If I would have to say so myself, it is one of the best screens I have taken yet. Moving on.

This next one isn't a real good one, but it shows how much larger the Hunters are compared to an ODST. Nameless Screenshot 1.
Like I said, not real good, but it's sort of an action shot.

Again, nothing interesting going on, but if you take notice there is something lurking in the background...
Nameless shot 2.

My first screenshot from ODST called "Cornered." It's a fairly decent shot, it shows me and Storm trapped inside a room on one of the Firefight missions, Windward, by five Jackals. Yeah, there where more, but they kind of died before the majority of them in the frame. So I tried to get as many as I could in there to try to make it look epic and this was the end result.

Another interesting action shot here. "Drone and Chieftain vs. ODST." Umm yeah, so apparently a Drone and hammer Chieftain against a lone ODST doesn't end well for the poor soul. That was classic, a 15 foot or so lunge while on fire that still kills the ODST.

Finally, this is another one of those attempted lurking screens. However, this one is a little bit more hard to notice...maybe. Hiding. This one is semi decent I think for the simple fact that they had no idea I was there.

Well that is all for now. I will try to get a post out sooner next time...of course whenever I say that I don't manage to do it. So, maybe I should just stop talking about doing it and just do it.
Also look forward to some screenshots over the next week or so. I plan on taking more of them, how good they are is another question. I'm more of an action shots kind of person. No pre-staged standing in a corner with a sniper rifle.

In the meantime remember; "OBEY POSTED LIMITS."