Tag: halo

The Donut Inequality

[geek]

Today, my friends, is November 9. 11/9/04, a day that will live in infamy. One year ago, Halo 2 came out. I was there. At midnight. You all remember now, don’t you? Today, I recall the hype that I spewed over that single disc of C++. We’ll look back at the poem I wrote. Everything. It’s just going to be great, you know?

O Halo Two, how I love you,
you give me so many things to do!

With just a single DVD,
you unleash a world of glee!

Never straining the Front Side Bus,
for you were coded in C++!

Such an arsenal to explore,
with which to make war!

So many maps to inhabit,
awesome is what you emit!

Powered by a large Xbox,
you clearly rock my socks!

Halo Two, I kindly request of thee,
thy hand in marriage to me!

I remember Sam Miller getting up in front of my English class and reading that to everybody. I was too bashful to read it. Sadly enough, I admit that Halo 2 is not the best ever. It is not as good as Halo 1. Many of you out there agree, many don’t. But it was fun while it lasted.

Moving on, here’s a quick synopsis of what my time has been wasted upon the last week or so. Ben and Matt introduced me to a silly French game by the name of Dofus (doh foos, not do fuss, i think…anyone taking French out there?), which has been quite enjoyable. I won’t provide you with linkage, as a quick Google will provide you with the information you need. You need the exercise anyways.

[/geek]

My grades, dare I say, have reached a new level of suck. I’m desperately avoiding having the first ever D, or worst yet, F on my quarterly grade. Blast my foolishness, being late to school over 10 times. Ho ho.

I also feel that I need to address the accusation that this blog is closely related to slash. The official response is that this is not slash. You may quote me on that. Please do.

Lots of things are happening, more on what that means for your weekend, at 10.

EDIT: Irony. I was all pumped that Sam was gonna be here tomorrow, and was gonna edit this to say that. Not so.

Packing is not Okay

I’m off to the gargantiomous family reunion tomorrow. The timing is unfortunate as the lawns will not be happy once I get back, and I’ll also probably miss a letter or two. On the bright side, we’re coming back with another dog, Season 4 of 24 will be done, and I’ll get to see Christopher. So, we’ll see.

[geek]

Those new maps came out for Halo 2 – I was quite disappointed. Gemini and Backwash are poorly designed, especially with the sword. It often turns into a game of “scramble for a nearby weapon in hopes that a combo-er or sword-er doesn’t see you in time. Backwash is just hard to see in, so you’re always surprised by the sword, and the one shotgun is impossible to find, since everything is leaned against trees, and there are trees everywhere. As such, I do not like those two levels. Relic, Terminal, and Elongation are good, especially Terminal.

[/geek]

Paul got me the absolute coolest song, ever. Amazingly enough, it’s French, a techno of sorts, it has the style of techno, at least. If you’ve seen Ocean’s 12, it’s from the scene with the laser field where Tolour is jumping around. Ocean’s 12, by the way, is possibly one of my favorite movies. Something about it, I can’t put my finger on it, is really, really awesome. I don’t know what it is, but I watched it 3 times yesterday, something about it really intruiges me.

I won’t be back till Tuesday night, so until then, farewell.

It Is NOT Okay to Crackle (O.o)

I present to you…

my poem.

Halo Two, how I love thee,
You are a joy only I can see

Who knew the only one DVD
Could unlock so much glee?

You have so many guns to explore
Pistols, rockets, and snipers galore!

With thine battle rifle
With which none can trifle!

To you, Halo Two,
I can only say “I do”!

*bow*

I slept through two entire classes today. As in, I walked in, sat down, put my head on the desk and did not pull it back up until the class was over. I was tired. I kept waking up in the middle of the night (I was kinda cold, but not conscious enough when I kept waking up to get more covers). In case you didn’t know, I was at Benjamin’s Saturday and Sunday while Mom and Dad were in Boston, visiting the Luddy’s. I didn’t go for a number of reasons.

I had the weirdest dream ever last night, too.

Picture, if you will, a classy hotel, four-star. Very full. It is in the near future, but for some reason, the KGB is alive and thriving, armed in black suits, ties, and sunglasses, with pistols, and enough of them to occupy said hotel. This is where the dream starts off. The KGB enter and occupy the building, and people are evacuating. I’m just a spectator here, not an actual person.

So, the KGB storm the building and people are going nuts. They’re shooting random people down, but for the most part, standing around, looking cool. They only occupy the first floor, though. They just stood in the lobby. Meanwhile, people are going nuts everywhere else in the hotel packing up and evacuating. Meanwhile, there’s a serial killer, mildly reminiscent of somebody from Kill Bill, with a sword. In every room I observe, he’s under the bed, and there’s always two people on the bed. First instance: I think it’s Zach (it could have been paul, but I think it was Zach), and he’s talking in my general direction, I don’t know, but he gets stabbed and I think he falls out the window. Keep in mind, this is a dream, things are fuzzy. Switch to the next room. Spiderman and his friend, wearing a green mask are getting ready to go to bead. Spiderman is wearing his costume, but has yellow shorts on and his right arm is in a cast. His friend is kind of like the hulk. He’s really buff, and has the urge not to wear a shirt to showcase his manly abdominals. And he has a green mask on. So mask-man is laying on the bed and gets stabbed (from under the bed, I don’t know how mr. serial killer did that with a sword), and starts screaming, so Spiderman pulls out a pistol and puts 7 (yes, 7) shots into the bed, somehow misses the serial killer completely, and gets stabbed. There were a couple more rooms of stuff like that happening, with one person getting killed and the other vainly attempting to stop the killer, but that’s about it. Feel enlightened by my horrible dream.

Dreams that I remember are normally very, very vivid, but I often don’t write them down, and thus forget. I have a few dreams I wish I could remember. Oh well.

New maps came out today – they absolutely rock. Definately puts Halo 2 on the map for a long time.

It’s a Lighthouse! (O.o)

In regards to the previous post and the comments therein: take note of a few occurances that are worth noting.

  • I recanted my stance on the Day of Silence, as shown by the edit to the previous post. As usual, I did not remove my original words, so that I don’t forget what the situation was about, and so I can learn from it.
  • The entire debate on the comments was almost completely unrelated to the post. A number of people (I won’t say names, you can go read for yourself) decided my stance was in direct opposition of “gay rights”, per se. This is incorrect. Want to find out what I think? Ask me, don’t assume.
  • In general, online debate, especially over forums, can be pointless. This, I believe, is an exception. Why? We have a few intelligent participants here – more mature than the average teenager. There are obvious exceptions in there, but, they are not the real participants.

Continue debating as you like – I will only remove posts if necessary (and has been twice beore). I know a number of you want it to stop, simply because it will go nowhere – I, for one, find it enjoyable, and definately a learning experience.

As for things not involving this little debate, yesterday was Friday, and today is Spring Break. No, it is not Saturday. It is Spring Break. I went over to Ben’s house with Ben (duhhh), Zach, Paul, Ryan, and Matt. We stopped by Zach’s house to pick up Apples to Apples (i sincerely hope you’ve played that game), and proceeded to play through the entire stack of cards. A grand olde time was had, and Paul spent the night at my house. After owning him as SWITZERLAND, he left about an hour ago.

The only other thing worth noting is this. Reloaded, baby. It’s only funny if you’ve seen the original.

I hold no pity for IE.

[geek]

Also, there’s a Halo 2 autoupdateMonday. The things being changed and fixed include:

  • standby and dummying
  • stronger melee and grenades (i’ve been asking for this since the beginning!)
  • weakened magnum and SMG/Plasma Rifle combo
  • easier leveling (for more balanced games)
  • flag bouncing and wall-grabs
  • sword flying
  • auto-resolution games

Awesome, I say.

[/geek]

Now with a Smooth Marshmallow Core! (O.o)

This week can’t end soon enough. At this time, aI’m frustrated at the utter lack of time I have. I’ve been taking the bus home just so I can get more time at home (it gives me about an hour more), but that has a side effect of disconnecting me, but of course all my time at home is spent working or vegging as I play Halo 2 or my other newer games, so it’s a ruthless cycle of disconnectivity.

Speaking of Halo 2, I’ve gotten back into it recently, but I’ve found I have a 1/2 chance of either doing insanely well or sucking. I can’t figure it out – there are those games where the battle rifle is my baby – all my kills are headshots and no deaths, and then I have those Banshee moments, where I’m evading the rockets. And then I have those Banshee moments, where I hop in three times in one game only to be rocked by the rockets. And then I have those games where I can’t get the Battle Rifle, and I’m stuck with an SMG. I think I need to work on my strategy. I THINK the problem is my skill is too reliant on my team. If my team mates keep the rocket out of play, the Banshee is my home. I’m not sure though, as that doesn’t quite make sense when it comes to some weaponry (the battle rifle in particular). It’s taken me this long to realize it’s a team game, though. For all practical purposes, it’s a tactical shooter – you either work with the team or against the team. It’s actually that simple, too. If you aren’t sticking together and talking with your team, you end up dying, giving the enemy valuable weaponry, vehicles, and easier shot at the objective, more points, the whole basket and kaboodle. For so long I’ve been frustrated at how I can be better than the guy I’m fighting by a long shot, but still die, and now I understand. Anyways, no more video game talk.

Speaking of which, I wrote a report on video game violence for English. It’s technically the 1st draft, but it’s close enough.

Report – Video Game Violence

[2012 edit: lost forever]

I believe I sufficiently pwned that argument.

Speaking of pwnage, I had this crazy killing spree with the sniper rifle on Ascension. It was 4v4 Team Slayer – I had a fully loaded Sniper Rifle at my disposal, and they just kept on coming up the ramp, and out of the base, they didn’t stop coming. I was kind of toast when one of they shot me with the sniper after all my team had died at point-blank. I had two of those experiences actually, one on Burial Mounds at the base tunnel. I wish they had the headshot sound from UT. It would make it so much more satisfying.

Speaking of satisfying, I discovered my mouse has a battery life of like 5 days, with just one overnight charge. I am quite pleased, to say the least.

Also speaking of satisfying, we finished season 3 of 24. It was, to say the least, not satisfying. The biggest problem was that instead of twisting the plot, they kept extending it. The last 5 or 6 hours were completely unnecessary plot-wise, they just stretched things out for the last few hours, which is why they were far less interesting than the rest of the season. The season started off weakly. The first two discs were poor. The next two were excellent, but then the next two were poor. I have high hopes for season 4 though, especially with such a gigantically new cast (that should be a hint to how many people die). On a positive note, Kiefer Sutherland (the one that plays Jack) is an incredible actor. His skills really shine when you have a lot of bad extras and minor characters running around. I mean…bad. I could act better than some of these people. Oh well.

O.o

That last post was quite therapeutic. Yay. I finally have time to do all this stuff I’ve been wanting to do. I tried out this program from tracking all your stats on Halo 2, it’s running right now. It makes me want to learn Perl now (as it’s programmed in Perl). It has to download a LOT of HTML. First, it has to get all the list pages of the games you’ve played, and then all of the pages for each of your games (About 6 per game). At 17 pages of games, and 25 games per page, that comes out to 2500 pages of HTML it has to download. Then, it has to extract a whole crapload of stats from each of those pages (Kills, Deaths, Suicides, Headshots, Medals, Shots Hit, Shots Fired, Score, you get the idea) and then it calculates a few useful stats, like K:D ratios, averages, totals, most kills in a game, etc.. It’s gonna be really cool once it’s done. I’ll post the stats of the Archive once they’re done. The reason Bungie can’t do this is it would take terabytes of bandwidth which would get very expensive, very fast. They have to purge the stats after a month or so to prevent useless pile up.

For now, I leave to go get a Christmas tree!

O.o

I was in a great mood, until, randomly, I recieve this.

[15:00:12] TheMysteriousMrZ: www.gamerankings.com so, i see that half-life 2 has remained in the top five while halo 2 is conspicuously absent from the top ten altogether.

[15:00:25] *** “TheMysteriousMrZ” signed off at Sat Dec 04 15:00:25 2004.

THIS is why Half-Life 2 sucks. THIS is why Half-Life sucks. I didn’t want to have to make a post about this, but I’m gonna have to if I’m gonna get my point across.

Sure, four weeks ago I was confident that, according to Gamerankings, Halo 2 would have a higher score. In reality, I didn’t care, it was just a fun bet with BEN (not Zach, mind you). I would have liked to see Halo 2 stay up there. The retardacity of this is that somehow the ranking score has turned into a numerical value of how good a game is. It’s a summary, not a statement. I find it enough that IGN, Gamespot, and GMR all found Halo 2 to be a better game. I could care less about “Boomtown” and “eToyChest”‘s ideas. You know why Halo 2 has such a low score? Because 6 sites, none of whom I’ve ever heard of, decided it’s a bad game. I read them. As reviews, they SUCKED. If quality of reviewers could be measured, they wouldn’t be included. Nonetheless, they are there, pulling Halo 2’s score down a full percentage point or two.

That being said, HL2 has a higher score, fair and square, I suppose.

As for MY opinion of HL2 and why I think it sucks, I’ll try and convey that now. I’ve seen HL2. I watched Zach play it for an hour, and to be honest, I was not amazed. From what I’ve read (I’ve read 3 or 4 reviews on it) and seen (I’ve watched a number of movies and screenshots), I can make some pretty fair statements here.

Graphics: Yeah, they’re good. That is, if you have a good rig. Zach’s machine definately isn’t bad, (It’s like 2.2 AMD with a 9600P, right?) but it didn’t look outstanding on his rig. Good? Yes. Personally, I don’t find the recent graphics of Doom 3 and HL2 all that amazing, they look dreary and dull. Elder Scrolls IV? Now that’s beautiful, and it’s not even a finished engine.

Physics: Get ready for this: Halo 2 and Half-Life 2 use the same physics engine. They both use the Havoc engine – HL2 uses a slightly more advanced and souped up form that allows some water effects (bouyancy) and just a little more detail all around. Personally, I could care less if the world I’m playing has realistic physics. The physics in Halo 2 are detailed enough that I can have loads of fun just screwing around rolling barrels and rocks around. Ben said something about the ragdoll not being good in Halo 2 – I beg to differ. Watching myself die is almost a treat – it’s like a reward for doing badly. If I’m sniping and I get sniped back, my guy will fall backwards (not doing the flailing thing) and roll down the stairs slowly. So far I’ve never seen any unrealistic poses (think back to when ragdoll had just come out) or anything annoying and stupid. Yes, every now and then when you get blown up your guy will flail around, but so what?

Storyline: Keep in mind, I speak from ignorance and base what I know off of the Gamespot review. According to them, the storyline was weak, and not very good in general. The end was anticlimactic and ended with you fighting a weak enemy with an overpowered weapon. This is just what I read – don’t look at me for innacuracies. Halo 2’s storyline owned. I have to say, it was really good. Did the cliffhanger ending suck? Absolutely. I wanted the game to keep going very, very badly. That just raises the bar for Halo 3 – I expect a lot from its story now (Bungie has unoffically announced it in the recent Q&A). Apparantly HL2 still doesn’t have any cutscenes, or third-person events for that matter, and Gordon Freeman never speaks. That doesn’t seem like much room to make a plot. I don’t think I’d like the entire story being told by people talking to you.

All that being said, there is still more to mention. Halo 1 had a higher average review score than Half-Life 1. When I compare HL1 and HL2, I don’t see much difference. They look the same, they feel the same, they even SOUND the same (they didn’t even put in new sounds for some parts of the game). HL2 = HL1 + graphics and physics. That’s all I see. When I look at Halo 2, I see worlds of difference. H2 = H1 + much improved storyline/single player in general + huge gameplay changes (new weapons, vehicles, maps, dual wielding, no health, I could go on and on about the fundamental differences) + xbox live + graphics + physics. When I say HL2 sucks, I don’t mean it’s a bad game. I mean that by my standards, compared to what I enjoy playing, it is not a fun game that is worth my money. Steam alone is enough to push me away – I read the Game Revolution review, and that was a big enough factor to really change their score. Anyone with a non-state-of-the-art computer will have to deal with loading times and general annoyances. The implications of Steam are awful – if every company did this, PC gaming would go down the tubes.

That’s just what I have to say.

O.o

In light of Half Life 2 being released, I need to make a statement.

Half Life 2 is not compareable to Halo 2. Halo 2, while intended to be a single player game, is really a multiplayer masterpiece. Half Life 2, while it has mod potential, is in essence, a single player game. Halo 2 has the most amazing mutliplayer I’ve ever seen. Half Life 2 will probably have the most amazing single player I’ve ever seen.

I understand the extreme mod potential, but in reality, most of these mods will suck. It’s a fact of life. Maybe a handful will be pretty cool, but in reality, none can compare to a system that has a) been tested for bugs b) been tested for balance and c) been tested for everything else you can think of. The fact is, Halo 2 MP combines anything and everything that’s been good about any other multiplayer. Voice, the party system, dual wielding, vehicles, assymetrical maps, and hijacking. You can’t beat it.

Half Life 2 has the graphics, the physics, the story, and the mods to make the SP equally mind-blowing. Neither of the games introduce much anything new – it’s all improvement on what’s already there.

I’m sure both games are worthy of a 10.0. But my Halo fanboi-isms remain, and in my mind, Half Life cannot redeem itself of Counterstrike.

O.o

Oh goodness, the only reason I’m sitting here typing this is ebcause none of my friends are online to play HALO 2 with. I’ve made about a dozen or two dozen friends playing online, the voice chat really makes the game more personal. I don’t have a headset to chat with, but I’ll fix that, hopefully tomorrow.

I’ve beaten the campaign (I beat it last night), so I can finally give some form of a final word on that. The cutscenes, as I mentioned in the comments, are not outstanding. The earlier ones have gigantic texture pop-in problems, but that gets better after a few levels or so. The plot itself is better than the first, it’s highly involving and pretty interesting. As for the levels, they’re far, far better than the first. No more hallway crawls (excepting the next to last level, which is slightly reminiscent of Doom 3, it’s quite freaky). For those of you that car (absolutely no one) there will be some story spoilers up ahead.

All the levels are highly fun. There are only two levels which have anything close to repetitivity or a hallway crawl. And they’re still fun, despite that. You only spend a short time on earth, then you kind of romp around on another halo, a gas formation, and the covenant homeworld. You switch roles into a coveneant heretic, who does not join forced with the humans, but serves his own purposes until the end. Speak of which, Halo 2 has the biggest cliffhanger of all time. Knowing there will not be a Halo 3 for a very long time, it was quite painful as endings go. The last level is quite fun, so you’re all pumped, and the cutscene shows the master chief flying back to earth, and the Arbiter (covenant heretic) is with some of the humans and stuff, it’s all crazy, and then it just ends, cut to the credits, bam. It hurt.

Beyond that, the single player was still really fun. The multiplayer, on the other hand, is perfection in action. All the maps are incredibly excellent. The variety of weapons is huge, they’re ALL unique, but still balanced. Dual wielding is intricate and balanced, as well. The way the game plays discourages camping, as standing still means you just get owned, no matter what. The no health system is so liberating, it’s incredible. I dunno if I can ever go back to the old system. The new vehicles are akin to the weapons in variety and improvement. All the vehicles are fun to use, and none of them are too powerful, and that includes the banshee. Boarding vehicles is awesome. It puts so much more strategy and thought into using vehicles, as well as how to fight them. XBox Live is also perfect. There’s never lag. I’ve had a spurt now and then, but only in big 16 player games. Once you get above 10 people it gets stressed sometimes, but never anything bad compared to the standard lag playing PC games. Voice chat and proximity owns too.

This was just a summary, I’ll make a real detailed breakdown and review in a week or so.

^^

Today was good. I once again managed a good 15 minutes of sleep in Chemistry, it make the class so much more enjoyable. I think the only reason they never stop me is because they know I know the material. Overall the day has gone by quickly. I got the upstairs TV set up with 7.1 surround sound, in preperation for Halo 2. I’m going to Scouts for the first time this seasons, from which I’ll go to Daniel’s, and then we go to the mall and wait outside EB to get Halo 2. I may go to his house or go back to mine, I’m not sure, but I’m not gonna be at school tomorrow, that’s for sure. Tomorrow I’ll probably go to the Halo 2 Tourney at school, which should be fun.

I can’t wait for this game. My goodness, I’ve never anticipated a game this much, ever. So far 13 reviewers have said it was perfect. The lowest review score is an 88, out of about 25 reviews, and the NEXT lowest score is a 93.

😀

Wewt.

O.o

Behold, the power of cheese Microsoft…

At approximately 6 AM this morning, Halo 2 was leaked. The full version of the French PAL game was released onto every p2p network and a piracy forum. Almost every XBox related forum was immediately rushed with links, new hosts, spoilers, screenshots, you name it. That lasted, at most, 12 hours. Microsoft stepped in.

All 24 known p2p sites are clean. Every XBox forum I know of is clean. I applaud you, Microsoft.

I have an image of a 19-year-old French hacker, sitting in prison, next to a buff and tattooed man. Inquiring in a gruff voice, “What’re you doing here?”. The French hacker grins and responds, “I haf leaked ze Halo 2 game! We we!”

Rot in prison, you disgusting example of a gamer.

Or suffer millions in lawsuits.

Either one suits me.

O.o

Ah yes, I do love Fridays. Spent the afternoon down at the Apple Festival with Ben and Colette, then walked home and played some Ninja Gaiden after Fable continually gave me the dirty disc error. I’ve realized the Ninja Gaiden soundtrack is excellent – it’s an awesome combo of techno and classical techniques. Along with a good game. I’m hoping to get enough money for Live sooner or later so I can get those upgrades for Ninja Gaiden (new weapon, more outfits for Ryu, handful of new enemies, improved graphics, new music, improved AI and increased difficulty), and then Burnout 3, and then Rome: Total War. So many games, so little time! *glee*

In other news: HALO 2 IS ONE WEEK OR LESS FROM GOLD STATUS. Frankie announced today in Bungie’s weekly update that they just shipped the game to final testing, where it will be double checked for errors and glitching, and from then on it’s just production and compiling of everything. They have over 2 million pre orders to fill, and that’s not even including Best Buy, Amazon, FYE, Target, Walmart, etc., and all those stores. They’ve got some work to do still, obviously. That psyched me up a little bit.

In even better news: Sam may be coming over next weekend. He hasn’t confirmed it with the dude he’s hitching a ride with, but if all goes well, he’ll be here for three days next weekend. Cool, yes? Yes, it is.

EDIT: Sam isn’t going to be coming after all. It turns out the guy he was coming over with doesn’t have enough room in his car.

I really love Ninja Gaiden’s soundtrack.

O.o

*reflects upon today’s date*

*realizes it’s past midnight*

*discontinues reflecting*

Friday afternoon I walked home with Ben, Paul, and Zach, and we temporarily parted ways so that Paul and I could get pizza. It was good pizza (sammy’s) and we walked to my house, chilled, and we all spent the night at Zach’s, though Ben walked home just before midnight, so technically he didn’t. It was fun, we watched TV, played Apples to Apples, and ate pizza, watched videos and sort of played games. I got home about noon and Paul left my house about 1:00. Twas all good.

I’m very hungry for pizza right now.

EDIT: I guess as any diehard fan is obligated to do, I must mention that new screenshots and several more previews of Halo 2 have been released. No, I’m too lazy to give linkage, but I will say I was tricked by those fools. It’s all the product of a media embargo that was lifted 12:01 AM Friday, which I failed to realize was under Pacific Standard Time. So Thursday night I stayed up till 12:30 AM wondering why the new previews and shots hadn’t been posted. I was rather sad to hear they ditched the ATV (APC) for multiplayer, at least. I was also slightly irked by the symmetry between the Covenant and Human weapons (carbine/battle rifle, beam rifle/sniper rifle, plasma rifle/SMG, brute shot/rocket launcher [the differences for that one is obvious but the point still stands]) but I trust Bungie enough to smooth it out. Plus, the build they were demonstrating is at least three months old….very, very comforting.

O.o

Yes, I stayed home from school today. Too much work and way too tired.

Some friends have created a Halo-related blog, for the purpose of coordinating Halo events and information in the Ithaca area. I’ll post on there occasionally. It’s still in the works. Give it a look.

Linkage

The name is pending a change, but we’re trying to figure something out.

O.o

Yes. I know I haven’t made a real post all week. Yes. I know you don’t care about Halo 2. Yes. I know I’m obsessed. But I don’t care! EAT MORE HALO 2 ARTICLES AND FOOTAGE! The footage is minimal (only ~20 seconds) but it’s actualy gameplay stuff. THere are currently three places to retrieve this footage, but only by streaming, tiny, annoying-ness. Gamespot, IGN, and the E3 main site have it. There’s also some interviews and more articles to look at.

The E3 Main Site video is also stuck together with other game footage, but the Halo 2 stuff is at the beginning.

Footage 1 (E3 Main)

For Gamespot, scroll down to “Gameplay Footage 1”.

Footage 2 (Gamespot)

You actually have the option of downloading the video at IGN, fortunately. I’d actually rate the IGN one as best quality.

Footage 3 (IGN)

Gamespot also presented their view on Halo 2, and IGN posted two more volumes of impressions. I love Gamespot, they’re usually reliable. These two volumes are also much sorter (~one page).Woot!

Impressions 1 (Gamespot)

Impressions 2 (IGN)

Impressions 3 (IGN)

YAY!

O.o

After 6 hours of sleep, I’m back at school again…hoping more E3 stuff will be released by the time I get home. w00t! I sent Daniel (he’s off in NC, for his yearly trip to Hattera’s) the screenshots and IGN review of the demo. I forgot to add the link to that too – the IGN review has a LOT of meat to it. I think the next thing in store for E3 this week is a real multiplayer game. I hope so, at least!

IGN Article

There’s also a Gamespy review. I despise Gamespy, but it’s a read for those seeking, nonetheless.

Gamespy Article

Finally, two new links for the E3 video have been released. These two are the best quality and best resolution – but requires a 30-40 minute download wait. Stupid FilePlanet.

Video 7 (227 MB)

Video 8 (337 MB)

*spazzz*

UPDATE: A really nifty IGN interview of Pete Parsons (Bungie Employee) is up. Reall good stuff, though whoever posted it did a poor job, some questions are mixed randomly or cut off mid sentence. Still really good!

IGN Interview

w00t

UPDATE2: A picture of the Halo 2 regular and Halo 2 LE box has been shown, though not confirmed.

Halo 2 Boxshot?

O.o

Alright. I’m in E3 hype mode, forgive my Halo 2 madness. But I must give you at least a few links to the best stuff coming to the market – November 9th. In the midst of E3, Bungie.net released 10 new screenshots apart from the Real Time Multi-Player Halo 2 Demonstration. I provided multiple links for the video. All the videos are the same, but for safe-ness, I posted all easy access hosts. I doubt many people use Bittorent, but I’ll provide the link for that one too.

Videos

Video 1 (25 MB)

Video 2 (In four parts, 25 MB total)

Video 3 (25 MB)

Video 4 (Bittorent) (Higher quality, 65 MB)

Video 5 (100+ MB)

Video 6 (13.4 => 14.3 MB)

Screenshots

Screenshots

These screenshots (Excluding one can be downloaded in a much prettier form, in a .zip, too!

Screenshots (.zip)

Unfortunately, two of these screenshots were hosted elsewhere, so I have to have seperate links for those two.

Rogue Screenshot 1

Rogue Screenshot 2

In case these are pulled off the web too, I saved them to my hd, and will host them personally if need be. In my frenzy I’va also saved every signiivant Halo2 screenshot to my hd as well! WHOOOO YEEEAH! I love E3.

I’m too busy to post much else right now…until tomorrow morning…

O.o

Yesterday really sucked, even though I had a lunch, and a study hall, AND it was a Thursday. *sigh* Just not fun. It doesn’t really help that I’m asked to start playing a stressful game of Halo (yes, stressful) immediately when I get home.

I managed to get a fair amount of sleep (7, maybe 7 1/2 hours) and I’m feeling pretty pleasant right now. I spent most of last night doing absolutely nothing, too. I’m going over to Sam’s house at about 5 or 6, then I spend the night, and get to help them clean their house. 😀 It’s kinda weird, I haven’t been over there in MONTHS, although I was going over there pretty consistantly before Thanksgiving. Should be fun. Now to go read the comics…

…

I’ve had a really interesting day…yet again I managed to not get any sleep. Only four hours of it, at least. I’m just not sleeping well this week. I was really concerned with a little personal situation I’ve been mulling over, but after talking with a friend (from college) things don’t seem so bad, or as if they weren’t really bad in the first place….I dunno, it’s weird. I’m feeling a lot better now, I think. Anyways, I went to church today (half asleep), and then danced in the thunderstorm (I love thunderstorms…and tornados…and thunder…and wind…), after which I went to Daniel’s and played some 2v2 Halo over XBoxConnect against Benjamin and Nolan. We creamed em’….lots of fun anyways. I still have a large chunk of homework left, which is bothering me to no end. I’m trying to think out what to do for the next weekend….I don’t normally plan weekends, but I feel like I should, for some reason. In any case, I need to get to that homework. Finishing before midnight is a desirable thing.

EDIT: I should really give Jonathan a call…I need some of his big brotherly advice…

ANOTHER EDIT: My blogs section contains only those blogs which have been updated in the past 40 days. If they’re inactive for more than that, I remove them. Also, the order in which they’re in is irrelevant, I add them as I remember or they become inactive/active.

O.o

Sometimes I wish I weren’t a human….then I’d at least have something to differentiate me from everyone else. That might at least explain why I’m now slightly emaciated and my hands are forever blue. Oh well, I dream on…

These past few days have held few suprises. I won’t detail the Sam situation, because I doubt it concerns many of you. Suffice to say it is resolved for the time being. I’ve finally gotten to a semi-regular posting point, so I hope I’ve appeased all of you.

Colorado arrives in exactly one week now, and it’s gonna suck. Plans to have Daniel come along fell through, so now it’s just me, in Colorado with my parents with epople I don’t know and possibly won’t like, with only two things to do: skiing or nothing. Colorado is great, but not when there’s nobody there. Skiing’s great, but not when nobody’s there. I won’t even have full access to a computer there. It definately will suck….only way out is to pay 180 dollars which right now is reserved for the airsoft guns I will hopefully order today or tomorrow, optimally arriving the day I get back.

http://www.airsoftatlanta.com/images/xxmp5sd3bx_jpg.jpg

http://www.airsoftatlanta.com/images/xx_uhc_hw_usp_box_jpg.jpg

Pictures for those curious ones.

Awesome Halo theme released at HBO today. Check it out. It’s now my startup theme.

http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/hail117anthem.mp3

Cool stuff.

^^

FINE! FINE! Stop screaming at me to post! Sheeesh! Alright, here’s a not so quick recap of my life during this wonderful break. Heeheehee

I really needed this time of rest. I’ve been getting plenty of sleep, finally, and I think I can hold out till the winter break. Hopefully. I fear the coming of school, but, such is life. I’ve finally been able to hang out with Daniel a bit. He spent the night over here, had fondue with my family [mmmm] and then I spent two more days at his house, while my parents are off to go get our new car from Kentucky. [we bought our new Subaru Outback of E-Bay]. In the midst of all this, my brother, Rachel, and I have finished the entire second series of 24. In case you don’t know what 24 is, it’s a real time show that is 24 episodes, each one hour long. I won’t tell you what happened in the show, but, I will say, that’s the most addicting and awesome show I’ve ever watched. We watched all of the episodes in about 6 days. Great stuff.

The Halo LAN party Daniel’s hosting again will rock. I got Jonathan to come, so he’s been training up and learning about Halo, with, of course, some help from me. I REALLY hope he holds his own, he’s not a gamer, and he’s going to a party with a dozen of us gamers, but, there are plenty of people for eazy prey out there, hopefully. He’s only got till Saturday to learn how to play, but, he seems willing enough. I was surprised he decided to join us, in any case.

A side note: January 12 will rock. I’m not at liberty to say anything, though. WOOT!

Okay, next topic: presents for Christmas! I got 100 bux in Best Buy gift cards, Elder Scrolls 3, the RotK soundtrack, a Jars of Clay CD, a new wallet [my old one went through the wash 3 times this month. heehee], a watch [snort], and some other small things, like candy, and stuff. It was a cool Christmas! The RotK soundtrack, especially, is amazing. I love the music for LotR!

Ah well, these two weeks have been great. Happy New Years, all.

O.o

I’m posting from skool, at the moment. I use my study halls to go to the Math Lab, which has some 20 G3’s in here. [For those of you who don’t know, G3’s are mid-range macintosh computers] Anyways, I’ve been pretty bad about posting. Time hasn’t been very kind to me as of late.

Wednesday was the same old deal, nothing of great importance, though it does mark that it’s less than one week till RotK! ^^ I can’t wait. I downloaded a lot of Halo movies that I lost a while back in my format. It’s been very amusing to watch them. ::sigh:: If only I had the skill to mod an xbox. Oh well! Maybe if I ever decided to bring up the money for the chip, I could. But for now, I just remain a Halo phreek.

Today is Thursday, which is thoroughly dissapointing, becase I could have sworn yesterday was Thursday. Which means today would have been Friday….except its not. So I have to endure today and tomorrow of skool. That will be…….difficult.

Random note: I despise one button mouses. Every mac in this skool has a one button mouse, and it’s awful. Death to them all! These mouses are optical, but, that’s not very special anymore.