The Lamer Gamer

In addition to running all over the place in Mirror’s Edge, I’ve managed to strap shoes on my feet and run around in real life too. Not sure how many miles I put on, but my calves hurt pretty bad…

Mirror’s Edge is kicking my ass.  I need some mad practice as the speed runs are kinda tough for me.  Finished Chapter 1 in 6:00.60, OUCH.  I’m sure I could have dicked around a little less and saved that .60 somewhere but whatever.   I’ll get it done.

Other good things this weekend.  Finished Both Halo 3: Annual and ODST: Deja Vu, so Only ODST: Endure left to go for Recon armor.  Also managed to score the free night vision specs from MW2 for the ole avatar. Of course everyone else has them too, but they’re still cool, and way oversized.  Also stole the same guy’s airdrop crate 3 times in the same match last night.  He must have been hating on my pretty bad.

I f’ing love COD4.5 or MW2 or whatever you call it.  Great online play, very customizable.  Need get a few more buds on line for this one.  Spec Ops is good fun.  Need help taking down Juggernauts in Echo ops.

The knuckledraggers who keep using the Javelin/Semtex glitch need to be banned for life.  Too harsh?  Too bad.  You’re worse than the jackass who starts off TK’ing in Halo.

Oh and eggman scored me a copy of Halo Wars so I actually have the Halo3 multiplayer disk, gotta try that out.   I’d only rented it and would never had bought a copy, but freebies are always welcome.  Thanks Bro!

Fucking Beatles Rock Band won’t work with the Xbox 360 headset, and I’m sure as hell not wasting money on a mic, so fuck them, that game is going back.  Can’t figure this one.  The headset worked for all the previous incarnations of the game.  Now they claim the quality isn’t good enough.  Right, like even half the people singing have good enough pitch for that to matter.

Now I’m really pissed.  All I wanted to do last night was get together with a buddy and play some Firefight.

Dude never showed, I got bored, figured I’d play with some strangers.  BUT, there’s no freakin’ matchmaking in Firefight.  That’s some BS.  Now I’ve got to do some social networking.  Odd how I hate people, but love gatherings…

I haven’t touched Halo 3 matchmaking in a while, not since earlier this year.  Now that ODST is out, I was thinking of playing again.  Now I only rented ODST, so I don’t have the extra disc with all the extra maps for Halo 3.  Imagine my surprise when I find out that you can’t join a ranked playlist without the new maps.  What the FUCK!

Now I could buy ODST to get the maps, but it isn’t really a keeper and the $60 price tag doesn’t help, I guess that’s supposed to be eased by the map inclusion.  Campaign was okay and Firefight is fun, but like Horde in GoW2 it loses its appeal after a while, as you aren’t exactly competing with people.  Ostensibly this is why the Halo 3 multiplayer disc is included.

Gotta feel bad for the poor bastards who A) already purchased those maps via LIVE Marketplace or B) gotten the Mythic Map Pack with Halo Wars.  Thankfully I’ve done neither of those things, so I’m not out any money and yet, somehow, I feel ripped off.

Why, I already spent $60 on Halo 3 (probably $70, stupid limited edition), and on top of that the LIVE subscription, but now I’ve got to spend another $10-20 on maps just to keep playing a game I already own?  That’s lame shit.

I’m somewhat puzzled by the structure of ODST.   The previous FPS installments of the Halo universe are all of course built on the notion that you’re a super soldier and thereby the fighting is filed with hyperbole, you get hit a TON and don’t die, why? Well because you have shields.

My assumption was that ODST would force you to be more sneaky because after all, you play a much more frail human being, as opposed to the Chief.  Granted ODSTs are supposed to be badass, but still more like me than a cyborg.  I always play the Halo games on Legendary, and I don’t feel as though the game is so very difficult.  In a number of ways ODST just feels like the original Halo, you have a life meter, which doesn’t regenerate, and this stamina indicator where you don’t take damage unless you’ve already been hit, essentially poor man’s shields. I don’t find that this kills the experience, but the feel is surprisingly very Haloesque where I’d expected something else.  You are limited in a few ways, no hijacking covenant vehicles (pretty sure I’d heard this, but it’s in there), no dual wielding, but you can still walk up behind a brute and melee for an assassination, not to mention ripping off turrets like in Halo3,  seems wrong to me.  Oh, and you jump way too high in fact jumping off 30 ft structures, you won’t be hurt.

While the rules of gameplay are roughly the same, the rules of the world, however, diverge slightly.  The game takes place in two ways, first the present at night where the the map is considerably more open, far less “on-rails” than before, allowing for more mobility in firefights and possible routes when hoofing it to objectives.  If you don’t like that you’re heading into an enemy controlled area, you can try to find an alternate route.  Likewise, you can explore the map to find weapons caches and Audio Logs from a side story you can uncover.   I like finding stuff.  The second way is through a set of triggered  ”flashbacks” where you relive the experience of your missing comrades from several hours ago as you search.  These interlude missions have more of the Halo, on-rails style.

I know it’s a short game (estimated at 10 hours) but it does seem to make good use of a small chapter of the Halo bible.  Those who were enthralled with the Halo story, particularly it’s Sci-Fi elements, might be disappointed as all but the “engineers” are old news.

Firefight might prove entertaining, but I haven’t really looked at that yet. Gonna need a LIVE card first.