Archives for 2007

Just saw over on Duncan Mackenzie’s blog that Bungie is now listing Halo 3 beta stats alongside your Halo 2 stats. I had completely forgotten how in depth Bungie’s stat keeping really is.

Here’s my Bungie profile page. I obviously have not played any Halo 3 matches yet, otherwise this blog post would have never happened. Nor would that lawn have been mowed or the kids fed. I’ve already put the family on alert that I will be in “Beta Mode” next week.

I poked around some of the stats from some of the Halo 3 matches that have already taken place, and Bungie looks like they’ll be topping themselves in the stats department with Halo 3. I also noticed some new medals listed on the game summary pages. I am such a huge medal whore. This will not be good for my sanity. Here are a few I noticed:

• “Killjoy! End an opponent’s killing spree – any spree.”
• “Death from the Grave! Kill an opponent after you have died.” (we call that the sissy grenade around here)
• “Laser Kill! Get an opponent with the Spartan Laser.”
• “Shotgun Spree! Kill 5 opponents in a row with the shotgun without dying.”
• “Oddball Kill! Get a melee kill when holding the oddball.”
• “Sniper Spree! Kill 5 opponents in a row with a sniper weapon without dying.”
• “Flag Kill! Get a melee kill with the flag.”

To say I’m looking forward to playing this game next week would be quite the understatement.

There are currently 1100 players playing Halo 3 as we speak. Lucky!

I haven’t been playing a lot of games lately, but I feel a manic phase coming on. Hopefully the next couple months should provide a lot of gaming opportunities.

On the DS front, I’ve finally given up on Contact. I tried really hard to get into the game, but there was too much backtracking and grinding for me. The combat was okay and the story had its moments, but I just didn’t feel like investing any more time into the game as a whole. So it will become trade fodder for me to pick up a copy of Pokemon. In addition to catching them all, I think I’ll get some more Elite Beat Agents in. I thought about picking up Puzzle Quest for the DS, but after I heard it was announced for the 360, I decided to wait and pick it up on Live. Multiplayer and achievements always win!

Also on the 360 front, there are a lot of things happening. The first thing I’ll be doing is picking up Settlers of Catan from the Xbox Live Arcade. Catan (the board game) was something my group of friends played a lot of. I actually hestitated picking up the XLA version because of the strife the board game caused us. Catan can be a very visceral game at its core — you have to be ruthless to win. Friends become enemies with the simple roll of a ‘7’. Sure, it can be a problem when you’re playing with friends, but imagine how much more so with spouses. Faced with trading your friend a brick for a stone to complete your city versus trading two stones for a wood with your wife can be perilous. I don’t need Doctor Phil to tell me what path leads to pain. I’m figuring that these types of gut wrenching decisions will be minimized with the digital version of the game.

I think I’ll also pick up the new Halo 2 maps in preparation for the Halo 3 Beta next week, or as I like to call it, “The Day Xbox Live Melted Down (taking the whole internet with it)”. There is absoultely NO WAY Bungie and Microsoft can be ready for the beating their servers are going to take once the Beta goes live. I’ll be right in there, part of the problem, not the solution! Then it will be Halo 3 time, all the time. I’ll probably pick up Forza 2 when that drops, but I’m not sure I’ll be picking anything else up for a while.

Of course, Everquest 2 will be sprinkled in there when there’s time.

Time. There never seems to be enough of it.