A Green Mushroom

Halo is one of the best selling and most played franchises in all of gaming. I've been on board the franchise since the original, and have beaten all the campaigns on at least heroic and a fair chunk on legendary. I never got that hardcore with the multiplayer, but I have played countless hours as a casual player. Like everyone else I have given it well deserved praise. However, one red mark stands out starkly in my mind. The battle rifle.

With Halloween on the horizon you know it's almost the holiday season.  In the world of gaming this means tons of new releases, holiday marketing pushes, and special events in our favorite games.  MMOs especially love to celebrate holidays with their own versions of real life holidays. There are a lot of games that I want to try out this release season.  We're finally in the opposite of the summer slump .  The holiday release season was kicked off by Halo Reach late last month and is followed by Fable III, The Force Unleashed II, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, and World of Warcraft Cataclysm .  Those are the main games I want to get my hands on in the next couple of months. Those are just the games on my personal list, there are many other titles hoping to get their fair share of holiday spending.  Playstation Move is out and the Xbox Kinect will be released on November 4th.  Those new motion control systems should both be huge with the younger cr...

I was playing a bunch of League of Legends yesterday and having a great time until I got into this one game where a teammate would not shut up about the way everyone else on the team was playing.  He was trying to micro-manage everyone else while at the same time telling us and the other team how much we sucked at the game.  In less then a minute I had him on my ignore list. I realized that I used to have a much higher tolerance for rude people.  I would try to work with them, or be nice to them and make them understand that some people are still learning a game.  Now I just ignore them.  I have better things to do with my time.  If someone else is ruining my gameplay experience why should I bother listening to them? It isn't only League of Legends either.  When people are whiny, complaining, or making fun of teammates in Halo Reach I'll mute them as soon as possible.  I'm sure if I went back to WoW and started running dungeons I wouldn't ...

 Image via Penny-Arcade I suck at Halo Reach.  I'm not a bad gamer and I do fine in the campaign, but compared to everyone else in matchmaking online I am not good.  Penny-Arcade summed up my feelings perfectly, so I couldn't resist using their strip from last week. Why do I suck at Halo?  I've been playing video games for something like 20 years now, so it's not lack of experience.  I like FPS games and I play them often, so that's not it.  I'm 23 and my reaction times are still good.  I think the problem is my lack of time. To get good at twitch games like Halo Reach a person needs to spend a lot of time with that particular game.  It all comes down to execution, which can only be improved through playing.  I don't have as much time to devote to any one game as I used to.  I have work, taking care of my newborn, spending time with my wife, and other adult responsibilities.  Also, I like trying a lot of different gaming expe...

Halo Reach is out and I like it.  It's a pretty sweet game.  I don't think it's the be-all end-all of first person shooters like a lot of reviews have made it out to be, but I certainly can't bash Bungie for the level of polish they put into their games.  Overall, Reach is Halo refined, with a few new features thrown in for good measure.  It doesn't revolutionize the Halo series but I can say for sure that if you liked any of the previous entries in the Halo series you will like Halo Reach. The first thing I noticed when I started the campaign is that I got to play as my own Spartan.  Since the main character doesn't have to be Master Chief the player is free to create their very own Noble 6.  The armory options lead to a lot of personal touches on your Spartan.  I felt that I was more connected to my character as I played through the game simply because he was mine and not some pre-determined entity.  Many of the cutscenes play out through th...

  Very baby friendly. With the newborn's crazy schedule I haven't been able to play games as much lately.  I was completely expecting it, and I'm fine with it.  I know her sleep schedule will even out and I'll have more time to myself soon.  This doesn't mean I haven't found any time to play games. A few weeks ago my game of choice was StarCraft 2 multiplayer.  Multiplayer is much more difficult when taking care of a baby, because she could need attention at any time.  Instead, I switched back to single player games that let me pause and save at any point.  That pause button means that I can game and take care of my daughter at the same time.  It's wonderful. I gave in and bought Halo Reach because I wanted a new single player game.  I beat the campaign and I'm going to go back to play through it on Legendary.  I also picked up Civilization V this morning and I'll dive into it this afternoon.  Civ V is a turn based strategy g...

I love to see innovation , polish, refinement, and new gameplay experiences in gaming.  But it's hard to find games that do these things well.  One of the things I always take into consideration while looking at new games is the game's pedigree.  Which is to say that I pay attention to the developer of the game. Halo 3 developed by Bungie When I look at the developer of a new game that hasn't been released, a lot of the time I can tell if it's going to be good based on previous games the developer has made.  Take my post the other day on Halo Reach .  I'm debating whether I'm going to buy it, but I can guarantee that it will be a highly polished and well executed game.  I know this because I've played all the other Halo games that Bungie has made and they're all examples of high quality games.  Bungie has proven themselves to me. World of Warcraft developed by Blizzard Entertainment I know a lot of other developers that I can count on to make gre...

Halo Reach is being unleashed on the gaming community in the near future.  Somehow it's kind of fallen off  my radar, but the release date is coming up so it's time to figure out if I plan on buying it. You see, I own all the Halo games and have gotten most of them on release day, but this year I have a baby on the way and money is a little more tight, so I really need to consider a new game before I go drop $60 on it. My main concern is that Halo has already been done to death.  Since Halo: Combat Evolved (the first game in the series) Halo hasn't changed all that much.  They designed the Golden Triangle of melee, guns, and grenades in a first person shooter and each iteration of the series from that point on has only introduced minor tweaks or graphics upgrades.  Besides breaking multiplayer balance in Halo 2 the games are all very similar. For the most part Halo Reach looks like more of the same.  The improvements this time around are more units ...

  Beta Testing Frustration Beta testing isn't what it used to be.  A beta test used to be the second formal round of testing (after the alpha) and it was used to test all the ins and outs of the game.  Players find thousands of ways to break a game that developers would never think of.  Bugs pop up when your testing base goes from a few hundred to thousands.  Betas were used to solve these problems. Some companies still use betas this way, but more often than not beta tests are glorified demos that are released to the public for a limited time.  Look at the giant media push for the Halo Reach beta.  They were trying to give everyone a small taste of the game in the hope of getting them to buy it in the fall.  They aren't the only culprit. MMOs are among the worst offenders.  "It's still in beta" isn't an excuse that MMO beta testers accept anymore.  They expect the game to be content complete with all the features in place.  ...

I've had a busy week.  Between getting married and starting my summer hours at work I haven't had much gaming time.  That's ok.  Real life always needs to take precedence over hobbies like videogames. I thought I'd throw out an update on what I'm playing and what I intend to play since I'm feeling overwhelmed by my backlog of games at the moment. StarCraft 2 Beta - Still loving it and working on Newbie Guide posts. Bayonetta - Working my way through the crazy story.  I may not finish this game, but it is highly entertaining because of the ridiculousness of it all. Halo 3 Reach Beta - Only a few days left.  I really like the arena and invasion playlists. Trine - Indie game I own but haven't gotten around to trying out. Osmos - Indie game that inspired me to buy an indie game pack on steam the other day.  I really like the gameplay. Guild Wars - Giving it another chance.  It has interesting dynamics because characters can only have 8 ski...

Sadly, I am underwhelmed.  I was expecting an entire new experience with all the changes Bungie has been touting, but it is not so.  This is still the same old Halo you either love or hate.  As for me, I'm pretty apathetic towards it. Players now select loadouts at the beginning of each game.  This is fairly standard now in most FPS games, so it isn't surprising to see it in Halo.  Each loadout contains different armor abilities to help change up the way your character plays.  Sprint, Jetpack, Stealth, and Guard all lead to some new gameplay options but the game still plays like Halo. There are new weapons and game types which are always welcome.  The weapons are interesting and I think they all have a place in the game.  I really like headhunter and stockpile - two of the new game types. In headhunter you don't get points for your kills until you deposit the skulls of your victims in a designated spot.  Opponents drop all collected sk...

Halo Reach beta goes live within the next few hours.  If you have a beta key or own Halo ODST I fully expect to see you online tonight.  Get prepared with this Halo Reach beta primer via Joystiq .

I'm getting pumped for the Halo Reach beta next week.  Anyone who has Halo ODST gets access and I fall into that category.  The live action trailer released this week just helps top off the buzz surrounding Reach. I stumbled upon an internet gem last week involving Dwarf Fortress.  In Dwarf Fortress players start and maintain a fortress over the course of its lifetime.  It is an overwhelmingly complex game.  A group of players got together and each played for one year.  Then they would save the game and send the save file to the next player.  They wrote about the progress of their fortress as it came along. With that lead-in out of the way I want to point you to the year run by StarkRavingMad .  He is about 5 years into the play session and the fortress has had plenty of time to get messed up by multiple overseers.  His description is simply epic.  I don't want to ruin it, just read it . Once again I'm going to mention the StarC...

A quick update on what I'm playing and what I intend to play. I'm investing a lot of time in StarCraft 2 and in writing posts for my StarCraft 2 Newbie Guide .  I hope they are clear and helpful.  They are all things that I didn't know 2 weeks ago when I started playing StarCraft 2. I beat the Splinter Cell Conviction single player campaign.  I liked it, but not as much as the co-op .  I'm doing a second playthrough on the hardest difficulty and playing around with some of the extra modes in the game.  Going for the P.E.C. challenges keeps me busy too.  I hope to do a second playthrough of the co-op campaign on a harder difficulty as well.  I'm really enjoying my time with Splinter Cell, but the co-op is much more impressive than the single player. I have Darksiders from Gamefly on the floor next to my Xbox 360.  I haven't put in the disc yet, but it is next on my list. I'm still dabbling in the Blur beta .  I can't believe how muc...