No Halo 3 News

So... I don't have anything to post about Halo 3 any more. I'm still playing it, but I've got nothing new to say about it.

PS.
Saw the latest South Park. I've lost any respect for them I once had. I don't like Bono either, but South Park's version of insulting something is just making up characteristics that the person doesn't have. Way to mock someone you made up, Matt and Trey!

Neat Vid

The new "Theater" feature of Halo 3 allows people to look back at previous games and analyze what happened. Thanks to this new technology, someone has recorded what is possibly the trickiest sniper shot I have ever seen.

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Now playing: The Beatles - Got To Get You Into My Life
via FoxyTunes

Reviewing Halo 3

Reviews of Halo 3, in fact, reviews of all games, have a terrible problem: what do you set as the standard? Once you have a standard, how do you compare another game to it?

Unlike movies, which are hard to rate as it is, video games don't have a "standard" length (about two hours, in movies' case). They don't have to have a story to be good. If you ask me, two games could have no elements in common whatsoever and still both could be good games. (Look at Geometry Wars: no story, no fancy graphics, only one mode of gameplay, still excellent.)

The other problem of rating is whether your rating system should be subtractive or additive.

In a subtractive system, you start with a full score, then deduct points for every problem. Bad graphics? Take away a point. Story idiotic? Another point. Some minor glitch? Maybe the game only loses a tenth of a point. Game breaking glitch? Maybe half the points are lost. This approach rewards conservative games that do only what they can do well. In this system, Geometry Wars would be penalized if it introduced a solo campaign with a story, or a multiplayer mode. The story (for example) wouldn't be very good, and that would become a new flaw.

The additive system rewards going for everything you can stuff in there. The GTA series is clearly pursuing this route. Like Tycho mentioned in Penny Arcade, if you just give them a score for each thing in the game, you'll eventually get up to ten. This doesn't mean the game has no flaws, though.

It's hard to get a rating system along either of these lines that doesn't occasionally deceive people. I suspect that most reviewers have a middle path: they give higher scores to big games, then dock points according to the flaws. Personally, I have a much better system than any of these: I see how much Ron Perlman there is in the game.

Halo 3 Review
Ron Perlman plays an Admiral called "Lord Hood". Appears rarely, although you hear his voice every once in a while, and he's in the end credits.

Halo 3: 2.5 / 5 Ron Perlmans


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Now playing: Bob Seger - Old Time Rock & Roll
via FoxyTunes

Free Bungie

Bungie has been freed from Microsoft. Good times, everyone. Now we can return to the Myth series, so long ignored by the world.

Come to think of it, they also made Oni. *Shudder* This might not be a lucky break after all...

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Now playing: Johnny Cash - The Legend Of John Henry's Hammer
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Honeymoon's Over

Turns out Halo 3's online matchmaking was free only for the opening weekend. Too bad. Looks like it's time to get some LANs going.

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Now playing: Bob Dylan - When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky
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Break Time

As you may have heard, a game called Halo 3 came out recently. I've been playing it a bit. In fact, I had to leave it behind this weekend so I could get my schoolwork done.

I've beaten it on Normal, and I'm more than halfway done on Legendary. It's pretty clear that Halo 2 is the hardest of the series.

Best Halo 3 moment:

I am following our flag carrier toward our base. He's killed, and I rush to grab it. I kill three enemies, kill a fourth with the flag, (getting an Overkill), and take the Jump toward base. On the other side, I accidentally take the Jump going back toward their base. I panic, throw the flag back towards home in mid-air, but it falls off the edge of the map. The flag returns and the enemies capture our flag for the win.

Good Game.

PS. Here's a link to that game, if you want to see the stats.

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Now playing: Bad Company - All Right Now - Free
via FoxyTunes

Halo 3 Update

I got Halo 3 at another Target. Hooray. Back to Halo 3.

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Now playing: Al Green - Simply Beautiful
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Halo 3 - Missing

I had to write this post three times. The first time, the post was so full of profanity, it was hard to read. Also it was very offensive.

The second version of the post was the same post, without any profanity. I don't think "Halo 3 --- it --- the --- and---!" would make a very good post

Anyway, the local Target is out of Halo 3, and I feel my head is going to explode.
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Now playing: Beck - Static
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Halo 3 Release

Halo 3 comes out tonight. Since I'll be in the strange land of Minneapolis, I don't think I'll manage to get to a store at midnight. I don't really mind, though; when I was at the midnight release of Halo 2, I didn't feel a sense of community with the people around me, I felt that they were standing in my way. I'll get it soon, though. See you on Bungie.net!

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Now playing: Beck - Earthquake Weather
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Halo 3

Halo 3 comes out in 3 days! I am very excited, even though a couple of idiots accidentally spoiled the ending. To be honest, I'm not that concerned about the ending, but it's still a dick thing to do.

In the future, I've decided to play it safe and never talk about the ending of anything, or the concept of endings, or spoilers. That way, no one will inadvertently spoil it. I know it's a concern, because the very same duo accidentally spoiled the entire "Snape kills Dumbledore" thing. Again, not that I really care, but it's still irritating to have things spoiled.
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Now playing: The Doors - Light My Fire
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Screw you, Pistol Lovers

The pistol from the original Halo was bad. It is obviously too powerful for a starting weapon. It reduced Halo multiplayer to a four weapon contest: the sniper rifle for extreme distance, the shotgun and Rocket Launcher for very close fights, and the pistol for everything else.

They will never make another pistol, or anything of its power level. And that's a good thing.

Dayyyyyuuuummmm...

Check this out. Just click the link! Now! (Or, you could save to disk. That would actually be better, come to think about it.)

Awesome.