Or How I Learned to Start Running and Hate the Elephant
I was playing a bunch of Big(gish) Team Battle with some friends from the EvilBIP group and we landed on our first game of Assault. Sandtrap seems to be the Coagulation of H3, because most of the BTB seem to be played there. A good mix of Valhalla too, but mostly Sandtrap.
The game was neutral bomb, so the bomb spawns in the valley between the two main structures. Anyway, we got matched to a group that really knew what they were doing. We ran out to get the bomb, full force. I think that since there was no "base" we kinda forgot about defenders.
They moved their Elephant away from it's spawn point by a few thousand feet. Smart thinking. "Clever guys" I thought.
A few seconds later, I'm trucking past the valley in a 'goose and spot an Elephant do there. I'm flabbergasted.
They moved our Elephant.
To the valley where the bomb spawns.
To quote Hudson (AKA Bill Paxton) from Aliens, "Game over, man! Game over!"
So, it was a nice simple recipe for them
1) wait for the bomb to respawn
2) pick up the bomb
3) jump into the Elephant and plant the bomb
4) defend for 15 seconds
The game should have been over pretty quickly, but we put up one hell of a fight. Unfortunately, we had no chance of moving the vehicle, since they were swarming all over it constantly.
So, your lessons here is to remember that the Elephant is a vehicle and can be moved. As such, it must be defended even more so than a normal base. I don't know if you can get it onto the upper tier around the map, but if it was out there, you could see the enemy coming.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
XBox 360 Complaint # 37,164
The players in this short are as follows:
Moe - My son
Larry - Neighbor Kid # 1
Curly Joe - Neighbor Kid # 2
Since Halo 3 was released there has been an invasion of teenagers at my house on a daily basis. It's usually the same Three Stooges whaling on each other when I get home from work, bouncing around my living room like a pack of wild ferrets on cocaine.
Q: Don't Larry and Curly Joe have their own XBox 360's?
A: Yes.
Q: Don't Larry and Curly Joe have their own copy of Halo 3?
A: Yes.
Q: Don't Larry and Curly Joe have and XBox Live account?
A: Nope.
That's fine, that's what a game system is for, right? Right. I like all three kids just fine, they're staying out of trouble so far this school year and as long as I know where they are they'll continue to stay out of trouble. And I don't even mind feeding them four nights a week as long as they don't complain about what we give them and don't make a mess in the house.
What I DO have a problem with is providing controllers and batteries. $$$! You see, Curly Joe is only allowed to take his controller out of the house on weekends (I don't understand that rule, have to talk to his mom) and Moe already goes through batteries like a fiend. I gave Moe some rechargeable bateries a month ago but he can't seem to grasp the concept that rechargeable batteries only get charged when you put them on the charger.
Being gainfully employed I decided to buy myself a controller and a rechargeable battery pack. It's pretty snazzy, when your controller starts giving you the low battery warning you simply plug the cable into the USB port on the back of the 360 and keep playing. My controller is even BLACK so it won't get mixed up with the Three Stooges controllers FTW! Choice.
Therefore when Moe's batteries go dead he "borrows" my controller, gives his dead controller to Curly and makes Curly bring his own batteries over. (I cut Curly off from the household battery supply) Larry is the smart one, he brings his own controller and his own batteries. So far.
What's mine belongs to everyone else in my home. Those are the house rules. BUT I'm not a big fan of sharing electronic devices with kids. They break shit, it's a fact of life. Additionally, by my standards, most kids have insufficient hygiene habits. I spent $60.00 on the controller and $20.00 on the rechargeable battery pack. I don't want it broken and I don't want it slathered with "cooties". Does this sound childish to you? If it does you probably don't work very hard for your money and should seek a secondary method of gainful employment. May I recommend a position as a mason's laborer?
In an effort to rectify the situation I (again) made a foray to the local Gamestop and purchased the cheapest non-wireless XBox 360 controller for Curly Joe or any other guest to use. I'm not paying for batteries unless the kid belongs to me. I also bought Moe a rechargeable battery pack as an early birthday present.
I went home and explained the new program:
Moe gets a rechargeable battery pack. Sweet.
Curly has a back up controller (this kid still calls them paddles, you'd think he was forty years old or something) whenever he's at the house. How nice of me!
I pointed out to Curly Joe that the controller is not wireless, to which he responded "Aww, that sucks!" I will omit the choice words I assailed him with to put him in his place. Suffice to say the meaning of the phrase "looking a gift horse in the mouth" is now well understood by him as it was conveyed at more than sufficient volume and with great vehemence. I also told him that if he does not change his ways he may someday grow up to be that guy that complains about a free beer. And NOBODY likes that guy. Least of all me.
OK, so, FINALLY, here's the problem:
Q: What happens when the Three Stooges are playing, Moe and Larry with their wireless controllers and Curly with his "wired" controller (which sucks, don't forget) and Moe's rechargeable batteries go dead?
A: He plugs it in to the 360.
Wrong.
There is only one USB connector on the back of the XBox 360. Microsoft strikes again. I can't seem to win here, I just want to jump up and down and throw a fit like a retarded four year old in the cereal isle.
Q: Can't you just run down to Office Max and get a cheap USB hub?
A: No, Microsoft will only allow very specific devices to communicate with their machine. The manufacturer of the devices must pay licensing fees to M$. Want to see what I have to buy in order to facilitate the little menagerie at my house?
$30.00 friends and neighbors, thirty MORE dollars. And that's only four USB ports. WTF? Why not eight ferchrissakes? I mean, if they're going to do it, they should do it right!
When you plug a wireless XBox 360 contoller into the USB port to charge it does not even exchange data over the USB bus, it only uses the 5 volts to charge. The controller continues to transmit and receieve wirelessly.
Here's what's going to happen: I'm going to get that USB hub and use it as a charging station, it won't even be connected to the 360.
Anticlimactic solution? Yes, but that's the only denouement I can come up with at the moment. I'm shaking and quivering, still caught in the throes of post-technology-vicitmization and beyond the capacity for rational thought.
PS-Yes, I know this is supposed to be a positive blog about all things Halo, but sometimes I just gotta bitch. If I ever get to actually play Halo again I'll find something positive and post it.
Edited by Chromeratt 10/8/2007: I pointed out to my brother that there were two (2) USB ports on the front of the console and that he should RTFM every once in a while. Admittedly I didn't RTFM either. I spotted the door that covers the USB ports and thought "that looks like it should move".
Edited by Chromeratt 10/8/2007: I pointed out to my brother that there were two (2) USB ports on the front of the console and that he should RTFM every once in a while. Admittedly I didn't RTFM either. I spotted the door that covers the USB ports and thought "that looks like it should move".
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
XBox 360 - XBox Live Gold? What's so "Gold" about it?
Do you know where I was on September 24th at 11:59pm? That's right, standing outside Gamestop like a good Halo fan. It was my duty and it was my honor to be there when it hit the streets.
But I'm a family man.
That means I did the responsible thing: I went home, put it on top of the television and went back to bed before one am. (I did however call in sick for work at 6 am so I could play. Again, duty, honor, all that crap.)
Do you know where my fourteen year old son was at four o'clock that same morning? Playing Halo 3. He got up two hours early to play. How industrious of him. I can't get him to use an alarm clock, but for a video game he will. Whatever, that's beside the point.
The point is that he hijacked the H3 on-line profile. Since someone (I suspect M$ put Bungie up to this) changed the rules you can't have more than one player profile in XBL any more, only a primary, all others must be signed in as guests. Those guests have to use a generic avatar unless they want to change their appearance every damn time they join the primary. This sucks, all the achievements I make in the campaign and on line are applied to his profile.
Also I didn't catch on to what was happening until I beat the entire game with his profile, so now it appears as though he Finished the Fight.
No, he most certainly did not Finish the Fight.
Now I have to go through the entire game on Heroic again. I'm tempted to say screw it and just tackle Legendary. I don't really see that going well, it could take a month or two.
Also, I'm an adult so this may sound childish, but on the rare occasion I play on line I would like to use the Elite model, not the Spartan. It's a matter of personal taste, see? If I want to use the Elite model I have to change his profile every damn time, then change it back when I'm done. What the hell? I didn't have to go through this with H2.
Also, he's pretty good at video games so he's going to be level 23 or something ridiculous while I'm playing at level 8. When I log in I'm going to get my a$$ handed to me by other level 23 players and it will NOT be fun. I didn't have to go through this with H2 either. The only redemption this offers is that when he comes back from a weekend away his account will have fallen due to my lack of skill and he'll have to re-build it from level 8. Ha ha.
Why would they do this to me? I spent a disgusting amount of money on the system, $60 for the game, $60.00 for my OWN controller, rechargeable batteries, $50.00 for an online XBL Gold account... the list goes on.
Holy sh1t that's a lot of money spent for me to not be able to choose the way my character looks, don't you think? That's alot of money for me to have to pay to have my a$$ unfairly kicked around a digital make believe environment, don't you think?
Why would they do this to me? My son figured it out, smart kid:
Yesterday I bought a thirteen month XBL Gold account extension and after the boy re-activated our account I was complaining about all the above while he was smashing Warthogs full of unsuspecting suckers with the Gravity Hammer. He must have gotten sick of my bitching because he stopped, turned to me and said "Well I guess you'll just have to buy your own account, won't you then?"
Wise ass, huh? He's right though, that's why theyr'e doing it. In honoring the true, black, cancer ridden spirit of M$ they want still MORE of my money.
Sweet, frickin' sweet.
But I'm a family man.
That means I did the responsible thing: I went home, put it on top of the television and went back to bed before one am. (I did however call in sick for work at 6 am so I could play. Again, duty, honor, all that crap.)
Do you know where my fourteen year old son was at four o'clock that same morning? Playing Halo 3. He got up two hours early to play. How industrious of him. I can't get him to use an alarm clock, but for a video game he will. Whatever, that's beside the point.
The point is that he hijacked the H3 on-line profile. Since someone (I suspect M$ put Bungie up to this) changed the rules you can't have more than one player profile in XBL any more, only a primary, all others must be signed in as guests. Those guests have to use a generic avatar unless they want to change their appearance every damn time they join the primary. This sucks, all the achievements I make in the campaign and on line are applied to his profile.
Also I didn't catch on to what was happening until I beat the entire game with his profile, so now it appears as though he Finished the Fight.
No, he most certainly did not Finish the Fight.
Now I have to go through the entire game on Heroic again. I'm tempted to say screw it and just tackle Legendary. I don't really see that going well, it could take a month or two.
Also, I'm an adult so this may sound childish, but on the rare occasion I play on line I would like to use the Elite model, not the Spartan. It's a matter of personal taste, see? If I want to use the Elite model I have to change his profile every damn time, then change it back when I'm done. What the hell? I didn't have to go through this with H2.
Also, he's pretty good at video games so he's going to be level 23 or something ridiculous while I'm playing at level 8. When I log in I'm going to get my a$$ handed to me by other level 23 players and it will NOT be fun. I didn't have to go through this with H2 either. The only redemption this offers is that when he comes back from a weekend away his account will have fallen due to my lack of skill and he'll have to re-build it from level 8. Ha ha.
Why would they do this to me? I spent a disgusting amount of money on the system, $60 for the game, $60.00 for my OWN controller, rechargeable batteries, $50.00 for an online XBL Gold account... the list goes on.
Holy sh1t that's a lot of money spent for me to not be able to choose the way my character looks, don't you think? That's alot of money for me to have to pay to have my a$$ unfairly kicked around a digital make believe environment, don't you think?
Why would they do this to me? My son figured it out, smart kid:
Yesterday I bought a thirteen month XBL Gold account extension and after the boy re-activated our account I was complaining about all the above while he was smashing Warthogs full of unsuspecting suckers with the Gravity Hammer. He must have gotten sick of my bitching because he stopped, turned to me and said "Well I guess you'll just have to buy your own account, won't you then?"
Wise ass, huh? He's right though, that's why theyr'e doing it. In honoring the true, black, cancer ridden spirit of M$ they want still MORE of my money.
Sweet, frickin' sweet.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Forge - Yay or Nay?
Wow, that's all I can say. Well, "wow" and "It's about damn time".
Unreal and Half Life have had editors available to the public for years, even Quake came with it's own editor all those years ago. Granted, no other console game I know of has ever given the end user this much power, and there's only so much manipulation you can expect someone to get out of two bumpers and triggers, a D-pad, A B X and Y, a select and a start button, but I think they should have given us this in Halo 2.
I guess Bungie had their reasons for not doing this sooner. Maybe they were trying to protect the integrity of their product, which I certainly don't blame them for. Have you ever seen some of the crap that gets thrown together and called a "map" in the UT franchise? Ugh. How many times have I wasted three minutes of my life downloading a piece of garbage map hacked together by a thirteen year old that bothered me so much that I maliciously hunted it down and deleted it from my hard drive myself because I was so offended by it that I couldn't bear to wait thirty days for the program to clear the cache?
Too many times, friends, too many times.
It's a double edged sword, I want content, GOOD content, which I know the public is capable of generating (Have you seen some of the UT 03 and 04 maps out there? There are maps created for free by the community that surpass anything Epic employees ever did for money.) but I don't want crap. Maybe now that the trilogy is over they could release an editor for use on the PC that we can create maps and mods with and then load to our XBox 360's. Now that the trilogy is over we won't be able to besmirch the quality of their content. If anything we may look back and say "that game was great until people started making their own maps, then it went to the dogs.". And no one would be able to hold Bungie responsible for it.
I'm already hungry for some new maps, I would like to have Warlock back in particular. I HOPE Forge will help level the field against those kids that play eight hours a day. If the sniper rofle, sword, shotgun, and rocket launcher are moved around the rest of us might have a small chance at surviving against these freaks of nature that memorize every stinking weapon location on every stinking map.
So sayeth me.
Unreal and Half Life have had editors available to the public for years, even Quake came with it's own editor all those years ago. Granted, no other console game I know of has ever given the end user this much power, and there's only so much manipulation you can expect someone to get out of two bumpers and triggers, a D-pad, A B X and Y, a select and a start button, but I think they should have given us this in Halo 2.
I guess Bungie had their reasons for not doing this sooner. Maybe they were trying to protect the integrity of their product, which I certainly don't blame them for. Have you ever seen some of the crap that gets thrown together and called a "map" in the UT franchise? Ugh. How many times have I wasted three minutes of my life downloading a piece of garbage map hacked together by a thirteen year old that bothered me so much that I maliciously hunted it down and deleted it from my hard drive myself because I was so offended by it that I couldn't bear to wait thirty days for the program to clear the cache?
Too many times, friends, too many times.
It's a double edged sword, I want content, GOOD content, which I know the public is capable of generating (Have you seen some of the UT 03 and 04 maps out there? There are maps created for free by the community that surpass anything Epic employees ever did for money.) but I don't want crap. Maybe now that the trilogy is over they could release an editor for use on the PC that we can create maps and mods with and then load to our XBox 360's. Now that the trilogy is over we won't be able to besmirch the quality of their content. If anything we may look back and say "that game was great until people started making their own maps, then it went to the dogs.". And no one would be able to hold Bungie responsible for it.
I'm already hungry for some new maps, I would like to have Warlock back in particular. I HOPE Forge will help level the field against those kids that play eight hours a day. If the sniper rofle, sword, shotgun, and rocket launcher are moved around the rest of us might have a small chance at surviving against these freaks of nature that memorize every stinking weapon location on every stinking map.
So sayeth me.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
new Halo 2 maps
Downloaded the new maps for Halo 2 last night. Both are nice adds to the mix, but Tombstone is by far the superior map.
Tombstone makes incredible use of the three dimensional space. There is hardly a cubic foot of space on the map that isn't used. Much in same the way that Turf and Terminal have a gazillion ways to get from one end of the map to the other. Except that the middle of the map is a killing floor, whether your on the ground or on the catwalks. At least the floor has some cover. Weapon placement is genius too. The rocket launcher spawns with LOS on the overshield spawn. The energy sword spawns just a lunge away from the sniper rifle. And the ambient sounds and secondary visual effects are most choice.
Desolation on the other hand already feels a little old. It's a symmetrical map, great for objective games, as I can attest after a 20 minute game of Classic CTF. Also makes decent use of the space, but not with creativity of Tombstone. But then I guess symmetrical objective based maps are generally kind of simple. It is essentially an over-sized Warlock, but with a fully connected upper level. And I think it's even bigger than Foundation, but with two bases instead of four. That's the real let down. Four-way Assault on Foundation is absolute chaos, but it won't be balanced on Desolation.
A downside to both maps is that they don't support vehicles at all. Both are smallish enclosed places, very much the "arena" feel from Unreal Tournament. But I think you could make a Warthog work in both maps. Ghosts would be fun too. Just looking for mays to keep the maps fresh. Warthogs on Foundation are ridiculous, but sometimes you want ridiculous every once in a while.
Tombstone is right up there with Turf, Terminal, and Ivory Tower on my list of medium to large maps. Desolation is just a super-sized version of smaller maps. I'm not that bigger is better in this case. All told, it's definitely worth the $4 for the pair.
See you online.
Tombstone makes incredible use of the three dimensional space. There is hardly a cubic foot of space on the map that isn't used. Much in same the way that Turf and Terminal have a gazillion ways to get from one end of the map to the other. Except that the middle of the map is a killing floor, whether your on the ground or on the catwalks. At least the floor has some cover. Weapon placement is genius too. The rocket launcher spawns with LOS on the overshield spawn. The energy sword spawns just a lunge away from the sniper rifle. And the ambient sounds and secondary visual effects are most choice.
Desolation on the other hand already feels a little old. It's a symmetrical map, great for objective games, as I can attest after a 20 minute game of Classic CTF. Also makes decent use of the space, but not with creativity of Tombstone. But then I guess symmetrical objective based maps are generally kind of simple. It is essentially an over-sized Warlock, but with a fully connected upper level. And I think it's even bigger than Foundation, but with two bases instead of four. That's the real let down. Four-way Assault on Foundation is absolute chaos, but it won't be balanced on Desolation.
A downside to both maps is that they don't support vehicles at all. Both are smallish enclosed places, very much the "arena" feel from Unreal Tournament. But I think you could make a Warthog work in both maps. Ghosts would be fun too. Just looking for mays to keep the maps fresh. Warthogs on Foundation are ridiculous, but sometimes you want ridiculous every once in a while.
Tombstone is right up there with Turf, Terminal, and Ivory Tower on my list of medium to large maps. Desolation is just a super-sized version of smaller maps. I'm not that bigger is better in this case. All told, it's definitely worth the $4 for the pair.
See you online.
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