With the next few months packed to the brim with top notch games from all sides its important to make good gaming purchase decisions and with that in mind I present to you my review of Halo 3: ODST.
Halo is one of the biggest names on Xbox so when a new Halo game hits you can be assured that there will be plenty of people buying it. What if you’re not a Halo fan though? What if you’re just looking for a fun FPS game? Well pop over to my review of ODST on Xboxgaming.co.za and hopefully you’ll be able to see if it’s a game that you’ll like. Of course feel free to leave the usual comments, even if you hate the review. I welcome constructive criticism in fact. Read and enjoy!
If you’ve been following my gaming habits on Xbox Live you’ll have realised I’m one of the biggest Halo fans out there. Most nights I can be found shooting away at nameless enemies from all around the world. Not that I win many games though. With the bad internet connections here in South Africa its more luck than skill that determines who wins games for us. Nonetheless I’ve never had as much fun in any other game as I’ve had in Halo 3. So imagine my joy and fanboi glee as I spotted this trailer for the next instalment in the Halo saga:
A brilliant trailer once again by the guys at Bungie and its definitely got me excited for the 22 September release. Long live Halo!
This year’s E3 was noticeable for one thing, a sudden decision by Microsoft to cancel / ‘postpone’ an announcement from Bungie. Rumours floated around the forums on why precisely Microsoft would do this. Microsoft went as far as citing time constraints for cutting Bungie from the show. Most gamers are of the opinion that it might have been cut so as not to take the attention away from Microsoft’s announcement of the new Xbox Live dashboard update.
But just recently a timer reappeared on the Bungie site and was followed by several cryptic blogposts that had fans guessing what Bungie had in store for them. Yesterday the timer finally ran out and revealed this, a teaser trailer for a project Bungie is currently working on. It seems to be for a downloadable expansion of sorts for Halo 3 though this is just guess work on the part of fans. It might not also feature Master Chief but rather it will focus on the exploits of the ODST, though once again this is just speculation. Anyway, here’s the clip so you can watch it and make your own mind up.
These past few weeks I’ve played more Halo 3 than any sane person should. Almost every single waking hour that I’m not at work I can be found hunched over my Xbox controller frantically running and gunning my way through hordes of like minded gamers in my quest to rank up.
Thankfully I’ve not been alone in my quest and have had the pleasurable company of Newlande and Mark as we have taken the Halo world by storm with Clan Studmuffin (pictured above). It certainly hasn’t been an easy road as we’ve had our fair share of losses but interspersed with those we’ve also had some momentous victories that have galvanised our spirits
Bungie has also been quite canny in grasping our attention with their Double Exp Weekends where they release special playlists that reward the winners with double experience points as the name implies. Take this past weekend for instance, Bungie introduced the Living Dead playlist in which players are pitted against each other in the form of humans and zombies. The maps are also slightly tweaked with the doorways being blocked to resemble a zombie movie. Players are also granted special abilities determined by whether they are humans or zombies. The zombies are usually faster and can jump higher. Sometimes they’re also granted permanent invisibility which makes the games even more exciting as a player. Unfortunately the zombies cannot pick up any weapons other than those they start with and cannot use equipment or vehicles dotted around the maps.
The humans on the other hand usually start out well equipped with weapons and can make full use of the vehicles and gun emplacements to mow down the encroaching zombie hordes. While they might not have the almost super human powers of their enemies they have to rely on good old fashioned team work to make the most of their number advantage.
Halo 3 also functions very well as a high tech version of a chat program in that you can just chew the fat with a few friends while running around the various maps online. Unfortunately some overseas gamers do not see things the same way as was witnessed when we played with an American who started shouting “SHUT UP!!!” at us every few seconds. It appears that some gamers don’t game for fun these days but rather to vent their anger on those of us more inclined to games as a form of recreation. I think it really boils down to who you play with that determines how fun your online experience will be. Every game I’ve played with the Take 2 forumites has been a fun experience that I’ve loved while almost every game I’ve played with other online gamers has been an eye opening experience in terms of colourful language.
I can honestly say that with the new map pack release for Halo 3 I will be addicted to it for a long time yet to come. Thanks to Bungie for making probably one of the most fun games I’ve ever had a chance to play.
Recently I’ve become a fan of the Arby & Master Chief videos done by Digital Ph33r which details Master Chief’s struggle to co-exist with his room mate, the Arbiter. Its a hilarious send up of your typical Halo 3 player who professes to have l33t skillz and provides plenty of good laughs dealing with online gaming.
My reason for mentioning all this is that this past week it was Newlande’s birthday and as a surprise birthday present for her I took up the challenge of creating a Flash birthday card for her featuring the vocal talents of Arby and Master Chief. It was an inspired idea by Mark really and that very evening I went home and proceeded to write a little script and use Microsoft Sam and Microsoft Mike to bring the card to life. Thankfully it came out wonderfully and provided Newlande with a great surprise for her birthday. It even managed to get posted on a local forum! Here’s the link to it if you want to view it:
My recent spate of Halo games online has taught me one thing:
Americans are the most rude and demeaning people to play with.
A broad statement you might say but so far of the hundreds of people I’ve played online with I’ve only gotten swearing and demeaning comments from Americans. What makes it worse is that nine times out of ten these are young children that are swearing up a storm for no discernible reason. They also seem to display a terrible lack of knowledge when it comes to countries other than their own. So far I have been identified as an Asian and a New Zealander and been called some real choice names that i would rather not repeat here
Thank goodness that Bungie has foreseen this and decided to include an option to mute all voices other than those of your friends and party members. At least now you can chat merrily to your friends as you play without having to worry whether you are been called something unsavoury by a 5 year old Its quite disconcerting that parents would allow there young children to act in such an obtuse way but it would seem that this has become the norm nowadays. At least the fun thing about being a South African online on Live is that you can merrily swear back in Afrikaans without them having the foggiest idea of what you are saying. So if you see me online feel free to chat to me but please make it something civilised.
With the next few months packed to the brim with top notch games from all sides its important to make good gaming purchase decisions and with that in mind I present to you my review of Halo 3: ODST.
Its quite disconcerting that parents would allow there young children to act in such an obtuse way but it would seem that this has become the norm nowadays. At least the fun thing about being a South African online on Live is that you can merrily swear back in Afrikaans without them having the foggiest idea of what you are saying. So if you see me online feel free to chat to me but please make it something civilised. 
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