Campaign Complete: Heroic
Completed the Campaign on Heroic difficulty.

Gamerscore = 100   Acquired 16/10/2009

Shortly after completing the game on Normal I decided to tackle ODST on Heroic solo.  I found that playing the game on Heroic was a more challenging and therefore, in my opinion, more enjoyable than my normal play through.  While I searched high and low for all the audio logs I still would up being four short of the 30 that could be found in total.  I will get them all one of these days!  Next stop will be the Legendary difficulty, but I will not be tackling that alone, I will be saving that for some co-op action.  A side note on the above, I actually finished the campaign on the 17th, but because I had already finished a couple of the levels on Legendary, it binged the achievement a little early.

Laser Blaster
Got 10 Spartan Laser kills on ONI Alpha Site.

Gamerscore = 5   Acquired 16/10/2009

Achievement Spotlight – 46,000+ Gamerscore: While completing the campaign I also was able to surpass the 46,000 Gamerscore plateau.  With all the games I have yet to play this season I believe I have an outside chance of cracking 50K before the end of the year!  We will see what happens.

Bungie.net : Halo 3 ODST

-SG

Ready to Drop 

In mere hours from now the latest (and fourth) Halo game from the FPS wizards at Bungie will unleash there latest masterpiece on the masses, Halo 3: ODST.  Now because it a Halo game without Master Chief, it almost feels like a lighter occasion, without most (but not all) of the pomp and circumstance that goes along with the release of a Halo game.  That goes for myself as well, the last two Halo launches I had both taken in the midnight launches and taken time off from work, this time I work the remainder of the week and I will pick up my game during my first coffee break at work tomorrow.

Though the games release may not have the same magnitude of previous entries in the series, it does not mean the game will carry any less weight.  All signs point to the game being a sure-fire winner with all the things that have made previous games great, but with a little twist.  One thing that won’t change for this release in purchasing the most expensive SKU, that being the Collector’s Pack.  For change the limited edition will be practical as it is actually a wireless 360 controller with special ODST graphics upon it.

Personally, I am very excited to play through the campaign myself, play the campaign co-op, play Firefight, and perhaps revitalize my Halo 3 multiplayer games.   There will be a lot of gaming to get through in the next few weeks and I am looking very forward to it.

 Bungie.net : Halo 3 ODST

-SG

With Halo 3: ODST just over a week away I am starting to get pumped for the Firefight mode.  Team Xbox has put up a story titled 9 Things We Can Tell You About Halo 3: ODST.  In that story they say this about Firefight:

Some may consider it a direct rip-off of the “Horde Mode” in Gears of War 2. It’s not. While clearly inspired by it, Firefight Mode in Halo 3: ODST is its own thing and has a feel to it that’s as different from Horde Mode as the two games are different from each other. Like Horde, Firefight is a ton of fun, but it will also take over your life. Playing a round that lasts 45 minutes is not out of the ordinary, and some matches can go on for literally hours. This is not one of those “I’m gonna get a quick game in before bedtime” modes. This is a “I think I might need to take the next couple days off from work” modes. The variety in the maps is great, ranging from smaller, more compact maps where the enemies spawn out of only a couple spots; to larger outdoor arenas with vehicles and Covenant dropships pulling your attention in all kinds of different directions. Firefight will likely push Halo 3: ODST back up to the top of the Xbox Live games-played leaderboards.

Sounds like a lot of fun!  Hopefully I can pull some of those Gears of War 2 players back to the Halo-verse.

Bungie.net : Halo 3 ODST

-SG

We Are ODST

September 22, 2009 will see Halo 3: ODST dropping to a store shelf near you.  The above video represents the latest advertisement for the upcoming game.  Microsoft seems to have a real knack for getting the most out of there ad campaigns.  ODST is no different as once again we see the Halo universe in live-action form.  Between this and the ‘Halo movie that could have been’, District 9, I am really wanting to see the Halo universe hit the big screen.  If you want to watch the above video in all its HD glory, click this LINK to download to your 360 from the Xbox LIVE Marketplace.

Halo 2 – PC Edition

Cairo Station
Complete Cairo Station at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary

Gamerscore = 30   Acquired 9/8/2009

Today I continued my Halo 2 campaign on the PC.  Slowly but surely I am getting the most out of this game.  The first time I played it I had my computer set at the wrong processer speed (unbeknownst to me) which made the game a nearly unplayable mess, but I did soldier on to comlplete the level.  My next attempt I solved the riddle of the speed and had a super smooth experience.  Today, my third session with the game and I upped the ante still.  I hooked my laptop to my new 40” 1080p TV, I also went through the settings and put them at the best qualities accross the board.  Once all was said and done I experienced Halo 2 on a level I did not think was possible.  At the end of the day it is still an original Xbox game, but I am playing it the best way possible.  I hope to complete the game in the next two weeks as ODST is just around the corner!

Bungie.net : Halo 3 ODST

-SG

Outskirts
Complete Outskirts at Normal, Heroic, or Legendary

Gamerscore = 30   Acquired 1/9/2009

It took a little bit of gaming but I finally hit the 44,000 Gamerscore plateau.  I have averaged about a 1,000 points a month over the last four months to get to this point, not a bad average of I do say so.  The oddity about the achievement that put me over this hump was that the achievement came from Halo 2, A Games For Windows LIVE (GFW) game.  What is also cool is that when I played Halo 2 the other day I figured out how to run the game silky-smooth.  It plays so nice that even though I have completed Halo 2 several times, it is like playing it for the first time.  More on that in my next Halo Highlight Reel.  Next stop, 45,000!

Bungie.net : Halo 2

-SG

It has been a long time since I did one of my Halo Highlight Reel posts.  Since I last did one there has been a multitude of updates in the Halo universe.  Now I am not going to cover everything, but I will hit on some of my personal highlights as well as news from the world of Halo as well.

Mission Accomplished (Again): Halo 3

Marathon Man
Accessed all Terminals in the Campaign

Gamerscore = 40   Acquired 6/7/2009

A couple of weeks ago I once again completed another campaign playthrough of Halo 3.  I believe that would be at least my fourth time completing the campaign.  Halo 3 has its highs and lows, but for me it is the story and the combat that keep me coming back for more.  I would like to get in some more co-op playtime before Halo 3: ODST drops in a couple months.   At least I got through the story one more time.  If I can get all my ducks in a row I hope to have Halo 2 played through once again as well, only this time I hope to play the PC version and score some of those elusive GFW achievements.  Stay tuned to a future HHR on that one.

I also took the time on my last run to collect the Marathon Man achievement (as seen above).  I think the terminal that was eluding me was the one at the start of the last level.  A sweet 40 point achievement was my reward.

Halo Future Hotness 

A lot of cool new features surrounding the Halo-verse have popped up since this past E3 up to and including news from today.  Here is a brief summary of what we have to look forward to in the upcoming months:

Halo 3: ODST’s ‘Firefight’: Bungie’s answer to Gears of War 2’s ‘Horde’ mode is the Firefight.  Four players will team up to face wave after wave of Covenant forces.  And to make things interesting, various Skulls will be activated from time to time to mix things up.  No two levels will be the same.  I foresee a lot of my time being spent in that mode

Halo: Reach: Out of nowhere we discovered at E3 2009 that Bungie had another Halo project in the works.  Other than the fact that we know that the games story takes place during the epic battle at Reach, just prior to the events of Halo: Combat Evolved.  We can expect Halo: Reach in the Fall of 2010.  But before that, if you have Halo 3: ODST, you will be able to access Reach’s multiplayer beta!  Exciting times for sure!

Halo Legends and Halo Waypoint:  Microsoft just today made two major announcements.  Halo Legends will be Halo as seen through the eyes of Japanese animation, or ‘anime’.  Halo Legends looks to expand the ever growing Halo universe to new levels.  Look for more on this in the coming months.  Halo Waypoint will be an online portal to all things available via your Xbox LIVE account.  Looks like Halo Waypoint will be the place to be for all you Halo fans.

That is the most important stuff in a nutshell.  I still have to preorder my Special Edition ODST controller and game combo.  I am pretty excited about that.  Also I want to get some Halo Wars co-op under my belt.  I still have not got my monies worth out of that one.  See you in the Firefight!

Bungie.net

-SG

No Way Home?
Completed Act IV on any difficulty

Gamerscore = 70   Acquired 5/3/2009

In true Halo game playing fashion I once again powered through another Halo campaign hours after its initial purchase.  Halo Wars is the first RTS I played since Warcraft nearly 3 PC's ago.  I actually found the game played quite playable on the console.  RTS controls are always the big knock on console games, but Ensemble pulled it together admirably.  My only major complaint is that I find it difficult to commend two separate groups.  It is often just easier to spam the 'all units' button.  I am sure with a little more investigation and practice I could pull it off.

The cut scenes for this game were amazing, but I felt the story relied too much on Halo conventions, you know kind of like how Star Wars tells the same stories with the same character types over and over again, that is how this story felt to me.  It relied to much on the familiar, but I guess that is how franchises are built in this day and age.

All in all Halo Wars was a great experience (even though the last mission gave me fits).  I am looking forward to trying the co-op and maybe a little bit of the versus gameplay and get some more out of the game.  Though the single player campaign can be done fairly quickly, there still is a lot of reason to go back to Halo Wars.

Official Halo Wars Community Site

-SG

The Halo Wars demo was finally released today (to he general public a.k.a. XBL Gold Members).  I started to download mine a few hours ago...and it still is far from done.  So my impression is this, it is taking to damn long for this to download!  So sorry for being a downer, but if the Spartan armour fits...

I should give the Burnout Paradise Party download a spin and see how that is.  I may have to recruit the family as my opponents!

Official Halo Wars Community Site

-SG

I think these Deals of the Week were designed to drain my Microsoft Points!  While I do already own the disk version of the game I think I will pick up this Xbox Originals version so that I can have it downloaded on my 360 that is on the other floor.  Who knows, perhaps a LAN party will be in order with all sorts of Halo action to be had.  And you really can't beat a 600 point version of this mother of all Xbox games!  Look for this deal of the week beginning this Tuesday.

Bungie.net : Projects : Halo

-SG

The long-awaited Bungie-bomb finally landed at this years TGS with the official announcement  of Halo 3: Recon.  Now I don't think H3R will be your typical commercial release.  With the additional achievements sitting on Halo 3 right now, that indicates to me that the stand-alone expansion will be made available for download as well.  I always say the more Halo, the better.

Obviously our new hero is not the augmented super-soldier of the future, rather he appears to be one of the elite Orbital Drop Shock Troops or ODST (feet first into hell is there motto).  Not being a Spartan I believe will cause our new hero some problems, so I think stealth rather than brute force will be the order of the day.  The picture above reminds me of Splinter Cell when Sam Fisher would use his special vision in order to avoid conflict and perhaps sneak by the enemy.  The only problem here is the wait, Fall 2009 will when we get our hands on Recon.

Bungie.net : Projects : Halo 3 Recon

-SG

On the 1 year anniversary of Halo 3 hitting store shelves, Bungie has finally dropped the bomb that was meant for this years E3.  The teaser trailer "Keep it Clean" has been making its rounds on the Internet today for what looks like an expansion to the Halo story.  Now Halo story but not necessarily during Halo 3!

Watching the video I couldn't help but be reminded of the animated Halo 2 side-story short "Another Day at the Beach" which was included on the Halo 2: Multiplayer Map Pack commercial disc which also included all the DLC at the time for H2.  Go back and check it out, click the link above to recap.  Anyway, watching the video off the start you can see a Covenant warship hovering in the background (look close). Soon you see the ODST dropping to New Mombassa en masse to help thwart the Covenant threat.  Will we finally have the massive battle on earth that we were offered in the original Halo 2 videos?  Will we command a squad of ODST?  What I do know is that you can count SUPERGHOST in to Finish the Fight and Keep it Clean!

Bungie.net : Inside Bungie : News

-SG

Yes, you already have all the skulls, you have beaten the game on Legendary with your buddies, heck you may have even got the Marathon Man achievement.  You may have thought you were done with Halo 3.  Think again.

This week Bungie released their second title update which has not only made a major change to the playlists:

Playlist ratings are the playlist-level decoupling of Trueskill values (the in-game number next to your name) from Experience (the icon next to your name). You will now have a separate military rating (based purely on EXP) in each playlist

Now you can see how players stack up from playlist to playlist.  What's more, and much of this is still shrouded in mystery, a total of 1,750 Gamerscore can now be earned in Halo 3!  For all that we know at this time, please click on the link below for further details

Bungie.net : Inside Bungie : News

If you have been looking for an excuse to revisit H3, now would be a good time.  More is instore as well in the near future!

-SG

It has been a good long while since I produced a HHR post, but between playing other games and not much new news I have kept a low profile with Halo 3.  This weekend at PAX as can be seen above and story linked below shows 'Halo 3: Mythic' which appears to possibly be an upgrade to the current multi-player.  On the last Bungie Podcast they hinted at some significant changes to the multi-player experience.  Could this be part of what to expect?  What could be seen on site:

• There's a Dev System underneath, which could mean a fair few things.
• The options in the menu are Multiplayer only, no Campaign options.
• The version of the game is 1.2 (Retail Halo 3 is currently 1.1)

For full details again click the link below:

AddictGaming.com - Halo 3 "Mythic" = Possible Expansion? (PHOTO PROOF)

The latest Bungie Weekly Update show off several neat pictures of a yet-to-be-released map code named 'Purple Rain'.  Looks like there is still some surprises up Bungie's sleeve.  Let the guessing begin!

-SG

Mongoose Mowdown:
Splattered an enemy with the mongoose in a ranked free for all playlist

Gamerscore: 5    Acquired 1/6/2008

This weekend (well Sunday anyway) I played several hours of the latest edition of the 'Double XP Weekend' playlist, Legendary Brawl.  LB is essentially Rumble Pit (everyone for themselves), so I had a lot of highs and lows throughout, though was able to snag a couple of 1st place finishes out of it all.  As this weekend's games were Ranked, I was able to score another achievement.  If you would like to see my Mongoose Mowdown in all its glory it is available for download by clicking this LINK.

As wrote about in an earlier blog, a Xbox Live friend of mine by the Gamertag of Devastator was featured in a recent comedic short entitled Halo 3 Homicide Detective.  Think CSI meets Halo 3 multiplayer.  Devastator played the part of the Spartan whose recent death remains a mystery.  Very well done and very funny, kudos to the creators for thinking outside the box!  Check it out by following this LINK.

That is all for this edition of the Highlight Reel.  See you next time!

-SG

Last night I had the pleasure of playing Grifball for the first time.  Grifball is a game variant built with the Forge tools that could best be described as 'rugby for the future'.  It is actually quite amazing how a sports game was developed within the Halo universe with the tools provided by the devs.  I played several games last night and I think I faired pretty well for a noob.  I love Bungie's 'Double XP' weekends as not only can you earn more XP, but you can take part in game variants you may not get to play on a regular basis.  I think if my friends still played Halo 3 (or owned it in some cases), that they would really enjoy Grifball.

Killtacular!

Kill 5 opponents within 4 seconds of the previous kill

While playing Grifball last night I was able to chalk up a Killtacular! medal.  You can really rack up the kills in this game type.  Swing hammer, swing!

-SG

Killing Frenzy: Killed 10 enemies without dying in any ranked free for all playlist

Gamerscore = 5  Acquired 4/20/2008

I thought I was done getting Halo 3 achievements, but I guess I was wrong.  This weekend I took part in the double XP playlist, Legendary Brawl, which is essentially Rumble Pit where every man is for themselves.  I was playing on one of the new downloadable maps, Avalanche, when I jumped into a Wraith and went to work rattling of 11 kills in a row!  I also went on to win the match.  It is not often that SUPERGHOST wins a free-for-all match.  I have been enjoying my occasional visits back to Halo 3 as of late.  Time to drag Schuey F1 back to some Double Team action!

-SG

Living Dead and Double XP

This past weekend I made my long awaited return to multiplayer Halo 3.  I was enticed by two things: Double XP and the Living Dead playlist.  I spent a few good hours soaking in the action!  For those who are unfamiliar with Living Dead, it is essentially an infection play mode where a few 'Zombies' lay siege to a fortified base attempting to infect the others and turn them into zombies until either all are turned or time runs out.  I had a lot of great fun, in particular I marvelled at the above map variant entitled Haunted Manor.  Imagine a lonely haunted house in the wild being overrun by the zombie hoard.  Good times!

Legendary Map Pack

The Legendary Map Pack was released today for 800 points, and while I have as of yet not had any hands-on time, I do plan on purchasing and taking the maps for a spin.  Now I all want to find is my free theme and McFarlane gamer pics (which I have yet to find).

-SG

No, it is not what you think...

One of my Xbox LIVE friends is a celebrity in his own right. Pictured above is Devastator, you may have seen him before at Halo launches, wearing his awesome recreation of the Master Chief's Mjolnir armour.  Head over to gamegoons.com and check out Devastator's post "My Part in a Real Life Halo Movie" for the skinny on "the first real-live action, fan made, production level Halo movie".  Stay tuned to gamegoons for more details or check back here, I will post more details as they become available.

-SG

It has certanly been a long while since I did a post on Halo.  Most of the reason is that I don't have the opportunity to play it as much in the face of all the cool new games that have come out over the last several months.  I have picked up the game once again to share with my young son. We enter the Forge and have an all around good time!  Is handling of the twin-stick shooter control is coming along.  Maybe soon we will be able to attempt a co-op level together!

I wasn't aware until recently that Major League Gaming has entered into a partnership with ESPN.  It is good to see some positive game-related programing is breaking through.  Check out the video above which shows a Sportscentre-esque Top Ten featuring some of the hottest Halo 3 plays from the MLG.

Halo toy fans get ready as McFarlane Toys has sent the first series of toys based on the Halo 3 game out into the wild.  My local comic shop is expecting there shipment next week.  I may pick up something for myself.  I had already promised the Brute for my niece's birthday.  They all look top-notch, good luck in your qust to find the one you want.