thehalogod

Last week I hit level 50 in team slayer and I would have posted about it earlier but I got a new job last week too. So I’ve been pretty busy with that. Here is a link to my Bungie.net stats page for those that are interested. We rarely lost games in team slayer and it usually only occured when the opposing team was hosting and they had a really terrible connection with at least one or two of us in red bar for most of the game.

We actually played with a fourth person a couple days ago in an effort to get the third member of our usually three man team his 50 (he was a 49) and we had some terrible games. So I actually dropped back down to a 49. Either way, we’re going to stick to our three man team to get our third member his 50 in team slayer and then I’ll probably be done with that playlist.

My two current teammates for future Halo 3 events are:

iR Sephiroth
I Annihilator I

They’re the two guys I’ve been playing Team Slayer with since the release of Halo 3. I’ve been on a team with Sephiroth for two MLG events during Halo 2 (Seattle 05 and Dallas 06) and I even made a pretty hilarious video about him called “Sephownage.”

I’ve recently started playing Double Team with Annihilator and we’ll probably get 50’s in that as well. I’m currently at a 47 and he’s at a 45. I also got all the Halo 3 achievements nearly a week ago as well. Some of them were pretty hard to get, but overall I thought they were pretty fun to go after.

I may also go for 50 in Lonewolves, because one of the things I really need to work on is my FFA gameplay but again this isn’t too much of a priority since in the end MLG is all that matters. So before you comment about how matchmaking is dumb, we just played a lot of MM to see how we did as a team and just for fun really. Once more details are posted about the future of Halo 3 in MLG we’ll pretty much stop playing MM and focus solely on MLG customs.

Also, I am currently still offering Halo lessons which you can purchase over at HaloBoards.com. In fact I have a one hour lesson scheduled for tonight. More details about my lessons can be found at HaloBoards.com. and my lessons page here on the site.

Here’s the official word straight from Bungie:

Almost Nobody asked,

What’s all this about Bungie and Microsoft splitting up?

Bungie Branches Off

As you have no doubt read on the web today, Microsoft Corp. and Bungie Studios, have reached an unprecedented and exciting agreement – starting immediately, Bungie will become an independent company and will retain a long-term publishing agreement with Microsoft Game Studios for “Halo” titles. The new structure became effective on Oct. 1, 2007. The official blurb follows, but since you’re a valuable part of our community, we thought we’d sum it up simply and concisely.

Bungie has long been built on creativity, originality and the freedom to pursue ideas. Microsoft agreed, and rather than stifle our imagination, they decided it was in both our best interests to unleash it. We’ll continue to make Xbox 360 games, and we’ll continue to make amazing games for MGS. In that regard, nothing has changed. All that has changed is that now Bungie Studios is once again, the property of the folks of Bungie Studios. Microsoft is and will continue to be, a brilliant, inventive and creatively collaborative publishing partner. Practically speaking, nothing has changed and you guys won’t see much, if any difference, for a while unless you come to work for us, that is – we’re hiring at http://www.bungie.net/inside/jobs.aspx

Well, I suppose the good news is at least they will still be making Halo games right? I’ve actually heard that Bungie was tired of making just Halo games several months ago from some tester friends that were working there but I didn’t know it’d lead to this. My guess is that Bungie gave some sort of ultimatum saying they wouldn’t make any more Halo games unless they’d be allowed to do other stuff as well.

Wow though. Isn’t this crazy?

Check out the official Bungie story here.

So I have finally found the time to drag myself away from Halo 3 to give my impressions on the multiplayer game. First off, I’m still not a fan of the starting AR in nearly every matchmaking gametype but I believe it’s an improvement over Halo 2’s matchmaking with starting SMG. Other than the starting AR, I really like the team slayer gametypes even the excessive use of shotty sniper variants.

My favorite maps would have to be The Pit, Gaurdian, Construct and Narrows. Which maps are your favorites?

I’m a HUGE fan of the ability to record games and go back and watch them from a different perspective, although I believe there should have been some changes to the camera controls in theater mode. The primary thing I’m most disappointed with is the fast forward speed. To only be able to fast forward a video at 2x is incredibly lame, especially if the only thing you’re interested in is a game winning kill. I mean come on, how hard would it have been to make the fast foward speed to be controlled by the pressure sensitive triggers? The harder you press, the faster it goes. Or to be able to drag the timeline bar or something.

Is anyone else frustrated by the slow fast forward?

One other thing that isn’t related to Halo 3 but still frustrates me a lot is the speed of the xbox 360 blades. It takes soooo much longer to send and receive messages than it did back in Halo 2. Why isn’t there an option to speed up how quickly the xbox 360 blades come out? It takes WAY too long to send and receive messages than it should.

Does anyone else agree with me?

I’ll be uploading some Halo 3 videos soon so watch out for those.