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.

Fyler is the winner of this contest:

Here is the comment in full:

I deserve to win H2 Vista because my birthday is September 24th and it would be a great early birthday present to know I won. Also, I will play it more than anyone who will comment here, I can guarantee you that. Lastly, I am a fan and would add the Vista box to my collection and shrine of Halogod in my closet.

Thanks and I hope you pick me!
Fyler

Well Fyler, happy birthday you get my copy of Halo 2 Vista for free. Contact me with an address where you would like your game sent. And if you can send me a picture of the shrine in your closet that’d be great just kidding.

Runner up goes to jdog10000 (Nothing but repect for second place though )

Dear Mr. Halogod,
I am not a very creative person, and therefore, I do not have good ideas. There are few things in this world that I am certain of. One of those things is that Halo 2 Vista should be sitting on my computer desk. The other thing I am certain of, is that you are a beautiful person Halogod. Thanks for the memories.

Love,
Jon

Thanks to everyone for participating. I will be holding another contest soon.

I personally have yet to preorder the game as I wasn’t sure if I would be attending a midnight launch party or not, so what I’ve decided to do is just preorder it from Best Buy and pick it up in the morning. If you still haven’t preordered the game you can do so through one of these links at Best Buy. Which version will you buy?

Halo 3 Standard Edition Halo 3 Limited Edition or the Halo 3 Legendary Edition ?

As a contract game tester at Microsoft, testers are often given the game that we tested for free after it is released. So for me, the first game I was contracted to test was Halo 2 Vista (pretty cool huh?). Anyway, I built a brand new computer and wanted to try playing Halo 2 Vista on it to see how my new machine handled it. I only planned to play it for a few hours, but after a couple hours a day for 5 days I have all of the achievements and don’t care to play the game anymore because I used to test H2V 40 hours a week for about 6 months!

Because I don’t care to keep the game anymore, I am going to give it away for free to anyone in the US. (I’ll have another contest that will involve everyone else later on). Because this game has been opened I want to make this contest really easy to win so here are the simple guidelines:

1. Register on this site and make a comment on this post in 3 sentences or less saying why you deserve to win the game over everyone else.

Yes. This is a really easy contest to win. Creativity and comedy count so keep that in mind when you write your short comment.

The best comment will be chosen by me on Sept. 22nd and the winner will be notified. You will have 48 hours to respond to the email that I will send to the winner with an address where you’d like the package sent or a new winner will be selected.

And although this isn’t a requirement of the contest, I’d appreciate it if you subscribe to my RSS feed. Subscribing will allow you to keep track of my newest videos and more contests. As I said before, I’ll have something for my foreign friends after Halo 3 is out.

Stick to your roots

Here is my third full Halo 2 montage, Stick to your roots. I always choose titles for my montages that mean something and I’m sure you’ll be able to pick up on a few things after watching this video. The song was created by my roommate back in college Andrew Lindberg with some help from Nate Moceri. I hope you enjoy this montage as much as I enjoyed creating it. And if you don’t get both of the references, perhaps you should revisit your roots. Enjoy!

I recently posted about a 7 foot tall Master Chief statue on eBay that sold for a little over $1,000, but this latest item will end up selling for even more. The Master Chief armor suit is one of the most accurate pieces of armor I’ve ever seen depicting the MC.

Currently the item sits at over $4,000 with 7 days remaining on the auction. Since I correctly guessed the price of the last item, I’m going to give it another shot. I predict this armor suit will break the $10,000 mark. According to the auction listing, it’s been on Spike TV, G4 TV and a Dell commercial. Here is the auction listing. What do you think it will sell for?

I filled out the application for the COD 4 beta on charlieoscardelta.com a few days after the website began accepting registrations and I got my beta key in the mail the next day. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing this game. I like how in the beta as you level up you gain access to new classes or features and I believe it helps to keep the game interesting. Has anyone else been playing this beta? My personal favorite has been to just find a decent spot to snipe and start taking shots. Every now and then, I still fill the need to move around more often than I really should be because I keep playing it like it’s Halo, where you normally have a little more freedom to move if you have a sniper.

Overall I think it’s a great game, but I really don’t think there is a whole lot of room for other FPS games after Halo 3 is out. What do you guys and gals think?

Check out this 7 Foot Tall Halo 2 Master Chief Statue available on eBay. As of this writing it’s up to $660 with five hours remaining. How high do you think it will go? My guess is that it will certainly pass the 1k mark.

Update: The statue sold for $1035 (Looks like I made a good guess)

It’d make an excellent addition to the game room don’t you think?