Category Archives: gaming

Gaming contains posts about gaming related topics. Game reviews, interesting articles and sites about gaming, or my gaming experiences will be found here.

I’m Prepared to Drop

I’m so pumped for Halo 3 ODST right now its not even funny. It runs wild tomorrow and my copy should be delivered tomorrow thanks to Amazon’s release date delivery. What’s odd is they waited until today to ship it with 1 day shipping. You’d think it would be more cost effective to use slower shipping and ship it on Friday or something especially since it only costs $5.98 for release date shipping. Anyway, I keep watching the live-action trailer, mouth watering with anticipation. I can’t wait any longer!

Vidmaster Challenge: Annual

Arguably one of the most difficult achievements Halo 3 has to offer is the Vidmaster Challenge: Annual. I’ve never had a big motivation to try it since its 0 points and I don’t really care about getting Recon armor, but a bunch of people at Co-Optimus have been looking for help. I figured I might as well give it a try, so Saturday night, Erika and I joined up with Bakken Hood and husky trooper and gave it a try. Actually our first attempt was with Bakken Hood and DSiJanCarlo but it was so embarrassing we won’t talk about it. We did take one thing from that failure though, do not try the grenade jump shortcut. Its a waste of time and extremely frustrating.

With husky trooper, we managed to get up to the top of the structure without too much trouble. It took two tries to kill the tin can but only because I got too close and he launched me off the bridge with his wind attack. On our way out our own deployable turrets took us out a few times (note to self: destroy turrets before going inside). Husky trooper informed us to clear the ice path before getting the ghosts, that probably saved us quite a bit of time. The part that took the longest was the final stretch where you’re racing to the ship while the Halo is falling apart. After a TON of respawns we finally made it to the ship. We probably would have had better luck if Erika and I hadn’t been lagging so much.

We had some pretty amusing moments. Being killed by our own turrets multiple times made us laugh every time. There were also a few jumps that we completely missed. The one that cracked me up the most was when I clipped the wall while going off a ledge because my ghost turned to auto-aim at a flood enemy. I rolled out of my ghost which stayed on the ledge while I flew off the ledge along with my team mates (note to self: turn off auto-aim).

At the end, it was a fun hour and 37 minutes. I’d do it again if anyone needs help. I must warn you though, the two of us aren’t the greatest on the ghosts!

Vidmaster Challenge: Annual

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Annual
  • Date Earned: Sunday, September 20, 2009
  • After 9/25/08, completed Halo on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.

Vidmaster Annual Success[Bungie.net]

I want to be like Marty

By complete accident, I ran across the achievements for Halo 3 ODST while checking out the new Bungie.net design. There are some pretty sweet achievements in there. My favorite is “Be Like Marty” which awards players for not killing a single enemy for an entire round of Firefight. Achievements for being bad? That’s unheard of! Of course not many people are going to achieve this while trying to help their team but its still pretty amusing. Poor Marty, he’s the brunt of so many jokes at Bungie. He’s a good guy though, and obviously very well respected despite the jokes.

Two other achievements I really like are “Stunning!” and “My Clothes!” which award players for using the plasma pistol effectively. The plasma pistol has always had a bad rep but I think its vastly underestimated. I have very few kills with it in Halo 3, but I use it frequently to stun a vehicle or drop an enemies shields instantly. I bet some Halo 3 players don’t even realize how effective it can be, so maybe these achievements will add some spice to Halo 3 matches. Of course our pink friend, the needler, returns with another achievement much like in Halo 3. Also featured are the Splaser (Spartan Laser), the new automag and Plasma Grenades.

There are some juicy hints as to what we might find in the campaign. Looks like we’ll be searching for audio logs instead of skulls. “Naughty Naughty” and “Good Samaritan” sound like they have something to do with the engineers we’ll run into during the campaign. You have to choose between killing the engineers or not and it looks like you’ll get an achievement both ways. I guess I’ll have to replay that part twice!

There seem to be a lot of unlockable levels and characters for Firefight which is exciting. However, a few look like they’re going to be a bitch to get. That’s ok, I like challenges. Speaking of challenges, the Vidmaster Challenges look like they’re going to be real tough this time too.

I’m looking forward to working on these achievements next week! Here’s the full list:

  • Listener – Find the first Audio Log – 5
  • Naughty Naughty – Killing things that are new and different is good, alone or with another ODST – 5
  • Tuned In – Find 3 Audio Logs, alone or with another ODST – 15
  • Audiophile – Find all Audio Logs, alone or with another ODST – 75
  • All Ears – Find 15 Audio Logs, alone or with another ODST – 30
  • Good Samaritan – Killing things that are new and different is bad, alone or with another ODST – 20
  • Both Tubes – Get 10 Rocket kills on Kizingo Boulevard – 5
  • Wraith Killer – Kill all Wraiths in Uplift Reserve – 5
  • Laser Blaster – Get 10 Spartan Laser kills on ONI Alpha Site – 5
  • I Like Fire – Kill 10 enemies with the Flamethrower on Data Hive – 5
  • Dome Inspector – Get 15 headshot kills on NMPD HQ – 5
  • Be Like Marty – In Firefight, finish a full round without killing a single enemy – 10
  • Firefight: Last Exit – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Last Exit – 10
  • Firefight: Chasm Ten – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Chasm Ten – 10
  • Vidmaster Challenge: Classic – Finish any level solo on Legendary, on LIVE, with no shots fired or grenades thrown – 25
  • Vidmaster Challenge: Déjà Vu – Complete Highway on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and no ‘Hog or Scorpion – 25
  • Vidmaster Challenge: Endure – In Firefight, on any mission, pass the 4th Set on 4-player Heroic LIVE co-op – 25
  • Firefight: Windward – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Windward – 10
  • Firefight: Lost Platoon – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Lost Platoon – 10
  • Firefight: Crater – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Crater – 10
  • Firefight: Rally Point – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Rally Point – 10
  • Firefight: Alpha Site – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Alpha Site – 10
  • Firefight: Security Zone – Score over 200,000 points in Firefight on Security Zone – 10
  • Super Sleuth – Find the final clue unraveling the mystery, alone or with another ODST – 10
  • Pink and Deadly – Get 10 Needler supercombine kills on any covenant – 5
  • My Clothes! – Plasma Pistol Overcharge and quickly kill 10 Brutes – 5
  • Trading Down – Trade weapons with a fellow character – 5
  • Tayari Plaza – Complete Tayari Plaza on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight character – 30
  • Headcase – Finish any level with at least one Skull activated – 5
  • Ewww, Sticky – Get 5 sticky grenade kills in any level – 5
  • Tourist – Access and download the city map to your VISR – 5
  • Heal Up – Find the first Medical Kiosk and heal yourself – 5
  • Dark Times – Kill 5 enemies while using VISR mode – 5
  • Stunning! – Stun a vehicle with an overcharged plasma pistol and quickly kill the driver – 5
  • Boom, Headshot – Get 10 automag headshot kills in any level – 5
  • Uplift Reserve – Complete Uplift Reserve on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight character – 30
  • Campaign Complete: Heroic – Complete the Campaign on Heroic difficulty – 100
  • Campaign Complete: Normal – Complete the Campaign on Normal difficulty – 100
  • Campaign Complete: Legendary – Complete the Campaign on Legendary to unlock a new Firefight character – 100
  • Gumshoe – Find the 3rd clue unraveling the mystery, alone or with another ODST – 10
  • Junior Detective – Find the first clue unraveling the mystery – 10
  • Coastal Highway – Complete Coastal Highway on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight mission – 50
  • ONI Alpha Site – Complete ONI Alpha Site on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight mission – 30
  • Kizingo Boulevard – Complete Kizingo Blvd. on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight character – 30
  • NMPD HQ – Complete NMPD HQ on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight character – 30
  • Data Hive – Complete Data Hive on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary to unlock a new Firefight mission – 50
  • Kikowani Station – Complete Kikowani Station on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary – 30

To The Losers I Played Last Night

We played a match of Social Big Team – Neutral Assault against a team of eight level 45-50 generals/brigadiers last night. We got slaughtered. I have a message for them:

You are lame. Plain and simple.

If you get a kick out of joining up with eight equally lame friends and exploiting extremely unfair flaws in a map so the other team instantly dies after spawning for 15 minutes straight during an objective game, you need to see a shrink. There is something wrong with you if you think that is fun. You could have won the game in a couple minutes by picking up the bomb and planting it in our base a few times. I even would have forgiven you for T-bagging us a few times. I don’t understand why you would want to put your balls anywhere near another man’s face but that’s at least a little more normal. But no, you carried on slaughtering us as we spawned until we left after seven minutes. I’m not sure why we attempted to put up with it that long but that’s not the point. The point is, SEEK HELP.

On a better note, while waiting for one of the next matches to start, one of the kids on the other team felt he needed to share that he figured out how to identify noobs…

You want to know how to tell if someone is a noob? If their weapon of destruction is the battle rifle, they’re a total noob.

Right… We then slaughtered their team 100-68. The funny part is four of them had BR as their tool of destruction. It’s really silly to label a weapon as a noob weapon. Obviously it is a good weapon and players do well with it, so why would someone pass up a good weapon for an inferior one? I think that kid just sucks.

I can’t wait for Halo 3 ODST and Borderlands. Not only because they’re both kick ass games, they’ll give us a break from the obnoxious kids that play Halo 3. More on those games soon.

Game with the Lame Generals
Game with the Noobs

Announcing XBL Accept

XBL Accept is a command line program that runs on most Linux distros. It might run anywhere you can run python but I’m not much of a python programmer so I can’t be sure. Basically, all this tiny app does is connect to Xbox Live and it accepts any pending friend requests. This is perfect for groups who want to be able to meet up but don’t want to add everyone to their personal list. The usual problem with group gamertags is that someone has to keep an eye on it to accept friend requests. Those days are over! Just run this from a startup script on a Linux server and forget about it. We’re using it over at Co-Optimus for a few gamertags.

XBL Accept is a modification of XBL Status by Chris Hollec. All credit should be directed his way for now. I honestly did not do much to his program in order to get this up and running. If you’d like to contribute to either project, let me know!

Hit the link below, check out the README for prerequisites and instructions on how to run it. If you have any questions, reply to this post for now. Maybe I’ll set up a page in the future.

xblaccept-0.0.1