Yeeeaaaahhhh.... I really don't post here at all anymore... And most people I watch don't hardly post anymore either. D: Sadface...

I Don't Even Know Anymore
Brain Spill

What I feel like: blah

So I was playing some of the Halo Reach beta earlier this morning, and here's an interesting short clip from a game of SvE Slayer. :P (I'm the Elite in this, btw.)



And yeah, I know, it's been forever since I posted here. D:

What I feel like: silly

"What are they to say now?" -- Prophet of Truth, Halo 2

So the clock still ticks until the time that the Xbox Live Version 1 servers are shut down for good, probably later tonight, seeing as how there's still players on Halo 2 right now. (There's a little stat tracker for that on the Halo 2 project page on Bungie.net.) I wish I was at home playing when it does go down, though. It would've been cool knowing I was one of the last people ever to play Halo 2 over Live. I did get a fair amount of games in though, and I had a blast. While I'm glad with going out with my best games right after noon when I woke up, my favorites will be the games I played late last night/super early this morning.

Starting the night off kind of sucked, however. Just about everyone I had asked, including some friends I played Halo 2 with a lot early on, either no longer had a copy of the game, or had other things going on. (The main culprits on that last one were some old high school friends, one of which sounded pretty cool about it the night before when I was talking to him in person about it, but then bailed on me. D: ) So yeah, things started off slow. I was pretty bummed, but soldiered on. Later on in the evening, I did end up getting joined by one friend, bringing a couple of his along with. Things started picking up then, and I was having quite a bit of fun. At one point though, my friend pretty much passed out, so it was just me and his friends then, heheh. A couple more games later, a few more joined in, and then we started getting into a few crazy antics with everybody in the games we got into, thinking we were going to be in one of the last games ever, so we tried to extend the games out as long as we could. It was actually a lot of fun, because we ended up screwing around a lot then too. After a few "last games ever" though, we ended up dropping that idea, followed by one or two of the guys in our party out of exhaustion. However, the remainder of us suddenly joined into a much larger party, and here's where some of my favorite moments of the night came from.

What was so great about it? Was it that we kicked everybody's ass or something? Actually, we did absolutely nothing, and it was awesome. We'd get together on one part of a map and just be random and silly. We even got some people from the other team involved as well! On the large vehicle based map, Containment, we ended up mixing and matching people from either team in random vehicles, being stupid and silly as we whip around the map, firing bullets into the sky. I gotta say, some of my most moments from playing over Live were spent just being silly and messing around. Heck, for a small example, I still remember a few years back when me and a couple friends managed to get the WHOLE pregame lobby to be random and go, "MINE. MINE. MINE. MINE." It was hilariously awesome, lol.

The games went on, and people wore out. I was half-asleep towards the end, playing with just one other person in my party at this point, but I still had fun, because all that messing around really loosened me up for the game. I really didn't care if I won or lost, if I did bad or good, I just wanted to play and have fun with my fellow Halo 2 players on this final ride.

Thinking about this all after my final games, both early this morning and after noon, it made me realize more on what an impressive community Bungie has built with its fan base, the Seventh Column. It also amazes me how diverse of a community it is, and as the numbers slowly started to dwindle, I got to see various sides of that community, and it was great. (For the most part anyway. Potty-mouth trash talkers are still douchebags.) It's amazing how dedicated the community was to Halo 2's final run, with so many people playing still, and all the "good-bye" tribute videos. I'm glad to be a part of such a great gaming community. I've yet to personally come across a community quite like this for any other game or developer. I'm excited to see what Bungie has in store for us with Reach, and also more excited for whatever their next IP may be. And when they do bring out their next great project, I hope the community experience will be just as awesome, if not better. For now though, here's to all the fun and great memories that've been had in Halo 2 over Live. I know I'll miss it. As Halo 1 got me into the Xbox, Halo 2 got me into Xbox Live. Thanks again Bungie for a great game and awesome memories online. See you in Reach!

So this is what became of my boredom: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=I46DPMSO

Also, I know, I suck with updating, like with anything. D:

What I feel like: blah

Just for shits n' giggles: http://sladedoobiedog.gamerdna.com/

What I feel like: effin' lazy

Sue Ramsett: Looks like a good time. Could be worse places we sent you to for the day, right?

Todd Hicks: I've been enjoying this assignment all day long, and my pants show it.

-- cross talk during a live shot at our 5pm newscast, talking about the food at the Wausau Jaycees annual 4th of July celebration

Yeah, we were all busting a gut laughing on that one. Only on live television. (In case you wanna see it, head over to www.wsaw.com and look in the video player. I can't seem to access our own website using my laptop from within the station. O_o It's titled "Jaycees 64th Annual 4th of July Celebration". I clipped it myself, so it should be there.)

What I feel like: lol

So I just watched the full conference live on G4. Gonna have to go 50/50 on this one. There were some things that made me just go, "Meh..." However, there were some things that absolutely kicked ass, and I'm glad for them. I have been and always will be a huge Nintendo fan, and quite honestly, they've been lacking in recent years, I think anyway. It looks like they're starting to pick things back up more for their core gamers by pulling out some big guns. I'll post more of an in-depth look at the conference later, but for now, just a best and worst thing, I s'pose.

Worst of Nintendo's Conference: The Wii Vitality Sensor
I mean, wtf. You put it on your finger and it measures your vital signs n' such. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata came out to showcase this, and explained it some, but even then, I was still lost as to what they're even thinking of doing with this thing. Oh well, nobody's perfect, right?

Best of Nintendo's Conference: Metroid: Other M
So Reggie says that Nintendo teamed up with another top-notch developer for a new edgy Nintendo game for the Wii, and begins to show off a trailer. Oh, and that other developer? None other than Team Ninja! The trailer absolutely kicked ass, and I'll definitely be posting a link to it when I go further into Nintendo's Press Conference later.

Anyway, more later!

The archive footage of the press conference hasn't been posted just yet, so I've just been keeping tabs on Kotaku.com and the video tab on G4's E3 site. So far it they've got some pretty cool stuff, topped with some awesome surprises, that I've seen so far anyway.

First off, some trailers n' such.

The Beatles Rock Band looks really awesome. I'm lovin' the graphical style they have for the game. It also changes as the game progresses through their career, which is also really cool. A nifty little thing I've heard about and now seen is the new feature for vocal harmonies, which is awesome because The Beatles were known to have amazing harmonies in their songs, so being able to do those harmonies is a very nice touch.

Crackdown 2. Let's face it, the first game wasn't exactly the greatest in the world, but it was still pretty damn cool, and with the ending it had, it desperately needed a sequel. So here we are. Looks like there's new trouble brewing in the city, and not just with criminals. An infection is mentioned, so one can only imagine. :o

Metal Gear Solid: Rising. An amazing franchise, but one I've only ever dabbled in once in a while. Still, it was pretty awesome seeing a Metal Gear game announced for the 360, and the man himself on stage to spread the word. No Snake though. Raiden takes center stage in this game it seems. Nothing else said or shown at this time. I'll be keeping my eyes on this one.

Modern Warfare 2. They had a gameplay demo on stage for this one. It basically revolved around a snow-covered base high up somewhere, and having to do some risky ice climbing to get there. Sounds like your leader is British, but the enemy is still unclear. Some great action sequences, including an escape on a snowmobile that you drive, while also shooting at any enemies in your way. Very awesome stuff.

Left 4 Dead 2. Just a teaser trailer here, with zombies during the day and new survivors! Very surprising that Valve turned around with a sequel this fast, but it's a very welcome one! I still love the first game, and I will gladly get this new one when it comes out November 17th. Yes, that's right. It's coming out this year! But yeah, apparently the setting is in the south in this one, and roughly around the same time as the first, which I guess is the reason behind the new survivors.

Shadow Complex. A brand new game action coming out from Epic. The interesting bit? It's a 3D side-scroller, and an amazing looking one at that. Hard to tell what's going on story-wise yet at this point, but I'll keep tabs on it. Surprisingly, it's also coming out this summer, so I guess I won't have to wait to long to find out.

Halo 3: ODST. I'm already a huge fan of the Halo franchise, so I didn't think I needed any more convincing to get this game after it was first announced. Heheh, right. Of course, Bungie always delivers more. This is definitely shaping up to be a fantastic game, and I definitely cannot wait for this game at all. You'll more than likely find me at a local GameStop the day they start taking pre-orders for it. Oh, and like I said, Bungie always delivers more........

Halo: Reach. Oh. My. God. It's nothing more than a teaser trailer, but it gave me chills. For those that know a thing or two about the Halo storyline, the first Halo game took place shortly after what had become known as the Fall of Reach. A bit of background now... Within the Halo universe, Reach is basically a fortress world, with probably the strongest human and military presence in the known galaxy, second only to Earth. As the story goes, the Covenant finds the location of Reach, and virtually wiped out everything on the face of the planet. From what I gather from this teaser, this game follows the Battle of Reach. I gotta hand it to Bungie, they know how to keep a secret, and a good one at that. "Falls 2010," as it says. Also, apparently there will be a multiplayer beta invitation packaged with ODST when it comes out. Oh Bungie, is there anything else up your sleeve?

Now on to other things.

So they finally announced their own motion sensing add-on, dubbed Project Nadal. It is "a camera and sensor assembly that recognizes faces, body movements, objects, and even voices in order to integrate the player into the gaming environment. Examples shown at the conference include a boy holding up a skateboard, which then appeared on the screen, with the boy then riding said board by just swaying back and forth on his own two feet; two women trying on virtual clothes using a camera image of themselves; facial recognition; voice control; buzzing in to 1 VS 100 by raising a hand;and even browsing the NXE using hand controls as in the movie Minority Report." (Kotaku.com) Yeah, I cheated by using Kotaku, but I really didn't have any other way to describe it, heheh.

Apparently, the addictions known as Facebook and Twitter are finding their way onto the 360. Really? Yeah, I don't get it either. The interfaces they've shown look fairly interesting at least.

Xbox 360 games on demand. Do I really need to explain it? You download full 360 games to your hard drive through Xbox Live Marketplace. Although apparently instead of going through those MS Points you need for everything else, it'll just be tied to your plastic card.

That's pretty much all I've got for now. And also, apparently while I've been typing this, the conference archive footage finally got uploaded. I'll watch it later and post again if there's anything else new that catches my interest, or if there's more info on stuff that I've already got that I may have missed. Otherwise, more tomorrow from Nintendo! And even though Sony is tomorrow as well, I'll wait 'till Wednesday to post anything of interest. Until then!

What I feel like: giddy

It's that time of the year again folks. E3 is upon us again. Microsoft already had their press conference earlier. I'll watch the archive footage and post my thoughts on it later. Even then, already heard a few awesome surprises through the G4 and Kotaku sites, and I'm really excited to see them brought up in the press conference footage. EA is up now, then Ubisoft will have their conference later tonight. Nintendo kicks things off tomorrow, followed by Sony. Then on Wednesday, Square Enix and Konami take the stage. I'll be watching both the G4 and Kotaku sites like a hawk this week, and I'll more than likely have my opinions n' such here, so for anybody who really bothers to reads these, stay tuned!

What I feel like: excited

Quote of the night from the newsroom: "What's wrong with being a sex robot?"

What I feel like: amused