Board games!

During the Christmas sales me and my cousins were out shopping and we found the most glorious thing. Maybe not but close enough. A swedish version of Monopoly with paper money. Any of those categories are hard to come by and both at the same time virtually impossible, but some quantum mechanics worked in our favours and teleported it here. So naturally we bought it because it's a one time find.

Inside the kitchen walls we set the game up and started playing. I had a flying start and got two streets before my cousins had even gotten half way through. I even got the most expensive street and both the Electric plant and the Water Works, all payed themselves eventually.

After a while when all but one street were sold we started trading internally to make things interesting, I got all the orange streets and green streets. While my cousins had the red, yellow, purple and light blue streets. So the red and yellow side of the map was dangerous for me, especially with houses. Red wasn't that big of a problem however, when the youngest cousin ended up paying all her money and stuff to the older cousin because she ended up on the most expensive street several times. I was lucky though, I managed to avoid that street every time. The youngest one was eventually bankrupt and lost. Not a problem though, I had hotels on the orange streets and a bunch of houses on the green streets. The oldest cousin didn't have money to build new houses even though she could have so she hoped I'd end up on her yellow street before she ended up on one of mine. Not the case though and I won. First time ever.

We later on moved on to Risk, Halo Wars Risk. I don't mind people who play to win and with all means necessary, within the rules of course. Playing honorably isn't one of those things. It however becomes quite frustrating when two cousins do the same and I'm the obstacle that must be overcome, by both. In the end I lost badly.

Wish we were a little more people though, it was really fun with five people.

Proper nostalgia

After finishing Halo CEA I can say that it's still the best campaign of all the Halos, despite being 10 years old. Sure, I don't think I would have played it through in classic mode, not any time soon though, so the refreshed visuals helped a bit.

It was challenging and fun. Not frustrating and.. not fun.

Enemies felt smart and even grunts could take some sort of punishment, unlike later installments. Well, most of the stuff could take more punishment. Not the Hunters, they had a weak spot, a pistol bullet to their spine, well, their exposed backs and they'd die.

With Reach, I also forgot the joy of being against the Flood. An endless wave of Combat forms, Carrier forms and Infection forms. Best map is The Library, what Firefight should have been with one addition. Four floors that tie up the end with the start, so it would have been a huge circuit map. Enemies come pouring in and you have to keep moving.

Altough the best part of the game was at the later half. You had no allies left except cortana. Three sides were after you and fighting each other at the same time. On several occasion were there big battles, BIG battles, and you could stay and watch, then pick off the stragglers. Or slip by the battles. Then again, everyone is after you so everyone will turn on you if they notice as much as a foot sticking out from behind a tree. I don't think I've seen that many infantry units battle each other in any other Halo. None of the other Halo games had more than two factions battling each other at the same time, if I recall correctly. Halo 2 had some moments but they were few and not memorable.

Only Legendary left and some achievements.

Still offline

Still not able to get online, will probably remain like that for a while as well. Although, my wonderful girlfriend lets me borrow her account if I want to play some multiplayer, and I can still play single player games offline. So I've been busy with Skyrim and Halo CE now.

I've completed the Dark Brotherhood questline and can now do hits on radomly spawned people, small income, around 1200 gold. I also got Speech full and going on Alchemy as well. Leveling up is hard though, got to 54 now and it's very slow. Got some skills going, high but now they're getting slow to level up as well.

Think I'll try to get illusion up to 70 and then get invisibility, then I can train Sneak.

I want to get 100 alchemy so I can make potions that raise my Enchantment, then I'll enchant some equipment to get better at alchemy, then I'll make even stronger potions that raise my Enchantment, then I'll enchant some other equipment so that I'm even better at Alchemy. Then, I'll make the last potions that'll raise my enchantment skill even more. I'll see how far I can do that. Then I'll enchant some armor, weapons and accesorioes, hopefully I'll be as good as invincible.

Those pesky dragons keep breathing on me once and I have a small small string of HP left. Not that healthy.

Halo CE, got into it a bit, almost at the scary part. Well, it was scary the first time I got to it. Achievements in it are hard, really hard. Except the "Complete mission" ones. Then there are the terminals to find, and the skulls. Some were really easy, but now I've gotten to the huge maps and the chaotic mazes. It'll be a chore to find them without a guide. I'd like to try before I consult a guide.

Super security

After the Xbox general update I can't sign in, at all.

Then again they could have blocked my account again to make yet another investigation on my account. They only unlocked the XBL part of my whole account. So I phoned XBL support, again, to see if I could get the rest of the cake back. So either they took my only piece away or there's some problems with XBL, it's on service now.

Rage repping and afking

No, I'm not afking, but a lot of other players are. They seem to be very unaware that afking will lead to a two week cR ban. I'm talking about Reach. Anyhow, the systems put in place to detect all kinds of negative behaviour do know the difference between shooting randomly into the air and so on and actually playing.

Then there's been a case of major rage repping. With that I mean someone who gets so mad when loosing that they'll give undeserved bad feedback to another player, usually a player on the opposite team.

I've gotten more Unsporting and even Disruptive under communication, and I play with my Headset unplugged when I'm not in a party, and nobody but those in my party can hear me.

Okay, I might deserve the unsporting from one match, but I haven't gotten it untill today as well as the Disruptive.

Aaaaaand I think the modem has something against my xbox because it started disconnecting me randomly again, and won't let me back in...

Tic-Tac-Toe

Played a little Skyrim, and I actually managed to complete more quests than I got. Well I didn't get any quests, but I completed several. Also encountered a very very rare glitch, dragons flying backwards and staying still in the air. Started using a Bound Bow for unlimited arrows and to increase archery, to level up more.

Then I played Reach with Soyxor, some anniversery btb. It want really well, even though I missed the flag carrier three times with plasma nades at close range. I also noticed that a player called D 3 IV IV I S got matched against us three times in a row, as well as zooliki, or something along those lines, with his guest, or her. We got matched against them four times in a row on Anniv. BTB. Last game against them was really laggy, almost unplayable. Then we won.

After many trials and errors I finally got the "Stick it to the man" achievement, stick a plasma nade and kill the flag carrier. Six more achivements to go in other words.

Even more

There are even more of them, achievements for Halo. Four? of them are probably just to get more people to buy the Defiant map pack, as they have to be on accomplished on those two maps. That and that they are new. Then there are Anniversery map pack achievements, out of which I've gotten two, three headshots in a row and I've splattered five people in one game.

It's fun when new achievements come out, especially vehicle ones because everyone rushes to the nearest vehicle, be it mongoose or not. Free points.

Oh yes, then there was this hilarious team mate. Me and my nephew Soyxor were playing on Timberland, a Slayer game. I did try, and accomplish, the splatter achievement, and from the start of the game, people were grenading vehicles that other team mates were getting, mainly ghosts. Resulted in people getting booted. This also happened to specific weapons. My nephew got the Rocket Launcher, and some team mate started shooting at him. Soyxor didn't die though because the team mate changed target, me. I came back to the base with a burning warthog and no shields, and under fire. So I jumped out and our team mate got a lucky headshot. I did see him coming for me firing his DMR. For once the Betrayal Booting Screen lady smiled at me and let me boot him.

Didn't take long before I got a message from him. As I thought it was mostly just curses and angry stuff, something with "mad that I'm better than you?" and the curses. "yes of course" was my answer. Then a 1v1 challenge. Someone got banned for ten minutes and got mad. Reach continues to provide fun moments in all matter of shapes and colors, be it in game or through it's players.

Thank you for making my day.

Train of tought 3

Spawn

Shotgun

Pistol kill

Grenade

Grenade

Triple kill

Dead

respawn

Armor lock

Stick

Armor lock

Assasinate

Sniped

Respawn

Dead

Respawn

Dead

Rockets

Double kill

Double kill

Miss

Train of tought 2

Battlefield 3:

Assault of Support? Attack or Defence, hmm, think I'll go support, I like the Light Machive Guns, and I get unlimited ammo, and others. Okay, spawn spawn spawn spawn.... spawn allready.... Okay let's go. Sprint sprint sprint sprint SNIPER GET DOWN... need cover need cover need cover, there, a boulder, a big boulder. Let's set the mortar pipe up, hope someone tagged the sniper, oh, tank's there, better bomb it.

Aaawww, sniper got me. ah, got the tank disabled. Let's go assault and help my squad at B. Oh wow, lots of people to revive, revive allready... GRENA... aaaaaaahhhh. Spawn with squad, spawn with him. oh COME ON, spawned in the line of fire... okay that's it, get me the LMG,spawn spawn spawn. Prone at spawn, grenade through doorway, bipod out, hah here they come, won't release the trigger now, hahahahahaaaa, yes, go through that door, all of you, aaaww no you don't prone through that door either. Hah, got you. Ah, got to reload, 200 rounds that fast? Reload, reload, reload, Okay, back to busine ROCKET.. well I get a few of them. hmm, let's continue on that trail.

Spawned to far away, think I'll try mortar, it's worth a try. can't get those, in an alley, in a building, ah, tank, let's bomb it, one, two, three, got a kill, it's disabled, and it blew up, nic Now I blew up, by a mortar, of course. Oh we won, nice.

Train of tought

Skyrim:

What am I supposed to do now? Have to check quest list. Wow that's a lot of quests I have gotten, and not done. Hmm, let's pick that one, fetch a book, sounds easy enough. Now where am I and where's the arrow pointing on the book. Noooot heere, not theer... wait there it is, what? That's far away. Guess I have to fetch it.

Where's the closest location I've been to? There, meh, the loading times are quite long... wow, that's a new loading picture, what's in that troll's hand? Ooh, a skull, haven't seen trolls do that before in game. Ah, now lets go, turn around turn around, find the arrow, there it is. Wait, what's that? A bear, I do have a quest to get bear pelts, get here you big bear. Why am I loosing health when the bear is not hitting me? Either arrow and bow or magic, ouch, that took quite a large chunk out of me. Two spriggans? No, get off me, ruuuun! Yes, a cave I can escape into. Looooooaaaaaaad. Hmm, now I only have to heal and go back out. Then again I don't wanna load that long again.

Think I'll look a little inside the cave, then I'll go back out. Ah, bandits, these are easy... WHAT? An arrow took more than half my health bar? Inventory and quick heal!!! NO, one health potion left, I need to hide and summon stuff. Flame atronach, go exlope with them. It died allready? No, it killed all of them that fast? Must've been a lucky hit with the bow. Loooooot, they don't have that much gold. Maybe I can find more, and some magical artifact I can get an enchantment from.

Wow, this cave houses more bandits than the last imperial fort I visited. They have nice and valuable items though that I can sell. Right, cave is empty on loot and bandits. Let's go outside and explore again. Loooadddd.

Hah, look a bear, just what I need, there was a quest that required bear pelts, hah, my flame atronach got you. Spriggans, go get them atronach. Okay, now that's acomplished.Okay, let's check my quests, ah right, I was getting that book. It's close enough. Run run run, there's the cave. Looooaaaaad. This is an interesting cave, seems empt.. OUCH, fire trap... SMACK, there's the spike wall trap, need to heal, think I'll do it with magic and keep going. Red dots? Six red dots? Where did all of you come from.. RETREAT, mages, lots of them. Storm Atronach to take down their mana. This fight took 10 minutes? Wow. Of, still got some sweet lot though.. Nah, nope, regular clothes and weapons. There's still a chest there. Hah, lots of enchanted items. Sword, axe, a helm and some scrolls. Why am I moving so slowly, oh, over-encumbered. Hmm, need to drop something, what to drop what to drop what to drop...... I can't drop anything.... I need it all. well I want it all. Aaaaaahhhh. well, maybe I can drop these armors, think I got the enchantments for them.

Hah, found the book, AAAAHHH, can't walk again, *sigh*, fine, I'll drop this sword.

Two hours to find a book?

What?

Halo CEA arrived yesterday, I want a 3D TV, maybe I should work a lot now to get more money, for a 3D TV. A sign is that my current one started messing with me yesterday, a lot. Remote didn't work and the side buttons were messed up.

Volume + = Choose source for signal
Volume - = Lower channel numbers

Source = Higher channel numbers
Channel + = Higher channel numbers
Channel - = Higher channel numbers

Great.

Got it sorted out though.

Aaaanyhow, HCEA. I don't remember it being that difficult on Heroic, I also found a spot I've never been to before, good start in other words. The spot was on the Bridge where the two guys are sitting in the air, I went below them, there was a ladder there.

The graphics are better than I thought they would be, and it plays almost like I remember. There's also a whole new bunch of skulls to use, and to find, as well as a library to fill out and terminals to examine.

Skyrim has been throwing a lot of dragons at me lately, third dragon attacked the College of Mages yesterday, a Frost Dragon. Spent quite some time getting killed by it. It went through a wall to chew on me, several times. I got a Conjure Shock Atronach tome though. Finding the Ruined book was hard though, went through several dungeons to find a single one when I had found several earlier. Also encountered a bug, I intimidated a thug so I wouldn't have to pay 200 gold to pass on a road, and I still payed 200 gold. Need to pay a new visit there.

Then there were the Reach anniversery maps, played four of seven. The Firefight one was actually entertaining, maybe because it's fresh and colorful. Then Beaver Creek, I never really did like that map, don't think I ever will, did good on it though. Penance, the labyrinth, it's a complex map, really complex, don't think I ever got up to the fourth or fifth floor. Everybody just dropped down to the first floor anyway. Then the large Hang 'em high. I think 4v4 on that map was not that good, should've been more people.

The pistol on those maps are back to what it used to be in Halo CE, three shots and kill. Takes some time to getting used to, the run speed is higher but I think they messed up with the jump height, could barely get my feet of the floor.

As it used to be

I did get Skyrim, and I find it very entertaining. The economy isn't broken with high level armors and weapons available like the numerous flowers in the forest, shops doesn't get all their money back in a second and it's actually difficult from time to time.

Then again I don't know if half the stuff they did was any good. Reduction in number of spells, less skills, no more signs, only stones that work the same way. Sure I can now go adapt my character the way I want whenever I want, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of important early choices?

Time will tell though.

What is as it used to be is Battlefield 3 and Reach.

Battlefield 3: My favourite map is Grand Bazaar, it's a somewhat close quarter map with open streets and small alleys. It's intense and the action is ongoing all the time.

Two maps I hate are Tehran Highway and Caspian Border. Tehran Highway is a nightmap with long distances from spawn to objectives and some vehicles with very restricted manouvering options due to the nature of the map.There is some urban combat later on in the map but there something with the start of the map that just puts me off.

Caspian Border is a full blown daylight huge vehicle map, with not that many vehicles. I find myself running for two minutes towards and objective only to get sniped, killed by a helicopter or tank, or my favourite, be halfway to the last objective, it gets captured and it moves even further away. Being in a tank is fun on the other hand but they're most of the time occupied and I find myself on my feet, getting bullets in my head, alone, in the forest.

I did play with Marie, Cal and... Cris? Anyhow, I don't know if it was Cal or just random, but we did get into a Grand Bazaar game, one that we played for, 7 minutes perhaps. So I don't count the first game. Now, the last map I played before getting suspended was Tehran Highway, the first map I did get to play from the start, Tehran Highway. Maybe halfway through the first stage, I got so mad with the game that I simply shut the xbox down. Sorry Cal, Marie... Cris. But I can't handle a new shiny game that has two maps in rotation, Tehran Highway and Caspian Border, then throws in the occasional random "small" map like Operation Metro.

There are what? Nine maps? I think I haven't played one of the maps, then I've played Tehran Highway the most, second is Caspian Border, then Operation Metro, fourth would be Grand Bazaar and all the other maps a maximum amount of three times, from what I remember.

Gf then started playing Reach, and after a couple of matches I did join in. What did I find? Not that many players online so search times was long, wouldn't venture into the smaller populated playlists because I suspect they're populated by tryhards. Tried some BTB and not so much luck. After being out for a year, people STILL don't know that shooting the Banshee with the DMR works wonders. There was a Banshee that only me and my gf shot. The other's ran around like headless chickens.

The full version of Minecraft will be released tomorrow, will see how that works, and then I hope I'll get my copy of H: CEA as well. Don't even know if they shipped it since Microsoft is putting me in a loop when I try to unlock my hotmail account. They gave me back my Xbox Live account but couldn't be bothered to unlock my mail. Thank you very much, seems like I have to make a phone call today...

Reading up

After having read up more about Skyrim, I feel like I want it now.

To Skyrim or not to Skyrim

I'm unsure, do I want Skyrim now, or later on when there's a GotY edition with the "expansions".

Then again, a game series that was mainly customization and character development had moved on to less and less customization and less and less character development.

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was huge in customization, there were armors aplenty, or you could choose not to have and still be good. Then an immensive enchantment system and a similair spell creation system. Tribunal made a small attempt att putting in a "Forge" where you could make your own armor, if you had the material.

Skyrim seem to have the same enchantment system as Oblivion and then no custom spell maker at all. Why? Then there's armor. Grieves, torso piece and shoulder pads have been put into one piece, then helmets, gauntlets and boots are just for looks apparently. Better for the performance of the game, well, maybe the graphics aren't everything?

I'm also curious if they went to Morrowind road or the Oblivion road with Argonians and Khajits in Skyrim. I'm refeering to the feet and heads. In Morrowind, Argonians couldn't have closed helmets because of their noses, not sure about the Khajits, they could not have boots either because of their feet. Oblivion? Every race the same, different skins. I don't see the purpose of having ten different races with their own lore and so on if they are going to be the same. Only differences were the starting skill bonuses and attributes. Now when attributes are gone, the only difference could be skills and a starting power. Something that doesn't have a permanent effect since that little starting bonus won't be noticable after ten levels, or even five.

suspended

Hacked on EA, moved on to XBL, used all my microsoft points and played fifa 12, and now I'm suspended. Because I called Microsoft support and asked them to investigate it.

This was a while ago, got suspended today though.

Battlefield 3, nniiiceee gaaaame.

Haven't touched the single player yet though as the multiplayer is where it lies. It's nice when they have put Multiplayer and single player on separate discs, how every game on the Xbox should be from now on, to get the most out of both.

I play mostly as Support, and I got Cal to play as support, his reason being that the guns on support have a lot of ammo in a clip so you don't have to reload everytime. Something that should be a reflex *cough cough*, reloading that is *cough cough*.

The mortar took a while to unlock, something I looked forward to, and a little dissapointed at first, but I see now that it's well balanced. You show up on the radar when you use it.

My girlfriend tested Single Player, I didn't watch, think I was in school. She got to the second level and found sniping awesome. My words, she said something along those lines.

Halo CEA on the horizon as well, and the release of Minecraft, then again that's a game I allready own.

Will be nice going through the Halo CE campaign again with achievements, difficult ones I might add, and updated graphics and some new features. Wish I had a 3D TV so I could take part in the real 3D part as well.

Skyrim on the horizon as well, if I buy it, I'll wait for the Game of the Year edition with more content. I just saw the map of Skyrim today and compared to Oblivion it seemed even smaller. We'll see about it. I have games to play for a long time now. Then again, I'm suspended...

Of course, why shouldn't it?

Hacked and lost money because of it and then huge bill on car service, so why shouldn't I start getting matched against suspective people on Reach? (cheating)

Invasion and cross map shooting on phase one with the needle rifle and hitting every shot at max fire rate, plasma nades jumping from the ground to stick people and clear headshots on many many many occasions that didn't kill. Infact, even with multiple people shooting this particular person, him being without shields, no death. Overcharged plasma pistol shots going literally through the banshee.

Halo CEA is comming, battlefield 3. Going to be a good winter.

Insanity

Am I insane? I caught myself playing a kinect game, on workout mode, namely Dance Central. I've played for half an hour and I don't feel like I can stop untill I get five stars on a second song, on hard. Or is that three songs? I think I'll get a shower after this gaming session.

Punished

Why am I the one getting punished for staying in the game? Second game in a row now in which most of my team mates have left, in the first game I was alone against six and they started spawn killing. Because Bungie never implemented the Sudden Death feature that so many wanted I had to leave. In this second game three of mine left, my squad mate being the first, before the game had even started.

I get put with quitters and new players. Why? To even up the trueskill some? That's just ridiculous.

And yet another game in which two of my team left.

*Sigh*

Invasionally

Yesterday when I got home and turned on my 360 I noticed that my nephew was on, and that the new weekly was to complete 9 missions on heroic. I'm talking of course about Reach. So we fired up the campaign and completed every mission from the start. Then we played invasion, and we continued today.

I must say that the Matchmaking system really has something against me. Yesterday when me and my nephew played, we ended up with four leavers, so of course it was we two against the other team of six, spawn killing engaged. Although they were bad at it.

Today the highlight of the day was when I had the Rocket Launcher on The Spire. One of my own decided that it was his weapon and betrayed me for it. At that point I had had it with my somewhat incompetent team and decided myself that if he's going to have it, he have to accept the fact that I'll mess his game up bad.

Drain his shields for any fight, semi destroy his vehicles and the best part, push him of The Spire. Yes, I'll do it because I can. If you grief me I'll most certainly grief you more.

new vs old

DotA started with Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne. The at that time powerful map editor made it possible to create almost anything you wanted so there were over several hundred custom maps, both good and bad. The most popular was DotA. Short for Defence of the Ancients. Two teams, five player each, two CPU players with bases and units. There are three main routes to take, the CPUs use it with their units. The players get one hero and no units, unless summoned. The players then help their CPU player to destory the other CPU. The heros increase in strength as the game progress, if they are fighting. They can buy equipment to help them and find powerups.

This was the Warcraft version. It became so popular that game developers have made their own versions. From a Custom Map in one game, to it's own game(s). Valve, a popular game developer went so far as to hire the person behind DotA to make DotA 2, a retail game. That is how popular it became. A friend of mine told me about another version. Well, it's a little different but it's basicly the same. League of Legends is the latest version of the popular DotA. I tried it.

The game was not as good as the Custom Map, but as I've understood it's fairly new, so it would need some adjustments.

The fun thing was the players, most of them shouting at each other, and me of course. Even those who were last were shouting at those who were better. The gaming Community plus anonymity at it's best.

Too much to ask?

After a small break due to moving I haven't been able to play that much.

However as soon as I get online and start playing Invasion on Reach, I get afkers and quitters. On the other hand, playing with my gf again was fun. Multi Team Elite Slayer and regular Slayer. Even though the regular slayer didn't go that well. We still won the Elite one.

Nostalgia time

Yesterday I bought Boulder Dash XL for the Xbox Live Arcade. I also downloaded a Commodore 64 emulator and the Boulder Dash games for it. Atleast the three first.

I only played the Xbox version for a little while, will continue when I get back to my Xbox. My brother however played it. The Retro Mode that is. It's a 3D version of the classic we all know, and the maps in it are from the originals. From his reactions they may have picked the more frustrating ones.

As for the Arcade Mode, it's the same, with different characters and visual layout. Although some additional blocks like one way doors and some new monsters.

The Retro mode wins though in my opinion, although it may be too easy as Lives have been removed and you get to start from the start as many times as you want. Frustrating? No. Too easy? Yes.

A total remake of the first ones would be awesome. Have to look into it.

First in a long time

After a longer break it was nice to get back to the virtual world, when the real world became dull and boring.

I've played with my nephew and my girlfriend, Reach of course. I don't think that SWAT was a good gametype to start with, but still went rather well though. Today I played a little invasion, Multi Team and some Premium stuff. I even had host once. Felt good and fun.

I'll have to find where to get the Grunt graveyard skull, or whatever it's called for Halo Anniversery as well, then pre-order it. I want it.

Also heard that Battlefield 3 Beta is about to land on Xbox 360 soon, might be worth a shot.

Invasiooon

Started of with invasion today. Would it not have been the invasion type, I would have gotten a perfection, almost a double perfection, if such a medal existed. 28 - 0. Then I of course ended up against some people I've played against before, with no good experience from those matches. I always end up against them, and seem to be the only one capable of somewhat standing my ground. Most of the times it ends up with spawn killing or spawn trapping because frankly, when I end up against them, I get new players or recently new for that matter.

Invasion should as well have a system like Squad Slayer, put larger teams against larger teams. Not a full or half a full team against only randoms. Sure, randoms can fill out empty slots if it's two teams of four or five.

Other than that it went really well.

Also started playing Spell Force. The first one. The incredibly boring start put me back from playing it several times, but now I've gotten somewhere. Although, I must say, the voice acting is, well below B-movie standards. Sounds like the voice actors had a paper infront of them and like they had never seen the line before.

As a matter of fact, now when I think about it, few games actually have good voice acting. For instance, the Halo 2 E3 demo we saw with "gameplay" had really good voice acting. They were really into it. Then when we got to the place where some of the same lines were said, the emotion faceplanted and the mood wasn't there.

AFKing

Been quite a lot of afkers today, on my team.

I don't see the point in AFKing. Join a game, don't sit at the game at all, gain cR. Okay, so far I'm with you. Then, what will you do when you've reached Inheritor and got all that armor?

Apart from the Haunted Helmet every armor piece is unlockable at Mythic. The only way you can even show all your armor is through the "Armor Completion" progress, which is less interesting than what the Beta provided. How many games you had played and won. Rank? Well the only time Rank "matters" is at the lobby when you can see everyone. After that, it's all down to the game. I forget what everyone was two seconds into the match.

The race for Inheritor is long lost by now as well, and from what I've heard, most of those who were among the first got reset due to afking.

So yeah, what are you going to do when you've AFKed those armors and Ranks? Play? Are you not playing now to play later? When Halo 4 is out?

Listen

I see now why most RPGs are easy. The reason to my understanding is none other than my nephew.

Having played Oblivion for most of the day, he's gotten to the end of the Thieves Guild questline. All quests involved stealing things, as high level as his character is and how "unbalanced" that game is when it comes to magic it's no surprise that he got through it in one sitting. Him being invicible and being able to interact with any object without being caught makes the Thieves Guild an easy side line mission.

Then BAM, a series of small challenges appear and immediatley the "near crying whining" begins. When I say small, I mean really small. Explore a ruin for a nearby button, have a bow available and be able to use it.

Oblivion has everything served on a silver plate for the player, but it's obviously not easy enough.

RROD and not RROD

Apparently my xbox has a hard time deciding wether or not it should be dead. A really big thuderstorm passed for quite some time so me, my nephews and the oldest of my newphew's girlfriend decided to play Dungeon and Dragons, the pen and paper version.

This was fun, I even think I got some sort of mood in with a dark forest in the middle of the night and the undead. Then a thunderstorm on the outside, awesome. Then again I can't tell much how it felt for the players since I was the dungeon master.

After the storm had passed we ate and decided to go play some on my Xbox. I wasn't glad to learn that it had RROD on me. After many trials and errors I gave up to boot up my old friend and we watched some TV instead.

Now when we went to bed, I decided to test it once more, and it works? I'm more confused than happy, but really happy. It really was worth trying.

Sudden massive lag peaks???

What happened to my connection?

No hit registration what so ever in SWAT at all.

Swat Magnums on Sword Base: Blood comes out of their heads when I shoot, but I end up dead and they don't? Even stranger was their auto magnums. Twice the RotF of my magnum, yes, there's a limit to how fast it can be fired. The next match was even worse. Then the lag was so bad I got around a corner after one shot to their head before they died. Then again, they did die there. After five minutes the game decided it was time to find a new host. Boy did it work.

Think I'm going to pre-order Battlefield 3 and Halo CE Anniversery tomorrow, if I find the right place. I want the Grunt Funeral skull.

Swat 'n Objective

Firefight, with an Amerian and a Britt (Crossfire and Downfall) does not work well with my connection, at all. Laggy as it can get, without lagging out.

When my girlfriend joined, we jumped to Swat but Crossfire didn't want to join as she's not as hardcore ad my girlfriend. Her own words. If I remember correctly, we won all matches we played, even when we were under by a few points. Then we moved on to Multi Team, because we were three. Three Crazy king matches, and what do you know? Yet more people who really don't have the guts to tread into the hill, unless they are chasing someone or it moves to their location.

Then again, the sad thing was that most of them didn't get as many kills as some of those who went for the hill, even less deaths as well on some points. Care to shed some light upon this matter?

New New New

Today I've tested "Warhammer 40k: Kill Team" and "Dead Rising 2 Case: WEST". Both are arcade games.

Warhammer 40k: Kill Team is some sort of prequel or teaser for the big Space Marine game. I'm not a fan of the "good" races in the Warhammer world but I downloaded the trial to see how it was. To be honest, it wasn't that good, at all. I don't want to play as the self centered, over confident iron blobs that the Space Marines are. They are by far one of the most boring races in any game and somehow they seem to pop up everywhere in every game.

Why not make a game with only the "evil" races? There are plenty of those like the Tyranid, Necrons and Chaos Space Marines.Yes, Chaos Space Marines, they are different than the regular ones, and they are fun. They've got plenty to work with. Then again, Evil vs Evil would have the story end with "Space Marines saving the day" anyway.

The gameplay was more or less a point and shoot, didn't even hold a trigger. A lot like Diablo but without the clicking and less skills. Playing it Co-Op could be fun though.

I have Case 0 for Dead Rising 2, and now Case West, not sure if the game carried over from Case 0 to Case West in terms of level, or if it just started from Level 40. Case West was really fun, but not really as fun as Case 0. The only thing you really were doing was running from place to place getting shot at and killing zombies. Not really much room for exploration or testing out which is what made the previous game so interesting. Overall it was a short game and slightly predictable.

I'm considering ordering Dead Rising 2 at the momentm.

A whole week

During the week I've been playing two games. Namely Magic The Gathering 2012 and Battlefield Bad Company 2.

Both had their ups and downs.

Magic The Gathering is a card game and thus extremely random and "luck" oriented, so why they hold championships in it is beyond me. Sure it's fun and all, but it gets quite frustrating when the game decides to either only give you land, or only high price creatures you can't do anything with because you don't get any land. Then the Ally AI is down the drain as well. There's not a single line of code in them for any self preservation.

If I have four creature cards, I'm at two health and the next attacking monster will kill me, I will sacrifice one of those four cards to block the damage. The AI won't.

In Bad Company 2 I tested Hardcore mode with a friend. It means that you have no HUD and can take less damage, in other words "more realistic". It sure was fun getting spawn killed about 20 times by an Apache and a Hind. That is why I miss a good RTS, you can't get spawn killed. Sure, you can get rushed but if you're good you'll counter it. I should play more Starcraft 2 again.

I should also complete the Vietnam download for Bad Company 2.

Battles and Battles

Battlefield Bad Company 2 came yesterday and what a game it is. The story is nothing to cheer for but multiplayer is a trip worth having.

I went on Bad Company 2 at first but ended up with my girlfriend on Battlefield 1943, which was fun as well. Unlimeted grenades are always fun. It took a while to get used to, and I even got an achievement, only one to go. 100 matches played, might take a while.

Then we played a little Halo, which took a while to get used to since we played a fair amount of Battlefield, and the controller I had didn't really function like another one I have so I had to change. There was a little Swat and a little multi team, and for once, all teams went for the objective in koth.

Then she left me all alone again, so I jumped back onto Bad Company 2 multiplayer. Destroying buildings and sniping snipers with light machine guns is a lot more fun than I imagined it would be. Takes a while to rank up though, one evening and I only got one rank. Then again I unlocked some stuff and it's more fun when there's a challenge. Battlefield 3 is a must.

Long games

No video games for now. Two outdoor games and Risk, yet again.

The first outdoor game was Boule, which I'm fairly sure most are familiar with.

At first we played on a gravel road, but that didn't turn out too well, so we moved to a grass field, which was quite the opposite. The balls bounced a lot and the semi high grass made it hard to actually see the little ball.

My team lost 3 to 10.

The other game, which was a lot better, was Mölkky.

There are twelve pins numbered from one to twelve. They stand in a specific order and then you have to hit them with another pin. You get points in two different ways, if you knock one pin down, you get as many points as that pin's number, if you knock more than one down, you gain points by how many you knocked down. So if you knocked down one pin with a five on it, you get five points. Then if you knock down pin number two, five and eleven you get three points. The goal is to get to exactly fifty and if you get over it, you go back down to 25 points. It's quite a precision game around 38 to 49.

My oldest brother one the first round, me youngest older brother the second round and I won the last round.

The last game played today was Halo Wars Risk. Today we played with achievements, rewards and 2v2v1. It was quite fun, but it got rather late and my youngest nephew doesn't quite have the attention span needed for longer games, unless it's Oblivion in which he can jump on boxes for over an hour. Anyhow, the dices were nicer to me today and I actually started getting somewhere later in the game. Then of course we had to stop, but it was a draw though, both teams and the Flood had one achievement each. Hope to play it more later on.

You're doing it wrong!

Game: Halo: Reach
Playlist: Multi Team
Gametype: Objective ones

While playing with my nephew in multi team I noticed yet again people who didn't know what the objective was in 3 Ball and KotH. No, they were not defending their ball carrier, they were barely near him/her at all while playing oddball. As for KotH, no they weren't defending the Hill, they were running the opposite way or camping around a corner in order to get kills.

"You're doing it wrong!"

Game: Halo Wars Risk
Players: 3
Gametype: Domination

The start looked good, when my first round was over, it didn't anymore. My UNCS opened the round strong by loosing twice three vs one, only proud moment was a 1v1 that I managed to win. Like my brother said, the propability for a lot of those dice numbers were minimal, and yet they kept happening again and again and again. Next round is scheduled for Saturday, 2v2 with Achievements, rewards, bases and heroes. I'm counting on my girlfriend's luck to be a lot better than mine. When I started counting, I lost 32 units while my cousin who attacked me lost 12.

Unfriendlies

Some invasion games today, and I must say, people seem to want to get revange on me a lot. Kill one person, get chased by said person and killed by him/her then rinse and repeat. Then there was this betrayal incident. An Elite with our Core is close to the capture point, this is on Breakpoint, and I have the Rocket Launcher. At this point it's just point and shoot, which I do. I fire two rockets in the back of the Elite. As the Rockets travel towards him/her I see a faint Blue triangle make it's way over the bridge from my left towards the Core carrying elite.

What happens next is something that happens one time of a thousand. To me atleast. My first Rocket hits the floor exactly under the Elite, at this point I see what's going to happen, and it's pretty in a messed up way. My team mate in the warthog didn't get to splatter the Elite, but gets a rocket straight in the Warthog, and it ends in a betrayal. Of course my good and fellow team mate is hammering the x-button like a Hugh Heffner going on coffe and viagra. Within a second I'm booted.

After getting booted I sent him a message asking wether or not he thought about pressing the x button or not. The answer is stunning, "no". Really? The one time the betrayal system works like a charm, it's an accident and the recieving side doesn't think about it for a second. Delightful.

I must admit that at this point I'm seeing a little red so I send him another little more angry letter, something with "rage boot" and what not. The answer is even more frustrating "It's only a game". Yeah, I accidentaly betrayed you and you boot me, but it's only a game. Thank you very much.

I didn't get spawnkilled though so there's a positive, my remaining team mates did though.

Superjackpot?

When I got up today I jumped straight to the xbox and went Live. Opened up the day with a match of Squad Slayer. In my opinion it went well for a first game of the day.

Furthermore I played with my girlfriend and my nephew Anton on Flagstravanagza, a playlist made only for Flag games, obviously. However, they HAD to put a 2 flag slayer game in there. A flag is worth 50 points and a kill is worth one and the goal is 150 points. Went well, we lost though, but the gametype was fun in itself. Also got familiar with some community maps. Affinity being the most confusing and fun map of them all, kudos to the author of it. Wayont was very Warthog friendly once I got hang of the driving again, haven't gotten to drive fast vehicles that much lately.

Then again, no matter how much I played, there were no Superjackpot around for me.

Then we ended today's session with a couple of SWAT matches, I think we won the most of them.

Noticed that Duke Nukem Forever is out as well, read some reviews of it and now I think I'll stay away from it. Doesn't seem to be that much Nukem left in the Duke.

Unpopular balance

Two things.

First, when did it become unsporting to win? I've been in several matches today that ended in a slaughter, sort of, and to my surprise I see that my rep has gone down and that it was put on unsporting. Rage repping more or less.

Second, balance on The Spire, seriously. On Boneyard and Breakpoint the human weapons are locked in, except on Boneyard, however, on The Spire the Banshee and Fuel Rod spawn almost next to a human spawn.
What throws the game off more is the majorly random spawns of the map weapons. There's really no point in standing around and wait for a certain item to spawn at all, since it could spawn in five seconds or in one and a half minute. So, by the time the Elites are either dead on their spawn at the banshee, or got tired of waiting, a Spartan will take the Banshee and another one the Fuel Rod Gun. What's worse is when there are leavers and the spawn remains entirely empty. Of course the Spartans should be given an extra weapon and vehicle then.

Okay, it's only in a few games it happens but it could still be fixed, atleast I think it could.

Banshee behind the Spire and the Fuel Rod behind the big rock that's behind the Banshee spawn. Elites can climb up to the cliff, humans can't.

The more the merrier

I had to play on my own today, and I chose invasion, to get some Magnum kills of course. While playing I noticed that most of the time, I was the "random" in the match, everyone else was in a party of three or more. I even encountered some parties of six players.

 A thing I learned long ago though is that most of the full parties are really not that good anyway. I've played many games where the full party would be run over by us "randoms". Today that was the case, once, the second time wasn't as glorious. I ended up with a party of four new players and one random, who was fairly new. Our opponents were high ranks and very familiar with what works and doesn't on The Spire. So yeah, we didn't even make it up the hill.

Today I also decided that I'll get Battlefield 3 when it's released and I hope to find Lego Pirates as well. As soon as the Halo Anniversery and Halo 4 editions are revealed, I'll pre-order the "most prestigious" edition, as I have all from the previous games. One thing I'm missing though in game content is the Flaming Warthog for Halo Wars and an Armor Piece for Halo Reach which you could only get by pre-ordering from Gamestop, I think it was. So I don't see a reason to stop collecting them now.

Objectives?

Last games player were Crazy King and 3 Ball on Multi Team.

Out of both games there were one team which wasn't going for the objective at all, but killed as much as they could instead. I know that some people don't like some gamemodes, I don't like them all, but that doesn't mean that I sit in a corner with a power weapon to shoot everything that comes in my path.

The really sad thing was that in Crazy King, me and Cal had more kills than the team going for kills. The same thing in 3 Ball, and we were going for the objective all the time.

I guess the incentive to win isn't that great, untill 343 which is taking over Halo does a dramatic change to the cR payout. If they will.

Challenges

Finally a challenge that isn't about grinding the Campaign. 1000 Matchmaking kills, and now when I ended todays gaming session, I was at 349, doing good.

Also seems like I'm more popular than ever, I'm now at 35% Prefeered and 65% didn't. A few days ago it was at 32% so I've had quite a lot of people liking me all of a sudden, I've counted as good as I could roughly how many has reviewed me, and it's close to 200 I think, it's based on how the percentages changed, can't get an exact figure.

Today's "meal" was a slice of Invasion, toppled with Multi Team and Swat, then a little Griffball on the side and for desert I had more Multi Team, with Cal and my girlfriend.

The E3 started today and so far I've seen a few game trailers, Darksiders 2 and Prototype 2, both looked fabulous, maybe worth getting. Then again, I'd need the first installments. Prototype is a hard game to find, I've only been looking through stores though, not online stores. Then Lego Pirates was recently released, most likely one worth getting.

Bet they save the best bits of the future gaming to the last days of E3, such as a potential Halo CE remake and the rumored announcment of the next gen Xbox.

Stats?

Been quite some time now and halocharts still hasn't started the country leaderboard for weapons and medals. I think I'm getting close to the top with Magnum kills in Finland on Invasion, but no, I'm stuck really close to 700.

Oh, every match I played had quitters in them. Some Invasion matches in which either my team had a quitter or several, or the other way around. Squad Slayer was no different.

Another problem of mine was that I had gotten used to my girlfriends third party controller, which behaved quite differently from the original ones, a smaller screen and furhter from the TV as well. Wonder what a good HD projector would cost. Want one for my game setup.

Ah yes, last thursday I had a go on Halo Wars Risk with my cousins. I can safely say that the chances of some stuff that happened in that game were on par with a better lottery win. An example would be the "Super Marine" that incinirated seven troops of Covenant, then three or four Flood Troops.

The oldest cousin won, but there will be a rematch once I get my girlfriend in the game (yes she plays that too).

It takes two to Co-op

The Simpsons family, what a wonderful and yellow family.

Me and my girlfriend played their latest game (yes, they've had other games before the game that came out after the movie), a game unlike most other games, or, like other games. It parodies mostly everything it can find in other games, and puts a twist to it as well.

Is it sad that I know basicly all the references and names of the games that they make fun of? I don't get mad at it though, it's harmless fun.

We continued our adventure in the "Neverquest" episode, an episode that makes fun of everything RPG and Fantasy. As well as has a section that functions like the old game "Gauntlet", though your health doesn't degenerate.

Playing a game Co-Op makes the game so much better, if the mechanics are right that is. The Simpsons game, as well as Lego Batman has that little flaw that the second player doesn't get achievements, what's up with that? I work as hard as anyone else.

Racing and Shooting

My girlfriend told me about "Harm's Way" which is a free arcade game for Xbox Live.

I tried it out just recently, only single player as of yet. You either drive or shoot. So I tried the Single Player mode, couldn't really do much there other than drive or shoot. If you raced you had no turret to upgrade, if you shot you had no car to upgrade you. So it was kind of limited.

Tried to join a few multiplayer games, but people left after three seconds because the game didn't start when they joined. Then I also think that my current connection might not be the best for a game like that.

Looking forward to testing it out properly.

Laughing stock

Returned to an old favourite today with my girlfriend and Cal. He's a person I've been playing with for a long time. Anyway, we played Uno for a bit and my gf got her last achievement for it, 40 wins.

After having played Uno Cal downloaded Dorito's Crash Course, and anyone who isn't familiar with that game only needs to know that it's kind of like Whipeout.

Anyhow, being the little foul mouth that Cal is, listening to him go through the maps was a joy. He chickened out a few times as well. It's been a time since I played it myself, but I remembered most of the maps, they're kind of tricky and the timing needs to be near perfect. My previous times got beaten as well, not by Cal though, but by me.

Cal did good on his first go on the game though, I'm really impressed. Need to get Marie into the game as well.

Silver

This weekend I finally got my division in The Arena. At first it said Bronze, but the next time I logged on it said Silver, I'm not one to complain but really? I thought I did good with how I did, ah well, have to improve apparently.

I also downloaded a bunch of games for my N8. Among them was a proper version of Tetris. No "button" to push or anything. Tap on the screen to flip, drag down to increase speed and go left or right to, well go left and right. Then there was an RTS where you mainly built buildings and hired heroes, the heroes wandered around like they wanted but you could assign different points of interests with a price for the first one to get there. You built buildings as well.

Ah yes, my girlfriend amazed me once again, I never thought I'd see her play SWAT but she thought it was fun. I didn't think that'd happen. What's next? RTS? RPG? D&D? Maybe Team Sniper?

A snowy place

Today I also thought I'd continue with Section 8: Predjudice. Some achievements undone that I started working towards getting. I gave up after a match though. Got into a game that was halfway through and my aim was off, I forgot the map layout and it didn't do any good that I got surrounded all the time.

I'm more curious what the last playmode that you can't play is going to be, hope something worthwhile. Not campaign Co-op becuase the campaign in itself was kind of weak.

Of course I had to play Reach too with my girlfriend. We played a little Arena, which I find a lot more entertaining now when I have someone to actually play with, as well as having community maps. Daily rating today was close to 1600, I hope that's a good rating.

We ended today's session with a few living dead matches. That playlist do need more community maps, wait, only community maps. The maps used now have way to many hard to reach places for zombies. Where's the fun in that? Living Dead was fun when it was new and nobody knew how to get there, but now when most people know where to go it gets boring, and fast.

Nostalgia

There are two great moments when it comes to gaming. Playing a brand new game, and replaying an old favourite  after a couple of years.

I've not really gotten any new games, but I have Duke Nukem 3D for the Xbox Arcade. It's a different kind on Xbox, but the feeling is the same. It's like I was 10 again and just discovering the amazing stuff a game could offer.

The game is fun but gets kind of repetitive after a while. Map design is as games today should be, room to explore, go back to some places and unlock new areas there, fetch keys and so on. The downside is that split screen is not available. Would be fun to play it with others.

Oddities

The odd thing about some of my previous games on Reach is that some of the hardest medals to earn, I've gotten in a few games of Arena. I got a rampage and a perfection in game on Reflection, then today I managed to get an overkill and extermination as a bonus.

I have a couple of Perfections but they are in BTB, and no extermination at all, untill now. I thought I'd get it in Griffball or something.

Arena was somewhat fun, like regular slayer but with less weaponry and armor abilites, I'll have to get a divison to see where I place.

Really?

Another good evening with my better half in a couple of Squad Slayer matches.

The only really memorable thing for the whole evening was one player who teabagged me. Okay, teabagging isn't that much of a deal and it happens to me occasionally. What raises an eyebrow though is that the during the first time they were two against me and I even got one of them, then due to my prehistoric broadband connection, I didn't get a kill I should have gotten.

The other time they got the jump on me and they were three, I died in half a second and didn't even see them.

So yeah, I guess that after getting jumped by half their team, who even spawned behind me, I deserve a teabag.

Such a harsch world we live in.

Long time no play

Due to "real life" I've been kind of unable to play, or otherwise update.

Here goes though.

During study breaks I've been working on my Minecraft island, once again I find myself digging down and making more glass, soon I've emptied another beach of sand. Wish I could find a dessert.

In Halo: Reach I just ranked up to Field Marshall, feels nice.

Matchwise I feel like it went OK, sometimes really great but mostly OK. Got to check out some of the new maps in BTB as well as "Uncaged".

My gf willingly played BTB, but only to get the Super Jackpot that's been introduced to certain playlists. Awesome, she is that is.

Short and not so sweet

At work today I played a game called "dog", it's a fairly simple card game. Hadn't played it in years, but after watching one round, I remembered how to play, and I got second.


Reach on the other hand wasn't that good to me. Three rounds of firefight limited on Waterfront, my least favourite FF map. Didn't get better when we had two semi-AFKers as well.

Tried out Squad Slayer as well, one match. Of course someone thought it was boring after 30 seconds and three deaths, the result was that my team went from five players to three, against five. We did well though, not a win but not spawnkilled or otherwise either. Hope tomorrow is a better day.

"Realistic"

The word "realistic" is thrown around on some games like phrases such as "freshly pressed" on juice boxes. The fruits may be pressed when they were harvested, but the juice frozen, so nowadays if you want something that was pressed recently, you need to look for other things like "newly pressed".

The word "realistic" seem to fall in the same category as "freshly pressed".

Pinball FX 2 gloats with "realistic" physics and so on.

The physics in that game is faaaaar from realistic. Unless of course the table on which you play is close to being upright.

The ball looses it momentum too fast, can bounce back when hitting a wall in such an angle that it would continue along the wall, I've even sometimes encountered parts where it goes through the flippers. The best part of the game is how the ramps have to be hit at an exact angle, but the side holes? They seem to be magnetic. The ball can be in motion for a minute without touching the flippers, then it decides to graciously glide into either left or right side, whitout you being able to do anything.

Unless of course real pinball tables have changed. That's something I have to investigate.

Aaah, Fresh meat

From where does all the new players coming? Reach is suddenly full of new people, kind of feels like playing it when it was new. I'm not complaining though.

Lazy day

Yesterday I did play, but the circumstances kind of prevented me from blogging.

So I do it today instead.

Yesterday I started of working on my little island in Minecraft. Going back and forth to hell to get lava in all my little buckets. I did the same today, it's a chore, but it's fun.

I also did the four challenges yesterday in Halo: Reach, maybe I'll do them today when I get to my TV, it's a little less broken and a little bigger, atleast screen wise.

Then me and my girlfriend played Scene It: Box office Smash with her brother. It was fun, and I did get called a movie nerd more than three times, thank you. Yes, I won all four matches.

I continued and added to my winning streak this morning with three more wins. The first round looked a little bad, but I gathered myself and took the lead the second round, kept it in the third round and won the final cut. Then there were no more problems in the other two matches.

During the royal wedding, I played Minecraft in between looking at it.

Have to see what games to play later on today, feels a lot like Halo: Reach on pre-broadband speeds. yayyy.

Fresh air

Started of the day with no internet at all, for that I have Minecraft. I have a small island with a large tower and a hole almost down to the bedrock. This morning I was working on making more glas and putting lava on the island to light it up. Went really well, didn't fall into any lava at all.

Real life called and needed me for a while so the next thing gaming wise was a trip down to the nearest Disc Golf coarse to play with a couple of friends and my girlfriend. First time for both me and my better half. I liked it, my shoulder didn't, I also stopped counting how many throws I had to do after the first basket. In other words, didn't go that well. I however didn't have to change pants halfway through. No, nobody did number one or two in their pants. One of the discs ended up in a waterfilled ditch and the thrower thought she could jump to the other side. *cough* girlfriend *cough*

PS: She says that she wasn't far from the other side. Just half her left leg disagrees.

The three others hadn't seen my girlfriends apartment so they decided to come over, and we ended up playing Dance Central and Kinect Adventures, both games for Kinect. Was my first time on Dance Central, and I can honestly say that I did good on the second song. The first one was a mess. I think I can continue dancing and perhaps get as many achievements as I can. The apartment barely has any room for Kinect so I hope we can arrange the new one with Kinect in mind. That's for later though.

I've played Kinect Adventures before, but it's still as fun as I remember. Just wish that the fish in the sea would stop making holes in the glass wall and floor, especially where the couch is. My foot doesn't fit under it.

Dumbing down, smarting up

What happened to game developers? I happily opened up an article from IGN with fantastic news about Skyrim, Turned out to be not so fantastic.

Athletics and Acrobatics skills removed and replaced with a sprint button, the eight character attributes replaced with "Health, Magicka and Stamina". The reasons being that you don't run around like and idiot trying to raise your skills and that the eight attributes still only raised the points of health, magicka and stamina. Really?

Strength let you carry more, Willpower increased Magicka recovery, there was even Luck.

At Elder Scrolls 8 they will have removed the skills and replaced them with runes or something similair that you have in your armor that you can't change. You upgrade these runes with gold.

At Elder Scrolls 9 it'll be a pure FPS being called RPG because you can change the color of your armor.

"Streamline" away, every game will start looking and behaving the same, atleast the "mainstream" games.

I bet that the Indie industry is the future of gaming lies.

After math

I started of todays gaming watching my girlfriend play Uno again, the rounds were standard at the most. The people however were "amazing". During the time I was playing "Real Life" she got two friend requests and a couple of messages, then she got another friend request and two messages when I watched her play. How did Uno become the dating service of Xbox Live? No wonder XBL moderators are in there from time to time.

Then we continued with Halo: Reach, a couple of Firefight matches to get the Challenges we didn't do yesterday, didn't have time for more than one though. It switched just in time for us to get one. Mostly Fuel Rod Gun Fight with needlers. I even got the Assist commendation in Firefight thanks to a Nade Fight. Then there was that obligatory Rocket Fight, it's been there since the beginning and people still want to play it? It's kind of dull.

Most important impression

I never thought I'd read a blog, ever, even less start one. Must be my girlfriend's blog reading that got me interested in starting one.

On here I'll write about what I play, how it went, who I play with and so on. Hopefully I'll have the motivation to take screenshots and post them, maybe some videos if I can.

So how did gaming go today?

I started of watching my girlfriend play Uno on Xbox Live, what a mess it was to even get it started, download it again, update it twice and then finally sign in to play. The people she played with? Didn't take long before she encountered some people who "would punch her" as they said, for what? She used a "draw four" card and you'd  punch her? Hiding behind a screen on the internet sure is a good thing, right? Oh, the best part about it was probably that it was infront of someone I think is a Xbox Live moderator. Don't think that it matters that much though. Didn't stay though, lunch was ready.

Next up was Halo: Reach, a favourite of mine. This weekly challenge was a walk in the park, or on a spaceship. Complete four sets on any firefight map Co-Op on Heroic or harder. Not so hard when you can be invinsible, have unlimited ammo, unlimited usage of armor abilites and doesn't have to reload. Then again I'm a little dissapointed that it worked that way. It's a challenge, not supposed to be easy, better yet, it's a weekly, not supposed to take 30 minutes and be easy.

That's it for today, there's a day tomorrow as well.