BETA BETA BETA!!!

Two games in and I'm in love...

Enjoy, my friend. Nothing like a much anticipated game that lives up to the hype. Glad its a good one.

Grenades are awesome right now...they have a pretty good blast radius and are a good way at getting multi kills...

The Stalker loadout is sick...when you cloak, the motion tracker gets jammed for both your enemies and you, meaning while you might have the element of surprise, you better know where they are coming from. I also like how everything gets quiet when you are cloaked...good way to balance the ability.

The sword is as deadly as ever...when coupled with the Stalker loadout, it's damn near unstoppable...

The Needle Rifle is satisfying beyond belief...take down their shields with a few shots, and then aim for the head for an instant kill...especially great to hear the cracking of the needle as they drop with a giant pink crystal lodged in their skull...

DMR is as advertised...single shots timed properly can quickly take down an enemy at range...spam the fucker though and you are just wasting ammo.

My only complaint is that they got rid of the Grunt emblem... ...hopefully it comes back for the full game...

what is the Grunt emblem?

or

You create an emblem using a combination of various icons and backgrounds...one of my faves was the grunt head...

Fucking server issues...

Oh well...it could be worse...it's not like I've been booted with a few seconds left in the game...

Since I haven't gotten rid of ODST yet, I guess I'll check this beta out tonight...

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Expect to get an invite tonight...

He won't show up

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You never miss your wealth, till your well went dry
Seem like only yesterday, you were here smiling
Now you gone away, but I know you in a better place
No traces of you, what can I do?
Alone and confused

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So a few more thoughts...

Assassinations are a welcome addition...no longer does a quick little tap to the back instantly kill someone...no, if you want to guarantee a takedown, you have to hold down melee and then you begin an assassination...but you are vunerable during this time...a nice tradeoff...

As much as I love the combination of the Energy Sword and the Cloak ability, I think I like the Gravity Hammer and the Sprint ability even more...if you have a full shield, you can pretty much get anyone within 15 feet with the hammer...deadly.

I really don't like the Armor Lock ability...at least with the bubble shield you could run in after the guy...with this, all you can do is sit there and wait for him to stand out of it...if this got scrapped for the final game, I wouldn't miss it one bit.

Servers are still acting up...stats don't seem to be tracked...after I finished the last game, I lost credits...hopefully it shapes up by tonight...

Some final thoughts before I head to bed for the night...

Stockpile is great...lots of strategy involved...do you try to get the flags in the middle back to your base, or do you try to go after the flags your enemy has gathered in theirs? Also, any game that puts multiple flags on the map for me to pike people with is gold in my book.

Airborne assassinations...yeah, these are awesome...had a guy jump by me with his jetpack and I grabbed him and threw him to the ground...great stuff.

I still hate SWAT...but then again I suck at headshots, so that makes sense.

Finally, I went over to the forums on Bungie.net...lots of butthurt people over there bitching about how "this game isn't Halo" and how Bungie has completely ruined the game. I even saw one kid threaten to sell his Xbox if they don't make this game more like the last ones.

Sure, there is some new stuff that I don't like, but there's a ton more new stuff that I think is great. If people want a game like Halo 3 or Halo CE, go play those games.

Now to get four hours of sleep and do it all over again...

That's the best news I've heard!

Pretty fun once I was finally able to download the thing. It will probably take me a week or so to become somewhat competent, however. Lots of deaths...

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Yeah, but lots of assists and you got a winning record...

Sorry I didn't get joined up with you last night...I kept checking and everytime I did it said you were in the ODST main menu (assuming you were downloading it still)...

Had to download the shit like three times. The last time took about 2 hours. Crazy...

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Yeah...I think I beat the mad rush to download it yesterday...only took about 15 minutes for me...

Random shit from yesterday's games...





That third one is my fave...looks like the grenade killed him, but I actually shot him right after I threw the grenade, thus why he is ragdolled when the grenade is so far away...

First one looks like some new enhanced tea-bagging.

The game looks pretty, but is the gameplay (aiming, etc) similar to Halo3?

Yeah, that's what I thought too...that's actually one of the assassinations...that's the one you execute when you are above the enemy...

...and yes, for all the complaining kids on the internet are doing, this game still feels very much like Halo...the shooting, the running and jumping, it's all still there...

...so yeah, you probably won't like this game, Mud.

Invasion will go live tomorrow...looking forward to finally getting to play around in the vehicles and be an Elite on a more frequent basis.

Invasion is the goods...three waves of gameplay, with the loadouts and vehicle options getting better as the game progresses...

Also, they have changed the way damage for a vehicle is calculated...before, the vehicles "life" would recharge with your shield...however, now it's tracked seperately...had my tank stuck twice right away and lived...later on it was stuck a third time, well after I had regenerated my shields and the tank blew instantly...good stuff.

Also, Spartan vs. Elite assassinations are sweet...

Yay. Another mode for me to suck at...

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Yeah, I'm really digging Invasion...just finished a match with an epic defense of the data core right at the base of the staircase to the Phantom...managed to get a Killtacular with the Scorpion...

I like the tweaks that have been made to the vehicles...seems like it takes longer to get out of the tank, so if you manage to board it, you will kill the driver most likely...also, the turret on the Warthog overheats...finally, no more infinite bullet hose...you actually have to manage your fire...

It gets pretty insane at the final stage of the game...Elites can spawn with Swords, Spartans can spawn with grenade launchers, and each has a class with three grenades at their disposal...also, at this point you get the full complement of vehicles...Warthogs, Scorpions, Ghosts, Banshees and Wraiths...

I just can't get the hang of this game for some reason. Been away from a Halo game too long, I guess. Had to go back to MW2 the other night just so I could kill people again and feel good aboput myself...

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I know what you mean...even thought it's my favorite shooter to play online, it's probably the one that I suck at the most...

Network Test 1/Generator Defense is live...

...and it's not very good.

Some interesting things about the new playlist...speculation is that this is testing the code that will be used for cooperative...which makes me wonder if they have six player coop in store for the retail release.

Also, I just discovered you can splatter enemies with exploding generators...