Halo, Then & Now

With the release of the Halo Master Chief collection I thought I would look back and reference a few things of note that happened around each games release. For those that don't know Halo: Combat Evolved was a launch title on Microsoft's first ever console, the original black beast, the Xbox. That was 13 years ago! So let's look back.

Halo: Combat Evolved. Release date; November 15th, 2001, Platform; Xbox

Movies; November 16th, the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, is released, grossing US $975.8 million in first week, becoming the second highest grossing film around the world, behind Titanic.

Music; November 10th, Jennifer Lopez, "I'm Real" is the number 1 song on AT40

Television; November 6th, Twentieth Century Fox's anti-terrorist drama action show 24 (TV series) premieres.

Death; November 29th, George Harrison of the Beatles dies at the age of 58 from lung cancer in Hollywood, California.

Halo 2. Release date; November 9th, 2004, Platform; Xbox

Movies; November 5th, The Incredibles hits theaters grossing $261,441,092

Music; November 13th, Nelly f/ Tim McGraw, "Over And Over" is the number 1 song on AT40

Television; November 1st, The Young and the Restless broadcasts its 8,000th episode.

Death; Rapper Russel Jones (a.k.a. Ol' Dirty Bastard) dies of a drug overdose in a recording studio in New York City.


Halo 3. Release date; September 25th, 2007, Platform; Xbox 360

Movies; November 21st, Resident Evil: Extinction hits theaters, grossing $50,648,679

Music; November 22nd Timbaland f/ Keri Hilson, "The Way I Are" is the number 1 song on AT40 for it's second week.

Television; November 24th, The Big Bang Theory premieres on CBS.

Death; November 29th, Lois Maxwell, 80, Canadian actress, first Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond film series, Golden Globe winner, cancer.



Halo 4. Release date; November 6th, 2012, Platform; Xbox 360

Movies; November 2nd, Wreck-It Ralph hits theaters, grossing $189,412,677

Music; November 3rd, Maroon 5, "One More Night" is the number 1 song on AT40 for it's third week.

Television; November 20th, Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash resigns from Sesame Street amid allegations of sexually abusing underage boys.

Death; November 6th, Panbanisha, 26, American bonobo involved in language studies (Great Ape Trust), common cold

Halo MCC. Release date; November 11th, 2014, Platform; Xbox ONE

Movies; November 5th, Interstellar hits theaters, grossing (five day launch) $49.7 million

Music; November 8th, Iggy Azalea f/ Rita Ora, "Black Widow" is the number 1 song on AT40

Television; I got nothing interesting....

Death; November 11th, Carol Ann Susi, Howard's mom, from the Big Bang Theory dies at 62 to cancer

Xbox One Themes

Xbox One's November update will bring in a gang of new features. You can find that list everywhere, including

Major Nelson's blog

. This post is not about all that, this post is about one part of that. Something Xbox One owners have been asking for the whole time.

Custom backgrounds.

This update will allow you to take the beautiful images from unlocked achievements and allow you to set them as your background. However this is still not what this post is about. THIS post is about custom backgrounds, or Themes, as they are referred to. You may have heard this term in regards to Android devices. A theme is more than just a background or wallpaper that you would apply to say a desktop or an iPhone. A theme suits and works with the UI of the device in question.

Shown below is a Forza Horizon achievement set as the wallpaper. The reason this is a little lackluster is because it is an image where the focal point is the center of the image. Which when applied to say a desktop screen, where you can adjust your icons, is great, you get a clean center focal point. However it doesn't work so well once the Xbox One tiles are present.

This is where "Themes" come in. As mentioned a theme will work with the interface. Major Nelson posted a .psd template that has the tiles present, which you can find

here

. (Note that the template does not have the time/battery shown in the bottom right corner) Now themes do require a bit of work. You will need some form of Photoshop/GIMP skills. Even with a minimal amount of skill you can produce a great theme.

Below are a few of my initial attempts. The idea is to use the "available" space, the top and bottom slices of free space. Lots of people also add to the Pins/Home/Friends/Store to highlight them as well as the Clock/Battery. I have started a

Xbox One Theme

album on imgur, and I'll be sure to update it as I get more done. (Already have a few requests from Reddit)

Quest for the Golden Gamerscore: The Race to 60k

After 7 glorious years of Xbox LIVE I have accumulated a Gamerscore of 29,988.

For the sake of this post let's round that up to 30,000.

This full calendar year I will try to double that score and bring it up to a cool 60k.

That works out to be 2500/month or about 82/day. So that works out to be about 3 games a month.

I will update the blog periodically to track my progress on what I'm playing and how much I scored from each game.

Current Gamerscore: 43,958
(to go 16,042)

GAME             GAMERSCORE RECEIVED                             ACHIEVEMENTS

JANUARY

Hitman: Absolution                290      (1000/1000)                                     
Halo 4                                    50
NBA Live '07                       650
Pirates of the Caribbean:
       At World's End            1000      (1000/1000)
LEGO Batman                    1000      (1000/1000)
LEGO Lord of the Rings       565


January review.

• I found out that sports games are a lot harder if you don't know the rules to the actual sport.
• The LEGO series games are fantastic. They are great at bringing the selected universe to life and manage to throw in a good amount of humor. If you love LEGO or any of the franchises that they have adapted you should give them a try.

Completed games, (January) = 3
Points earned, (January) = 3555 (+1055)

FEBRUARY

LEGO Lord of the Rings       435      (1000/1000)
Battlefield 3                          150
Ghost Recon A.W. 2            270


February review.

• I dove back into Battlefield 3 this month, after a 3 month break, hence such the low scores. I did manage to grab a few achievements from BF3 from the new expansion

Completed games, (February) = 1
Points earned, (February) = 855 (-590)

MARCH

Ghost Recon A.W. 2            230
Gears of War: Judgement      310
Bully: Scholarship Edition      380

March review.

• I picked up GoW:J so that net me a handful of points for this month, and I will continue to play that for a while. If there is any universe I am totally engrossed in it is that of Gears.
• I have fallen a bit behind these last few months (I am 590 points behind schedule). I have been preoccupied with real life stuff. Hopefully now I will be able to get back into a groove. Might have to go pick up some more LEGO games to buff up the score a bit.
• Went back and played Bully, an old Rockstar game. It's pretty much GTA set in a private school. Good "clean" fun.

Completed games, (March) = 0
Points earned, (March) = 920 (-2170)

APRIL

Bully: Scholarship Edition      620      (1000/1000)
Gears of War: Judgement        30
Battlefield 3                            70

April review.

• Finished off Bully and went back into Battlefield to play the new expansion. I got stuck there for a while until a friend came over and we played some Gears multiplayer. I had blasted through the Gears campaign and never really gave the MP a chance. Now I am in the process of playing through the campaign on insane difficulty and finding the collectibles before focusing on the MP achievements.

Completed games, (April) = 1
Points earned, (April) = 720 (-3950)

MAY

Jumper: Griffon's Story         750
Prince of Persia
         The Forgotten Sands   920
Gears of War: Judgement       10
X-Men Origins: Wolverine   550

May review.

• I picked up Jumper, based off Jumper the movie, from Future Shop for a mere $5, it was on clearance, and after playing for an hour or so I see why. Shoddy controls, obscure camera angles, lackluster environments, repetitive game play. Why play it then? Well in the hour+ I played I managed to net 400 GS. A few weeks ago we had a discussion at work about super powers, when the idea of having the power to teleport came up the next question was do you teleport like Nightcrawler or like Jumper?
• Blew through PoP, fairly easy, only missed 3 achievements, I couldn't be bothered to replay the whole game for 80 points.
• Picked up another 10 from Gears when I had a friend over playing.
• Working on Wolverine currently, it is actually a pretty decent game, considering cross overs don't do to well, I think the game is better than the movie actually.

Completed games, (May) = 0
Points earned, (May) =  2230 (-4220)

JUNE

X-Men Origins: Wolverine   450      (1000/1000)
Bastion                                200        (200/200)
King Kong                        1000      (1000/1000)
TMNT                              1000      (1000/1000)
State of Decay                    390
Deadpool                            150

June Review

• This happened to be a fairly productive month, managing to get through almost 4 complete games. 
• I finished mopping up the remaining achievements from Wolverine. It is basically a playable version of the movie, and it's actually a pretty good movie adaptation.
• Bastion is a great arcade title. Story and music were fantastic. If you haven't checked out this critically acclaimed little indie game you need to!
• TMNT was fun, not much more than that. It too was basically like playing the movie.
• State of Decay just needs one more, which will require starting a new game. It is a wicked single player zombie game, totally worth checking out. Upgrading bases, scavenging for supplies, multiple zombie types. A really fun XBLA game. They are also in the process of turning it into a multiplayer/MMO game.
• Deadpool is in the process, super fun and hilarious game, also worth checking out. If you love Deadpool this then you need to play this. Cameos from other Marvel characters, some crazy game mechanics that really make sense, all in all a great game for a simple beat-em-up style game.

Completed games, (June) = 4
Points earned, (June) =  3190 (-3530)

JULY

Deadpool                             670
Walking Dead: 400 Days      100        (600/600)
Batman: Arkham Asylum      185
XCOM: Enemy Unknown    200

July Review

• I finished off Deadpool and tried to do some clean up but it didn't go so well. 
• I had started Batman on hard and started having trouble...that seems to be the end of that game.
• I finally picked up XCOM and was well worth it.

Completed games, (July) = 1
Points earned, (July) =  1155

AUGUST

XCOM: Enemy Unknown    245
GTA IV Expansions               10
Dead Rising 2                       120

August Review

• I finished the XCOM campaign but couldn't be bothered to do the clean up and replays for full points 
• I had picked up the GTA IV expansions in hopes of finishing them before GTA V dropped...no such luck.
• Dead Rising 2 was free for Gold members so I picked that up. I had played the first one and the pre DLC for 2 so I figured why not. Who doesn't love some good zombie killing. 

Completed games, (August) = 0
Points earned, (August) =  375

SEPTEMBER

Dead Rising 2                       220
GTA V                                 445

September Review

• Tried to do as much as I could in Dead Rising before GTA V dropped mid month
• GTA V GTA V GTA V GTA V
• I managed to finish the campaign in roughly 40 hours, as well as almost finish off all the single player achievements just in Sept. I think I had 2 or 3 single player achievements in Oct.

Completed games, (September) = 0
Points earned, (September) =  665

OCTOBER

GTA V                                 305

October Review

• GTA V GTA V GTA V GTA V

Completed games, (October) = 0
Points earned, (October) =  305

Xbox wants to take over your living room!

Xbox's 5 year plan is to take over your living room, and I couldn't be a more excited fan boy!

The Xbox 360 is Microsoft's biggest cash cow right now, and has been for the last few years, so you can guarantee that they will continue to innovate it and bring as much as possible to your living room in the future. Xbox doesn't just want to be the little black box in your living room that you play games on and watch the occasional movie, it wants to be the only black box in your living room. Providing gaming, movie experience, tv station subscriptions, social media, connection to friends and family and more.

If you are thinking of getting a video game system then Xbox is the clear choice. Within the next 5 years it will blow the other 2 systems out of the water by transforming from a video game system to an entire home entertainment system.

The current gen console, 360, is already on its way to take over your living room. Aside from the games, there is more to the Xbox than the average consumer might realize...

For a while now Xbox has had a Facebook and Twitter app. While these apps are good for a quick update they have plenty of room for refinement. I would like to see these 2 apps expanded. As of right now the smartphone apps are a much better quality. None the less, they are there.

With all the streaming video and music apps such as Netflix, Zune and Hulu(+) there are plenty of places to find movies, TV shows, and music videos to watch, all at the push of a button or the swipe of your hand with the Kinect.

With Kinect you can video chat with family and friends around the world. Assuming they have an Xbox LIVE account and a Kinect.

Recently, with the latest dashboard update, Xbox has introduced additional apps and channels. There is the YouTube app, allowing you to sign into your account and catch up on your subscription updates right there, or browse any other video YouTube has to offer. TMZ has its own app, ESPN. The UFC channel had it's first run this past week, with poor results, however it is there and I can promise you the next one will not fail.
That's not to mention all the other companies they are looking into, such as HBOgo, allowing you to watch any HBO show ever right on your Xbox.

The latest news, which inspired me to write this was this article, found Here explains how the next gen Xbox could potentially house a DVR, allowing you to record anything, TV or movies from your cable provider, similar to any PVR proivided by your cable company, even while you play a game, are watching something different, or even if the system is off. However the main thing I am excited about is the ability to record video game content

There has never been a better time to be a gamer, and now there has never been a better time to live with a gamer.

How to protect the ones you love...

Along with the ESRB all 3 systems have some level of parental controls that are accessible through the systems main menus. These can help you manage what content is accessible on the system and allow you to put in some form of password to protect it. I will give a brief explanation on the Nintendo and Playstation controls, along with a link to all 3's web site's parental control pages. I will go into more depth with the Xbox's as that is not only my personal system, but also because I think it is the better of the three for control.

Nintendo allows you to set a limit on the rating content, such as movies, both disc and Netflix, games, what channels they have access to and whether they are allowed to spend points. Click for their How To

Playstation allows you to limit the content, movies, music, games, and online access. However it is my understanding that it is more awkward and less intuitive than the other systems. Click for their How To

Xbox, being that it has the most varied and largest demographic, it is the top selling console going on 2 or 3 years, has the greatest amount of control. Allowing you to set limits not only on content; games, movie, music, but also chat. This includes all types of chat; text, voice and video with the Kinect. Also, if you have multiple accounts on the system you are able to set locks on those. This means you can set up your child's account to limit who they are playing with, talking with and also how much access they have to other players profiles. But at the same time leaving your profile open, all you have to do is lock you profile.

One of the main issues with children is the amount they play. Xbox handles this by allowing you to set play time limits, either daily or weekly limits. It allows you to set a predetermined amount of time, once that time is reached the system will shut down until the next day or week, depending on what you have set. The remaining time is displayed when the center button is pushed. If used properly, and you and your child discuss this system and show them where they can see their remaining time you have a great opportunity to teach them valuable time management skills. If they use all their time for the week in the first 2 days then they have to deal with the consequences.

They other point I mentioned was what they have access to. Xbox's online community has 4 preset "zones". These zones help players find similar types of people to play with. Recreation is all about having fun, Pro is for those who play to win, Family is safe and fun for the everyone, and Underground (my zone) is not for the faint of heart, trash talking and tea bagging can be found here. This is a good start to protect your child. You can also limit who they can play, chat and view profiles of. Whether that be friend only, everyone or blocked.

This is but a fraction of the level of control you can set for your child. Click for their How To

With this and the previous post you can see that the level of protection you can set for your children is a lot higher than most non gamers would think. The gaming industry can only do so much to protect their players, it is up to you, the parents, to use the given tools to your advantage. Be educated about what your child is doing. Next time someone says something about your child's gaming be sure to pass on this information, no child should miss out on this world wide form of entertainment because of ignorant parents.

Thanks,

Steve, the Lazy Gamer