Xbox 360

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

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


E3 Microsoft Media Briefing highlights

This morning E3 kicked off and to start the press briefing first is Microsoft, my favorite. Below I will go over some of the highlights with links to for your viewing pleasure.

Enjoy.



All links are from this video, if you want to watch it in it's entirety, 1:48:12.
If not continue on for quick links to specific times in the video.

Before the briefing started there was a pre show with Xbox LIVE's Major Nelson in which, among other things, they talk to one of guys from 343 Industries about Halo 4, that is here.

To start the briefing off strong it opens with Halo's trade mark live action trailer.

Which flows seamlessly into game play footage.

Up next is game play for the new Splinter Cell game, Blacklist.

The stream cut out during the FIFA 13 demo, so I found it here. Looks awesome with the Kinect voice integration. Might be the first soccer game I play since Supper Soccer!

A Madden demo is after the FIFA one, but that isn't a highlight to me. But check it out if you enjoy your Madden.

A new Fable game is shown next, The Journey, is totally Kinect controlled by the looks of it.

I didn't even know this next one was coming, one of the reasons I love E3 is some stuff is kept so tight lipped that you don't hear about it until the event. I give you the world premier of Gears of War Judgement!

That was followed directly by Forza III: Horizon.

Bing search has been improved...not that anyone would notice, does anyone use Bing on their Xbox?

Next they went on to talk about new partners in entertainment; Nickelodeon, Paramount Movies, and Machinima.

Now for all you sports lovers, Xbox Sports is adding more partners, last year they started it off with the UFC, this year they added MLB. Coming soon to Xbox there will be NBA and the NHL.

ESPN on Xbox is getting bigger and better.

Take a look at what sports will look like on the Xbox with in the coming year.

Xbox Music is going to get a lot bigger and better too.

Kinect is starting to step up too. With another new partner to the Microsoft family, Nike and Nike+

This next shit is bananas...all I can say is watch this and be blown away by Xbox SmartGlass.

New Tomb Raider origins style game looks great...in more ways than just game play.

A bunch of Twisted Pixel game premiers.

New Resident Evil 6 preview

A new South Park RPG, yes, you read that right. The Stick of Truth.

Dance Central 3 was shown, followed by a performance by Usher for some reason...

To close off the event they show another big name, CoD Black Ops 2, and again, Xbox will receive new content before the other consoles.

That was it for Microsoft. Remember a while back I made a post about how Xbox wants to take over your living room? Well if you don't believe me after all of the above then you are crazy.