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)

Titanfall BETA

A few weeks ago I spent a LOT of time playing the Titanfall beta. I feel it is the first real next gen shooter for consoles. Read on for more details.

Take the good things of Call of Duty, custom soldier loadouts & perks. Throw in some mechs, because when was the last time console players had a good mech game? Then add a touch of Mirror's Edge's free running and a dash of the creep aspect from a MOBA. That is what Titanfall is, and it all works flawlessly.

In a nutshell, you have a 6 on 6 match, that lasts roughly 10 minutes. You are a Pilot and start on foot, fighting along side your team of Pilots are AI controlled Grunts and Spectres. A good match will end with a few Titans left standing.

Free running.

For anyone who was lucky enough to play the '07 gem Mirror's Edge you will not be disappointed with the parkour in this game. (If you haven't played Mirror's Edge I would suggest you find it and try it as they are working on a ME2.) It feels really smooth and fluid. Through all my play time I never once had the frustration that comes with Assassins Creed's free running, where you are trying to run around a corner but keep getting stuck running up a column over and over agian. You are also equiped with a limited use jet pack, which allows you to double jump. This double jump recharges everytime your feet touch down, whether it be horizontally or on a vertical face. This makes scaling buildings a pure joy once you get the hang of it.

Titans.

The way Respawn nailed the mechs is another great point. You get your Titan based on a "construction" timer. This timer can be cut down by kills and Burn Cards (more later) to recieve your Titan sooner but having the Titans on a timer rather than a perk for performance really helps to keep the matches ballanced. Even if your team is getting stomped on foot everyone will sooner or later get a Titan. However, just because you have your Titan doesn't mean you're safe. A Pilot on foot can take down any Titan, depending on the skill levels, quite easily if you're not careful. 

Every Pilot is equiped with an anti-Titan weapon and they can also hop on top to rip open and control panel and blast away the the Titan. It's not quick but if the Titan pilot is unaware you can easily take it down. I would find it amusing to watch a team mate who has a Pilot on thop of them. They would be getting damage markers on their HUD so they would be dodging all over the place trying to avoid the damage, meanwhile you are trying to aim at them to get the Pilot off, they would usually end up being destroyed. Cooler heads prevail in that situation. Stop, eject, your Titan will crouch down, you get a clear shot, unless that Pilot is paying attention and jumped off.

The other well designed aspect of the Titans is that you don't even have to be in it. If you eject or call it down and get killed it will still be useful to the team. If there is no Pilot inside the mech it will begin to fight, AI controlled, actually quite efficiently at that. This is another situation that I found showed you the difference between a good Pilot and a bad one. If your AI mech is battleing another mech it is better to pull out your anti-Titan weapon and help from the ground rather than jumping into your mech. Whenever you mount your mech it takes a good 5 seconds to go from ground to controls. That is 5 seconds that your mech is getting pounded on by the enemy. This point is situational though, as every mech gets a protective sheild when it touchs down, giving you time to get in and situated even if you are in the heat of a battle.

Map design.

The map design of the two maps that were available for the beta were very well thought out and clean. You would think that designing a map for both humans and mechs to travel around might pose a problem. However I never found myself pinned in a corner, there are always multiple ways out and with the parkour it only adds to the escape possibilities. Whether it be running into an alley or jumping through a second floor window to avoid a Titan or to get around (or over) a building and flank another Pilot, there were always options.

Burn Cards.

These are basically a one time, one life perk. You get burn cards from doing tasks, winning, kill milestones, etc. these go in your deck of 27 (I think). You preload 3 cards from your deck while in the lobby. Once in the match you can activate any of the 3 burn cards ever time you spawn. They provide anything from an upgraded gun to an instant Titanfall, and everything in between. Burn card perks generally stack with your loadout perks that are already active on your Pilot/Titan

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.