Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary and its Kinect Features

I picked up a copy of Halo:CEA and I've been playing through it in my free time.  I started with Legendary, thinking that I ought to be able to handle it.  I swear, Legendary mode is exponentially more difficult than Heroic.

I was doing all right, progressing slowly and surely, until I got to the landing bay in Truth and Reconciliation.  I could not for the life of me figure out how to finish off so many stealthed Elites in such a small area, so I had to dial the difficulty down to Heroic.  Now I've pretty much breezed through the rest of the game on Heroic.

The game is as good as I remember, and I'm even playing it at a harder level than I did the first time around. Occassionally I get lost though, since the waypoints are fewer and farther between than nowadays, and the game has the tendency to run you back and forth through the levels.  Also I'd forgotten how hard it used to be to stick a plasma grenade.  Overall I'm really enjoying the game.


The new Kinect functionality is somewhat of an irritation.  Man, I can rant on about this for a while.

You need it on so you can fill the library with data about objects and people in the game.  However the recognition quality is really low, or perhaps 8-10 feet away from the sensor is too far for proper use.  When I'm playing solo, my typical use sounds like this:

Analyze.
ANALYZE.
ANALYZE
(Analyze mode pops up)

SCAN
SCAN
ARGH

I have a Canadian accent naturally.  I'll try with an southern American accent or with a British BBClike type accent, with about equally bad results.

Maybe I should just scream "Anus!" at the kinect like these guys.


It also triggers at inopportune times when you are talking in general, such as when you are trying to play co-op.  I'll be talking to someone and suddenly a menu screen will come up and block my view, or I'll toss a grenade when I'm warning someone that there's an incoming grenade.  Isn't saying "Grenade!" sort of a military standard for an incoming grenade?  Hmm that's worth a lookup.  Wikipedia says this:

Standard U.S. military procedure includes calling frag out to indicate that a fragmentation grenade has been deployed. Yelling the word "Grenade!" is used to warn others to seek cover from an enemy grenade that has landed in the immediate vicinity.

Yeesh.  I guess it's appropriate since most of the time you all end up running away from the extra unwanted grenade you just voice-lobbed, in addition to the one you are trying to warn about.  Even asking someone how many grenades they have left will trigger one of your own.  It's funny how saying grenade will almost ALWAYS work, while the Analyze command only works one in 4 tries for me.

There really isn't anything in the game you can do better with voice than a button.

Upsen.


What they SHOULD have done is implemented a voice command button, hold it down, say your command.  that way, it shouldn't fire if you don't want it to.  Or, maybe implement some keyword to activate voice commands like "Xbox!" in the Kinect console, or "Computer!" like in Star Trek. Oh well, maybe in a future game.

Halo Reach: LASO Long Night of Solace Fail

I tried this LASO over the weekend with DZ and LD. It was absolutely brutal in the 3 player game. I'd looked up the appropriate Tyrant guide for how to do the Mythic run, but we were very solidly trounced by the enemy control room near the end of the map.

The first part wasn't too hard, we basically sprinted up the left beach skipping the fight, and we got a hold of a rocket launcher and the sword as the guides suggested. However, I really wish we picked up a few more missiles, we didn't bother sticking around to pick up reloads. The flight section was laughably easy as well with 3 of us who knew our way around arcade style flying games.

The first part that started getting to be a problem for us was the enemy ship boarding. We were usually able to take out the 2 elite rangers that leap out to the top to greet us. On one try, a third one actually made it up to join us too. The problem was that everything would be on high alert at the bottom by the time we went in, (thanks a lot, marine support) and I think there were about 6 or 8 rangers in total in the main area. We probably died 50 times trying various methods of getting through this sequence, cheering whenever we managed to get a checkpoint farther in. In the end, we had to do the main part of the work with the one sword I picked up - we would loop around, plasma-fire and sword the rangers that jetted up to the upper walkway we were on. I had to save the rocket for breaching the entry to the shuttle bay room, cause there was one ranger with a bunch of hero grunts supporting him.

Once inside the shuttle bay, that was a painful experience too - in the end after clearing as much as we could, it took a suicidal run from DZ for the activation switch to open the bay doors for Noble-5 to come in. Lucky that we weren't required to kill the last 2 sniper rangers, they were so hard to kill.

Getting into the control room was hard but doable. The control room is where we were absolutely stuck. In the Mythic SLASO guide, the player was doing the game solo, meaning there were a few less foes. He also seemed to be a little better off on weaponry too. For our 3 player game though, we couldn't do an assassination run, something would ALWAYS see us. One time we managed to get in far enough to assassinate 2 of the 3 elites at the far end, including the BOB, but that was a one time fluke, I think. Also seeing as it was like 2am, we were not at our best performance any more. In the end after a few different tries at assassinations and just shooting our way through, we gave up in disappointment.

The night after, I tried it solo, but I was too bummed to really persist in finishing it, so after I got to the shuttle bay, I gave up and played some Borderlands instead.

One thing about it though, is that I managed to up my assassination count from about 60 to 120. As another note, our death count was about that too - 120. >_<

Also I killed so many marines (cause they kept gumming up our strategies) that my total score was zero. :P

Service Record

Allen.

Halo Reach: Yes Sensei

I was thinking the Base Security set of armor looked rather cool, so I was trying to get this achievement this morning to unlock the UA/Base Security Chestplate from Halo Waypoint, but I'm not really into PvP. This achievement is for first strike in a game, so I'll probably ruin my record with a bunch of game quits if I dont get the first strike. I imagine it's a royal pain for the other player on my team, but I dont particularly care much about the PvP playlists.

I was trying in the 2 on 2 games to see if I could better the odds of getting the first strike, but apparently the 7am EST players are all really hardcore - In the span of about 7 games or so (and 7 quits) I was assassinated, sniped, and rocketed 10 seconds into a game where we all start with assault rifles. I generally acted the total noob. It only took about 20 minutes to lose 7 games. :P

Doh.

Upsen.

Why is changing an account or forum name so hard?

This is something annoying that I've run into this in a few different games.

First time around it was during my Champions Online experience, where they refused to change my account name so it would be different from my in-game and forum name, when, if I'm remembering correctly, it was their fault that their damned forum software didn't differentiate between login names and displayed nicknames when they first made the discussion forum available.

At least there I could protest by not subscribing to the game.



Now I find I'm having a similar issue with my Lord of the Rings Turbine forum name.

I had created my Turbine account back long ago enough that I wasn't using the forum name "Upsen" at the time. I was still using the name "Nizetti" quite extensively. I decided I wanted to update the forum name to "Upsen" so I could do a bit of posting, reflecting my ingame character's name. Only problem was, there was no option to change it!

So poking around the forum a bit and not finding an answer, I posted asking people how it was done. Basically the replies back said that it isn't done, it's not possible. Apparently it was tried before, and it would break forum access. What the hell?

I eventually found a support FAQ answer for it:

Can I change my account's Username?
No. Once your Username has been created it is not possible to alter it.Neither Turbine Account Management nor Turbine Technical Support can change your Username.

I accidentally misspelled my Username during account registration. Can I fix it?
All the details of your account are tied to the Username that you choose. The Username cannot be changed once it is selected.

Chrissakes, people, this is 2010 now! Why the hell is your software so inflexible?

Upsen.

Mafia Wars (Spamfia Wars)

This pretty truncated screen is what I get when I try to look at my character sheet (profile page)

Here's the good parts:

• Not much in this game requires you to be constantly in front of the computer so you can easily get up and walk away from it to do other stuff.
• You can play with your facebook friends.
• You play a mafia boss, and keep track of various stats - mafia hits, money laundering, wars with other mafia players, rosters of other players on your team etc. It's a nice little playground if if you like the theme.
• Also, you can level up almost indefinitely if you are good at min/maxing. You get points to do stuff. If you level up, you get a refill of your points. You can get into the position where you can reach the next level up before you finish spending all your points! So, I managed to crank myself a few hundred levels within a month, finishing scenarios that have taken other people a year to do. It did take me a 2nd character to figure out how to do it, and I abandoned my 1st one.

Here's the bad parts:

• There is always some timer about to refresh in a few minutes, so you are ALWAYS on the game.
• You have to add enough 'friends' to your Facebook account to reach the maximum number of 501 players in your Mafia - otherwise you are meat for other 501-mafia players. (though in the long run it doesn't matter if people attack you, looking at it from a stats perspective)
• 501+ Facebook members make for a lot of spam on your Facebook account. Most serious players with large mafias create a fake Facebook account and play the game using that, to avoid the spam on their real facebook account.
• You don't currently get to choose your character class - they have 3 classes available but they only let you start as a Maniac. Mogul class is gimped and Fearless class is overpowered due to a ridiculously overpowered Top-Mafia bonus for Fearless.
• You can't restart a new character if you are unhappy with your current character. It takes removing Mafia Wars from your account and waiting 90 days for the data to expire before you can create another character. You can however, create another facebook profile and play a new character from there. (which probably breaks a load of Facebook Terms Of Service agreements.)
• The game is incredibly buggy and they keep changing the rules, since they know the rules are broken.
• They don't compensate if rules change. (such as fighting stamina: it used to cost 1 point, then was changed to 2 points for a long time, and then changed back to 1 point - anyone who put points into stamina at the 2-point rate lost out and were never given back the difference.)
• Not everyone is actually playing the same game. some people get Properties to manage, others get Rackets (scams that cost points to buy) and there are a set of achievements that are based on Properties that Rackets people will never get.
• There are some RTM (Real Money Trade) elements to the game and a RTM player will always beat a free player.

Something went bugged and I got a zillion free electric carving knives

Anyways thats just the tip of the iceberg on this one, but I dont think I will write too much about it. It is an annoyance to me right now since the latest updates have broken the game interface and I can't use the skillpoint distribution screen. (Makes levelling up a little difficult doesn't it)

Oh well. Back to Lord of the Rings Online. :D

Allen.

Champions Online - Decided against buying it.

I cancelled my preorder at the local EB, cause I wouldn't be getting the preorder bonuses or headstart from the beta program.

The reason is because of an account name issue. When I originally signed up on the Champions forum back in early 2008, they asked for a user login name, so I put in "Upsen_Downs". That was also the display name, but its not that big a deal, it is just a forum.

Feb 2008 -
Forum Login/Display name: Upsen_Downs

Later on, somehow that forum changes software or something, and split things up so that there is a separate login name and display name. Doh, I could have used that feature! Well, thanks a lot but I guess it's not too bad, it is just a forum.

Aug 2009 -
Forum Login: Upsen_Downs
Forum Display Name: Upsen_Downs

Then, I find out that the forum login is the same as the game login. This part is not good at all, I don't like it.
The Forum display name becomes the in game global identifier which is all right.

Aug 2009-
Forum Login: Upsen_Downs
Forum Display Name: Upsen_Downs
Game Login: Upsen_Downs
Game Global Name: Upsen_Downs

Now, I *want* to use the name Upsen_Downs in the game, but I dont want it to be the same as my game login!

I contacted their various support teams 3 times to try and get some help getting my account name changed. However their invioable policy states that they do not change login names. Something about the system being unable to change that sort of detail, sigh. They said for me to just open a new account to use my actual game key, and that they would not transfer anything from my old account, including my beta key bonuses (most importantly, a basic flying superpower, the whole point of preordering)

Apparently, I screwed myself over by signing up for their website early and chatting with other people who were interested in the development of the game.

Anyways, they changed my forum display name to Unhappy_Upsen, one of the 3 alternatives I listed in my "please help me" emails. Which doesn't hide my login at all, since the old name is clearly quoted several times in threads discussing login name problems.

For me, Champs has been one disappointment after another. Between the frustrating Fileplanet experience, the comedic style gameplay/characters, the botched account info, loss of my preorder bonuses, and the inability of their support department to help me out, I had enough.

I'm just glad that I didn't actually have to buy the game or give them a credit card number.

Upsen.

CS Response

Wed, 08/26/2009

Thank you for contacting Cryptic Studios Billing Support.

Your display name has been changed to Unhappy_Upsen. Not being able to change the account name is due to how our system is set up, so there is not currently a way around it on any level.

Setting up a new account when the game goes live would let you choose a new account name. We would not be able to transfer your old accounts information though.

Thank you for your patience!

Champions Online Open Beta Second Impression

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Phew this is turning into an essay.

Not a very good impression. I couldn't log in for most of the night. After I managed to log in, I was stuck under the world. Something popped me above the ground after a while, but I kept rubberbanding back to the same spot and couldn't get anywhere.

Upsen.

Champions Online installer woes

(with edits now that I'm a little calmer, I was quite irritated earlier.)

I had a heck of a time with Fileplanet. Fileplanet is the official, exclusive source of the Champions Online Beta installer.

They make you download a ad-driven DL program to pick up their files. Fileplanet also makes you wait before you can start downloading, unless you pay them for a subscription. In the Champions Online beta, the wait was listed as roughly 30 to 60 minutes. However, in reality, the wait was closer to 4 hours.

There are several servers to choose from - 2 west coast, 2 east coast, a mid-western one, and a Euro server, along with an estimated wait time, roughly 40-50 minutes when I started. Once you choose one, you see the time on the installer. After a while, the estimated time goes up and down, but your place in the queue stays the same.

It seems the estimated time is for the whole queue and not your position. I watched it fluctuate from a low of 32 minutes up to a high of 300 minutes, and it was always 30 or more minutes even when I was number 1 or 2 on the queue. I wish there was a distinction made, since I quit two queues to switch to different ones, wasting an hour's worth of queue time.

While waiting in the queue, I found a torrent link for the full patch. If you want to try and look it up too, check BTMon (or google it) and search there for "Champions online - Open Beta client-installer". I dont know if it's authentic or not to be honest, but it made me feel better that I was getting a 40k stream on torrent since I had nothing from Fileplanet for hours. Once the Fileplanet queueing was done though, I got a good 500k stream from them.

By estimates, BT= 13 hours continuous, and FP = 1 hour after a 4 hour wait.

This whole fileplanet mess was quite the annoyance and lowered my expectations of Champions Online. Hopefully the game and it's patching process will improve in the future. By a lot, please.

Upsen.

Why cant I get this avatar to stick to the CO forum?

Bought and returned an arcade stick

This would be a great stick if I was 15 years younger and on a sugar high.

A while back, I bought the Samurai Shodown 2 download on the Xbox 360 and I was doing pretty miserably with the gamepad. I thought maybe a better controller, an arcade joystick, would help me with the control problems, and at the same time, help with all the other various fighting games that I have, like the Super Street Fighter HD Remix, Soul Caliber etc. So I headed off to the game shop at the local mall, and I picked up a Mad Cats arcade stick. The buttons had a nice feel to them, and the stick was metal with microswitches, which was pretty nice stuff.

Unfortunately, after trying it out for a couple days, I wasn't really doing that much better - the stick's base was too small and moved too much. I didn't like the 8 button layout either, I think I prefer 6. Or maybe I'm just getting too old for these darn reflex fighting games.

I took it back to the shop, where some skinny kid told me I couldn't return it since it was an open box. Of course, this stick is sold "open", there is no plastic wrap inside or outside of the box, and the stick is held in place by a couple of chunks of foam. It seems like he thought he held some power over my situation, and was enjoying my irritation, with a smirking "what are you going to do about it?" attitude. He even had the gall to tell me it wasn't his problem.

Luckily, the manager was around, and I spoke with him. He put the kid in his place, and made the kid process the return. After all, the stick was in pristine condition, that is, exactly as it was when purchased.

The best part of it is that after I got home, I found that the kid refunded me wrong and I have about $15 more than I started with. Not my problem I guess. :D

Upsen.

How the stick is packaged.

Double XP Weekend is Over (and a long stupid-team rant)

Double XP weekend is over - I managed to get Tenmos from L37 up to L42. Just 8 more levels before Level 50! Tank offense is pretty pathetic in the late 20s and especially the early to mid 30s, so I am glad that I am past my slow spot there. The 40s move pretty fast for me, now that I have my major attacks all available and slotted up. On my second account, Fires is getting pulled all the way up there too - this is exciting too in that Fires should be my first 50 on that account. Not too bad progress for a level pacted character.



A few annoying things happened that really got to me this weekend, this one being the prime one:

I joined a 8-man group doing missions in Peregrine Island for XP. The problem was that they selected a difficult, ie, SLOW, mission against Carnies, on a high difficulty setting at that. We were something like L35-40 fighting L43 carnies, if I remember correctly.

Carnies, or the Carnival, as you know, are notoriously evil for all of their endurance draining attacks and deaths. You can't herd carnie purples for easy killing, cause when even a few of them die, they drop your endurance bar to zero. Which in turn, results in your own death from the remaining carnies, cause your defenses have all dropped and you have no endurance for keeping your attacks going.

This sort of thing can be avoided with enough defense numbers like I did with my SR scrapper a long time ago, but that's not how a Willpower tank works.

So basically we were reduced to doing a couple carnies at a time. You could concentrate 8 people on them and kill them quickly, or you could spread your attack power all over the place and kill them slowly. The group I was with was more of the latter - people all soloing a couple of carnies each scattered here and there. We had enough people that there were Master Illusionists in the mission, summoning xpless minions that we wasted a ton of time on.

I actually went to wash dishes and wipe down the countertop with soap, during one fight, and came back to find them all still standing in the SAME AREA doing exactly what they were doing before. That is how slow each fight was going. They were impresssed by how fast I did dishes, I wasn't impressed with how slowly they were taking down the carnies.

It was a suicide run - heroes were dying off on a regular basis against the carnies, which was stupid, so many deaths were slowing us down, using up our resources constantly reviving the dying. We were in way too far over our heads, but not so far in that it was impossible - it was just mind numbingly slow progress, mission and XP wise.

I protested a couple of times - asked them to pick a saner mission, but they didn't really want to. So the next time I saw a team offer appear on the global chats, I took it and left these people doing their attrition war against the Carnies.

They weren't very happy when I left, and rightfully so for a couple reasons: It was bad form to just leave in the middle of fighting a group, but it was a trash group that was taking forever to kill, and they wouldn't see that it was too much to handle properly. Also I was SKing one of their members - when I dropped the team they went down by a few levels, probably resulting in their quick demise. Though, they were already dying pretty regularly already, at that point I didn't care if they minded an extra death.

Anyways, the end result is that I left, they were pissed off, and I was badmouthed a bit on the "BMT of Champion" global chat. They gave up on the Invincible level mission and restarted the mission on a lower difficulty level, and did fine. I wouldn't have left them if they just did that in the first place. :P Oh well.

I guess the nice term for what they were doing is "Scrapper Lock"

I'm probably not going to get invites from some of those people again, but if they are doing stupid things like that, I dont really want any part of it.

Upsen.