Halo 2, and all that that entails
Ah, Halo. It's rather good. And Halo 2 is kind of good, too. I finished the sequel two nights ago, and as many reviews have hinted, the ending is... different. Although there's an interesting little extra bit after the credits. And multiplayer is glorious, everything it should be. Good times to be had with a few of your friends, as you shout in frustration at the other people on your team (connected from other parts of the country) who apparently have no idea of what they're supposed to be doing. "What's this button do? Oh, it opens this large gate right next to our flag, that we're trying to protect. The enemy would be able to drive full vehicles in, and capture our flag much more easily. That doesn't matter, I like pushing buttons!" Yeah.

The single player experience is excellent, as well, although finishing the game does not require observation of all the details and intricacies the design team put effort into creating. No, and in fact, it can be much easier when you have enemies being concerned more with each other (that's all I'll say about that) to just walk right through. In Halo 2, only a few points require you to actually worry about defeating certain enemies. The rest of the time, you can usually just take a walk to the next point of the level. Or a ride. Or fly. I'll probably go back through on a harder difficulty and take more time having fun fighting enemies. I still prefer multiplayer for future play, though. And jacking vehicles adds extra fun.

So that's taken up a lot of my week, yeah. That, and watching some of the extras on the bonus DVD that comes with the special edition (only $5 more, if you plan on getting Halo 2 and can find it, get it instead, it's definitely worth it). Some scenes made me laugh. One being the one that showed close-ups of gamers watching in awe the demo being played at E3, in slow motion, as Hoobastank's The Reason played. Another being the sound test they included. Even if you don't have a full surround system, it's worth watching, although it IS a little better with surround.

I do have to mention the purchase experience. I got mine at EB Games (I think that's what it is now - it used to be Software, Etc., and a long, long time ago it was Babbage's) at Woodland, where way too many people got theirs. There was a big-screen TV set up, and two lines. The release was at midnight, and I got there at around 11:20 or so. The two lines were for people who had pre-ordered, separated into those who had fully paid, and those who had yet to finish paying. The latter had about ten to fifteen people in it. And the fully paid line? A couple of hundred. When I got there. I kid you not. It started at EB, wrapped around the rail, and just kept going and going. I got pictures, even though when I got there, a security guard saw me taking and said I couldn't do that. He didn't know why, but he said his boss said no cameras. So later, as the line grew (and it grew much longer), I couldn't stand having a camera and not capturing this crazy event, so I went and found the head of security. He was nice. Turns out the reason no cameras are allowed in the mall is not for copyright worries or anything like that, but more because of an event that occurred a few years ago in September. I guess having photos of the mall gives you that much more power when trying to do something bad, and so you'd better not allow it at all. Ugh. But he knew we were all just big nerds, so he let us use them. Yay! And I have pictures. I need to convert them to web-usable size, but I'll post them up sometime later. And maybe a link to the videos I got, too. Yes, I got videos.

I did get Thursday off to recover from all the sleep I've been missing, for Veteran's Day. So I planned on staying up all night Wednesday to beat Halo 2. Turns out I only needed a couple more hours (I started around midnight), and finished at 2. I figured, hey, I have all night, so why not pop in the DVD? I did, and started watching, and passed out about ten minutes into it. So I woke up around forty minutes later and then decided I should probably go ahead and go to sleep. And sleep I did! Yes, indeed. Until 3:freakin30 in the afternoon. I guess I needed the sleep. It was good, though. I somehow felt rested after waking up. I got my kung fu in this week, too. Some good self-defense going on, although I didn't get to spar, which is a little disappointing. More tonight, as people gear up for our tests tomorrow. I may or may not test, depending on if I finish learning my form tonight. We'll see.

Since yesterday was a holiday (sort of), nobody's here at work today. It's quiet. So it's just a bit more leisurely of a Friday, and then the weekend. Yay! I hope it's a good one. I hope you have a good one, too. So I'll leave you with a random link. Want to know why I like Halo so? Do you think it's just about shooting things? It's got a much more intelligent foundation than most people think. It helps if you've had some exposure to the storyline - if you have, you can appreciate this.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:27 PM | 0 comments