Halo Still Reigns

Today is one of those days where I'm still talking about the Halo 2 matches of yore. Well, not yore, but last night. What an awesome night of Haloing -- and all of it in "Awesome-Res" for those of you with the X360+HD combo. We should call that the "Free Combo" in honor of his impulse shopping.

At any rate...here are several games sure to put a smile on your face if you didn't get to attend last night. And, for those of you missing clan members, drop some calls to the guys, wish them happy holidays, and then drag their butts online to play!

We started out with a Multi-Team battle as we worked our way into 2nd. Not much to mention here, except that the red team was really obnoxious and loud -- but they backed it up.

You think we would have won a one flag match on Zanzi, but alas, not even a flag score. I blame this loss on the lame matchmaking teammates who all left the base.

A little Team Shotguns? Yep, in team training we split apart with some other guys and had a "blast" blowing each others heads off. 23 kills for me in this match, Mondo got his requisite sticky kill -- it was on me, his teammate.

Team slayer on Foundation. Um, yeah. It was just slightly unfair putting Armleg and myself on the same team, but I turned in 27 kills (best of the night) off 5 assists from Arm as the red team pulled away by 10. Free had 5 assault kills in this match (wow).

Round 1 against this bunch of folks -- a little slayer on Warlock. Beat them by 6 in a closely fought battle, 15 kills for Armleg, 22 for myself again. Kudos to Mondo for 3 beat downs.

Then round 2 against the same team. This one was much closer, with our team trailing most of the match, right up until the final 5. We had issues unseating them from the sniper tower on Lockout, but once we did, we regained the lead and won the match by 3. Another 23 kills for me, and mentions to Mondo with 3 assaults, but 2 jumps off the map.

The rest of the bunch continued as Rhyno took my place in the party and the group lost a close King match on Terminal before beating up on the other team in Fiesta on Ascension. Kudos on the last game to Armleg turning in 11 headshots. But, he was killed by a 6 year old.

Once again, drag those not-oft-seen clan members out of the closet and plug them in. Halo is just as good as ever and with Snow coming to Portland tonight -- you just may see some of us on all day Thursday. :)

First 360 LAN for the 2130

Chillin' with the circles of light last Friday.















All the effort to get the next-gen and we're playing Halo.

Free's Review: Multiplayer Functionality

Call of Duty 2: We'll start this by saying COD2 has the best singleplayer game of anything I've seen on the 360 yet. It's extremely engaging, realistic and fun to play. The multiplayer functionality however, sucks even worse than Battlefield. There's no way to set up a private game. No way to set up a group match with friends. No pre-game chat. You can't invite a friend until you're in a game, but the games typically don't start until they're full. What? If your friend does happen to join you, they don't follow you to the next game so you're back to square one. Yea, thanks. Once the game starts, it is pretty fun but very simple: run, jump, shoot, melee. You can't drive vehicles and I couldn't figure out how to talk to anybody. Why don't they want us to play together? Just like Battlefield, this is a missed opportunity for greatness. Free's multiplayer score: Mexi-grade with lots of stems and seeds.

Perfect Dark Zero: Much more potential for the clan here. I was able to set up a private game and invite friends to play quite easily using the Guide. Since Termas and I were the only ones playing, I populated the game with AI-controlled bots to fill out the map. We chatted before and during the game. A miracle! And there is an option for choosing weapons. The gameplay was fine, but the colors and graphic styling of the game are more comic-like versus the realism of COD2. No jumping, but the roll is good for evading fire. There's also a cover function for walls but it's very slow to engage and disengage. You can melee, and even use both fists for pure boxing. There are jet packs but we didn't get to use them. Nor did we play an objective game. That said, this game so far is the best option for 2130 interaction. Free's multiplayer score: chest-high and peeling with only a slight trace of onshore wind.

Armleg Scores

Quick update: Just as Armleg was about to drive up north for the weekend, his local Game Crazy called his house and said they had one 360 available because the person who pre-ordered it couldn't afford a second box (they got one at Zero Hour). Needless to say, he now has his very own 360 and is sitting in holiday traffic somewhere stroking it lovingly. Hopefully, he'll give us the full story later and some insight on what this really means to him and his son Jack.

On another note, If anyone has a lead on a hard drive please let me know.

Anyone Want Another Wireless Controller?

Somehow I ended up with one too many. MSRP is fifty bucks. No tax, no shipping, no hassel.

Make an offer!

Termas

Woody & his Pike not 360

Woody found this 36" - 15 lb Northern Pike near his house. Nice work Woody, maybe the 360 will have a fishing game that we could play sometime. Crack a few beers on our boat of choice at any lake or ocean. I'm liking this already.

Launch Day Looked Like a Scene From Omega Man

On Tuesday, GameSpot staffers witnessed even more chaotic scenes at the local Target in Colma, on the peninsula south of San Francisco. There, a lone security guard spent most of the night shooing an increasingly unruly crowd away from the parking lot. The situation nearly spun out of control around 7 a.m., when the guard left his post for five minutes, prompting a mass influx of would-be customers eager to receive vouchers good for a 360.

When he returned, the security guard's attempts to get the 100-plus-person crowd to form a line were rebuffed until the arrival of police and a California National Guardsman around 8 a.m. A trio of veteran GameSpotters witnessed the Guardsman quickly take control of the situation and move to the head of the line--where he promptly turned around and asked for a 360 voucher himself. The Guardsman then promptly fled the scene, voucher in hand, leaving police, Target employees, and a visibly agitated crowd to fend for themselves.

Even more underhanded events were afoot at the Target in the East Bay suburb of Pinole. There, voucher-scalping was rampant in the parking lot prior to the store's opening, with some vouchers selling for as much as $300--not including the price of the 360. More enterprising profiteers purchased units and immediately resold them in the parking lot for as much as $800--over $400 more than the higher-end Xbox console's $399 sticker price. By midday, the console was fetching well over $3,000 on eBay.

How'd You Get Those? Wasn't Easy!

So Timo and I spent the night in front of Toys R Us in Ventura to get our consoles. We took off from Tim's house at about 10 pm to see if there was a line at Target, and sure enough a good 20 people were camped already. So after striking out at WalMart, Best Buy and Fry's, we found a nice small group in front of Toys R Us. We hung out with them from 11:45 pm to 9:00 am this morning. Timo got the last Premium system so I had to get a Core. Let's be clear: For the purpose of launch day, the Core system is a hassel. I had to buy all the accessories from multiple stores and I still don't have a hard drive, which means no backwards compatibility. However, it was still worth it. The system rocks, especially on my new 32" LCD TV. It's nice to see some updates to the gamer cards. Hope you all can get a hold of a 360 soon.
















Our home away from home at approx. 6:30 am.















The "not so" Core system, accessories and phat new TV.













New vs. old: There's just no comparison.

I should be on tonight, if Free doesn't come by and steal it first!

Nov 22, 2005 11:31 AM

Delivered

CARPINTERIA, CA

Left at front door. Package delivered to recipient address - release authorized

Oh yeah...

Xbox 360 at home, plugged in, and first on!

See you guys on today!

Geek test

Quoth mondofresh last night... "1. Have you ever camped out waiting for a new game console? End of test. If you got 1 or more yes answers, you qualify." :) just about 45 minutes to go.

On the official list now

Just took my name and number - #19 :) should just be another hour now. The race is on for first clan member to be online.

On site at Costco

3 hours to go out front of the Clackamas town center Costco. On the list now at number 23. Update to come around 0830. ...shark

Bitches!

Tracking number 664195407657
Ship date Nov 21, 2005
Estimated delivery Nov 22, 2005 3:00 PM

Reference M5475772/100021464

Destination CARPINTERIA, CA
Service type Standard Overnight
Weight 19.0 lbs.

Status Package data transmitted to FedEx

Well... My Second Controller Is On Its Way

Status: In Transit
Scheduled Delivery: Nov 21, 2005

Shipped to: CARPINTERIA, CA, US
Shipped or Billed on: Nov 18, 2005
Tracking Number: 1Z A73 65F 13 0023 435 0
Service Type: NEXT DAY AIR SAVER
Weight: .90 Lb

One For Sharkie

Video highlights from this year's San Jose Sharks season. For Sharkie, this is the next best thing to winning at Rockets on Foundation.

Don't Forget to Bring a Towel

Armleg Gets His Groove On

Armleg has developed a new victory dance for
when we win at Big Team Battle. Damn that
guy can move.

This Is Way Off Topic

LINK

"Warrior Needs Food Badly"

If any of us do end up getting a 360, I look forward to playing Gauntlet on Live Arcade with everyone.

Microsoft on Xbox 360 Shortages

As Mondo and I were talking about this yesterday -- there is no conspiracy. Up popped a couple pages on the web about this very subject. :)

Zero Hour Party looks fun!

Here are some construction pictures of the event.

Today's Jeopardy! Question

Apparently, none of the contestants got the question right. Noobs.

Our Anniversary

Interestingly enough, November 7 came and went without us remembering anything about it. For a bunch of guys, forgetting an anniversary isn't totally out of the norm, but it has now been over 1 year since this silly little game called Halo 2 brought all of us together for our "bowling nights". Bungie celebrates this occasion with an extensive article on Halo History, and reveals some of the benefits of running H2 on the new Xbox 360.

I will have to say, I have NEVER played a game that I was still playing nightly one year later. The game has so much replay-ability and the Live integration is so good, I can't wait for Halo 3 to astound us again next year. Until then, continue to chuck those nades right on into year 2!

Also, another occasion, this is the 100th post on our little clan blog! I think both occasions call for a holiday Lan Party at someone's place with plenty of Egg Nog.

More followup on X360 backward compatibility

One of my favorite techie bloggers, Rory, provides commentary on the Slashdot posting on X360 backward compatibility.

8 days to go. :) :) :)

On a side note, I'll be traveling to California for the Turkey Day weekend, so I will be canvasing all of the electronics stores on I-5 from Portland to Modesto for an X360 on the 22nd. I'll get my X360 somewhere -- preorder or not. I'm on a mission from god.

List of Backward Compatible Games

10 days to go. :)

Here's the long list of backward compatible games that will work on your spanking new X360. Also, check out the Q/A that goes along with the article.

No surprise to not see the latest ones on there -- have to protect those X360 game sales, but nice to see that Halo2 made the list.

Timo9000 takes Armleg for a Drive

Link

A tip of the hat to Bomber...

29 no-nos for gamers over age 30

I pulled this list off of a post at Joystiq. I fear that 2130 may be quilty of breaking some of these rules. Make special note of 1, 6 & 9.

Old people with nintendo revolution controllers in handThe ESA says that the average gamer is 30 years old. It’s time that those of us who are 30 or older realize that some of the things we grew up doing as gamers are no longer really appropriate, cool, or kosher given our new demographic bucket. Here, then, is a helpful guide to 28 things a gamer should never do past the age of 30.

1. Participate in LAN parties with minors
2. Quit your job to pursue a pro-gaming career
3. Start a Star Wars themed PC case mod in the living room
4. Ever use the jargon OMG, BBQ and WTF together in the same phrase
5. Pirate games - shouldn’t you have an income by now?
6. Find the idea of teamkilling funny
7. Choose a female avatar so that you can try to upskirt her
8. Refuse to play games that are rated lower than mature
9. Tea-bag a downed opponent in Halo 2
10. Play any game with Princess Toadstool in it
11. Choose a gamer handle including any form of the words “hell,” “killer,” “death,” or ”-inator”
12. Yell “pwnt” in a public virtual space
13. Play a female character in an MMOG in order to troll for “Crying Game” victims
14. Disconnect when losing at Starcraft or any other RTS
15. Ninja loot
16. Get your gaming news from a print publication
17. Replace the letter S with a dollar sign when writing Microsoft, Sony, or PlayStation
18. Live in your parents’ basement to support a gaming habit
19. Break mice in a fit of rage after being served in an FPS game
20. Try to win an argument in a gaming forum
21. Pretend that movies like Doom and Tomb Raider are anything but crap
22. Carry softcore anime porn on your PSP to show the guys at work
23. Hadoken someone as a greeting, complete with hand motions and sound effects
24. Play competitively against anyone under the age of 10
25. Read or write fanfiction
26. Yell or type, “Laggg” when losing an online game
27. Bogart the controller
28. Work at GameStop “just for the discount”
29. Type liek JeffK

2130 to represent at Zero Hour in the Mojave

Check out xbox.com and enter to win tickets to the 360 Zero Hour party in the desert of So Cal. I'm going to win and take one of you in my side car to the desert. I would expect anyone else who wins from the 2130 to side car a clan member too. I really just want that Zero Hour Xbox 360 faceplate and to get dizzy playing all the new games for 24 straight hours while peeing in the 2130 Endurance Apparel so as not to lose my spot.

Don't Cash in Those Vacation Days Just Yet

I just confirmed with my local EB Games that I will not be in the first group of Xbox 360's shipped for the 22nd release date. Free and I reserved ours in early August, and were 48th and 49th in line. Last week, they anticipated 75 consoles as an intitial inventory, but were informed recently that they will only be getting 35. They expect the next inventory to arrive within 2 weeks. Looks like there will not be a 360 LAN party this Thanksgiving. The bastards.

Timo