YNTE Gaming Night: Halo and Metroid

Once again, the two franchises released at approximately the same time, in a competition to test whether Nintendo or Microsoft has the bigger ego. Regardless, I picked both up.

The first one I played through (on Co-op with my brother) was Halo Reach. For those of you who don't know, it's a precursor to Halo 1, so it's like Star Wars Episode 1, where things are less advanced (supposedly) and yet they look prettier. However, they stayed pretty consistent--Grunts didn't know how to speak English, couldn't dual wield, etc. But the inclusion of Brutes and new weapons kinda throws off the ambiance a bit. To be honest, it was a good storyline and a good addition to the franchise, but it felt the same as all the other games. If you've played other games and you play this, it just seems like recycled material. But, I suppose the attention to detail elsewhere makes up for it. As for the other modes, this game is even more feature rich than the other games. It still has multiplayer, the forge, and several other solo game types to help you earn those credits and achievement points.

Then afterwards I played through Metroid. Since this was on the Wii, it obviously wasn't as shiny as its Xbox antithesis, but it was still expertly done. Instead of its other 3D predecessors that were created by Retro Studios, this one was developed by Team Ninja, famous for their Dead or Alive franchise and the 3d adaptation of Ninja Gaiden. And highlighting womanly jiggly-bits. It seemed like an obvious choice for them to develop this game, as Samus is probably Nintendo's bustiest heroine, but for once they put away the boob-physics and made a seriously good game without staring at her chest in every cutscene. The gameplay was a blend of platforming/FPS/puzzle and played mostly like a 2D/2.5D game, and the cutscenes were also expertly crafted. The constant narration of trivial things by Samus in these cutscenes was kinda off-putting at times, but looking past this just gives the game a complete feel. In addition, after completing the game, you can view all of the cutscenes back to back in the theater mode, which turns the game into a feature-length movie.

Both were good games, I recommend picking them both up. Sorry Evan, Metroid won't add to your gamerscore still.

Achievement Unlocked: SCORPIONS!

This past week I have been playing my 360 a ton. Here's how it breaks down.

I got sick of Halo3 for a while so I switched back to Gears of War for a while. Aside from playing through most of the game as Dom (the sidekick in co-op mode), I also have been playing a LOT of Annex on the new maps to try and get the 250 points that were added on for DLC. For a while, I had my guitar hero controller plugged in and was playing against it, though apparently that's cheating and doesn't count towards the achievements.

After a while, I got bored of playing Annex against nobody and switched back to Halo3. Finished my Heroic Co-Op run and found the rest of the Gold Skulls and Terminals. Played a little bit on live, but that part of the game just doesn't interest me as much.

In amongst all this switching back and forth between Gears and Halo, I played some Guitar Hero II, and got the achievement for unlocking all the characters, the last plausible achievement for me. Just when I was ready to put my plastic guitar away though, the demo for GH3 hit the interwebs. From what I can tell from the demo, they didn't really change anything from 2 other than the songs and beefier graphics, which is good, because why mess with a working formula? Anyway, I blasted 'Rock You Like a Hurricane' out on Expert, which means I'm as good at Guitar Hero as these guys are at guitar:
Other than that, I played some Fable and a few random arcade games.

I would like to also point out that while Yaris is free, if you play it for more than 5 minutes, you have overpaid. While I'm down with the concept of free advergames, this one just SUCKS.


My XBL name is ShovelMage. Be friends with me!

Achievement Unlocked: Halormal?

I also have been plowing through Halo 3. I however, did not beat it on heroic, only normal, though I've started my SP legendary run. I'm also mostly done with a co-op run on heroic, not sure if that'll give me the achievement or not. I've also found most of the skulls, Including the 'I Would Have Been Your Daddy' skull everyone on the internet is bitching about being so hard.

Nowadays, many people are treating Halo like it's the second (or third in this case) coming of the Messiah. I'm not one of these fanboys. In fact Halo doesn't do anything that another FPS hasn't already done, and done better. But what Bungie did succeed at was making game that is a lot of fun. In the days when most shooters are slow paced tactical thinking shooters, it's nice to go back to the bull-in-the-china-shop days of Doom.


I'm at 470 Gamerscore on Halo, with a lot of the remaining achievements seeming quite accomplishable. Up next: The Orange Box?

Achievement Unlocked: Haloic

Haloic! A clever mix of Halo and Heroic... aha..ha. Yeah okay.

Anyways, I got teh Haloz 3. My neighbor had the first two and let me borrow them (read: he thrust them upon me and said "Play. Now.") So pretty much for the past two weeks I've been on a Halo Heroic binge in-between classes. And what a glorious run its been. I've cleared all the levels on heroic on all three games, and now I am moving on to Legendary on Halo 3.

I must admit, Bungie did a damn good job with this one. I didn't follow the first two real closely and try not to adhere to fanboyism, but as a shooter it is impressive. Equipments are fun, as are detachable turrets. And the extra features are a hella fun to mess around with. And now that I have a month free trial for Xbox Live Gold I might as well play the hell out of it. Already flowing up the ranks. And getting those achievements.

Halo Gamerscore: 560
Total Gamerscore: 1100 (Its ridiculous, its not even funny)

BTW, my gamertag is Jagarandi. Come find me.