I finally beat: Halo 3 ODST

Halo 3 ODST is the latest Halo game from Bungie.  Originally planned as DLC (that’s downloadable content for you greens), there’s enough spit and polish gone into this fine example of a game to push it into prime time status.  A full retail release.

It don’t hurt that it also includes a Halo 3 multiplayer disc. The full Halo 3 multiplayer suite as if you were playing the original and it’s fully backwards compatible. Anyone out there tho didn’t jump in on the original Halo 3’s “map packs” can get them n’ more here.  That makes this disc shiny and your Halo 3 disc all manner of useless.

For the fans who did pony up the dough, you’re fan enough to appreciate the main adventure. For fans who don’t care about playing Halo multiplayer, this title ain’t for you. It may be the best Halo single-player campaign, but make no mistake: this is still Halo.

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I finally beat: The Secret of Monkey Island

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Hello audience.

I’m a gamer. And I hadn’t beaten The Secret of Monkey Island.

That is, until it was released as a special edition on the PC, XBLA, and the iPhone. I picked it up for the xbox (because I’m an achievement whore), and I had not beaten one of the classics in both adventuring gaming, and gaming as a whole.

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I finally beat: Prince of Persia

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Prince of Persia has been available since last Holiday season, and I only just got around to finally finishing it.  The PoP series was my favorite series of last generation; so why didn’t I beat this one in 1 week instead of 1 year?

Every couple of weeks I’d play for 30 minutes and complete a single section; then turn it off.  Very casual play.  Every time a boss is defeated, the game then tasks the player with collecting dozens of little light orbs to unlock the next hostile area and boss fight.  Since this is about as boring as it sounds, I’d save and quit.  Next time I’d boot up, I’d be forced to collect a bunch of light seeds.  I’d collect a few in an area and eventually quit.  After a few sessions I would finally have enough to continue on and fight the next boss.  Once done, the process would repeat itself.

It’s not that the collection itself was poorly done; despite the occasional glitch throwing you to your death, the platforming was solid.

It was simply repetative enough that it was not fun.  Many people had this complaint for Assassin’s Creed.  But while Assassin’s Creeds repetativeness could be negated by hopping around and assassinating guards and playing around in a sandbox environment, in Prince of Persia you are left to leap around and collect more Light Seeds.

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I finally beat: Gears of War 2

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I finally beat Gears of War 2.  I played through the entire campaign on Hardcore difficulty, co-op with Detnap.  Together we defeated the 5 Acts of the campaign, each more varied than the one before.  For any fan of Gears 1, Gears 2 is a must-play, and easy to recommend to any fan of shooter mechanics.  However, despite accessibility, Gears 2 is not as easy to jump into.

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I finally beat: Brothers in Arms – Hell's Highway

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Opps, never got around to posting an initial impression article.  I’ve been pretty busy, and I also went through the game relatively quickly (for me) in about a week.

I was a big fan of the original Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. In a lot of ways it was one of the better games released last generation, and was revolutionary enough to revitalize WWII shooters. The first sequel, BiA: Earned in Blood, came out only 7 months later and was just another Ubisoft expansion pack. Too early for me to jump into.
He’ll’s Highway, the 3rd game in the series, has been through development hell and delays. Now that they’ve had more time to design, and I’ve had more time between games, what is my opinion of the new Brothers in Arms?

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I finally beat: Naruto – Rise of a Ninja

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It crashed a lot.  A ton.  So much that I skipped a few of the side missions near the end just to bring the game to a close.  It was incredibly frustrating.  Imagine a game filled with obsticles and traps, but instead of killing you they would hard freeze your system.  Then you would have to stand up, walk over, hit the power button and reset the console, wait for it to load, log back in, wait for it to load, boot up the game, wait for it to load, pick a storage device, wait for it to load, load your save game, wait for it to load.

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I finally beat: Rainbow Six Vegas

I finally beat Rainbow Six Vegas.  This is one of the games that founded this site.  It’s been in my queue since its release, played sporadically in single player, coop, and multiplayer.  I’ve probably played the first level a couple dozen times in splitscreen multiplayer, or watched 2 friends play it.  And now it’s done.  As usual, most of my initial impressions hold.  But a few things did come up near the end, both good and bad.

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I finally beat: Castle Crashers

**Before you are saddened by my beating this without you, note this: I want to go through it again.**

I finally sat down and beat Castle Crashers.  Matt, Chue, and Sean had already gone through by themselves and defeated the final boss.  Ztynzo offered to sit down with a secondary character and help me finish the main campaign.

I say finish the main campaign b/c Castle Crashers is hardly over after the final boss goes down.

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I finally beat: Metal Gear Solid 4 – Guns of the Patriots

I finally beat: Metal Gear Solid 4 – Guns of the Patriots

“Old Soldiers don’t die, they develop nanomachine virii, rapid aging disease, get shot, eletricuted, blown up, strangled, set on fire, and then…”

And then they do it again.  Well, that’s what I’ll be doing once Metal Gear Solid 4 gets trophy support.  Guns and equipment carry from New Game to New Game+.  It’ll be quite fun unlocking the last few guns I didn’t find or buy the first time around, and using the late game weaponry in the early levels.  There are more guns in MGS4, with more options, with greater firepower, than Army of Two.  Or most any other game.  And this is a game where the entire play-through, minus boss fights, can be beaten without killing a single person.

I beat this game awhile ago.  It was the beginning of the long silence of gaming related posts on this blog.  This was due to the fact that I beat the whole game in about a week when I got it.  Each time I would sit down, I’d have to decide between writing about MGS4, or just playing it some more.  Writing about it would have been a 10-15 minute break.  A break I never took.

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I finally beat: Resistance – Fall of Man

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I finally beat: Resistance – Fall of Man

This was the PS3 launch title. This was the system seller. Made by Insomniac (of Rachet and Clank, and the original Spyro) fame, this PS3 fps combined the best aspects of WWII shooters and Halo (including a Co-Op campaign). With the other PS3 launch titles delayed, Resistance had to stand on its own. Was it smooth sailing, or a bumpy ride? Continue reading