Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. ODST

We'll be playing ODST tonight. Leave a comment here if you have an opinion about what to play within that general category. Your options are:

1. Clan-only matchmaking (like last week): This is the Halo 3 engine but with the new maps. Party chat enabled for parties of 8 or less. Makes boosting for achievements much easier.
2. Open matchmaking: Uses the Halo 3 engine, means we can go into 8v8 Big Team Battle.
3. Small co-op teams: Break out into groups of 3 or 4 for Firefight or Campaign. Lots of achievements available here as well.

Votes here will greatly influence what we play tonight.

ODST Update

For those that haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet, buy.com just dropped their price on Halo 3: ODST to $53.99 with free shipping.

A tip for all your working your way through the Campaign: The campaign missions do not have linear memory. What I mean by that is that if you go back and replay a mission somewhere in the beginning or middle of the game, you will LOSE ALL OF YOUR PROGRESS when you return to the mission you left off on. There are six sub-story lines to check off in your objectives. If you go back to replay a mission earlier than your current progress, it will clear your progress on all of those sub-story lines and you will have to do them over again. The final mission will not be available until all six are checked off at the same time.

Solo and co-op campaign progress is tracked separately, so you can replay solo missions without clearing your co-op progress.

ODST Firefight Tips

36 hours after launch, I now have a better feel for Firefight and can provide some tips and tricks. First and foremost is how the mode is structured. The game sends enemies in groups: 5 waves per round, 3 rounds per set, and as many sets as you can survive. The picture on the left shows how the HUD displays your progress. Note that the game will go on forever until you spend all your lives...which is a LONG time on Easy. For some reason, we had a game on Crater end after 3 sets, but that may been a network glitch.

• There are achievements on each level for reaching 200,000 points, so that may be motivation to keep playing that far
• The bonus round after each set lasts 60 seconds, consists only of grunts with all skulls on, deaths do not count against your score, and lives are awarded every 2000 points. One death by anybody ends the round early.
• Some enemies do not have to be killed to finish a round. So far, snipers and Wraiths fall into this category. It's a good idea to take care of them anyway because they're really annoying, but not required to make progress.
  
• Brute Chieftains (gold with hammer): Bait them into charging you in close quarters, sidestep the charge, and hit them on the back of the head.
• All other Brutes: Hit them with an overcharged plasma blast, followed by a headshot. If you don't have a plasma pistol, you need to get their armor off to expose their head to kill them efficiently.
• Hunters: Hit them with bullets in the orange fleshy area on their back. Punching is ineffective.
• Grunts: All can be killed with single headshots. Most can be killed with a single melee unless the harder skulls are on.
• Jackals: Shoot through the notch in their shield to stun them, and then finish with a single headshot.
• Drones: A mounted chaingun that is protected in the back by teammates is the most cost effective way to deal with drones. Otherwise they suck up all your ammo for poor return in points and health.
• Wraith: Beware the Brute in the turret. One way to kill a Wraith is with an overcharged plasma shot and then boarding to kill with a grenade. An alternative is to hit the weak spot on the very back of the tank.

I will be on most, if not all, nights this week after 10pm PT to play campaign and Firefight. Be on by 10pm if you'd like to join in, otherwise you'll probably have to wait for us to reach a stopping point to join in.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. H3: ODST

FishBone10 and Beer4Porter helped me to break in H3: ODST's new Firefight mode right after the midnight launch. And it is FUN! Even though I scored over half of our team's points, I do have to recommend their generous assistance in my "Invincible" medal (kill 100 enemies without dying). Some housekeeping items:

• Insert your Campaign disc for Campaign, Firefight, and to customize your character for ODST
  
• Under Settings/Appearance, change your EMBLEM to your H3 number.
• In the same area, change your SERVICE TAG to something related to your gamertag.

If 4 or less folks show up, I'll kick off the first games in Firefight on the Campaign disc. Once we have more than 4, I'll move us into custom games on the Multiplayer disc. In >4 player multiplayer, we'll run custom games on the brand new Mythic maps (Heretic, Citadel and Longshore).

Below are the assigned emblems (carried from H3) and some recommended service tags. Your service tag is what people see above your head as you run around the map. Since we have 4 characters to work with now, you should pick something that will quickly remind people of your gamertag and who you are.

• gtdroptop: " GT ", 0
• BeerMonkeee: "BMNK", 1
• TimMAY 1023: "TIMA", 2
• CoolerSopranos2: "CULR", 3
• OmniscientDeath: "OMNI", 4
• FragginURdoodz: "DOOD", 5
• FishBone10: "FISH", 5
• Beer4Porter: "PORT", 6
• Masher24: "MASH", 7
• Spix: "SPIX", 7
• BeefierBen: "BEEF", 8
• MEAN MR MONKEY: "MR M", 8
• Mean Mrs Monkey: "MRSM", 7
• darknorpo: "NORP", 9
• Dawill0: "WILO", 5
• Octurian Poon: "POON", 7

If you're not listed and need help, let me know.

H3: ODST Midnight Tonight

ODST drops at midnight tonight at selected retailers. I will be on tonight for some Firefight and to try out the new multiplayer maps. Clan night tomorrow night will be H3: ODST.

H3: ODST ViDoc Terra Incognita

A new ViDoc has been posted showing off more details of the environment, visor mode, and the health system. An interesting watch.

Clan night tonight. 9pm PT. Halo 3.

Starting a little later this week. H3 doesn't take as much time to play and be done with.

Halo 3: ODST More Details

As most folks are aware, Halo 3: ODST releases in less than two weeks on September 22, 2009. This will be our next clan game and will replace Left 4 Dead in mainstream play. I will be starting the game right after the game is released at midnight, leave a comment here if you'd like to join in on the late night gaming session. Here's some more reasons why you should go out and get ODST:

• Multiplayer maps: The ODST versus experience is just an extension to the current Halo 3 matchmaking. There isn't a new system, just three new maps that ship with the game. However, ODST does include all the H3 maps previously released for a total of 24 maps. Therefore, if you didn't purchase the Mythic or Legendary map packs and have been unable to play some of the playlists in matchmaking that require them, you will be able to try them all with the launch of ODST.
• Halo Reach Beta: All copies of ODST will provide access to the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta when the beta goes live. As with the H3 multiplayer beta, I would expect this to be a highly coveted invitation.
• Firefight: Players (including myself) have been asking for a way to play a non-campaign co-op mode with their friends against the A.I. ODST delivers on this feature with Firefight, a cooperative multiplayer mode included on the campaign disc that lets up to four people jump into combat. As an ODST squad, you will face increasingly challenging waves of enemies together, striving to earn the highest scores possible, while various Skulls are progressively activated. The reviews suggest this is a more structured approach of increasing difficulty than L4D's Survival mode which just keeps increasing the number of zombies and lowering their spawn time until you die. It does seem possible to reach the end of a round in ODST where a "Bonus" round is unlocked.
  

Clan nigh tonight. 8:30pm PT. Halo 3.

Getting everybody ready for H3: ODST.

Clan night tonight. 8pm PT. Halo 3.

The Mean Monkeys lost their 360 to the RRoD this week. Because they are the most consistent regulars on clan night, we're going to play H3 tonight instead. I want to play campaign in anticipation of H3: ODST, BeerMonkeee wants to wallow in the matchmaking pool. We're looking for a tiebreaker.