There are nine weeks left until the Halo Reach multi-player beta goes live. You can expect clan games to shift over to the Halo Reach beta on Tuesday, May 4. In the mean time, I can host a secondary clan night on late nights to get ready. 10pm is usually a good time for me on other nights, but am happy to compromise on popular time slots. Here's proposed games:
Remind me if I forget that the "Strength in Numbers" achievement is still available if we get down to 4 players at some point in the night.
The Halo 2 multi-player maps are now available for download again and the links are working. In total, there are 6 downloads in total you will need to play Halo 2 on-line with Xbox Live. There is an Xbox Live title update that you will be prompted for as soon as you launch the game, and a second Halo 2 title update that you will need to download from within the game (it will prompt you). Then there are FOUR map packs you have to download from within Halo 2. Go to Xbox Live -> Content Download inside of the game menus. These are the map packs and download times (measured over 12 Mbps):
Gamespot has a pretty good article and video about what they've discovered so far. Most notably is that Spartans in Halo Reach have the ability to upgrade their equipment. Unlike Bubble Shields or Flares from Halo 3, these upgrades are persistent and can be used more than once. They tease the "Sprint" upgrade which you can use and then allow to recharge. Thanks to OD for the tip.
The Microsoft X10 event is happening right now and a number of things have been announced. Below is a ViDoc of Halo Reach showing some impressive new detail in the graphics.
The Halo Reach multiplayer beta will go live on May 3, 2010. It will require the Halo 3: ODST disc for access. Get ready now.
http://www.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=HaloReach_X10
Apologies to those who tried logging into Halo 2 for Tuesday's clan night. They have apparently updated the matchmaking playlists to require several map packs. However, those map packs are not accessible for download from within Halo 2 anymore. I will look into solutions to this problem, but for now H2 multiplayer is not available. I also forgot that Xbox Live Party chat is not available for original Xbox games due to their limited Xbox Live support.
In recognition of Halo 2's upcoming death on Xbox Live, we'll jump into some H2 multi-player tonight. Be sure to join the XBL party for coordination in case we run into logistical issues. Also remember that Bungie recommends NOT installing H2 to the hard drive because of the way the game uses the hard drive to cache data pre-NXE. I expect to return to our usual programming of brains next week, unless H2 proves to be overwhelmingly popular.
On April 15, Microsoft is dropping Xbox Live support for original Xboxes and original Xbox games. That includes games like Halo 2 that were original Xbox games but run on the Xbox 360. This marks the end of an era. Does anyone want to fire up some Halo 2 before it goes away forever?
http://majornelson.com/archive/2010/02/05/xbox-live-being-discontinued-for-original-xbox-consoles-and-games.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MajorNelson+%28Major+Nelson+%28Xbox%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
The premiere of the final season of Lost airs this week exactly during clan night. Seeing as President Obama scheduled his State of the Union address to avoid a scheduling conflict, I will pose the question to the clan. Would you rather watch Lost or eat braaiiiinnnss this Tuesday? A third option is to defer clan night until after Lost, but that may be late for some people. Vote here in the comments.
I believe that anybody who reads this blog has an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Amazon.com currently has 1 year subscription cards available for just $34.99, free shipping, no tax. I just got mine and applied it, so I can verify that there's no "catch." You don't have to wait for your current membership to expire, it will just add 12 months to the end of whatever your current plan is. This is a 30% savings over the normal rate of $49.99/year!
Bungie has announced that in Halo:Reach there will be a new vehicle available for Mulitplayer called the Falcon. They've called it the "Warthog of the Skies." Needless to say, I'm excited. I have to assume BeerMonkeee and OmniscientDeath are too.
Many props go out to OD and BeerMonkeee for joining me in ODST Firefight on Wednesday. We did our small part in Bungie's campaign to raise money and awareness for Haiti earthquake relief. Apparently though, the Halo community at large is as apathetic as this clan is, and they didn't reach their maximum goal of players. If you couldn't motivate to log a few minutes of on-line game time this week to help the devastation in Haiti, you still have time to buy a t-shirt in the Bungie store to contribute to the relief effort
We'll be on-line tonight to support Haiti relief efforts. Join in at 9pm.
By default, we will be playing Left 4 Dead 2 unless there is a request to get some H3 or ODST practice in before the Haiti relief sessions on Wed/Thu. For L4D2, I think I'd like to setup some Scavenge games this week to break up the monotony. We'll need to balance teams though, because OD and GT are clearly huge handicaps.
Bungie has announced that it will donate $100 to the Red Cross Haiti relief effort for every thousand people that play Halo 3 or ODST this Wednesdady or Thursday. All you have to do is play on-line with the special heart emblem. This is how you set it:
o Press START
o Select “SETTINGS” / “APPEARANCE”
o Select “EMBLEM”
o Select “Hearts” ICON, “Circle” BACKGROUND
o Back out to the APPEARANCES menu and select “COLORS”
o Set “EMBLEM PRIMARY” to RED (or MAROON / BRICK / ROSE depending on which game you’re playing!)
o Set “EMBLEM SECONDARY” to WHITE
OmniscientDeath and I will be on-line to help people with achievements if folks would like to play. If you are interested, leave a comment here and I'll schedule ODST foursomes or H3 teams. There's still tons of achievements to get. As a clan, we've only completed 56% of the ODST achievements. Here are the rarest achievements for our clan that you could get this week:
Most everyone has Rock Band or Guitar Hero now. Though fun, these games come with a lot of plastic crap that takes up a ton of space. What to do? The Cohesion BandBox is now available on Amazon.com for just over $100, with free shipping that arrives in less than a week! Mine arrived today and I'm pretty pleased with it. It's pretty inconspicuous with a black (assuming fake) leather exterior and a red felt interior. It has room for two regular guitars, drums, mic stand, three mics, and room for other accessories. My new bass guitar even fits with the head piece detached. The BandBox can mount either the Rock Band or the Guitar Hero drums, and stows it all very nicely.
There are really only two things to note. First, though the BandBox does allow you to mount the drums directly as shown in the picture, you have to detach the drums to fold them back into the box. That's not as convenient because you basically have to assemble the drums every time you want to use them, but it's a workable solution. The other item is that the box is pretty heavy, especially with all the gear inside. I'll be mounting casters to the bottom of mine to make it roll, but otherwise it'll be a drag to move around.
There is another product called the AK Rock Box that actually has a drum lift so that drums come up and out of the box. That'd be cooler, but it hasn't been available for retail anywhere I've been able to see in quite some time. It's also a good deal more expensive.
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