Review Time.....HALO 3: ODST

I know its been a little while since my last review, but I just havn't had the urge to sit down and put the effort in to doing one latley. Now that I have spent some time with the newest addition to the Halo franchise I feel justified in putting my thoughts out there.

Halo is truly a series that needs little introduction, anyone with even a slight interest in gaming has heard of Halo, and it truly has a group of diehard fans that love the games and everything that goes along with them. Those of you that know me, also know that I am included in this group (how many other people have a 6ft tall Master Chief?)


This new game in the series however met with some criticism early on, It was orginally announced as downloadable content to the orginal Halo 3 and then grew into a full retail release including a full 59.99 pricetag, its also a departure in the series in that it wouldnt feature the Spartans. ODST highlights another group of soldiers, The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, these guys are kind of the future version of Navy Seals and are thrown into spots not many others would want to go to. I wont delve into the story to much so as not to spoil anything for anyone but it centers around a group of ODST's thrown into the battle on Earth that begins in Halo 2. The story is definetly engaging and unique in that it uses flashbacks to tell the stories of the other squad members while one memeber is trying to locate them. Gameplay wise it is also a big change from the other Halo's obviously not playing as the Master Chief changes things quite a bit and it takes a little while with the game to adjust to this new style, you definetly have to take a stealthy approach and cant just run in guns blazing to every battle. The game does look amazing and playing in an earth enviroment also gives it a very real feeling, seeing things like burned out cars and buildings give a true sense of the destruction and the battle that is going on around you. One of the true hallmarks of Halo to me has always been the music and ODST is no different the music always seems to fit what is going on and still has a very fresh feeling, I noticed a lot of saxaphone in this soundtrack wich hasnt been featured in a Halo game before and it really gave the game a great vibe. Another hallmark of Halo is its multiplayer, ODST has a new gamemode called Firefight basically you and up to 3 other people take on wave after wave of increasingly stronger enemies and see how long you can last, its not totally orginal ( a similar mode is featured in Gears of War 2) but it is certainly fun. The entire game can also be playe through Co-op also with up to 3 other people and it definetly helps having at least one sidekick to watch your back. In addition Bungie included a disc with all of the Halo 3 maps to allow you to play Halo 3's multiplayer wich is still one of the most popular games on Xbox Live, this is great added bonus and makes the price seem a little bit more reasonable. My one main gripe with Firefight is that there is no matchmaking, you would think Bungie (a team that perfected the art of multiplayer matchmakeing) would have included some option for people to get together and play Firefight, but as it is now you are limited to your friends list and their friends, wich can make it tough to find a full game at times. Outside of that gripe I certainly found ODST to be well worth playing, while some may scoff and say the game is far to short, I say play the game solo on Legendary and see how long it takes you.... 8)

so the final verdict for this one is a definite.....


BUT IT

Poker Diary....

So I have been getting back into online poker again latley so I thought I would do a few online diaries of my sessions, I have been playing micro limit for real money its nice because people take it more seriously than the play money tables but you dont feel like your life is at stake with every hand I started playing .01/.02 ring games and trying to make a few dollars and have been doing well on those making a dollar here and there the last two nights I moved up to the .02/.05 tables and have still been running pretty well Last night I was impressed with myself and how I kept my composure after getting up about 3 dollars (I sat at the table with $10) I got involved in a really big hand I had KK and the board was 6 5 8, I had raised preflop about 4 times the big blind and he had called, I bet out 20 (4 times the BB) and he called quickly, turn came K, i bet out 40 this time and he raises to 1.20 I call thinking maybe he has like A K, river comes A, I think I have him so I bet 3.00 he raises all in wich was about another 3.00 I call and he turns over 4 7 to beat me with the straight I was pissed but I kept it together and managed to fight my way back to about 11.00 dollars before I stoped for the night wich i felt good about,

Tonight I decided to play the .02/.05 table again and try to make 5 dollars wich I would then take to a 5 dollar double or nothing table (a quick 10 person tourny where 5 people double and 5 get nothing) the first table I sat at was fairly uneventful though I made about 2 dollars before the table broke down so I moved to another one, 1 really big hand here where I won about 7 dollars I was dealt 5 6 suited clubs in the big blind, guy next to me raises to .15 folds around I go ahead and call flop comes Kspade 4club 8club, So I semi bluff with my straight flush draw with a .50 bet he raises to a dollar I call turn comes 7club, I know i have the nuts so I bet 1.00 he raises another dollar (im thinking maybe he has Kings to make a set or something that hit a flush, he has about 3 more dollars) so I put him all in he calls and turns over KK I doubt he expected me to turn over the straight flush, so with my 5 dollars I took to a Double or nothing wich im playing right now, Pretty uneventful so far I havn't been able to get any cards thus far and was down to about 600 chips (we start with 1500) Just had a big hand though, I was dealt A 3 off suit and called 150 (big blind was 50) Hit the A on the flop and decided to make a play and went all in with 2 others still in the hand first guy folded, second guy took awhile to decide and finally called and turned over KK My hand held up and I won about 1700 chips so now ihave life again, only 1 player out so far so this one might last awhile Ill post any other big hands as the happen....Everyone seems to be playing really tight in this one no really big hands have developed I am actually in second place with about 2300 chips...finally lost another one I still am suffering from card drought getting nothing I can even play with but a guy went all in with A 10 and was called by A Q wich held up, cards are killing me tonight I got down to 400 chips but survived my all in now im hovering around 1000 chips and trying to last through 2 more eliminations...went all in with Qspade Jdiamond for about 900 guy called and turned over 8 8 flop came with 3 spades and I hit the 4th spade on the river to survive and actually give myself a decent stack...promptley lost a chunk of that stack on the next hand I had QQ and guy went all in for his last 500 and turned over A Q flop came K J 9, turn was 4, and of course the river 10 to give him the better straight.....final blow really hurt got 44 in the big blind no one raised flop came A 2 4, i bet 200 with about 1000 chips left, guy raised me all in I called and he turned over A 2, but of course the turn hits the A to give him a full house and put me out in 7th place, oh well nothing you can about those still a decent night of poker and I feel good with how I played for the most part hopefully next time I can actually win the double down....LOL

Tom Clancy's HAWX Review

Let me preface this review by saying that I didn't get to play this nearly as long as I wanted to because of the aforementioned RRoD on my 360 but I did get quite a few hours in the seat...enough to give it a fair review anyway...

The modern flight combat game has been largely ignored in the latest generations of gaming, which is shocking considering the advances in technology, the latest systems really lend themselves perfectly to this style of game. Perhaps we all still cant get the taste out of our mouths from trying to land on the damn aircraft carrier in TOP GUN for the NES, but alas we may finally have a winner in the genre and who better to bring it then Tom Clancy. When you hear the name Tom Clancy in relation to video games you can usually bet you are in for a pretty solid experience. Tom Clancy and UbiSoft have one heck of a track record when it comes to military games, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon have both been around for ages and continue to produce excellent games. However this is a new venture for both parties so what happens when these solid teams take a crack at the flight combat genre....Lets find out.

The first thing you notice when playing HAWX is the presentation is extremely solid. This tends to be the case with Tom Clancy games in this one is no different from the opening movie and the mission briefs the dev team definitely did their homework on this one. It really does an awesome job of bringing you into the game and almost allowing you to forget you are actually playing a game. Which brings us to the game play itself....again the team has done an excellent job not only nailing the flight combat elements but mixing up the game play to keep it fresh. The first mission has you eliminating some threats outside Mexico and then going on to assist a team on the ground to help extract them. Another mission sees you protecting an oil refinery from an oncoming attack. They really do a nice job mixing it up so it doesn't feel like just flying around shooting stuff. One really cool thing that they did was OFF mode. OFF mode basically turns off (get it.... 8) )all the restrictions that would normally be in place while flying a jet, this allows you to pull off some crazy maneuvers but you also have to be careful as its really easy to stall out while doing these which is never a good thing. My one gripe with the game play is the sense of speed, I'm not sure what could be done to improve this, but I never got the feeling of flying at 100's of miles per hour. I wont go into to much detail as the story for two reasons; one, as I said I didn't get to play this one to completion because of my box dying and two just in case you play it yourself I don't want to spoil anything. As for Multi player, this was another little gripe I had, multi player was limited (near as I can tell) to simply playing the single player missions in co-op with up to three other people and most of the time when you join a game you join in the middle of the mission which takes some of the fun out of it. It would have been really nice to see some kind of Dogfight mode where you could just go and fly against other people to really test your skills.

Overall, despite a few minor gripes, Tom Clancy's HAWX is a very well done, very fun game to play. If you are a fan of flight combat or military games I would recommend a BUY IT on this one for everyone else however it gets a......

RENT IT

While its a great game in my eyes it may not be every ones cup of tea. So check it out before you take the full plunge. Check out the following video (just ignore the clear typo in the title....LOL) to get a taste for it.....

Classic Gameplay - Tecmo Super Bowl Pt. 2

Classic Gameplay - Tecmo Super Bowl pt. 1

The Ring has Struck...

Well ladies and gentleman the inevitable has happened as I turned off my 360 the mighty RRoD struck....DOH!!! I will say this much at least MS is repairing them for free and the have it set up now so you can do it all online so it should be fairly speedy, Hopefully Ill have it back soon, though it will give me reason to catch up on some Wii which I truly have been neglecting lately

My YouTube Channel

Hey Guys if you havn't already please subscribe on my you tube channel, although most of the videos will wind up here as well It may be easier to follow them on you tube....thanks

http://www.youtube.com/user/neoflynn