Halloween and some other stuff

Well, today being the 31st of October means that today is Hallo's Eve, or more commonly known as Halloween. Apparently it is the night where the link between our world and the spirit world is at its strongest. If you are like me and think that apart from being a good oppurtunity for a party, it's just a stupid fad from America which entitles children to free sweets for putting on a hat and hitting the streets. I personnally have never liked the idea of menacing people at their doorsteps for sweets. But thats just me and my moodyness. All i can say is that kids knocking at my house tonight better have amazing costumes. Well, today at college, one boy took Halloween to college. I didnt expect anyone to make any effort at all today, let alone travel on the train in full costume. Here he is dressed as an undead pirate. The level of detail really was astonishing. The main clothing wasnt the only great feature, but he had a huge variety of accessories. These included a hat, a musket, a cutlass AND a hook. Im not sure all 4 can be used at the same time but they certainly added to the realism of it all. For a second, i slightly, kind of, maybe thought i was on an actual undead pirate ship. From these pictures you can kind of see what i mean (yer...).









As you can see, there is alot of detail involved. Anyway, more news about Halo 3 that i missed out in my previous post. One rumour that has been moving its way across the interweb quicker than Rik Waller on his way to a £5 All you can eat buffet. This of course being the Man Cannon. This grotesquely named thing is actually a vehicle. It apparently can fire players across the battlefield, sending them through the air and allowing them access to use their weapons mid flight. Im guessing that it moves slowly and that the willing to move it away from your base would be small. I can see however that firing your flag carrier away from your opponents base back to yours might be an option and could see the demand in moving it a bit higher than i first thought.

More news on the button/control system i forgot to mention is the following. The RT will still fire the right weapon. The LT will still be used for firing your left weapon and also throw nades when a weapon is not there. The bumpers however are having a change. In Halo 2, they simply replaced the lack of the black/white buttons. Now however, the right bumper (RB) will reload your right weapon. The left bumper (LB) will reload the left weapon or swap between your nades. A will be to jump, B melee, Y to pick up new weapons in your left hand and swap between your two weapons. The left stick to move/crouch and the right stick to weapon zoom and look around. This ofcourse is the default weapon scheme. But this still leaves X free. Bungie apparently have stated that "X will revolutionise game play". This leaves me with alot of speculation of what it could be used for that isnt already being utilised. One can only guess but since they have said that it will be a huge change to FPSers that i couldnt possibly get anywhere near the mark. I think it could be anything. It could be basic or it could be very complicated. My guess is that it will be simple, as most of the genre breakthroughs have been simple and work easily. The easier they are, the easier it is for players to pick up and get used to. I hope they break their deadly silence soon :P. Oh, i also have a ruined pair of jeans now after i borrowed a pen from a mate that turned out to be leaky.

Generals and $2m dont go together - Halo 3 news too :P

Well, after getting Generals back (yay!) i had a good game of it. But my game was cut short. I decided to try and get $2 million. I did this by building a tonne of USA money drop off centers and also a whole load of GLA Black Markets. But i think i built too many as the game crashed unexpectedly, just as i was nearing the $2 million mark. Next time I will have to go against teams harder than Easy as it really is a walk in the park. 5 missile turrets to the entrance of your base and you are sorted for the whole match.

Anyway, news about Halo 3. Screenshots and a whole tonne of info is being published in Novembers edition of EGM and several other game magazines. So far, i cant really say i know all that much as i have only seen scans of the German version of the magazine. I think it is German, that or Swedish. But, a few sections have been translated and this is what i can tell you IS in the magazine.

Mongoose - The new 2 person ATV type vehicle. Fitted with no weapons but has a huge top speed over the ghost and Warthog.
Galileian/Spartan Laser - One of the many new weapons being added in is the Spartan Anti Vehicle Laser. A red beam that apparently can rip vehicles apart in seconds. A good addition im my opinion, much better than constantly relying on getting to the rockets first.
Brute Spiker - I believe this is a one handed "nail gun". Of course including the complimentory Brute-esque blade across the bottom of them. Looks pretty cool but i dont know about their power or versatility.
Brute Spiker Grenades - A new type of grenades to join the ancient Plasma and Frag nades. This nade can stick to walls and when detonated, leaves any nearby enemies looking like a pin cushion.
Brute Ghost - I dont know how reliable the claim on these new Ghosts are but i havent heard much about them. I read a short description of the new weapons and saw that one of the things listed was the Brute Ghost. I presume that they are predominately bigger than their older brothers but probably are slower and fire red lasers, maybe stronger than the blue ones.

Another thing to note is that they have added a new multiplayer feature. This is that you will now be able to see a players secondary weapon across their back. I think this will make multiplayer a bit easier on judgements. If you see a guy pussying about with an SMG and think you can get an easy kill by charging him but then see he has a Sword or Shotgun across his back, you might want to rethink your tactics. It might take the thrill out of it for the guy with the Sword, but will maybe make things easier for the rest of us when we have a chance to assess the situation.

In all honesty, im pretty glad to see that alot of news on Halo 3 is being published. At the moment, alot of us Halo fans are left in the dark on a little of the material being planned for Halo 3. By the end of November, Bungie will have said/explained alot more of the material in the magazines and will make a lot of fans; including this one, very happy.

396

I just went to find out how many words i had put into my last post (about my essay) and my first ever post to find out that they both had 396 words. Freaky stuff. Especially since i didnt aim for 396.

An Essay filled morning

This morning i spent a couple of hours finishing one of my half term assignment essasys (i always leave it until the last day :P). I was quite pleased that it only took 2 hours out of my life so all in all, a job well done.

I am also a little bit excited now. I will be retrieving my Generals disk set in little under an hour so I will be showing China not to mess with the power of the Particle Cannon. I would write something quite witty now, but my fingers are about to bleed after my speed typed essay. I do realise that this blog so far is more like a proper blog than what i set out to do. In the near future, I will post up some reviews etc that I have done in the past. Some being funny, some not so funny but will be a space filler and will hopefully give you some idea of what I can write when i have subject matter. I did have an idea for something last night but I have forgotten what it was now. I'm sure it will come back to me sometime this week.

Another thing to mention is that there is going to be a Demonstration in Trafalgar Square on Saturday, 4th November from 1pm-3pm. I am not sure if i will be going yet, but seeing that the demonstration is about Global Warming and it does effect me, the least i can do is show my support for the 3% cut proposal aimed at the Queen. The group of demonstrators are hoping that the demonstration will make the Queen add a 3% Carbon Cut per Year proposition into a Parliamentory Speech that she will be making on the 15th November. Like i said, it does effect us all and every individual counts towards a global effort. If you can make it, please do. I am writing this just after Tony Blair has issued a statement saying that we "have no time to wait".

A bit of a downer after the great news of Generals returning to me and im sorry for it. I have no more time (or material) to write so this is the end of my post today. I may add some more up later on tonight if i have enough time. Thanks for reading again.

Damn C&C Generals!

The title really says it all. I booted up my PC after a fairly tiring day (putting your first post on your blog is quite a tiresome task) and I Charlstoned my mouse across my computer screen to meet up with my Games folder. Upon taking a look inside, i thought to myself "hmmm, what havent i played in a while. Ah! Maybe i'll have a go at playing some Generals." So i double clicked the icon and soon the message "Please insert the game disk once you have clicked "OK" and try again". I then spent the next 20-30minutes looking about in various places for the disk pack. After a good search (20-30mins, i think i already covered that) I knew that it was not in my possession.

After ringing round a few people who may have borrowed it, I have found the culprit. I will be getting the disk back some time tomorow, but that doesnt help me out now or remove this bitter and minor taste of defeat. I have been beaten by C&C Generals. I want to play it so damn much but after tonight, I dont think the redemption of it tomorow is going to fix how distached I feel to Generals. Looks like I am going to be spending my evening doing something constructive, rather than blowing the GLA to shit.

The beginning

Well, this is my first post on my first ever blog (second actually, but thats a secret) and as the title of my blog states, it's mostly because im pretty bored now. I used to spend my time hunting wierd pig/human things in Azeroth but now that there's a 2 or so month wait until The Burning Crusade comes out (yes, i am talking World of Warcraft) and i have left my raiding guild, there's not much to do.

I chose a blog over making another website, mainly because blogs are so easy to maintain as Blogger deal with all the posting, making it look nice and also the hosting (yay!). The only thing that does worry me about using Blogger is that it may take me some time getting used to the way posts and images etc are managed and updated on here so it may be a few weeks until things actually run smoothly, end up in the right place and look generally ok.

Since this is my first post, i should really tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Laurence (Loz, please) and im 17 years old. I am in my first year at college and I have yet to learn how to drive. I am into rock/alternative rock/some punk/some indie/classic rock/modern classic rock and a few other genres that are really too hard to put into a category. I also have a twin brother, Robert and an older brother who is at Uni (19) called Sam. I have made this blog because i am pretty bored (I think I have already said this but meh) when im not at college, not at work or have no work from college to do. Between those 3 aspects of my life and socialising (yer, sure) there isnt much around to do. I also need more practice writing and this might be good practice for informal writing.

Most of the stuff I will be writing on will be to do with stuff that interests me. I am studying Politics so a fair bit of what i write on will be politically based but dont worry, there will also be random chit chat about other stuff such as computer games and any funny anecdotes. Thanks for reading (thats probably to the one Blogger moderator :D) and I hope to keep this updated fairly regularly.