Custom Map/Gametype: Vertigo

So I've finally gotten my first Forge map to a state that I'm ready for people to download it and play it. It's called Vertigo and it's meant for King of the Hill matches. I've taken a canvas of Standoff and constructed a floating platform high above the ground. This is where the Hill is located. The only way to reach the Hill is to take one of the six Man Cannons that have been placed around the map. It's a very simple map that is meant more for chaotic and fun gameplay than competitive play. Here is the link, Vertigo.

So far I've created 2 gametypes for it: Hammers and Lasers. In both gametypes, players have 110% speed and damage resistance. In Hammers, all players start with a Gravity Hammer with infinite ammo. In Lasers, all players start with Spartan Lasers and Swords, both with the regular starting ammo. Here is the link for those, Hammers, Swords.

If you play it and want to tell me what kind of tweaks it needs please feel free to comment. Feel free to adjust the rules as you see fit as well. And if can put a film of your session(s) on your fileshare and recommend it to TheArtistSwayze so I can see for myself that would be great as well. Hope you have fun, and here are some screenshots:

Screenshots From Halo 3's Living Dead Playlist

So this past weekend Halo 3 had a Living Dead playlist that was strictly Infection games. I floated around in one film and took some screenshots. So here they are, hopefully with some more to come this week if I'm not too busy playing Blackout.


He never saw it coming.


I swear these zombies are about to start doing the Thriller dance.


I don't have a caption for this one, I just liked the shot.

A Classic Video

If you haven't seen Digital Ph33r's "Master Chief Sucks at Halo" video (where have you been?) here's your chance to see it for the first time, or see it for the twentieth. Oh, and it's probably NSFW.

Be an Iron Chef

It seems that an Iron Chef game will be coming to Wii and DS this summer. This reeks of those leftovers that you thought you ate but really got pushed to the back of the fridge. Expect a lot of cheese, and I don't mean as the "secret ingredient."

Check out the full story here.

A Rant

So after almost a year of using my Motorola Razr cell phone, it finally went kaput. For the past few weeks I've been using my sister-in-law's old Razr and a few days ago, it went kaput as well. So I had no choice but to purchase a new cell phone. I got it in a few days ago and, being the nerd I am, started looking through all of its features and eventually came to the Games. I scroll through the list of games and one word keeps repeating itself: "Demo." What happened to the days when your phone at least came with one full version of a game? I think the last time was Snake. I'm shelling out a lot of cash for your phone, I think the least you could do was give me the full version of Texas Hold 'Em. Boo cell phone companies! Boo!

Advanced Halo Screenshots

After seeing some pretty cool Halo screenshots here created by El Burritoh at Tied the Leader, I decided to try some of my own. These shots are made of several separate screenshots that were churned through some software to "stitch" them together. While they didn't turn out as well, I think they were a good first attempt. I used the Canon PhotoStitch software that came with my Canon digital camera. For the most part it did a good job, although there are definitely places where you can see where the seams are and where the images didn't quite overlap well. If you want to learn more about this technique, check it out here.

What to do With Old Games?

Here's a situation that might sound familiar to many gamers: in your prized library of games you've got the games your playing now, the classics you'll never stop playing, and then the games that you never play anymore because you've beaten the entire game or you're just tired of it. So you look at those misfit games, not knowing what to do with them. You could always take them to one of those chain video game stores (you know the ones I'm talking about), but if you do that, you're going to feel like the clerks are laughing at you when you leave with your paltry $20 for the five games you gave them (if you're lucky). A more prudent option would be to sell them on eBay. However is one option that I'd like to tell you about:

Goozex.com . Funny name? Yes. Serious business? Right again! So what this business provides is a way for you to find games that you want to play, and find gamers who want to play the games that you want to get rid of. All games are assigned a point value according to their fair market value based on supply and demand. The more a game is in demand, the more likely it is to have a higher point value. You create a list of all the games that you want to get rid of, and Goozex's system will search for other users who want that game. When there is a match (I think the system uses a "first come, first serve" idea so users who put up the same game for trade before you will be matched before your game gets match, and similarly for the games you want) the system will let you know and you can confirm or reject the trade. Then you simply mail the game to the matched user's address and you will receive the point value for the traded game. So now you take the points that you just earned and find a game that you are interested in that is within your points budget. Now you wait in line until the system matches you and the matched user will send you the game, and the points will be deducted from your budget. Now for each game you receive you are required to pay $1 to Goozex (everyone's gotta make money, right?), though when you sign up you get one free trade (at least I did when I joined). I have received 2 games so far and am waiting in line for a 3rd (one game was just released, one is less than six months old, and the other was released over six months ago). I have sent in 5 games so far (only one was released in the past year). The great thing about this website is that you can still get a good price on older games (at the moment, Gears of War is worth 750 points and most new releases start around 800-900 points). Here is a link if you want to check it out (yes, that is a referral link, meaning if you click through it and sign up I will get rewarded).

Goozex

There was another option I was hoping to tell you about, but a few days before I started writing this, it expired. This article was about donating your games to troops in Iraq, but the contact person in Iraq was leaving at the end of February. Hopefully there will be another opportunity like this that I can tell you about before it ends.