Dear Bungie, Here is what you need to do to make Halo Infinite great.

 

Dear Bungie,

Hi, this is Xbox Live Gamer stuffyyo. I have been playing Halo for as long as other people have also been playing Halo. My love for Halo and Master Chief goes so deep that on my back, if you take off my shirt you will see a giant portrait of our God and Savior Sweet Baby John Lord Almighty. Not actually, but if I were to get a tattoo it would be in the running. What I am here to provide though is a fix for the upcoming Halo game, Halo Infinite. Even though I have not technically played the new Halo game in development, and I have only barely seen images or video of the new product, I am fully aware of issues in the game that need fixing. To make this easy on myself as I am only fixing Halo Infinite as a favor, I will be constructing the steps in an unintentionalized list.

One bit of background and credibility enhancing information I should add, as to help you take my thoughts with the proper amount of seriousness as they deserve, I am a Halo fan but everything beyond this sentence that I am writing is purely objective-fact based truth and I am honest to Sweet Baby John Lord Almighty Son of Mother Halsey not allowing any of my biases leak forward.

#1 The first and most crucial tip and or critical guideline that you must follow over at 343 Industries, Xbox, and Microsoft is too, as difficult as this may sound, not stuff this game like Gears 5 and Halo 5 turkey styled with Microtransactions. This may be a tough bullet to swallow but as delicate of a franchise like Halo in it’s current state and the Xbox brand as a whole, this game has hefty heft of heft riding on it’s shoulders. Gamepass is the only current offering from Xbox that is keeping the ecosystem as a whole from being a knee-slapper of a laughing engine that it struggles to distance itself from. Everyone in the world who has ever opened a copy of Windows knows, you guys like to push your products in the face of people. These products like Edge are usually garbage. Maybe this time push Halo and have it be good. Just because you are giving it on Gamepass does not give you a free ticket to Games as a service hell that Gears 5 became. Possibly even scrap the idea of Halo Infinite becoming a free to play and slap a real price tag on it, and provide us the chance to buy a product that is actually worth buying and playing. Gears 5 was an amazing concept and dream for gamers until they opened up Gears 5 through gamepass and saw that they had been duped into believing that Microsoft was including a full featured video game release in their subscription to Gamepass. Instead, Microsoft 360 no-scoped Gears fans and gamers-alike into dropping a free-to-play game on their hard drive with a triple A branding on it. I would happily pay $60 to buy a new Gears of War game that was made with the same heart that the original three were made with. Microtransactions and store fronts are what players received with Gears 5, if you want a 5 different Marcus Fenix aged characters to play as, just slide that credit card babyyy. Same thing with Halo 5, the entire card system is ridiculous and spam.

Imagine if Audi released the R8 super car but rather than allowing their customers to buy it, they only let them drive the car for a monthly fee and limited how much they drove each month. And on top of that Audi threw in all their older prestige models of vehicles as a reward for renting their R8 and allowed you to drive those older cars as much as you wanted without restrictions.

Sell us a $60 full priced video game that has everything unlockable through playing the game and rewards people who play the game more than people who run their credit card the most.

#2 The absolute only reason people play Halo 5 over the other Halos is that the game runs well. It is 60 fps has good input control. People don’t play Call of Duty over Battlefield because they like the lore better, they play it because Call of Duty is the best feeling console shooter out there. If Halo Infinite feels sluggish like the Killzone series and less like Call of Duty Modern Warfare than don’t bother releasing a multiplayer to the game. Doom 2016 was cool but I can count how many people still play that online with 1 hand. They didn’t even bother with a real multiplayer in Eternal. No one is going to want to compete online when it is more of a competition to compete against the controller. You no longer have the same advantage you did back in 2007 of releasing before Modern Warfare. Gamers now have the expectation of sub 50ms input latency from button to pixel and are going to laugh games like Doom Eternal out the room.

If I don’t see an FOV slider,

Deadzone sliders,

button remapping,

toggle adjusters,

quality of life features,

skulls,

single player cheats and goof off modes,

x y sensitivity along with accelleration,

v sync toggle,

post processing toggle,

input based matchmaking,

region based matchmaking,

cheater reporting,

crosshair adjustments,

and if any other game has some neat feature, you better have it as well. You are Microsoft, you built the most used operating system in the entire world.

#3 There’s a lot of arguing about Sprint belonging in Halo or not. I’m not going to say whether or not you’re allowed to have sprint or if you should, but I will say, if there is sprint make sure that Halo still plays like a Halo game. To me Halo is closer to Fortnite than to Call of Duty in regards to the way you confront and fight an enemy. Call of Duty is first one to spot the other wins while Fortnite and Halo have a much longer and complex battle. Halo you have the chance to go all in to get a kill even if that means you will die trying or you can flee and most likely get away. I can beat a person who has not ever played Halo 25-0 on the Pit in 3 but if we did a 1v1 in Rust the score would be much more even. Putting loadouts into Halo is like Tekken locking complex kicks and punches behind levels. Halo is not meant to be Call of Duty. Don’t make stupid decisions just to follow the trends. If you make a loadout system that is actually beneficial to the game and is not meaningless and annoying like Halo 4 than good job, but if you can’t give up and spend time on other things that work.

#4 Let me relax when I play the game. Don’t have the game feel like my computer has a virus with all the notifications about garbage I don’t want to spend money on. If you add a new game mode to MCC I will see it, you don’t need to tell me Griffball, a game mode I will never play has been re-added, with a giant popup that I have to click out of.

#5 Don’t be narcs, give us custom game browsing and let us have fun.

#6 If this game is going open world, look towards Metal Gear Solid 5 and do not dare try to make it a Minecraft survival game or a borderlands/destiny looter shooter. Master Chief better not be collecting berries or be doing quests to bring people scrap metal so they can make tools or blueprints. I will blow a warthog head gasket if I find out that by completing a side quest for some blacksmith lets me upgrade the stats on my BR or increases the shields on my Spartan armor. The most educated and material rich businesses and agencies in the world, who also make space traveling vehicles built the armor, not some guy who has duct tape and a vice grip.

I Care A Lot - The WOAT

 This is a review I initially posted to Metacritic and you can go find it there as well.

I logged onto my (Metacritic) account that I haven’t used in 10 years to write a review for this movie. Save yourself the frustration and annoyance and do not watch this movie. Pike is doubling down on her Gone Girl role with this in the worst way possible. Everything about this movie is despicable. The title card at the beginning with the chosen and overused font is even painful to see. Combine the cinematography style with the music and you get the movie Drive but instead it’s starring the Nino character and instead of Gosling driving away at the end he just lays to die in the parking lot. The electronic music is cliche, well just the entire package artistically is cliche in the way that Urban Outfitters sells Dr Dre’s The Chronic vinyls in their stores.

Note the dramatic electronic music playing, it's only missing a "copyright netflix with some roman numerals  and an All Rights Reserved" text below. I hope streaming services are giving royalties out for the Cabernet font and 70s exploitation aesthetics that they're trendily using.

Another female led feature utilizing a the giant font and the first person that is being released around the same time.

Elizabeth Holmes couldn’t even watch this movie and sympathize with the characters or plot. Why does her assistant/ girlfriend never look directly at people when talking and why is her hair always in her face?

Is having a black man as the judge being tricked left and right end up as a failed attempt to check a diversity box?

This movie is tagged as an LGBTQ movie on Netflix, would the LGBTQ people really want this sociopath as a representative?

The whole staff at the wellness place is in on the con? There’s not a single person witnessing healthy elderly getting boxed up and sold? Marla wakes up mid car crash perfectly coherent and slides out of the sinking car like she’s the safety crew on Fear Factor? I don’t want to cinema sins this on the small stuff anymore but you’re telling me that the Russian mob, who can 360 no-scope and pack Marla up in bag like a chipotle employee, can’t kill an unconscious person? Try and find 3 Europeans who wouldn’t be able to tell you about the safety features in a brand new bmw with the “German engineering” that would be able make it an obviously terrible car to try and kill someone with. Im annoyed that this meaningless movie has me foaming at the mouth with anger. In Gone Girl, Pike is a sociopath but she’s really only ruining the life of Ben Affleck and a couple other guys she dated before. This takes it to a whole new level where it is so over the top that a sex slave trafficker is less angering than this woman trafficking the elderly. Please do not watch this movie. This is a movie star taking an Oscar bait role at the expense of the happiness of an average movie viewer.

 If a waiter spits in your drink, that's mean. If a waiter puts poison in your drink, that's evil and mean. If a waiter sees that you tipped over 20% and then follows you back to your home, steals your mom and then shoots your dog, that is Marla from I Care A Lot.

If Amy Cooper needs a new job I'm sure she could find one working for Marla Grayson.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Review - Black Friday Shopping Simulator

This game is mad addicting. My brother, girlfriend, and I have been passing the dualshock back and forth after getting eliminated for hours since the game has been for free on PS+. For a game so simple, that all you need to know are three different buttons, this is one of the hardest games I've ever played. Dodge, Dive, Jump, and grab are basically the only things one needs to master to become a strong competitor in the fall guys "show". I haven't won yet, but I've been real close to the crown, the object you get if you win which is needed to get the swaggier items from the in game store.

Here's me almost claiming the crown

For a supposedly $20 game I was pleasantly disappointed when I saw that this game included a fortnite like store selling skins and emotes. However the store turned out to be one that does not run off of actual currency but rather points earned through competing in the game which is a nice change from v-bucks and radiants. The skins so far are ok, consisting of a lot of animal inspired hats for your fall guy to wear and some funny fast food ones you are able to buy as DLC outside of the actual game for real world money. The fast food ones are by far the best, which makes it not a surprise that those actually cost money.

From the first day I've played to the second day, I've been seeing a bunch of new courses which is keeping the game fresh. For this game I feel like they'll need to continue adding courses, to keep the game from getting stale. I could definitely see this game becoming a quick fad as the skill ceiling seems somewhat low, and the gameplay doesn't seem like it is complex enough to get to a point where people are doing the equivalent of cranking 90s and building Taj Mahals.

I played a couple games doing remote play on my PS Vita, which worked well besides the R2 being forcefully placed on the touch bar on the back with no options included in allowing it to be remapped to R1.

Initial Review is 7.11/10

Fun - 10

Graphics - 9

Skins - 7

Replay-ability - 7

Very enjoyable watching 40+ people cram through a small door way, stepping over each other trying to get through.

Desert Golfing, Finally a Realistic Golf Sim Makes it on the Iphone.

Give me the beat boys and free my soul I want to get lost in the desert and golf.

I just passed hole 311 and saw a cactus for the first time. In the video game world that is called immersion. With “Desert Golfing”, an app I’ve been playing on the iPhone, the large team of developers set out to make a game focused on making you feel like you’re actually golfing in the desert.

The mechanics of the game can be easily described to a new player but that does not mean there isn’t a complexity to the game-play that requires substantial amounts of time dedicated to your stroke to master the sands. For those players who have experience with other golf or billiards sims, they will be able to hop on into the game without a struggle. Like a slingshot, you’ll pull back to launch the ball. Desert Golfing generously gives the player an arrow to show the distance and angle of your swing, besides that you’re on your own.

The flag pole clearly identifies which hole you’re on, of the desert’s endless course. For each hole, the total count of the strokes required to sink the ball in the hole are tallied up at the top next to a “+”. Alongside the stroke count is the total stroke count. I’ve surpassed a thousand strokes and my arms aren’t even close to getting fatigued. With over a 1000 strokes and having just recently pulled flag 311, I’m averaging about 3 strokes per hole.

Very few successes in life measure up to the amount of satisfaction that comes from a hole-in-one in Desert Golfing. Ideally you’ll shoot for a hole-in-one but occasionally the game throws you a hook and will give you a course that for some reason bust your balls and grinds your gears so hard that you’re walking out of the course with almost 31.1 strokes on a single hole. There are two main challenges that each golfer will come across. First example is dealing with a cliff that hangs over the teeing area. Second comes from over or under shooting your initial drive and having the ball get stuck in valley. Some valleys are so tough and steep that the only way to get out of them is to back track, thus hurting your overall score in a frustratingly painful way.

The cost is $1.99 and I’d say I’d pay even up to $3.11 for the game.

Graphics - really crispy
Performance - runs really well
Audio - just enough and not too much, you can still listen to music or a podcast while playing
Advertisements - none, god bless
File size - like 2 MB, at most
Replay-ability - infinite
AOTY (app of the year) - not sure when it was released but most likely

Desert Golfing drives it out of the range. This is a completely flawless game that I can’t recommend enough. I gifted two copies of the games after a few holes and they are now just as hooked on stroking. We’ve been sending each other screenshots of our scores, which makes this single player adventure a community experience.

9.99/10

Halo 3 in the MCC on PC review. It's finally here.

2020 has been a painful year but a lesser mentioned travesty has been 343's decision on how to release and work on Halo games for their PC port of the MCC. Slowly beta flighting and releasing the Halo games in chronological order based on the story and setting has been an almost criminal case of deliberate and toxic wide-spread blueballs to the Xbox community. Starting with Halo CE, would've been one thing but to dedicate months of pushing out Reach first hurt. Give us Reach when you are looking around the office for tasks to do, don't give us Reach when you're trying to hype us up on repurchasing the game, this time on steam. At least the time between Halo 2 and 3 felt very quick, with Halo 2 being a pretty decent port and game that hasn't aged too poorly. CE felt like I was playing CS 1.6 or Doom 1, compared to what I was currently playing (Modern Warfare, Fortnite).

So we get Halo 3 finally for PC. Yes we had the el dewrito, or whatever it was called, where we could experience what Halo 3 could be like on M&KB, but it wasn't the full thing and we all knew it wouldn't ever become the full thing. What the community need was a Microsoft backed Halo 3 port to the PC, not a Russian version that they somehow managed with Harry Potter's wand to get running for who-knows-how-long on the PC.

July 14th, (I guess silently July 13th also), I get an email from Steam telling me that Halo MCC DLC is available and I should be at home getting kill sprees instead of crimping wires at work. After work I see my boys are already getting clapped on Halo 3 and I join in. Unlike all the previous releases of Halo to the MCC on the PC, this one actually works and it works well. In the entire night I was playing I never experienced any game breaking or even annoying bug. What 343 delivered was actually the Chrondalisa Halo 3 experience. Reach I  struggled with v-sync off and on and frame limitors. That game was a constant battle between screen tearing like a paused VHS or about as responsive as me telling my girlfriend to play bumper jumper for the first time.

Bugs in Halo 3 - None.
Graphics in Halo 3 - Halo 3.
Frame-rate in Halo 3 - 311, easily.
Audio - except for the unlocking in the battle pass being 31.1 decibels louder than the rest of the game, I think Marty would be proud.

The other Halos suffered from a large discrepancy between using a mouse and keyboard or a controller. Halo 3 doesn't seem to suffer in the same way. I'm 3 over 11 in terms of experience gaming on WASD vs my Xbox controller, which basically means in Counter Strike I get swept under a corporate building's rug which then gets decommissioned as a practical office complex due to not keeping up with earthquake regulations in San Francisco, thus leading to being torn-down or condemned. Halo CE and 2 suffered from the hit-scan era of video games, where the bullets are accurate. You get a mouse and a hit-scan game and you're more preoccupied clicking on heads with a pistol than even needing grenades, or melee. Halo 3 we get some of that good old projectile shooting. This means you need to shoot 5 or 6 burst rounds to do the 4 rounds to kill people. This levels the playing field, where you might be able to whip the mouse quicker than the controller, the players are still at a similar playing field when they are both waiting on the battle rifile to do what they want it to do.

Halo 3 for MCC on PC gets a 7 out of 11. And if you need that on a 10 base scale, that equats to a 9.343 out of 10.

Organization, Clutter, and Creativity.

I have a box of wires. Actually more like a few boxes of wires. Throwing cables away not only to me a me a but as well a constant battle with the "what if?". What if I need this cable, or even What if  someone I know needs this cable. Yes the cable is on Amazon for appropriate and fair price of 4.99$, but that means I'm waiting for two days for the cable or getting in my car to dish out 12.99$ for the cable sitting in Best Buy. Not only that, my most creative moments and the times I need cables are late at night, when I get into a zone that can't be stalled by missing a critical cable. Having a cable at any moments notice is like finding a T8 bit, with tamper hole, but better. If I come across a cable T8 screw and don't have the proper tools I'm going to butcher that screw with whatever I can find until that screw is removed. Missing a SATA or ESATA cable and the game is over.

So at what point do I achieve a proper wire reserve without teetering into cable excess. 1 extra ethernet cable? You never know when a LAN party may arise,  and which a single extra RJ45 would be cutting it close.

This is the first part of a series of internal debate and issues occurring in my boring life.
Next part will most likely continue on in my study of wires.

A.D.A.W.

Another Day

Another Wire

Here is a link, also where I found the second image from.

https://local.theonion.com/jumbled-nest-of-cords-makes-move-to-third-new-apartment-1819592125