Halo 3 Recon

So, although the news has already cycled the expanse of the internet and back, I thought I’d do a post on it. Joining the coming ranks of new Halo games such as Halo Wars and the project Halo: Chronicles, Bungie has decided to release a sort of ‘expansion’ for Halo 3, that is intended to bridge the gap between Halo 2 and 3.

Being dubbed by Bungie as Halo 2.5, Recon is set shortly after the Prophet of Regret leaves New Mombasa in a slipspace portal in the Earth’s atmosphere. Meanwhile, a number of Human Entry Vehicles enters the atmosphere which intend on landing in the city and leading an attack against the Covenant on the ground. Unfortunatley for them, the shockwaves generated from the slipspace portal destroys most of the HEVs, with only one remaining, carrying a Stealth ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper). As the ODST it’s your job, along with a little help from the Superintendant AI of the city, to perform a vital, top secret mission.

It has been confirmed that the game will be on a standalone disk and run on the Halo 3 engine, containing some new multiplayer maps, and that Forge, Screenshots and saved films will be making a comeback.

For pure viewing pleasure, here’s the Halo 3 Recon ‘Keep It Clean’ trailer:

The Return

Phew… it’s been AGES since I last threw something up here! Well, loads has happened since my last post and I obviously can’t condense months into sentences… so, first off… I thought I’d vent my hidden frustration, as I’ve had to exchange my Xbox 360 for another as it encountered some technical difficulties… (Ok, ok, the screen froze for no reason) and judging from my new one, something major was wrong with my first one…  it didn’t shut down gracefully, the screen became distorted after a while… all in all I suppose it was fortunate I could get a new console to replace the shoddy one I had… although it felt like I was losing an old friend as I had some of  my best moments on that Xbox… but anywho! 
I’ve managed to finally back up everything on my Mac on my hard drive (Not using Time Machine, I mean saving a copy of all my media onto the drive in case I delete something in future) and it’s quite nice having a copy to fall back on… all in all, very useful. I’m now fully harnessing the power of iPhoto to edit my photos… and I am seriously considering saving up for Photoshop… as editing photos really has become a new hobby for me! (Other than playing Halo…) although money might be another issue.
I’m saving up for The Force Unleashed which is supposed to release sometime in mid September… (My friend Hanik tortured me with a demo video…) I’m planning on getting it for my (new) Xbox… that’ll be awesome! I can’t wait.
I recently bought three Halo books (The Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike) and I’ve really enjoyed them all (as my friends would tell you from my numerous status updates on Facebook!) but I do feel I have to say my overall (and new favourite) book was The Fall of Reach. I really enjoyed learning the back story to the games (although I already knew the backstory, reading the book just brings a  whole new definition) and the whole way through I couldn’t put the book down. I found it that riveting! I mean, nothing is cooler than the line: “Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument!” 
Anyway, that’s all for now, and I hope I can post again soon!

Back to the Mac… and Halo.

Hello once again, prospective viewer! Well, yesterday I had the most TREMENDOUS scientific breakthrough of my LIFE! Yes folks, It took hours of sweat, blood, determination and Fanta Orange, but I have once again succeeded on getting my iBurst modem to function on my Macbook. After a titanic battle of me Vs. my Ethernet settings, I managed to route my iBurst modem to work under the Network pane (Which I consider a little bit impressive, as the first time I did it I phoned an iBurst representative and even he had to as Technical Support for help…)  So once again I have resumed enjoying the refined-ness of Safari on the Mac. I also have given Opera a try, and against my initial thoughts, I didn’t find it so cool. (But anyway, that’s my opinion) I’ve also downloaded the Halo 3 E3 2007 Trailer onto my iPod (Which I’ve been waiting for iBurst Bandwidth to download from the web) with the help of a Video format conversion program I downloaded from Apple’s website (the download section) called iSquint, which I have to mention is excellent, as it really gave the video top-notch quality on my iPod touch, did the job in record time, and I don’t have to consider buying QuickTime anymore to convert videos in to Mp4 format anymore 😀 So, I suggest if you’re looking for a good video converter for the Mac, iSquint is my suggestion! 

I’ve also managed to get some back-ups going with my external LaCie hard drive, just in case this year is the year for The Great Hard Drive Disaster. I’ve been thinking alot of the subject of backing-up, and I read an interesting article on the web a while ago that contemplates (and it has already been done) on-line back-up (Backing up to a hard drive that’s offered a service over the net) . I thought that this was really useful, although it’s useless to me as I live in South Africa and my internet connection(s) would be way to slow to even contemplate moving about 30 GB across the net! But I just remember thinking how useful this would be if better internet connection came to South Africa, (I mean heck, internet in Mozambique is FREE!) as I’m sure many South Africans would actually make use of the service and actually would back up. But that’s enough from this crazy teenager.

I’ve also been enjoying the gaming delights of Halo 3 this holiday, and I’ve managed to finish the campaign on normal difficulty (which wasn’t too much of a challenge, and let’s remember I took a run through on Easy to get a feel for the game, this is how I play after all) and I feel I’ve gotten so used to the controls I don’t think I’ll ever be able to play another ‘360 game again! (Not that this is a bad thing – I love playing Halo!) and I’m starting to play again on Heroic. I don’t think I’ll ever play through on Legendary, as I have tried Sierra 117 a few times and got ridiculously irritated form dying so many times… haha. Apparently Bungie is releasing a new Multiplayer map called Cold Storage today (for free!) But it’s a torment and dissapointment for me because in SA we don’t have Xbox LIVE and so there’s no way I’ll be able to downloand it… tis such a sad, sad life…

Anyway, I better finish up here, before my cup of tea that’s waiting for me gets cold!