Halo Reach October update details

Hey Twiddlers!

Courtesy of www.zombiegamer.co.za, here is the list of updates you Reach fans can expect to see in October.


Playlist Changes

* SWAT Playlist added (SWAT removed from Big Team Battle and Team Slayer)
* Campaign Matchmaking (live on 10/15 – You will be required to have earned the Grade “Corporal” to enter this Playlist)
* Team Slayer rebalanced to highlight default Slayer game variants and include new offerings
* Classic Slayer removed
* Removed “Pro” game variants from the Arena Playlist
* Removed Boardwalk from Arena Team Doubles Playlist
* Added “Return to Battlefield” volume to Space on Zealot in the Arena Playlist

Game Variants Additions

* King of the Hill (multiple Playlists, including Arena)
* Rocket Race
* Juggernaut (Rumble Pit Playlist)
* King of the Hill not included in Arena

General Housekeeping

* Sudden Death will be added to all Assault game variants, including Invasion
* Team Objective will now feature the map Powerhouse
* Replacing Drop Shield with Evade for King of the Hill, Territories, and Oddball
* Replacing Hologram with Evade in Oddball, Capture the Flag, Assault, and Stockpile
* Replacing the Scorpion on Hemorrhage with Wraiths (Hemorrhage Heavies variant, TBD)


I'm pretty stoked to see SWAT get a playlist as I love playing SWAT but I know a lot of BTB and TS gamers get frustrated if they get stuck in a lobby with a load of headshot lovers.

How do you guys feel about the update?

'Chuck Greene: Carrying bitches and kicking zombies since 2010' - A 'Dead Rising 2' Initial Impression

So I have just started Dead Rising 2.

I managed to score a copy of GAME's exclusive 'Outbreak Edition' by pure luck on the morning of it's release and what you get for the £60 price tag is pretty good.

I've bought Special/Limited/Collector Editions of titles before and have been massively disappointed with what I have received (I'm looking at you Fallout: New Vegas Collectors Edition with no exclusive DLC) but the initial shock alone of how massive the box containing all these goodies is makes you feel like you've gotten your moneys worth.

The 'Outbreak Edition' of Dead Rising 2 gives you a copy of the game; a 'Sports Fan Theme Pack' DLC code; a 'Tape It Or Die' booklet featuring combo weapon ideas; a bonus DVD featuring a 'Making Of' documentary & Zombrex 'Dead Rising Sun' film and the crowning jewel, a 12" articulated zombie figurine with servboat head and traffice cone.

I've named mine Duane and he's now chilling out with R2-D2 next to my TV.



I also managed to snag the 'Ninja Theme Pack' GAME pre-order bonus courtesy of the store manager, which I am yet to try out.

Following the advice of my lovely Twitter followers, I downloaded and played the XBLA prologue 'Case Zero' before getting knee deep in zombie guts in Dead Rising 2.
Despite a fair amount of reviews calling 'Case Zero' a glorified demo, I thought it worked well as a standalone title and at 400MSP you can't really argue.
Yes, it would have worked as the first level in Dead Rising 2 but it was a nice treat for fans to get an early taste of the game for a small price and was great promotion and hype for the release.

After two run throughs, saving all the survivors and getting Chuck to level 5 ('Case Zero's level cap) I decided that amateur hour was over and it was time to go pro.

So far I have racked up about 3 hours of play time and I can already start to see the positives and negatives of Dead Rising 2.

The AI seems to have finally developed a survival instinct and you no longer find yourself having to rescue them from an overwhelming horde of 3 zombies.
In fact, every survivor I have acquired on my travels will actively go out of their way to lay the smackdown on any nearby brain munchers and have gotten me out of a tough spot more than once.
Survivors have become a help more than a hindrance. Just make sure that you arm any that aren't already wielding one of the many weapons/objects made available to you.
My favourites so far have to Shewanda, armed with a crowbar and cussing out her cowering husband as she cracks another zombie around the head and Chad, armed with a shotgun, blasting his way through crowds of hungry shufflers looking for his trigger happy other half.

The combo weapons are the best thing about this game.
I was quite disappointed that after playing 'Case Zero', I wouldn't have the opportunity to 'tape it or die' until about 30 minutes into it's big brother but once the option became available, I was wielding baseball bats with nails in and 'laser swords' at every opportunity.
Using combo weapons give you a 'PP' bonus for each kill which makes levelling a lot quicker and easier (I am already level 7) and zombie slaying is much more fluid than wielding their uncombined components. I have even opted to use combo weapons over firearms which is a bit confusing at times as logic would permit that a gun is more powerful than a bat with nails in it.
My favourite combo weapon? Well I don't want to give anything away but..



The frequency of the cut scenes and loading screens have a tendency to break up the action.
In an ideal world, I would like to be able to cross into different 'sections' of the mall with my broom/machete combo still swinging without having to wait 10 seconds for it to load in.
More than once I have been unexpectedly attacked by a cutscene, some of which are, in my opinion, fairly pointless and could easily have been replaced by one of the in game pop up notices.
On some occasions there have been cutscenes into loading screens into another cutscene. It gets very frustrating.

The time frame Chuck is allocated to carry out the main storyline along with side missions is fairly unreasonable.
When the game hits you with your first task in the main storyline, you are instantly sent several side missions, each with similar time periods and at completely opposite ends of the map.
Now this may only be a problem for the completionists, which I am one of, but I even found completing the first chapter of the main storyline within the time allowance to be a challenge.
It feels as if the game wants you to only use these fantastic weapons to take out the few zombo's that stand directly in the way of your objective and you should just try and ignore the huge crowds just begging to be cut down by a lawnmower.



It's also pretty irritating that you always have to be back at the safe house between 7am-8am to administer Katey her 'Zombrex' when Chuck could easily give it to the several people looking after her to administer.
I say let the kid turn! If 'Shaun Of The Dead' has taught us anything, it's that having a pet zombie is awesome as you always have someone to play co-op with but I imagine a zombie child is twice as annoying as a live one.
'Katey got sent home from school today for swearing at the teacher' becomes 'Katey got sent home from school today for eating several of the other pupils'.
From a game point of view, I get what Capcom are wanting to do but logically it's infuriating.
Apparently decent parenting is still applicable in the occurrence of a zombie epidemic.

So far, Dead Rising 2 overall is a great improvement on its predecessor and despite a few flaws, is really great fun to play and I really can't wait to try the multiplayer and co-op features, which are a new addition to Dead Rising.
Rescuing survivors in Dead Rising felt like a chore but I would encourage you to gather as many as possible in Dead Rising 2 as they are a huge asset and sometimes even life saving.
I'm hoping that a 'Free Roam' will unlock upon completion where you can have the option to just wander around the mall enjoying your zombie lolacaust without having to worry about getting Hilda to her husband Brian at 'Casual Gal' before the time runs out and he disappears.

I'll be sure to let you know how Chuck and I get on.

Halo Reach Blue Carpet Event

So here we are.

Thursday 9th September 2010.

Victoria House, London.

In 4 days, one of the biggest titles to ever grace a console will be releasing its latest title.
Of course, I am talking about Halo: Reach.

Tonight however, press (and a lucky select few) are here at the Blue Carpet launch event to see Bungie and Microsofts team of ‘celebrities’, headed by competiion winner Lewis Chapman, take on a rag tag team of Halo’s finest players, the ones who entered the competition anyway.

Upon entry to the venue, we are immediately greeted by a foray of press snapping some of the celebrity invites, to name a few Joe Calzaghe, Pixie Lott and ‘Big Brothers’ Sam Pepper.

Attendees seem to be much more interested in the two rather large (I was informed 7’5”) Spartans, kitted out on full battle armour and wielding a battle rifle and sniper respectively.



Right now there is apparently no time for photo ops with these two giants and we are led to the right where a row of waiters and waitresses hold trays of blue drinks, dubbed ‘Blue Spartan’, which one of the waiters informs me is a cocktail of rum and blue raspberry.

After taking a sip I’m pretty sure it was actually petrol and Grunt blood.

Most people seemed to concur judging by the vast amount of these ‘Dead Smurf’ drinks left half full (or half empty pending on your outlook on life) on the various surfaces around the venue and the universal question of the night becomes ‘Got any beer mate?’.

They did. By the truckload. I saw the trucks!

After a few twists and turns and a flight of stairs, which become more and more challenging as the nights free bar takes its toll, we arrive at a seating area littered with small chairs and sofas.
The latest Halo: Reach trailer is being projected onto a nearby wall and a few people stop to admire it but the mighty majority soldier forth, the rumour of an open bar ringing in their ears.



It is here I spot Sentuamessage’s notoriously handsome Andy Farrant and after an awkward Twitter moment when I receive a reply from Andy to my tweet about spotting him, I head over to say hello.

We chat about the Halo: Reach event, the impending release date and his thoughts on the latest Halo title until he mentioned that he’d come to the event just having been playing Dead Rising 2.

Me being me, I begin to grill him on his thoughts and start trying to prise any info I could from him.
The most I got were a few of his favourite weapon combinations, which were the vacuum and saw blades and the torch and gems, the latter of which equated to a probable lawsuit from a certain lover of Ewoks.



If there is one word I could use to describe the main room it would be ‘hot’.

I get hot fairly easily but it's like hanging out in the circles of Hell, which some will say we were being attendees of a Microsoft event.

The free bar quickly becomes my best friend, and one guys worst enemy as he left a nice trail of vomit from the bar to the gents later on in the evening.

Beer was easily the choice drink of the night and for some reason the bar didn’t seem prepared for this and were continually running out and having to getting more and more delivered by the truckload.
I suppose with people such as 'Big Brothers' Sam Pepper and the cast of Hollyoaks on the guest list they weren’t expecting a rag tag bunch of common gamers…at the launch of one of the biggest video game titles ever.



The main stage is currently vacant with the exception of a few chairs and a large projection of the Xbox 360 logo.
It is here that ‘Team Slayer’ and ‘Noble Team’ will do battle, or in Noble Team’s case, try not to get massacred. A task which they fail miserably.

A couple of hours and quite a few beers later, presenter Reggie Yates, compare for the evening, walks onto stage, mic and cue cards in hand.

Now I’m not quite sure how this happened exactly but for some reason that night, I became Reggie’s bitch.

From what I recall, Reggie was reading some facts about the Halo franchise, quite obviously, from his cue cards and trying to get the crowd riled up by asking who had pre-ordered Reach, who was excited for the match and so forth.

Now when Reggie asked who had pre-ordered Halo 3 I remember raising my hand.

The hand with my beer in.

The hand that I had for some reason moved into some sort of ‘gangsta’ pose.

The hand that I left in the air as I yelled ‘Heeeelll yeah!’ as if I was some sort of chart topping rap star asking if he liked guns, money and bitches.

Our eyes locked.

“Did you see what this guy did?!”

Reggie re-enacts my pose for the crowd. Badly, I might add.

“What’s your name mate?”
“Ben”
“Ben. You are the coolest person here tonight”

And so proclaimeth Reggie, I am the coolest person at this event, which honestly didn’t mean as much as you think it would.
For the rest of his time spent onstage, I was the guy who Reggie went to when his attempts to engage the audience didn’t work.
Each time I obliged willingly.

This is why I shouldn’t drink.



One by one, the celebrity team members are brought onstage, with Manchester United centre back, Rio Ferdinand and ‘Gadget Show’ presenter extraordinaire, Jason Bradbury provoking the biggest reactions from the crowd, unless you count mass confusion and murmurs of ‘who?’ when Mr Hudson was brought on.

It was pretty clear before any of them had even picked up a controller that Jason Bradbury was going to be the only celebrity on ‘Noble Team’ that was going to be of any real danger to the opposing gamers (confirmed later when I found out that he had the highest kill count out of the celebrities) and the only one who looked even remotely comfortable in a room full of gamers.

‘Noble Team’ are to be captained by 17 year-old Nottinghamshire local, Lewis Chapman, who fragged, beat down and teabagged his way to the top of almost 800 other entrants of the ‘Looking For A Leader’ competition and when talking to Reggie during his intro, seemed convinced that he had more of a chance of pulling Pixie Lott than winning these games tonight.



The opposition, ‘Team Slayer’ are brought onto stage, briefly harassed by Reggie and then everyone settled in as the matches begun.

In short, it's an unsurprising total massacre.

Round 1: Team Slayer win 51 – 15
Round 2: Team Slayer win 64 – 10 (9 of the Noble Team kills belonging to Lewis)
Round 3: Team Slayer win 94 – 27

Trophies are handed out to the winning Team Slayer and Noble Team captain Lewis. The captain of Team Slayer swaps his much larger trophy with Lewis smaller one.
True sportsmanship amongst gamers here tonight. We aren't so tough without our headsets.

Reggie rounds up the end of the evenings entertainment by announcing that on the far side of the room, 40 booths are available to us so that attendees can have a go on Reach before it’s official release date.
It's great to see that Firefight has made a triumphant return amongst some new multiplayer match types and to revisit some familiar maps from the beta.

There was some controversy around this time as all the attendees who decided that they didn’t fancy playing Reach and left, or as I call them ‘the freeloading non-gamers’, were the first to get to the goody bags, a fair few of which contained Halo Reach controllers, a hoody and strategy guide whilst the dedicated many got left with just the bags containing a press release print out.

Not even a Noble 6 Avatar code.

Now I’m not going to try and criticise the organisers too much, seeing as they’re picking up the bar tab, but surely it would have been a better idea to have given the bags out upon entry to the event, ensuring that those who cared enough about the event to be at the front of the line got the best of the freebies.

This was the general consensus on Twitter for the next 24hrs.



I catch up with Lewis after the matches to congratulate him on winning the competition and to ask him some questions about the celebrity team training.

Lewis informs me that he had about 30 minutes with the team just before the event and that the matches were the first time that Mr Hudson had even played the game.
He is also pretty annoyed that ‘you can’t teach Rio Ferdinand about spawn kills’ which I instantly want to have printed on a t-shirt with a picture of Rio in Spartan uniform getting assassinated from behind.

The rest of the night was spent doing what gamers do best. Playing video games and cussing each other out.

All in all, the night was a success.
I left feeling even more excited to get my hands on my own pre-order and in desperate need of the loo.

Cheers Microsoft!

I might even get this printed.

New blog

Well, er, kinda.

Things have gotten stale around here (especially seeing as I haven't posted anything in a very, very long time) so being the wonderful procrastinator that I am, I deem a change in name and layout a suitable submission to satisfy my guilt.

Introducing 'Ben Meets World'!

Exactly the same, but with a wittier title and slightly more colourful graphic!

I promise to post something up soon.
I have half a draft blog about film-making sitting waiting to be finished.

I'll get it done...tomorrow...

Here's looking at you, cig

Yes, I am part of the dying (quite literally) group that society likes to prefix labels to such as 'dirty' and 'filthy'.

The group that will under any form of weather condition, still find a way to get their hit.

The group that in the past decade has been shunned from our typical haunts and went from 'cool' to...'not cool'.

I am a smoker.

Not only that but I am a regular smoker.
Not one of you cool 'casual' smokers who only smokes 'when I'm really drunk, yeah'.

So why with all the health warnings, the social stigmatism and the smoking ban do I and my fellow smokers continue to partake in this habit?

Even more to the point, with all the general knowledge around smoking, why do these 'casual' smokers smoke at all?

Let's look at some of the social history of smoking.

We all remember when smoking used to be cool.
Up until recently, films have been telling us this for decades.

The tough-as-nails cop. The loose cannon in his department who arrives at the crime scene of a murder, hat tipped low and surrounded by a haze of smoke. He pops the collar of his trench coat and takes a long draw from his cigarette.

If a police officer tried doing that nowadays, he'd probably be reprimanded for smoking in the workplace and contaminating a crime scene.

The stereotypical 'bad ass' character who would wake up in his dingy apartment and throw on a grubby white vest and beaten leather jacket, emblazoned with a society defying patch like 'rebel' sewn onto it.
He would swagger downstairs to his Harley Davidson motorcycle where he would pop on his shades and spark up a cigarette as he wheelspinned and roared away, leaving bystanders in a cloud of dust with the smell of exhaust fumes and danger.

If you saw someone do that nowadays, you would think they were a complete arrogant arse but in the 50's, he was one cool character.

None of these stereotypes are deemed 'cool' anymore because of how 'cool' changes throughout the generations (however for some reason, the 00's appear to think the 80's were the best thing ever, whereas the 90's laughs at them whilst dancing to Take That in their neon legwarmers and crimped hair. Very cool.)

Smoking appears to have gone down on the same neon ship.

Somewhere around the turn of the millenium, smoking started to disappear from the movies.
I assume it had something to do with the large amount of press that cancer and it's links to smoking was receiving that finally stubbed out the Hollywood cigarette trend.

So smokers aren't lighting up because it's cool anymore, so let's look at the health aspects.

It wasn't until 1950 when Richard Doll first published his findings in the British Medical Journal showing the first evidential link between smoking and cancer and it wasn't until 1971 when the first health warning's were put on cigarette packs in the UK.

Smoking has been attributed to heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and most notably, cancer but despite our knowledge of all of this, we still smoke.
Smokers are constantly being discouraged to stop smoking due to health reasons.

The first anti-smoking campaign was started in the late 1920's in Nazi Germany, with Hitler himself even deeming cigarettes 'a waste of his money'.
The message never crossed the border of Nazi-Germany due to the Second World War and was eventually silenced at the end of WWII by American cigarette companies illegally smuggling tobacco into Germany.

The biggest tackle on smoking so far has been the public smoking ban, enforced in the UK in 2007, due to research generating evidence against the harmful effects of second hand smoke.
Conveniently, the NHS started up the 'SmokeFree' programme offering free nicotine replacement products and support and supermarkets everywhere had 'special offers' on items such as 'Nicotinell' for a good few months.
It was recorded that 164,711 UK smokers quit after the smoking ban came in.

We all know smokers who have quit. Most have had their 'last cigarette' for about the 400th time.
Most smokers and non-smokers will put this down to nicotine addiction.

Although I regularly smoke up to 5 roll-up cigarettes a day, I do not consider myself to be addicted to nicotine. I am addicted to smoking.

When I don't smoke I don't suffer the 'typical' nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

The only time I smoke is when I am at work or if I am out and unless either of these things occur over the weekend, I won't smoke then either.

This is probably more likely due to a matter of convenience as I am not permitted to smoke in my flat, whereas in our old place I would smoke all the time.

I particularly liked partaking in the stereotype of 'the smoking writer' because I like the glamourisation of the old black and white flicks of the man at the typewriter in a haze of smoke; stabbing out another cigarette into the overflowing ashtray as he takes a gulp of his coffee; black of course.

I enjoy smoking.

For quite some time I was under the impression that all smokers enjoy smoking; this is why they do it; but after talking to a lot of friends and co-workers who I have watched quit and complain about the 'gritty' nicotine gum and useless patches, each one returning to smoking a couple of weeks later, every one says that they don't actually like smoking and spark up just to quench the craving.

The group of smokers huddled outside under a dark cloud, complaining about their addiction with each drag of their 'cancer stick'.
There is a sense of camaraderie. A shared burden.

Is the social side what casual smokers like about smoking?

After all of this, I'm still not sure why there are 'casual' smokers, probably because I have never been one.

Us smokers are stuck. We're hooked despite it not being cool, healthy or socially acceptable.

You casuals have a choice.

Plus it's really irritating when you're always bumming cigarettes off of us.

It appears we've got enough problems.

Today, I made another word.

I am currently trying to finish 2 blogs that I have started writing, but due to difficulties at work and home it has proven difficult to finish them.

HOWEVER!

Today I made another word.

Nomgry
Definition:
To be incredibly hungry for something that is especially delicious or 'nommy'.
Example:
'I could really go for some sweet and sour chicken balls right now'
'Yeah me too, I'm so nomgry!'

Use it daily.

I would like to have contributed a word to the world before the end of my days.

You had me at 'hello hot stuff!'

How the hell do us blokes ever manage to bag a girl?

I am asking this question because I have found myself watching a small selection of chick flicks over the past few evenings.

Yes I watch chick flicks. Sometimes out of choice. Some of them are quite good.

Stop judging me.

During my feminine film fest, I have noticed that there are two types of chick flicks.

The 'find Prince Charming and my life will be fantastic' chick flick and the 'unappreciated woman overcoming her peers and becoming a strong woman' chick flick.
Most of the time these get mixed together and you get the 'unappreciated women finding Prince Charming whilst overcoming her peers and becoming a strong woman whilst looking fabulous' chick flick.

Regardless of the title on the box, you can guarantee it's always going to be pretty much the same old tired story with the latest 'it' thespians filling in the roles of 'damsel in distress' and 'Prince Charming'.

Yes I know it's meant to be fictional, film is escapism etc but these films promote some insanely high requirements for any man attempting to 'woo' a woman.

Do men 'woo' anymore?

Do we even say 'woo' anymore?

Is the fact we aren't 'wooing' or saying 'woo' part of the problem?

Divorce rates are higher than ever and people aren't getting these 'happy endings' we were promised when we were younger.
Is this because life just doesn't worj out like that or because we are preconditioned to have these set standards that chick flicks tell us?

Looking at the chick flicks key demographic, the female gender, they have been raised with the ideals of the fairytale life from childhood.

Chick flicks are the logical graduation from classic Disney.

There is even a 150,000 member strong Facebook group titled 'I blame Disney for my high expectation of men'.

This ideal is the hunky, fantastically charming (and usually British or at least very well spoken) gentleman who sweeps the insanely 'perfect' or 'nerdy, unattractive looking who gets good looking, but extremely unsuccessful and overlooked female off her feet with a backdrop of a series of moderately comedic incidents, allowing her to get the man and the success all at once.

'Get hot and even you can succeed at life!'

Women should be outraged by this message, but for some insane reason they love it!

Women always seem to want to watch these films about the young, plain (well, plain in Movieland) girl who gets the perfect guy by completley changing who she is and I just don't get why women want to watch this.
Is the fact that the protagonist changes herself to get the guy overlooked because she gets this 'perfect' man?

Maybe studios are catching on though as there are some small victories for the 'everyman' occurring within the genre.

I recently watched 'The Holiday' and with the exception of Jude Law and Kate Winslet being forced to read the Americans version of 'British' dialogue (ie 'Oh bugger it. It's all gone frightfully wrong'. It's not bloody Merry Poppins!), I enjoyed it.

This is primarily due to Jack Black's character.

Here is a short, not fantastic looking guy who is funny and charming and ends up being the object of desire for Kate Winselt's character, and it's not done in a matter of 'oh, she's settling for the funny little chubby man' but as 'heartfelt' a story as the relationship development between Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, who spent the majority of the movie humping each other and feeling 'frightfully awful' about the 'sticky wicket' they had found themselves in.

Chubby man and the Winslet's relationship has more substance. Interesting.

We need more realistic characters in chick flicks.

The world is not full of these 21st century Prince Charmings and Cinderellas yet we are encouraged to look for these people and not settle for anything less.
Even the female protagonists in these films have the same problem.
We all remember the sofa and ice cream scene from Bridget Jones...and any other generic chick flick.
But it all works out for the better once they get the man, once again reiterating that this is what they should be aspiring to.

'Shallow Hal' is one of my favourite films of all time.
It's not brilliantly written or beautifully shot, but what a story!

We have this male character who is filled with the typical chick flick ideals of the 'perfect girl' and we see how much of a jerk he comes across as for spending all his efforts trying to get the 'hot' girls.
After some psychic jiggey pokery he can only see the inner beauty of women and falls insanely in love with a rather, quite overdone, plus size woman and they have their 'happy ever after' even after he see's her for how she really is.

We need more Jack Black's in chick flicks!

Why can't we have 'normal' looking people in these films?

I am fortunate enough to have found the special gal I want to spend the rest of my days annoying and I am quite obviously not fitting the archetypal 'hunk', more of a 'chunk', that all these films are telling women that they should be chasing after so what are us blokes doing right or have women just given up the dream?

Steph loves Disney and still watches the flicks at 22 so what is it that girls love about these films?

Girls, let me know what you think.
Do women still have this idea of the fairytale ending?
Are you still after their Prince Charming or have you sculpted your own?
Are you settling for 'chunk' rather than 'hunk'?

Guys, does watching these films make you change who you are?

Leave me a comment below!