wow, call of duty 4 was awesome but super short! i sat down about 3 times to play, each time for less than 2 hours. anyway short, but sweet. the gameplay was amazing, especially the level where you’re wearing the ghillie camouflage suits and sniping. i just wish the game was a bit longer. hopefully the online game will keep me playing.

i loved call of duty 2 and call of duty 3 was alright. call of duty 4 though… amazing. unlike previous cod games, *i don’t think* this is based off of any real wars or skirmishes, but it takes place mostly in the middle east and you’re usually shooting towel-head terrorists with today’s latest weaponry. the graphics are much better than previous games and the selection of modern weapons available make the game a lot more strategic.

the game also has online multi-player, so buy this game and let’s battle.

when playing ranked games in halo 3 match making, i’ve always hated the games where it swords only. every time i had come up against an opponent and we clash swords, on the third slash, i would almost always die, no matter how quickly i pressed the god damn button. but i recently realized that the B (red) button also slashes the sword, just at a different speed. so when i come up to an opponent now, i first pull the RT (right trigger), then after the clash the B button, and then RT again. If the opponent is doing the same thing, half the time you’ll get it, and you’ll likely come up against a lot of opponents that aren’t doing it, and you’ll almost always get the kill in that case.

me, eric and ben went up to stephan’s place in downtown la on saturday night. we went to the same bar/restraunt we went to a few weekends ago and drank cheap pbr (maybe the second time i had drank pbr in the same day?) when we were walking back to stephan’s place, we saw this group of 30+ jews? mormons? quakers? stop across the street from a beat up old building and started singing jesus songs really loud. we were directly infront of them when they started singing, but it seemed that they were all looking up towards the building. our best guess was that the buidling was a whore/drug house and they were trying to sing some jesus into them. maybe they were just having fun. pretty cool either way.

stephan has a trendy loft in a renovated old building, with huge windows that look into the city. using his binoculars to try to see women changing in far off buildings has never made me feel so urban. we drank beer, argued about the geekiest things and played wii and mame arcade games. next time, we’re gonna daisy chain two x-arcade controllers and get some 4-player ninja turtles action on. yep. watchout.

since taka’s been working quite a bit lately (poor thing is working like 12 hour days), i’ve found lots of free time to play video games, most of which i spend playing halo 3. halo 3 has 2 ways to rank your skill online. one is with experience points which you receive if you are in the upper 49% in a rumble pit type game, or if your team wins in a co-op game. if you lose your game, you don’t lose any experience points. the other way you are ranked is with your skill rank, which goes up when you win your games, and goes down when you lose them.

i can’t figure out the exact algorithm for the skill level increase, as it becomes more difficult the higher you get. it seemed relatively easy to get a rank of 25 in the “lone wolf” ranked games, but after that, i had to be in either 2nd place twice in a row, or first place to rank up, and then once at 29, i had to win 1st place twice in a row to rank up to 30, which is where i’m currently at. and at this point, everyone else is in the same boat as you, having to win the game, or rank back down, so you really are competing against someone just as good as you. it seriously took me about 10 hours of gameplay to move up from rank 25 to 30, and it got pretty frustrating, being at 29, winning first place, but then getting last place the second time, and moving back down to 28. a couple of times i’d spend hours and end up exactly where i started, i felt like i was gambling.

amidst my failings in halo 3, i’d pick up forza 2, which i’m finally getting into. i finished all the “proving grounds” races and got through the first 5 or so “amature cup” races, winning first place in all. i’m currently in the muscle car championship, which sucks, because all of those cars have slow pickup and lazy ass suspension. the graphics in forza 2 are beautiful, and the modding and competition is setup very similarly to the gran turismo series. most of the races i’ve been in so far have been with relatively slow cars though, and i look forward to unlocking some faster cars and tracks.

so after a month of haloing every free minute i have, i’ve pretty much completed all that i set out to do in the game. i completed the campaign on normal and heroic by myself, and finished a few levels of legendary on my own and did the rest on co-op with friends.

thankfully, there’s tons of replay value online. i’m ranked as a captain with 116 EXP and a max rank of 21 (yeh, yeh… super geeky)

anyway, sounds like it’s time to focus my attention on another game. puzzle fighter hd anyone?

still high off of a halo 3 bender, i took one of ben’s tickets to the video games live show at the new nokia theatre. stephan has a place right in the center of ghetto downtown la, so we met up there, had dinner and drinks at this trendy place called pete’s, and took a cab to the show. the nokia theatre is right across the street from the staples center, and as it turns out, the hot latina chicks that we were following were heading there to see j-lo.

the music was awesome, with a full orchestra and a full choir. i really only enjoyed the games that i had played though, like final fantasy, bioshock, metal gear solid and of course halo. there were quite a few songs that i had never heard and wasn’t interested in, and the force of the geeks was stronger than i imagined. they also introduced lots of random japanese composers who barely spoke english and just made the entire show run kinda long. i wouldn’t take your non-gamer girlfriend to the show, but especially with the pre-party beers was a great guy’s night.

it took a little over a week for microsoft to receive, replace, and reship me my xbox 360 after it died earlier this month. the note that came with it said that instead of repairing it, they had shipped me a “replacement” unit. i’m not sure if that means new or refurbished, but it looks new, and more importantly works like new.

so overall, it was a pretty good experience. microsoft paid for shipping both ways, got my xbox turned around almost immediately, and even included a free 1 month xbox live subscription for my troubles. way to go microsoft!

edit: and i returned my “borrowed” console this afternoon with no problems at all. seems like that’ll be the standard procedure from now on for broken xboxes.

jebus i played a lot of halo 3 this weekend. taka had to work on friday night and on saturday, so other than a quick meeting i had to go to at school and a trip to the gun shop, i played halo.

on friday night, ben came over and before we went out drinking, we played a split-screen co-op game for the first time. co-op missions are way more fun than solo compaigns, and we found the first of 13 skulls. on saturday morning, costin and i played 2 levels on legendary, and by sunday morning, i had finished the solo campaign on heroic. later sunday evening, me, ben, his bro and his friend found the 2 skulls on the “ark” level and completed it on legendary, and after that costin and i finished the first level on legendary.

so where i’m at:

- 1 skull left to go (the silver one at the end of the “covenant”)
edit: got all 13 skulls and am rocking the hayabusa armor!

- 5 levels left on legendary (most of which i’ll prolly do on co-op)

… and that’s about it for the campaign. most of the other achievment points i can get from ranked on-line games. halo has tons of replay value in the campaign, and of course online.

p.s. i had a 30% off a used game coupon for gamestop that expired this weekend, and the only used game they had that i had any interest in was forza 2, in case anyone else is interested in getting it, we can battle :)

p.s.+ i got a call that my xbox has been repaired and is being shipped back to me! that was way faster than i imagined.

my good friend bestbuy loaned me an xbox halo edition. he said i’d have to loan him $432, but that he’d give it back to me when i gave him his xbox back. good guy that best buy.

it was actually costin’s inadvertent idea to just buy one and return it before the 30 days are up (no restocking fee at best buy =p) he said that he might return his and rebuy it again at the end of the month when it should come bundled with forza 2 and marvel alliance. every best buy was sold out of the 360 premium, but i figured since it was going on a credit card and being returned that it didn’t really matter which version i got, or how much it costs. hopefully my xbox will be fixed and returned to me within a month, and i don’t forget to return this one.

man, and i hate best buy employees. they offer me the product replacement plan with the line “you should get one, because, well, it’s an xbox”… so i replied with “didn’t microsoft extend it’s warranty to 3 years?” and at this point there’s 3 employees there. they all were kinda scratching their heads like “no? nope. never heard of that?” i called them liars, paid, and left. it reassured me that i chose the right store to scam.