Yesterday, 19MAY07, was a busy day. Hours of Rainbow Six/Halo 3 playing and Miller Lite Drinking goodness!
Topic one for the day; Halo 3 Beta
Sub Topic(s): Game play, Graphics & Game Options.
So to start out it took for ever to download the thing. The Microsoft servers must have been getting a little stressed. But finally when I got to launch that puppy... Pure pants crapping Ecstasy! After I modelled Springatron, Spartan K45, I hopped into my first matchmaking game! It was Rumble pit on Highground. To my amusement the first thing I saw was the good 'ol assault rifle in my Spartan's hands. Being a Halo: Combat Evolved fanatic I couldn't help myself, but carry a giant grin through that first match. The assault rifle is now accurate and more powerful, but at the cost of a shallow magazine. 32 rounds to be exact. But all is well, the second weapon I ran into is the Brute spikers. The spiker is big bro to the SMG. It is an automatic one hander that is fairly powerful. It also has dual axe heads hanging off of it. One wicked looking mother, and when wielded akimbo is very much so. The next new weapon is the Spartan Laser. Lending much of it's appearance to rocket launcher, it fires from the should and there is a charge time before it's very deadly barrage of energized death spews out of it's barrel. There is also a cool time before you can again pull the trigger to charge up and fire once more. The new human turret is a tri-barrelled mini-gun that can be torn off of it's mount to be packed around and fired. The Bruteshot has also been modified. It now has a 6 round magazine and rather than a grenade like explosion upon impact, it looks like an electric field exploding. The new grenades are the Brute Spike grenades. Resembling the German WWII era stielgranate (a.k.a stick grenade or potato masher) with sharp fins, the spike grenade sticks to literally everything, people, walls, vehicles... everything. The last thing I am going to cover is the "gadgets" or equipment now available for pick-up. I'll start with the Covenant Grav-lift. It looks like a puple-ish seed that when deployed unfolds, more flower petals open and from the center produces the all famous Halo 2 gravity pillar that lifts objects. Next is the bubble shield. Looking like a fired RPG the shield unit drops to the ground and deploys the shield. It lasts much longer than I figured it would. Although it stops bullets and incoming explosions it does not stop people. As I found out the hard way they can quite easily walk through the bubble and then shot you or smack the smile off your face. The last one I ran into was the Power Drain. A beach ball sized metal sphere that when deployed generates a large blue field that instantly drains the shielding off a combatant. Fairly useful provided you, yourself, don't get caught in it.
Now the game feels a lot like the Halo 2 multiplayer levels, it would be a shame to compare the two. Each had a tremendous amount of detail, like generators, computers, radios equipment, and racks of all kinds, Human and Covenant, scattered through-out the map. Also the two maps Highground and snowbound have the feel of a Forward Operating Base. On Highground it might be the crumbling war torn environment mixed with the UNSC military gear scattered all over or the giant Multiple Launch Rocket System in the the rear of the base... I'll leave that up to you. Snowbound has a very Covenant feel with it's large purple and indigo crates and structures. It's game play area is ringed with auto cannons and turrets that will cut you down if you decide to leave the game area. It is a relatively barren map with only Covenant made objects and buildings littering the tundra. All in all, it is all of these details that make the maps feel natural and "lived in," like they really existed in the interstellar war of the Halo Universe.
To do some reading on "The Beta," go to: http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=WelcometotheBeta and to find out more about the Halo Universe as a whole visit Halopedia, the Halo only wiki at: http://halo.wikia.com/.
Topic two for the day: Miller Lite
Sub Topic(s): ...beer?...
Miller Lite was the official intoxicant of last night's gaming rivalries! 1 out of 2 gamers preferred cheap beer... Okay maybe it is more like, 1 out of 2 gamers too broke to buy anything else!
Third Topic of the day: Gun of the Day!
Sub Topic(s): G36C
The H&K G36C. The smallest member of the G36 series, it occupies the sub compact category, hence the "C" on the end of the designation. It is of rifle caliber (5.56MM NATO) but it's compact size and very short barrel designates it for building clearing and close urban ops. It has the power and penetration of an assault rifle but the size and quick reactive properties of a sub machine gun. This particular weapon has a Picatinny rail and iron sites, the rail gives the rifle versatility by quickly accepting multiple types of optics; reflex sites, ACOG, irons and telescopic optics.
As technical as I want to get is that the G36C is gas operated, roller delayed assault rifle with a stand fire configuration of single shot, three round burst and full-auto. A technical point of interest is that the entire G36 line's parts are broken into groups and replaceable by group. Pistol grip, trigger assembly and fire selector switch are all one, the entire receiver group, including the barrel and gas tube are another. The magazine well, hand guards, carrying handle and sights, butt stock, bolt and carrier all come off the receiver group.
To sum up, the G36C is reliable, accurate and powerful. It excels in the role it has been chosen to take. Police departments, security forces and counter terror units should find the G36C as a welcome addition to their armories.
That is all for today.
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