naveeda's Blog - 2old2play

Prefer this player

While trying to prefer some of the folks in lobby yesterday, I realized that folks over at xbox live do not care why I preferred someone as much as they do about why specifically I hated them. Was it something they said? or how they played? or is due to their skill (or lack there of)?

Well I think we, on the other hand, should care more about why we like someone as compared to why we don't. I play with a big group here at 2old2play and do not know most of the folks personally. Still I do like or dislike some of them based on the limited experience I have with them playing Halo and talking in the forums.

In most cases it is pretty easy for me to figure out why I don't like someone, there will be some specific reason for that. However, its normally hard to wrap my head around on why I like some of the folks that I do. Was it something they said? their skill (or lack there of)? or how they played?

It would be interesting if you could pin point the specific reason. I guess one can argue if it matters, I think it does, remember that quote from Matrix "Know Thyself" I think figuring this out would be figuring out yourself.

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I'm back

Sorry for the hiatus, my internet was down after I switched to Covad from ATT, but its back now, new and improved too

Old:

New:

Wait did i just get 666 as the upload speed, muhahaha

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Annual

Things that I learned from the Annual achievement

1. Bungie's got a sick sense of humor.

2. I suck at driving the ghost.

3. If you are the last guy in the speed run at the end of Halo, you're in big trouble and your teammates would hate you for dying five hundred and twenty three times.

4. Annual is the most satisfying zero gamer score achievement that you'll ever get.

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Bioshock

Finally picked up Bioshock after Mulch made some noise about it in the forums, I have followed this game a little bit before its launch so I knew it was good, i just didn't knew its that good, you know. Ken Levine is a genius, I wish more games would challenge you like this, simply amazing.

Half way through the game, i quit and restarted the game on easy, I wanted the story to progress and I was spending too much time fighting the Big Daddys. They are still a decent challenge but the rest of the foes have become too easy, actually they were already pretty easy with the one-two punch but thats okay, i want to see how things go.

I really wished the game had online co-op, playing it with a buddy would have been pretty fun. May be something we'll see in Bioshock 2.

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Fall of Reach

Just finished reading it, I can't believe I didn't know about so much Halo back story, should have read it long time ago. One thing is I really wish they'd printed on a better quality book material, this is just too crappy to read, another improvement they could have done was to include some pics, it is hard to explain everything in text and some time the things don't make much sense, Master Chief turned to the blob in the left that was peaking from the hole in the metallic frame sticking out of the .... wait what? LOL. I bought the box set but I think I'm going to skip "The Flood" because It basically recounts what happens in Halo 1 and I've already played that like 15-20 times. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who've played the game, you can easily get it used from half.com or ebay.

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New York trip

Last weekend I was in New York City with bunch of friends, I have been in NY state before but never had the chance to visit the city. This time we made sure to run through it. Here is picture of Broadway and Wall street.

I dont know if its this time of the year or this is a year round phenomenon, its filled with European tourist, being a Desi from a bay area I'm used to a lot of English accents, including my own but it was even hard for me to understand some of those, we only chatted with few and they were having a good time and so were we. Took me while to find a pizza place. Pizza was not exceptional but the crust was pretty damn good. We rode the subway around and I was honestly surprised to see how dirty the city is, I guess the folks there are used to it but took us a while to stop talking about that. Earlier we drove to upstate and that was really beautiful, If I get another chance I'll spend more time exploring upstate a lot more next time.

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Braid - Some More Info

I got some more info and links for Braid, first of the official website is braid-game.com and the developer blog is braid-game.com/news. There is a ton of information there about the game, however the best thing i found so far was this video review by giantbomb.com

Click here if the video above doesn't show or doesn't play.

Also turns out Braid is the highest rated xbox live arcade game ever!

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Braid

Braid is a Mario like puzzle paltformer that I heard about on kotaku first, I downloaded the free trial version and man was I hooked right away. Its creator Jonathon Blow admits Mario's influence and there are many hints in the game that show the Nintendo love in general. I have not been impressed with a puzzle game like this since Portal.

If my word is not enough then checkout the Joystiq Meta Review which is basically 4 reviews in one. 1up guys gave it an A+, which if I'm not wrong is the highest possible. The Eurogamer guy summed it up best:

"I've gone to bed thinking about Braid, and I've woken up thinking about it. From the fragments I remember, I'm pretty sure I've dreamed about it as well. Braid is that sort of game."

If you like puzzle solving games you have GOT to check it out. Hey, the trial version is free!

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How to choose a better Service Tag

In Halo 3 you no more see your teammates emblem on top of their heads, instead you now see whats known as the Service Tag, the 3 letter word that you choose in your profile, for example M28 or F08. Its up to you to choose what you want to however I have few suggestions that I'd like to share.

First of all one should realize that unlike the emblem the Service Tag is mainly for your teammates, NOT for you. You can choose the emblem to whetever you feel like in order to represent yourself but choose the Service Tag that will best help your teammates identify you. If they cant easily identify you with your tag they wont be able to help you, so in the end its your loss.

Here are some rules that might help:

RULE #1 is that the letter part of your service tag must be the first letter of your gamertag, or basically the pronounced part of your gamer tag, for example Hubristis should use H but IamDank should use D, or III NME III can use N or E.

RULE #2 is that if there is some number in your gamer tag it should be used in the number part of the service tag, so Spidey 2222 should use S22 and Jonny12Gauge should be J12.

RULE #3 is that if you dont have numbers in your gamer tag but your emblem has a number than use that as your number part. Emblems are hard to remember but sometime they stick out and over time you tend to remember them.

Rule #4 if the above doesnt work for you is to use your gamer tag in l337 speak, so for example Ceaser could use C35 or Nate could use N47. Of course its not always easy to remember and recognize but over time it starts to stick in.

Making a recognizable service tag really helps when you are taken down and trying to communicate back from the death lobby because the red X doesnt not show your gamer tag, it only shows your service tag.

I should also mention that when communicating from death lobby try to communicate the location you die as compared to "my X". For example "One shot by BR rock" is a lot helpoful then "One shot my X". I know I make that mistake too sometime but I'm trying not too.

Happy communicating

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500 Points FTW!

Finally my mindless submissions to every sweepstake in the world paid off!

Dear naveeda: Congratulations! As the official judging organization for the Xbox LIVE GTA IV Promotion, it is our pleasure to inform you that you have been selected as a Third Prize winner! Your prize is 500 Microsoft Points!

Yay!

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Grifball League Update

Our Grifball League continues, so far we've played 6 matches and lost only one. Its pretty good given that we dont really practice or play regularly as a team. Our whole team tactic is based on "Guy coming from left!" LOL. We did learn some tricks like pushing your ball carrier or other players. Still I've doubts about our over all chances as the team that we lost to literaly destroyed us. We didnt score even once, add to that the current top team hasn't lost a single game. But its fun though, going into battle as a team against another unkown one. Here is a vid of our last game if you'd like to watch, we did good in this one.

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Halo 3 Photography

I have seen people take some really good pics in Halo 3, not the one with over kills and double snipes, but with an artistic touch. There are several people on our site that are very good with this stuff, Violent Jay, Dank, Neo, Proving Unique and You_Again are some of my favorites. Most of their shots are there in the Screenshot thread if you haven't seen.

However I found some really awesome work of Predator. I don't know him personally but he takes amazing shots, here are few that I really liked, click on his link to view his complete file share:

Alien

Gargoyle:

Ghost Ryder

The Dark Knight:

Jaws:

ET:

Link to Predator's File Share

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Rocket Boy Forum Sig

Finally got around to making a sig of that rocket boy image I posted about earlier. I use the halo3.junk.ws signature designer to plug it in with the rank etc:

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Griffball League

A friend of mine made me sign up for the Grifball summer league. Our team name is arguably Past Their Prime, its arguable because there has to be a prime to pass it I'm not any good in Grifbal but its fun to play, so far my kill to betrayal ratio is in positive so I'm happy

We have played two matches so far. The first match was against a team from WayWard Soldiers clan. I dont think they've played Grifball before because during the game i heard them saying "oh look we have a sword too!". Beat them fair and square with our team captain getting a Killionaire. We lost our second match pretty bad, we just couldn't kill one of their guys, it was just unbelievable. I'll post more as we progress.

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40 - woot!

I've been working on my game and rank for some time now, just hit 40 in Team Slayer and I'm stoked In the start I had decided to not go after rank but later on this is how I decided to gauge myself and so far I think it does a fairly good job of telling you whether you're improving or not.

The run up to 32 (or something) was pretty effortless for me, after that I started getting a little outplayed and frankly frustrated, even with a good and communicating team I wasn't able to win my own fights. Around that time I started to ask folks for their vids, watched pretty much everything in the Halo Pro file shares, watched vids posted and reviewed by Dixon in the Halo forum. Overall I think I watched in access of 200-300 vids and it sure helped a lot. Often times I'll do exactly what someone else would have done and sure enough rack up lot of kills.

I got a little stuck on 39, just wasnt getting my winning streak, until this game, where these guys wont stop chasing a guy with the sword, lol pushed me right over the edge.

Eventually my goal is to get to 50 but I feel that it will require a designated team that will have to do more than calling out positions and team shooting. We'll have to come up with map based strategies, weapon control and individual roles.

Many thanks to my clannies and Dixon for sharing their vids and strats, and also huge thanks to GridironGrace, lets get your 40

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