BlaringSmelly

2 more experience points, I’ll be a Grade 2 Sergeant in the competitive world of Halo 3.

And how about that Hard level in Guitar Hero II? That last added keynote is killing me. I practiced night after night on the technique sliding figures between different keys in increasing speed. Most of the time the feeling was defeated. When my wrist got too sore or I can no longer concentrate, I switched to Halo. But…those shinning Achievement badgers…I must have them.

Between saving the world and elevating my world-class rock star status, I am not making much time for blogging or anything else.

This is a screenshot of my desktop wallpaper, mind to give a wild guess what’s my latest obsession?

Oh yes, that would be the recently released Halo 3.

The screenshot was taken at “Halo 3: Believe” site by Akqa. The site is worth checking out for the stunning recreation work of battle scenes in Halo. Create screenshots similar to this one as you navigate through the battlefield.

Ok, back to the game.

After some efforts signing in to 360 Live, a few seconds later…

The familiar choir type opening music; Bungie and Halo 3 logos morphing and appearing in the game intro sequences; Camera moves to a familiar face of shinny helmet shield and camouflaged green combat suit covered with scratches from numerous battles with alien races. That, is our world savoir master chef, oh yes, let’s roll.

That’s a recap of my game play experience as I was holding the controller and waiting to play Halo 3 for the first time. I am still working on campaign and so far Bungie has done well keeping old timers like myself happy.

Anyone who had played the previous Halo series will find no surprise in the general game plays. Playing the basic campaign mode has being a catwalk so far. I can’t wait to finish the campaign and move on to more exciting slayer plays.

Tab attended this year’s SIGGRAPHY and brought back some exciting news and trends in the computer graphic world. She ran a lunch brownbag to share some of the noticeable short films playing in this year’s electronic theater.

Of all the short films we sampled, my personal favorite is CodeHunter by MTV (animation created by Axis Animation). One of the game artists said there’s a CodeHunter game in the making. It’s a shame most games based on hit tv shows or movies don’t live up to its original creations.

If you are interested, the complete playlist is available on YouTube.

As a bonus, Tab did a quick demo on “PLASMA PONG”. It’s classic pong with a twist of techno music, interactive screen saver, and physics. I enjoyed the music so much I downloaded a version to my Mac.

We had our little Wii Sports bash. Of the sport categories, playing boxing was less intuitive. Punch and direction didn’t always reflect players’ actual motion. As the result, everybody just went crazy throwing punches and hoping some of them will hit. It was most entertaining watching boxing nonetheless.

Jason tried out Red Steel only to find the game was a disappointment. A seemingly promising game offers users the opportunity to experience Wii controls in shooting and slashing actions somehow turned sore. Regardless of a pretty big learning curve, we also had to endure sized-up cheesy story and not very flattering game graphics.