Elites Getting on Your Nerves?

I don't know about you, but my experiences with the Elites (Sangheili) from the Halo Universe has been the cause for a large majority of deaths my spartan had.

And so I wrote everyone a tiny guide on how to deal with Elites on Halo: Reach.

If anyone wants to read this useful article on how to kill Elites, click here. If anyone simply wants to improve their gaming skills, visit Decent Gamer, my blog on improving gaming skill and tactics.

And I just got a chance to play Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary tonight, and I'm happy to say that it's going quite well for me. The Grunt Funeral Skull's been helping me a bit, and the overpowered pistol is always fun to knock Covenant off.

Random Fun Facts 6-10

Here comes the second set of random fun facts.

Fun Fact 6: UNSC Light Tank

In the Halo universe, the United Nations Space Command's main battle tank is the M808B "Scorpion". Did you know this is considered a light tank. What a joke that is! You'd think that if humans had ordnance as strong as the Scorpion that they'd be winning the Covie/Flood war easily.

Fun Fact 7: Trekkies to Stargate

Last time I checked the Stargate Wiki, at least 30 actors from the Star Trek series have made some sort of appearance in the Stargate series.

Fun Fact 8: Smallest Country in the World

The smallest country in the world is Vatican City, with a size of less than half a square kilometer.

Fun Fact 9: End of the World?

The Mayan calender ends on December 21, 2012. End of the world? Probably not. Time to get a new calender? Probably.

Fun Fact 10: Elephant Athletics

Elephants can't jump.

Louis Ferreira who plays in the Stargate Universe character Colonel Everett Young, has played Trevis, the holographic Star Trek character. Quite a difference in character no?

NPC Allies are Funny

Have you ever noticed that NPC allies in first-person shooter games are almost never helpful?

Like I said, I kinda started out with Halo 3. I noticed that in comparison with Master Chief's large stature, the small little Marines really couldn't compare with a Spartan's strength, which I respect. What really bothered me was how even the Marines couldn't hold themselves together when engaging weak enemies like Grunts. After taking few shots they just die without actually giving any useful help.

Then came the Call of Duty craze. In the jungles of Japan, my American soldiers and I attacked. A squadron of Japanese troops ambushed us, and I dived to the nearest cover I could find. Bullets flew everywhere, and I remained in cover waiting for reinforcements. More American soldiers came. Just when I was about to go over the top, all my new buddies got shot down while running into the battlefield. So I waited even longer. More came and more fell without even firing a single shot.

A few weeks ago, I started to get into Gears of War. Other than Baird who got lucky with a few frag grenades, my NPC allies did utterly nothing. Any Stranded or COG Gears were popped in the head the moment they entered the firefight. My ally heroes did some damage I suppose, but not enough to really help me in any way.

Playing Halo: Reach one time, Jun and his apparently pin-point accuracy skimmed my Spartan in the middle of a firefight, resulting in the death of Noble Six.

I'm just wondering if any first-person shooter game has an effective NPC support system. Honestly, team-mates who just run up to be shot at are pretty much useless other than being an ineffective bullet-soaker. Then again, I guess that if the NPCs could do something to help, it'd kinda take off too much of the challenge needed to beat a game.

Not that I'm complaining. I still get the job done, but it's funny to watch my professional ally soldiers get torn apart by Grunts.

Excited for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversery

So, it's the twelfth today, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary will be released in three days. I'm pretty much freaking out right now.

If you don't already know, I'm a huge Halo fan. I have really vague recollections of playing Halo 2 at a friend's place, but Halo 3 is really where I began. In fact, with Fable 2, Halo 3 was the first game that came with my Xbox 360.

My Halo 3 stats.
Screenshot taken from Bungie's site.

Its graphics stunned me since I upgraded from a Playstation 2 to an Xbox 360 very late, so I was somewhat unfamiliar with Xbox 360 video games. Just looking at the graphics in Halo 3 made me say wow. And since I never get to, I just want to flash my solid stats out there.

I never really got into playing Halo 3: ODST and Halo Wars, but Halo: Reach was the next big thing to happen to me in the Halo universe. I excelled at that too by the way.

My Halo: Reach stats.
Screenshot taken from Bungie's site.

I've spent countless nights just reading random and pointless trivia of the Halo universe on the Halo Wiki, and at some time I got sucked into the whole story.

In this time, I've become a pretty big Halo nerd. As a rule, I always play the first game in a trilogy before playing the next, and I've never even seen Halo: Combat Evolved game-play before. I consider that a taboo for myself. Halo: Combat Anniversary will definitely be a mind blower for my understanding of Halo.

This is going to be great. I'll post my review on Why It's Awesome! after it is released and some experience.