Halo overload!

Alright you Halo fans of mine... For years you've put up with my jaded comments about your favourite franchise. And yes some of my comments were only said to troll you because honestly... A lot of you take Halo WAY too seriously. Silent Hill is by far and away my favourite franchise but when people start knocking on it... I don't flip my shit. I like Brink. The rest of the world doesn't. You like Halo and that's all that should matter.

Before I give you my impressions on the series you should know I played up to "The Library" in Halo CE and completed Halo 2 in it's entirety before I ever got cynical about the series. So here we go.

Halo Anniversary: The graphics bump was all this game needed for me to appreciate it. At the time the original came out my complaint was how ugly it looked. Then I played it and got frustrated at the lack of dual wield, Master Chief's floaty jumping, the waiting between key plot triggers and the general moving from point A to B only to wash rinse and repeat the same process. However now that my eyes dont have to look at 64 bit looking puke upscaled to 128.. And get to see the subtlety of the sky, the clarity of the Covenant and the look of anger on the faces of a charging enemy... I can appreciate what it did at the time even if I still don't think it lives up to the hype.

Halo 2: ok Now we're talking. This should have been the graphical fidelity of the first game. Matter of fact if they decide to give Halo 2 the HD treatment, I'd buy that. I wasn't angry about playing as the Arbiter. I prefer him actually. Master Chief just reminds me too often of DOOM and it makes me wish I was killing demons in Hell rather than aliens on a planet I just don't care about. Halo 2 is a large improvement but it's still just the epitome of generic shooter to me. I do however greatly approve of the vehicles. This is the area where Halo shines the brightest. Co-op with vehicles adds another dimension to it and kicks it up a notch.

Halo 3: Maybe I was going through fatigue of the franchise by this point but all I cared about was Cortana who was in the game less than Harley Quinn was in Arkham City. So needless to say this game, though slight improvements were made, disappointed me. I liked some of the environments but when that flippen orb turned on me it took me another day to muster up the energy to play the rest of the game after a shitty plot twist. The ending however was perfect. "Wake me up when I'm needed." Or whatever Master Chief says is the best way to close out the trilogy.

Halo 3 ODST: I cared so little for the plot in Halo 3 that I barely see how they relate other than how the ending explains it. Other than that this game is actually not bad. The lone rookie wandering the streets trying to piece everything together as he finds his squad. The story held it together fine. My only beef is the ODSTs can do what Master Chief does but without the suit, and a weaker shield. Plus they can't even hold two pistols but can wield a gravity hammer. But ODST is better than I thought.

And thats where I stopped. I started playing Halo Reach but I'm taking a break so I can appreciate it. I'm a little burned out on the series.  But I look forward to seeing what Reach has to offer.

My final thought is that Halo is better than I thought but not as good as you'd lead me to believe.

Kudos.  Tell your friends about me.
The Jaded Gamer. 
Psn/xbl/twitter/playfire/raptr: IamFN2K

Chump Kong Deluxe

This story might not make sense unless you know what a "kill screen" is First! Thank you for sticking around. No drama today. Just a little story that is kinda funny when viewed in retrospect.

So... as a kid I used to hang out at an arcade/billiards called Gold Tips. After a while the owner and managers got used to me being there and would often let me play anything I wanted for free if the place wasn't too crowded.  Sometimes they would give me quarters on the sly to play.

Around the time Nintendo had arcade machines of Nintendo games like Super Mario Bros. Next to that machine was Donkey Kong.  Donkey Kong usually had a small line in front of it so I barely got a chance to play. That day nobody cared. So I grabbed a stool and the free quarters and played all day. 

After a few hours I was running low on quarters and knew when I ran out that I should go home. So I had to make every quarter count. All I wanted was a high score. So I restarted and tried hard. After what felt like forever... My bladder got real full but I didn't want to give up my game.  I waved the manager over and told him to play while I go to the bathroom.

So I go to the bathroom as fast as I could, washed my hands and ran out drying on my shirt. As I returned, the manager was rubbing his head in confusion.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I dunno. It's not working right. Look."

And then he pushed the control stick to the right. Little Mario took 3 steps and died. The manager told me to hold on. He unplugged it and restarted it. I watched the BIOS boot screen. It was the first glimpse I saw of one. He started a new game and everything seemed to work now. So I played it till the Game Over screen, went home and never thought about it since.

Fast forward about 15 years. I'm watching a documentary called King of Kong. As I watched it I became overwhelmed with nostalgia.  So as I'm explaining to a friend that Donkey Kong glitched out on me back in the day as the segment about kill screens appears. I go silent. Apparently it was a big deal and nobody knew.
So as the narrator explains that only a handful of people in the world have done it, I'm laughing.

Anyways, recently I tried Donkey Kong again recently and couldnt even best the default high score. I went from Jimmy in the Wizard to Forrest Gump. Insane.

Tell your friends about me! Co-op 4 life!
The Jaded Gamer

XBL/PsN: IamFN2K
Twitter: @IamFN2K

Free Agent - CONFIRMED!/You're all I got

First off. You probably just clicked a link to get here (or saw episode 1 of The Jaded Gamer if I posted it) THANK YOU! This is the only place in cyberspace where I can be found now.

If you couldn't tell or didn't know... I left The Underground Players.  Not just the podcast but the entire outfit. If this disappoints you then keep reading. If you don't care... Well thanks for stopping by. Come back soon when I get back to doing what I do. For now though... I gotta get rid of some dead weight.

Before Season 2 of The Jaded Gamer Show hits the internet soon I just need to say this out loud. I'm not part of or allied to The Underground Players.  I'm gonna beat around the bush here a little before the first episode expands on my words.

In the beginning I left the Podcast because I didn't like the "theatrics" or the "plot" of the show. I also didn't like being on a team that plotted and schemed behind eachother's back when things weren't going right. I can only imagine what they said about me since I left. So in an effort to prove I'm still a team player, I wrote articles and posted a video to keep traffic going to the site. Their response is what pretty much solidified my exit.  In addition to feeling like I was being forced out the door despite me stressing that I'll be putting up content, a listener informed me that the remaining cast were taking pointless underhanded cheap shots at me. The video has subsequently been pulled from the site. Hrmmm.

I'll expand more in the upcoming episode but for now that is all I'm going to say.

But there is no beef. No hard feelings. No love lost. I'm not gonna start beef cuz I'm not gonna give anybody chance to ride my nuts over my exit anymore.

In the end this is all for the best because I'm gonna be here on this blog and I'll be popping up elsewhere soon to give you exactly what you've been asking for.

I'm not trying to be famous. I'm trying to be your friend and co-op partner. Screw the beefs! I just care about the games!

Twitter/XBL/PSN: IamFN2K

Follow the echo! Retweet! Subscribe! Above all else... Tell your friends about me. You are all I got left! Don't change the channel just yet.

JG