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Halo 3 screenshot by BigToe67
Lyrics from Here’s to the Heroes sung by Mario Frangoulis from the album Follow Your Heart

In a fit of boredom, and with little enthusiasm for playing multiplayer I hopped into theater mode again to play around with the screenshot facility to look at the environment art. This entry is nothing more than a half dozen of the screenshots I liked best out of the ones I took, enjoy/discuss/ignore it’s up to you.

My first stop was an old video of Standoff, where eschewing the normal practice of gibbering over the giant antennae I looked in the opposite direction. I love this view over the plains and the river towards the hills in the distance, and looking at it I have to wonder if that hill would be as much fun to hike up as it looks.

From Standoff I wander back to campaign and the level The Covenant, based on this image alone, you could be forgiven for thinking that this level takes place on Earth. The beautiful surroundings and weather show nothing particularly alien or exotic, the only non-human elements are the Covenant forces, and the could easily be invading.

Then you look at this island, wreathed in mist and with quite frankly magnificent cloud formations overhead. However despite this beauty your eye is drawn to the pylon of the Ark. Dominating the skyline this massive construct reminds you that no matter how familiar the environment feels you are on something massive beyond comprehension.

My last visit of the day worth sharing, was to the map Foundry. Where a custom map I was playing used a teleporter to punt me outside the warehouse, and to my immediate death. However the mortal coil uncoiling aside I was able to get these two shots that illustrate how fantastic some of the environment art is, even when there is a 99% chance you will never see it.

The first shows a view across the water to what appears to be some sort of factory complex, maybe where the boxes in the Foundry warehouse come from. The second is a close up of the clouds as they pass by above. Look how real they look, you could be forgiven for thinking that they are a photograph of a real cloud formation.

Towards the end of it all I did a bit of larking about with an old match I had saved the playback for. Behold the fearsome Jaberwocky aka Rob 077 as it attempts to devour it’s prey.

Finally I felt like posting this film clip of my favourite moments in a slayer match to date.

It’s a bit daft, but impressive(ly stupid) none the less. Well that’s my opinion anyway.

I just had an X-Box live experience which highlights exactly what I was talking about in my last post.

I just played for a hair over four hours and nineteen games on a mix of Big Team Social and Social Skirmish matches, with a group of players gathered by bs angel, and it was Fantastic! Easily one of my best experiences on X-Box live in a long while.

The people I was playing with were friendly and welcoming, and did not seem to be taking the game to seriously, they were there to have fun, and we did. The banter was good and the gameplay was frenetic. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank my fellow players for being such good sports and putting up with my middling skills at the game.

bs angel
TTL Tortacular
soreltehnub
Cunbelin
PinkBulletz14
TT L Burritoh
TTL Quikthnkr
Sup4 Nov4
BrownV
thegreatmoocow

I had a fantastic time, and I hope we can do it again soon.

About a month ago I came back from a four week hiatus from the internet, forced in part by moving home. While the move itself was rapid and problem free, the sluggardly response time for my ISP to connect me to the internet was a nuisance.

However those four weeks had left me unable to play matchmaking in Halo 3 like I would normally, so I ended up popping in a couple of other games I had not touched since before Halo 3 launched in September, and playing a lot of single player campaign.

However now I am online once more and have returned to the world of online multiplayer, and have come to a realisation about myself.

I hate playing multiplayer alone. An oxymoron if ever I saw one, what I mean is I hate going into multiplayer without at least one of my friends list either playing with me, or on a private chat with me. The majority of people I meet online in X-Box live are foul-mouthed little gobshites who more often than not I am forced to mute before the match starts. Most of the time now when I start up Halo 3 I switch on Mute All in the voice communication options.

What are you like on live. Can you tolerate the fools or like me are you fed up with the stupidity and mute them?