My Flaming Wish, or What they should add in Halo 3

Hey

Ya know, I've been playing a lot of Halo 2 lately (GT-NeedlerFanPudge), and I've also been reading the site that is linked to this post. (Click on the title or this www.halo2sucks.com) Anyway, I don't think Halo 2 sucks, but it could have used some more work like the site says. I have a different opinion than most people do, so I'm going to list off the stuff they should change in Halo 3 to improve my fave game of all time.

-Fuel Rod in Multiplayer-This is just torture. I had so much fun with the Fuel Rod on Halo PC, and they didn't even make it for Multiplayer in Halo 2. I know the Campaign Fuel Rod was overpowered, but come on. You create the game, so power down the Fuel Rod, even if just for Multiplayer. I mean they could still do it as Downloadable Content if they wanted to, but they probably wont. But in Halo 3 they have to add it.

-Flamethrower-This is just wrong. At least put it in Campaign like the Fuel Rod. I agree that the PC version was kinda sucky, but make it like a more powerful Human Sentinel Beam and you got it covered.

-New vehicles-Spectre doesn't count as a new one in Halo 2 BTW, because it's a Warthog that was put in at the last minute. If you look at it long enough, it looks funny compared to the rest of the Vehicles. At least put the ATV in there (which should have some sort of gun on it by the way, not just a transport. Maybe a couple of chain guns on the sides.) I'd like to see at least some of the following for Halo 3. Pelicans and Phantoms, Shadows, ATV, Kestrel (rumored flying machine similar to Banshee), and Maybe some kind of attack helicopter as a human banshee.

-Needlers-Ok, as my GT states, I'm a huge fan of the idea of Needlers. The idea of a little thing sticking in your opponents and exploding is so cool. But, as everyone knows, the Needlers suck. Now I've gotten pretty good with the Halo 2 Needlers on maps like Beaver Creek and Midship, but the Needlers still need either a speed boost for the needles and/or a shorter fuse once the needle pierces the armor to make it the great weapon it should be.

-Assault Rifle-Now I know a lot of people don't miss the AR or think that duel SMGs are good enough, but god dang it, I still think there is room enough for the original bullet hose. Maybe for use in games without duels or just as another weapon, I would like to see both the SMG and the AR in Halo 3.

-Plasma Rifle-Speaking of old weapons, if you bring back the AR, why not bring back the original Plasma Rifle with stunning? Now, it wouldn't look like the current Plasma Rifle, but if Bungie could put in a two handed version with the stunners, that would be great.

-New Weapons-I would like to see some more Forerunner weapons like the Sentinel Beam. Well, not like the Sentinel Beam, but other weapons made by the Forerunner. You could work into the story that either MC or the Arbiter finds an abandoned Forerunner armory and now have access to all new kinds of weapons. One of these weapons could be a weapon similar to the ElectroTool seen in TimeSplitters. Another cool weapon that I saw in a H2 mod was the Beam Shot, an Elite version of the Brute Shot with a beam sythe that fires smaller Fuel Rod shots. I loved playing with this weapon and would like to see it in H3.

-Old Maps-The old maps that should make a return in H3 are Hang em' High, Lockout, Blood Gulch OR Beaver Creek (but not both), and Derelict (or Midship, it's H2 equivalent).

And that is my opinion on what new stuff should be in Halo 3.

-May you never be stuck playing Sentinels on Matchmaking
-Pudge

Bushido VS. Ninjitsu-The Real Story of Kamigawa

Hey

Saviors of Kamigawa previews are now running on www.magicthegathering.com and like usual, I'm thrilled to see the uber-powerful 3rd set mechanics. Epic looks so sweet. But then I look at some of the other stuff. Saviors is going to be a whole set designed to keep cards in your hand and be powered by the big hand you got. um...yay. That just seems a little boring. But, then again, that seems a perfect fit to what has been a pretty underwhelming block.

Now don't get me wrong, I like some parts of Kamigawa (my samurai deck kicks ass, and I run 5 Akki in my goblin deck). Samurai and Ninja are cool, and there are a couple of good goblins (Ben-Ben and Kikki-Jikki). But, the main theme of the block is lacking for me. Spirits. Oh and Legendary creatures. The block just seems all over the place. Unlike Mirrodin Block, which focused on artifacts through ALL its themes. Kamigawa has Spirits and Spiritcraft, and the Legendary creatures (which had nothing to do with Spirits, even though there were legendary Spirits. That felt more like a necessity so the changing of the legend rule made sense.) Then of course as we dig into the minor themes, we have

Demons and Ogres-Nothing to do with spirits and doesn't support legendary
Samurai-The human side of the conflict with spirits and supports legendary Samurai. Good.
Nezumi-again, no support for either major theme and bleeds into samurai
Moonfolk-almost non-existent, I still haven't pulled one and have no idea what they do
Foxes-Support for legendary
Ninja-This kinda goes into another minor theme
Blocking-Bushido and Ninjitsu even each other out to make this block combat heavy as well.

I just think that they should have put a little more focus into the block, and made the spirits a little less omnipresent. It seems that every pack I get is 90% spirits. I have a spirit deck, but it's only kinda fun and doesn't see much play.

Back to the topic at hand, Saviors makes the block even MORE complicated... Plus, it has no Ninjas! Why!!! How could they go so wrong after making a masterwork like Mirrodin block. (The way I see it, having cards good enough to ban is a good power level. Then, every time you get a pack, you really need at least one card.) Here's hoping that Ravinca has a better outcome than Kamigawa.

-May your next mulligan be far away.
Pudge

Mommy, There's Linkin Park in my Halo!

Hey

Have you heard the rumors about the Xbox 360? Besides the really good stuff that has been coming down the pipe, like wireless controllers and headsets and better Live options which are all confirmed. I'm talking about Custom Soundtracks. You know? The little-used option of the Xbox that allows you to listen to your own music during games by downloading a playlist to the Xbox Hard Drive. Well, according to the same press conference that brought us the "HD Era", all Xbox 360 games will be required to have custom soundtracks.

Now you must be saying to yourself, that's definitely a good thing. Why not make this feature that was almost never used available on a more widespread basis? That's what I thought too, at least originally. But then I thought about it a little. Think about this scenario that almost all Xbox players have played through.

You just finished the first level of Halo 2. The Master Chief is about to jump into space and give the Covenant back their bomb. Then, as your planting the bomb, you hear... "Cause I'm BREAKING DA HABIT TONIGHT".

Kinda ruins the moment doesn't it. Now I'm sure that this scenario wouldn't happen and big name games like Halo will still have it's wonderful score play as you make your way to destroy Delta Halo in the next game (hopefully). But I wonder how the mandatory thing would work with Halo. Would they have an option to play music during Multiplayer (very distracting if combined with the Team Chat) or maybe just during certain parts of the game (ex. As you pass by a Marine camp, you can faintly hear one of your music tracks playing over a radio). Something like the previous example would be cool, but it would also be a false promise to anyone who would want to play Halo with their own music. It would be a total disaster to have it play your music automatically, but it just seems weird to give the option at all. I mean who doesn't like the wonderful melodies of Halo?

Also, I wonder if smaller 3rd party games wouldn't even bother making a soundtrack. They would just automatically play the music you've downloaded onto the Xbox 360's Hard Drive (which every serious gamer will have). That may be a good idea in some cases (like MechAssult 2's disturbing and distracting alt rock playing during the boss fights. Not that I don't like Alt Rock (fave kind of music) but it seemed a little much for that game.) But, I always thought that the music of a game was key to its enjoyment. Stuff like the themes for Mario, Tetris, and Zelda will never die. So are we missing out on the next classic video game tune so we can listen to our CDs?

Who knows, maybe I'm overreacting. But, It's something to think about.

-Here's to hearing the classic tunes of the Future!
Pudge

Introduction to a Madman

Hey.

I've wanted to start a blog for a long time now, as I am a very opinionated person. I'm glad I finally stopped being lazy and started it. I guess I should introduce myself to the net. I am Pudge. That is my chosen name and the only one I will use as I want to remain anonymous.
I live in a very small town, and (as the description says) my home is a place called Zion, a gamer's paradise, an oasis in my desert of a town. Now just to warn everyone before hand, I'm very bad at being frequent. What I mean is that this blog most definitely wont be updated every day. But I will post things maybe twice a week, and try to make it long enough to sustain people's thoughts and interests until the next post.

The topics I will post about will be mostly random, as I like almost any kind of geeky thing you can think of. Some faves include Star Wars (not a Trek kind of guy, although Khan kicks ass), Marvel (DC is too boring and also too all over the place with Superman being in ten places at once. Although I do enjoy the occasional Batman when one of his teenage teammates isn't being introduced or dieing), and Xbox (although Gamecube is a close second. PS2 and the sad PSP are dead last and I would only buy one to replace my 1995 vintage PS1). The only geeky things I can think of that I don't like are PC games in general (too slow and too life consuming, although I find that Xbox Live is consuming too much of my life right now), cosplay (SO CREEPY), and RPGs (same reasons as PC games, although I must add to the list that they are either like extended hack and slashes or slow as molasses turn-based games to me).

(Note: I'm not going to make any appollogies, if I hate something with a passion (ex. G4, MTV, Pop Music, Reality Shows) I'm gonna bash it with all my might.)

Oh and about the name, that's just something I came up with that goes with the more crazy side of my personality that probably won't be shown on this blog as much as I'd like. But my friends (and enemies) know that I only need a bottle of Mountain Dew (The Elixer of Life) to make me extremely hyper, and maybe more annoying than people would like. But I can't help myself sometimes.

Until I find something interesting to say
-Pudge

Edit-Here are some contact details if anyone cares

www.gamertag.com and www.bungie.net MB Name-NeedlerFanPudge
XBL Gamertag-NeedlerFanPudge
www.toonzone.net MB Name-InvaderEd77
Names around the internet-SkullRaidramon, Mewman77, KingVegeta77
AIM Name-SkullRaidramon
Yahoo! Name-KingVegeta77
MSN name-
santaman17@hotmail.com
E-mail (please use this E-mail or just leave comments)
needlerfanpudge@gmail.com