There's a series on YouTube called Arby n' the Chief, and it's one of my favorite YouTube series of all time.  It started out great, but now we're lucky to get more than 1 mediocre episode a month.  In any case, I've stuck with it.  The creator started off with just a blog announcing new episodes, but once he got noticed, he created digitalph33r.net, which is just a forum.  It consists of over 2500 members, with me being one them, and contains sections for each of the creators(Jon) works.  This includes an Arby n' the Chief, Deus Ex Machina, It's a Wonderful Live, DigitalPh33r's Guide to Making Machinima and Hard Justice forums, along with other forums such as off-topic and such.

It started out like any other forum.  People discussed Jon's latest work, while others posted thoughts on future episodes.  For a short while people were actually civil.  A Community Game Night was created, where forum members got together and played a few games of Halo 3 every weekend.  I really didn't care about community events since I don't have a 360, though.  All I really did was check in every now and then to see if a new Arby n' the Chief episode had been posted. 

Once Jon attained the standard "director" status among the community, he received criticism.  A lot of criticism.  People then asked personal questions about him, such as where he lived, his shoe size, his family, ect.  This has been going on for quite a while now, which is why Jon announced yesterday that he's shutting down the forums.  Oh the drama....People then started posting "refugee" forums, so they'd have a place to stay.  Since quite a few forums were posted, and the mods considered it advertising, they were quickly locked while the mod themselves gave out suggestions.

So, how does this affect me?  Well, judging by his announcement, closing the forums only sounds like the beginning.  He stated he'd be starting school again soon, meaning he'd have less time for Machinima.  Remember, he worked on more than just one series.  The closing of the forums means he'll more than likely stop making machinima, within the year would be my guess.  It's a shame, because it was such a great series.  It was full of all the dumb things we laugh at, while at the same time it acted as commentary on what's happening in the gaming industry.  As of late it has gone downhill, only with a few "good" episodes. 

When Jon wasn't contracted with Machinima.com, he made videos when he wanted, how he wanted.  I can't help but feel his deal with Machinima.com, along with the pre-pubescent community, hindered his motivation to continue making machinima.  So I guess this is a goodbye to Jon, aka DigitalPh33r, but more importantly it's a goodbye to his work. 

You better get used to my Halo 2 rants, because I've got a lot of them. 

Boredom struck again today, so I decided to give the Halo 2 campaign another go.  I haven't played it since it's release nearly 4 years ago, so I really couldn't remember a thing.  I looked through the levels, trying to spark any memories to see if they were worth playing.  I knew both Delta Halo and Metropolis were pretty good(to a certain point), but I had already played those fairly recently.  I wanted something big and open.  I finally settled on High Charity because the preview picture looked decent. 

I soon found myself fighting against one of my least favorite things in Halo 2: Brutes.  Now, my hate towards Brutes isn't the same kind of hate I have towards the Flood.  With the Flood, I hate them because they're challenging and fun to mess around with.  I can shoot off their arms and watch them simply stare at me.  With Brutes....not so much.  When they charge you, it's nearly impossible to avoid unless you jump.  With enemies like Hunters, their charge is slow, but jumping doesn't necessarily mean you're out of harms way.  There's just something about the Brutes I hate, and I can't explain it.  Other than the fact they don't have that "Halo" feel* to them, I find them to be one big annoyance.

Playing as the Arbiter certainly didn't help either.  I sometimes forgot I was an Elite, so I'd occasionally shoot my own teammates.  After a while I got used to it, however.  Also, vehicles sure aren't what they were in the first Halo.  Mowing someone down in a Ghost was rewarding in Halo 1 because enemies actually had the brains to dodge out of the way.  When attempting to run down a Brute, they just stood there.  You'd think it'd be an easy kill, but no.  They somehow turn into rubber and bounce right off unharmed.  Surely ramming one into a wall should kill him, no?  Think again. 

Parts of High Charity reminded me of Assault on the Control Room, but not in a good way.  A lot of people said AoTCR was repetitive, and it was.  All the rooms were essentially the same with minor changes.  In High Charity, not only were rooms similar, but so were the enemies.  Brutes.  Brute after Brute after Brute.  I realize they're important to the story and this particular level, but c'mon.  Spice things up a bit.  Throw me a Hunter or two(even though they'd be on my team).  Roughly half-way through I turned off my Xbox.  I gave The Great Journey a try yesterday and did the same thing.  It was decent, but I just got bored with it all.  This doesn't happen in Halo 1.

*The Halo feel is fairly simple to me.  Give me the Covenant, Flood, Marines and an open world.  These were the ingredients to many Halo 1 levels and it worked great.  Brutes have a very different feel, and they just don't fit into my Halo world.  They should be in a totally different game. 

Seeing as I have access, I thought I'd post them here.  New UI pictures for the 360 version of Left4Dead have been released.

Like I stated in a previous blog, I'm now posting at Xbox.com again after a 3-year hiatus(of sorts).  I stumbled into the "Xbox.com, My Xbox and Forums" forum and saw a 7 page thread titled "Why do the forums suck now?".  Perfect.  A place to see people bash Xbox.com, something a few other people I known have been doing for quite a while.

At first I thought about going on a rant of sorts then forgetting about it all.  But then I thought I might as well write up a semi-logical post and see where it goes.  I must say it's getting pretty enjoyable.  So far everyone's fairly civil about it all, and we're actually participating in a debate of sorts.  One side favors the CUL(community user level), while the other thinks it's flawed.  I'm one of those who thinks it's flawed.  I've thrown out suggestions, and haven't recieved anything negative about them(some saying I'm spot on).  While the discussion brings joy I can't help but feel it's all pointless.  It'll either become locked by a mod or go completely ignored.

Only time will tell, as usual.  My hopes of actually changing things are quite low.  But it honestly isn't a huge deal, since it isn't my main forum.

Well I finally saw Iron Man tonight.  There were only a few copies left to rent, and I needed an action movie to keep my dad awake.  Overall I enjoyed it, more-so than I thought I would.  The special effects actually impressed me, something rare nowadays with movies full of unnecessary CGI.  It had a more comical tone about it, something lacking in the Spiderman series(not saying that's a bad thing).  I'm not completely convinced Jeff Bridges was right for his role, but hey, it's Jeff Bridges.  Robert Downey Jr. was good, and Paltrow was decent, though I wasn't too fond of the red hair(she didn't have that big of a role anyways). 

I guess I'd give it a 7.5/10.  I also rented In Bruges, the real movie I want to see.  But I'm a bit tired as of now, so I'll wait till tomorrow.  I rented an Xbox game as well, which made me sorta sad.  I walked over to the Xbox section, something I haven't done in a long time, and saw 2 measley shelves with games on it.  The 360 section is slowly taking over that part of the wall.  My options were limited, so I picked Call of Duty 2: Big Red One.  I have the urge to play older Xbox games, like PGR or Ghost Recon, but they've long since been sold away. 

Anyways, I took a few screenshots of Iron Man for the hell of it.

I've never been fond of Halo 2, apart from the multiplayer at least.  I've bashed Halo 2 many a times, but I'll admit that the multiplayer proved to be the best gaming experience I've ever had.  And I don't even have Live.  System-linking was where the real fun was, and in some ways I actually think it's better than Live.  However, I didn't immediately love the multiplayer....

My first system-linking experience with Halo 2 was, to put it nicely, dreadful.  I hated the controls, and the first map we played was Waterworks(not necessarily a "fan favorite").  After dying about 10 times within a few minutes, I put down the controller and left the room(with the "host" throwing cry-baby remarks as I left).  Ever since I first heard about Halo 2 I was extremely excited, so when I finally played the game it was a major let-down.  I was expecting an experience much like the original Halo provided.  But, alas, too many things were changed for me to find any enjoyment whatsoever.

Skip ahead a few months when the same host asks if I want to have another system-linking party.  I said yes, thinking we'd at least play Halo: CE for a little while.  But no, it was all Halo 2, all the time.  But something happened that night.  Something...*clicked*.  I liked the multiplayer.  No, no.  I LOVED the multiplayer.  I don't know what happened between those short months, but I was having the greatest gaming moment of my life.  And we continued to have system-link parties for about 2 years.  Nowadays it's extremely rare, but I'm still hoping to get a call out of the blue one of these days...

Anyways, enough of the multiplayer.  The real disappointment came from the campaign.  I can honestly say I hated it within the first 5 minutes.  The look, the feel, the controls.  What, Master Chief can flip a tank but he can't handle SMG recoil?  The graphics looked almost arcadish compared to the first Halo.  Despite my hate, I finished it.  So out of sheer boredom I decided to give it another go last night.  There's only 1 level I truly "like", and that would be Delta Halo.

There's just something about the level I don't absolutely hate.  After a while I eventually grew bored, and I really didn't feel like continuing from where I was at because I knew my least favorite part was coming up soon.  So I went back, got a Ghost, and escaped the level.  This is something I like doing in the original Halo, so when I get the chance to do so in Halo 2, I take full advantage of it.  Getting out of Delta Halo is pretty damn easy, since the Ghost can climb pretty much any smooth and slanted surface.  I've lapped the entire level once before, which I consider to be quite the feat.  Not because it's necessarily hard, but because it takes a long time to do.

Last night, however, I went somewhere I'd never been before: the bottom of the lake.  I remember this issue being discussed before Halo was released; could a Ghost hover across water?  Well, it can't.  I went all over the lake bottom, which in all honesty was a bit of a bore.  I kept hoping for "something" to discover, whether it be a new weapon or a lone soldier(ala Halo 1).  The entire lake bed could summarize all of Halo 2: It's big, but boring as hell.  I have more fun driving around by myself in Coagulation than I do with the entire campaign.  This is why I mainly play Halo 1 still to this day.  It's almost 7 years old, but vastly supperior to it's sequel.

More details on the new Halo 3 campaign expansion, called "Halo 3: Recon", from Bungie.  For starters, it'll be released next fall.  A new video is also available.  Here are some screen shots I took  I've brightened up a few of them as well..

I started playing Tribes again a few weeks ago, and I'm getting pretty good.  I can usually cap the flag a few times, get a few mid-air disc hits, snipe an enemy moving quite fast.  I'm no where near as good as the "pros", but I can usually score around 20 or so points in each game.  I'm also posting quite a bit more over at Xbox.com.  I never thought I would, but I found a page full of new, unanswered threads.  The very first night of posting there got me to a CUL(Community User Level) 4.  I'd been stuck at 3 for about a year, not that it really worried me though.

This new page is essentially what the Halo 2 forum was way back then, activity wise at least.  I can refresh the page, and I'm pretty much guaranteed a new thread to answer.  Mind you, the majority of them are for games I haven't even played.  But sometimes a quick Google search will give me the answer.  I got interested in my CUL after reading an old, old thread recently.  It's about 3 years old, and full of old Xbox.com members who no longer post.  Even though I pretty much hate the layout, I'm still going to post there.  I went into lurking mode sometime in 2005, and I guess you could call this my return.

I even got a few veteran posters to post at there recently, though I highly doubt they'll stay.  We've got our own community to worry about right now.

The banning of "Bob" has taken a turn for the worse, apparently.  It's funny, because in a way I was really expecting this to happen, but at the same time never thought it would.  Once the dust has settled, I'd say we'd be out 3 or so members.  By the sound of things(a.k.a from those in charge), however, even more "cleaning up" will have to be done.  When the new site is launched, we should have approximately 6 people on board.  While 6 may sounds low, they'll be all we have at that point in time.  I have no idea how advertising will be done, so for all I know that number could double or triple.  I actually know very few things about the new site. 

It's all a very strange process at this point.  You'd think pissing people off would be the last thing you'd wanna do when planning a revival of sorts.  But the man in charge sounds more positive than ever right now, especially after kicking out 2 members.  None of it seems logical, but I'm not saying that in a bad way.  Perhaps getting rid of a few flies is just what the community needed.  Only time will tell, as usual.  I've never really been in charge of a community or creator of a forum, so watching these events unfold is certainly....interesting.