I literally just got power back last night. Been completely without power since Monday night. Sandy really did a number on me. Was freezing my ass off, had nothing to do but read what few books were on my ipad and listen to a radio that doubled as a flashlight, no gas available anywhere for the generator that I was sharing with my next door neighbor. It was like New Years in my area when we finally got power back. Con Ed got a standing ovation, but a few moments earlier we were so on edge that we might have strangled them after living like cavemen since Monday night. :P You really learn to appreciate little things like basic electricity once you're forced to go without it for such a long time in such rough conditions. I had been so unaccustomed to electricity that I literally didn't even realize I had a light to turn on in the room where my computer is located when Verizon came by to repair my internet this morning. It wasn't enough to get power back, I found out my phone, tv and internet were all screwed up as well. Good thing Verizon gave me a very next day early morning visit.

How much circle jerking did I miss!?

Glad you and the fam are ok, got my family in upper Mahanttan so they were not hit hard at all, mother nature can be a bitch sometimes :)

You see, what's annoying about the kind of "criticism" you and Sath come up with is not the fact that you rarely ever play these games, but that you expect them to cater to your desires, in spite of a long standing tradition of core mechanics that have been tried, proven and loved by millions for a decade. While your suggested improvements would most certainly ruin the game since they come from someone who's layman to the whole (sub)genre. Having perfect accuracy firing from the hip allows for much different gunplay. Since you're free to move wherever you want while shooting it makes shootouts much more interesting and creative. It requires a lot more skill though and the potential for improvement as seemingly infinite.

Right now there is nothing feasible on the market that even closely resembles Halo gameplay (arena style shooter). Novice players will almost always prefer CoD over Halo since CoD has a learning curve any 6 year old can master. If I wanted another poorly done clone of that I'd play MoH.



To get back on topic: I got my Halo yesterday and had a rough start playing online. But I'm getting into it and it's a lot of fun. The perks don't bother me much, some are nice even (I can't imagine going away from faster reloads). Tested some armor abilities and stuck with jet pack as it seemed the most useful on these quite vertical maps.

Speaking of which, the maps are lovely as well. There are multiple layers and multiple ways to approach each location making the game quite frantic at times (but for other reasons, too), and they are gorgeous. Loving the weapons so far and they seem quite balanced. The BR isn't overpowering everything, but it's my go to gun for now. DMR is nasty at long range though, so I switch for that on large maps. The mechs are incredibly powerful, I think they're annoying.

As I said the maps can get quite frantic. The reason is the new spawning system which is much more akin to CoD than traditional Halo. So it can happen that I get an overkill in the middle of the map and get bum rushed by 3 guys before my shields reload. I'd rather have a respawn timer to balance that. I can see the appeal, though, since the action is much more dense and generally a lot faster than any Halo I played yet (which is good).

Man, that's good that your family avoided the worst, because this storm was insane. The most positive thing about the last couple days is how just everybody in the area was really helping one another out. You don't see that too often. People who normally just go about their business, not really speaking to each other at all, all of a sudden going out of their way to help as many people as they could. If there was a family that seemed more hard hit or more without means than others, people didn't concern themselves with possibly being rejected if they found it within themselves to offer some help. Everybody just put themselves out there and offered whatever help we could provide, and were prepared to live with possible rejection. And, I mean, it's only natural to expect that some simply wouldn't accept any help offered regardless of how much they needed it, because there is just such a strong sense of pride in being able to be self reliant and provide for your family and for your own personal situation, and it leads to this near gut instinct to turn down any and all assistance. I know for a fact I've done it a few times in my life, wanting to stubbornly get by through my own effort. But, to my surprise, and to most people's surprise, there was absolutely none of that in the least. People everywhere were helping as much as possible, really putting themselves out there, and people also realized that there were much worse things than accepting help that you know you needed from people more than willing to offer it. Not sure why most of us were so surprised that this was the case, but we were. It's almost as if everybody in the area was family, or had been extremely close friends for quite a number of years.

You could tell there was a lot of relief going around once people saw that help was being offered, and that it was being accepted. People saw it, took notice, and responded in very impressive fashion. Everybody, and I mean everybody, started doing anything they could to help people in the area. A couple diabetics had no way to keep their insulin properly cooled and needed medical attention, parents with new born babies had no way to go out and get what they needed with the trains being down and bus lines being so jam packed, so everybody just did everything we could to chip in and take them shopping to get what they needed, or just go pick it up for them, insisting that they keep whatever money they did have for bills or whatever while they stayed in someone else's home that had heat. When everybody got home from work, you could tell there was something far different about the area. It was no longer like coming home to your family or just the one or two people you were friends with in the area anymore, it was coming home to a community where everybody knew everybody and was legitimately concerned with how everybody else was doing. Pretty damn inspiring stuff. Can't lie, brought a tear to my eye to see all this happening.

People who didn't speak to one another prior to the storm now seem to be such good friends. People are being invited to birthday parties, Christmas and new years parties, are getting their families together to go out and eat together, even planning family vacations together... talking sports/sharing tickets to sporting events, even a few hardcore gamers I wasn't aware of. There might be an even bigger Halo nerd in my neighborhood than even myself, and he's in his 50s haha. So, as rough as it was, and as rough as it still is for so many because of the Storm and all the problems it has caused and is continuing to cause, there are bright spots such as this, and I'm not surprised to see it's happening in other places as well. With that said (just had to say it) back to Halo !!!!! :D

Haha, Phaeth. It feels so good to be back online again. :D

That new FUD ep was pretty good :)

All I needed to hear :D.

Halo 4 is so close, it's an exciting time!

There was muff flying everywhere.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tfbz3qYUiUU#t=1m42s

To be honest I didn't think I would be talking with any of you this weekend, my local officials made it sound like we wouldn't have power restored in time for Election Day, maybe not even until next Friday! Then our state (NY) governor basically told the utility companies that either power started getting restored to communities that COULD receive power.............or they would lose their licenses. After that power began flaring up all over NYC and Long Island.

I went down to the water here in Port Washington (less than half a block from my house) at high tide on Monday night. Not because I'm a thrill seeker, but because I needed to know if I would have to run for high ground. I figured it would give me just enough time to warn my neighbors and take who I could in my car and make it up to MainSt which has an almost 40ft elevation. The power had already gone out and it seemed foolish to just sit in our homes in the dark without knowing when the tidal surge was going to hit us. Going down to the beach was the scariest moment in my life, when lightning flashed it illuminated the dark waters and waves with frightening effect. But by some miracle, the surge missed us up here in the North Shore, Sandy had picked up speed and hit us well before high tide. By 2am, the storm was over for us and the waters calmed and the winds began to hush. But by morning we began to hear reports over the radio what happened to the Southern shore, NY Harbor, Staten Island and of course New Jersey.

If someone had told me that some monster had risen from the sea and was responsible for all of this devastation, it would have actually been believable. But I HATE the Weather Channel, they seem to almost be reveling in all of this. Frankenstorm, Perfect Storm.........it's like watching meteorologists masturbate and then smoking cigarettes afterwards.

I didn't evacuate for the same reasons no one else did...............last year's Hurricane Irene. We all ran for the hills for that one and nothing happened, so no one believed it this year. New Yorkers sometimes have an attitude that nothing can phase us, we don't fear anything. ESPECIALLY THE WEATHER. We think nothing can shut us down, stop us, or keep us from going about our daily business. But what we've seen this time made believers of us all. We were shut down, knocked down and our daily routine came to a grinding halt.

I'll be investing in a whole house generator, but I have to tell that if storms like this happen annually in the North East, alot of people are going to sell their homes and leave these port towns. Myself included. The risks of having your entire community taken out by a freak wave would just be too high to continue to stay.

With the power back on I was finally able to take advantage of the FUD series, and I have to say it left me applauding for more. Halo has managed to become a significant piece of science fiction. It's interesting as you watch Star Wars being sold out (actually it sold out long ago) to the Disney machine house, there are now better and far more interesting scifi universes to explore and play in. Halo is one of them, and it continues to intrigue and expand with each outing.

It really has me wondering, could Halo expand into RPGs? Would anyone turn down the opportunity to play a character leading a squad of Spartans, or commanding their own UNSC ship? The possibilities for this franchise seem endless. Anywho, I'm actually excited to play a Halo game again, and it's been awhile since I've felt that way.

Glad all is well with you and the family also, scary times we live in.

Yeah this storm took 106 lives and wiped out over 100,000 homes. People in the Northeast won't be thumbing their nose at these storms anymore.

You are so right, Grim. Cuomo threatening their licenses is definitely, I think, largely responsible for why we got power back so fast. We were originally told by Con Ed that we wouldn't have power back until the 14th or 15th of November!

And you are correct about that, a lot of people up here really never do seem to take the storm warnings seriously, always believing that it's impossible that such a natural disaster could ever hit us here in New York. I tried to warn so many people that I knew beforehand, telling them that regardless of what may have happened in previous storm's, this isn't the one to take lightly. You heard the same thing, "Oh, we're just going to get a little bit of rain, and then it will be a whole lot of nothing." Unfortunately, there are a lot of people right now wishing they had taken the warnings seriously. Also, yes, the weather channel does seem to take an uncomfortable degree of enjoyment in their predictions coming true exactly as expected, in some cases their predictions were well exceeded.

OMG ARE YOU GUYS READY!?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Erm, I was ready years ago.

At least I am not the only idiot not playing it yet...
Frienslist is full of asses allready playing...

OMFG NO IRON SITE!!! I WILL NOT BUY!!!

lmfao they seriously put that in the review? "hey i have targeting systems built into my suit/visor.. lets look down the visor cause its teh thing to do.. all call of duty init blood"

more importantly.. have MS not fucked up this year? they usually put ALL pre order DLC up for download for everyone by mistake?

Gamestop has just informed me that they will not be getting copies of Halo 4 in today or tomorrow. And Midnight launches have been canceled throughout my area. While this is disappointing, it's also perfectly understandable. Alot of those stores don't even have power right now.

Got my copy this morning! Game is incredible...Im not a Halo fan (loved the 1st the rest bored me) but im LOVING IT, Graphics and sound are INSANE! Possibly the best looking console game to date. Online is alot of fun as well which im surprised about!

434 have smashed Bungie out of the park! 10/10 from me :O

All the Halo 4 Terminal videos, for those that dont want to read the books to flesh out the Forerunner history, it's a nice intro to enemy and aid to come in the game, obvious spoilers for those that wish to stay away from any story clues, but for those that dont mind and want to know the history of the Didact and Librarian, watch on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IaL13LFaHw