Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Halo Revisited: Videos, Map Packs, and Betas

My friend at Backhand Volley got me started on another run of Halo craziness. I downloaded all the "vidocs" and trailers again off Xbox Live Marketplace to watch on my new HDTV (52" Mitsubishi 1080p), and then I spent some money on Halo. I must have plunked down nearly $70 in the last couple days, between the Halo 3 Pulic Beta (oops, I meant to say Crackdown ;-)) and the 2 new maps that were released for Halo 2 today, Tombstone and Desolation, remakes of Halo 1 maps Hang 'Em High and Derelict. Hang 'Em High is my all time favorite multiplayer map, I played that map so much when Halo 1 came out, very fond memories.

Just downloaded, and very nice to buy in U.S. Dollars since it's an Xbox Classic game and MS accountants hadn't dreamed up Points yet. Then I finally get into Xbox Live in Halo 2, and it's here where my lack of playing Halo 2 on Live makes me want to cry. Since all my friends that played Halo 2 are offline or stopping playing a long time ago, there is no way to play the new maps since you can only invite people to a custom game from your friends list (or so it seems I could be wrong). According to GameSpot, the new maps won't be cycled into the matchmaking system, really the only thing I can use at this point to play against other people, until next Tuesday, 4/24/2007. Damn, all I really want to do is play Tombstone on a loop, so I guess I am kinda out of luck until then. Even then, playing Tombstone will be kinda hit or miss. I guess I better convince some friends to get back into Halo 2.