SneakyPete is the tricker behind this great video. It's videos like this that remind me of the beginnings of the Halo community, when H.B.O. could barely host a 25mb video, when "How Not to Be Seen" was a sensation, and just the general camaraderie and spirit of it all. This tricking video really captures the spirit of how things used to be- no egos, no "super duper in your face montages," just a bunch of people making videos about the game they loved- Halo: Combat Evolved. Any of you that played Halo 1 I recommend watching this, quite highly.

P.S.- I guarantee your jaw will drop at at least one launch and something he does with a marine.

Halo has it's own culture. It has been likened to Star Wars for it's cult-like following, and market penetration. Whether you've been playing it since the first installment, or got swept up somewhere along the way w/ Halo 2, you can agree it's one of the greatest games ever made.

But which one? All 3 have similarities, and although they have the same name, they are 3 very different games, each with it's own nuances and nuisances alike.

Pre-H3, everyone seemed divided. H1 or H2. The early adopters of Halo seemed to favor H1 heavily after being subjected to H2's dual-wielding, turned up auto-aim, and the infiltration of cheaters and screaming, pre-pubescent online players who ruined the experience for everyone.

H2 fans enjoyed the ease of multiplayer gaming over Xbox Live, as opposed to local LANs on H1, or the cumbersome (and unsupported) interface of Xbox Connect. Anyone w/ their mom's credit card could connect to XBL, but LANs and XBC required more work, and more knowledge.

When comparing H1 and H2, the campaigns do not even need to be mentioned. If you've never played H1's campaign, then you don't know what you're missing, and you'll be satisfied w/ the campaign on H2. If, however, you have played H1's stellar campaign, well, 'nuff said. Just mark that up as the biggest reason to prefer H1 over H2.

Enter H3, the end of the trilogy, and Bungie's triumphant redemption to the lackluster campaign on H2. Enter more user-customization than ever before. Map Forge, Theatre-mode, and more. It has possibly more bells and whistles than any other console game, ever. But are the multiplayer extras and customization enough to win over the H1 fans? The auto-aim was turned down, but is it enough to make the H1 crowd forget about their beloved scoped pistol?

Staples is having their Friday sale. They have a Maxtor 200GB ATA 7200 RPM HDD for $40, w/ free shipping. I needed a hard drive w/ an IDE interface for my xbox, and this fits the bill perfectly. It's not SATA, but if anyone needs an extra drive for their PC, this is a pretty good buy.

Link dump:
Mintz's already wrote about the LAN: http://hushedcasket.com/node/1628/
Midnight blogged about it: http://midnight.hushedcasket.com/2007/01/16/gears-of-war-halo-1-lan-at-raptures/
70 photos from the LAN: at Flickr.com

THX'ers gather around for 3-shot lessons

This past Saturday the Hushed Casket held its first epic HALO LAN of 2007 in Huntsville, Alabama.  It was massive (over 30 gamers), starting on Saturday morning at 11 AM and lasting until 6 AM on Sunday.  That’s 19 hours of hi-def gaming.  Travelers made their way to the event by flying in from as far away as California and Philadelphia.  Others made the drive from the Auburn and Birmingham areas.  While we’ve hosted LANs with more people in attendance in the past, the local Casket community brought the gear, making it the most high-tech and playable LAN to-date.  We had nearly two dozen original XBOX and XBOX 360 consoles at the event along with 10 hi-def displays and copious standard-definition displays scattered throughout the home, including a 95” LCD projector display (image).

Save the date. I've met with Midnight and on Saturday, January 6th, 2007th I will host a HALO 1 LAN at my place starting at noon. You can play until noon on Sunday at which time I'll begin chainsawing you with my Lancer.

This LAN will be like the others. No H2 allowed. No Guitar Hero 2 allowed. No laser pointers anywhere near my cat. Gears of Wars. What to do? I say we'll experiment with a little GoW LAN action. However like H2, since we can play GoW MP online at any time, we'll be making the most of Hang 'Em High and Damnation.

Bring TV's and XBOXEN. Bring fold up chairs. Bring snacks and drinks. Chaos will be bringing cookies.

Regular local attendees are expected plus these special guests:

Midnight and BattleBitch are flying in from California. jayWHY is flying down from Philly. D4RE B34R and D1ESEL are driving up from Auburn. A few others have mentioned driving a few hours to attend the LAN but are still unconfirmed.

For those coming out of town, you are welcome to crash at my place as long as you've made arrangements with me.

Thoughts?

I've created an "event" post for this LAN at: http://hushedcasket.com/node/1551. But, let's keep all communication in this thread for now. Equipment list started below. Reply to this thread and let me know what you are bringing.