What more needs to be said?

Tags: humor, gaming, halo, duckhunt

Many times now, single player can sometimes be looked over in some games in lieu of their multiplayer aspects and I myself am guilty of doing just that. So I figure I'd go through and list some of my favorite single player campaigns that I've played.

6. Gears of War

This is by far the first real big game for the 360 and it's a good one.  I was skeptical of the game for a while, but in the end decided I liked it and would pick it up. The single player is a challenge and the co-op aspect as in Halo adds to the fun part. Seriously though, chainsawing enemies? Quite fun to do. But the graphics as well as how everything is laid out in the single player is done very well. I really don't know what else to really say about it except that I really enjoyed the campaign as well as the multiplayer.

5. Rainbow Six Vegas

This game is tough to say the least, I'm still battling through it. While the pre-mission planning is nowhere like the original, you can of course still order your team around telling them to do this and that. The cover system that they made for this game is the best cover system I have seen to date. And the AI of the enemies, and your teammates isn't bad. Enemies will flank you, they will try to cut you off, they too will take cover from your fire. I'm maybe halfway through and I'm still impressed by how well the story is laid out and the gameplay is integrated.

4. Half Life

First I will say, I never beat the game sadly. I got pretty far but something would inevitably happen preventing me from beating it, computer crashes were most notorious. But beforeeee all that happened, The game was a lot of fun battling through alien monsters and head crabs.

3. God of War

The first PS2 game I ever got, and by far, still my favorite PlayStation game I've ever played. This game is just fun, and one thing I love about it is the little puzzles they put into the game.  While a lot of it is just plain brutal fighting, there are little puzzles that you need to solve to go forward or to beat a boss. One that comes to mind is that in order to beat the Hydra in the beginning, its not just about dealing damage with your blades. You have to realize that when the head goes down, you have to do something else (removed as to not give away what you have to do, sorry, look around, you'll figure it out) in order to knock the head out of commission.

2. Goldeneye for N64

Everyone still remember this game? I remember trying to beat this game on 00 Agent in all levels and what a trick it was. I still remember the 3 levels that I couldn't beat (2nd time in the bunker, Control, Aztec). The game was one of the biggest sellers for the Nintendo 64 console and with good reason. The single player followed the movie to some extent and the multiplayer, well it just kicked ass. One thing I liked was that silence and stealthiness actually mattered.  In some cases it was definitely helpful to use a silenced PP7 (PPK) than breaking out your AK and trying to just blast your way through not caring who reacts to you, but then again, the AI was pretty bad, but in all retrospects, it probably wasn't that bad for its time.

1. Halo: Combat Evolved

Of course Halo has to make it in to this list. Halo 1 that is, the game that launched the Halo Trilogy as well as the XBOX Console itself.  While the Halo 2 and 3 campaigns weren't bad, I don't think they quite lived up to the quality that the original had.  I still can't help but remember the second level in the game where you're thrown pretty much right into the fire. Landing on Halo your mission is to go around to 3-4 sites and rescue survivors from the onslaught of more and more Covenant forces. The openness of the level is what really impressed me.  It wasn't always about following a SPECIFIC path but moreso going from area to area in whatever order you want. Up until the very end of the game, you were neck deep in enemies and the final drive to safety was great.

Tags: thoughts, singleplayer, favorite

A United States Representative is proposing that NASA keep the shuttle fleet flying past its scheduled 2010 retirement date. After the Columbia tragedy back in 2003, the review board recommended that the shuttle fleet be retired in 2010 unless the fleet was re-certified. Being that the shuttle fleet is getting old, this recommendation did not seem too out of place. Two proposals, one would see the Space Shuttles flying until 2013 cutting the gap between the STS program and the Orion program, and the second would see the Space Shuttles flying until 2015 when the first manned Orion missions are scheduled to be launched. NASA currently has an exemption until 2011 allowing them to purchase Russian Soyuz Rockets despite the ban on the purchasing of Soyuz rockets designed to slow Iran from nuclear weapons technology, since Russia is accused of helping Iran in such endeavors. NASA's second option, should the shuttle fleet be retired would fall on the private sector, but the private sector doesn't yet seem ready for the task.

Keeping the shuttle fleet flying past 2010 could be counterproductive though as NASA administrator Michael Griffin said last month:

The argument could also be made that NASA and the US should keep their presence in space, and a few more years with the shuttle could help do just that. I would like to see the shuttle go past 2010, it is, despite its downfalls, a very capable machine and its already proven itself to be quite robust in its capabilities. Only time will tell if congress will give NASA the money it needs to either bring the timetable for Orion forward, or extend the life of the shuttles.

U.S. urged to keep space shuttle flying past 2010 [news.yahoo.com]

Tags: nasa, shuttle, spaceshuttle, news, links

I created this to show the 6 vehicles NASA has made thus far launching humans into space.

From Left to Right:

• Mercury Redstone Rocket (Mercury 1-2)
• Mercury Altas Rocket (First Orbital Rocket) (Mercury 3-7)
• Gemini Titan Rocket (Gemini 3-12 - All Manned Gemini Missions)
• Saturn 1B (Apollo 1,7,Apollo-Soyuz,Skylab)
• Saturn V (Apollo 8-17)
• Space Shuttle (STS-1 - STS-121)
  

Tags: space, nasa, spaceflight

Friday night was rather uneventful, hung out with Cassie for a little bit then hopped on XBOX Live and played a bit of Call of Duty 4 and Halo...I tell ya, the 5.1 surround system really makes you feel like you're right there.

Saturday was mostly a waste of a day as I didn't get up til almost 4pm. Sleeping in has its benefits though. Ended up picking up some speaker stands for my front speakers and Super Mario Galaxy. So far the game looks pretty good. Follows more of the style of Super Mario 64 than it does Super Mario Sunshine...which is good. I ended up going to see I Am Legend with LJ and Jeff in KoP that night. Movie was good even though it apparently didn't follow the ending of the book (so I'm told), but Will Smith did a good job in the movie. Kinda left me thinking like whoa, could something like that really happen? Maybe not the zombie part, but just such a high scale pandemic. To see fighter planes destroy the bridges...just wow. I still want to know how exactly they did NYC, the detail was amazing.

Sunday I slept in til 2 and then went to my company's holiday dinner. Not bad, had a caesar salad, chicken, and a chocolate cake, as well as some nice wine.

Now, I'm back at the grindstone.

Tags: weekend, busy