Outside of work, there was the usual round of meetings – though no teens club this week. I did however have the opportunity of speaking at the children’s’ carol service in the local retirement home on Saturday… I used the link to the news items about the Savoy closing down and the manager preparing a much better place – similar to comments in John 14 v 2 “I am going to prepare a place …”. Anyway, I also fell again big-time (see serotonin comment in the next “Halos won and lost” post) as you can safely say I ate more of those tea cake things (marshmallow covered in chocolate) than you could fit in a moderately sized bucket.
Well then, Halo 3 … finished it on Saturday. Now, I’ve played lots of computer games for lots of years –but never very seriously. In fact, I’ve never ever finished a computer game – not even nearly. I’ve only ever played for 10 minutes here and there for a bit of light relief/entertainment from whatever has been going on.
But I plodded on with Halo over a few evenings during the last fortnight on “easy” level, as the kids had bought a second hand copy from eBay for my birthday near the end of last month. I had wanted to know what all the hype was about – this game had made more in its first day than any movie in history (though it should be noted that watching a movie costs about an eighth of the cost of this game when it was released!).
Anyhow, the hype turned out to be just that in my opinion – just another shooter, albeit with good graphics. I did like how the voice hints seemed to come just when you needed them with a couple of frustrating exceptions and the odd irritating opening that didn’t appear until you’d wondered aimlessly for ages (or so it seemed). I did not like the bad language that appeared mainly in the early stages of the game – it didn’t add anything to it imo.
Surely they can get some technology in there to allow the user to choose profanity and gore settings? That way everybody could enjoy …
The end (apart from coming surprisingly soon), was a little anti-climatic. There was a never ending drive around exploding ground. This on its own was a little disappointing – no running, shooting, just driving. Then, after spending hours fighting to keep your hero character alive – he apparently dies in a huge explosion that takes out the enemy planet – and its completely beyond your control!
The cut scenes were often quite long and I never got the depth of the plot beyond “blow stuff up”. But the music was very atmospheric – especially since getting my sub-woofer down from the loft and hooking it up after moving!
In fairness, I’ve not played any other similar game beyond the very first stages as said above, so that says something about the game in itself – but I did feel slightly the victim of hype 
Well, 10 minutes after finishing, I put it on eBay buy-it-now for a coupla quid more than I paid – and it sold almost instantly. You can sell ANYTHING on eBay this time of year, its NUTS. I would have kept it if Aaron were a little older – but its not the kind of thing I’d leave him to play with.
Right up to the moment… I was on security duty tonight – it was freezing! But there’s a Korean Church that meets at the Heath and I got to listen to them practicing for their Christmas Service next weekend. I stood for a time outside the hall door where they were and have rarely heard such beautiful and moving singing – what a funny thing, the cold just wasn’t any more.
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