Nadia and I beat Halo 3 last night. It is the first game in the series that we completed, never getting more than halfway through the other two games. The story was told in such a way that if you were not familiar with the story in the other two, you would be hopelessly lost in this final chapter. All you really need to know is that humanity is in danger, and you have to shoot a lot of aliens to save it.

DANGURO5 snipes JBug (click to enlarge)

The “Halo 3 Essentials” disc that came packed with the Legendary Edition was really helpful in filling in the blanks. I think I have a decent grasp of the story from beginning to end, but I won’t go into detail here to avoid giving any spoilers. I will say this: the ending given when you complete the Normal difficulty leaves much to be desired, with an obvious and gaping plot hole. I have heard that finishing it on Heroic or Legendary will tell more of the story, so Nad and I will give it another shot soon.

DANGURO5 snipes JBug (click to enlarge)

We’ve enjoyed the multiplayer mode so far. As is true with any LIVE game, it is only as fun as the people you play with. There are so many jackasses on LIVE that it is easy to run into someone that will totally ruin the experience for you. Some will spawn camp, others will exploit game glitches, and still others will scream out racial slurs (these are the worst). Lucikly, we avoided the scum of the internet and played with several good people last night:

• Captain Betty
• catwalk7775
• DANGURO5
• JBug
• littlesoldier02
• original killah
• Ryvul
• ServiceGames

If you come across one of these gamers on LIVE, then you will be in good company.

Edit: We beat it again on Heroic. I’m more satisfied with the ending shown at that level of difficulty. Now we are looking for a third (and perhaps a fourth) to go through the last part of the game on Legendary to see that version of the ending. Any takers?

Another Xbox came back in place of Nad’s three weeks after she sent it. It was manufactured on 07/31/07. Its newness didn’t do anything to prevent it from being a pile of crap.

Freeze after freeze after freeze at random times. Sometimes when it first started. Sometimes when selecting the language, sometimes when signing in. The DVD drive makes a nasty little sound when it opens, and it does so in a jerky fashion.

Nad called them back, and they are sending another coffin. I checked their support site - its knowledge base doesn’t even have the word “freeze” in it! Actually, as far as I can tell, their search routine is broken because common phrases like “restart console” and common words like “Xbox” don’t return any results.

Needless to say, we are less than pleased with this turn of events.

Some fell gaming-related demon blessed me with a dark blessing. A curse, if you prefer. He bestowed upon me the ability to corrupt game consoles manufactured by Microsoft with a touch, and (in some cases) just words. It only works on Microsoft consoles that have numbers in their name.

I will attempt to impart this power upon you. Perhaps if I teach you the steps I take in destroying the souls of this consoles, you will be able to reproduce the end effect.

1. Move the Xbox: Where you currently have it, move it. The longer it has been there, the greater the chance the console will suddenly fail. Bringing it to a friend’s house isn’t enough. You must rearrange your desk or entertainment center or where ever your console calls home. Put it in a new spot. This sudden shift in its placement is enough to fill your Xbox with self-doubt. It will think it isn’t good enough for your gaming needs anymore, and it will cease to work. Congratulations, you have killed your Xbox 360.
2. Say that it will die: This is so simple that I didn’t think it would work. I mentioned to a friend that “everyone else I know who owns a 360 has had it red light on them. Why hasn’t yours?” He accused me of jinxing him, which I laughed off. Then it died within the week. When my 360 was off being repaired, I said to Nadia that “I don’t understand why mine died again and yours is still working. As bad as that thing sounds, it should have red lighted by now.” Then it did a week later.

For my own Xbox 360, I performed step 1 twice, each time killing my system. For my former neighbor (he moved after seeing witnessing the strength of my eldritch might), I only performed step 2. For Nadia’s 360, I did step 1 and 2.

Pray that I don’t speak of your console.