Archive for the ‘Games’ Category

It’s a bloggers wet dream for the fall to come. Why? Well I mean just look at the activity of the gaming industry and look at your gaming library. If you haven’t bought a new game or at least planned to in the past 2 months, I not only question your gamer spirit, but also feel bad I haven’t written sooner.

Below will be some pics of just the vast amount of titles that can make you go bankrupt.

Have you ever played an RPG? Well this is the latest installment in the Elder Scrolls Franchise. Other big names in the series Morrowind, first RPG for Xbox, and Oblivion that was released in 2006 for xbox 360. Both titles have been spoken of as a couple of the greatest RPG’s made for the xbox. Skyrim is no different as it puts together great graphics and a new land to explore. Skyrim overall gives the chance to the gamers to either explore the entire land finding artifacts and doing side quests for hours upon hours, as well as doing the main quest for hours upon hours. The basis of Skyrim is that Dragons have returned to the land of Skyrim and with that a champion arises to fight them off. The rest of the story is your choice. Want to be a mage? You can, and there is a guild for that. Want to be a warrior? You can. A thief? You can. Not only that but you can even at one point turn into a werewolf. The possibilities in this game are endless and if your trying to stretch your dollar, every dollar you spend on Skyrim is worth a few hours of game playing.

Modern Warefare 3 is a big name in the first person shooter category. Even people who don’t play video games have heard of this game. Why? It could be the simple fact that the Call of Duty series have sold millions of games and procuded billions of dollars in profit. Many say that the multiplayer is the reason the games sell so well. I personally never been in to Call of Duty but I can say that the gameplay is great, story line amazing, and multiplayer worth the hours spent on it. If you’re into first person shooters MW3 is hard to resist.

EA was given a challenge. Make a better version of Call of Duty games. Battlefield 3 is the answer to that. Some say the game is too realistic. Some say the game is just too good to be true. I personally don’t want to pick favorites in the BF3 vs MW3 is battle. I will though say that the game provides a good storyline, and a multiplayer experience. Which ever one is better is up for debate.

Yes this game came out in September. Yes it’s another 3rd edition to a game. I would suggest this to anyone that really likes a good story. I mean you can just play GoW3 by it self and it will be worth it but I say try to play GoW and GoW2. Why? The game is a continuation of the story and it will just mean something more to you. The multiplayer experience for this one is amazing. You’re talking to someone who failed epicly in the first and second one. This one redefines the multiplayer experience for GoW. So, I say get this and if you played the first two ones I don’t need to sell it to you.

If you like Halo this will just make the first game a much more cooler experience with the campaign graphics. The real reason I say get this is for the multiplayer maps. If you like Halo get it, if you don’t… what is wrong with you? I mean… that’s cool I guess.This isn’t a new game so not much to say about it. Cool graphics, nice remakes of old maps.

Like so many of you (except for SSG CodeMonkey) I am constantly trading in my old games to get new ones.  Chances are if you’re trading in games you’re doing it at GameStop, where they’ll gladly offer you maybe 10% of what you bought the game for, if you’re lucky.  GameStop is a ripoff to the consumer trying to sell their old games and it’s a ripoff to the consumer looking to save money and buy a used game.  Just look at a game like Call Of Duty: Black Ops, GameStop is selling it new for $60 and used for the reasonable price of $55…  So you’re only saving $5 measly dollars and risking getting a disc that someone used as a coster.

Everyone knows they’re getting a raw deal when they go to GameStop, but where else is there to turn?  If you’re lucking enough to have a local mom and pop gaming store you could try that, and of course there’s the internet: eBay, Craigslist, Amazon…  What a pain.  Amazon and eBay you’ve got to ship of the game and collect payment or a gift card and let eBay/PayPal take it’s cut.  With Craigslist all you get is people that want to haggle you down to a rock bottom price, oh and TONS of spam.  But as I learned today, an unlikely suitor has stepped up big time into the used/pre-order market:  Best Buy.

I had a gift card to Best Buy, so today on my way to pre-order hell at GameStop I stopped by my local Best Buy first.  So as I made my way to the pre-order section, nothing new to Best Buy, I was greeted by a ‘Gaming Expert’, or so his shirt claimed.  Having ‘dealt’ with hundreds of sub-par Best Buy employee’s over the years and hearing them spew misinformation to me and other customers, I immediately rolled my eyes as this so called “Expert” came over to assist me.

As it turns out, he was an expert.  He was knowledgable, kind, and helpful; not what I’m used to seeing at the Big Blue.  So as I pick up the Gears Of War 3 pre-order card, he asks me if there are anymore games I’d like to pre-order.  As I’m about to tell him “no” and rush out the door to GameStop he mentions that if you pre-order 5 games I’ll get a $100 gift card after I pay for the last game.  As I had six games I was going to pre-order this peeked my interest.  So I told the expert that although that is a good deal, I’ll be doing the rest of my pre-ordering at GameStop.  You see, I have no impulse control, and no patience, so I want things the minute I can have them and GameStop does midnight releases for major titles.  That when the expert smiled at me proclaiming, “Well Best Buy has just started doing midnight releases beginning with Madden 12 this year.” Including all those title I was looking to pre-order.  Interesting.  Then I frowned, telling him that I was going to trade-in several games to help subsides the cost of all these games, so I was still going to GameStop…  Seemingly prepared for my response, he quickly replied, “We take trades now too, in fact on average, we give you 50% more that GameStop pays out.”

So they’ll pay me more for my used games, give me a $100 gift card, and have my game ready for me at midnight?  Sign me up. The real icing on the cake though was their mobile app iOS or Android.  Right from the app you can see how much your games worth and even keep a “virtual library” of all the games you own and their current value.  Of course you can also do this right from Best Buys website via their Game Center.

So today I walked out of Best Buy with 5 pre-orders in my hand: Gears Of War 3, Battlefield 3, Call Of Duty 3, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, and Halo: CE Anniversary.  As these games get closer to launch I’ll be trading some games in (and regretting it later [MW2...]) but for now I’m just happy that I never have to spend a single dime at GameStop again.  Now I know that Best Buy is no saint either, but at least I won’t feel like I’m getting ripped off (as bad) had I kept going to GameStop.

So friends, spread the word.  Let GameStop know that there is competition in town and we’re not taking their shit anymore.

Do you find yourself in that long stretch between Major Grade 3 and Captain? Saving up for some sweet digital swag? (those hearts would look fabulous on you) Or perhaps you’re just patriotic to 7th Column and want to push even harder to break that level cap?

The Knights here at SSG have been dishing out their tips and tricks to best tackle challenges from day to day. For instance Knight Emeritus Duff shared this bit of advice for challenges on Oct 23rd;

Shootin’ and Lootin’ – 4000cR
Kill 400 enemies in any game mode in Reach.

Where There’s Smoke… – 500cR

Kill 50 enemies in Firefight Matchmaking.

Harder than Some – 1000cR

Complete a Campaign mission on Heroic with Thunderstorm, Famine, and Tilt on.

Neuroscience – 1200cR

Kill 10 enemies with headshots in a multiplayer Matchmaking game.

So, obviously the first one is the big one for the day. 400 Kills was actually a little bit harder than I thought. When I first saw these this morning, I jumped right into Oni Sword Base on Heroic with the skulls on, thinking that since I’d just run through it on Legendary with some folks earlier in the knight (see what I did there?  ), I’d be more familiar with it. Then about half way into it I paused to check how far I was into the 400 kills challenge and realized I was slaving through this game by myself for only 1000 credits. Lame. Oh well, I finished it and got alittle over 200 kills to top it off.

So then I just jumped into a couple Firefight Score Attack games and was able to finish both the Firefight challenge and the 400 kills one. Then all I had left was the 10 headshots. I jumped into Team Swat, but sadly my fellow gamers chose Swat Magnums on Sword Base and they were actually all good, so I only managed 8 headshots.  So I just loaded up one more game of Swat, got Swat on Reflection and was able to snag my 10 head shots. Easy-peesy!

So, what are you guys waiting for? Go get some credits!

This is my suggestion for how to go about this. Run one or two Firefight matchmaking games to get the Firefight challenge, then load up some Swat and get yourself the headshots. Then grab 3 other friends and run through a Campaign map on Heroic with the appropriate skulls on and get yourself that Campaign challenge. If you aren’t done with the 400 kills by then, just take your friends into a Firefight game, whether it be Matchmaking or use one of the invincibility pre-made ones so you can rack up your 400 kills.

That’s an easy 6700 credits!

I have to say, these tips were gold (or… credits in this case). Not to say that just Duff, or just Knights have valid advice. Apprentices and hopefuls have been chipping in with their own tricks for netting those credits in the bag. While you’re checking out their opinions, why not share your own? You may bring something that we haven’t even begun to dream of! Everyone has something valid to bring to the table. All legit of course. SSG is not about to endorse anything that would get you banned.

So like Duff said, the only question you have left to ask yourself is; What are you waiting for?

Matching outfits!

screenshot by SSG Jettstream

>>Get Mo’ Credits!<<

REMEMBER: Daily challenges reset every night at 3am PST. Weekly challenges reset 3am Sunday night/Monday morning.

This week’s Weekly Challenge involves Killing 1000 enemies in Multiplayer. Well it is Monday, and you know that means Monday Knight Halo here at SSG. So my tip; why not sign up and see if you can sign in? That’s a sure way to snag those credits, and some great games.

Cheers and good luck, Spartans!

Since taking our top 10 lists off of ‘automatic mode’ for posting to this blog, we’ve placed a link to the current Top 10 list in our site menu at the top.  Feel free to check it each week after it posts Wednesday mornings.  Here’s a look at our current list as of this morning.

As expected, Halo Reach is maintaining a strong #1 presense.  Still hanging around at #2 is Modern Warfare 2.  After that, the list seems to fluctuate each week.  Borderlands and Mass Effect 2 have been sticking around the top 10 for a while now, showing up at #3 and #6 this week, respectively.  Dead Rising 2, the latest zombie game to come out, which I just picked up yesterday, has been in the rankings each week since its debut.  New this week are Medal of Honor and Fallout New Vegas, debuting at #5 and #9.  Surprisingly, even with the dominance of Halo Reach, Halo 3 is still hanging around the rankings, holding on to #7.

Rank	Game		Prev. Rank
#1		Halo: Reach	#1
#2		Modern Warfare 2	#2
#3		Borderlands	#7
#4		Dead Rising 2	#6
#5		Medal of Honor	#
#6		Mass Effect 2	#3
#7		Halo 3	#4
#8		Monday Night Combat	#10
#9		Fallout: New Vegas	#
#10		Fable II	#15

Reposted with permission from SSG Apprentice: Shadowstep2003

Hey Everyone,

Some of you whom I had the pleasure of playing with last night noticed that I was already a Major Grade 2. I’m here to share a few quick tips on how you can rank up just as quickly in the limited (or unlimited) amount of time you may have.

Before I go into anything else please refer to the following site for a quick list of all available ranks and how many credits it will take to achieve it. Some of you may be stuck at Warrant Officer Grade 3 and believe me when I tell you that once you pass it, things get MUCH easier.

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Rank_(Halo:_Reach_Game_Rank)

Now aside from logging in a whole bunch of hours there are a few others things you can do to make the transition from one rank to another a bit easier.

CHALLENGES: The daily and weekly challenges give the player a pretty good amount of credits. Even if you only have an hour or two of free time to play you can still manage to complete two or three of these daily and those bonuses will add up over time. Also, please note that any Firefight challenge can be done in Score Attack which pits you against the enemy AI in a variety of gametypes. The advantage in this mode is that you don’t have to compete with three other players looking to achieve the same thing.

COMMENDATIONS: Hitting start from the main menu will bring up a list of options one of which should be entitled Commendations. These are broken down into three groups, Campaign, Multiplayer, and Firefight. As far as I know there are five tiers (could be more) for each commendation: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Onyx. Hitting the milestone for a specific
commendation will get you to the next tier as well as earning you a nice bonus to your credit score (lol). In some cases this can be as much as 2500 for hitting the milestone or even more!

Suffice to say, focusing on hitting these commendations will help alot in the long run. Personally, I only worry about the Campaign and Firefight commendations as I have more control in achieving a certain one. The multiplayer ones will come in time. If any of you have ever played COD the system is fairly similar.

GAMETYPES From what I’ve found, playing Firefight solo (Score Attack and most any gametype within) will garner the most credits per hour. Most of the score attack gametypes (Sniper Fight, Crashsite, Gruntpocalypse) will take you around 7-8 minutes to complete fully and can net you around 1k credits consistently. If you haven’t given this playlist a try its worth a shot as some of the gametypes are very fun. My personal favorite is Crashsite where you defend a generator against wave after wave of covenant. The best part is that they give you unlimited ammo and an overshield to get the job done. (Check out my FileShare in-game for the video “Last Spartan Pt 2″)

The problem with regular multiplayer is that it will only net you around 800 credits or so without completing any commendations and depending on the gametype, matches can last a very long time. However, I will say that playing solo will never amount to the sheer enjoyment that you can get from playing with friends so don’t feel like you have to go all out on this playlist only. Halo is all about having fun and if you’re not then whats the point?

CONCLUSION Hitting that new milestone with all the armor unlocks and bragging rights that it brings can be a beautiful thing, but keep in mind that ranks aren’t everything. They aren’t skill based and everyone will get to the same point eventually so don’t feel rushed and take your time. Halo Reach is an amazing game with a wealth of different options that can keep you up to the wee bits of the night so enjoy it.

I hope that this post only enhances your experience and brings you a tad bit closer to witnessing everything the game has to offer.

Thanks