He means, if you wait, your n00b ass will get pwnd! by all the l33t Halo 3 players.

Figures now that I have my life back (new job!!!!! No more 14 hour days and I have my weekends!!!!) everyone is playing COD4! LOL Hopefully I can jump in on a game of whatever/whenever. I miss getting killeded! ;-)

Sam

I'm getting Halo 3, and I've heard great things about CoD4, but I'm not really into WWII shooters. Orange Box is tempting too, if just for the quantity and value contained within.
I enjoyed the demos for Timeshift and Blacksite, I like the scifi type settings more than WWII, though I've heard lots of "meh, more of the same" about TS and BS. Having not really played a FPS since Quake IiI Arena, it's all new to me.

its a good thing CoD4 is set in present day then

Call of Duty 4 won't be set in the WW2 universe this time. It has a modern setting so you may want to give it a look.

Edited(My post wasn't fast enough) .....what he said^.

Is it? OK, I will keep my eyes open for it. I know nothing about it except that it's gotten good previews so far. I (obviously) didn't get in the beta.

As can be expected, i will obviously be playing the major shooters this Fall. Halo 3 and CoD4 will be my main games with Orange Box as a backup plan. I considered not getting Orange Box as it is my least wanted right now, but there is no denying the incredible value that set will be. I also try to support any game that lets me play as a medic.

As someone else mentioned, getting in when everyone is playing can be a big deal with a title like Halo. However, the ranking system will help with a good bit of the balancing issue. So even if you start late and enter a ranked game you should theoretically be matched with people near your skill level.

Where it kind of gets skewed is you start as a beginner at rank one and are in one of our parties where everyone is ranked 24+ then you will obviously be playing with opponents 24+.

Not a huge deal really since playing with a group of people regularly more than makes up for lower skill levels. Everyone eventually settles into standard roles and their particular strengths are recognized and used in strategy planning. That is where the fun of these games particularly begins to shine.

To be honest, in our Halo group, i'm probably one of the worst players in the clan yet it is always a good time. I have the things i can do well and the specific tasks they can count on me to do (for example: open the portal on Relic on a first assault). Most of the games online involve finding some buddies to party with, have some booze, and laugh at all the idiots in the post-game lobby. Good times had all around.

It is great. However, i loved CoD2 and didn't like CoD3 that much. CoD4 plays exactly like CoD2 but in a modern setting - which would account for much of my love affair.

The perks/skills system is great and leads to some difficult choices. I can't imagine playing without Stopping Power (bullets do extra damage) but there is another skill in that same tier that i also want to use.... decisions decisions...

The gradual leveling up and unlocking new weapons, camo, etc. is also great in feeling of "I'll just play one more round to unlock ______"

Challenges are also pretty cool. They are like mini-achievements that give you in-game rewards rather than achievement points. The itch to beat them all has hooked me and that is just in the beta. I can only imagine what happens when i'm approaching level 55 to unlock Prestige Mode.... whatever that is.

Pretty much. Ranking system or not, it's never perfect.

I hear you, but games are often purely measured by their sales out of the gate.

Does anyone have an extra optical audio dongle for the 360 or know where I can get one?

I'm using HDMI with my premium but I'm not gonna drop $50 for the official microsoft hdmi kit.

It's sad that I have Blue Dragon sitting on my desk and the COD4 Beta calling my name and for the past few nights I haven't been able to stop playing Viva Piñata. I got pissed at the game some time ago thinking it was glitching and it turns out my friend helped me realize the egg that I couldn't do anything with was a pretty rare item. It got me hooked on the game all over again.

I set a goal for myself to reach 30,000 gamerscore by my 30th birthday. It's not till the 30th of this month and I hit my goal during my marathon gaming session last night. I guess I wanted to prove to myself that "old age" won't slow down my gaming obsession.

Good job! I've still got about 2500, I believe, to hit the 30,000 mark.

Cripes, The Orange Box has 99 achievements. Some of my favs:

- Vorticough: Discover the hidden singing vortigaunt cave in chapter Water Hazard.
- Zombie Chopper: Play through Ravenholm using only the Gravity Gun.
- Flushed: Kill an enemy with a toilet.
- The One Free Bullet: Beat Episode One firing exactly one bullet. Grenade, crowbar, rocket, and Gravgun kills are okay!
- Little Rocket Man: Send the garden gnome into space.

Those are great.

So is each game in Orange Box allowed to have 50 achievements and 1000 points per game?

(obviously 99 achievements seems to imply no, but i'm still curious if they limited the entire box to 1000 points)

The 99 achievements are worth 1000 points.

99? Shit. I thought the max was 50.

Here are the top three reasons I will never, ever, play Halo 3.

???

Dude it's like that with any game you play online with random people. Have you ever considered trying one of these games with the people from these forums? I wouldn't play online nearly as much as I do if it weren't for the people here that I game with. Even goLUCKY & xmiyux are alright in small doses.

It was a joke (sort of).

Most of the online play I've done has been with people here, but I'm just not into shooters.

Buy.com has the XBox Live Vision Gold bundle for $60 ($50 if using Google Checkout for the first time). It includes camera, headset, 12 month Live Gold, 200 points, and UNO, Totemball, and Robotron 208.

A) Is this a good price? You can get 13 months of Live Gold for $43, so basically you're paying $17 (or $7) for the camera, headset, points, and games.

B) Do I want the camera and those games? What is the camera used for - playing games like UNO, video chat...?

My moron brother in law bought a core system a few months back, so needs a headset, and my brother needs a Gold subscription after his free month runs out in a week or so.

Yes or no?

The camera is, admittedly, pretty worthless. Very few games use it, and only in Uno is it kind of routinely used. It's a nice luxury though; it superimposes on your 360 themes, which is kind of nice. Too bad you can't use it for your gamerpic (only your "private pic" for your friends, but I've put my kids on it a couple of times for that). Also, I hear Tiger Woods 08 uses the camera for the Game Face feature which might be cool. If you NEED the headset anyway, it's probably worth the $17 to get the set.

Off hand, Uno, Texas Hold Em, Spyglass Board Games, Backgammon use the camera. Bomberman takes a picture at the end of the round. You can video chat I suppose as well. R6:Vegas uses the camera to put your face on your online profile, but it's pretty badly done.

As far as the included games, Uno is great (it goes for 400 points in XBMA), Robotron is lame (IMO) It goes for 400 pts and is apparently being given away with the current promotion. They also include 200 points which isn't much ($2.50).

For those that keep mentioning playing with a group on this forum...is there a list of the people who play routinely? I've only played with anyone on the forum once, and that was GRAW (god, I sucked...)...but with Halo 3 coming out, I'd really like to get with a good group of people to play with.

Feel free to add me to your lists...gamertag is in my sig.