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When I first started playing Halo2 online a couple years ago, I thought for sure this was the best online gaming had to offer. Then Halo3 came out and it got even better. However, over the last year I have totally changed my mind. By far I now think Call of Duty 4 is the best online game I have ever played. The leveling system is awesome, and makes the game a lot of fun. All the different challenges give you a reason to play every game and use every gun in and effort to level up faster. Also with 3 perk spots and about 10 options for each perk, and 5 different weapon classes (assault, smg, lmg, shotgun, and sniper) and about 6 guns under each of these, plus the setup options for sights, camo, and side arm, there are literally thousands of options. The game gives you five custom setup spots to setup your weapon configurations, but I wish I had at least 10 more. Depending on the game, the map, your team, etc... you want to use different setups. You may even use the same weapon but just different perks. I know Halo has leveling up, but what is the reward? If you go from a 15 to 16 you don't get new weapons or new perks or new challenges, you just have a higher number. Another great thing I have loved about COD4 is the ability to create clans. I joined a clan a couple of months ago and it makes a great game even better. Every time I get online I have clan members online that I can play with and win basically every single game we play. Isn't that what playing online is all about anyway?? Social interaction with other humans, if you just wanted to play a bunch of characters without personalities you might as well play single player over and over. If you aren't in a clan I highly recommend that you try to find a clan and join. It will make playing the game online much more fun, unless of course you come up against the clan I am in. We basically never lose, unless none of our good players are on, so if you see group of a bunch of THK members join your game against you, you might as well quit while your ahead ;)

So Mass Effect finally was released yesterday. I had a copy reserved so I went and purchased it. I only got to play it for about 2 hours last night but here are some of my first impressions.

First off, the graphics are absolutely amazing. Of course there are some problems with the shading mostly on the faces of the characters which is the most complex shapes in 3d animation if you ask me. So I can completely understand this and it is hardly noticeable. Second the controls are pretty original, you don't just hit a button to make selections, you use the joystick and buttons. Third the game play is pretty sweet. If you like RPG's it is pretty similar to Knights of the Old Republic, however, you actually do the fighting. You don't just select the fighting style or the moves you actually aim and shoot. You can hide behind barriers, kneel down, change weapons, etc... So far the story is pretty good to. I'm sure I'll have a more in depth review once I log some more hours but for now I would definitely say this game is worth the money.

One game basically made Microsoft go from being a rich company that thought it would try to enter the gaming market, to one of the top 3 companies in the gaming industry. This game was Halo. Do you think that the Xbox would have ever taken off as much as it did with out Halo? I loved Halo and it basically pushed me over the edge to buy an Xbox instead of a Playstation 2. Then I couldn't wait for Halo 2 to come out. I loved Halo 2 also. The online gaming was the best I had ever seen. So when it came time for Xbox 360 to come out of course the one game I couldn't wait to come out was Halo 3. But did Halo 3 live up to the hype and expectations from Halo and Halo 2? I personally feel that Halo 3 is a great game that gets over shadowed by two of the best selling games in history. If Halo 3 had a different title everyone would love it. I mean look at all the hype out there about BioShock. I played BioShock for about an hour and was bored, it was just like any other First Person Shooter and really similar to Doom 3. I just think people have unfair expectations of highly anticipated games, especially sequels. How far do really expect the makers to stray from their original concept, the concept that everyone loved and made them millions of dollars?

I think the thing that makes the Halo series so great is the story line. Basically they make you feel as though you are a character in a movie. One the ways I think you can tell if a game is one of the best games ever is by movies. How many are out there that are made after a movie? For example there are Shrek games, and The Incredibles game, etc... The movie came out first and was the hit and then they thought they could make a few more bucks by making a game. But the truly great games are the ones they make movies after the game. For example they just about to release the movie Hitman. Another one is the Doom series (the movie sucked but thats not the point). The Halo series and story line is good enough that they sold the rights to it to have a movie made.

So I would say Halo 3 is a great game and in the top 5 games for the 360 if not the best game that has come out so far.

See my Review of Halo 3 on usergamereviews.com