PixlBit

Started Monday playing Halo: Master Chief Collection. Mark and I are playing the cross game playlist that includes all four games. We were in the last parts of Halo 2 when the power went out in the neighborhood due to a storm. I'm feeling like 343 has tweaked gameplay in Halo 2 a little bit. It feels less like a run-and-gun power trip and more like a strategic cover based shooter. Weapons are less powerful and enemies are a little tougher. I used to melee enemies with one mjolnir powered fist, but now it takes several hits. It just doesn't feel right. A grunt should go down with one punch from a Spartan. Anyway, I'm feeling like Halo has gotten the COD treatment across all the games now and it disappoints me. This is not a realistic game. You're supposed to be a super soldier not just another vulnerable combatant. That being said, it was still fun, just not as fun as it could have been. After the power outage, Mark and I played Minecraft instead. 

During the power outage, though, we played some chess. Yes, the board game; haven't played that for a long time. I won one and Mark won one. Then I started writing things down about Minecraft. I was thinking about playing it again. 

What I wrote down was a list of objectives to attempt to speed the game up and make it a little more structured when playing survival mode. Here's the list:

1. Find food and shelter

2. Find 24 iron ore for a full suit of armor.

3. Find 5 diamond for a diamond pickaxe. Cut 18 obsidian. Build nether portal and enchantment table.

4. Get 2 blaze rod to make 4 eyes of ender to help find stronghold, then use books in stronghold to build a fully upgraded enchantment table. 

5. Find 24 diamonds for full suit of diamond armor. 

6. Fight Ender Dragon and Wither, FTW. 

In five hours we got through objective 4. That's pretty good. I got lucky and found the stronghold while digging a mine. That happens every so often but not a lot. Usually you have to use eyes of ender to locate it. 

We turned on one host privilege which would have disabled achievements if we hadn't already gotten them all. It was the "keep equipment" one. When you die, you don't lose your inventory or XP. That one change made all the difference. When something stupid happens like falling in lava, or a creeper spawns out of thin air right behind you and blows you up, you don't have to scream at losing all those resources you spent hours mining. 

I figured out how to save and send screenshots and video on XBO. It's not too hard once you know. 

Anyhoo. I'm a bit obsessed with ripping music this week, so I may not get to any retro gaming. I got CDs and vinyl to put on my PC for syncing to my iPod. I downloaded Audacity and it works great. Very easy to use. Like the old WavStudio I used to have, but with many more features. I'm on a 60s kick this month so it's a whole bunch of stuff from all genres: blues, rock, jazz, comedy, you name it. I tried to stick to one genre for simplicity sake but I can't help myself. I want to check out everything. I get bored with a predictable mix of tunes. Having a jazz piece come right after a rock piece and followed by a classical piece is what I love about shuffling music. 

As Bob and Ray used to say to end their radio broadcasts, "write if you get work and hang by your thumbs".