Halo: ODST is a great game. Short, sweet, efficiently does what it sets out to do: tell a great story in the Halo universe while introducing new characters, new enemies and new twists on the ones we’ve known before. Rather than play as a superhuman, ODST is all about Marines in super suits that allow them a greater chance at survival than regularly armored soldiers, but I still found myself dying a few times because I got too close to a Brute Chieftain’s warhammer.

I always wondered what became of the African city of New Mombasa after the Prophet of Regret warped away is his giant spaceship, destroying a big section of the city. Now I know…and it sucks for New Mombasa. ODST’s story is great (and sometimes funny), the characters are compelling, the music is very Halo and sometimes quite touching. Level design and general flow of the game is smooth with a non-linear flashback setup that tells the story of a single Marine searching for his squad in the aftermath of an epic battle where the good guys lost. I haven’t gotten into the new multiplayer mode Firefight yet, but my favorite bit is Nathan Fillion as Sargent Buck because it’s nice to know the captain of Serenity is still getting work.

ODST is nothing completely revolutionary in terms of first person shooter games, but it is a fun, quick and worthy addition to the Halo universe.

So, 3d Realms has shut it’s doors, huh? Twelve years of waiting for Duke Nukem Forever and no pay off, huh? All righty, then. See what happens when you try too hard? The project became too bloated for its own good and they ran out of money. Nice. That’s the biggest F-U to gamers I’ve ever heard. I seriously hope this is a marketing stunt.

Saw this Half-Life 2 inspired goodness on YouTube. Thanks to Mar and ExtraLife for showing it to me.

After two days of waiting with the box by the TV, I was finally able to play the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for Xbox 360. Here is my mini review.

Star Wars gamers will find a lot to like about TFU when it’s not frustratingly tedious…and it is…a lot. Casual gamers should sit this one out until the price goes down a bit because there really isn’t anything new here; except for the unleashing of the Force part. But practicing Jedi (or Sith) should just dust off their old copy of Raven’s Jedi Outcast if you’re looking for a game that doesn’t skimp on the fun. The folks at LucasArts should have taken more notes from Raven, actually.

The game can be kind of annoying sometimes, particularly with the saved games method: it’s all about checkpoints…I hate that. And the most frustrating aspect of all could have been a monumentous event in gaming: bringing down an Imperial Star Destroyer…with your MIND! That was the most frustrating hour of gaming I’ve ever known: and that’s because some people were needing days to clear that one. Luckily I was able to get a solution in online gaming forums that proved there were glitches in the game at work sucking all the fun out of it.

As for the story: very, very strong. Great characters and the setting is very Star Wars. In fact, this is probably the best Star Wars story since the Cartoon Network’s animated Clone Wars series. Kudos to LucasArts for the strong story.

In conclusion: Star Wars fans will dig it, casual gamers should look elsewhere until the price drops (and they’ve fixed the game-destroying glitches). Visuals and sound are perfectly Star Wars. When the game wants to be fun, it is…but the bosses and some of the (invented for the game) enemies are annoying.

Blur Studio has a new cinematic trailer for Warhammer Online. I’m not really into MMORPGs or games too much anymore, but this trailer is pretty sweet. Check it out!

Grand Theft Auto IV is coming out next month. I had forgotten about it, placed the game in the back of my head when it was announced two years ago. I’m glad I did: two years flew by and now it’s almost here. I want to play this game. I also want to play Halo 3 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two. I finally need to buy an XBOX 360. I have all these other games from my XBOX days and it’s time to upgrade. I’ll probably do that this month, giving me the rest of March and all of April to play other games like Gears of War and Dead Rising before GTA IV arrives. I am giddy with anticipation. Tee-hee.

Update: I went ahead and bought the XBOX 360 Arcade version. It comes with everything I, a casual gamer, needs. I also picked up Gears of War and The Orange Box. Later in the month I’ll get Dead Rising and Halo 3 and that will pretty much hold me until GTA IV is released at the end of April. After that, I’ll look into buying the 120GB hard drive and join Live (which together will let me play my old XBOX games) and then I’ll start making some machinima like back in the day. Then my next order of business will be getting a giant plasma HDTV before “The Switch” in 2009.

I now have a section on that site devoted to my XBOX gaming here.

So I’ve applied to Blizzard Entertainment in regard to a recent employment opportunity for a Video Editor. I think I’d much rather work in their Cinematic department, but oh well. Aside from the cover letter, this is what I submitted. I’m actually pretty scared about getting this one as it would require I move to Irvine, California. I’ve never been one to be afraid of commitment, but now…I don’t know. I guess we’ll see what happens. Either way, at least I tried.

I never heard of this game before, either. It’s called Cloud and it’s really beautiful. You play a sick child who dreams of being able to fly like a bird. In his dreams, the child is able to control clouds and push them across the sky to form shapes as he plays in the sky. Later things become serious as the child uses the clouds to fight air pollution and save a town from an erupting volcano. The game was created by students at USC in 2004.

John “Bonzo” Bonham is the name of the drummer from Led Zeppelin who died in 1980. I am Jason R. Johnston and I have owned the impossibleFX.com website since February 23, 2001. I sometimes go by the screen name Bonham for my fondness of Zeppelin and John Bonham as I used to play a drum kit. I also owned and operated the popular Deadly Dozen Community fan site which lived from December 27, 2001 to October 23, 2003.

After I terminated the DDC to pursue photography as a full-time business, my computer at the time suffered a hard drive failure. Unfortunately, I was unable to recover any of the user-submitted mods for any of the Deadly Dozen titles that I had on the DDC. However, it has come to my attention that a lot of the ol’ forum guys from the DDC went on to create their own site here: http://www.bassface3d.com/phpBB2/ which I suggest anyone who is interested in modding Deadly Dozen, or any other nFusion game, should check out.

Check out the archived Deadly Dozen Community.

I just found out StarCraft II is on its way. And since the original was released in 1994, it’s like the screenshot says: “Hell, it’s about time.”

Turns out Blizzard Entertainment has been working on it since WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne was released in 2003. So that’s why all the casting calls for 3d game developers.

I haven’t been this excited to play a game since Valve announced Half-Life 2. I think I’ll grab my old StarCraft CDs and give ‘em a spin. Ya know? For posterity.