Halo 4 first impressions

Ok, so I just got Halo 4 for my birthday and I thought I would write a little bit about it.

I have played all of the games in the Halo series (well I guess I didn't play Halo Wars) and I really like the games. I've been playing more PC games lately, but Halo is the reason I keep my Xbox live subscription active. I bought my first Xbox when Halo 2 came out, and I bought the Halo Reach edition of the Xbox 360 when it came out. Therefore, yes I was very very likely to enjoy Halo 4. These are my first impressions. I am curious to see if my opinion on some things will change.

The campaign is really interesting so far. I have only completed a few missions, but so far the attention to detail is amazing. I mostly play Halo for the multiplayer, but the campaign is fun too. The first little bit you are Master Chief fighting the Covenant and it feels like "business as usual." It plays exactly like previous games. The change is when fighting the new enemies that glow in a Tron-like fashion and explode when they die. Like I said, I haven't played campaign much but these new enemies make it much more interesting. I really like how the story is back on Master Chief and Cortana.

Multiplayer is crazy! There are loadouts in Halo for the first time which means I can START WITH THE DMR!! I love this. You can choose your primary weapon instead of being stuck with the Assault rifle every time. The BR is back too which is cool. I don't really like the high scratchy noise that the BR makes now, but it is a small complaint. The DMR is fun for me because I like to shoot from a distance. Another change that I like is that the radar is more useful! It is much easier to tell when an enemy is above or below me on the radar (motion detector? I can't remember what I'm supposed to call it). The little red square has a line above it when an enemy is a level above, and the line is below it when he is below. There is no little line if the enemy is on the same level. I know that in the past they make the dot dimmer when the enemy is below and brighter above (or something like that) but this new radar makes it way more clear than before. I really like that change.

The controls haven't changed much. Now everybody has the ability to sprint all the time so it is click-in-the-left-stick-to-sprint just like Call of Duty games. In Halo Reach, sprinting was an armor ability that you used with LB. One major problem I have with this new sprinting control is that in Halo I'm used to clicking the left stick to crouch! Now crouching is done by pressing the 'B' button and I couldn't find a way to swap the left click with the B button! Anyway with the toggle crouch option I should be able to relearn it ok, but for now it is annoying. Crouching isn't a huge mechanic, but I like hiding away and crouching when my shields need to charge.

The weapons are awesome in this game. I like that the classics are all there. Having both the BR and DMR is really cool. Some new weapons I don't get yet like the Scattershot. I have picked it up a few times, but I can't get any kills with it. Some guy killed me with it and thanks to the new killcam feature I watched him and it seemed like he was shooting all around me! I have no idea how I died. It seems like the Scattershot is a shotgun with a big spread, but it wasn't powerful when I used it at extreme close range. Strange. The plasma grenade detonator is fun. I just hate it when I set down a grenade and then have to abandon it when the enemy ends up walking a different direction. There is now a grenade warning logo like in Call of Duty games. It seems to me that frag grenades aren't very powerful unless the enemy is right on top of them. Maybe they are just seeing the warning and moving, or maybe the grenades are really nerfed; I don't know. Anyway I need to get more experience on some of the new forerunner guns. Oh I like that the Covenant Carbine is back in Halo 4 as well.

I really like the customization. I can tell that this game is really in depth. There are a lot of armor options, loadout options and all kinds of stuff. I also really like how in Infinity Slayer the player is rewarded for all kinds of things. You get points for comeback kills, being a distraction while your teammate gets a kill, getting a headshot while you are in the air, and a lot more. Instead of racing to get 50 team kills, you want to get 600 points. A kill gets you 10 points. I'm not sure if assist points go toward this total or not yet. I think that they do. I think the kill is split into 5 and 5 points or something. Obviously I haven't played this very much yet.

Ok, I think that is it. I just wanted to write down some first impressions of the game, and I'll have to read this later once I've put some time into the game. Anyway I think Halo is the best FPS you can get. It is just a solid game and a lot of fun. I wish they would make release it for PC, but MS wants to keep selling Xboxes (Xboxs? Xbox's?) so that won't happen. That's it for now. Bye.

First time building a computer

A few months ago I built a computer! It was my first time building one, and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I bought the processor from microcenter.com and everything else from newegg.com. The whole process wasn't too difficult and I ended up with a great system for about $1,000. (I already had a monitor and keyboard.) I learned how to build it from a community site on Reddit called Build a PC . If you have ever wanted to build a PC by yourself, you should check it out. 

Here is the parts list of my build: (It doesn't have a top-of-the-line video card, but the 560ti does fine for the games I've played on it. I also HIGHLY recommend installing a SSD. With the solid state drive my computer boots up and is completely ready to use in 10 to 15 seconds.)

Case Corsair 500R Carbide Series - $105

PSU: Corsair TXV2 750W - $70

Motherboard: ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 - $121

CPU: Intel i5 3750K - $196

SSD: OCZ Agility 90GB - $115

HDD: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s - $90

RAM: G.Skill 8GB Sniper RAM - $40

Video Card: EVGA 560ti 1GB - $230

Mouse: Razer DeathAdder - $50

Before pictures.

I got this Corsair TX 750 when it was on sale at newegg.com. A 750 watt is overkill for this system, but at least it should last a long time.

I like this case because it has a lot of room inside to move stuff around.

Great motherboard for a great price. I recommend ASRock.

The SSD. It only has 90GB so I have Win7 on it, and a few programs.

This little guy caused me some grief in the process. This is the BIOS chip for the motherboard. I bought the processor after I bought the motherboard, and the BIOS had to be updated to support the gen3 i5 processor that I bought. So I was caught in a Catch-22. I couldn't boot up until the BIOS was updated, and I coudn't update the BIOS without being able to boot up the computer! Luckily ASRock has good customer service. I just mailed in the BIOS chip and they updated it and mailed it back. Lesson learned: Always buy your processor and motherboard at the same time to ensure they will be compatible!

All done! I haven't had any issues with it so far and I like that I can upgrade it easily because I know all of the parts that went into it. Add me on Steam: halcon15 and please post a comment. - Dallas

Where am I?

How's it going?

While I have not written much on this blog, I am proud of the fact that I own the name dallashawks.com.

DallasHawks.com used to be taken. The website was for a junior league ice hockey team in Texas named the "Dallas Ice Hawks". I also found out that there is/was a basketball team in Dallas called the Hawks. I sent an email a few years ago to the coach of the Dallas Hawks basketball team requesting a jersey. I explained that I thought it would be cool to have a jersey that happened to have my first and last name printed on it. He returned my email saying that it could happen, but unfortunately I never heard from him again and I don't know if the team still exists today.

Well, that's it for now. I'm not much of a blogger I know, but you can follow me on Twitter or something. Peace.

Ideas for the future of dallashawks.com

• A plain vanilla blog about my life with lots of pictures.
• A collection of travel pictures and stories.
• Celebrity page where you can find where to purchase my latest book or rap album.
• Self-absorbed semi-profound website full of life advice.
• Parody of a blog full of false stories.
• Chili's coupons
• . . other?