Welcome to punchbowl, and welcome to my walkthrough of Stubbs the zombie. This will get you through the whole game on the insane difficulty, and hopefully find all of the hippos on the way. Where needed, I will include screenshots, and maybe (but probably not) even videos. Enjoy, as soon as I ask permission, I will link the recordings of the commentaries to their respective hippos.
I am new to Halo 2 Live. I have beaten the Halo 1&2 on hardest level many many times, thinking I was somewhat of a talented player. I would tell people how good I was right up until I started to play online. Then I realized that I sucked. Started playing Slayer as a level one. Despite getting my ass kicked, I proceeded to rapidly get promoted to level 14, where I stand now. I have found that it seems easier at level 14 then level 1. I believe this for two reasons 1. there is a handful of people that somehow keep their level low so they can always win 2. I am getting a little better.
This forum post got me pretty excited ( 3rd post down of course ;) ). If my workload would ever let up (looking like summer by now), I was planning on trying to record as much dialogue as possible, with one or two specific targets.
Needless to say, I would be more than willing to pay for this content. On top of that, the use of the word "wacky" is nothing short of exhilirating. Or is it sarcastic?
A couple recent conversations, and this article got me wondering what Wideload might be doing next. Unfortunately, I am not the most informed person out there, so all I can do is talk about what I would like, and one possiblity mentioned in the above interview.
Despite being not just very different games but nearly different kinds of games, comparisons between Wideload's debut effort, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without A Pulse, and Bungie's Halo franchise are inevitable.
Wideload has derived not only their core personnel but also the game's engine from Bungie.
At first glance, if it weren't for the "made with the Halo engine" sticker on the box, there might be little to suggest any connection at all. Some reviewers have gone so far as to suggest this was merely a marketing ploy, to attach the relatively unknown Wideload's first game to the blockbuster Halo series. However, the connections are far deeper than that.
Stubbs The Zombie, created by Wideload and published by Aspyr, is now being offered at special discount prices-- $29.99 for the PC and $39.99 for the Xbox. If you haven't seen or heard Stubbs yet, check out the demo for the Mac and PC versions at Nzone. And for all your Stubbs news flashes right from the source, sign up for the Stubbs the Zombie Army Dispatch email list.
Most reviews of Wideload's debut effort, Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without A Pulse have been far more routine and uninteresting than the game itself. Barely a few hundred words, they run down the same checklist of pros and cons as if there was actually only one person who had played the game and written a review, and the rest were all cribbed from that original effort. This is probably not too far from the truth.
The usual litany goes like this: respect for the game's central "high concept" conceit, which is "a zombie game where you play the zombie" and a grudging acknowledgement of the game's sense of humor. The soundtrack is always mentioned, with a list of bands I'm obviously too old or out of touch to have heard of, who admittedly did decent covers of 50's standards.
Then, the review notes some of the controversy regarding the game's gore, accuses it of being too short and/or repetitive, and caps it off with some unrevealing series of numbers or snide advice about rental.
I'd like first to respond to each of these elements that most of the short reviews have in common, and then go on to take a more detailed look at what Stubbs is.
Dear Blob,
Halo 2 theme is amazing from what I got off of Limewire. It seems like a very long instramental. I wish I had the actual soundtrack
The latest Zombie Army Dispatch says that Stubbs the Zombie is now playable on the Xbox 360. Stubbs is included on the compatibility list; but if it is a recent addition, it doesn't have a "new" tag next to the name. In any case, as Stubbs uses a modified Halo engine, it's hardly surprising that it would work on the 360.
Those who wondered how Bungie was going to plausibly explain the presence of Nicole-458, the Spartan II soldier who guards the hangar bay of the Nassau Station in Tecmo's upcoming DOA4 title for the Xbox 360, will get a hearty "shut your noisehole" and a shout-out to the I Love Bees reality game in Frankie's run-down on Nicole, Spartan-458:
Nicole was born in the year 2531 in the city of New Legaspi on Mars. At six years of age she was abducted by agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence and conscripted into the Spartan II program. The Spartan II program was the UNSC's highly successful military project to augment and hone perfect soldiers.
SPARTAN-458's unit was preparing for a classified mission on Nassau Station when the ONI stealth ship Apocalypso tumbled into real-space – being carried along in the wake of a freak slipspace anomaly. The anomaly intersected Nassau Station; creating a semi-stable "bubble" in the space/time continuum on its way back to the 21st Century.
For the time being Nicole-458 is trapped in the 21st century; guarding Nassau Station's secrets with all but lethal force (she realizes killing someone in the past could have dire consequences), waiting for the "bubble" to collapse and hopefully returning her to the year 2552.
The Apocalypso, some of you might recall, was the UNSC craft that the AI Melissa was aboard, and that brought the mysterious artifact to Earth that Spartan-spawn Janissary James had to try and deactivate before it... did something bad.
Whether this mishap involving a cloaking device and a space station (sounds like a line from Hitchhiker's, doesn't it?) occurred before or after Truth's fleet arriving at Earth isn't specifically stated; but as the Nassau's hangar bay happens to include a conveniently-placed Covenant boarding craft, one can only assume the latter. Either that, or this is really just the Cairo's hangar from Halo 2. Wait, did I say that out loud? Nevermind.
About five years ago, I wondered that the introduction of a PC-like console, plus a network service like Xbox Live, might lead to consoles and console games that were just as buggy as their PC counterparts, and that would require constant post-purchase updating to fix the many glitches.
That day is now here.
Today's Halo Babies comic looks at ways Microsoft could solve the Xbox 360 shortage. Thanks mrsmiley.
Some Halo-related and not-so-Halo-related news for today:
Achronos writes at Bungie.net that the playlist update is complete. Last week's update at Bungie.net detailed all the changes. The bottom line is, if you can still see playlists like Head to Head-- which has been deleted-- you're not seeing the changes, and you need to logout and then login to Xbox Live again.