Hey, this is going to be an epic update, a half-year special so to speak. I’m going to go back and take a look at the targets I made at the start of the year and see how I’m doing with them.
With regards to the Fitness Targets – I’ve done nothing. I don’t know why. Can I not be bothered? Or do I feel like I should be doing something else? I think I feel like I should be drawing or recording videogame footage, but then, I don’t really spend enough time doing those things either, so I have no idea. I reckon I should draw up a timetable, allocate my time. It would illustrate that I have more time than I think I have. But then again, now I’ve said that I’ll put off drawing it up and won’t change until I’ve drawn it up. And a plan like that is ridiculous to think about now seeing as something that I never imagined would happen at the start of the year is happening…
Halo: Reach is officially launched on Tuesday, so I thought I’d take a look back at my time with the franchise – I can hardly believe it’s been ten years!
It all started way back in the days of working at Game, and the launch of the original Xbox. Halo was the big game of the launch and my manager at the time raved about it. I admit, I was unimpressed when he was telling me how the Pistol was the best weapon, and there were grenades that stuck to your enemies, and that one melee attack to the back of an opponent was an instant kill… But then I played it. Campaign at first, it was immense. I never really got on with other console First Person Shooters such as Goldeneye, Quake II or Perfect Dark on the N64 as they never quite felt right, but this did – the controls were sublime. Lugging an Xbox and TV to Craig’s flat was so worth it. Our Halo LAN sessions were never frequent, and there were only a few of them, but they remain a fondly remembered highlight of my life so far. Given that there were only eight of us playing, Sidewinder and Blood Gulch were probably not the best maps to choose, but man, those CTF games were epic, and it was incredible hearing the shouting and swearing come from the other room when we thwarted an attack and recovered our flag.
Current character level: 9
Current class and level: Ranger 2
I didn’t really complete PSU on easy. When I used to work in Game they had a no fuss 10 day return policy, and this one guy used to come in on a Friday and buy all the big new releases, then come back on the Monday and ask for a refund stating that he’d “Completed it on Easy”. Surely games like Halo and Ninja Gaiden deserve to be ramped up to the highest setting and savoured for the mammoth challenge they present? Completing it on easy then not playing it on a higher difficulty is a bit of a cop-out! He never kept a game as far as we could tell. I’ll come back to this later.
This was originally posted in the Bloggers section on the now-defunct Poopgang forum.
Back then, trivial little things that I couldn’t change about myself didn’t bother me, I just didn’t care as I was brilliant.
Basically running a shop, six months away from a promotion to my very own store, happy with life, happy with work, happy at home, but it all came crashing down. Leaving Game. The long search for a job. I thought I could work anywhere, do anything I put my mind to, I was so confident in my abilities, but I just got rejection after rejection… but it didn’t bother me as I knew I was destined for better.
Eventually, I got a new job, at Poundland. Went into the interview for a Senior Sales position thinking “Yeah, give me three months, I’ll be running the place”. Stupidly, I said in the interview that if I didn’t get the Senior Sales position, I’d gladly take a regular, sales assistant role. Guess what happened? I got the basic role. Undeterred, I thought “Give me six months, I’ll be Assistant Manager, I’ll show them”. After a week or so on the tills, I was moved to the warehouse as the Stock Controller guy. I figured it was a nice step up, but later found out they only moved me there as I was a big strapping lad who could lift the heavy boxes.
