Halo3, Scoooooooba

On Saturday I played most of Halo3’s (H3) single player campaign. I’ve been putting off playing it because I had so many other great games to play, but decided I just couldn’t put it off any longer. I actually started it a few months ago, but my old save game didn’t work properly so I decided to just restart the game. I made it about 75% through the game in one day (it is a short game). Having just finished Gears of War 2 (GOW2) my opinion is that H3 is nice, but GOW2 is a better game in every respect that matters to me. I think the GOW2 cover system is now essential to shooters (and missing in H3), I think GOW2 controls better, and I think GOW2 has better graphics. H3 has an interesting story, but I think GOW2 even did that better. GOW2 multi player is also very well done (I really enjoy Horde mode) but I imagine there is a rabid crowd who would say H3 is the pinnacle of console multiplayer – H3’s single player campaign is, in reality, just a tack on and the real H3 game is multiplayer – I am jut not into most multiplayer games. If you can get it for cheap or love multiplayer, get H3. If you can only afford one shooter, get GOW2 (even GOW1). If you are getting a second shooter, honestly, I would recommend Dead Space over H3.

Saturday night we went to a wine bar with a neighbor who is moving out of our apartment complex soon. We hadn’t seen a lot of him in a few months, so it was nice to catch up.

On Sunday, we got up pretty early to attend the Beneath the Sea 2009 scuba show (trade show kind of thing). 70% of the show is tourism to entice you to travel to little tropical islands and live-aboard ships for diving, but the other 30% are vendors who make scuba gear (always nice to see what is new in the scuba market) and non-profits who are trying to do things like ocean conservancy, enabled people with disabilities to dive, etc. We’ve been to the show a few times before and it is always interesting. It was fun to go this year as it is the first year after the missus got certified. The most interesting possibilities are diving the St. Lawrence river (up on the NY / Canada border), Puerto Rico, and Florida. Our normal vacation is probably off this year as we are doing four weddings, but we hope to get in some diving during those trips and maybe some weekend trips for diving. We will definitely take a few trips to Dutch Springs to get the missus back in the water, work in skills, etc. I hope by the end of the summer she can take the Advanced Underwater course. In May, I get to take the missus to Blue Hole (Santa Rosa, NM) so we can dive were I got certified.