So me and Justin were playing some firefight, and I managed to zap an Elite in the nuts with the laser. I made some comment about how I should have gotten an achievement called “Precision Comedy” and voilà , a comic idea was born. Justin said that Penny Arcade did something similar. Anyhoot, there it is. An amazing story behind every comic!
-Ian
So this is an idea we’ve had since Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta. Basically, the splash damage and power on the grenades in the Beta was so overpowered it was a bit ridiculous. If you couldn’t get a shot on a guy, what do you do? Toss a grenade (or mess of grenades) in the opponents general vicinity and “KABOOM” he’s dead! That’s not to say that the grenades in Reach aren’t still overpowered, but they did tone them down. I personally have died so much more from grenades in Reach than from any other Halo game! Sorta of annoying. But I know that Justin get’s absolutely pissed when he’s completely dominating opponents with the DMR and ends up dying by what he calls “no talent hacks” to spam the grenade button to kill him. Long story short, he was bitching one day about the stupid grenade boots that his Spartan was wearing. Apparently they were attracting all grenades from the entire map directly to him, and no other player. It was humorous hearing him bitch, and thus, this comic was born. Voilà ! Halo: Reach Grenade Boots, get yours today!
-Ian
Seems there’s a higher power responsible for Justin’s recent company. We explore what might be the reasoning behind it.
-Ian
Battlefield Playing History:
If you’ve been reading the comics then you should have noticed by now that Ian and I are Halo players, not necessarily good Halo players, but Halo players all the same.  However a few summers ago Dice released Battlefield 1943 as an Xbox 360 arcade and I picked it up on whim and had fun playing it for a couple of weeks.  (I also got Ian to buy it and he had fun playing it as well)  Do to unfortunate circumstances I lost my 360 and just about every video game I own so I was forced to restart my game collection this past winter.  During the period of time I only had enough money to pick up one game so I was relegated to playing that game and whatever arcade games I had purchased.  So I began to play Battlefield 1943 again and realized how much I loved that game.  So I went and picked up Battlefield Bad Company 2 when I had enough money and I had a blast playing the game.  I brought it over to Ian’s place and we played for a while and I got him to buy it as well.  Battlefield is a great change of pace to Halo or perhaps its a modern time set game that plays most closely to Halo, I’m not sure, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play.  So I couldn’t wait to try out Vietnam.
Vietnam:
The game is enormous fun to play.  The sound is excellent, the game looks beautiful, and I love that everything is time specific.  What I mean by time specific is that no guns can use optics of any kind except for sniper rifles.  That means players will have to get used to the iron sights.  The weapons themselves are time specific, only allowing you to use weapons that were used in that era, same goes for the vehicles you use as well.  A nice addition is the soundtrack that Dice added for this game, which again is time specific.  Getting in a vehicle and hearing CCR blaring is a fun addition to destroying the enemies with tank shells to the dome.
Speaking of vehicles, the helicopters in the game, from what I’ve seen, are not nearly as much of a menace as they are in BFBC2.  While admittedly I’ve only been playing conquest on the 360 and I’ve only played a couple of hours, you can shoot down a chopper with a weapon equipped with magnum ammo.  I watched Ian shoot down a Huey with a PPSH, a engineer weapon, and I think he was the only one shooting at it.  Sure he used up all of his ammo but he took it down and it only took about a minute and 1/2 to do.  *Warning I’m a terrible helicopter pilot* but the helicopters seem easier to fly than in BFBC2, but again I’m no ace pilot.
It seems that in Vietnam the sensitivity is actually increased from BFBC2, so players might find the controls a little too responsive and might need to tone them down. Â I’ve heard some players on their youtube videos say the guns seem to feel a little different but I haven’t noticed that myself.
All in all the expansion was worth the 1200 Microsoft points I spent to buy it and if you like Battlefield owning this expansion is a must.
Ok, so after kicking a few ideas around on whether or not we would do a Thanksgiving AND Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc…) strip we let our laziness kick in an decide for us (more so me, Ian the artist). Anyways, without further adieu, here is another addition to “Why Can’t Real Life Be More Like Halo?” – Holiday Special 2010. For now this will cover all the holiday strips from the end of November up until December 30th (maybe we’ll have a New Years special, who knows?). Enjoy the holiday turkey, fresh egg nog, and a nice present from our good spartan friends.
-Ian
About 2 weeks ago, my wife and I were trying to figure out what we were going to be for Halloween. Last year we weren’t anything, and the previous year we were Bender and Leela from Futurama. So this year, we were attempting to find a nice couple’s theme. To spoil this year’s Halloween story early in this post, we’re going to be dressed as Belle and Beast from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
What the hell does that have to do with the ODST?
Well, fine sir (or ma’dame), there was a possibility that I was going to be Iron Man, and my wife would be Black Widow. But rather than settle for the horrible “Officially Licensed” costumes, I started searching for “how to’s: on building my own Iron Man armor. Seeing as how I created my Bender costume from scratch, I figured I could do a bang up job on Iron Man…
So I started searching ye ol’ Internet and found some pretty amazing videos of home made armor. As I clicked on the “Related Videos” from YouTube I started to fall further and further down the rabbit hole. Until I came upon a talented Mr. Ben Streeper from the 405th (http://www.405th.com)! Ben has a bunch of “how to” videos on YouTube for making your own Halo helmet and armor from Pepakura (paper 3D models) to Resin, Bondo, Mold Making, to finish! I’ve watched so many of his videos now that I can almost recite the processes front to back myself! So about 2 weeks ago I decided it was time to build and ODST helmet. With all of that knowledge, and creativity coming out the whazoo I tried to pace myself by promising to only make a pepakura (paper) helmet to start.  And, only once I had fully finished it and was extremely happy with it, would I commit to making a completely finished helmet that I could turn into a master mold, and cast duplicate helmets from.
So about a couple days after my decision to tackle this large project, I was off to the local Office Depot for some card stock paper. I dilligently spent the entire weekend, and most of the following Monday assembling and gluing my paper helmet. That Satuday, by around 5pm, I had assembled the front portion of the helmet and some of the right side. I thought is was the coolest thing ever to see this helmet take shape before my eyes. I must have stayed up until 3am working on the helmet. Mid Sunday I was about 3/4s done with the paper helmet and, totally amazed with its progress, I said to myself,  ”To hell with waiting, I better start getting my resin together!” I made trips to the local Wal-Mart, Harbor Freight & Tool, and Target to stock up on everything I needed! And by the end of the night Sunday I had completed the entire helmet, minus some small bottom helmet details. Those I finished on Monday, which I also called off our weekly Star Wars Roleplaying session (nerd alert!) to show my sweet ODST helmet to my friend which we then spent some time resin-ing it. I have to say I am pretty hooked! Tuesday I Rondo (mix of Bond and Resin) filled the helmet, Wednesday I started sanding and Bondo-ing any imperfections. Thursday I was itching to work on it, but decided that ZombieHood needs some love too, so me and Justin worked on our newest comic “The Journey“. Friday I was sanding, sanding, and sanding – filling a few low spots, then sanding sanding and sanding! I was out of town for the weekend, but when I returned on Sunday, I took up my dremel and mouse sander, and begain the arduous task of smoothing the helmet out. I have to say, if I hadn’t taken a semester of Autobody, I don’t think I would have been doing as good as I have. That’s not to say my helmet is immaculate, no, far from it. But it’s always a fantastic feeling to create something, even if it turns out as a pile of crap, I know this helmet will have some imperfections but that’s all what learning is about. If this helmet turns out even remotely successful, it will be an achievement for me! Once it’s finished I’ll be that much more excited to start on the next project!
So without further adieu, here are some small progress shots of my ODST Helmet!
 
So this is a bit overdue, but back when we were playing the Halo Reach Beta the launched the Invasion game type. It’s always great to try something new and be a part of beta testing, but playing as the Elites in that game type was just a joke. Hopefully they will change up Invasion for the Elites come launch time. In the comic, Justin describes what it was like playing as Elites…
-Ian
“Why Can’t Real Life Be More Like Halo?” continues again with Weekly Meetings. If you’ve worked in an office setting or have had to have team meetings you should totally feel where this is coming from. What I wanna know is, where can I get Master Chief’s technology!?
-Ian
Ok, so if Justin didn’t already make a scene during our wedding vows, he continues his antics at our wedding dinner. What an ass!
-Ian
We’ve been playing a lot of ODST Firefight lately and oddly enough, we’re tea bagging NPC bots. Why you ask? Well, we usually do it as a joke, because we never tea bag in a real Halo 3 MP match. Unless, of course, some douche bag tea bags us first. So, let’s keep those skills sharp!
Note:Â If we purposely betray our team mates, we usually tea bag them, as to live up to the dick move of betraying.
