Podtacular Update

News and Announcements

• It was Scotty Sewell’s birthday recently, he turned 15! Congrats! Scotty is now running the allstars and clan matches.

• All-Stars are looking for challengers! Are you in a clan? Want more exposure? Challenge us! Email podtacular@gmail.com.

• Want to try out for the Podtacular All-Stars? Get a team together and win the next tournament.

• Jonnysan is now our tournament director. Congrats! Keep an eye on our forums for announcements about the next tournament.

• Podtacular006 has over 50 members last I checked (including invites). Accept your invites within a day or 2 of getting them or they will be revoked! We have to make room to get more people in that want in or there will be a log-jam of invites.

• Podtacular clans actually play clan matches and can participate in podtacular tournaments. If you want an invite to a podtacular clan, follow the link on podtacular.com on the right side. Post your gamertag to get an invite! No cheaters, derankers, racists, or people below lvl 15 in either BTB or Team Skirmish.

• PodTV has gotten lots of support but if you want to participate and help it get off the ground, email info@podtaculartv.com. Decidus tells me he’s holding auditions or something this week.

• foo mo jive (spaces) and spelchek will be clearing our friends list (except for staff and such) as soon as this episode comes out so send us a friend request. WE want to play with some of you we’ve never gotten a chance to meet!

• Freak in a box is doing the sound editing this week. Thanks freakers!

• Xansas is back, like we said, and he graciously paid for a whole year of hosting for our web site specifically. We’re moving the super-secret new site to that hosting and when it’s done and tested, it will be about ready to go live finally. Not only will it look amazing (and quite different), but it will have our own forums, your own profile page, an easier way to submit content, and lots more. Stay tuned and thanks to CapnKrunk, Paradox, and LiquidEnforcer for all their hard work on that.

• Gemini Ace, our listener whose son Ethan was born premature, has some eBay stuff for sale you might be interested in. He’s selling a DS with games, a Gamecube with games, an old Sega 32X with games, and tons of classic GI Joe stuff. Check out the links (1) (2) in the show notes if you’re interested.

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Web Resources

• Jet Pilot says:

hey guys loved the update you have reely got the fine tuning of the podcasting down to an art now. Ive been looking around the net and i have stumbled upon
http://halo.ogresnet.com lots of good info and tips on it.

• Anonymous says:

Hey, can u tell them about The Halo 2 Haven, they are at www.halo2haven.tk

They have:
A Blog
Game Reviews
Bungie News (For those that got parental controls)
Custom Made Halo 2 “Book” (fanfic)

and midi music and flying dots on your screen

And are also working on:
Custom Game Types
Single And Multi Player Tips/Cheats

• Foo Mo says:

There’s an awesome article on why people keep coming back to halo 2 multiplayer, linked on HBO and in the show notes.
http://h2wiki.halowiki.net/wiki/Why_Halo_2_multiplayer

Are you really into lots of podcasts? Try odeo , you can see who’s listening to a show and see what else they listen to. If you have an iPod shuffle like me, it’s a much more convenient way of downloading shows and putting them on your ipod. You can check out my profile by clicking the link in the show notes.

Odeo has tons of great gaming podcasts like VGN Radio, Gaming Steve, GameSpot Hotspot, Dreamstation.cc, Major Nelson Blogcast, Gamertag Radio, XBL Radio, Team Fremont Live, 2Old2Type, G4 Podcast, Xbox360 Radio, and tons more both gaming and not gaming related.

• Feel the Thunder says:

http://www.halo2basics.com/ <- good one!!

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Bungie Jumping

• BRIAN (not Brain) Smoothie says:

i was listening to your last podcast and u mentioned a new section on things we dont like about halo 2 so i thought i’d give my input. at first i didnt like the only shield idea but i’ve grown to like it even more than before. I don’t really like the 3 head shot battle rifle thing because now everyone uses them and its not that hard to use, before it was hard to use and took more skill. I’m also getting used to that too. I didn’t really plan this out and now im starting to think i cant think of much thats wrong with halo 2.

• Ju Blaine says:

Two complaints on Halo2, When you are zoomed in on any weapon, if you are hit by the slightest smg bullet, it takes you out of zoom. This is extremely annoying when you are trying to snipe grunts on legendary. Their plasma pistol will keep you from getting a single shot off. Then you die. So Bungie, take that away from Halo3!

Also, the whole physics thing. When you jump forward to slash with the sword, make the spartan leap, bend forward at the waist, crouch a little, and then LEAP! This will probably be fixed by Xbox360.

• BS01 says:

Things that were wrong with Halo 2:

- Balance in Multiplayer (e.g. get BR in an SMG battle, win)
- Cinematic Loading
- Levels/Parts of Levels Removed
- No more pistol… just magnum :(
- ATV
- Alternate hogs (besides gaus)

Also, in the bonus DVD in the collectors edition, Bungie even mentions how they had to cut things out such as a fist fight between the arbiter and tartaraus the ATV, etc. for H2’s launch.

Hopefully they don’t rush Halo 3.

• Foo Mo says:

• BR animations don’t work sometimes.
• Button reactions can be sluggish when switching weapons. like if you’re dual-wielding and want to get your secondary weapon, you have to do it slow or you end up with one of your primary weapons and a pool of blood.
• Weapons are weighted but combos aren’t. I like the Perfect Dark Zero idea where you can’t hold 2 power weapons like sword and sniper. This way combos become 2 person teamwork.
• N00b combo is effective but the instant death makes it unfair at mid-range.
• Lag, modding, superjumping, all the other cheating: I have a special link in the show notes for you. And I wish Bungie would host their own games. I know bandwidth and servers are expensive, but it sux that we run into more problems because of the host issue.
• Swipe sniping.
• Needlers are too weak! Dual needlers should be deadly!
• Jump-rocket technique at close quarters pisses me off. How can you not die if you shoot a rocket at the ground 6 feet in front of you?
• melee animations suck. no one would melee like that, and it definitely wouldn’t do that much damage.
• shotgun damage is too sporadic, I hate shooting point blank and not killing someone. The thing has a barrel, how can pellets miss if I shoot 2 feet away?

• Shotgun Jimmy says:

Just writing here to give a few ideas on what could (Remember, I said COULD) make Halo 2 a better game.

I’ve always wondered what happened to the Melee combo attack. It would be very effective to quickly silence someone in close combat, or if your gun ran out of ammo. It would have to be a maximum of three hits, and mabye you would move a bit slower when you have finished a combo.

Another possibility is that the melee system could be changed altogether. The way it could be is that a single melee attack is weak, taking down about a fifth of an opponent’s sheilds. You could combo, or you could raise your weapon up into the air, charging at the enemy for a brutal and lethal hit from the weapon. When raising your weapon to deliver a lethal melee attack, you could move slower, or have a slight hindering to your abilities.

Another idea I have come up with is the ability to use grenades as a Dual – Wielding weapon, in the sense that you press a button, such as black, while Dual Wielding, and the weapon in your left hand goes down, and a grenade appears instead. This way, you can keep the enemy supressed behind cover while flushing him out with a grenade.

I would also like to take this oppotunity to say that in my opinion, I have done something recently that I thought impossible: I managed to get a killimanjaro in a game with only three other people playing it. Ownage in my opinion.

• Dark Star 715124 says:

i really miss the assult rifle in halo 2. it was so damn versital. i think they should have made a custom game only download for it. or at least a way to switch between burst and auto on the battle rifle. (LIKE REAL GUNS) oh well, theres always halo 3

great job guys, Keep on fragin’ (fraggin’ trucks?),