I'm Alive! (Halo 4 Play Date, 3/21)Barely. The past couple of weeks have been harsh. I've gone to a bachelor party, squeezed in hang time with a friend from out of state, and went to a wedding.
And man, that wedding was a doozy. It was at the Sherwood Forest Faire in Texas. It's a nearby ren fair that my friend goes to. He likes it so much, that he had his wedding at it. I was the best man. It was a long weekend of camping, drinking, smoking, putting on uncomfortable ren clothes, and walking around the faire solving all manner of debaucles. In the end, it was all worth it. It was a pretty good time, and the whole thing was a success. Even my best man speech at the reception!
After 3 days straight without playing Halo, I need to make up for lost time. Who's up for some Halo 4 this Thursday, the 21st? From 6ish to 8ish? I want to knock out a couple Majestic achievements before the Castle dlc comes out. I'm down to help people with other cheevos as well. So, who's wants in?
After that, we grabbed some bbq from Black's in Lockhart.
Twas pretty good. Gotta say, way better than Kreuz's. More sides, and better brisket. I don't like that crazy salty brisket. I meant to order like half pound, but I ended up with a sliced beef sandwich. Whatevs.
Then, we went to the Circle Brewing company in Austin for a free beer tasting event.
This was a quasi SXSW event I think. As someone who exclusively drinks liquor and not beer, I was a bit out of my element. But, when in rome, you know? I had a few samples. Let me tell ya, that darker colored one? It felt like drinking burnt wood. Too rich for me blood.
Then, we went to uh...another establishment.
There was drinking, laughing, a bit of drama, and good times.
We then ended the night at a friend place.
It was a sweet lake front house. We had cigars, booze, played pool, played ping pong, played foosball, played Halo, and ate a bunch of pizza and junk food.
All in all, it was a good time. It was a very full day. We even had to cut out one of the stops. Good times. There was indeed a period of intense drama, but the night was definitely a success. It felt good to take my bud out on the town. Or towns, I guess.
Can you guess my favorite stop? If you said BBQ, you are correct.
After that, we grabbed some bbq from Black's in Lockhart.
Twas pretty good. Gotta say, way better than Kreuz's. More sides, and better brisket. I don't like that crazy salty brisket. I meant to order like half pound, but I ended up with a sliced beef sandwich. Whatevs.
Then, we went to the Circle Brewing company in Austin for a free beer tasting event.
This was a quasi SXSW event I think. As someone who exclusively drinks liquor and not beer, I was a bit out of my element. But, when in rome, you know? I had a few samples. Let me tell ya, that darker colored one? It felt like drinking burnt wood. Too rich for me blood.
Then, we went to uh...another establishment.
There was drinking, laughing, a bit of drama, and good times.
We then ended the night at a friend place.
It was a sweet lake front house. We had cigars, booze, played pool, played ping pong, played foosball, played Halo, and ate a bunch of pizza and junk food.
All in all, it was a good time. It was a very full day. We even had to cut out one of the stops. Good times. There was indeed a period of intense drama, but the night was definitely a success. It felt good to take my bud out on the town. Or towns, I guess.
Can you guess my favorite stop? If you said BBQ, you are correct.
Monty & CyriakI would love to see the RWBY characters fight a villain designed by Cyriak. With music by Cyriak too, maybe. I don't know how you would bridge those two animation styles, but a Monty/Cyriak teamup would be the bee's knees.
1920's Duckface?GUYS. I may be wrong, but this could be photographic evidence of an early duckface.
This is a 1928 photo that I found at a bank in south Texas. There are two women in it, who may or may not be making duckfaces. I can't tell. I may be completely wrong. Am I looking too much into it? You be the judge! Scroll down to see the pics.
Completed the campaign on Legendary. Didn't unlock the campaign completion achievements. Looked up the problem. Turns out if you get disconnected from LIVE on your computer while playing Halo 2 PC, you have to restart the level to get the achievement. HOWEVER, I got all the individual level achievements. Just no completion cheevos.
Basically, there is a problem with one or more of the levels I completed. The best possible way to get those achievements would be to do another solo Legendary run. And even then, there is no guarantee it would work. This game is crazy glitched at times. With Halo 2 having the hardest campaign out of all the Halos, this task would not be easy. In fact, it'd be downright horrible.
Seeing as I already put the legit work in, I opted for a non-legit fix. A little renaming of files, a little third party program, and I got them unlocked.
I didn't like doing this, but I definitely put in the honest work and still didn't get the achievements. So, I had no choice. I only used the work-around for those glitchy achievements. I still have a couple more I'll get the right way.
Believe me when I say that I did all the right things and nothing worked. Hopefully my gamerscore or gamertag won't suffer any repercussions as a result.
UPDATE: ARGH, I hate that I had to do this. In the 17 hours since making this journal, I have 100 percented this game. If not for these 3 stupid achievements, my Halo career would be without blemish. Well, 4 achievements I guess. My work-around gave me an extra achievement, but I went back and still completed the requirements for my own conscience. That makes 4 achievements that I completed the requirements for, but force-unlocked. Fuck. This is not my fault. I will not apologize for this. In the end, this game made me do this. I did not cheat. I merely removed unfair, unintended, and accidental impediments to achievements. Look at the dates I unlocked the achievements. You can clearly see that I was working at it in a legitimate way. Hell, even the 4 that I force-unlocked look like they were attained the normal way when compared to the dates of the others.
I got this game on January 15th. It took me nearly a month of concerted effort to complete. I worked my ass off to finish the multiplayer. I spent two weeks straight working on them, sometimes up to 8 hours a day. Once more, there are only about 30 people online at a time. This made the multiplayer achievements much harder. AND THEN, I had to finish the campaign. I had to do a solo Legendary run in the hardest Halo campaign ever. For the first half, I did it super legit. Killed every enemy and took my time. For the second half, I did it standard legit. Did some speedruns, used some clever tactics, and brought all my gamer gusto to bear on completing it. This is something no one wants to do twice. And what do I get for my efforts? A stab in the back. You know the only legit way to get those achievements to pop without fail? Delete the game and start over. Lose all your achievements and progress, and start over. Multiplayer support is ending in just four days. Afterward, you can only get those achievements over LAN play. I would not potentially damn myself and risk losing those achievements forever when I didn't do anything wrong.
As someone who takes great pride in their Halo career, I feel that some might find dishonor in my "corrective" methods. So, let me be clear. If there is any dishonor in my completion of these achievements, it was forced upon me by circumstance. I did not earn it. It is not mine. I put in the work. The hard work that all gamers understand. If this was an Xbox game, and you could force-unlock your glitched achievements, you would do so with free conscience. But since this is a PC game, some might feel differently. I don't. I only write this to persuade you if you might feel otherwise.
In the end, I did my job. I did it well, and I did it legitimately. And I saw to it, that I got what was mine. So don't you dare put a fucking asterisk by this.
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