I was feeling rather aimless last night after getting some good work done on the latest Sekrit Projekt, and I figured I’d give Halo 3: ODST another go even though I have no clue what’s going on in the game and can’t really kill more than three alien enemies before having my armored ass tossed aside. Only I ended up putting in the second multiplayer disk instead and found myself playing…Halo 3. Well, not the main campaign, but all of its online maps and modes. Weird. Even weirder was that running this CD also tricks my Xbox 360 into thinking I’m playing all of Halo 3, and thus I now have a new list of Achievements separate from Halo 3: ODST to get. Except I can’t get them; I only have the multiplayer aspect of that game, and while meaningless in the longrun, I do find it a bit annoying now that there’s going to be a slew of unlocked Achievements on my system that I didn’t ask to be placed there.

But yeah, Halo 3 multiplayer. I played a round of Oddball and a round of King of the Hill before moving on to fiddle about in the forge mode by my lonesome. In each game mode, I made a single kill and was summarily destroyed every time I pushed forward on the analog stick. My best defense was standing still and hiding from other players. Don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to be played, but whatever. I’m at peace with the fact that I lack significant sniping and sticky grenade skills. And now I’m definitely spoiled by Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, which rewards players with losing streak perks if they’re having a hard time keeping up.

A quick scan of Halo 3‘s Achievement list–quick because, well, there’s 79 Achievements to look at, and most of them don’t apply to the multiplayer–mentioned finding hidden skulls on specific levels. I tried to do this on my own, just running around and flying around in Forge with the floaty camera, but alas, these hidden skulls are seriously hidden. I had to look up a guide to find two of them:

Orbital Skull (25G): On Orbital, found the hidden skull.

Assembly Skull (25G): On Assembly, found the hidden skull.

I’m not sure what’s more creative there. The Achievement name or the flavor text. I’m just kidding. They both suck. I might look up a few more guides for the others though some seem really complicated, such as the hidden skull on Sandbox. These might very well be the only Achievements I’ll be able to unlock here. Le sigh.

Unfortunately, I still don’t get Halo. The multiplayer felt so quiet and repetitive, and the graphics were spotty. I dislike having to hold down a trigger button to pick up a weapon, and I don’t know if there’s a sprint button, but I hope so. It feels like an uphill climb no matter what the elevation. I just can’t see what I’m supposedly missing here, that’s all.