Last Day for MLGinsider Intern Apps!

Today, September 29th 2009 is the last day that MLGinsider will be accepting Intern Applications.  If you have not recieved one, or would like to join.  Please E-Mail me at Apollo@mlginsider.com or contact me on AIM at InsiderApollo.  I will be on AIM all night and check my e-mail once an hour.  Please message me and i will get you an application ASAP.

R6V2 and CoD Finals

MLG just announced that the Call of Duty 4 and Rainbow 6 Vegas 2 Finals are going to be in Anaheim, on November 7th. Instead of being in Orlando, for the championship

This is a really odd move on MLG’s part.  Even odder is that the championship will be played in 1 day on the 7th.  In my opinion, this is a rather bad move on their part.  MLG prides itself in having the best gamers in the respective games in there league.  One would think they want them all in the same place at the same time for championships.  It would draw a larger crowd, open it up to people who are new to the league and allow the top pros to mingle and make connections with players from different games.    It seems like a last minute decision to me.  This announcement comes with little over a month for players of CoD, and R6V2 to clear their schedule’s, schedule flights, book hotels, and let their family’s know.  If they were planning this it should have been announced a few weeks if not a few months ago.

Montage Weekly is back

Whats up guys, do many factors this little segment got cut for a while.    Now its back! So if you’re new here and don’t know what this is I’m going to be looking all over MLGpro, youtube, as well as a few other video sites looking for montages, the good, the bad, the funny, and unfortunatly the ones that should never have even been thought of(Check the honorable mention at the bottom of the article)…Also, if you want to do one of these montage weekly’s or submit a video for review please e-mail me at Apollo@mlginsider.com!  Anyway, Lets kick it off!

Link; http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/kqwHWFSJQos.html?video_page=18

Title: Redefined Trailer

Editor:  Toxic Designs

Gameplay: Perpetual And Unlimited

Thoughts:  This is a good trailer, deffinatly worth a watch…Has some really good syncing as well as some great gameplay.  It has some nice audio mixing as well.

Ratings:

Quality: Clip quality was ok..Little blurry but couldn’t complain to much. 3/5 plasmas

Editing: Loved the syncing….5/5 Plasmas without a doubt

Clips: Good clips, one or two fillers but otherwise great 4/5 plasmas.

Overall: Overall I have to give this a 4/5.  This  was a great trailer and can’t wait for the full thing.

Link:http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/1WmaxZJEsVA.html?video_page=7

Title: ShinxZ:: A Halo 3 Montage

Editor:ShinxZ

Gameplay: ShinxZ

Thoughts:
This is a decent montage….It is WAY WAY over edited, to much for my tatste…But if you can get past all the flashes, slow-motion, speed ups…And everything in between its a good watch…Theres alot of decent gameplay in it..But where there is good…there is bad…There was alot of just plain trash gameplay also

Ratings:

Quality: Hard to see gameplay most of the time…..2/5 plasmas

Editing:  I give the editing a 1/5.There was editing…but WAY to much

Clips:  I give it 3/5 plasmas….From what i could see it was decent

Overall: Over all i give it a 2/5 plasmas…It was good…But WAY over edited….

Link: http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/gEGJ2aPuC9I.html?video_page=29

Title: Stryke x MT H3M1

Editor:

Gameplay: Stryke x MT

Thoughts:

Not the best montage ever…If your looking for an overkill montage this is not it..There are a few very entertaining clips in this…At the beginning his teammate and he are going to sandwich a opponent, but his teammate swords through the guy and kills Stryke….Irony at its greatest

Ratings:

Quality: I give it 2.5 Plasmas…Not the best, but by far not the worst

Editing: There is very little to no editing..Can’t give it a 0 so 1/5 plasmas

Clips: There are some entertaining clips hidden in this mess…3/5 plasmas

Overall: I give it 2/5 plasmas….Not the best…but by far not the worst

Link: http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/yUwjPZrGsulpjM.html?video_page=33

Title: Phenomenon

Editor: Fatality Films

Gameplay: FatalEvOloutiON and JFactor

Thoughts:

It was a rather enjoyable montage…Quality was kinda lacking and blurry..Other than that there were a few nice clips in there.  There were a few really good multi-kills with.  The whole montage had a rather nice flow to it.

Ratings:

Quality: I give it 2/5 plasmas….Quality was lacking

Editing:  It was smooth but there wasn’t much to it…I give it 2/5 plasmas

Clips:  I have to give the clips a 2/5 plasmas..There were a few decent ones…but they were few and far between

Overall:  I have to give the montage over all a 2/5 plasmas…It was an ok montage..could have been better, it’s on the bottom end of the montage charts though.

Honorable Mentions:

Slaughtr Destny and his CellPhone Montage:

http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/ifhsalsDUIRGuxMs.html

My thoughts: He gets 5 Plasmas just for the effort…But really…..

Intra: Featuring Apollo

My own montage trailer that got good responses on H3F…Not reviewing it =P

http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/kqKLArrl8UI.html

Random Video:

http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/xGHteO6cXqQ.html?video_page=14

Orlando and Anaheim

For those of you who are avid MLG followers you’re going to see a drastic change in these last two events from previous years.

Traditionally the second to last event has been a playoff system. The focus was to find the top 8 teams to go to National Championship. Well in Anaheim will actually play out like any other event but there is still significance to the top 8 spots and I’ll explain how in a second. The one large factor about Anaheim is that the top 16 teams will have their rosters locked between Anaheim and Orlando.

Now for that top 8 seed significance. As many of you have heard the National Championships in Orlando will be an open play tournament. This is not different for all the open teams that will play. The big difference if for the top 16 teams.

Teams 1-8 will be matched up high/low in the Championship winner’s bracket. The teams seeded 9-16 will start their weekend in the Championship Loser’s bracket. Thi s means that for the 9-16 seeded team it a single elimination tournament and makes for an extremely difficult route to get to the championship game. This is a very significant change for those seeds. Obviously this means a shorter but more difficult route for the top 8 teams as well. The top 8 matchups, I believe, will be as follows: In the top half of the bracket you will have 1 vs 8 & 4 vs 5; the bottom half will have 2 vs 7 and 3 vs 6.

So all in all a very interesting change for Nationals. Like it? Hate it? Sound off below.

Instinct and Status Quo Rosters

Ok, we are finally able to confirm both the Status Quo and Instinct rosters.

Let’s start with Instinct.  First off, Ghost was let go partially due to his play in Dallas and partially due “personality conflicts”.  He’s a great player and will definitely land on a solid team.  After Ghost’s release two players were actually being considered for the 4th spot; Fearitself and Strongside.  From discussions we’ve had with those close to the situation, they ultimately went with Fearitself because they felt he rounded out their team the best.

Contrary to the stupid rumors going around that Strongside and Neighbor would never play together again cause they “don’t get along”, they actually are extremely good friends and have no issues playing with each other.

Now on to Status Quo.  For those who don’t know Clutch actually made the decision to go back to BtH before he left Dallas.  So it was no surprise to those involved when he made it official a few days later.

A few people close to the situation said that the reason Legendpimps left/was kicked from Classic was a butting of heads due to his strong personality.  He was picked up by Status Quo as their 4th player a few days ago.   We decided to wait to update because Legend was also being pursued by a few other top teams and had considered one other.

Personally I think the strong personality that Legend has will be an asset to a young Status Quo team that could use and outspoken leader.  He has also proven to consistently play at a level that puts him on the border of that upper echelon of players.

Side note:  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ghost wind up on Final Boss as their fourth, not only from a talent stand point, but also from an experience stand point.

MLGInsider ODST FireFight Review

As many of you are aware, gamestop recently launched a demo setup of FireFight mode in Halo 3 ODST.  They have been bringing it around in a special ODST HellJumper truck.  The truck is an old army truck, it weighs 28,000 pounds(which is 14 tons).  I managed to log a decent 1 hour of gameplay. How it works is you get in line, and they send people 8 at a time into the back of the truck where they had 8 systems hooked up to 8 plasma screen tv’s.  You had 10 minutes and infinite lives to rack up as many points as possible.  We were told in actual firefight on the ODST game you will only have 7 lives that are shared between your team.   They will not let you play on legendary and you are absolutely not allowed to play as Sergant Johnson. Somehow I ended up playing as him anyway.

The controls are the same except there is no equipment.  The X button has been taken over by visor mode.  This may sound useless at first but it works wonders as I will explain later.  There is no motion sensor, your ODST can not jump as high or throw grenades as far.  If you think your going to melee kill a brute like in H3.  You better be ready for it, its not an easy task.  You do not regain health if you get damaged, so you need to be careful.  The most important thing, one that every MLG player can relate to, is teamwork.  You will be hard pressed to tackle a hunter by yourself.    Anyway…Lets get on with the actual review and my comments….

You start out with the SMG and Pistol(this may be changeable..not sure).  Upon first firing the guns your going to notice the guns actually recoil, so you can’t just spam the trigger and hope to kill something, this actually requires some what of aiming.  It takes a while to get use to, but you do eventually.  Halo 1 fans rejoice, they have brought back the Halo Combat Evolved Pistol. Unfortunately it’s not as we fondly remember.  It seems to do less damage and it has a smaller clip so you need to pick your shots. In my personal opinion, sounds like a little laser gun. (Phew Phew Phew sound).  It does have a very nice scope though.  The SMG is a very efficient weapon, even at long range  it can be put to excellent use due to it having a scope as well.  The only downside is that it has a small clip as well.

Next up is the visor mode. This is a really helpful feature as it allows you to see enemies, friendlies, and invisible brutes.  It is excellent for finding new weapons!  I used the pistol scope and managed to find rockets and a sniper rifle.  The map Crater, it is a semetrical map with 2 bases facing each other.  In the opposite base you spawn in there is a sniper up top and a rocket launcher on the bottom.  You can not be afraid to pick up and use enemy weapons, you run out of ammo fast, so be prepared to use that spiker, and plasma rifle.  Because you are not a spartan, your melee’s basicly are horrible compared to what we are use to.  If you do it to a brute and he does not die, he will swing and knock you back and you go flying.  The enemies come at diffrent times and are usualy announced with a good old fashion Reinforcement call…The drones(bugs) sometimes have shields along with the brutes..It takes 2-3 sniper shots to kill a brute. 1 shot to break shields…1 to break armor…and 1 to finish him off.

Teamwork is a huge role in ODST Firefight.  The brutes are shielded and take alot of shots to kill. Brutes carrying hammers seem to have even more health.  The skulls rotate randomly; one second it is on the “Grunt Birthday Party” and “Iron” then it can switch to “Storm” and “Tough Luck”.  It adds a good amount of challenge to the game.

I said up at the top that we had infinite lives, but in the regular version you only get 7.  In each of the 10 minute rounds we did we managed to only die about 7 or 8 times on normal. So it is going to be very interesting.

I stood in line for a total of something like 5 hours for a single hour of gameplay.    My thoughts … it was WELL WORTH IT!  It was an awesome experience and I would personally buy ODST for only this game if your sitting on the fence.   Don’t buy it for the maps, buy it for “Firefight”!  They give you some free gear like a sick little mini-helpmate for playing, and if you get the most points on your team you get a licence plate cover that says, “My other car is a Warthog”.  Below are some pictures of the stuff!  Hope you guys enjoyed my thoughts on ODST!   “Helljumpers, Feet First into Hell!”

Controller directions they gave us^

Other side to the card^

license plate cover^

Mini-Helm^

Mini-Helm 2^

The Truck^

Naded – New Man or Finally Understood

If you watched MLG Dallas you saw the tournament that Naded had.  It was very similar to the tournament he had in the National Championships in 2008 in Vegas.  He seemed like a “new man”.  The question really is why?

Here’s how I see it.  If you watch Naded’s play historically you will see that he has played on some talented teams.  He had a great fit with Carbon in the national championships and then they parted ways becasue Carbon just felt he took to many chances and wanted to try the more conservative and consistent Soviet.

They never seemed to put it all back together until MLG Dallas this year.  The difference for both Carbon and Naded is this …. “They’re like a glove”.  They are a great fit for each other.

The knock on Naded is not his talent. He is one of the most dynamic players in the game.  He is one of maybe a handful of players in this league that can turn and entire game on his own.  The reason is of course his talent, but that’s not all he has a confidence that causes him to take chances , but also puts him in positions that others don’t get in to create dynamic game changing plays.  Now all this sounds great, the problem is that he also puts his team in bad positions when his gambles backfire.

Now here is why Carbon is such a great fit.  Carbon has three consistent, solid players that are extremely experienced and team oriented.  They are the perfect trio to compliment Naded.  They have the consistency and ability that they are able to effective neutralize the oppositions advances till Naded respawns.  This is a team that was overlooked, but as teammates they fit as well as any foursome in the league.

With the cat now out of the bag… I am interested to see what will happen in Anaheim in November.  Lets hear your thoughts sound off below.

Mackeo for Legend

For those who haven’t heard, Mackeo has now replaced Legend as the newest member of Classic.  Mackeo brings a lot of energy to Classic a team that turned a lot of heads in Cloumbus, but was a disappointment in Dallas.  I think it will be an upgrade for them, but to what degree I’m not yet certain.   We’ll get a more indepth analysis for you in the near future

Perplexity VOD Analysis

I have heard many rumors that Perplexity is an elite player on the Pro Circuit. I had to see what all the commotion was about. This CTF Pit game with Heaven and Earth versus Classic took place in the Placement Rounds of MLG Columbus.

VOD Link: http://www.mlgpro.com/content/link/284569/Perplexity

As Perplexity breaks for sniper, we begin to see what all the hype is about, as he gets a solid quick scope on Soldier187. Both teams try to feel each other out in the beginning, as the game kicks off with a slow tone that eventually heats up once the flags start to be pulled.

When Perplexity spawns at 28:29, you can see he is just trying to establish map control for his team in the center of the map. Making pushes through Green Box and Long Hall are very team-oriented, and a vital piece of running The Pit efficiently.

Around 26:46 Perplexity dies to a sneaky Soldier187. Soldier really stood out to me this game. He was constantly keeping pressure on HaE to think twice about every action, and pulling off some great snipes too.

Off his 21:39 spawn, Perplexity helps Hokum clear out a Classic member pushing through Long Hall simply by using his death cam. The death cam is a highly underrated tool to winning Halo games. It can provide critical information in crucial times. Even if a teammate can just get a quick glance at your screen, this helps tremendously.

Starting at 20:11 Perplexity goes into beast mode. You can see through his game play how badly he wants this cap. He starts by winning a personal battle with Chig on top of bridge and proceeds to move through Green Hall to help his team out. He makes a very clutch play by keeping the flag alive, out BRing Soldier, and picking off Legend for the double kill. Unfortunately for Heaven and Earth they do not come away with a cap here and this proves to be the momentum changer of the game for Classic, as they run back a quickly executed counter cap.

At 18:12, we see Perplexity put his sniper to use once again as he tears Chig’s face off.

Throughout this game, Perplexity’s Battle Rifle continued to impress me more and more. His mid range BR was top of the line. He plays similar to Neighbor in many ways. He plays sneaky, he flanks the opposing team, and makes amazing snipes. He opens plays up for his team when he is shining and slaying to the best of his ability; exactly what Neighbor brings to Instinct. If Heaven and Earth gets a core four for the last two events, I expect them to make the Playoffs at the end of the season.

Walshy Does it Again?

Yes, once more Walshy defeats the team that dropped him.  He has a great tournament and finishes in second with a team that was put together a month ago.   This raises a few questions in my mind: Is Walshy not quite the team oriented player we thought he was? Has he lost the drive to push him over the top? Or is he just messing around with all of us?

This is something I’ve actually given quite a bit of though to.  Let’s go back to 2008 in Toronto.  Walshy gets dropped by Final Boss for Neighbor.  He decides to team with Roy, Lunchbox and Soviet.  After looking like he might be on his way out of the game in the previous tournament in Orlando, he comes alive in Toronto.  His Br is on point and he appears to be playing like the Walshy many of the longtime MLG fans have seen.  Instinct upsets Final Boss and Walshy  compares the ogres to the Olsen twins and says, “It was like taking candy from a baby, but the baby fought harder.”

Fast forward to Columbus 2009, Instinct finishes 5th and Walshy again looks as if he’s might be what is holding the team back.  They make a big move and drop Dave for Ghostayame.  (Que the dramatic music) Walshy teams with Shockwave, Defy and Naded a month before MLG Dallas and again seems revived and has a great tournament beating Str8 3-0 and eliminating Final Boss and Instinct enroute to a 2nd place finish behind Triggers Down.  Now here’s the real question.  What gives?

Does he just lose motivation on the team’s he’s on?  Is he just a scape goat for teammates to blame him? Maybe to both?  While I can’t explain how his play changes so drastically when he gets dropped by a team, all I can say is that he has become a nightmare for teams.

Allow me to play a scenario out for you … Let’s say Carbon has a couple bad tournaments in a row and once again the blame gets placed on Dave.  If you’re Carbon what do you do?  You look back at FB and Instinct and realize it’s a curse to drop him, but maybe you feel like he’s what’s holding you back.  I can’t answer that question, all I know is that the guy pulls upsets out of his redbull hat like a genie granting wishes.  He has shown he gets fired up and still can compete at this top level, I know I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side.

What do you think?  Sound off below?

Orlando = Championships?

We have been told by reputable sources close to MLG that the Major League Gaming Championships will be in Orlando, Florida. This actually coincides with the many rumblings that we have heard. So, it looks like all you Floridians are in for a treat.

Please Note: Locations for MLG events are not final until MLG Commisioner John Nelson announces the location.

Insider Internship?

Hey, are you looking for a place to intern at? But you don’t want to go to the same old place most other people go to?  Do you have a passion for gaming?  Do you follow MLG?  Do you want to do what i’m doing right now?  If you’ve answered yes to a few of those then your in the right place.

MLGinsider is opening up 3 Internship spots on our staff.  Internships will be official with paper work, and would look great on job, college or any other resumes!

For more information regarding the internship spot please contact us by either the Contact Us tab.  Or you can contact me at apollo@mlginsider.com or on AIM at InsiderApollo.
Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Clutch to BtH?

We have just received word from our sources that Clutch has joined Believe the Hype.  We are not yet certain who will be dropped.  It is rumored that either Soviet or Maniac will be dropped.

This comes as no surprise since both Believe the Hype and Status Quo were unhappy with their respective placings.  We will have to wait and see exactly how it shakes out, but we will update you as soon as we hear more.

This also puts status quo on the hunt for the second straight event to fill that fourth spot.