Halo 3: Improvement Techniques 6.)Game Attitudes and Weapon Tips

We're going to pretend this is Saturday so I don't have to write a whole new blog. I'm going to give you some extra tips about how to use you non-scoped projectile weapons. But first we're also going to talk about one of the most important aspects of being competitive when playing this game. Recognizing this is just a game.

Your attitude when you play this game affects you tremendously. It is just a game, so always keep that in mind. Does this mean you shouldn't take it seriously or try as hard? No. It does mean do not get frustrated. I get frustrated sometimes when playing this game. Everyone does. But I don't dwell on whatever frustrates me. I try to fix the problem calmly.

When you get frustrated you will undoubtedly tense up. This will affect your aim. You will get tunnel vision (not good) and miss important things on screen. This will inevitably lead to a downward spiral of you getting worse as you continue playing. Forget about it! Focus on each game as they come. Forget about that bad game, or series of games. If you continue to play horribly, stop playing. Grab a drink and a snack. Then, when you have recovered, go into the theater and watch your gameplay. Then, watch the gameplay of the other team to see what they were doing that frustrated you. Learn from them and try doing what they did to you to others. If it ticked you off, it will undoubted tick off an opponent of the same skill level. Then, think about ways to counter what was done to you.

Just take a breath and relax.

Since this is such a short blog, I'll give you some advice about pulsing weapons. Weapons that have bullets all have recoil, and that recoil affects your aim, and the percentage of bullets that hit your target. You'll notice with your assault rifle if you just hold down the trigger while standing still and not touching any other part of the controller, the gun will start to rise and eventually find itself off of your target. If you go to a wall and stand about the distance of two mongooses lengthwise away and start shooting, you'll notice your shot grouping is large. This is not good. You're probably thinking, "But I can adjust my aim with no problem to stop the gun from leaving my target." You know, you could, but you will never be perfectly aimed if you do this. You'll also be wasting quite a lot of ammo because many of your bullets won't even be hitting your target. So how do you fix these problems?

You pulse the trigger of your weapon. Pulsing is just pulling and releasing the trigger in a fast, reliable manner to stop the gun's recoil motion from leaving your target and also limiting the spread of your ammunition. There is an easy test to prove this to you. Set up a custom game with one other person and stand two mongooses apart from each other. Take turns killing each other while standing completely still and holding down on the triggers without pulsing. You'll notice it takes an entire clip to kill your friend. Now start pulsing while aiming for the head. Notice how it only takes half of a clip to kill him now? You also don't have to fight the natural reaction of the gun to move upwards. This makes your weapon more accurate last longer.

This method works with every automatic weapons, even turrets. the only thing that will be different is the range of the different weapons.

Your assignment tonight is to work on your pulsing. no more, no less. Do it so much it becomes second nature for you to do it. Also, keep in mind, Halo 3 is, after all is said and done, just a game.

Sunday's blog will be an ode to Overswarm and his player classifications, and will be the first step into the intermediate tutorials.