Topic: Halo News and Discussion

Despite the officious and pompous sounding title, this is basically just a thread where I say a few random new things about Halo. And hopefully you read this and talk about it. 

Exhibit A: The Cole Protocol The upcoming Halo book, focusing on the three SPARTAN-II's of Gray Team, that were on a mission far away...somewhere. Anyways, there story, comes out this fall, yada yada.

Exhibit B: Halo Wars Trailer Self-explanatory. Its freaking amazing. Just watch it.

A few things, basically. No news on the Halo movie, and oh, Bungie released a new map for free. Called Cold Storage. Its pretty good--a remake of Halo CE's "Chill Out".

Great topic vod. I am a big Halo fan, too. I have read all the other Halo books and I'm looking forward to the 6th. Also, I am trying to beat Halo 3 on Legendary, but after 5 levels it wouldn't give me any gamerscore. And then my 360 got the red ring of death. So I called my friend, I was like "You should bring your 360 over," and he said "It got the red ring yesterday". Anyway, I'm not happy with Microsoft right now.

Ouch. That Sucks.  Yeah, I beat it on Legendary with my brother, and am working on the  last 30 Gamerscore. 3 more metagames!!!

Old topic. Anyways, figured I'd bring it back for a few updates.

Halo: The Cole Protocol is out. I'd wait to buy it in paperback, it was interesting, but not the best Halo novel yet.

Halo Wars has a confirmed release date of March 3, 2009. Several trailers have been release recently, including one called Field Trip To Harvest. Another Trailer, 5 Long Years

The Mythic Map Pack will be released along side the Halo Wars LE. Bungie released some new screenshots of  two maps, Orbital (awesome looking map, in my opinion) and Assembly. Check them out Here. Orbital is a human style, very modern, very military, very Bad*** looking map, and Assembly just happens to be a Scarab manufacturing plant. Check it out.

Halo 3: Recon has had a name change to Halo 3: ODST. Bungie explained the change was to better reflect the game experience. Trailer, still with "Recon" tag line, is available here. Watch in high quality.

Also, the game will be released Q3 2009, is disk-based, and has 1000GS.

About it for now.

not the red ring of death!

[Image removed because it is no longer hosted at icanhasforce DOT com. -- BFFC Admin]

I like Halo. I have not played Halo 3 yet though.

I want Halo 3 ODST.

Play Halo 3. Its a ton of fun. And ODST will rock, even without multiplayer.

yeah, im a fan of halo as well

anybody have a favorite armor type?

ODST, probably. More campaign style, but the MP helm is cool--my pretty much permanent helmet in MP. Though Mark IV and Mark VI are cool. Rogue is cool. Oh, and Security.

ODST ftw.

No new news about Halo games, I'll post updates that are Halo related....whenever.

i got halo 3 for christmas and i beat the story on legendary in one day.thank very much
but anyways hasn't news about halo wars been out for some time...........like  a LONG time

To be honest, I find that hard to believe. Unless you played all day long.

Yes, there has been news out for a while. I was simply posting newer trailers from the last update, ages ago, as well as a release date.

would have taken you at least 12 hours.

So we have to wait until March to get the Mythic Map Packs?  That's awhile considering how long they've had the Mythic related achievements up.

Probably. Apparently, Bungie has them done, and they've all been done, for a while, but Microsoft or someone VERY high up at Bungie, most likely Microsoft, is controlling their release.

I believe there will be a further addition of achievements around ODST's release, due to the fact that Recon is related to Vidmaster Achievements, and those are tied, in part, to the Mythic Maps. So, theoretically, you could get it sooner, unless more Achievements are added. I believe there will be more maps that will correspond with ODST's release.

And yeah, even with a person to play with, my Legendary run took a while, especially on  few parts--part of Crows Nest, Part of Tsavo Highway, a lot of Cortana, parts of Halo, Sierra 117, etc. It wasn't easy, even with my little brother.

I have. ;)  My favourites are ODST and Hayabusa. I haven't got them yet in Halo 3. :(

I completed the last level on Legendary today. :D * Cheers *

Ugh.  I hated Cortana.  The worst level in the entire game.  :P 

Anyone else here play grifball?  My hardcore Halo 3 player friend hates it but I think it's a blast.  Come on Catch the disease!  It's contagious!

I have, I just hate hammers (they're based on luck and connection), and much prefer swords. Takes more skill. So I prefer football--similar, but wider bomb plant, no advantage to bomb carrier, and swords only. A Foundry version, made using the newest Griffball map, as well as a gametype, is in my file share actually.

Contana was....annoying, but interesting. I'd like to play through on easy, to look around at everything. Its a well designed level, just a pain.

Not a update, but here's something for lover's of Halo's Campaign and Story: Ascendant Justice, a blog dedicated to a better understanding of all things Halo. He has done detailed walkthroughs and analysis's of each level of Halo through, with features like tie-ins to the previous games, previous levels, characters and more.

Check it out. You will always view Halo Differently.

A new weekly update is here, with a few new hints on ODST.

* The Recording light was turned on outside of the Ivory Tower today as the final dialog recording for ODST gets underway.
* The once-discussed Tchou-shader is being beaten into submission by Bertone, Justin and the same-named                    creator.
* Jay and the audio team cut up and mixed a mountain of audio over the break.
* Spaces with fake names finding resting places.
* Lars is scheming, designing, and implementing things to achieve.

The latter clearly refers to achievements being added. Apparently, a LOT of dialog has been added since their December mass play-through, where they said a lot of dialog was improved by staff members, mainly Joe Staten (Bungie writer, author of Contact Harvest, chief voice actor for grunts).

There is also a new podcast available on itunes, I haven't listened to the whole thing yet, but when I do I'll share anything important.

And Halo 3 and Halo 2 took most played titles played this year, for their respective consoles.

Here

i got halo 3 for christmas then i heard about halo 3 odst and i watch a trailer and now im all crazy over halo 3 odst

I saw the trailer too. It looks good.

Btw, I've got the full Hayabusa armor, all 13 skulls found. ;)

Nice. IWHBYD was the worst by far. Next, do the terminals. Watching them all gives some interesting info on the Forerunner/Flood war.

I'll try to complete all the levels on legendary. :)

Is Recon armor only for the Bungie Employees? :/

And anyone they give it to. Also, Once ODST comes out anyone will be able to unlock it by completing all the Vidmaster Challenges added then and with Title Update 2.

Update: Weekly Update 01/16/09

Questions about Mythic Maps answered, confirming that while the Mythic Maps (Assemble, Orbital, and the yet to be truly shown Sandbox) will come with the LE version of Halo Wars, they won't be released on the Marketplace immediately.

The Bungie net Render-to-video feature is currently in in-house beta testing.

Lars Bakken, ODST Designer, shares on Bungie's in-house playthrough of ODST, and is joined by Shiska with his own views.

A short about the M7s SMG, and changes that ODST will make to it.

Lastly, a short story about a Brute Pimp Chieftain

On that note, update complete.

There is no way I will buy the LE of Halo Wars just to get Mythic.  I'm not sure what else is on LE and but I'd rather wait for it to come out on Live.

Well, depending on what else is in it, your only spending $10 extra (its $80), because the maps will be that much anyways. You get them early, if that matters, and there may be extra stuff that would be worth it. I'll see if I can find out what all is in it.

EDIT: Found a list

The known items in the Halo Wars: Limited Edition are as followed:

    * Halo Wars game disc.
    * Halo Wars: Genesis, a graphic novel and prequel to the game, based on the first military campaign against the Covenant.
    * Halo 3: Mythic Map Pack, the upcoming new map pack; including Assembly, Orbital, and Sandbox.
    * 6 Leader cards, which show information on Captain James Cutter, Sergeant John Forge, and others.
    * UNSC Spirit of Fire embroidered ship emblem patch.
    * The Honor Guard Wraith, a special in-game item, used by the Honor Guard of the Covenant.
    * A special M12 Warthog LRV, painted in an eccentric manner and is available from a select number of retailers.

There's a few of them.

i hated halo 3, the game was too short, a crap ending, and there was just too much hype about it.
oh, and i finished it in four hours on normal difficulty

should of played it on heroic, would of made it last alot longer.

What was wrong with the ending?

Annoying that they won't continue it, I guess.

And even four hours I find hard to believe. Most of the levels take longer than 30 minutes. Certainly the Covenant does, and Tsavo Highway was long too.

I beat it on Normal at first, took me longer than that. Then beat it in two person Co-op with my little brother a while later.

There was a lot of hype, but I felt it fairly well lived up to it. Lots of features, and multiplayer is still fun.

Weekly Update 1/30

New update here, and now with a picture of the mysterious and previously unseen Mythic Map, Sandbox. Follow the link for more news--still sounds like it will be customizable.

Recent updates reveal that Elites will not be enemies in ODST, but have been replaced by Brutes. Don't worry, the reasons are flawless.

Also. scroll down past the update for previous weeks.

Halo Wars demo is out for Gold subscribers only.  My brother played it and said it was fun.  I still have yet to play it.  He said it was really good.

It is fun, but a bit short. The two campaign encounters are over in half an hour. Skirmish mode is only 1v1, and on one map, so is limited. But yeah, its fun. Advice--unless your good at RTS's , or just HaloWars, don't play skirmish on Heroic. I did, and tried to attack early.......got RAPED.

Sandbox Toolkit

This is for hardcore forgers--that is, Regimas.

Everything in Sandbox.

THAT IS AWESOME! I'm going to need to buy that as soon as it comes out.

I just got GamePro and found out the Flood will be in Halo Wars. It looks pretty good, they've even made a new Flood form for te game.

That'll be cool.

Apparently, one of the devs joked Forunners would be available in MP, a while back, and could build a Halo and fire it. Everyone believed it too.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=17358

Weekly Update is here, and one of the best I've read yet. Turns out, Foundry is EVEN MORE AWESOME than we were lead to believe with the IGN interview. I'm being Crypt-ic, but read it yourself.

Sorry, I couldn't resist that little joke. Read it and you'll get it.

Hey Werda, I'm not a gold subscriber, so I haven't played Wars yet, but what kind of gameplay is it? Is it still FPS, or something different?

Completely different.  It's an RTS game.  Real time strategy.  If you've played Command and Conquer or Starcraft kind of thing it's similar to that.

Go Starcraft!  Sorry.  I'm kinda hopping back a while, to the Halo 3 short gameplay thing; I played it on Legendary Co-op, and it took me over a week to finish the game.  Also, I love the armour customization capabilities tha Halo 3 has.  And is anyone else here looking forwad to ODST?  Looks so cool.

Cinimatics usualy do.

Yup, can't wait. And yeah, the trailer was good, but this is Bungie--if they make a game, it'll be solid. And the opportunity to play as an ODST will be amazing.

No kidding.  Besides; there're enough games out there where you play as some sort of super-soldier, or genetic experiment which gives you immense power.  I for one am glad about the shift towards playing just a relatively ordinary (in comparison) soldier.  (ODST's are hardcore, yes, but they're a LOT closer to standard soldiers than SPARTAN's)

Yeah, Bungie said you have to think before a battle to win, unlike the other Halo games where you just charge in. You also get a new gun, the silenced SMG. You also get free-roam in the game, and you won't meet the Chief in this game at all.

Yeah, even on Heroic, I've found most levels really require no thought. Intelligence, yes, but I took out most of hammer wielding chieftan on Heroic with a couple of plasma pistols. Except for Cortana, most of the game, on Heroic, isn't too tough. Long, but not nearly impossible.

And yeah, ODST's are incredible soldiers, but have a whole lot less of the advantages Spartans have. They're slower, can't jump as high, have no motion tracker, no shields, no dual-wielding, probably do less melee damage. It'll be a HUGE shift in how the game is played. No rushing and punching, which is my broad strategy in Halo 3.

And new Maps look AWESOME. I can't wait for them, and for the next ones with ODST, Longshore, Heretic, and the other I don't remember.

Picked up the Limited Edition today. Its VERY nice.

Haven't had a chance to play it or the Maps yet, but I want to do both today.

Rawr.  Bungie needs to put Mythic on Live.  They will get huge hits I bet if they do.  Because I am not buying the the game for that.  I may only rent it.

It will, probably whenever Microsoft lets them put it on.

Assembly is pretty cool, my first game was SWAT and I got an 11 kill streak. Orbital got SWAT too, but I was lagging and the game kinda played slowly, even with 4 people. Beautiful, but we'll see how it goes when I play it more.

Sandbox itself I didn't get to play on, just Tundra, in the Crypt. It was SWAT, and I did terrible. The bases are really deep, and rather confusing. I'm sure it'll get less confusing quickly. I can't wait to play more.

Halo Wars itself I haven't played online at all, and only the demo's length of campaign. Fun so far.