Halo: Reach

[Suit and Tie]

Claw huh? I had to google that to find out what it means lol.

So using your index finger to jump/melee (Recon) so you can aim at the same time? I don't have access to a 360 remote ( work atm) but it seems like it would be weird. I wish we could just customize the button layout to our liking.

I would rather have ability / jump as my top bumpers.

I do it with Bumper Jumper, claw the X button for when you need to Jet Pack and the B button for reloading and running flag.

[Qalbert]

[BadKarma]

^lmfao

[-Zer0-]

Lol

[Qalbert]

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets...nner-9-cvr.jpg
is it weird I am excited?

According to Frank O'Connor, who's the Halo franchise development director (and basically the Halo storybook keeper) at 343 and Microsoft, the cover aims to "capture the essence and scope of the book and more importantly, the Forerunner universe. There are some hints at the nature of the story in that image, and it's essentially a scene from the universe presented in the game." The art is supposed to convey "the sense of wonder that all our main protagonists feel at the scale and scope of Forerunner technology."

You'll notice two figures standing on a sort of platform: One of them is someone you'll meet in the first few pages of the book.

And the fact that the cover looks more like a classic hard science fiction novel than a Halo tie-in is no accident, says O'Connor. Halo: Cryptum is intended to be "a hard sci-fi novel with a hint of space opera, very much in the mold of Banks, Reynolds and of course, Bear himself. We told him at the very first meeting, this should be a classic Greg Bear giant – in the vein of Eon, Anvil of the Stars and so on, but inspired by the mysteries presented in the Halo games and extended universe."

Adds O'Connor:

We expect Halo fans who have never read any hard sci-fi might be converted, and we expect hard sci-fi fans who've never been exposed to Halo, to become at least curious and hopefully enjoy the book as much as we did.
He adds that the Microsoft and 343 folks didn't "force a template" onto Bear, and this is very much Greg Bear's own book. Although they did have "numerous rich discussions about the Forerunner legacy, our ideas for the state of humanity and the galaxy in the distant past, the threat of the Flood, the Halo array and so on."

[-Zer0-]

New ranks and armor released today. No more level cap. Time to go on a shopping spree.

[Qalbert]

ohshi-
and new armor, or access to previously locked armor?

[-Zer0-]

Access to previously locked armor. Basically anything here. No mention of new armor for the higher ranks, Elite armor, or bringing back old Halo 3 armor unfortunately .

[Qalbert]

bollocks

[-Zer0-]

Noble Map Pack is out. My friend's got it, but I have this weird glitch where the required balance for it is 4,294,967,295 Microsoft Points.

[Maurauc]

Noble Map Pack is out. My friend's got it, but I have this weird glitch where the required balance for it is 4,294,967,295 Microsoft Points.

I'm not finding it on the (UK) Marketplace, so maybe it's been taken down until the price has been fixed?

[-Zer0-]

Possibly, I went to sleep after restarting my console a few times to see if it fixed the problem after hearing that it did for some others. Downloaded it without any errors just now.

[Solidmoose]

Maps are pretty decent, Tempest has some Spawning Issues, and while i haven't gotten to play actual Invasion on Breakpoint yet, its pretty sweet. Anchor 9 is the winner of the group for sure though. Plays alot like The Pit from H3 which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[-Zer0-]

I thought I'd like Tempest the most, but Breakpoint definitely takes the cake. The maps are really beautiful. Slayer Pro is awesome on Anchor 9

[Suit and Tie]

Plays alot like The Pit from H3 which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

That is most definitely a bad thing. Being the best map on the disc in H3 is not saying much.

[Jakson]

I played a bit this morning. I kept on getting load failures and would occasionally restart the search for other players. Also got D/C'd from a game after searching for a new host for like 4 minutes and instantly reminded me of botters in H2 that would blue screen you the entire game and you'd lose 50-0.

[Solidmoose]

That is most definitely a bad thing. Being the best map on the disc in H3 is not saying much.

true i guess lol, H3s Maps were pretty terrible, but it couple have been alot worse, could have been a spiritual successor to Isolation, or Epitaph *shudder*

[Pikarya]

Not really sure what happened.

[AlexRuzhyo]

Been having a bad streak with teams on the DLC playlist. They are very shitty or we lose a couple of people. This is problematic on Breakpoint due to the vehicles (Banshees). Jet-packs snipers/rocketeers do not help, either. It's big but not too big. Reminds me too much of Asylum/Temple and I honestly cannot stand that map anymore. I don't know exactly which side the heavy weapons spawn on. I know the lit side has a Laser and the other a RL, but I swear I've seen one with a Plasma Launcher. Meh.

Tempest... I don't know how I feel about it. I'm always getting outflanked or spawned on, I don't know which. Dual Rockets/Snipers can be a pain but are manageable. I think there's a shotgun somewhere on the map but I can't say for sure.

Anchor 9 I enjoyed pretty well. I've had the least issues with survivability out of the DLC. Not really anything to complain about.

------------------------------------

Unrelated to DLC, I fucking hate grenades. I hate them. Heaven forbid you have use a gun. Shooting Gallery, or, the first wave of Invasion can be rough. I think defenders shouldn't be given two grenades with their proximity to the objective.

Elite Slayer is horrible. While I've no issues with armor lock itself that's all people use in that mode. Stick someone and armor lock. While on most maps the Evade/NeedleRifle combo is best there are those the stickyfuckers absolutely piss me off on.

I don't know why the Plasma Repeater exists.

Firefight versus is kind of cool but feels way too lame most of the time. The enemies barely come at you and you can easily bleed elite kills by leaving the last enemy alive.

Last on my small rant spree is forge maps. They can be abused on certain game types and abused hard. Living Dead has The Cage's main building roof as well as Asylum/Cliffhanger's rock climbing. Asylum has the roofs where you can Jet-pack up to with a sniper. Unrelated but Blood Gulch isn't as fun as it used to be.

[Solidmoose]

MLG Playlist goes live tomorrow. for anyone who cares.