Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Glad this thread got made, I'm so pumped for this game. I haven't heard a single thing yet that concerns me, though I will miss Martin O'Donnell as composer.

One thing I'm wondering about, and I hope they make some sort of announcement soon, is whether you can set different armor suits for different loadouts. Like, can I pick for example a big, Grenadier-type armor with a female Spartan for my character with the Gunner support ability and AR and a sleeker, Operator-type armor on a male Spartan for the character with Awareness and a BR? Probably not, because you'd need a default one for the playlists that don't use loadouts, but as a big dumb dork who likes playing dress-up with his cyborg supersoldiers it would be pretty cool to me if you could do that.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Funkmaster General posted:

I imagine your armor settings are completely independent of your loadout, but as long as the armory stuff is as streamlined as it is in Reach, or more, and assuming time between matches remains pretty consistent, it shouldn't be a problem to switch your armor around when you feel like playing a different "class."

I doubt you'll be able to change armor mid-game, of course, but that could cause issues for other reasons.

Yeah, I'll bet you're right, I was more thinking out loud than anything else. As long as there are plenty of armor options I'll be happy.

quote:

Anyone else annoyed at the proximity between this and BLOPS 2? I know there isn't a lot of crossover between fandoms here, but BLOPS 2 looks like just enough of a thematic departure that I'm interested in jumping in to see what it's all about, but drat if I'm going to stop playing Halo for it, and gently caress joining in after a month when everyone has everything unlocked and knows all the overpowered builds. Guess I'm gonna have to juggle games, which is never easy to do for me.

I feel like this too, considering I've got them both preordered. I think they're different enough that it won't be too big a challenge. BLOPS 2 is a more realistic game (relatively speaking) so if I finish class and feel like the kind of combat where you get up in one person's face and have a one-on-one fight with them personally, where each individual showdown is a test of skill and forethought, I'll play Halo. If I want a fast-paced, bullets-flying-everywhere, hit him first or you're dead sort of experience, I can play Black Ops 2. Hopefully, anyway. I know there's a good chance I'll be staring wistfully at the two games struggling to decide.

Although BLOPS has Nuketown 2025 since I preordered it, that's going to be a huge argument in its favor.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Coq au Nandos posted:

So, do we have a confirmed list of vehicles? I mostly care about ruining people with the Banshee.

Here's what Halo Nation has to say:
http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Halo_4#Vehicles

So Banshees (or Type-26 Ground Support Aircraft as the sperglords at Halo Nation call it) are in. There haven't been any videos of players controlling one, but you can see them in the campaign demo from the latest E3 so I can't imagine they wouldn't let you fly them.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

TheGreatGildersneeze posted:

That's why humans nicknamed them "Banshees." Hell, the Mongoose's real name is "M274 Ultra-Light All Terrain Vehicle."

This can all be summed up by a conversation in Red vs. Blue.

Sarge: "Gentlemen! I present to you: The M12 LRV! ...I like to call it 'the Warthog!'"

Simmons: "Why a Warthog, sir?"

Sarge: "Because 'M12 LRV' is too hard to say in conversation, son."

Yeah, we do the same stuff in real-life militaries, too. You can call it the M1A1 Main Battle Tank or you can call it the Abrams. It is annoying that Halo Nation specifically goes out of their way to call it the long, pain-in-the-rear end name, though. I don't understand why they can't just loving say "Banshee."

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Maneki Neko posted:

Did that include glasslands? If so, I'm sorry. Karen Traviss is horrible.

I thought Glasslands was pretty good. The chapters from the Elite's point of view were insanely boring, and the parts where Traviss screeches directly at you about how bad a person Halsey is got real old, real fast, but the remaining 50% or so of the book was good.

Then again, I liked all the Halo novels except Evolutions (Frank O'Connor's short story was pretty good though), so maybe I've just got poo poo taste. v:v:v

TheGreatGildersneeze posted:

They only really do that for the title of the page and the list of official names. If you go to the Banshee page, it's called the long name at the top and "Banshee" for the rest of the article. It's Halopedia; they're supposed to be the place where you get ultra-aspie level garbage that no one actually cares about.

Yeah, that's true and I don't really mind it for titles of pages, it just gets annoying looking at the confirmed vehicle/weapon list and having to open up a ton of tabs to figure out what the gently caress an M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle or Type-33 Light Anti-Armor Weapon is.

Although "Asymmetric Engagement Mitigator" is a much more badass name than "Scattershot." :black101:

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Sep 4, 2012

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010


I'm pretty interested to see what these "large scale battles" we're apparently going to be taking a look at soon are. I almost gave up on the series when ODST didn't have any--between the fact that I was satisfied with the conclusion of 3 and the fact that I was expecting ODST to be like some Heinlein's Starship Troopers poo poo where you get launched like a bullet out of a spaceship right into the middle of a raging battlefield but instead got a lot of wandering around a mostly empty city punctuated by battles identical to the other games except your character was slightly (only slightly) weaker, that game almost killed my interest in Halo, to the point that I didn't even buy Reach until earlier this summer when I started getting pumped for 4.

Anyway, what I'm saying is, a few more guys at your back fighting alongside you, with a few more enemies to make up for the imbalance, could be really awesome. I'm interested to see how that turns out.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Napolean Bonerfarts posted:

New Halo Bulletin is up. It's about the Covey weapons: http://blogs.halo.xbox.com/Headlines/post/2012/09/19/The-Halo-Bulletin-91912-.aspx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4NLJpTXOtU

No more Focus Rifle! I loved that thing. The Beam Rifle is back. Plus, I'm glad to see the Concussion Rifle return!

That sword assassination animation was badass, holy poo poo. :black101:

Honestly, the thing I got most from this video was that the new Spartan designs look pretty good in motion. Just looking at the artwork and such released of the new armor I wasn't totally sold on them and thought a lot of them looked downright bad, but seeing them in-game and in action they all looked pretty good to me.

edit: the redesigned guns look really cool, too. The carbine is especially good-looking this time around.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

It is a rogue faction of the Covenant military in the campaign, right? I guess they could just have a line somewhere saying that they raided a Covenant armory before splitting off to do their own thing, including a bunch of gravity hammers.

Just not having them in campaign works, too.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

BabyMauler posted:

Oh hey, I found it. They really changed up the Jackals. Tiny dinosaur looking dudes now. War Games looks tits. Spartan Ops looks great as well.

Here is a link to that thread. Hope it works.

http://goo.gl/BCXCW

Dominion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aoJMAMR038

Dominion mode looks like a lot of fun. I don't know that it'll replace regular old Team Slayer for me, but I can see myself playing that a lot.

The Armory walkthrough's pretty neat, too. That's a lot of helmets to choose from, considering how much room was left on the scrollbar when they stopped showing them. I think either Recruit or Warrior was my favorite of what they showed.

Also, it sounds like killcams are only going to be on Dominion mode:
"Dominion gameplay -New Objective mode with dynamic territories and kill cams." Not that I think it would be a big deal if it was across all game modes, but this line makes it sound like it's just Dominion.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Iacen posted:

Could anyone post pictures? I tried looking at that thread gave up finding anything in that mess.

They're vicious-looking little fuckers now:

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

TheGreatGildersneeze posted:

I'm not disagreeing with you at all; just pointing out the problem with an overly diverse sandbox. Still, if the Prometheans only used the bog-standard Halo arsenal they'd lose a lot of the "scary new enemy with scary new tech" thing. Kind of a bitch of a position for 343. The new monsters need new guns or they'd just feel like Covenant re-skins, but they don't want to make the new guns stupid over/underpowered gimmicks. The unfortunate solution is to make them high tech-looking versions of the same ol' poo poo which leads to the guns feeling like re-skins (with bonus new visual effects).

"I don't get it, it's just another shotgun."

"Yeah, a shotgun so powerful it DISINTEGRATES YOU!"

"This is the coolest new gun ever!"

To be fair, the Promethean shotgun does have the ricochet effect. I wouldn't be surprised if each of the Promo weapons had some feature like that, maybe with reduced firepower or something compared to the human/Covenant weapons to balance the extra functionality.

And, like MickRaider said, just change up the rate of fire, damage, and accuracy a bit and you end up with an entirely different gun anyway.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Funkmaster General posted:

Here's the official Valhala remake trailer. It's actually more of a trailer for the Mantis mech.

You can teabag people in it.

In a mech.

You can teabag with a mech.

This almost makes up for all the trailers being full of dubstep. Almost.

I wasn't totally sold on the idea of having a mech in the game, until I saw it loving stomping a Warthog and a Ghost into the ground! :black101:

It does look OP as poo poo, though, I wonder what the balance is (besides each team apparently getting one). Maybe it moves too slowly to avoid rockets/grenades or something. Of course, they aren't exactly showing the other side fighting back too hard in the promo video so maybe it's fairly fragile, but it still took out all those vehicles and dudes really quickly.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Funkmaster General posted:

I don't know if this was really well-known before or not, but the final map count for War Games is 10 (not counting the three forge maps or the promised future DLC).

So, we've got:
Adrift
Haven
Longbow
Exile
Solace
Complex
Ragnorak
Abandon

That leaves two more unannounced multiplayer maps. We've also only seen two of the three forge maps (the large outdoor one called Ravine and the indoor one used for Grifball).

Notably, we haven't seen ANY covenant-themed maps yet.

Okay, I'm going to ignore the maps themselves for a second and comment on the first 20 seconds of that video: that Blue Team dude using his thrusters to blast past the Red Team guying trying to ambush him, and then meleeing the Red in the back, was slick as hell, goddamn. Game's gonna own.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

NuckmasterJ posted:

[nerd]
If I was in charge I would probably green light a program like this myself. It was the tip of a inter galactic human conflict with multiple factions all getting uppity. I'm sure if the Alliance in Firefly had the option they would of taken it, instead of having a civil war with the brown coats in which hundreds of thousands die.

Kidnap 75 kids, 33 survive to be demi gods that could save millions of lives by surgically eliminating opposition. Spartan III's were mostly angry expendable orphan children from the colonies so no evil flash clone fun to be had there. The Spartan IV program is adult volunteers.

Hell I would green light that poo poo right now if we had the technology in order to curb stomp world wide militant religious groups, but that's just me. (Saying that has a dad)
[/nerd]

Anyways, gently caress yea Halo 4, picking it up on day 1. I'm brushing up on my H:Reach so I don't get stomped to hard next month.

I don't know that I'd go quite that far, but didn't they say at some point, either in one of the books or the trailers for Forward Unto Dawn (I haven't actually watched the first episode) that there's such a precarious balance between Earth and the colonies, where both sides need each other's resources to survive, that any disruption of the order would be disastrous for all mankind, so they needed drastic action to prevent that, or something along those lines? I mean, I may not like the idea of all that stuff, but if the alternative is "without the massive interconnected economy everybody in the galaxy starves," well...

Of course, I may just be thinking of Leviathan Wakes, which had the same explanation for why the outer colonies rebelling would be so disastrous. :v: I seem to remember a similar explanation in Halo, though.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Yeah, I've always liked the campaigns. The first one especially, but they're all pretty good. I definitely spend more time in multiplayer, but I'll be buying this game for the new story direction just as much as for the MP.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Kobayashi posted:

Is the first season going to be available indefinitely after the 10 weeks, or will it expire? I ask because I doubt I'll be able to play through everything each week.

They've said that you won't have to play them as they come out, you can come back after a couple weeks and play any that you've missed. They haven't confirmed or denied anything about what will happen after the season is over, but if you can play them at any time during the season, I'd imagine you can play them afterwards, too. Again, they haven't said anything about it, so don't take my word on it, but I'd be willing to bet you can.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

DrunkYardGnome posted:

Can someone explain how weapon placement works? In the OP it says that power weapons come in drop pods. I guess that means that their spawn location is random?

I feel like a Flood scarab would be the worst thing ever.

The drop pods are only in Infinity Slayer, a new game type distinct from Slayer and Team Slayer. In that mode it's also basically a kill streak reward, although you get points for flag captures, etc, instead of just kills. I'm pretty sure weapon placement works the same as always in other game modes.

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Oct 16, 2012

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Shnakepup posted:

Yeah, the differences in characterization are a little distressing. Not just with Halsey but even people like Mendez or that really old general lady. But yeah, story-wise and with the original characters she introduced, it's not all that bad.

Yeah, her insane rage against Halsey and its associated weirdness (like Mendez turning against her even though he happily tazed and beat the children on their first morning in the UNSC in Fall of Reach) was terrible and Jul's chapters were insanely boring (although apparently he's going to be leading the rogue faction of the Covenant in Halo 4 according to a video 343 posted the other day so I'm kind of interested to see how he goes from getting his rear end kicked and thrown in the brig like an idiot bitch to leading a fleet of renegade aliens) but other than that I really enjoyed Glasslands.

One thing that bothered me, though, was when Lucy spoke again despite Nylund saying that she never did in Ghosts of Onyx. Like, I don't remember the exact words but I do remember when Lucy spoke her last words after that battle Nylund said something along the lines of "and she never spoke again for as long as she lived" but apparently Traviss decided to undo that. Other than that, though, I really liked the book. I need to pick up the sequel, see if maybe 343 or whoever told her "hey knock it off with your weird vendetta against a fictional character."

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Shnakepup posted:

Apparently Glasslands is the beginning of a trilogy by Traviss, so she'll probably explain more stuff in the other books.


Hmm. I don't recall Nylund specifically saying she never speaks ever again...then again, maybe I'm just misremembering or maybe I missed that part. Seeing her speak again didn't strike me as contradictory or anything. Then again, I just got to that part so I don't know how it plays out in the rest of the story.

I just looked it up on my Kindle and the exact words, on the last page of the prologue, are:

"Lucy's words asking if they were alive would be her last. 'Posttraumatic vocal disarticulation,' the experts would eventually declare. And although recertified for duty, she would remain silent--either unable, or unwilling, to speak the rest of her life."

It's not a huge deal, I'm a little disappointed because I thought it was a pretty interesting facet of her character (although it looks like things won't change too much since she still barely can) but not too bad, it's just one of those weird little characterization things she changed for no real reason.

Like I said, I still liked the book overall, I just had a lot of little nitpicks like this about it.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Zaphod42 posted:

I would really like to see more things like this, like a multiplayer firefight mode where everybody started as ODST, and then whoever did the best on the last round would be a Spartan on the next round and would be much stronger than everybody else, leading the charge... That'd be sweet.

I've also always wanted a mode where I can play as a grunt.

Maybe have a mode where different covenant are the different loadouts, and you have to choose one to spawn as like a class?

Ever since the first game I've always dreamed of a spin-off where you play as either a Marine or ODST, and it's all tactical like Ghost Recon or Brothers in Arms: Halo Style. Maybe some kind of squad command system like in Rainbow Six so you can use teamwork to make up for your lack of shields and health compared to Elites, Brutes, etc. Or maybe not and you have to get by with just your own firepower and cleverness, and those of any CoD-campaign-style nameless grunts nearby. I was so convinced ODST was going to be that game, but then it came out and you just played as a very slightly weaker Spartan. :(

I think you're right, though, that would work much better as a game mode rather than a full spinoff. Maybe in Halo 5?

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

I'm going to miss the fully-upgraded Grenadier helmet. :( There's still a lot of cool ones on there, though. Scanner, CIO, and Scout are my favorites, I think, and Warrior's pretty cool, too.

Venator looks like one of Isaac's RIGs from Dead Space and I can't decide if that's a bad thing or a loving awesome thing.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Donald Kimball posted:

What is a 'fotus,' and/or what does 'fotus' even mean? It is an ugly rear end helmet.

According to the Halo Nation wiki:

quote:

"FOTUS" is the acronym of "Fist Of The UnicornS", named for a squad of crewman on the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, back in 2552.
Now I just have more questions.

edit: apparently it's a reference to a poster on the bulletin board in the Pillar of Autumn level of Halo: CE/Anniversary advertising a band:

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

NuckmasterJ posted:

I love the sound of the new DMR. Sounds super beastly.

*Edit

Most of the weapon sounds have been made better imo. Everything sounds more manly.

No kidding, the sound design in this game is phenomenal from what I've heard so far. I think my favorite is the turret the guy was firing at around 2:50, that thing sounded powerful.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Dan Didio posted:

Really? Steve Downes was that busy?

Steve Downes does do the voice of the Chief, at least according to IMDB.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2262308/
They credit a Daniel Cudmore for the physical role and Downes for the Chief. I thought it sounded like he was doing the voice a bit differently than usual, but could still recognize it as him.

That was a really good episode, too. I had this huge poo poo-eating grin on my face every time Master Chief did basically anything. :haw: The chaotic nature of the fight was really well represented, too, and the special effects a lot better than I thought they'd be. I'm on the edge of my seat for next week, and the Tuesday after that can't come fast enough.

Also, when looking up the voice actor on IMDB, I saw that they credit someone as playing Kelly, and not just providing a voice. I hope this means we get to see two Spartans tearing poo poo up next week.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

BabyMauler posted:

We should get a meta tag going soonish.

Just started watching FuD, some nice little touches with some Reach Spartan concept art on the walls around the academy. Are the kids UNSC Army or Marines?

I think they're Marines. It's never explicitly stated, but they do cryo training, which the Army wouldn't have any need to do, and according to Halo Nation, General Black and the Colonel are both Marines.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:

Any news yet for the length of the campaign?

I skimmed the thread but didn't see anything, apologies if this has been asked before.

They haven't said anything specific, but they have said that it will be longer than previous titles. Whether this means "an hour or two longer" or "twice as long" or whatever is up in the air.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Halo: Dance Central :hellyeah: Like this, but Halo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_xJqkzngBI
Complete with cheesy pop music with the lyrics replaced to be about Halo.

Or, to be more serious:

BabyMauler posted:

I just want another ODST player character game. Or hell ODST 2, Staring you as the Not So Rookie. It will be a kinect game.

This would be cool, too. Preferably one that actually reflects the fact that you're an ODST and not a shorter Spartan. And with a combat drop, like in the trailer for ODST or the third episode of FUD, where you just ride your coffin straight to the ground, the door blows off and you step out, guns blazing, into a pitched battle.

Another cool setting for a spinoff would be one where you play as an ONI agent in the setting Traviss's books are exploring now, where you're trying to destabilize Sangheilios as much as possible in the years after the Covenant War. I could see it playing sort of like Mass Effect or Alpha Protocol.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

So there's a pretty neat Interactive Halo 4 guide up on Waypoint now:
http://www.halowaypoint.com/en-US/halo4guide

I haven't been through the whole thing yet, but there's some new info about enemies, storyline, the multiplayer mode, etc. And it reveals the greatest new addition to the series: Grunts in EVA suits.

:neckbeard:

I'm a little disappointed that apparently Crawlers, Watchers, and Knights evidently are the only Promethean enemies we'll see, unless this isn't a total catalog of all the enemies in-game. There are apparently different classes of each of the three that are distinguished from each other--and not just in the usual "different color and stronger" sort of way--so maybe that won't be too bad, though.

edit: yeah, each variation of the three Promo enemy classes seems pretty significantly different, so I guess I'm worried over nothing.

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Oct 30, 2012

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Neddy Seagoon posted:

They could end up doing something like Vanquish where there's only a few enemies, but each has an array of differently-behaving versions (Romanov-D's :argh:).

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say with the different classes. For example, there are three Crawler forms, the standard Boltshot-wielding one, a sniper version, and a more aggressive one with a Suppressor. Combined with the fact that there seem to be even more Covenant classes, I think we'll be okay with enemy variety and I was freaking out prematurely. :)

Also, apparently every Covie species has an EVA-wearing Ranger version, with a line in the description talking about how they're mainly used in "infantry-based EVA assaults." If this means that we're going to get into shootouts with Covies in the loving vacuum of space I swear I will implode into a black hole of excitement and glee. I cannot loving wait until next Tuesday.

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Oct 30, 2012

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Neddy Seagoon posted:

I think that thruster pack (thank you WGS for linking that guide, I wasn't aware it existed) might also indicate some EVA fun, but it could just be for quick dashing boosts.

That's because it didn't until about ten minutes before I posted it. :) drat, did it get me even more excited for this game, though.

Also, to people worried about particular gamemodes, it only listed the major ones, not the variants, so Grifball could still be in the game as an Assault variant, etc. I'm hoping this means Crazy King is still in, that was my favorite Halo: Reach game mode but I haven't heard anything about whether or not it's in H4.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

TheGreatGildersneeze posted:

That'd be great if Assault was still a gametype.

Oh, yeah :downs: Well, maybe it uses the Oddball or something instead this time around, I was just kind of making up an example.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

InfinEight posted:

Yeah, everything is interchangeable, forearms, shoulders, shins, chest, etc, very much like Reach. The Deadeye one looks pretty cool but overall the new style will have to just grow on me I think.

They look a lot better in motion, I think. Personally I think they all look pretty good in those HD screenshots with maybe one or two exceptions, but I remember going from "wow all of these designs are really bad" to "oh, that's actually pretty cool-looking" by paying extra attention to the player models when watching gameplay videos.

Except Soldier, which I still think has a really dumb-looking helmet.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Zaphod42 posted:

O_O

Oh man, I was hoping for some space action, EVA suit covenant seems awesome!

Whoa, the Lich!

I'm also a little sad there's only the 3 types of promethan, but the many varieties seem pretty good and pretty different. I like all the varieties between the covenant types too, lots of different elites.

So, does this mean no brutes or drones?! :3:


Hell to the yes. If 4 really has no flood and no brutes, it may be my favorite Halo ever.

Oh my god. I just realized drones are out, hopefully. This really will be the best Halo game :woop:

Also, I finally realized what seemed a little off to me about the armor sets: Is anyone else reminded of Mass Effect? A lot of the armor suits look like something I could see one of the mercenary organizations from ME2 wearing. I still think they look good (though the more traditional Halo-looking ones are my favorites) but I'm seeing a pretty strong...similarity, if not inspiration, to the Blue Suns, etc. from ME2.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

AngryBooch posted:

How big is the Infiinity exactly? Was it ramming a covenant super carrier without even thinking in that trailer?

I don't know what kind of Covenant ship that was, but I'm reading Traviss's The Thursday War and it's repeatedly described as absolutely enormous. The UNSC doesn't even have a dock big enough to accommodate it. Even Elites poo poo themselves when they see it. That probably makes it the biggest ship in the galaxy.

Fake edit: Halo Nation says that it's "5.694.1 kilometres (3.54 mi)" in length, making it almost a full mile longer than a supercarrier. I hope it gets at least one scene, even just in Spartan Ops or whatever, of that ship loving things up. :black101:

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Marvin_Gardens posted:

Maybe 343 is planning to set up the story that links Halo to Marathon??

ahaha not likely

I don't think they could, the Marathon IP is still owned by Bungie. When 343 did Halo Anniversary, they had to remove the Marathon symbol that was in Guilty Spark's "eye," since they no longer had the rights to that.

Neddy Seagoon posted:

If you haven't yet, go watch the Spartan Ops: Season One trailer.

Oh, yeah, I saw that, I just mean I hope it's not a one-off thing. I want to see it gently caress up an entire enemy assault with the splash damage from one of its massive MAC cannons, like in The Thursday War. :black101:

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

"Forward Unto Dawn" would have been a better name for the big new exploration ship designed to usher in a new era of prosperity for the first generation of mankind to know peace than the unremarkable ship that got cut in half and set adrift, I always thought.

Punished Chuck fucked around with this message at 22:52 on Oct 31, 2012

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Man, these reviews are getting me even more pumped. I'm like a tightly-wound ball of excitement. The Penny-Arcade one especially:
http://penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/halo-4-this-isnt-bungies-halo-anymore-its-better
It's a two-parter, with this part focusing on campaign (fairly spoiler-free, unless you don't want to know absolutely anything about the campaign ahead of time...but it won't give away plot twists or anything), and the woman writing it came to the conclusion that the campaign is better than anything Bungie's done. And from reading the review, I'm pretty sure it's genuine, too. She seemed really impressed with basically everything about the campaign.

I am a little concerned that she said the story may not make sense to people who haven't read the extended universe, though. I've read Traviss's Kilo-5 novels and I think I know enough about who the Didact is even without having read Bear's novels, but I hope I'm not lost at any part of it. :ohdear:

Also, a little late to the Gametrailers discussion, but I haven't been able to trust them since their review of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, where they complained that enemies can see you too easily and if they see you it's sometimes an immediate game over and you have no way of telling why you were spotted!! :supaburn: Complete with a video of someone playing it, walking out from behind cover and immediately getting a MISSION FAILED: YOU HAVE BEEN DETECTED. The thing is, enemies never immediately detect you, it takes them several seconds to ID you, and when they're doing that you get a big-rear end indicator on-screen showing where exactly the enemy ID'ing you is so you can dash to cover before he turns hostile. I don't know if they were lying or dumb or just working off an early review copy that didn't have that feature and they didn't update their review to reflect the changes but now I just watch their reviews for the gameplay clips and ignore the actual review itself.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Zaphod42 posted:


drat, I too saw that coming. I've met Marty in person at Video Games Live, he's a really nice guy, and gently caress his composing is amazing, definitely one of the more emotional game composers right now. So I knew it was gonna hurt without him.

I was thinking they'd just emulate his style, maybe even licence some of the tracks from previous Halo games and just mix in a few new tracks along the same style that we wouldn't notice were new necessarily.

I admire the idea to instead break away, since nobody's gonna out O'Donnel Marty. But... sounds like they kinda stumbled, which is the problem with trying to do something different, you gotta do it well. Hrm. :/

If you have iTunes you can listen to the 1 minute 30 second previews of the OST songs, and I think they sound good. O'Donnell had a one-of-a-kind sound to his work so anyone's going to feel wrong following him up, but I'm doing my best to listen to Davidge's songs with no preconceptions about O'Donnell and I'm really liking them. The first two, Awakening and Belly of the Beast, are especially good, in my opinion.

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Has there been confirmation if Reach's psych profiles are back in? Setting them all to the "chill as hell" settings was a big part of why Reach was the most fun MP to me. Nothing I've seen has confirmed or denied its inclusion, though.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Punished Chuck
Dec 27, 2010

Namaste posted:

Jun is dead. It says so at the end of the reprint of The Fall of Reach that came out alongisde Reach the game. An Elite killed him while Halsey made a run for safety in CASTLE Base.

I'm not gonna lie, I like this better than "Noble team valiantly sacrificed themselves to defend Reach, choosing to give their lives to give humanity a chance at survival...except Jun haha who even knows where he is?"

I wonder what the deal was with Jun just disappearing in the game? Did they have to cut his death scene for some reason? I've played through the campaign a couple times and unless I'm missing something, at a certain point he just kinda never gets shown or talked about again.

  • Locked thread