Halo 3: Recon – A Prologue to Halo 3 revealed – from an ODST perspective – Prepare to Drop Fall 2009

9 10 2008

During the Tokyo Games show, Microsoft showed an ‘extension’ to the Prepare to Drop trailer which showed an ODST Marine leaving the drop pod that crashed. It was also stated that this will ship in Fall 2009.

The trailer has just been uploaded to Bungie.net & presumably the marketplace too: look here.
Xbox.com gives us a few more details: Campaign will be a side story that takes place during the events leading up to Chief’s return to New Mombasa in Halo 3, Multiplayer will provide “groundbreaking multiplayer content” With Exclusive new maps & Forge options as well as Saved films, Screenshots…. Oh and 4 player co-op :)
EDIT: It’s now called Halo 3: ODST which makes more sense, but I’m not sure I prefer it.Halo 3 ReconHalo 3 ReconHalo 3 Recon - New HeroHalo 3 Recon - New CampaignHalo 3 Recon - Prepare to Drop. Fall 2009Halo 3 Recon - Our New Hero - ODSTKeep RightProceed with Caution

LOL - The Super Intendant Labels the crashed ODST pod with "POSS. PARKING VIOLATION"

LOL - The Super Intendant Labels the crashed ODST pod with "POSS. PARKING VIOLATION"

Halo 3 Recon - Covenant





Bungie Countdown finishes – reveals trailer – “Halo 3 Prepare to drop”

25 09 2008

EDIT: For a longer version of this trailer which was shown at the Tokyo Games Show, look here

After the countdown finished at 07:07AM PDT, Bungie.net revealed a teaser trailer for the next game they’re bringing out. OK no-one knows what the trailer was for, just go and watch it!!!

The description for the video from the marketplace: “High action and deep mystery await players in this new Halo 3 campaign experience. Prepare to drop!”
We can haz new campaign levels???

You can see it here GOGOGOGOGO

Click on any of the pictures below for bigger versions.

 

WTF?

WTF?

Don't think water...

 


Yes, it's upside down, that's how it was in the video!

Yes, it's upside down, that's how it was in the video!


Possible release date? It's Possible. Not confirmed though.

Possible release date? It

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BUNGIE.NET INVADED BY SUPERINTENDANT – AGAIN – COUNTDOWN TO 7:07AM (PDT)/ 03:07PM(UK) September 25th.

25 09 2008

This time it seems they’re sure that it won’t be cancelled though; if you look carefully at the messages on the current bungie.net homepage they now include:

“THERE WILL BE A PAYOFF”

“IT WON’T BE A LETTER”

Expect something big. It’s what we deserve after last time!

 

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LOOK HERE FOR WHAT HAPPENED

BTW, sorry if this post doesn’t mean a lot to some people; if you want to read about this and when it’s happened before, look here




Happy Birthday, Halo 3!

25 09 2008

Today, September 26th 2008 marks Halo 3’s 1 year anniversary.

There really isn’t a great deal to say, anyone who is a true fan of Halo 3 would have gotten it on its release day one year ago (the 27th for Europe :( ) and is still playing it to this day. 

I’m certainly one of those dedicated fans; over the last year I’ve played Halo 3 multiplayer for a rather scary 265 hours! (that’s 11 days straight!!!!). (If you want to see how many hours you have spent in Halo 3, click on the picture below or the Spartan over on the right and create an account.)

Supposedly we’ll get a new episode of the Bungie podcast today and hopefully(!) an announcement or at least something more from the Superintendant.






Halo 3 – September Matchmaking Update detailed, Auto Update 2 to be released on Sep. 16th

23 08 2008

This week’s Bungie update details what is going to happen with the monthly playlist update and the date that Auto Update 2 will be released – both the playlist update and AU2 should be released on the 16th of September. EDIT: a later bungie weekly update suggests that it will be delayed and will be nearer to the 1-year anniversary of Halo 3 on the 27th of September — now confirmed for the 23rd.
You can read about Auto Update 2 and what it does to Halo 3 here.

Screenshot from vid where Bungie thanks G4

    September’s matchmaking playlist update does make a few more changes than normal; as promised by Bungie a couple of weeks ago. A summary of the changes appears below:

  • Rocket Race is being removed :( :( :(
  • Both Ranked and Social Big Team Battle are being removed
  • Head to Head is being removed
  • Team Doubles now requires all DLC – Heroic & Legendary packs and Cold Storage
  • Default Team Slayer games will now have the Magnum as secondary weapon
  • Squad Battle – a new ranked playlist will be introduced; it’s 6v6 and will be Slayer / Capture the Flag
  • DLC Free For All (new) – 8v8 – Slayer, Objective and Infection!
  • DLC Big Team; another new playlist – 8v8 Social Slayer and Objective (just like Social BTB)

Some of the playlists will see Bungie-forged map variants of Sandtrap (they’ll be no elephant), Epitaph (without shield doors), Snowbound (with some shield doors removed) and The Pit (with “with inaccessible spawn hives.” — That sounds annoying). The normal versions of these maps will also appear.

You can read the Bungie update containing all this information and much more here. It offers some consolation in the fact that the Rocket Race gametype will be added to the Multi Team playlist as well as the fact that there will be less objective, SWATGuns and Magnums in SWAT – and the fact that there will be Carbines on the map!

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Also, they confirmed that they’ll be no bots / campaign characters in H3 multiplayer – just to hush those rumours after the thanks video’s.





Halo 3 – Auto Update 2 detailed

2 08 2008

This week(end)’s Bungie Weekly update brings details of some of the changes that will be made when Auto Update 2 lands for Halo 3 at some point in the future….

As you can see in the picture over there —–>
auto update 2 will make it so that you will have a rank for each playlist and it will introduce the bar of progress that others, and I have missed from Halo 2’s matchmaking system.

The bar shows how close you are to ranking up in that particular playlist. It is not currently clear as to whether the bar will show how close you are to ranking up (Recruit, General….) or how close you are to the next skill level (28,29,30…..).

Principally, it seems as though they are just showing how much EXP you have in each playlist (earned by winning, or tying a game).

Quite why this is being introduced, I don’t know. But, they’ve always said that they can’t make UI (User Interface) changes to the game — perhaps this will be a change that will only appear on Bungie.net? That would be very silly in my opinion. But if it does show up in the game, Bungie should be prepared for a fresh influx of people wanting changes to the interface of the game (like pressing X just after a game finishes to save that film – a la H3 Beta(woo!)).

Also detailed in this weeks Bungie Update is the changes to matchmaking that will occur in August (they may already be live – I don’t know!). It’s a fairly boring list for this month (but includes some changes to Team Doubles that I don’t like — the inclusion of Oddball, for instance).

But the last paragraph in the update suggests that there will be some bigger changes to matchmaking in Septembre!

You may be thinking to yourself “Hey, that’s a pretty short change list.” While a lot of the changes done this month were backend things that players will never notice, you would be right to think that August’s changes feel very minimal. The reason for this is that we’ve been focused on preparing a larger series of changes to Matchmaking for September. Much larger.

Much, much larger.

No, really. It’s huge. You should see how giddy Luke gets when I talk about the tentative plan.”

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Edit:  Auto Update 2 will be released on September 23rd