The Halo Bulletin 6-19-14

halo-bulletin-8744b261bd334fae98a5a732ac17e23f

It’s 5:35 a.m. on Monday, June 9, and once again, instead of hitting the snooze button and/or throwing my phone out of my hotel room window, I jump out of bed after hearing my alarm because today just happens to be another exciting day, and one worthy of an early-morning wake up call. Back home, our community, web, and services teams (to name just a few) are hard at work preparing for the announcements that will soon be made at E3. In downtown Los Angeles, I meet up with the away team in an already buzzing hotel lobby. We’ve been in dress rehearsals since Friday, and this morning we will be on a stage for all the world to see. We cram into a car, and we’re off. Continue reading

Official Master Chief motorcycle helmet coming 2015!

The following is from an article on NecaOnline.

With Microsoft’s exciting announcement for Halo: The Master Chief Collection coming to Xbox One this Fall, it’s the perfect time to reveal a surprise of our own! Our Master Chief Motorcycle Helmet is still a work in progress, but we’re excited to share the video and images below with you. Continue reading

Halo Escalation #10 Blue Team! In Halo 5 Guardians?

DarkHorseComicsLogo

Halo Escalation is an ongoing series from Darkhorse comics that details stories after the events of Halo 4. After securing a source link for this, I’m happy to show the cover of issue #10.

EscalationsIssue#10

Halo: Escalation #10

Brian Reed (W), Ricardo Sánchez (P), Rob Lean (I), Michael Atiyeh (C), and Anthony Palumbo (Cover)
On sale Sept 24
FC, 32 pages
$3.99
Ongoing
The Master Chief returns in “The Next 72 Hours” part 3! What happened to the Master Chief immediately following the events of Halo 4, and what do those events mean for the future of the crew on the UNSC Infinity? Halo lead writer Brian Reed (Amazing Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel) and Ricardo Sánchez reveal all in the thrilling conclusion to this Halo event!
• From Halo lead writer and comics veteran Brian Reed!
• An essential addition to the Halo canon!

Now what makes this cover interesting is the inclusion of Blue team. Let’s take a look at this by breaking down some of the components of the cover.

EscalationsIssue#10 callouts

Here each of the Spartans are identified. Master Chief is of course easy to pick out. Knowing that Kelly has rocked the EVA helmet before (see Halo Legends), we know that’s her. That leaves Fred and Linda. Fred’s helmet is similar to Master Chief’s so we know the Spartan top left is Fred. Linda, as you can see by the helmet ‘callout’ has a very different helmet. With the extra scopes it’s safe to assume she’s using them for an added advantage for sniping. Without those scopes the helmet reminds me of the Halo 4 C.I.O. helmet. Not the same of course, just similar. (See below)

H4_CIO_3d_model green

So it appears we will indeed see the return of Blue team! Hmm, now this makes me curious. Will they be the four playable co-op campaign characters in Halo 5 Guardians?

OMG, that would be freakin’ AWESOME!!!

What is very interesting is that they seem to be wearing the upgraded armor that just Chief had in Halo 4.

Source Link

So what do you folks think of the cover, the news and the potential for them in Halo 5 Guardians???

-Sal

A new Halo 4 map to be revealed on Friday!

Please join me on Friday for the weekly HaloFanForLife (HFFL) Community Night.

This Friday I will unveil a new map in Halo 4 I’ve created. It might seem slightly familiar if you’ve been paying attention to the Halo news lately…

One loadout, NO Infinity drops, 4v4. The map is set for slayer and with just a few additional items, I’ll have it ready for CTF as well.

What it is, where it is, and what it’s called will be kept secret until Friday 8pm EST. Come out if you want to experience a brand new HFFL map, inspired by recent Halo news!

I hope to see you then!

-Sal

Real Men of Halo

This parody was done about three years ago during HaloFest at Pax Prime 2011.

Pete Stacker who we all know as the voice of Sgt. Stacker, and some might not know is also the voice of Captain Keyes, is ALSO the voice of the “Real Men of Genius” commercials that ran a few years back.

I was rewatching some of the vids from Halofest last night and had forgotten about this one. When I watched it, I immediately laughed out loud and figured why not share this anew for those who may have never seen it at all.

So on behalf of Pete Stacked and Tim Dadabo (voice of Guilty Spark and the singer in the parody), here is ‘Real Men of Halo’

There is SO much more to the whole panel, though this is by far one of the funniest moments.

Heh, I think I need to make some more parodies of the “Real Men of Halo”. Anyone want to help out?

-Sal

A case for Halo Emblems

There have been emblems in Halo since CE. Halo 2 brought us more. Halo 3 with even more still. Reach took a step back on some, while Halo 4 had many new emblems but lost a lot of the ones from previous games. See the chart below for the emblems in each game. This does not include background emblems. (For now) (Click and open in another window to see the whole chart clearer and a lot bigger.)

Halo Emblems_sm-wmHFFL

As you can see, emblems were pretty consistent from CE to 2 to 3. If they were in the previous game, the overwhelming percentage of them made it to the next game. That changed a bit in Reach with many favorites gone and new emblems put in. This omission of older emblems greatly increased in Halo 4. No doubt due to 343’s wanting to distance themselves from Bungie’s work.

Now that we will have the Master Chief Collection, those emblems are all back, just not in every game. They’ll be available just as you see them above.

So, that brings me to a question that is of varying degrees of importance to many Halo fans. Which emblems will we see in Halo 5?

Personally, since there is more memory available, I’d love to see them ALL come back, as well as some new ones for Halo 5 Guardians. I know a lot of people that miss having the numbers 0-9 available as an emblem. They were there from CE through to Reach. It seems a bit silly that 343 would take those out. Numbers are not Bungie’s creation. SO it should stand to reason that those come back in. Considering we saw numbers on the armor of the Spartans in the H5G trailer, it looks like that’s a possibility again.

There are other more glaring omissions though that were not put into Halo 4. Some of these are:
Bullseye
Champion (I know several folks that used that exclusively)
• All of the card suits (Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs)
Delta
Fleur de Lis (Several of my Canadian friends used this one)
Frowney and Smiley (faces)
Grunt Head or Symbol
Mark of Shame (I know a LOT of people that used this and would like to have it back)
Phoenix
Supernova
Trinity
Waypoint

There are others, those above are just some of the ones not in Halo 4, but were in some if not all of the other Halo games.

I can see no reason why these all couldn’t be included in Halo 5 Guardians. More customization won’t hurt. Bringing back some of the classics if not ALL of the emblems will make plenty of fans happy with nostalgia. That really is part of the point of this. The Master Chief Collection has already given a boost to fan confidence in 343. They (343) now seem to realize that fans really DO want the Halo experience of the past and that the last couple of games had wandered a bit too far from what Halo was. Including all the emblems, be they Bungie or 343 design won’t hurt anything. In fact may give 343 more integrity in the eyes of fans.

Building upon what Bungie did and not tearing things out and away, is a good recipe for success for the Halo franchise. Again, I think 343 learned a valuable lesson there, with Halo 4.

Now of course, if all emblems were to be included so too should all of the backgrounds.

There are a scant few exceptions that 343 might be able to block the combinations of. For instance the horizontal gradient with the grenade…When used in combination, well, it looks like a certain part of the male anatomy that just isn’t proper for Halo. In those kinds of cases, I wouldn’t mind if those certain emblems or backgrounds are cut, so as to avoid that type of childish use of the emblems.

Beyond this, one thing I personally and hoping for is an additional color. Not to the emblem, but to the backgrounds. Some of those backgrounds that have more than one element to them would look great having an additional color to them. Stripes most notably as many people from nations around the world could make a facsimile of their country’s flag. A small token yes, but a token of pride that shouldn’t be overlooked.

It’s all of these kinds of little details that could really help to propel Halo back into the limelight. On their own they may not seem like much, but add them up, collectively they bring together a user experience that would be more enjoyable, have nostalgia, as well as pay a little fan service. Again, none of which I see an issue with.

What do you think? Should all emblems and background come back in Halo 5 Guardians? If not, which ones would YOU like to see return? (Not return?)

Reply below!

-Sal

p.s. original chart from Halo Wiki. I cut and pasted it together so you could see it all at once instead of having to scroll down and down and down…

Please consider donating to halofanforlife.com

Uh, I abhor that I even need to post this. I apologize for that…

This past March marks 3 consecutive years I’ve been unemployed. As a disabled veteran, you’d think I might have an easier time gaining employment, but alas that hasn’t happened. I’ve applied for many hundreds of jobs in that time frame. Funds are pretty tight for me and I do not qualify for even some of the most basic programs that would alleviate the need for me to even post this article. So here I am asking for your help.

The renewal for HaloFanForLife.com comes up in September. As well, the 2nd Annual HFFL LAN is in August. Last year I didn’t have to pay for renewal as it was the second year of my 2 year plan. As well, the LAN last year was on a shoestring budget.

This year I need help raising funds for renewal of the site. It’s much cheaper to go with a multi-year deal than yearly. So that is what I’m striving for. I will need a little bit more than $300 for two years. I’d like to go for the 5 year plan which saves me even more. That would take $600 to cover. This also helps to ensure that HFFL will be around that long!

On top of this is the LAN. All told, I’m going to need $700 for that this year. That includes the business I’m hiring to bring their equipment to my home for the LAN, as well as food, drinks, prizes and such. I’ve already petition sponsorship form several business. So far to no avail, though I am waiting on a couple others to respond.

I’m NOT asking for anyone to go out of their way here. As I’ve mentioned many times before, HFFL will always remain free to join. HFFL is not like other fan sites that charge you for membership or for getting into an ‘inner circle’. I just don’t believe in that kind of stuff as we’re all fans. So we shouldn’t be charging others. However, there are things that cost real money. So I’m asking for small donations.

If I were to get just 50 cents from every (unique) person in just ONE day of the 365 days a year as donations, this would cover those costs above. I might even have a little extra to either make the site better, run faster or have better offerings at the LAN.

It is my sincere hope that you find HFFL worth 50 cents. Again, this isn’t mandatory. It’s not a membership fee or anything of the like. You give as you want to or not. As I said, I hope that what HFFL has provided to you in the form of all things Halo including: entertainment, news, product reviews, discussions, fan art, forums and so much more, is worth that small donation. You donation helps to ensure that the site and all it offers will be around for year to come.

You can donate by clicking on the donate tab in the right menu bar on the main page (via paypal), or by donating directly to my paypal e-mail address: [email protected].

Any donation is most appreciated. Please consider it.

Respectfully,
Sal
Owner/Blogger
HaloFanForLife.com
Host – Spirit of Fire Podcast
and all around Halo Fan (for life)

Are you ready for the next iteration of Halo?

The title of the article is exactly what I’m asking.

Are you ready for the next iteration of Halo?

No, I do not mean the Master Chief collection. That isn’t an iteration per say though a new user interface will be nice, as well as updated graphics and some re-envisioned maps.

No, I’m talking about Halo 5 Guardians.

Halo5-Primary-TeaserArt-Horizontal-RGB-Final-jpgThis new chapter in the Halo franchise seems to be bringing with it, a much different story than we’re used to having. I dare say even unexpected.

Many questions have been raised from what we know and do not know of Halo 5 Guards. (I’ll refer to now as H5G)

We know that we’re going to find out about Agent Lock in the Halo Nightfall series. Hopefully more than just his origins though. I’d like to at least get a basic understanding of why he’s interested in Master Chief.

During the trailer we see that he is studying Master Chief. For what purpose? Is it to learn Chief’s patterns or methods? Is it to use those patterns against him? Will Lock be hunting Master Chief? If so, is that to bring him back to humanity/UNSC/ONI? Or is it to kill him?

There has been mentioned that Chief is questioning the UNSC and it’s motives. Might Lock also be doing the same? If not from the beginning of H5G, then maybe at some turning point in the campaign.

The fact that we see Lock presumably with the Arbiter and on Sanghelios brings yet more questions.

So the question again: Are you ready for the next iteration of Halo? This next campaign is said to be much darker than any of the previous ones. What has changed for it to become that way? There are many more questions that can be asked, but for now, let’s ponder on those above.

In the meantime, let’s also look at multiplayer/matchmaking.

In several interviews, various 343 Industries personnel have stated there will not be armor abilities. However, they have said there will be Spartan abilities. So what exactly does that mean?

Allow me to take a stab at that. Armor abilities are a load out thing. Those are gone. But the abilities themselves may not be. Instead of being something you PICK to use, these Spartan abilities may (and I think likely) be abilities ALL Spartans will have. Meaning it will be a level playing field for all as everyone will have the same abilities.

Now what will those abilities be? There are clues in the trailer as I’ve mentioned before. I think Thrust will be one. Likely Sprint. Then there are those two new moves we saw in the trailer. The one I’ve deemed to be called a ‘power slide’ and the other a ‘power slam’. However, those might have been for cinematic effect. What else might we hope for as abilities that every Spartan is equipped with?

It’s pretty safe to say that many would very much welcome dual wielding back into Halo. As well, I think we could consider grenade pick-up as standard. (Why that was ever changed I don’t know. That still seems like a silly choice.)

That said above, it means we will likely see the demise or certain armor abilities for good, while others may become map pick-ups.

Let’s consider those then for a moment. What armor abilities are there in Halo 4? Will they make a return? Be suspended? Or make a return as a pick-up?
Auto Sentry – I haven’t seen this heavily used in Halo 4. It’ does have it’s purpose though. Possible pick-up only
Active Camo – For the love of all things Halo this better not be a Spartan ability. Map pick up, okay, so long as only ONE person at a time can have it.
Thruster Pack – As said above, I think this will be a standard ability. If not then definitely a pick-up.
Promethean Vision – Ok, THIS one has got to go! I know people that use it and even many of them say it’s a noob ability. IMO, it’s way too overpowered. Gone are many tactics used for so long in Halo. This need to be suspended, indefinitely. NO, not even a pick-up.
Regen Field – This has been in Halo for awhile in some form or another. It should come back as a map pick-up.
Jetpack – Okay, I have to say I’m biased FOR this ability as I LOVE jet packing around. However, I’m also cognizant of the fact that many do not like it’s use in Halo. I would be bummed if it were retired completely, so I’m hoping it will be a map pick-up. If only ONE person has it, then it won’t be completely over-powered.
Hologram – Heh, I’ve been psyched out by this more times than In care to admit. Come on, admit it, you too… I can’t see this being retired. So a map pick-up it is.
Hardlight Shield – Not as powerful as Armor Lock was, therefore not anywhere near as hated. I don’t mind when people use this as I usually just toss a grenade a little bit beyond them and have it do damage from behind. While I’d rather not see ANY Forerunner abilities (or weapons) come back, this would be one I’d be fine with as a map pick-up.

Now the thing is, with many of those above I think might be possible as map pick-ups, I hope that 343 does NOT put them all on each map. Rather, only one or two at most on a map. This will help reduce the variables by comparison that are rampant in Halo 4. As well, those on specific maps need to be considered wisely. In other words, no jet pack on a small enclosed map. No hologram on a big map. (Though I can hear the arguments for such.)

Auto sentry would be practically useless on a big map, unless it were for CTF for example where you would set it up to protect the flag.

Regen and Active Camo would be the most versatile as they could be use on just about any map. Considering their history in Halo, these are the ones I’d prefer to see the most, while the other ones used a bit more sparingly. Again though only ONE person at a time should have either of these abilities. As an example, think about Active Camo on Ragnarok. How many times have you been sniped on that map by an Active Camo user? (Or have you done this dastardly deed yourself, LOL)

All of those things need to be considered when placing abilities on specific maps. Not to mention power weapons. Which brings me to the next part.

No more Infinity drops please? Or rather if there are ranked and social playlists, these should not be rampant on maps. It’s frustrating as hell to see a whole other team have Overshield. Talk about OP power ups. This also goes for power weapons. For the love of gawd, there needs to be only ONE Rocket Launcher on a map at any given time. Sniper, maybe two, unless your playing the sniper playlist.

Okay, so how do the paragraphs answer my original question?

Well, they don’t specifically. But what they do manage to do is point to the direction many fans hope H5G goes in. It may seem like a step back from the evolution of Halo that happened in reach and then Halo 4. However, from the plethora of feedback both Bungie and 343 have received over the years, it’s pretty clear that long time fans do not want that sort of evolution in Halo.

Going back then to what was previously mentioned. Spartan Abilities. Instead of the armor abilities that have had many a fan in an uproar, will THIS be the proper evolution of Halo? Having a limited amount of abilities that are standard for all Spartans does level the playing field. There is a potential drawback though. When using these, button layout MUST be considered. Will Bumper Jumper users be able to use thrust for example?

Also, how will the Spartan abilities be activated. I’ve gone over that before saying that the D-pad is likely the next evolution as well. If we indeed have 4 Spartan Abilities, then by pressing on one of the 4 directions, you enable your spartan to use that ability. AND…you can change it on the fly as you desire or need to.

Yes, that adds some variability. However, since everyone has that same abilities, one would hope there wouldn’t be as much complaining about them. (Of course, that’s asking a hell of a lot from we Halo fans, who are known for not holding back on our complaints….LOL)

I’ll ask again then, are you ready for the next iteration? If what I’ve detailed above were to be how the game plays, would you be happy? Okay with? Irritated? or Appalled?

Whatever H5G will be, we know it WON’T be the same as classic Halo. AND it WON’T be the same as Reach or Halo 4 either.

Sound off below. I’d love to read your comments on this.

-Sal