As expected this week’s bulletin is heavily focused on the Halo 4 Global Championship. The finals take place this weekend at PAX in Seattle.
First is a look at the XBOX personalities who will be presenting this to you via XBOX LIVE:
Next up are three quick player profiles of the 4th (Strongside), 3rd (Toxic Nate-for whom I interviewed here), and 2nd (Goofy) place finalists from the RTX qualifier.
PAX Prime attendees can come check out the action live from Benaroya Hall on Friday and Saturday during PAX show floor hours. For the Sunday finals, PAX badge holders and non-badge holders can begin lining up outside of Benaroya Hall at 1:30 pm to secure a spot in the audience. (Man, I REALLY wish I was going to be there for this!!!)
Several lucky fans got invites via Twitter. The bulletin has shown some of those tweets with pics. This was my personal favorite of those:
Next up is this week’s Matchmaking playlist update. While not specifically noted, the Ricochet winning score has been increased from 150 to 200. Good move there. Though some games are STILL very fast. I won one in 1:32 minutes even with the score being 200 in Ricochet.
The five maps to be used in the upcoming Ricochet playlist are shown with where the goals are at.
Monolith
Monolith’s goals are located in front of each base.
Skyline
Skyline’s goals are located inside each base.
Haven
Haven’s goals are located where the stairs meet the street.
Adrift
Adrift’s goals are located at the small door-side landings.
Solace
Solace’s goals are built into the sides, with a wall placed behind.
Following text from Waypoint:
Over the past few weeks, we’ve also been discussing consolidating playlists in an effort to optimize our Matchmaking experiences. On Tuesday, Legendary BRs will be offered in the third voting slot of the Infinity Slayer playlist, and the Legendary Slayer playlist will be removed. Additionally, we’ll be offering a new game type in this playlist. Simply named Team Slayer, the variant focuses on a customizable Slayer experience without any personal or random ordnance.
Team Slayer
- Personal Loadouts (no restrictions)
- Motion Tracker enabled
- Initial Ordnance enabled, on resupply timers
- Random, Personal Ordnance disabled
We hope that players enjoy this new game type, which will offer an alternative to Slayer Pro variant, allowing full Loadout customization yet removing factors such as Random and Personal Ordnance. Slayer Pro will no longer be available in the voting options, and Team Slayer will be available in the second voting slot. We look forward to hearing your feedback on both Team Slayer and Legendary BRs in the feedback thread. Additionally, Ricochet on Monolith as well as Infinity Slayer on Pitfall and Vertigo will be available in the Multi-Team playlist next week. Vertigo has also been added to SWAT, and Pitfall has been added to the Rumble Pit rotation.
In Spartan Ops, we’ll be offering the following selection of missions.
Episode 6, Chapter 2: All the Secrets
Episode 6, Chapter 3: Need to Know
Episode 8, Chapter 4: Crystal Ball
Episode 10, Chapter 3: Seize the Power
Episode 10, Chapter 5: One Last Time
Next we come to the Spartan Assault Title Update:
I’ve already gone over screenshots and the achievements in an article written just a short time ago.
Here are the new missions with the update:
Mission F-1: Battle at the Arid Sea
Location: Western Arid Sea
Mission F-2: Breach of the Bulwark
Location: Eastern Arid Ripple
Mission F-3: Superstructure Assault
Location: Super Structure Lightbridge
Mission F-4: Infiltration of the Cistern
Location: Cistern cave system
Mission F-5: The Source
Location: Heart of the Cistern
Plus there will finally be Xbox 360 controller support. (Now if only this would come to XBOX Live Arcade!!!!)
Surprisingly no Screenshot Spotlight this week. I’m guessing it’s in preparation for the Halo 4 Global Championship.
-Sal