Xbox’x Marjor Nelson (Larry Hyrb) interviews 343 employees, Graeme Jennings, Sr. Producer and Max Szlagor Sr. Designer as they talk about the Halo 4 Champions Bundle coming August 20.

Within is this interview there is talk about 2 armor mods. If you recall, I’ve been saying for a LONG time that there were supposed to be a total of 10 armor mods at launch. There were only 8. These make up for those not included at launch. It’s not yet known if the CSR level cap will be increased to 150 due to these new armor mods. (I hope so.) Still CSR 150 sounds/looks better than 130.

The two armor mods are Survivor and Recharge.
• Survivor allows you to be ejected from a vehicle if it’s being destroyed.
• Recharge allows your shields to recharge even FASTER. This can be stacked. Only yours, not your teammates though.

Take a listen here to the full interview: https://soundcloud.com/xbox/mnr-483-details-about-the-halo. The armor mod talk starts about 9:30. This is part of a Title Update also on August 20. This no doubt will allow for the new armors to show up in all the previous maps, as well as the weapons skins.

Also a quick note, Ricochet was stated to be available to play on multiple maps. This due to the title update. This is about 11:45 in the interview above.

Whew, it just keeps getting BETTER! August 20 can’t get here fast enough!

-Sal

Here are some posts with my responses to some of the What’s next panel and Champion Bundle pack.

With regards to Frank O’Conner’s comment about there being not enough demand for vehicles in Halo 4 (like the Hornet, Falcon, Elephant)

Masterz117 wrote: I’m completely sick of this. Does 343 even bother to read the forums? Not once have they seen a thread, or maybe a couple thousand, asking for the Falcon to return?

Lots of good content was revealed in the Champion Bundle pack yesterday. The BONUS content however was a little glossed over, so I’m going to take a few minutes to show you and talk about those bonus in a bit more detail.

First up the Armor.As we see if you buy the whole Bundle pack you’ll get these armors. You can also buy the first three separately should you not want the maps or weapon skins. The Ricochet armor comes with the map pack portion of the bundle if you buy that only.

Personally, I’m happy with ALL four armor sets. I know a lot of people will be happy with the Mark V. Believe it or not, this is the least favorite of the four for me, though I can see some fun throwback machinima happening with this armor set.

The ODST armor has been asked for since BEFORE Halo 4 came out. It’s VERY good to see this come to the game after so long. I have an idea for this armor for a machinima and I’m sure a lot of other people do to. Not to mention that MANY of the Spartan IVs seen in Halo 4 were formally ODSTs.

Prefect is a Forerunner-esque armor style. I’m REALLY digging this one. It looks like the visor CAN change color. Gawd, I hope so. One of my minor peeves with some of the helmets in Halo 4 is the inability to change visor color. I’m looking at you CIO… I wonder what the secondary color pattern will look like on this armor?

Finally, the Ricochet armor. You can see how this was totally patterned off of American style football uniforms. The shoulder pads jutting out, the face guard. I SO hope this is useable outside of Ricochet, but from what I understand it’s not. Hmm, guess I’m going to have to make a custom game to use this.

Next we have the weapons skins. I’ve given them names here. These names are NOT official, just my interpretation of what I see. Though it would be cool if I’m right on some of these.

So we get 2 Magnum skins, an AR skin, 2 DMR, and a BR skin.

The Magnum skins are ok. Hard to tell from the graphic though.
The “Shark” AR is definitely going to be a hit I think. I’m already maxed out with the AR in Halo 4, but I’m definitely going to use this from time to time!
The “Deep Blue” DMR skin is nice. Come to think of it, it has the colors of Fireteam Majestic. Hmmm.
The next one, Tiger Stripe, I think is likely to be one of the favorites of the weapon skins. I’m totally diggin’ it!
And finally what looks to be a Jungle camo skin for the BR. Definitely like this skin. I just wish we had a good jungle type map to go with it. Though the new map Vertigo may go nicely with this.

And lastly we take a look at the stances. This graphic is small, so I had to try and blow it up a little. Still hard to see so bear with me.

So starting from left to right here are my names for them based on what I think I’m seeing:
• Cracking Knuckles – Looks like the Spartan is cracking his knuckles ready to smash someone in the face.
• Salute – Pretty obvious one here. I’m betting on this one being used a lot.
• Arms Crossed – Again, hard to tell by the graphic, but it does look like the Spartan’s arms are crossed.
• Han Solo – This is SO the classic Han Solo pose from Star Wars.
 See what I mean?
• Reload – This could also be called “Tribute” as in a 21-gun salute is a tribute to fallen soldiers.
• Stealthy – Looks like the Spartan is about to Assassinate. OR this could be “Heisman” as it does sort of look like the Hiesman pose which would work well with the new Ricochet game type.
• Kick Back – Really hard to tell what’s going on here. Kind of looks like the Spartan has a leg up on something. You can only see the top half of the Spartan. Too bad too, as it also looks a little like the “Captain Morgan” pose. Now wouldn’t THAT be cool!

There are also 3 Armor Skins, though those were not clearly shown in the panel yesterday. In fact while they showed Spartans in position front and back, the Spartans were in White, so you couldn’t tell what the skins were.

Also, while this is separate from this bundle, don’t forget there are also McFarlane Armor and Weapons skins coming around this time too. Check out THIS ARTICLE to see those skins!

-Sal

So do you want a Football/Grifball/Shoot ’em style gametype?

Well, look no further, because Ricochet is about to DROP!

Ricochet uses a special armor skin only for this gametype, also called Ricochet. The helmet has faceguards on it like American Football helmets do.

In this gametype, the objective is to get the ball to the opponents goal. You can do this by trowing it into the goal OR running it in. Running it in nets you more points than tossing it in. Still, there is a LOT of opportunity here for team play. On top of this, you get a cadre of weapons to play with, unlike Grifball that only has the Sword, Hammer, and of course the ball.

Here’s a look a game play through screenshots of Ricochet:

As you can see in the pic below, there is the faceguard I mentioned. The ball is different than the ball in Grif, or so it appears to be.Next we see Red Team on the move in Ricochet. Note the Covenant Carbine in the front Red’s hands.

This blue is out to nail someone with a BR or his back mounted shotgun!

Red is moving in for the score!

And finally, we see why this next area is now called the “End Zone.”

GOAL!

Wow, this looks like a lot of fun. Like I said at the beginning of this article, I’ve been wanting to make a football style game since Halo 3. Ricochet looks to make this totally possible! I wonder if this can be played on Forge World??? Hmmmm…

-Sal