First one is easy enough. Cumulative not in one game.
Second  one is going to take some time commitment.

I gave out a limited edition poster I created at my local Gamestop’s midnight release. Only 75 printed total. These are slightly different than the one posted below. (They did not have the Didact symbol on them.) Note you can see this version in a much smaller form to the right—>>>

Feel free to download this and print as you wish or link it elsewhere. If you do link it, PLEASE be courteous and credit me as the designer. Please credit as:

Composition by Sal Salerno, of HaloFanForLife.com

You can get an even larger (hi-res) version here:
Halo 4 HFFL release poster

Please let me know what you think of it!

Again enjoy!

-Sal

Earlier I posted Tuesday would be my last night of playing Halo Reach. I had some good games with my gaming group buds. The best for last.

I got a perfection!

Thanks to all of those folks I’ve gamed with in Halo Reach over the past two years+. It’s been fun, now it’s time for Halo 4!!!

Also, stay tuned for some great stuff coming out of New York Comicon. I’ll be live tweeting all weekend from the convention floor!

-Sal

On Friday I brought to you my 6-part review of the first episode of “Forward Unto Dawn.”

I’ve taken that quite a step further and made a graphic novel of the first episode. Using the screenshots I took as well as typing out some the dialog, I added Photoshop effects as well as laid out the project in InDesign.

Feel free to download this as it’s FREE. If you repost this anywhere, PLEASE give me credit as: Designed by Sal Salerno of HaloFanForLife.com
And please link back to my original post here.

Please let me know what you think of the graphic novel, as I’ll be doing one for each of the six episodes.

Without further ado:

This was a labor of love. I really enjoyed making this. Again, if you have any comments, please feel free to respond here, on Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail me at: [email protected]

-Sal (HFFL)

Is it just me or do the Halo 4 flood look like the Chatterer Cenobite from the “Hellraiser” movie series?

Compare:

This by no means is a complaint either. I think it’s AWESOME! I have my new nickname for the Halo 4 Flood. Chatterer!

-Sal

Text from www.tapscape.com

The Halo 4 release date is still some weeks away but it looks like Microsoft has some extremely long term plans for the popular FPS franchise, plans that stretch up to a ninth sequel. Could Microsoft really be thinking that far ahead?

According to a report from Fusible, Microsoft has secured several domain names centering around the Halo franchise through internet brand protection company MarkMonitor:

Through the internet brand protection company MarkMonitor, Microsoft has apparently acquired the domains halo7.net (Whois), halo7.org (Whois), halo8.org (Whois), halo9.net (Whois) and halo9.org (Whois).

No word on whether Microsoft had to purchase these domains from other individuals and if they did, how much each of those names cost them. And with Microsoft’s ‘policy” of keeping these type of deals secret, it’s probably going to remain that way.

While there’s no official word if Microsoft indeed has the series mapped out until Halo 9, it’s highly possible that Microsoft has just chosen to purchase those domains to keep any websites bearing the “Halo” name under their control.

Microsoft is on a Halo domain buying spree; long before the Halo 4 release date was announced, Microsoft had already acquired the rights to Halo4.com from its previous owner for an undisclosed amount last November 2011. Halo5.com and Halo9.com were acquired March of this year. At this point, Microsoft owns practically all of the most “.com” websites bearing the Halo name, with the exception of four. Here’s the full list:

Halo.com – active website owned by HALO Brand Solutions, not Microsoft.

Halo1.com – active website owned by HALO ONE, not Microsoft.

Halo2.com – owned by Microsoft Corporation.

Halo3.com – owned by Microsoft Corporation.

Halo4.com – owned by Microsoft Corporation.

Halo5.com – owned by Microsoft Corporation.  Privately registered.

Halo6.com – parked by Colby Thiesen, not owned by Microsoft.

Halo7.com – active website, not owned by Microsoft.

Halo8.com – active website owned by Halo 8 Productions, not Microsoft.

Halo9.com – owned by Microsoft Corporation.  Privately registered.

Halo10.com – owned by Microsoft Corporation.

There’s no doubt that the possibility of the series reaching Halo 10 is highly likely, especially with its continued popularity and the support of mighty Microsoft. It’s interesting to speculate though where the series will be when it does finally hits double digit sequel numbers. For now, we’ll have to wait and see where 343 Industries takes the series when November 6th, the Halo 4 release date, finally arrives.

Covert Ops UNSC Wolverine: Set number 97072
Toys R Us exclusive

Technical Specifications:
Build Time: 10 minutes sorting, 1 hour build. Total 1 hours 10 minutes.

Set Piece count: 330
Minifig: “shark grey” Spartan.
Weapon: Assault Rifle
Accessories: n/a
Special Features: Rocket launcher turns 360° and pivots up and down.

Price/Value: $54 US (I got mine for about $33 on sale-what the price should have been to begin with…)

The Price is a high at $54 since the set has 330 pieces. Using the simple 10 cents per piece guideline, that should put the set at about $33 dollars. TRU is known to boost up the prices of their exclusives though. I bought this when there was a “buy one get one 40% off” sale. The other item I got was the Flood Siege set. So between them I paid what retail should have been on the two sets. I’m not certain if this is identical to the previous two Wolverines (Green Camo and Artic versions). I do believe there are some small differences.

I was on the fence about buying this. Thank goodness for the sale price. I liked the green camo previously and the arctic one one was fine. I didn’t think this set would ever be made again. However, that color really has drawn me in. I just think it looks sleek. Nice and dark, yet not black. Very “Coverty” lol.

Here are the pics.
Click on images to see a larger version. 

What’s in the larger bag on the upper left side of the previous pic:

Pieces sorted out to the brickyard:

The body starts to take shape: (note in bottom left I put on the front bumpers wrong, then fixed them by the lower right pic)

The hatch assembly with the hatch cover in place:

Rocket turret assembly:

Almost there. This build came together VERY quickly. Not sure if it’s because of my previous experience in Wolverines or that I’m just in a building frenzy as of late:

And now complete:

The one minifig:

What is a bummer about this set is that previous iterations included more than one minifig. The green camo and arctic versions each had a Hunter that came with them. I think that should have been included again, especially with TRU’s jacked up price. Ooh, maybe a Camo Hunter, that would have been awesome!

And finally the left over pieces and the minirig wolverine that I made from them.

(Use your imagination a little, you’ll see it, LOL)

Summary: This is a good set. TRU kind of screwed the pooch so to speak with the price. Bring it down to the $33-35 it should have been and it would be perfect. Include a Hunter at least and it would have been better.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 medals! Once again, the price is the major factor. Not MEGA’s fault, but rather the retailer. The addition of a HUnter would have really help justify the cost.

-HFFL

I recently was able to get four different sets of the new Mega Bloks Halo fall line. This coming from a very generous gift from someone I’m sworn to keep secret. (Not on my friends list, doesn’t work for 343 or Mega Bloks)

Anyway, 4 articles tomorrow with pictures of the sets and loads more info.

-Sal

While Bungie is no longer at the helm of Halo, I feel it’s right to pay respect to the company that brought us Master Chief, the original trilogy and two great spinoffs in ODST and Reach.

Every July 7th, Bungie used to do something cool with the Halo community.

They’ve posted a nice article for this year’s Bungie Day.

Bungie Day Article

I highly suggest giving it a read. Plus they have candy. Okay, maybe not, but they do have some cool desktop images for you to download.

Follow the link and go to the full site for a really cool interactive menu:

Halo 4 Marketplace

Here is a partial screencap of that menu:

The monitors on the right and left have gifs running on them. Watch them for the Didact’s symbol to appear on them. In the middle you can choose from the lower portion:

Weapons/Characters/Environments/Vehicles/Armor

Above each of those are the various components you can view further. I chose Cortana to display as she makes the most sense as a Hologram.

Now, you may note this graphic is dark and it is when you view it on the page. However, I took this image into Photoshop and lightened up the background to show more of the detail. Here is what I got:

I understand that the focus of the menu is the middle, but dang, I wish they’d have shown it the way I lightened up as. It shows just how much more work went into the menu.

Go pay a visit there and post a comment here on what you think about the menu. More may be likely to come through that link, so I’d suggest bookmarking it.

-HFFL

Reposted from venturebeat.com, by Rus McLaughlin:

http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/10/interview-frank-oconnor-on-why-343-industries-changed-halo/

Or read the full text here:

If you want to see continuity as the Halo franchise moves from original developer Bungie to 343 Industries, Microsoft’s in-house studio, look to Frank O’Connor. Right from Halo’s very beginning, he’s served as the keeper of the keys, in many cases creating the very secrets he holds. When it comes to the Master Chief, Cortana, and the universe they live in, O’Connor knows everything. He’s just not allowed to tell you much.

Now, as Franchise Development Director, O’Connor’s in charge of launching a new chapter of the saga with Halo 4…a new setting, a new threat, a new perspective on the central characters. So when I sat down with O’Connor in a secluded corner of the Microsoft booth in the middle of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I opened with a fairly obvious first question.

If this is a new beginning for Halo, why bring the Covenant back?

O’Connor: The Covenant are honestly an important part of the Halo sandbox and the fiction, and in our fiction, the Covenant is still a huge problem for humanity. We reached a semi-stable peace with them at the end of Halo 3, but it wasn’t built on a very strong premise. They’ve lost their religion, they’ve lost a war, they’ve lost their leadership, and they’re doing what any nation in chaos would do…they’re splintering and falling into factions. The Covenant you’re fighting in the game is one of those factions, and in some ways they’re a more dangerous aspect of that former Covenant.

So where do the new bad guys fit in?

O’Connor: The Promethians make up the bulk of your encounters. There’s a limit to what I can say, but ostensibly, they’re the warrior sect of the long-vanished Forerunner society. The ones that you encounter appear to be artificial and remotely controlled. We’ve seen the Crawlers, these fast-moving pack creatures…they’re pretty easy to kill on their own, but they do swarm and cause you significant difficulties. But it’s definitely worth it for the rare time where you get to assassinate one and ride it like a bucking bronco before you pop its head off.

The Knights are the main foe, but Knights can also spawn Watchers, which are a tactical assistance units, shielding and respawning and even generating new enemies onto the field. It’s incredibly important that when you enter into a big encounter that you pick the right targets and deal with them in a very specific order, depending on your play style.

We’ve got a really good high-res picture of a Knight. It looks like there’s a small organic creature locked into a huge set of armor.

O’Connor: Promethian Knights have existed — and will continue to exist — in our fiction in a huge variety of forms. There are different types of Knights, but I can’t say more than that.

Will the Halo 4 campaign be a complete story unto itself? One of the first things we see in the campaign is the USNC Infinity crashing into the planet Requiem. But six months later, when the fiction for [co-op multiplayer mode] Spartan Ops takes place, it’s back up in the sky. And isn’t that a little spoilery?

O’Connor: That is a little spoilery, and it’s a necessary spoiler. But the game will end with the universe having changed pretty dramatically. It’ll be a satisfying ending, and you’ll have achieved a lot, but you’ll lose stuff, too. We’re trying to tell a much more emotionally resonant story this time.

What prompted that move to delve deeper into the Master Chief as a character? Isn’t it a little risky messing with an icon?

O’Connor: He was always kind of an interesting mix. And people missed him, right? They didn’t say ‘I miss being the Master Chief,’ they said ‘I miss the Master Chief.’ He always had a bit of a personality — he’s stoic, and brave, and a great leader. I think sometimes people think of him as a vehicle for their own heroism, and so they miss that, too. We’re not suddenly going to have the Master Chief spouting long monologues. Most of the storytelling and depth is going to happen contextually. He’s still going to be stoic, brave, and heroic, and actually fairly quiet. The events around him will define what you learn about him.

You guys also made a very specific decision to add narrative to the multiplayer. It’s never really needed one before…why do it now?

O’Connor: We made a philosophical decision to make everything count, to make everything matter. The [player-vs-player multiplayer mode] War Games fictional wrapper is a really simple conceit…you’re training in a simulator for live-fire ops that you’re gonna do in [the story-based] Spartan Ops, and that’s why you’re fighting other Spartans. And of course, it’s not necessary, but it also ties directly into the fact that you’re building a real career this time. You’re not just customizing the appearance of your Spartan, but you also tune the way that he plays and feels for you as a player, which is connected across the different parts. If you unlock something in War Games, you can use it in Spartan Ops and vice versa. That’s another reason to connect those dots.

Given there’s a lot of overlap in personnel, what unique factor does 343 Industries bring to Halo that differentiates that team from Bungie?

O’Connor: There’s a few ex-Bungie people at 343, but the vast majority of people are new, but they’re all old to Halo. Every single person came to the interview because they had some passion for Halo. Normally you can’t chose your family, but in this case, we could. And they also bring in different cultural experiences, different technological experiences, different design ethics and visions. So we have this incredible melting pot of passionate Halo fans with incredible new ideas and brilliant new approaches.

Aside from the Chief and Cortana, was there something you said absolutely had to be in Halo 4?

O’Connor: I think the number-one thing, and there was unanimous agreement in the studio, was that sense of exploration and awe and wonder that you had when you first tumbled out of the Bumblebee onto the surface of Halo in the first game. And it was deliberate, of course…you’d been playing this pretty awesome sci-fi shooter in a very claustrophobic starship, which is a pretty normal thing to do in a video game. And then you find yourself in this incredible alien place, and you look up in the sky, and you see the other side of the Halo, and you think, ‘I want to go there.’ That’s what we wanted to bring back.

As you were developing the game, did you have a Hell Yeah! moment where you personally said to yourself “This is it. We nailed it.”

O’Connor: A moment I remember very vividly…it was just this one game of Slayer we were playing months ago, and it all clicked. Even my new control scheme. And I felt this is totally Halo. But the stuff that’s new is perfectly attached, and it also feels like Halo. And we were planning it and building it, but it’s not real yet, right? But the second it’s real, and the second all the pieces are together, and you play a mission with real fiction in it, you’re like, I get it. I get why this did this. This was the right call.

Nerds around the world, ASSEMBLE!

OMG, just got back from seeing the Avengers. Freakin’ Epic on a whole other scale!

Joss Whedon is the MAN!

Each hero had enough screen time that you didn’t feel like anyone was lift out. That was a tall order and Joss delivered greatly on that one.

The Hellicarrier is the shiznit!

The movie’s Hulk was by far better than the previous two incarnations. He looked more like the comic book Hulk. Huge brow, tiny nose.

Iron Man was as excellent as ever.

Captain America showed his leadership skills to the tee.

Thor…well, just wait to see what he uses as a lightening rod!

Hawkeye and Black Widow get their respective turns too and shine.

And please for the love of gawd, STAY THROUGH THE ENTIRE CREDITS! Yes, there is a scene right after the movie ends, but if you don’t stay through the entire credits you are going to miss an absolutely epic scene at the VERY end.

Oh and one word for the next movie. THANOS

As Stan Lee would say (and yes he was in the movie too), EXCELSIOR!

I’d say more, but I don’t want to ruin it for you. You MUST go see this movie!

We now return to our normally scheduled Halo…

-HFFL

A fan (Andrew) of the site sent me this question:
“Im a really big elite fan and I have been wondering will the elites be
playable in customs and forge. P.S the reason I ask this is because I’m
second in command of a really good {elite clan}”

My answer is not official, however I’ve gleaned some of the info from official sources, those being podcast, magazine articles, tweets and so on so take it with a grain of salt…

As best as I can tell from the source, Elites will not be playable in any form.

Now my educated guess to this is that 343 wants people to focus on Spartans. Likewise since the Covenant will not be the largest threat/enemy, Elites have taken a lesser role in Halo.

From a programming point of view, it’s also easier to not have to develop a larger sized playable character and skin it. Yes, 343 could have used the elites from Reach and reprogrammed/reskinned them. However again, it really looks like they want the focus of multiplayer (be that competitive or custom) to be that of Spartans.

While I rarely played as an Elite myself, I totally understand your position. Elites have been a huge part of Halo from the beginning and as playable characters in Halo 3 and Reach they’ve grown on fans that much more.

It will be sad to see that not an option any more. Though I do have hopes that 343 will have enough other features in the game to keep Elite fans coming back, even if it means the end of playing them (Elites) in Halo.

Thanks for the question, Andrew.

If you have a burning question regarding Halo, please feel free to ask me and I’ll answer it as best as possible. You can send the question to [email protected] or register and post it in the forums.

-HFFL

Heh, I had this figured out a month or so ago. Noting that Cabela releases the same day and the last 3 Halo games have coincided with Cabela’s release date, it was just an educated guess.

Also, November 6 is the U.S.’s voting day. Likely many will either have the day off or be able to leave early to vote. This also means more time for gaming! Heh, I bet people will put in for that day off work and say they are voting, rather than the real reason of playing Halo 4!

Forbes is the source, though more will be revealed on Conan O’Brien tonight on TBS 11EST/10Cen.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/04/17/halo-4-launch-date-announced-master-chief-returns-november-6th/

-HFFL

Gameinformer has yet more info on Halo 4. This comes as an article and video.

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2012/04/16/the-changes-to-halo-39-s-competitive-multiplayer.aspx

The only thing I don’t like in the video is the comment at the end of “trust us.” That almost never ends well. heh

-HFFL