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

If you are to believe the IGN article, Halo 4 is about to have a “Game of the Year” edition hitting stores soon.

A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed the Game of the Year Edition and provided the following statement to IGN:

“A Game of the Year Edition of Halo 4 will be offered this October, offering tremendous value for fans who want to enjoy one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2012, and additional DLC all in one place. We will have more details to share during the live stream of the Halo Global Championship Finals this Sunday.”

The price is $49.99 and is to include all of the DLC to date. In the IGN article they state that even all pre-order bonuses will be included. So if you wanted those armor pre-orders and haven’t got them yet, here’s your chance. This does however make me curious if those will be put on the XBOX Live marketplace also for those of us who already have the game and DLC. To date I only need the Deadeye helmet and Best Buy’s Armor skin. I’m sure not going to buy a $50 version of the game just for those two…This also begs the question, will the FOTUS armor be included? That is the ONLY one I think that should NOT be included with this. Afterall, that was only available when you purchased the limited edition Halo 4 XBOX. Unlike the other pre-order armors that you got free from specific retailers.

Additionally, Twitch has also reported a new Halo DLC to be announced at PAX at 10:20 am Sun Sept 1. It is believed the leaked Halo 4 GOTY edition is this “new” DLC and is not yet another new map or content pack.

I’ll just go in order of how I view/played each part of this new pack.

Weapons Skins
Wow, the Steel Weapons Skin Pack is fantastic! Detail and color are amazing. I’ve already mastered several of those weapons, so I don’t know how much use I’ll get out of them all, but it’s ALWAYS good to have choices. Great artistry! I posted all these yesterday. If you need a reminder, check out this link: https://halofanforlife.com/?p=9835

The Bonus weapon skins you get when you buy the whole pack are a mixed bag, IMO. Certainly the blood spattered Trauma AR skin is sharp. That would be a great one to use while meleeing someone. The shark Teeth AR skin is fun. Reminds you of the skin on the Flamethrower from back in Halo 3. Ah, I miss that weapon. So this skin will have to do for now. The Green Camo BR skin is good. The Magnum ones however I find a little uninspiring. Normally I would have said there isn’t much room to put graphics on this, but when you look at the Magnum from the Steel Weapon Skin pack, well, that just isn’t the case.

Armor Sets/SkinsOkay, so I finally got to look at these armor sets and again a mixed bag.

The Mark V looks okay but I feel is maybe a little too “curvy” and not enough “blocky.” It’s good, not great.
The ODST armor is good, but is different. The helmet isn’t quite right. It should be more angular in the visor, instead of being a bit more rounded. The chest plate looks like it’s been welded onto the torso armor instead of being a little more free flowing. Still I like this armor.
I had high hopes for the Prefect armor. It’s bulky looking. Of course that won’t affect your game play. Now, I DO think this would be GREAT for video if you were making a scene of Forerunners. For instance a Forerunner crew on Haven.
The Ricochet Armor is AWESOME! Mind you yes, it does look like American Football “Armor” and I’m perfectly okay with that.

After these four armor sets, there are several armor pattern variations. The Venator Bayonet skin may be my favorite. But that’s just a first impression. There are several to choose from and I will likely cycle through them at some point or another. What I really like about these extra skins is the fact that they all seem to utilize more of the secondary color.

Stances
There are 8 new stances to choose from.

• Seasoned: The position of the spartan with it’s magnum drawn but pointing down makes this an aptly named stance.
• Menace: Okay so the spartan is crunching his knuckles. But when you look at it in game, it almost seems like it’s making that heart symbol people do with their hands.
• Loyalty: I thought I’d like this stance more, especially being a service veteran, but this comes off rather static looking.  Still, I appreciate the nod to servicemen and women everywhere.
• Lookout: YES! We have a Captain Morgan posing Spartan!!! LOVE THIS ONE.
• Confident: I used this one this morning. Figures it looked perfect while wearing the Ricochet armor, as it reminds me of those overconfident NFL players, LOL.
• Drawn: Easily my FAVORITE of the bunch. This is a direct nod to Han Solo’s classic pose from the original Star Wars.
• Flank: He’s stealthy, he’s stalking, he’s FLANKING. Great pose if you’re an assassin.
• Grandstand: Okay, this seems a little off to me. I don’t know if it’s the head tilt or the way it seems like the spartan is stroking the AR or both. It just doesn’t look right to me.

From here I went into Forge and checked out Pitfall and Vertigo. Each were pleasant to zip around in as the monitor. Pitfall looks amazing! A good representation of it’s classic predecessor, now more aged and damaged. The extra Forge pieces we get with Pitfall are going to make for some VERY interesting maps I think. Vertigo is visually stunning, especially as you get closer to the open portion of the map. The massive storm in the distance is breathtaking. It rotates in a clockwise motion with effects within twirl around. There are PLENTY of avenues to navigate through this map. Sight lines are good. Oh and I got my first achievement for the Champions bundle pack on this map by activating both bases EMPs.

That leads me right into gameplay. I played 1 slayer match on Vertigo and 4 Ricochet matches on Pitfall. The slayer match moved well. Jetpack helped here significantly as there are plenty of playspaces that are vertical in nature. While there are lifts for some of those areas, having the jetpack ensures you can get from top to bottom or across without having to search out those lift. Now this was just one game, but I noticed pretty quickly that players were most of the time sticking to the middle portion of the map and not utilizing the outer rocky hallways. This might come in handy if you’re trying to get that 60 second camping achievement.

The games of Ricochet on Pitfall were a BLAST! I went 3-1. Two of those wins were QUICK. The pacing on Pitfall is very quick. Jumps you couldn’t make in halo 3 are a BREEZE in Halo 4. For instance from Plat to Green Box or the other way around. No problem here. Also, the liberal use of crates in the default map make it very easy to get around from lower to higher areas. I was able to get two more achievements here. First was scoring three times in a match. The other getting to the rockets first.

I’ve already started compiling a settings list for the “Halo Ricochet League.”

I’ll need to playtest those for a few days to get some preliminary settings set for the league. Then they will be revised as league play starts and continues on.

All in all, I’m VERY happy with the Champions Bundle pack. The Steel weapons skin pack is well worth it. The armors are good and for the price a STEAL, imo. The maps are well done and the gameplay seems to move at a good pace.

-Sal

Tweeted last night by HaloWaypoint, here’s a pic of the soon upcoming Halo 4 Master Chief Rubie’s Supreme master Chief costume. I’m going to assume that is Bravo in the costume and not BS Angel.

If I had the height and slimness for this costume, it would be mine!

-Sal