First things first.

I have this nagging suspicion that Halsey is going to become an AI. In fact it’s possible that she becomes the new Cortana (of sorts). It’s kind of cool AND creepy at the same time if you think about it. Clearly Master Chief has feelings for Cortana. Cortana was born of the cloned mind of Halsey for whom Chief learned from in his early stages of training and one whom the Spartans called “mom.”

To have her as an AI would be cool, so long as she doesn’t have the 7 year rampancy bit.

But then to have her replace Cortana…She’s motherly toward Chief, yet she has Cortana within her so to speak. It’s all just confusing. It’s kind of like a partial Oedipus complex. (Look it up if you don’t know)

Also, did anyone else catch that Parangosky is dead (or maybe retired, thoguh I don’t think that old hag would ever retire…)? She was the former head of ONI. Now the new head is actually a former Spartan. Yes…she is. Read the books. Serin Osman was a Spartan II. She didn’t get all of the enhancements as her body was rejecting them. But she’s a Spartan II none-the-less. To have her give the order to kill Halsey is just well…WOW. She didn’t seem to worried about her decision though. Seems like at first she was okay with her “non-decision” of not putting Halsey in a deep hole or killing her. Now that all has changed.

If Halsey does indeed become an AI, well, she’s going to be a LOT harder to kill. I dont’ think Lasky will have Halsey killed. Well, that’s if she’s not turned into an AI already. Though by disobeying a direct order from the head of ONI, well, that would have some serious repercussions.

Okay, trying to get back on track here. What happened to the Knight who looked both Halsey and Lasky in the face and gave them it’s skull scream? That wasn’t shown. Would have been nice to see Lasky blow it away with the shotgun he had.

Once again Palmer is a …. oh nevermind, she’s just not worth talking about anymore. Okay maybe just a few sentences. She can dual weild. Great, why can’t we then in either War games or Spartan Ops? She can take out a Knight with just one shot from a magnum? That must be the most powerful magnum in all of the UNSC. And why for gawd sakes dos she never where her helmet? She might as well be in that skin tight suit we saw in the first episode if she’s going to stay on the ship all the time. She needs to be a much better example to her troops and be IN UNIFORM at all times. Well at least she should have found a way to snag her helmet during the invasion. I get that 343 wants people to know who she is by having her face shown. We know who she is now. Please put a bucket on her! (Bucket is slang for helmet)

The CG is this is pretty good. Nothing too remarkable though. I did like the map Madsen found and showed. As well the holotable of the Infinity bridge was very cool to look at. Where can I get one of those? LOL.

Gek, poor Gek. Why did he have to die? I actually LIKED him. I wanted to know how he was shamed as well as how he lost his left eye. Will we ever find out? Hopefully in the third book of the latest series.

So Halsey goes up into the blue light stream. Man, I gotta think she’s going to become evolved. LIke I said at the beginning, an AI, likely.

As for the missions, well again as of this writing they still aren’t up on Waypoint for me to recall. I do remember that the initial cutscene from the first chapter didn’t looked finished. At least the first couple of seconds didn’t. The background, especially the green hillsides looked terribly low res.

I didn’t mind too much that we revisited areas again, but the missions themselves seemed a bit boring, even though we had more vehicle combat. There really wasn’t much room for the vehicles to maneuver around in anyway, so that was kind of wasteful. Though I did manage to get the Warthog into areas I’m pretty sure they weren’t intended to be. (I like to do that kind of stuff). Same with the Wraith. I think it’s the fourth mission, you can capture a wraith if you’re careful about how you kill the driver. There are clearly Forerunner pieces in the way between where you get it and where you need to go. SO I suspect they don’t want you to take it there. However, by punching off the tips of the front “wings” of the wraith, you can EASILY get it to the next area as it will fit between those Forerunner poles.

While I liked the video, it wasn’t as good as the previous two and the missions weren’t as good either. I did like the last mission where you had to defend areas. That circling holo defend area was kind of cool. And what do you know, Glassman isn’t as much a dolt as he was made out to be. Seems like even Halsey noted that to in the video.

Well, i’m furiously finishing up the Spartan Ops comic for episode 7 so I can get started on 8.

Any thought on this episode and/or missions? Click reply below!

-Sal

This discussion came up on Halo Waypoint. I responded to it and just had to share my thoughts with you folks.

First I quoted two other forum users and responded in kind.

If it’s like $10-15 and the episodes are as good as they have been the last two weeks, then yeah I’d buy it.

Exactly! I’ve enjoyed all of Spartan Ops to date. The latest two episodes are even better than the first 6.

if there is a season 2, and I’m expected to purchase it, it needs the following 3 things.

theater mode support
campaign scoring
skulls

or it needs to be free. at least for me. by that i dont mean that i should be the only one that gets it for free only that this is just my opinion.

Theater mode is one thing that would make me pay for it in an instant. There are SO many screenshots I want to be able to take and can’t because 343 left it out. Campaign scoring isn’t a huge deal to me, however it does help to know when you’ve killed off one of those bigger enemies at a distance so you don’t waste anymore ammo on an enemy.
Skulls would be cool, especially if it adds to XP. I’m already at 130, but still for those who aren’t it would be a nice aded feature.

As far as price, as the first person I quoted mentioned, $10-15 would be great. Anything more and you start to get into Arcade game prices. For that there would need to be a bit more.

Longer videos, interaction IN-GAME with Majestic and/or Palmer, how about adding the Falcon and/or Pelican to be able to fly in missions? What about the Broadsword in a space mission?

One thing is for certain, if 343/M$ is asking us to pay for a Season 2, they need to be a LOT more forthcoming about what we can expect in the next season. What upgrades they are making, general story plot without giving away spoilers. They need to SELL it to us, not ask that we take them blindly on faith.

They asked us to “trust them” before the release of Halo 4. Some feel burned by that comment. While I think Spartan Ops is AWESOME and would buy in a minute, there are many who need to be convinced of why they should pay for more Halo 4 content. So it’s up to 343 to do that.

For the last nearly two months I’ve been teaming up with POD Dust Storm of Podtacular to bring you Podcasts of the Spartan Ops Episodes and Missions. Simultaneously, we worked together on this guidebook. Dust Storm did all the writing while I contributed by adding things to write about, correcting where needed, etc. This guidebook will continue on to finish out the full first season of Spartan Ops. For now feel free to download the PDF for the first five episodes.

http://www.duststorm.org/files/spartanops1-5_preview.pdf

Thanks to my friend POD Dust Storm for asking me to be part of this adventure. We had and continue to have a lot of fun along the way and learn a great deal about Spartan Ops.

-Sal

Take a look at some pics from the upcoming episode of Spartan Ops: “Expendable.”

I can’t wait to see what happens in this episode. As for the missions though, there are already two repeating maps. Still, what happens to Halsey in this episode may have a major impact on the future of the Halo universe.

http://video.gamespotcdn.com/d8/gsc/2013/01/169_halo_4_spartan_ops_video_feature_x360_013112_m2.ipod.mp4

Coming in at over 22 minutes long, this video has some neat insights of how Spartan Ops came about. Topics range from the initial idea of Spartan Ops to development, to the intense weekly schedule and fan reactions.

As a Halo fan who LOVES playing Spartan Ops, I enjoyed this vid. Nothing is given away past episode 7. So no spoilers to worry about.

I recommend clicking the link and checking out the vid.

-Sal

Source link: http://m.gamespot.com/halo-4-majestic-map-pack/videos/spartan-ops-and-the-future-of-halos-episodic-content-6403255/?tag=Topslot;SpartanOpsAndTheFutureOfHalo;SpartanOpsAndTheFutur/

Hmm, Halsey isn’t expendable. So I wonder then about the title? Is someone important going to die in this episode?

Oh My GAWD. I have a guess as to what happens in this episode! SARAH PALMER DIES! Master Chief then comes back to the Infinity and takes over as new Commander of the Spartans!

GAWD! I HOPE this is what happens. WHile I’d like to see Palmer character fleshed out more so that I could actually start to like her, having Master Chief back and in charge is WAY more appealing to me.

Whoops here it is. After several weeks off due to the tournament, Spartan Ops is back! Not only that, now I’m able to make the comic books again! I had an issue with uploading images to my blog due to a recent upgrade. That’s been fixed and now I can finally present to you, Spartan Ops Episode 6: Scattered, in comic book form!

I love making these and hope you enjoy reading them. Please feel free to download the images. If you do repost or relink them, please give me credit as “Designed by Sal Salerno of HaloFanForLife.com.”

And again, I’d love to hear your comments on this episode and comic book. Reply here or e-mail me at sal@ halofanforlife.com and I’ll be sure and get those comments in the Episode 7’s comic book, which I’m already working on!

-Sal

It was released a little early. At like 2am EST. I’ve already watched it twice and played through it tiwce. It’s FAN-FREAKIN’ TASTIC! While the video part ends rather abruptly, that keeps you wanting more.

In the meantime the 5 chapters are quite fun. I don’t want to spoil it. Let’s just say you’re not going to be on Requiem for a little bit of time.

The chapters increase in enemies, or at least they feel like they do. But it’s not just one big firefight each mission. There are clear objectives. While there is repetitiveness in the latter chapters, it’s still quite a blast (pun fully intended) to play through them.

Here’s the vid for Episode 7 “Invasion” on Waypoint.

-Sal

Taking a little longer than expected, but for good reason. I just finished the layout completely. All graphics are in! Eh, but now I need to add all the text in. I’ll do that tomorrow and should have it ready some time mid-day. I had to really decide what panels I was going to cut out here. I wanted to keep them all but realized some where a little repetitive, so some cuts had to be made. Pacing is just as important in comic books as it is in an animated or filmed production.

-Sal