Okay, instead of the normal trivia questions which are usually EASY with just a quick look-up on Google, I’m going to make this a bit more interactive.
I want to see your HAND DRAWN Carbines. NO PHOTOSHOP.
Here is the computer rendered file from 343. Use for reference if you’d like.
You have until Sunday 11:59pm (EST) to send me your drawing. You must be a registered member of the blog to enter. It’s free to register, so send me an e-mail at sal@ halofanforlife.com if you want to sign up for the blog. Just give me your desired user name and a password you want to use. You can include your drawing in that e-mail as well. Nothing over 1MB please.
If you’re already registered, send me your drawing via e-mail as well and be certain that you include your screen name here on the blog. (I”ll be checking those)
I’ll pick one for the entries and send you the code.
Drawings may be in pen, pencil, marker, crayon. Again NO computer rendered files. If I have to guess if it’s computer rendered or not, it will likely be disqualified without notice.
Here’s another of the multiplayer spartan figures form this wave.
Slender packaging that shows the figure off nicely. As you can see it also includes an armor code. This for the ‘Ruin’ skin. This skin is actually similar to the ‘Toxic’ skin that comes with the Scout figure. Again, you need not use the colors shown. These are just the ones that are chosen to highlight the skin.
The sculpt is the same as that of the Walgreen’s exclusive CIO from this wave. The difference is in the paint. This one comes with a vibrant purple color.
As with the Scout, my only complaint here is that it didn’t come as either the team red or blue color instead. Given how scarce the series are between one another, I’m not sure if we’ll see every iteration of spartan armor from Halo 4. So in the meantime, I’d prefer them as either red or blue teams.
The DMR is nicely detailed and of course the peg is removable.
As always, McFarlane’s Halo figures have fantastic Articulation, as seen above.
The sculpt is fantastic, as expected.
Depending on your like of this color, you may want it or not. It’s a nice color, but again, not knowing if we’ll get every armor permutation, I’d prefer red or blue instead.
I give this fig a 8.5 of 10. It would have scored higher for me if it would have had a ‘skin’ as the Walgreen’s exclusive did, or at least have been red or blue.
This long awaited series is now out and can be found at several major retailers, most notably Toys R Us and Walgreens.
This review details the Orange Spartan Scout figure from series 2 of the Halo 4 action figures by McFarlane Toys.
I’m glad to see that all of the figs come in this slender packaging. No waster space here and less impact on the environment. Kudos to McFarlane for that!
As you can see in the pic this figure comes with an armor code for the Scout, titled ‘Toxic’. It’s a neat skin. You do not have to use the colors as shown and thus can create a different look with the skin by using different colors.
This is one of the few Spartans McFarlane has done that deviates from the normal ‘Legendary’ visor. That is to say copper color. Instead it has a silver color. No doubt this choice was made due to the already prevalent orange color of the spartan itself.
It comes with a Sticky Detonator. The peg attached is removable. If you don’t want to pose the figure holding the weapon, you can easily stow it on the hole on the side of the leg.
The above shots show some of the great details on this figure. Not only is the sculpt excellent, but note the ‘UNSC’ on the chest piece as well as the wing/sword symbol. Both nice extra touches of detail. The armored glove as you can see shows paint detailing nicely on each finger.
Finally we have the articulation for this figure which is standard for most of McFarlane’s Halo Spartans. That is to say a LOT!
This is a great figure. My only complaint is that I’d have preferred this to be Commander Palmer instead of a non-descript Orange colored Spartan. Barring that, make it either team red or blue.
Still, it works as a Grifball Spartan and again, the detailed sculpt and extra paint apps make this a quality figure.
I give this a 9 of 10. Again, preferring this had been Palmer instead.
The first article of this week’s bulletin starts off with news of the Game of the Year edition of Halo 4. I’ve covered this extensively already. However, if you haven’t seen the trailer for this, take a gander:
Next up is the Matchmaking Playlist update. Several things to note here regarding additional maps/gametypes being included in Snipers, and Team Doubles.
Oddball will replace King of the Hill for the rotational playlist starting Oct 14.
Next up is a written tutorial of sorts on how to make Race from Multi team Ricochet. (Too bad Race isn’t just native to Halo 4 instead of having to jump through hoops to make it…). The following text is taken directly from the bulletin:
Ricochet to Race: How to create Race from Multi-Team Ricochet
While Race will be coming to Halo 4 Matchmaking in December (continue reading for details), we know that Race custom game types have been quite popular amongst the custom game community, so we’re happy to let you know that the designers over at Certain Affinity have detailed the step-by-step instructions to make the Race game type out of Multi-Team Ricochet. First, you’ll want to download the “Ricochet Multi-Team” game type from the “HaloWaypoint” File Share. Next, if you need a crash course on Ricochet game type labels, head here for all the info. Once you’re ready to get started, follow the below instructions:
1) Label a vehicle or vehicles as rico_forgeball to turn them into ‘balls’.
2) Use ForgeZones as the checkpoints for the race, and set up hill_marker objectives and label them rico_forgezone. These are set up so that they disappear and reappear in order that you hit them. Next, number the spawn sequence to set the order. You can award score for hitting each checkpoint, or only for particular ones. See the documentation for additional info.
3) Who is awarded points depends upon the team of the ball and the team of the ForgeZone. If the team of either of these is set, and so is the user data, then whenever the ‘ball’ enters any ForgeZone, the team of the ball will be awarded the points set on the ball, and the team of the zone will be awarded the points set on the zone. This means you have flexibility in how you set up the race.
Scenario 1: A neutral ball and then a series of ForgeZones set to teams.
The players could fight over who is driving the ‘ball’ and whoever is driving can aim for the checkpoints of their team color. The map can be forged so that the checkpoints are next to each other instead of in the same place, so that players avoid hitting the enemy’s checkpoints when they drive.
Scenario 2: Two team balls (vehicles), one for each team, or as many teams as you have on the map, with neutral ForgeZones.
Set the scoring points on the zones themselves to zero, and only use one set of zones. Set the scoring points on the balls appropriately for the teams. After everything is set up, it’s then a question of who is in the lead and hitting the checkpoints so that they disappear first (and getting the scoring points from their ball.)
Scenario 3: Team balls, and team ForgeZones in the same locations.
With this setup, players score when they hit their checkpoint, but the other team’s checkpoint is still available. Scoring points can be assigned to either the ForgeZones, the balls, or both. This can get a bit visually messy with all the different colored zones visible and in the same place, but is guaranteed good fun.
Up next is the Matchmaking Rotational playlist calendar which I just covered previous to this article.
The community gets a spotlight in the form of a remake of Countdown (the music to the vid is a bit annoying to me so I viewed it with sound off):
What follows is an interview with the map re-creator.
The map looks good but not exact to the original. I’d really love to see a Classic Map pack come to Halo 4. There would be MANY Halo 3 maps. However, Reach had a few I’d like to see come back. Countdown being one of them.
Finally we have this week’s screenshot spotlight that focuses on the color ORANGE. Though this is a bit early for Halloweeen. There are a few here I like. Especially “Refracitve FOTUS”.
For the FULL bulletin, go on over to Waypoint’s post too see/read all.
Waypoint released these images yesterday showing the rotational playlists for the next few months:
So get your games in and commendations done while you can. Otherwise, it’s going to be MONTHS before you get the next opportunity.
I’m really dismayed by the rotational playlist. If certain ones didn’t have commendations attached to them, that would be fine. Otherwise, it’s almost an exercise in futility trying to complete certain commendations. Case in point, the current one, King of the Hill, isn’t populated much and you can nearly forget about trying to find an evenly matched game late at night (EST U.S. time).
I still say that 343 needs to have a better playlist. Team Objective would include some of these in the rotational playlists. Dominion could easily move to BTB. Multi-team should NEVER go away. Include Rocket Race into that playlist.
As for community Ricochet maps, they can be tested in the current Ricochet playlist. That would leave us just with regular Race out of all of these. That could have it’s own playlist for awhile to gauge it’s popularity.
I’m about 32 King of the HIll wins away from Mastering that. I really hope I can get them done in these two weeks as I do NOT want to have to wait months for it to come back.
