It wouldn't surprise me if it did make it into the final game somewhere.

I figured this was relevant and probably not thread-worthy though:

As far as I can tell you don't have to actually play against the Bungie guys to get the Reach Emblem, they'll be giving it to everyone who plays the game that day. If anyone else is down I'll be playing. They're definitely not kidding about getting the map packs beforehand though, I'm downloading the map packs now and they're slow as fucking hell to download and apparently people are having to re-download them sometimes because it gets corrupted partway through.

Say what you will about Halo 2, booting it up has made me nostalgic, and although I'm sure the gameplay doesn't hold up at all, I still do miss some of the maps. If you somehow still have a copy of this and want something for yourself in Reach be sure to hop on Wednesday!

There was also some Reach updates last week with details on some of the beta maps and weapons, but nothing too earth-shattering, I'll get that in there sometime later.

I'm definitely up for some Halo 2, I'll re-install all the shit later today.

Edit: Holy shit these maps download slowly.

Lol those maps. I WOULD play but I probably won't be around for much of Wednesday. :(

If I catch you guys while I'm up then maybe.

I'll be on in a little bit, and will probably be on through when the servers go down (in about 10 1/2 hours from now).

Time to finish the fight. AGAIN.

The fight can never be finished enough.

"I thought we won that war?"

"Win it again."

Well that was fun. I wish it had H3's theater mode so I could get clips of me running over a teammate accidentally and then missing the turn, sending Daravon and myself flying off the edge on Waterworks. It was the best triple kill I've ever gotten.

Also pretty much every time I was in a Warthog on containment. Hilarious was had. Aces should be in the sky, not on the ground, obviously.

Sorry I didn't stop to play with you a bit Tails, I got an emergency call to go to the pub.

I had a blast playing some old school H2 though, once I got my bearings on the maps again. I got an 8 kill streak on a big team dual slayer game on Midship, Halo needs more smaller maps. I mean, fun though driving around Blood Gultch or Containment in a 'Hog is, you can often go several minutes without seeing anyone on those maps.

I did like the updated "Did you know?" facts though.

OP hugely updated through the G4 reveal of Invasion Friday night. Picture quality on some things is a bit lacking as there's still no official screens of a lot of stuff. I put a lot of work into this (all weekend), and while I still need to make some changes (need to come up with some image headers, etc) it should be templated enough where as we get new info I should be able to plug it in pretty readily. Bungie has said they'd be revealing a lot more info this week as well.

I'm summing up a bit since I re-did most everything from scratch, but off the top of my head most notable updates since the last one:

-There is no more flag juggling; there is no speed or other advantage to tossing and picking up the flag, so that should eliminate the FLAG TAKEN FLAG DROPPED bullshit. Also, you cannot hold a flag while using an Armor Ability, you immediately drop the flag if you try.

-No Dual-Wielding at all.

-Confirmed that you are vulnerable while doing an Assassination move, and if you are being Assassinated a teammate can save you. Also Assassinations can also be performed air to air, air to ground, and ground to air.

-Invasion mode works similar to BC2 Rush mode; 6v6 with Spartans defending objectives the Elites are trying to take. As the game progresses and the Elites successfully take objectives, the game "escalates" by unlocking new Loadouts and Vehicles; so at the start each side may only have two Loadouts available, but at the end when the Spartans have been pushed all the way back each team may have 5 different Loadouts and multiple vehicles available.

-In Invasion mode pre-game you are assigned a "Battle Bro," and on respawn you can choose where to spawn, or if you Bro is not in combat you can spawn on him/her (again very similar to Battlefield).

Who borrowed it from Frontlines, where respawning on a squadmate's position was all but essential once people started dropping sentry guns next to spawn points. If nothing else that'll hopefully reduce the problem of playing big team games and after the initial rush, respawning back at the base then attacking in dribs and drabs, running across the map alone and getting murdered by a numerically superior defence force. I'm surprised they dropped dual wielding but maybe they needed the extra button for the armour thingy, unless they're dropping tools as well (Bubble shields and grav lifts etc.).

I didn't mind the flag dropping too much as it gave away the location of the flag carrier if nobody could see them, improving your chances of stopping them. Maybe an icon rather than the announcement would have helped as surely the flag carrier being the same speed as eveyone else will make it much easier to steal flags?

I really hope that if you air to air assasinate someone you do a massive piledriver on them, that would be the actual best thing ever.

Awesome OP by the way, really well done mate.

God dammit, I have to find ODST now, don't I?

It's available all over the internet for fuck all money, I picked up my copy for £15 and that was before christmas, they shipped waaaaaay more copies of ODST than they sold.

Does it matter if it's used or not? In Crackdown it didn't matter because it was built into the game, so I'm assuming no.

I think no, on beta day you stick in the ODST multiplayer disk and launch from there as I understand it. Make sure you get both disks of course!

Yep, I managed to pick the ONE ebay auction that specifically mentions "doesn't have multiplayer" and bid on that without catching it. Considering the dick wrote "COMPLETE!!!!" as part of the listing title I should punch him in the nuts.

It's $30 on Amazon, is it really going that much cheaper on ebay?

Guh, Google lied about the price on Amazon and said it was $40, so I skipped it. :(

I mean, this auction I'm apparently about to win would cost me $15, and from what I can tell all I'd need is the singleplayer disc and not the multiplayer one.

Ah, I got outbid, so the issue's moot. I'll just pick it up on Amazon and save the trouble.

If there was any doubt that Battle Bro is the definitive phrase Skills, this should put that to rest.

YouTube Video

Additional Spam:
Close. Check it out DBZ style:

http://downloads.bungie.net/videos/onthewingsoflove.mov

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...if_serious.jpg


Oh wait it's Shin



http://colonelskills.belkanairforce....CoffeeSpit.gif


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Also maaaaaan Battle Bro is ridiculous. :(

Eh, it's fine. It's less ridiculous than half of the usernames you've taken on here.

I reallllly hope urk can manage to get them to make Battle Bro shirts for the Reach Beta, would buy that shit in a heartbeat.

Updated the OP with a post that Urk just put up, bnet sexiness for the Beta:

SHIT HOT

http://i41.tinypic.com/28ciq9c.jpg

http://i43.tinypic.com/2ccqgk8.jpg

http://i40.tinypic.com/24njhvs.jpg

http://i42.tinypic.com/rbwhs2.jpg

That shit looks AWESOME.

While my dislike of Halo remains, even I have to admit that this Beta looks fucking awesome.

If you don't like Halo, I don't think this would still change your mind. Only thing I can think of is that you might like the Invasion mode, as it plays somewhat like Battlefield.

Which reminds me, I need to add to the OP, apparently Invasion phases last 4 minutes, if the Elites don't hit the objectives at the end of the 4 minutes the game ends, if they do it goes to the next phase (unclear if current time just adds to the 4 minutes, or if it refreshes to 4 minutes). Also at least in the Beta, you'll only play as one side or the other in Invasion, there's no "switching" sides.

Also someone pointed out to me a greater significance of Battle Bro respawning then I think occurred to us; say my Battle Bro Goodhand is driving me in a Warthog and I'm manning the turret. If I die, he can drive to safety, and I will respawn in the turret. That is amazing.