I'm fucking stoked. I've got off Monday/Tue and Friday that week. Daravon you'd better be around cause I'm gonna be blowing your phone up like Hiroshima, son. Halo just ain't the same without someone to betray all day and night.

In May, the battle begins...again.

Latest ep of Gametrailers TV has Reach special, Keighley interviewing some Bungie dudes as well.

Also

http://www.gamingforce.org/staff/Qwa...1853509226.gif

I'd like it if it played like the goddamned L4D2 add-on due out this week.

And even then I'd just play the goddamned L4D2 add-on.

So why aren't we playing L4D2 right now? I blame Tails and Kyndig.

I'll be around my normal times sure (for reference because you have no memory, I work 10 hour shifts on Mon/Wed/Thu/Fri). There's still no end date for the Beta yet, but it's expected to last 3-4 weeks, I took the 24th (Monday) off but that's it.

We've honestly just all moved on. Phong is usually on at odd times and he's (as far as I can tell) obsessed with BC 2, as is Goodhand and Merk. Tails isn't around much (at least when I'm around), and I usually only get on to play MW2 with another group of people. Honestly don't know if I'll even bother getting the L4D2 DLC, it sounds great but I got burned on getting the first DLC and I don't know that I'd play (realistically) any more, especially with the Reach Beta starting a week and a half later.


In actual thread-related news, huge Reach embargoes went up today, so it's gonna take me some work to update the OP. I'll leave you with the leaked descriptions of the Halo Reach versions from an upcoming Best Buy ad.

And yes, I will buy the Legendary edition because I am a retard and want the packaging/in-game armor. Unless this sculpture is actually amazing it will go in the closet with my cat helmet. I wish they would sell this shit at like $99 without the physical thing no one wants; the Halo 3 Legendary discs were fucking amazing but you could only get them buy getting a cat helmet that I didn't want.

You could always just gently place the cat helmet and the sculpture into a trash bag, and then gently place said trash bag into a nearby dumpster. Then you could have your discs and in-game stuff and your closet space.

Thread is largely content-complete for now with all of the embargoes that lifted today. Tomorrow I'll go through and make sure there were no minor things I missed.

I overhauled the OP again, removed and condensed things down a bit so it should be easier to read and less meandering now that we finally have real info, as well as it's easier to tell now what's relevant now and what's not. I still need some proper image headers, but aside from that we're good to go for the most part. There's a lot of little things I added, but probably the only one that really sticks out immediately that I'll mention here (aside from the editions being leaked) is that Assassinations are OPTIONAL, so it's basically a humiliation thing.

Bah.

I really dug the Halo 3 legendary helmet, my Club Nintendo hat reward is sitting on it right now. ;_;

Considering how cheap the Legendary stuff got so quick though, it might be more cost effective to buy regular first and legendary 6 months later. It'd be possibly cheaper (or at least equal) to double dip, if the helmet prices here were any indication.

If you timed it right you were able to get halo 3 legendary for 20 bucks at toys r us. So yeah, I'd hold off on legendary myself.

Everyone go watch this:

Bungie.net : Halo Reach : Multimedia

Don't have time before work to update, but tons of new stuff in there, I'll update when I get home. Also the Bungie guys swear a lot. Also Luke Smith is pretty hilarious. "It's like everyone's got a Death Star in their hands" lololol

Also some stuff came out regarding the editions, what makes this different then previously is the in-game armor stuff is apparently exclusive to the editions, cannot be obtained otherwise; it's some sort of exclusive "armor effect", whatever that means.

Additional Spam:
Acutally leaked images of the actual packaging is up via Halo Waypoint: Reach Retail Packaging First Look

Again I'll properly update tonight.

I'll probably still go with the medium edition, but the statue thing with the large edition doesn't look that bad.

I didn't realise that the DMR had changing accuracy like the sniper. I guess they liked how longer ranged weapons work in Tom Clancy games (And in fact most other FPS games these days), assuming that running lowers the accuracy of the DMR as well as rapid firing. I like what they're saying about dropping your Spartan into campaign mode so there's less detachment, whereas before you were either Master Chief (Or the smelly alien dude) or playing multiplayer. Again, this is just like Rainbow Six (I've just been playing that, hence all the comparissons) where even in story mode when you're a named character he still looks how you set him up. When does the beta launch exactly? I'm hoping it's before the Opera season starts and I start working every hour ever.

May 3rd.

My dick is so hard right now. Halo Reach Legendary is mine, Beta Vidoc has me all hot and bothered.

Updated the OP with the details/pics of all the editions. There's some more relatively minor stuff, but it's late and with the BWU being tomorrow, I'll just wait and do it all tomorrow.

The statue's 10 freaking pounds people!

Two weeks after launch it'll probably be about £10 on eBay too. :tpg:

Per this week's BWU, Bungie is saying that Microsoft is saying that it'll be nothing like the cat helmet, and they actually are limited, so who fucking knows. I doubt it.

Any way, I'll be full on updating the OP later tonight or tomorrow, plenty of news between yesterday and today's update. Quick question: does any one actually give a shit about the .gifs? To be clear I'm pulling them from elsewhere and not spending time myself on them. I'm thinking about maybe pulling down all of them (except maybe for one or two), and severely condensing down the weapon section and possibly doing away with even the spoiler dropdowns, dunno.

I would leave the dropdowns. Makes it a lot easier to find the general subject you're looking for. If someone doesn't really give a shit about the arena (lol right) and just wants to see the new weapons, it's right there in a neat little package. Don't have to sift through half a page of text.

Some of the pictures could probably go, if you're trying to condense. I'm pretty sure everyone has a clear understanding of what the Plasma Sword and Shotgun look like, and the new weapons aren't terribly different from what we've seen before. Except that Grenade Launcher, which is damn cool.

Condensed the OP down further, got rid of most of the .gifs although I did keep one or two, seemed particularly relevant to show how Armor Lock works. Once I get off my ass and actually make some image headers it's done done.

Additions to OP:

-Few more details on various editions (The flames on the helmet that comes with the Legendary Edition works with any Spartan Helmet, it's not tied to only that one).
-Mongoose is NOT in the Beta as previously reported.
-Some Loadouts start you with 3 of a grenade; the third grenade is only available upon spawn, once you throw your first grenade of that type, you're capped at 2 for the rest of that spawn, even if you pick up another.
-There are a number of new medals, such as for killing someone who's flying with a Jet Pack, killing someone who's reloading, and more. Waiting for better screens/Bungie info to update this further.
-Custom Games will NOT be available in the Beta.
-In Invasion Slayer there are randomly positioned territories; capture them, and 10 seconds later an airdrop containing either weapons or vehicles will arrive.

(Current) Playlist drop dates into the Beta:
* Grab Bag – May 3
* FFA – May 3
* Arena - May 3
* Invasion - May 7
* Network Test 1/Generator Defense - May 14
-As you can see not all of the Playlists are immediately available; they are being staggered for specific network testing. However once a Playlist is up, unless unforseen circumstances arise it should be up for the duration of the Beta (i.e. Grab Bag does not go away on May 7th when Invasion is available). Per Bungie the above dates are subject to change.
-The Bungie Weekly Update on April 30th will detail what gametypes fall into what Playlists, etc.

Image headers are up; likely NOT permanent, but they'll do for now. I need hi-res screens of things that aren't available yet to do something proper with the headers that I want to do. There's apparently a huge media embargo going up tomorrow, so there should be tons of videos and screens from all of the media outlets when they played the game a couple of weeks ago. Then some time next week (likely on the Bungie Weekly Update) we should have concrete information on how the Arena ranks are calculated, the Beta end date, and final details on what will be in every Playlist, etc.

Media embargo went up today, if you only watch one thing make it this. It's by GiantBomb and clocks at 35 minutes, but they play and go over all of beta maps, as well as all the new weapons and various changes.

Quest Your Way To Early Halo: Reach Beta Access - Giant Bomb

Now that's just silly.

Why?

That one's called Opportunist I believe.

Because I fucking said so.

'sides I don't see it popping up a whole lot, unless someone is killing you since you're always, always reloading at the worst possible time and getting killed because of it. Seriously if I had a dollar for every time you died because "ran out of bullets and was reloading" or "I emptied a WHOLE CLIP into that guy and he got me when I was reloading" I would be fucking rich.