UPDATED: Thinking out loud (about Halo: Reach)

UPDATE

I just wanted to update this Halo: Reach love-fest that I like to call my latest blog with some of the awesome Halo: Reach announcements coming out of Comic-con this week.

Now players can take up arms against the Spartans as Covenant Elites.

Versus Firefight: When I first heard of Versus Firefight, I immediately thought about the old "Counter-op" mode from the original Perfect Dark. It seems to be more "survival" than regular Firefight. If you spawn as an Elite, then you, accompanied by AI controlled Covenant allies, are tasked with hunting and killing the Spartans. From what I gathered from all the videos I've watched so far, it seems that the Spartans each have a set number of lives and they basically have to survive until time runs out. It also appears that there are two rounds per game with each team switching sides between Covenant and UNSC after each round. Definitely sounds very cool.

Just one example of what's possible using the new Forge toolset.

Forge World: Forge World is probably my favorite of the new announcements made because it presents so many possibilities for custom multiplayer maps. Forge World is described by Bungie as being basically 5 or 6 maps rolled up into one. No part of Forge World appears to have been made without purpose, everything from the original Halo: Combat Evolved map "Blood Gulch" (a box canyon with a base at either end) to an island area, to a supposed underground area.

Bungie showed some examples of possible maps that can be made in Forge World in the way of remakes of "Sanctuary" (a DLC map for Halo 2) and "Ascension" (another Halo 2 map), which were amazingly accurate recreations of the originals. This gets me really excited because while Halo 3 was host to some really well made recreations of older Halo maps, they never really felt like the original maps. Bungie released a ViDoc about Forge World (you can check it out below) that shows off not only the map itself but also all the improvements that they've made to the actual building of maps as well. Which brings me to......

Here are the objects available to players for building their own maps in Halo: Reach.

Forge 2.0: Forge 2.0 is basically the tools used to actually create things inside of Forge. In Halo 3, coming up with cool ideas for maps was often the easy part, actually creating those ideas using the Forge tools was the hard part. In Halo 3, when you would create an object, all the normal game physics applied to said object, meaning that building maps in Halo 3 was more akin to a child's building blocks than something like Lego's that have objects link together to make perfect shapes. For Halo: Reach, Bungie has listened to the Forge community to fix all the things that were wrong with the original Forge while coming up with some cool things that no one had thought of at the same time.

The coolest of the new features is the ability to set objects to either "normal" (like Halo 3), "fixed" (similar but objects won't fall if you let go of them, they'll just stay wherever they are), and "phased" (just like fixed, but objects can actually be put through, or inside of other objects). This will definitely make for some very cool maps when Halo: Reach ships.

Here are a few parting shots for your viewing pleasure:

Hunters are gonna be HUGE in Halo: Reach!

The ability to call in air strikes is another cool new feature players will have in Halo: Reach.

I can't wait to try out Halo: Reach's all new space combat!

Halo: Reach's scale is incredible.

Halo: Reach is gonna be the most complete game EVER. I'm serious. Have you seen, heard or read about all the features that have been announced so far? let's see:

1. Campaign mode with 4-player online co-op + it will most likely have skulls and campaign scoring like Halo 3 did
2. full on multiplayer of course, with more customization options than you can shake a stick at
3. Firefight mode with loads of custom options
4. Forge mode with a bunch of new as-yet-unannounced features, I'm hoping for the ability to create brand new BSP's
5. Theater mode

And that's just what's been announced, Lars Bakken said in a recent interview that there was still a bunch of secret stuff that would blow fans minds. Crazy.

It's funny how I'll always admit how much of a Halo fan I am, but I don't usually start getting excited for new Halo games until right before launch. In case anyone missed it the new Red Vs Blue video special called "Deja Vu" (made in celebration of Bungie Day - July 7th (7/7), a couple of new things are shown in the video, the biggest being the return of Blood Gulch. Here's the vid:

 

 

Speaking of Bungie Day, yesterday (Bungie Day) Bungie did something really cool, they gave everyone flaming heads for multiplayer. For anyone that doesn't know, in Halo 3 multiplayer you can customize your Spartan or Elite's armor pieces to give them a unique look. In the beginning Bungie employees would wear the coveted "Recon Armor" when they played online... and their heads would be on fire. In the years since, and with the release of Halo 3: ODST, Bungie has made the Recon Armor available to anyone with the drive to get it, but that "flaming head" has always been out of reach. Bungie employees only (well, and Nathan Fillion).

But yesterday, in celebration of the last Bungie Day before Halo: Reach ships, Bungie unlocked the flaming head armor chest piece for everyone, all you had to do was equip it. See......

 

This is me playing some matchmaking with the flaming head hotness

My son playing some Grifball on Bungie Day sporting the Flaming Head

Me pwning in the Halo: Reach Beta and then getting pwned, lol

But yeah, I can't wait for Halo: Reach to hit.