By Master Chief
Last week there was mention of Sgt. Johnson being a playable character in the Firefight mode of ODST. The stipulation is that you had to pre-order the game in order to unlock him. If you live in the US, then you smiled and moved about your day. If you live in a region other than the US, there were questions whether or not Johnson would be available in your area.
Your questions have been somewhat answerd, as it’s been confirmed that a few territories in Europe will have Sgt. Johnson as a playable character. It should be noted that this is confirmed list ‘as of now’. More countries and territories could be added later:
- France: GAME, FNAC, JV&Co, Virgin, Amazon, Pixmania, Cdiscount, Rue du Commerce
- Germany: Amazon and Gamestop
- Italy: Gamestop
- UK: Game, Gamestation, Amazon, Play
By Master Chief
If you love the extended Halo universe, then I highly recommend giving the Halo: Uprising comics a try. You’d think that a comic based on a video might be phoned in, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Halo: Uprising started back in August 2007, and was met with critical and fan praise. It sold out within 24 hours, and will live on as one of the better stories told in the Halo extended universe. It took a year and a half for the story to wrap up, but it was worth it.
The events of Halo: Uprising take place between Halo 2 and 3; it’s a bridging story that setup the finale of the video game trilogy.
Due to the success of the story, Marvel will be releasing the entire collection in hardcover. It’s slated to release in June, and will cost $24.95.
By Master Chief
I’ve always wondered how many Halo fans anxiously search the internet for ‘Recon Armor’. I’d love to view those Google stats. I’d almost gurantee that there’s someone who checks every single day to find any updates on how, and where to grab that ever elusive armor set.
If you happen to be one of those people, and you’re reading this then hopefully you participted in last weekend’s contest.
The contest was quite simple. All you had to do was take three screenshots of you playing in a matchmaking contest using the Mythic Map Pack. They could have been anything. Then upload your screens to File Share. If you were one of the lucky ones, then you received your recon armor.
I participated in the event myself, unfortunately I wasn’t selected…*tear*. I guess my epic screens of me slaughtering others wasn’t quite good enough. Did anyone else participate?
By Master Chief
If you’re someone who considers themselves forging experts, of either Foundry or Sandbox take heed of today’s post. Although I don’t think anyone is an ‘expert’ with Sandbox quite yet.
In Bungie’s weekly update, they featured someone who is an icon in the Forging community, Cosmic Rick. He has created classic Forges, such as: Kentucky Tango, and Pallet Parade.
Bungie had a Q&A session with Cosmic Rick about Forging, and it’s a very interesting read. Here’s a response from Cosmic Rick about how he builds maps…
“The process really depends on the map. For Utah Mambo, the only thing I really had planned out initially was the Defensive base, and that I wanted something asymmetric which could handle symmetric games, too. Then I looked at what attack angles and lines-of-sight would make for a fun objective game and designed the central structure (with a little inspiration from Sandtrap) around that. I find that it’s usually better to have a solid idea, but to be flexible during the build process. It’s definitely fun to just throw things together until something works, though. (I’ll admit it: that’s mostly how Pallet Parade and Kentucky Tango came about.)”
Cosmic Rick has a new Sandbox variant coming out by the name of Utah Mambo. It’s looking quite impressive, and I plan on giving it a shot later on.
Tags: Bungie, expert, Forge, foundry, Q&A, sandbox
By Master Chief
Alright HaloMega readers. Today marks the event that a large amount of you have been waiting for. Dragonball movie release? No, today the Mythic Map Pack will be released to the public.
For those who have already gotten their map pack, just sit quietly and enjoy the awesomeness you’ve obtained. For those who’ve been waiting patiently, Bungie has a couple of surprises in store for you today.
First, Bungie will be giving out Bungie Pro subscriptions for free. They will last until July. If you’re unfamiliar with Bungie Pro, it’s basically a service where you get 24 save slots for your custom creations.
There have been some interesting creations already, and if you’re interested take a peek at the ones below:
Flying Dutchman
Excavation
Pivotal
Tags: 3, Bungie, content, creation, custom, Halo, July, Map, Mythic, pack, Pro, public, release, subscription, surprise
By Master Chief
There are a few key ingredients to pulling off a good April Fools joke. First, it has to be lighthearted. April Fools isn’t about being mean, it’s about having fun at your expense or the expense of others. Second, if you’re conducting a fake story online, make it extreme yet believable. All of this is what Bungie did for its April Fools gag.
Bungie announced yesterday that they’d created their own professional gaming league, B.U.N.G.L.E. According to Bungie, their new league would be the premier professional league based around Halo. The story was pretty easy to spot as an April Fools joke, but just professional and real enough to fool some. Also, the idea itself sounds pretty good.
Here’s a list of some of the fake features for B.U.N.G.L.E. :
•The ONE and ONLY Pro Gaming League featuring Halo 3
•Monthly Online and Local Tournaments in Every Major City
•Annual World Championship Event, Super Summ3r Jam Extreme™
•Multi-Tiered League Play for All Ages Competition, featuring Halo 3′s Golden Bear, Louis Wu
•”PRO” Nameplate in Matchmaking to separate the Pros from the Schmoes
•Huge Cash and Amazing Prize Payouts for Local, Regional, and World Champions
•New, Fully-Customized Multiplayer Arenas: Blowout, Bungital, and Showerball
•Corporate Sponsorships from Big Jed’s Rib Shack and Dr. Phizzle and Diet Dr. Phizzle
Tags: April, B.U.N.G.L.E., Bungie, competition, Fools, gaming, Halo, league, professional
By Master Chief
For those eagerly awaiting any sliver of news about Halo 3: ODST, you’ll continue to wait. Unfortunately, nothing was released this past week in Bungie’s update. So, we still have Fall 2009 for a release window.
Things are looking up though, because in Bungie’s update they mention that the progammers are taking bets when the release date could be. You got to think that if they’re placing hard earned money on the table, then some idea of a date is floating around in someone’s mind. Unfortunately, we just don’t know what it is yet.
Some other things mentioned in the update were the Wasteland map in the Mythic Map Pack. If you were one of those who already have the map pack then you can skip this. If you’re unfamiliar with Wasteland, then go back and play Sandbox. Basically, it’s a modified version of Sandbox. In Wastelands you have a large sprawling Slayer, or Team Slayer type map. It’s vehicle based map as well, but if you’re a sniper you can find good spots as well.
Tags: 3, game, Halo, Map, Mythic, ODST, pack, sandbox, Slayer, type, Wasteland
By Master Chief
For those enjoying their copy of the Mythic Map Pack, congratulations. For those who are still in wait, Bungie has announced one of their variants of Sandbox called Spooky House. It sounds like a cool map that could provide very interesting scenarions. Especially for offensive minded players.
Spooky House is a vertically style stage, that has many defensive vantage points. The builder of the map states that the custom stage was built for the Zombie game type. Although, King of the Hill could perhaps be another option that could be used.
The stage was built on the Sky Bubble portion of the map. The reason is that the builder wants the players to stay in the house. On any other part of Sandbox, the players could leave, which would have ruined the fun of Spooky House.
Tags: 3, Forge, game, Halo, Map, Mythic, pack, spooky house, type, zombie
By Master Chief
Now that Halo Wars has released, I’m sure all you Limited Edition owners have thrown the game aside to try out Mythic Map pack. I’m just kidding, hopefully; as I sincerely hope you didn’t pay all that extra money just to play Mythic.
If you did pay all that money for Mythic then hopefully your map pack has actually loaded. Bungie has apparently been receiving case of player’s maps not loading. Bungie surprised me here, only really giving the solution that you should call Microsoft for support.
One problem that boggles my mind is that apparently people have been complaining that they thought the Mythic map pack came with the standard edition. I just don’t understand how you could know about the map pack, and now know it only comes with the limited edition. Bungie has been broadcasting the news since November, so I find it hard to believe that interested parties didn’t know about it.
For those who’ve picked up the limited edition of Halo Wars, how is the map pack playing out so far? Is Foundry as epic as we’ve been hearing? Are you already forging away as I’m typing this?
Tags: edition, Ensemble, Halo, limited, Map, Mythic, pack, story, studio, Wars
By Master Chief
If you’ve ever played Halo 3 online, and from the fact you’re reading this I’m assuming you have; participated in a milestone. According to Bungie.net, there have been a billion matches played for Halo 3. The stats don’t stop there.
It might not have sunk in, so again a ‘billion’ matches have been play of Halo 3 online. To put that into perspective, Halo 2 hasn’t even reached 800 million matches yet. And that game has been out for nearly 4 years. Bungie delves deeper into the numbers…
The billionth match lasted 3 minutes, and 30 seconds. If you use that as an average of time taken to complete a match, and multiply that by a billion that results are unbelievable.
- Sixty Three centuries of Halo 3 have been played
If you took all the time that has been spent playing Halo 3 online, and evened it out there would be 6,300 years worth of play time. That’s just impossible to even fathom, but yet it happened.
Tags: 1 billion, halo 3, live, mark, matches, online, Xbox