Halo: Art Of War

Backwash: The Coolest looking one, it resembles the swamp stage in the first Halo.
Elongation: A remake of a Halo 1 level, it includes a conveyor belt, looks fun. More pictures here.
Gemini: Based on a stage from Halo 2 (looks like the inside of an alien spaceship), doesn’t look all that special.
Terminal: Huge stage in the city that includes a train running through the middle, and no you can’t ride the train, it will kill you. (Not Pictured)
Relic: In this level you get to fight in a sandy beach with a huge structure in the middle, perfect for snipers.

These maps will be available for download on July 5th for Live users. For those without Live, you can get them at your local retail store the same day “The Multiplayer Map Pack”, which also includes all nine stages, all updates, and a few extras.

Here’s a Public Service Announcement brought to you by the good folks at the State Education Deparment on X-Box Live Etiquette. Enjoy!!!

Link

After much searching, almost to the point where I almost called XBox live support, I finally reached the much desired answer to my question:

How do you play the new maps on Matchmaking?

Well here how:
Bungie says “The Halo 2 playlist update is now undergoing rigorous testing…we want to provide time for people to get the maps, let the dust settle and ensure adequate testing of the playlist updates.”

Cut the crap Bungie, you released the maps without anyway to play them on matchmaking, that’s just plain incompetence, plus the fact that it’s not mentioned anywhere, other than a few lines of text that were hidden on your weekly update. Bottom line, we get to download the new maps now, but, we can’t play them on matchmaking until the first week of May. WTF!!!! Man this is the first time Bungie’s ever managed to piss me off, way to go Bungie.

The Facts (from Bungie):

- The first groups of maps for Live will be released on April 25, 2005
Containment and Warlock are free, Turf and Sanctuary are $5.99 US (local prices will vary by country)

- The autoupdate (available since Monday 18th) will include the make the following changes to the xbox live experience:

1. Melee damage - instant one-hit kills (while melee-jumping), strength of regular melee atack increased
2. Granades - Both frag and plasma are more powerfull, were talking one hit kills here. They have a shorter fuse for those last minute “hara-kiri” moves
3. Brute Shot - Enhanced, both granades and melee attack with scythe.
4. Magnum - Reduced, no more double wielding super fast killing, unless you go for the head.
5. Plasma Rifle and SMG combo - Reduced. Crap, that was my combo!!!
6. Leaderboards will be reset after the new maps are available, new start for everyone.
7. Rank scoring will be changed (to complicated to explain) basically people will be matched with people of the same skill.
8. This autoupdate fixes most known of the cheats and exploits available. Man I didn’t know there were so many!!
9. When you get the autoupdate, there will be some lag and loading times, while the system optimizes itself for the best connection.
10. Split screen players no longer have pop-up messages, you lose the messages but you gain some screen.

All of these updates make Halo 2 multiplayer more like Halo 1, so everybody get to practice!!

A south texan religious group (The Fusion Church), has created a series a la Red vs. Blue but with a twist. They use Halo characters in funny situations to explain such themes like faith, sexuality, etc… for their seasonal get together of christian youth groups called “iGod weekend” (get it iGod, iPod, funny stuff!) They have 3 episodes and a promo online, which are being hosted on HBO because of bandwith problems on their website.
Check em out.

Confirmed. This June 28th, Bungie will be releasing 9 new maps on cd for $19.99. But get this, the first 2 maps will be available as a free download to Live users by late April, with two additional maps for sale ($5.99) at the same time. The remaining 5 maps will be available as a paid download on the day the retail package hits the stores. By the end of the summer, you can get all of the maps free. The first two maps are Containment and Warlock, the two additional maps available for purchase are called Sanctuary and Turf. The last five are named Terminal, Relic, Elongation, Gemini and Backwash. According to Bungie, “The retail disc will contain extras, including a documentary, a cool project from our cinematic and animation team, every Halo 2 update released so far and possily one or two other little treats.” More info here.

Can you believe this, there’s this guy named Eisen Feuer who’s making a series of battle strategy videos for TalkXbox.com called….wait for it…HALO 2: The Art of War. Wait a minute, this sounds very similar to a blog I know. People how about we start being original and try not to copy everyone else. I know this is hard, but with some hard work, we can do it. So, in light of this, I’ve decided to post a series of strategy videos called…wait for it…Unique 2: The Art Of Originality. It will include sections such as:

1) The Art Of Innovation
2) The Art Of Coming Up With Your Own Ideas
3) The Art Of Freshness (I especially like this one)

It’s interesting, if you’re a level 14, your worthy to go into battle with Eisen Feuer of the Panzer Faust Clan. But if you’re a miserable level 11 in Team Slayer like me, you’re gonna have to wait.

Alright, making fun aside, I just saw the trailer and I must admit, it rules big time, and hopefully he’ll release the videos soon. Hey, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t trying to copy the name of my blog, you know what they say, like minds think alike….

I just found out, there’s these group of guys similiar to Red vs. Blue known as The Codex. Instead of comedy, they do more of an action-adventure drama, following the Halo story just before the Covenant invasion of Earth. I just saw the trailer and I can’t wait to download the rest of the movies. Episode 5 was just released, this and the rest of the videos available here.

Bill Gates was awarded an honorary knighthood by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II today. The Queen pronounced the Micro$oft founder as a “Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire” for his contributions to business and to healthcare throughout the British Commonwealth. I’m kinda happy for the guy cause he has made many contributions and has helped many people, at the same time, I’m just against his way of making business and the way he realized his wealth. Now that he’s a knight, he joins Frodo, Sam, along with Merry and Pippin to take part in the battle against Sauron’s forces that have laid siege to Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor. Upon their safe return to the Shire, Bill Gates will become Knight of Gondor, son of Rohan…

Now this is a real Halo fan! Stephen Loftus is on the initial phase of building his own Pillar Of Autumn Cruiser. He even made technical drawings of the ship. I can’t wait for this behemoth of a model to be finished. This other guy even made a Lego Pilar Of Autumn. Check it out.