This Warthog Should Help You Punch On Through

It's been over a year now since the release of Halo 3 and my obsession with the Halo Universe has grown exponentially. The last years has been birthing grounds to the Uprising comics, the halo graphic novel (I read it this year, it has been out for longer), Contact Harvest, 7 new maps from Bungie, a super suspenseful trailer for a campaign expansion, TU2, a Mythic Map pack (6 maps) announcement, as well as an announcement for the 6th book; The Cole Protocol. The new book (along with Halo Wars) is supposed to be released this November.

So, needler-less to say, I’m excited. The story has become so intricate that Lmack and I now debate possible puncture in Halo cannon. I have ascended to true greek-dom, although I still remain a nerd.

Uprising
These are a great little comic series. I was never really into comics, and I am still not. But this 4 volume series fills the gap between Halo 2 & 3, providing some awesome art work along the way.

Graphic Novel
Same benefits as Uprising, only it provides details of other parts along the story line.

Contact Harvest
This book is great story looking at life before the Covenant and how the war began through Johnsons’ eyes.

New Maps
Although only 1 map was free, I bought them anyway like a sucker. Sadly, I only really like 2 of the 6 I paid for.

Heroic:
Standoff – This isn’t bad for objective based games like CTF or Assault, but its not great either. The bases sit on either side of a valley, making it very open.

Rat’s Nest – Again, not bad for Assault, CTF, or rocket race, but it just doesn’t have a good flow in my mind.

Foundry – I like this one, although I’m not always in the mood for it. It does allow for a lot of customization (aka many great home-made maps) and also gave birth to Griffball; the best game since the game itself.

Legendary:
Blackout – Good slayer map, awesome remake of Halo 2’s Lockout, which sucked.

Ghost Town – This is an okay map I suppose, but for slayer only.

Avalanche – Huge map, remake of Halo:CE Sidewinder. Makes a good heavy map, but the fighting still just doesn’t do it for me.

Bungie Day:
Cold Storage – Remake of Halo:CE’s Chill Out. Redone very well, plays slightly differently than its precursor, but is the best remake & one of the best small maps.

Halo Wars
This will be interesting. It’s an RTS (of which I’ve heard they did an awesome job of turning over to console controls) based on the 5 year battle to reclaim Harvest. It sounds fun, but I’m not big into RTSs, so we will see.

The Cole Protocol
I’m very excited about this. People are saying it will cover the mysterious mission of Grey Team. It will defiantly be killer.

TU2
Title update 2 was big. It released 10 new achievements worth 250GS along with a new annoying playlist exp system. It’s annoying because for the next month, you will be leveling every 5 seconds. It’s cool because now you can become a General in Griffball. It also included various playlist tweaks & a new banhammer. Yeah.

Mythic
Mythic is supposed to be 6 new multiplayer maps. Some theories about it being new campaign have surfaced, but died when TU2 also showed 10 new achievements (so 20 total), worth 500GS for these new mythic maps, which clearly indicate they are multiplayer.

Keep It Clean / Pardon Our Dust / Prepare To Drop
This is awesome. Bungie released a seemingly empty trailer for a new campaign expansion. When you watch closely, you notice things like a sign that says “City of New Mombasa” and a Covenant cruiser in the distance before a large explosion. The date on the camera along with the city, indicate that it is Regret’s ship, and the explosion is really an EMP, indicating a slipspace jump (aka. About 25% of the way into Halo 2 story).

There are also things that fall from the sky right before the EMP, and on closer inspection are HEVs for the badass ODSTs. And it looks like theres only one pod that makes it down. People are saying that the expansion will be in Halo2 time when Master Chief is on the Delta Halo, and you get to play as an ODST. However, I can’t remember at this point in time when Fred, Will, and Linda left for Oynx, but it is possible for it to be a Spartan-II. Either way, I’m wetting my pants.



I fucking love Halo.