Here I thought it was going to be a slow week for Halo news and was I wrong. 343i turned up with a lot of announcements and the rest of the Halo community delivered as well.
Halo 4 Infinity Challenge – I mentioned this yesterday but it’s good to bring up again. 343 Industries is having a contest starting Monday, Dec. 17th, 2012 to Sunday, Jan. 20th, 2013 and all that you have to do is play either Spartan Ops or War Games. The more XP you gain, the higher you are up on the leaderboards. For more details visit my article or go to www.halo4infinitychallenge.com to register and look at the prizes.
Gameplay update – 343i is doing their first game update to fix some glitches in the gameplay which they announced last night. The fixes that will be updated the next time you login to “Halo 4” involve:
• Implemented general stability improvements
• Fixed glitch where quickly reloading after firing the Boltshot resulted in an instant reload
• Fixed glitch where sprinting prior to activating the Hardlight Shield allowed players to move faster
• Fixed glitch were players could throw a grenade and then immediately sprint afterwards to perform a high velocity grenade
• Fixed glitch where Mantis could fire more rockets without reloading if the machine gun was fired partway through unleashing the charged missile barrage
• Fixed issue where DLC was unavailable for other profiles on the same console
• Fixed issue where DLC disappeared after console reboot
• Fixed issue where players could not unlock Campaign completion achievements when using a rally point other than Alpha for any mission to finish the Campaign
• Fixed issue where players were not given credit for completion of a Spartan Ops Episode Difficulty Challenge when completing it through Matchmaking
• Fixed issue where players with 99 or more Xbox LIVE friends could not get File recommendations
• Fixed issue where loadout configurations were lost if the game was booted and then powered off before passing the “Press START” screen
• Fixed issue where attempting to upload large films to the File Share under poor network conditions caused the upload to fail
• Improved time to load variants with separate profiles
• Fixed issue where moving a profile from one controller port to another after relaunching the game reset loadout settings
• Improved consistency of random ordnance navigation marker display
• Fixed performance issues when launching Halo Waypoint from Halo 4
Matchmaking Update – In the Halo Bulletin this week, Team Regicide turned out to be a very popular playlist as well as SWAT so they will remain in the lists for another week. Since the normal two rotating spots were filled, they had to remove King of the Hill temporarily and replace it with a Crimson DLC playlist which will be exclusive to all players who have downloaded the Crimson DLC maps. The playlist will include these game types on the new maps:
• Infinity Slayer – Shatter
• Capture the Flag – Shatter
• Extraction – Shatter
• King of the Hill – Shatter
• Infinity Slayer – Wreckage
• Capture the Flag – Wreckage
• King of the Hill – Wreckage
• Oddball – Wreckage
• Infinity Slayer – Harvest
• Capture the Flag – Harvest
• King of the Hill – Harvest
That won’t be the only way to play the new Crimson maps, Crimson maps will also be included in the following gametypes:
• Infinity Slayer – Harvest
• Big Team Infinity Slayer – Wreckage and Shatter
• Dominion – Shatter
• Capture the Flag – Harvest and Wreckage
• SWAT – Harvest
• Team Slayer Pro – Harvest
The bug list was short luckily and they only had to fix three issues, one was a very noticable one this week:
• Fixed exploit locations on Haven
• Fixed exploit locations on Adrift
• Introduced Ordnance drop issues on Haven
Spartan Ops hiatus – Next week there will not be a new Spartan Ops episode. With the release of the Crimson map pack and a week later the Halo 4 Infinity Challenge, they will not be delivering any new Spartan Ops episodes for the rest of the year. BSAngel has said that they will pick up the season in January 2013. In the mean time they plan on releasing a “Best of Spartan Ops” list so that you can play the best chapter of each episode.
Viewing entertainment – There have been quite a few video’s that have been put out there on the internet this week. Here is a list of the best ones that have been noticed this week:
• Want to know what the best automatic weapon is? Vanguards of Requiem have made a detailed video on which guns are best at various ranges. Click here to see it.
• Can’t get enough Gangnam Style? You probably have, but just incase TeamHeadkick created a Halo 4 parody. It’s actually pretty well done.
• Don’t want to wait until Monday to play the new maps? IGN has complete walkthroughs of all the new maps with design director of 343i Mike Ellis and other developers at 343i. • Much like Uncharted the movie, VietHonour has taken all of the cut scenes in Halo 4 and put them into on long movie. It’s separated into parts but the total is around 6 hours long of video’s to watch. So if you want to relive the story but not play the game,this is the perfect video for you.
• As always Achievement Hunter released their newest HORSE (PIG) with Jack and Geoff, and sadly this is a short one
Tournaments – Gamebattles has yet another week of tournaments, this week features Free For All Mayhem and 4v4 Team Slayer. Each tournament will cost 20 credits ($14) per person to enter. You must be registered with GameBattles to view details of the tournament.
Free for All Mayhem – The title says it all and the rules are simple. There will be six to eight players each game and the top three players will advance to the next round until someone wins the prize of $270 and 20 GameBattle credits. The tournament begins Sunday, Dec. 9th, 2012 at 6 P.M. EST and registration closes 10 minutes prior to the start of the tournament.
4v4 Team Slayer – 32 teams will compete in a single elimination tournament on the maps Gamebattles Tourny Team Slayer v2 – Competitive Haven v5, Gamebattles Tourny Team Slayer v2 – Competitive Lockout v5.2, Gamebattles Tourny Team Slayer v2 – Competitive Abandon v5, and Gamebattles Tourny Team Slayer v2 – Competitive Simplex v5.2. The grand prize for the winning team is $740 and 20 GameBattle credits. The tournament begins Saturday, Dec. 8th, 2012 at 4 P.M. EST and registration closes 10 minutes prior to the start of the tournament.
Just a reminder too that HaloTracker is also hosting a Regicide Tournament on Saturday, Dec. 15th, 2012. You must be a member of HaloTracker to register (it’s free) and all you have to do is post on the thread with your HaloTracker username and your gamertag. Top prize gets a three month Xbox LIVE Gold membership.
If you find any Halo related stuff that you find interesting and what people to know, sent it my way on Twitter or Google +.
