Halo 3: ODST

[Miles_Yuhas]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

I could already see someone on OS killing themselves with a grenade.

It wouldn't be Halo without someone accidently killing themselves or a teammate with a grenade.

[Altimus]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

It wouldn't be Halo without someone accidently killing themselves or a teammate with a grenade.

Yeah problem here is no shields for back up. lol

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Not sure if you want to, but you can see the entire opening cutscene in this video.

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6211451/

...

Bungie

The Load Out

Each game of Firefight begins in a familiar lobby. This is where the party leader and up to three of his friends set everything up. You can see that outside of some visual treatments, nothing's been removed from Halo 3's campaign feature set. You can still mix and match players over System Link and Xbox LIVE, and of course, if you don't have four Xbox 360s and televisions at your disposal, two-player splitscreen is still in full effect.

From the Firefight Lobby players can choose from the standard Halo difficulty set (Easy, Normal, Heroic, and Legendary) and decide which level they want to drop into. At the outset, you’ll noticed you have a select number of missions for Firefight play. You’ll be able to unlock several more by completing the corresponding encounters from Halo 3: ODST’s campaign mode, each tuned with their own unique layout, weapon placement, and when warranted, vehicles to bring a variety of combat spaces and situations to the Firefight experience.

If the party wants to tailor the experience even further, they can elect to enable some secondary skulls straight away. There are four familiar skulls to choose from at the outset: Blind, Cowbell, Grunt Birthday Party, and IWHBYD. These skulls do exactly what you expect them to. Blind removes the HUD elements, Cowbell increases the physics impulses, Grunt Birthday Cake turns Grunt's heads into confetti when you pop 'em with a headshot, and IWHBYD lets you hear rare dialog much more often (You killed FlipYap!).

It’s also here that you’ll also be able to fiddle with the various character models you’ve unlocked if you haven’t already customized your player model (yes, there are custom armor permutations for use in Firefight), mix and match your armor's color accents, emblems, and backgrounds, and make sure your Service Tag is set exactly how you like it.

You should pay special attention to the difficulty setting. Though most of you are going to want to go in balls to the wall on Heroic or Legendary, you might want to tone it down and give Normal a spin to start. Get your legs underneath you before you ratchet it up. And if you decide to go in with a squad less than four strong, you’re really going to find that in Firefight, the odds are definitely stacked against you.

There is no cap to the time or the number of Waves you can experience in a single game of Firefight. The mission will only end when you’re squad depletes its pool of lives. Since that stockpile is shared collectively, you’ll only be as strong as your weakest link. Make sure you set your difficulty accordingly.

We realize that plenty of you are going to disregard this warning, taking it as a challenge to your Halo prowess. All we can say to you, dear friends, is good luck. That said, you’ll have much of the full Halo sandbox at your disposal and you’ll be duly rewarded for excelling in Firefight with a dynamic scoring system, heaps of shiny medals, and some all new achievements.

Skulls and Scoring

Initially, no matter which difficulty you choose, Firefight will automatically enable the Tough Luck skull. If you have an enemy in your sights, you can be sure they’ll get out of the way double time should you lob a grenade at their feet.

As you progress through each Set, new skulls will automatically be enabled, forcing you to alter your tactics and giving the Covenant a sharper edge in combat. Think Legendary isn’t difficult enough? Wait until Black Eye kicks in. Or Famine. Or Mythic. And they won’t just kick in one skull at a time. They’re layered, not only increasing the overall difficulty of Firefight, but more importantly, making your Covenant opponent’s more dynamic and cunning, forcing you and your squad to adjust combat tactics on the fly.

And if you can stay alive, you’ll be rewarded with higher scores and heaps of medals. Though each enemy class is worth a base number of points, earning medals can modify your tally as you go. Stay on a lengthy streak without dying, and your points will be augmented by a hefty multiplier.

Sets, Rounds, Waves

Firefight begins with Set 1, Round 1, Wave 1. Each Set is made up of three Rounds. Each Round is comprised of five Waves, the base increment in Firefight. In the image above, the players are on Set 1, Round 3, Wave 4. Each time you dispatch a Wave you’ll see new enemy reinforcements dropped into the battlefield, each more combat ready than the last.

The Waves are completely dynamic – you won’t be able to plan your assault – but if you’re lucky, you’ll only be staring down some Grunts and Jackals to start. Then perhaps you’ll see some Brutes with Active Camo and Flame Grenades, followed perhaps by a pair of Hunters.

When the drums begin, you’ll know you made it to Wave 5. Your reward? Chieftains.

Once you and your squad have completed Round 1 (again, comprised of 5 Waves), you’ll be rewarded with a brief respite. Link back up with your squad, check your gear, and grab some of the ammo that’s now been lovingly replenished. You earned every bullet. You’ll get some extra lives as well to give you a little bit of confidence going into the next Round.

Repeat the feat three times, and you and your team will have completed a full Set and we’ll layer on a new skull to make the next Wave even more interesting. How far can you ultimately make it? Well, that depends on your skill, the mettle of the soldiers you bring into the Firefight with you, and whether or not you remember to feed yourself during lengthy play sessions. The Sets will ratchet up ad infinitum. (And that's a really big number.)

Bungie.net Stats Integration

If all of that seems a bit much to concentrate on during a round of Firefight, no worries. Every last kill, medal, and Set, Round, and Wave will be preserved via Bungie.net’s stat tracking. And of course, you’ll be able to track your Firefight specific achievements online too. Enhanced even further from Halo 3’s award-winning suite, players will be given unprecedented insight into their career performance with graphs, charts, and leaderboards to pour through after the mission comes to an end.

And if all of this information on Halo 3: ODST's new gameplay mode, Firefight, seems a bit much to concentrate on amidst all the other E3 coverage, don't worry about that either. We're still spoon feeding you. Stay Tuned - in the coming months, we'll have much more to say about Firefight and Halo 3: ODST.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Bungie

Halo 3: ODST is prepared to drop on 09/22/09. Pre-order your copy from select participating retailers and you’ll receive a token to unlock Sgt. Johnson for use in the all new cooperative mode, Firefight.

Participating major retailers in the United States include Amazon, Best Buy, Gamestop and Wal-Mart.

New screens show a new firefight map that includes vehicles.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Bungie Weekly Update

And as if images of Johnson tearing it up on a new Firefight mission isn’t enough for one week, here’s a little taste of some of the brand new first person combat dialogue David Scully laid down just for Halo 3: ODST's Firefight. (Each ODST has unique first person dialog.)

Mmm, tastes like badass.

Gotta Lotta Issues - MP3 (680KB)

Heads Up

Staying on the Johnson tip, yesterday our forums generated a query concerning the fictional accuracy surrounding Sgt. Johnson’s lack of one particular accoutrement in Halo 3: ODST. Since I don’t know spit about squat, I managed to rope in Bungie’s keeper of the Halo Bible and guy who almost always seems to have something on his screen that will make you question your very will to live, Robt McLees. You’ve got question, he’s got answer.

Q. Wait a second! How will Johnson use VISR-mode? He doesn’t even have a helmet!

A. It’s a -blam!- video game.

Moving on.

Crater (Night)

Q. Last week Lars held our hands and took us on a gentle guided tour through Security Zone. This week we’re poking around Crater (Night). What are some of the more obvious differences between these two Firefight missions?

A. Crater (Night) is one of the smaller Firefight maps. The biggest difference is the Covenant are not only inserted via Phantoms. Waves will randomly spawn from either Phantoms or the strategically placed "monster closets." This keeps the action pretty intense.

Q. It seems the perch outside the initial spawn is a pretty sweet place to hold out. Can players expect to spend set after set up there safely keeping the Covenant assault at bay? What kind of nefarious schemes did you employ to nudge them out of the roost?

A. I would use the term "safe" very lightly when applied to Firefight. There are no safe zones or hiding spots. We built every map with at least one area where players would have an advantage, but the Covenant are given free rein to hunt you down and exterminate you. There will be plenty of opportunities to vacate the premises though. It's a pretty tight fit when there's a Hunter or Chieftain up there and buggers and jetpack Brutes don't care much for funneling themselves nicely up the stairs.

As for "nefarious schemes"... designers never share their secrets. :-)

The ebb and flow between relative safety and the threat of death is a key component of Firefight. We spent a lot of time balancing the experience so players are always right on the verge of annihilation. Lives awarded for set completion, the progression of skulls, the number Covenant per wave and the make-up of that wave are just some of the knobs we turned to fine tune the experience.

Q. Any super secret stuff on the map that we can’t talk about yet that will alter the way players will approach combat? Doesn’t the parenthetical “Night” suggest that there is, in fact, a Crater somewhere that exists at some other time-of-day?

A. Yes and yes. :-)

[Miles_Yuhas]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

That audio clip was hilarous, as well as Bungie's response to Johnson using the ODST visor in firefight mode. People on the Bungie forums were freaking out about that and the fact that he is playable in firefight but in the story arc was on Delta Halo during the events of ODST. Some people don't seem to realize that firefight mode is a multiplayer mode for fun and not a part of the halo story.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Something I've been thinking about is how the co-op will be handled in the campaign, especially now with it being pseudo-open world. From the last Bungie podcast, it sounded like you're not going to be tethered together or need to stay in a certain radius of each other, so all 4 people could be a different ends of the hub world. I'm wondering what happens when a player triggers a flashback, do all players automatically join that player, does something come up on the screen asking if you want to join that player, or does the host only get to trigger the flashback missions?

[Miles_Yuhas]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Something I've been thinking about is how the co-op will be handled in the campaign, especially now with it being pseudo-open world. From the last Bungie podcast, it sounded like you're not going to be tethered together or need to stay in a certain radius of each other, so all 4 people could be a different ends of the hub world. I'm wondering what happens when a player triggers a flashback, do all players automatically join that player, does something come up on the screen asking if you want to join that player, or does the host only get to trigger the flashback missions?

Bugnie said that all four players can go there seperate ways and set there own waypoints, which come up on all players hud. I don't know how the flashbacks will work. I assume that all players will be launched into them when a player reaches a clue.

I don't think that I will be playing ODST's campaign Co-op. I feel that the setting of the game makes it ment to be played alone. Being alone in the city which is one of the games main themes would be gone when playing with three other people.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Looks legit:

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[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Good read.


Ascendant Justice

Not since Halo: Combat Evolved has there been such a significant push for nonlinearity. When the E3 2003 demonstration first aired, many believed that Halo 2 would offer this, and, in truth, Bungie probably believed as much too. But alas, this lofty goal was too ambitious to be effectively captured in either Halo 2 or Halo 3, and now, in the post script of the trilogy, we will finally experience it.

Ascendant Justice

Also in this shot, the street appears to break off into two completely different directions, which falls in line with what we’ve heard about the Hub city being truly “open-world.” You can see open spaces in the buildings on the left, a walkway above the ODSTs’ heads, and the street inclining up and continuing on in the background of the screenshot - all of these things again imply that fighting and traveling throughout the city will be very engaging.

Another item of note in the above screenshot is the location marker in the HUD. It reads “624.0 m,” which is probably the distance to the next piece of evidence the Rookie needs to collect. For reference, from one corner of the multiplayer map Avalanche to the other corner is a distance of about half of the number we see given here in the ODST’s HUD. And that isn’t the size of the city - it’s just the distance to the closest beacon from the ODST’s current position.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Going to have to play Firefight by yourself or with friends, because there's going to be no matchmaking. Disappointing.

Bungie.net

Firefight is built on top of the campaign networking model. There's no matchmaking functionality.

This could mean no rewind or the ability to record clips of Firefight saved films too.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

Nathan Fillion talks about his work in Halo 3: ODST


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[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

IGN UK Preview

Ten years on, and they've shown no sign of tiring of the universe, as the studio's Lars Bakken testifies; "I can tell you that the guys that did work on Halo 1, which is a decent chunk of the ODST team, they have all individually said to me that ODST is probably the game they're most proud of in their history there - so that should tell you something."

ODST is one of the most curious offshoots of the Halo universe to date - whereas Bungie's numbered efforts in the series have been full-blooded, triple A blockbusters, ODST seems to be suffering something of a personality crisis. First announced as an add-on for Halo 3, its diminutive price tag reflected a dip in scale from the epic canvas on which Halo 3 was painted. Six months later however, it has grown to a full price affair.

"Over the course of development it got a lot bigger than we were anticipating," says Bakken. "We thought of it more as an expansion and then it grew well beyond that. We didn't really talk about it until E3 this year, and it's something internally that Microsoft saw and said; 'What are you talking about - this is a full game.'"

Microsoft Game Studio's Ryan Crosby chimes in; "The scope changed significantly as we went along, and every time we saw it the game got longer, the spaces got bigger, new things were added. Certainly when you sit down with it, it's a lot more than just an expansion pack."

It's these episodes and the way in which they're presented that offer what looks like ODST's most interesting feature - its structure, which seems more akin to that of a player-led 'whodunit' than the more prescribed fireworks of previous games. As Bakken tells us, though, there's been some compromise: "Originally when we were making the game, at first we'd drop you in and you had the entire city open to you, and we found very quickly that that was too much, people were becoming inundated and they didn't know what to do," he says. "Now, in the final game, there's a little more of a narrow path in the beginning, so the first couple of missions are always in the same order, but at that point we open up the whole city and the rest of the game is played in the order that you see fit."

They'll also feature in the new multiplayer mode Firefight, which we've sampled before. Four players go up against wave upon wave of enemy, and one of the more obvious reference points is Gears of War 2's Horde mode. Bakken's happy to address the similarities. "Because we play a lot of games internally at Bungie, we're definitely inspired by a lot of things that are out there," he answers. "With Firefight, the idea's been around for a long time, and it's something that we were originally going to do for Halo 3 but got cut because we ran out of time, so it came back up again when we started working on ODST. We looked at everything else that's out there, and one of the things that makes Firefight different is the fact that it's in the Halo universe and it's in the Halo sandbox, so you've got access to all the vehicles and all the weapons. We haven't showed it yet, but there's levels where you can get Warthogs, so you can imagine the difference in terms of scale that you get in Halo."

It's certainly intoxicating stuff, and an extended hands-on with Alpha Zone - an all-new map - is a thrilling reminder that, for the mode's superficial similarities to the competition, Bungie are unrivalled in their mastery of multiplayer. While the ODSTs might not be as amped as the Master Chief in terms of combat, they've clearly been the subject of some exquisite balancing, with their scoped pistol and enhanced vision proving extremely useful.

[Candyman5]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

http://www.operationsports.com/forum...me-series.html

Halo Anime series announced. Link to OS thread.

[Flawless]

Re: Halo 3: ODST

ViDoc

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