The Defiant Map Pack is the very first offering from 343 Industries, the new caretakers of the Halo Franchise. Bungie produced the previous map pack, but its unknown if they have any more due later or if 343 will take over producing maps and the Matchmaking offering in the future.
What is known is this set will offer two competitive multiplayer maps and one Firefight arena. Condemned takes place on a UNSC space station above Reach and is built for slayer and objective games in that 6-12 player range. Highlands is a big team battle map on a nature preserve with vehicles available. Finally, Unearthed is a large Firefight map with multiple drop zones and a Rocket Hog good for all variants. As the multiplayer spaces always fit in somewhere within the Halo fiction, all three maps take place after the events of the Lone Wolf campaign mission, with the Covenant forces completely overrunning the planet in the background.
If you look closely in the trailer, you’ll spot bs angel, a former Halo blogger who joined 343 last year.
The fight may have been finished back in 2007 with Halo 3, but thankfully there are still plenty of stories to tell about the Halo universe. One of them is the tale of a group of Orbital Drop Squad Troopers (or Helljumpers as they are nicknamed, and for good reason) and the losing battle they fought in the ill-fated African city of New Mombasa in the period between Halo 2 and Halo 3. You take control of one of these soldiers as you explore the city in an attempt to find out what’s going on. Originally conceived as a downloadable add-on (and originally slated to be called Halo 3: Recon), so much work was put into the story, setting, and characters, that Bungie ended up releasing the game as a standalone 2-disc package available at full retail price. The first disc contains the campaign (which can be played with up to 4 players) and a new mode called firefight where you fight off waves of covenant soldiers similar to Gears of War 2’s Horde mode. The second disc contains every map released for Halo 3, including those released on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The game also includes the Forge map editor for creating your own worlds.
The name Halo has become synonymous with Xbox. Ever since Halo 2’s non-ending, fans have waited for 3 years straight for Bungie to finish the fight, and this sequel does not disappoint. Taking strides forward in both single player and multiplayer, Halo 3 closes out the trilogy in style and it gave players plenty of reasons to keep it in thier consoles long after they are finished with the campaign. Well, at least until Reach came out. [Read the rest of this entry…]
Caprica has been put permanently offline, but Conan successfully uploaded his consciousness to another network — beating both Leno AND Letterman in ratings! Not bad for cable. Also, in Cool Beans, it’s sequels galore! Rock Band 3, Fable III, Fallout: New Vegas, Halo: Reach, Starcraft II and more…
You knew it was coming. Halo 2 and Halo 3 successfully doubled the available maps for multiplayer, and the Halo prequel game Reach will add three new maps for Multiplayer (including Invasion) on November 30, 2010. It’ll set you back 800 MS points ($10) and also add 250 gamerscore points.
And to reveal these, Bungie has packed an excellent trailer. No just because it has some amazing gameplay footage on the new maps, but it also has a fantastic new variation of the classic Halo theme with all the action. Seriously, the music is great, and composer Marty O’Donnell knows it, so expect to see an MP3 available on Bungie.net soon.
When we took the camera to the Halo: Reach launch, we had no idea what would happen. We almost didn’t get the game! Thankfully we met some cool fans, and had a great time in line.
Don’t miss out on our Halo Reach Game Night this Saturday 9.18.10. Xbox Live Gold is free this week and we’re going to try to get as many credits as possible so we can unlock the best armor for our Noble Spartans!
PS3
Famicom Dojo
KEEP PLAYING
KEEP PLAYING: Rewind
Powet Toys
Powetcast
Hitchhiker's Guide POWETcast
When we took the camera to the Halo: Reach launch, we had no idea what would happen. We almost didn’t get the game! Thankfully we met some cool fans, and had a great time in line.