Halo: Reach Message Board older than one year ago

Halo fans will be treated to exclusive presentation of tips and tricks and chance to win Legendary Edition collector's pack and life-size Halo statue.

GameStop is keeping the lights on late this Friday to host an "after hours" Halo: Reach promotion at 1,100 stores across the United States. The event seems to revolve around a video featuring an MLG guy giving tips and tricks for Reach (that you can't use yet), along with supposedly new in-game footage and a raffle for a Legendary Edition of the game (that you can't take home until launch day).

There will also be "text-to-win sweepstakes" for an opportunity to win a life-sized Halo statue. The marketing opportunity begins Friday, August 6, at 9PM (local time) and lasts 90 minutes. GameStop has a page to check whether your local locations are hosting the video vignette and raffle.

Halo 2 might be dead and gone on Xbox Live, but its memory will live on in Halo: Reach. IGN reports that remakes of the Midship and Ivory Tower maps -- renamed Zealot and Reflection, respectively -- will be featured in Reach. Reflection is apparently a very faithful remake, right down to the sniper tower elevator (perhaps known to you as The Column of Surprise Death), though IGN notes that the new hologram armor ability makes camping much more difficult. Zealot, meanwhile, retains the overall layout of Midship, but adds a third level that features lower gravity than the rest of the map.

A new map entitled Spire was also revealed for the multiplayer Invasion mode. This time around it features Spartans ransacking the Elites and, as the name implies, they must work their way to the top of a huge tower as each section of the map is unlocked. Check out footage of all three maps after the break, and be sure to tell us what other old-school Halo 1, 2, or 3 maps you'd like to see in Reach.

Ivory Tower and Midship are reborn.

Impressions after a morning spent witnessing Reach's destruction.

#books That would be bookshelves, kids, in bookstores. A new revision of Eric Nylund's "Halo: The Fall of Reach," first published in 2001, went on sale today with 27 pages of new material. More »

Have you ever wondered what Master Chief's intergalactic adventures would look like if rendered by an Atari 2600? Neither have we -- and now that the folks over at Extra Guy have shared their find of "Halo 2600," we don't have to. Bizarrely, ex-Microsoft VP of game publishing Ed Fries is credited on the game's cover as the creator (as seen on the game's Facebook page).

Halo 2600 was playable at the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, which came to an end today. Sure, it's playable online right now, but apparently we missed out on 500 real-life Atari 2600 cartridges containing the game (check out a photo of them all lined up). How's that for a limited edition?

[Thanks, Anthony!]

#raaaage If you're one of those who dashboards out of multiplayer after getting backstabbed or headshot three times, take note: Bungie told Xbox 360 Achievements that it wants to remove ragequitters from the population so they won't ruin everyone else's fun. More »

Bungie's previously teased achievements for Halo: Reach's have finally been revealed through its latest update. 49 achievements can be earned across the campaign, multiplayer and firefight. We've dropped them after the break.

If that weren't enough, there's a whole mess of new Bungie-created Forge maps on display. The update says they won't necessarily make it into multiplayer matchmaking, but if they pass "the same rigors our expertly crafted multiplayer spaces demandm" we could be sticky-grenading people's faces on those maps when the game ships this September. Ha-cha!

[Thanks, Measlesopolis]

#halo PC gamers who've kicked it old-school with Halo: Combat Evolved will get a nice piece of flair for their armor in Halo: Reach, according to plans Bungie's made to reward loyal gamers. More »

#cheevos Bungie's latest Weekly Update delivered the achievement art, and conditions, for Halo: Reach, rolling it out in a way that lets you look at the pretty badges without spoilering any campaign details. More »

Your missions, should you choose to accept them.

Bungie has something special in store for Halo fans that have been with the series since the beginning -- on PC, at least. The developer has revealed on its official forums that those who purchased the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved and activated their CD key before May 26, 2010 will receive "a small visual flair" in Halo: Reach. (Flair, no matter how small, is very important to some people.)

Why that date? Bungie is going to pour over a list of keys activated (by joining a multiplayer game) before then in an effort to ensure that only valid ones -- i.e., those not produced using a key generator -- are rewarded. As for the reward, Bungie is assuring its community that it is "not armor or anything in the Armory," so no one is "missing out on something like Recon or Flames, it's just a little indication that people have been part of a certain Halo community for a while."

Given the cut-off date, the keys from any copies of the game that may be on shelves right now aren't eligible. Owners of the original Halo for the Xbox are out of luck, too, as Bungie says, "we have no way of telling if you've played the Xbox version." The exact nature of this especially exclusive tip of the hat to old-school franchise fans will be revealed on Bungie.net "a couple of weeks before Reach launches" on September 14.

We've seen the beginning of the end, and it's looking awesome.

#xbox360 Here is the Halo Reach's brand new campaign trailer. What do you see in it? More »

The last footage we saw of Halo: Reach introduced us to the Forge World design tools. The latest video to come out of Bungie is a lot more straightforward, getting to the "real" Halo stuff: the campaign.

The trailer after the break, featuring an excerpt from Marty O'Donnell's score, shows everything from hand-to-hand combat to massive space battles, with plenty of armored Spartans looking very serious. You'd look very serious too if you were fighting to keep a planet invader-free. Or if you had to walk around in hundreds of pounds of armor.

Now Bungie is just getting silly.

How'd that Spartan get to fly while carrying a flag?

#comiccon2010 Square Enix, in addition to making fancy video games, also makes a fancy toy or two. The company's Play Arts Kai line of highly detailed figures is welcoming Halo: Reach to the fold with two waves of posh toys. More »

As promised, new Halo: Reach and Dragon Age: Origins goodies are now available on Xbox Live Marketplace. The Reach items include a handful of T-shirts, a hat and Noble Team armor. The Dragon Age offering is somewhat more robust, including hats, shirts, various character outfits and armor, helmets and even a couple of props (including a nice goblet for your digital krunk needs). Strangely absent from the Dragon Age set: A Brood Mother Avatar pet.

Last night at Bungie's Comic-Con panel, the studio went "beyond the canyon" and revealed what's behind the hill in the Blood Gulch remake: "The rest of the map." Turns out this version of Blood Gulch, which will be known as "Hemorrhage" in Halo: Reach, is actually one part of a gigantic five-part map called "Forge World" -- there's an island in the back bay, an outcropping called "The Rock," a hangar built into the cliff overlooking the bay dubbed "The Colisseum," and an open field area up above. The entire map starts out blank, and players will be invited to build their own levels in it using Reach's revamped Forge editor mode.

"Forge World," Bungie Community Lead Brian Jarrad told the audience, "is the evolution of what we've been through with Forge. How do we expand on it even further, and give people even more flexibility, and more toys to work with?" The answer: By combining very detailed and customizable tools with a variety of variables used in whatever ways players see fit, according to Jarrad. The Forge editor can now apply different physical models to pieces inserted on the map, leaving them fixed in mid air or even half-embedded in other pieces. Additionally, spawn points can now be easily colored according to team, teleporters can be dropped at will and even customized for vehicles, and gigantic structures (like a multi-level tower) can be summoned and placed just about anywhere.

#halo Along with controllers and consoles, Microsoft today also quietly revealed a Halo: Reach-branded wireless headset for the Xbox 360. More »

#halo It's one thing to see the guts of a Halo game spilled across a carefully-staged press photo, but it's another entirely to see the actual product (or in this case products) opened by human hands. More »

#halo Halo 3's forge mode - the game's editing suite - is in for a serious revamp when Halo: Reach is released in September. More »

#rumor At Comic-Con today, Microsoft revealed a Limited Edition Halo: Reach bundle, packing two controllers and an Xbox 360 slim, all in special silver casings, for $399. A copy of the game is also included. It's available Sept. 14. More »

The $399 Halo: Reach Xbox 360 bundle whose existence was leaked by the Ars mole is now official. A Microsoft press release details the limited-edition silver console, which is available for pre-order starting ... now.

The bundle contains a silver 250 GB Xbox 360 S -- which "not only captures the look and feel of the game, but also features custom sound effects from the Halo universe." What? What? It also comes with two silver wireless controllers featuring Reach artwork, a similarly decorated headset, a Standard Edition copy of the game, a voucher for "Limited Edition Elite" armor and an episode from the Halo Legends anime anthology. It'll be out on the game's September 14 release date.

In addition, standalone Halo: Reach-themed controllers and headsets will go on sale in late August, for $59.99 and $49.99 respectively.

Bungie makes a bold claim.

#comiccon2010 Bungie brought the latest features for their latest shooter, Halo: Reach, to Comic-Con, including all-new multiplayer modes, new maps and a new vehicle. Finally, you will be able to drive a futuristic forklift in a Halo multiplayer. More »

Take a look at Bungie's biggest play space ever.

Even more reasons to be excited about Firefight 2.0.