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Halo has always had a rich history in eSports but as of recently it has fallen from the spotlight thanks to a lack of a presence at some of the larger eSports events like Major League Gaming's Pro Circuit. While Halo took a backseat in the competitive gaming scene, games like League of Legends, StarCraft 2, and Call of Duty have taken the reigns.Read more...

Alfredo snipes the competition while explaining what comes with the latest Halo 4 DLC.

IGN's been talking to one Bungie co-founder Jason Jones, and these are the most interesting tidbits.

A new bundle of DLC—the Champions Bundle—is coming to Halo 4 on Aug. 20, 343 said today at the Rooster Teeth Expo. It's cost 800 Microsoft Points, and will introduce a new armor pack, a skin pack, and a new game type called Ricochet.

Three new DLC packs are headed to Halo 4 on August 20, available separately or in one big blob of stuff called a "Champions Bundle." Purchasing the DLC in bundle-form sweetens the pot through the addition of 18 in-game items "only available for a limited time exclusively through the bundle," according to the announcement.

The three new DLC packs include the "Bullseye Pack," which features two multiplayer maps, "sports-themed" armor and a new "Ricochet" game mode. The "Infinity Armor Pack" delivers "impressive and legendary new armor" of some sort while the "Steel Skin Pack" throws some "steampunk" all up on your weapons. Though, based on the trailer above, we're not sure if 343 Industries' definition of steampunk is quite the same as our own.

The entire bundle will be available for 800 MS Points, whereas the Bullseye Pack will run a la carte at 480 MS Points - the Infinity Armor/Steel Skin Packs will cost 240 MS Points.

Prepare to laugh, cry, and be amazed in this week's Top 10 Halo 4 Kills of the Week.

Microsoft and Virgin Gaming have announced the Halo 4 Global Championship, which will see one Spartan claim a grand prize of $200,000. The tournament officially begins on July 5 at the Rooster Teeth Expo and opens to Xbox Live on July 15. Another live event will take place at Gamescom in Germany from August 21 to 25.

There will be five weeks of free-for-all competition on Xbox Live, which will require players to complete at least 20 games a week on specific playlists. 6 finalists from each live event and 20 from the Xbox Live competition will then compete on Microsoft's home turf in Seattle, with the winner pocketing a cool 200 grand. Another $100,000 will be distributed among the remaining 7 finalists, with 2nd place receiving the lion's share at $75,000. All participants will be eligible for randomly drawn prizes, including Xbox 360 games and Avatar items.

Those interested in participating can register now at Halo Waypoint. Complete rules and regulations can be found here.

Halo 4 is the "best-selling Microsoft Studios title ever in the U.S. market,*" performing better than Halo 3 did during its fiscal launch year, according to ol' Microsoft. That all-important asterisk denotes that claim as being "according to Microsoft retail sales sell-through data for each respective fiscal year."

Presumably, this means that Halo 4 has also outperformed other Microsoft Studios launches, such as Fable 3 or Forza Motorsport 4. It's no wonder, then, that Microsoft has decided to expand the Halo series' current "Reclaimer" trilogy into a "saga," a term that translates to "as many games as we feel like" or "why on Earth would we ever stop," depending on the dictionary you're using.

Halo's indispensable military buggy sided with Team Blue, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Violet at the Seattle Pride parade held on Sunday, June 30th.

Prepare to laugh, cry, and be amazed in this week's Top 10 Halo 4 Kills of the Week.

Alfredo outsmarts the opposing players in FFA while re-capping his experience during this year's E3.

Master Chief makes his glorious debut on the Xbox One.

Master Chief is officially coming to Xbox One, now in 60 FPS

Bill Doran makes replica video game weapons so good that were they not recreations of things that didn't actually exist, you'd swear they were the real thing. His latest work is this enormous Halo sniper rifle, which, yeah, looks so much like something Master Chief would actually use it's hard to believe it's actually just made out of fibreboard. Something you'd do well to remember if you ever tried to take it through customs. Halo 4 Sniper Rifle [Punished Props]

Wonder where that extra oomph in your Carbine came from today? 343 Industries has issued sweeping tweaks to all multiplayer weaponry in Halo 4.

A lot of weapons have had their damage increased - for example, the Battle Rifle is now capable of killing in four bursts instead of five. Automatic weapons (Assault Rifle, Storm Rifle and Suppressor) all have had their damage increased slightly and will kill in three fewer shots now. Finally, chain guns on the Mantis and Warthog have had their damage output increased by 35 percent.

A lot of the update seems to be geared around increasing weapon damage, but sticky aiming and range on many of these weapons have also been adjusted and player movement speed has been upped by ten percent. For the full breakdown of Halo 4's massive multiplayer update, check out 343's Halo Waypoint blog.

My name is Nathan (RC) Peters. In March 2011, I was hired on as a contract Quality Assurance tester to work at Certain Affinity studios in Austin, Texas. I worked on the multiplayer portion of Halo 4. Here is an inside look at the reality of being a contract worker within a video game company, and why you should never accept a job as a contractor. Prior to this job, I had only one other QA job, and that was for Activision in Santa Monica, California. I found the job on Craigslist, applied, and was called in for an interview. At that time I was much younger, and desperate for a job. Plus, who wouldn’t want to play video games for money? After a week of training I was assigned to a team, and ended up working QA for the PC title Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. After that project was done, I left the industry and transitioned into the music business. I did quite well. I was a producer, sound designer, and composer. I ended up having a song in Tiger Woods 2004, signed a 64 song deal with MTV Studios, and composed music from home on various indie projects which netted me IMDB.com credits. In 2009, I moved back home to Austin, Texas where I unsuccessfully ran a small music agency. The business was abundant, and I was successful in booking some good talent, and even got a couple artists onto Pandora radio. However, the return-on-investment (ROI) was not there. I sunk a big chunk of my earnings from music royalties into the company, and within a year had made nothing back. On top of that, I got a divorce. At that time I was much younger, and desperate for a job. Plus, who wouldn’t want to play video games for money? In late 2010, I closed shop on my business, sold off every bit of music equipment I had, and sold off all of my possessions, except for my Xbox 360. I moved in with my sister and decided I needed to start over. With all of my free time, I managed to pick up Battlefield 3 on release (I was already playing Bad Company 2, and played the BF3 Beta to level cap). I would play it about eight hours a day, and eventually saw that I was ranked 3,338 on the Xbox leaderboards. I then made the decision to try and get back into the gaming industry. Now, at this time I had no degree to speak of (as of this writing I am an undergraduate at the Art Institute of Austin, majoring in a BS of Audio Production) so I knew I probably had to start back at the bottom of the ladder. I felt that, if I could get my foot in the door, within a year, whatever studio that hired me would realize that I would be quite an asset for their audio team. I applied everywhere. I used indeed.com to filter out job postings. I must have submitted 50+ resumes. After five months and roughly six interviews (all conducted on the phone either with an HR rep within the studio or with a representative from a temp agency) I nailed an in-person interview at Certain Affinity. I had done my research and knew that Max (the studio head) came from Bungie and the original Halo 2 Multiplayer world. They had also worked on Call of Duty: Black Ops, and so I was getting very excited. When I showed up for my interview, I sat in the lobby, extremely over-dressed and nervous as I was staring at a life-sized Master Chief statue who was protecting me in the lobby with his dual-wielding SMGs. The interview was casual and even fun. I remember being asked if I had identified any bugs in recent AAA titles. In fact, I had. In Skyrim, I wanted to change my Xbox button configuration so the sprint mirrored that of most first-person shooters. In doing so, I noticed that if you equipped a torch, and used the new button to sprint—by clicking the right thumbstick—you could sprint indefinitely, without losing stamina, and even after the torch ran out. They laughed, and my future QA manager even said, “Well that is probably how they exploit those speed runs!” I got hired. The Halo 4 multiplayer QA team consisted of 10 males, ranging in age from 22 all the way to my age, which was 32 at the time. My QA manager was young, maybe mid-twenties. (Although I never asked.) Every single one, with the exception of my manager, was a contractor. I was the noob of the team and got assigned two maps: one was near Alpha complete, getting ready for E3, and the other was still in block-out phase. Readers will know these maps as Adrift and Meltdown (whose name I personally suggested) but at the time they were called Warehouse and Canyon. My first couple of months there were an absolute dream come true. Certain Affinity is a smaller studio—at the time there were about 62 employees. Everyone sat on the same level, including Max, and the layout was like a call center. It had a great kitchen, gourmet coffee, and tons of snacks. We got lunches on numerous occasions. The atmosphere was killer, laid back and super friendly. Some readers may be thinking, “Well what is the problem here? This sounds awesome!” ...Truth be told, it was like being Jon Snow or Theon Greyjoy under the Stark roof. One of the cool things we did at CA were playtests. A lot of playtests! For nine months I literally played Halo 4 every day for money. We would grab the newest build and go into a closed room with 16 Xboxes and play various modes, checking code and, most importantly, monitoring host and client frames per second. These playtests would always be a mixture of QA, developers, coders, producers and artists. It was not uncommon to see Max hang out and observe or even play. Most of the sessions were fun, but there was also a nasty air of "nerd-dickdom" competitiveness. Controllers were slammed; F bombs were dropped; homosexual slurs were tossed about (and I know for a fact we had some gay workers in the studio). So yeah, it was grown-up nerds making a video game. At this point in the article, some readers may be thinking, “Well what is the problem here? This sounds awesome!” Truth be told, it wasn’t, and it was because I was a contractor. It was like being Jon Snow or Theon Greyjoy under the Stark roof. Yes, people may talk to you, or relatively like you, but you are not accepted. The smiles, and jests and "bottle talk" always seemed phony, and the reason was because I was temp—in fact, my whole department was. One of the reasons I took this job was because they sold me on the fact that, if I did well, and showed promise, that it would be a real possibility to get hired on full-time. I sure as hell did not accept it for the whopping pay rate of $11 an hour. So being older and a bit more experienced in the work world, I took the job by the horns and ran with it. I did everything I could to stand out. I asked a ton of questions about code, the debug, the game modes, everything. I talked to all the producers and developers and level designers I could to ensure we were on the same page and also so they would know my name. Once, I worked an entire weekend on a voluntary basis. Halo 4 primary developer 343 wanted to cut our signature mode: Dominion. At that time, it was broken as hell and really unbalanced. The concept was outstanding, but there were a crap load of balancing issues. 343 was always tinkering with kits and available weapons, so the devs were having a hard time balancing ordnance drops. We worked all weekend while coders would cook up frankenbuilds, and even Max stayed for the majority of the sessions. After long playtests he would take us in the kitchen and personally ask everyone in the group their thoughts. I felt like I was a part of something special. They will work you to death and they will promise you potential, but it is for nothing. You will never truly be a part of anything. It is time to seriously consider unionizing, or organizing a major strike. Towards the end, things started to fall apart. It was not all of Certain Affinity’s fault. 343 was changing things on a daily basis. It was a very frustrating experience from what I observed, and we even lost our super designer Charlie, who was one of the original guys at Infinity Ward. Charlie was awesome, a hippy genius with just a pinch of ego. But he was approachable and I commend him for his patience, because that guy would ask for and receive an overwhelming amount of good and bad criticism on some of his proposed modes. Management was a joke at CA. I was shifting tasks on a daily basis. One day I was helping another contractor with audio stuff (hoping this would grant me my in with the company), the next I was doing a collision pass on my map which I had already done two times in hope of cramming a few more bugs into our bug-tracking software JIRA so our "numbers" were up. Our contractor team leads were really no help either. In the end, I put my two week notice in, just about two weeks before Halo 4 was released. At this point we were already bugging DLC maps, I was assigned to what is now known as "Skyline" (another one that was my suggestion). At the time of my announcement, I had given up. Post Halo 4, I wanted some type of assurance. Who wouldn’t? I asked for a one-dollar raise, and never heard anything back. In fact, instead of learning in person, I had to call my temp agency, who then called Certain Affinity, who then called me back to say that CA denied it. Editor's Note: We reached out to Certain Affinity to get their side of the story. They sent over the following statement, from director of talent & culture Susan Bollinger: "Thank you for reaching out to us. We can confirm that Mr. Peters was a QA tester here, contracted through a 3rd party agency. Obviously what he had to say is of concern. We are sorry to hear that he feels he did not have a positive experience, as we have established our policies and practices to create the best possible working environment for everyone, contractors and otherwise." We were supposed to have employee evaluations with our manager as well as a producer, and that never happened. The only team meetings we ever had were ones to berate us about using Gchat in ‘non-professional’ ways. And to remind us that we were contractors and should be honored to even have this job. I stopped going in, and would show up whenever. Eventually they just terminated my contract before my official two weeks expired. I knew it was coming and didn’t care. This article was written in hopes to inspire all would-be workers to not accept positions as contractors in the game industry. I am not simply speaking about Quality Assurance. We at CA had contract audio designers, coders, and level designers. A lot of the amazing concept artists were contractors as well. It is a flawed system, and it will get you nowhere. (I realize that this is a gross generalization but I am sticking to that statement.) They will work you to death and they will promise you potential, but it is for nothing. You will never truly be a part of anything. It is time to seriously consider unionizing, or organizing a major strike. The AAA titles for Christmas are in full swing right now, and I would personally love to see the jaws dropping at all the major studios if every single contractor attached to a title simply did not show up. I worked on the biggest title of 2012. I know the talent that is out there, and you know who you are, too. We are all too good to be treated like this. There is a right way, and a wrong way to conduct business, and underpaying overqualified designers and artists is just not right. Are you in the gaming industry? Do you have an opinion about this? Sound off below.

If you've yet to experience John 117's latest adventure, you should know that Halo 4 is a mere $18 at Best Buy today. That deal is valid only for today, by the way, giving you a great excuse Forerunning to the nearest store.

[Thanks, Hank!]

Their name alone speaks volumes about what their architecture embodies: the way they see themselves, the image they want to present to others. Forerunners. A group of individuals that comes along before others, setting the stage for their existence. They named themselves this, with all the vanity in the world. Forerunners. This seems like a good place for me to start, given my experience with the Halo franchise, as well as the relevancy in their architecture to contemporary studies. To sum them up: “We are Forerunners, guardians of all that exists. The roots of the galaxy have grown deep under our careful tending. Where there is life, the wisdom of our countless generations has saturated the soil. Our strength is a luminous sun towards which all intelligence blossoms. And the impervious shelter beneath which it has prospered.“— The Ur-Didact That’s some heavy shit! Some heavy, solemn shit. Think about what someone’s house would look like that had this view of themselves. Somebody who saw their ideals as the perfect way to exist. Now you might be thinking that this all sounds a bit religious, and indeed it seems to be. The light that I view the Forerunners under is religious not in context, or in content, but in scale. Yeah, the Forerunners outlined a way to live. And? The example of all life to come, the stencil of success. Welp, this is what that house would look like, it seems. Part 1: The Library Now, I know that building a *crag*ing massive library to your own knowledge seems a bit vain, but hey, these guys deserve it. Vanity aside, let’s take a look at the design of it. The forerunners were all about their ideals, right? They didn’t need gigantic golden gates to flank their entrances, they didn’t embellish themselves to hell and back with gems and precious stones. There’s a common thread that winds its way throughout almost every piece of forerunner architecture, and the library is a perfect first example of it. There is an architectural idea proposed by Le Corbusier, the Law of Ripolin, which perfectly explains what I believe to be the aim of Forerunner architecture. Corbusier believed that “modern industrialized ornamentation and colouring [...] reeked of confusion, disorder, dishonesty, imbalance, subservience, narcosis, and dirt” (source). The Forerunners stood for honesty, cleanliness, and balance. Their architecture is a clear reflection of this. Clean lines, geometry, and most of all, a profound lack of colour and ornamentation. This library is nothing like the ones that us humans build. In our society libraries are typically overpowering and emanate prowess, however the Forerunner Library projects a different image of its builders. Honesty creeps out of every fine line, cleanliness has been practiced on every joint and corner, and a balance of power and decency has been achieved with every crooked spire. The image might appear intimidating, but try to think of the library out of the context of its surroundings. The spires all point towards the middle of the structure, as do all of the accented lines (the lit-up parts). The Library is speaking to something more than its creators, or what is contained within. It’s trying to exemplify what the knowledge stands for. Something more than just physical beings, or the reputation of whoever built it. The Forerunners see themselves as an ideal, as an example to be followed, and the Library exemplifies their selflessness by removing any trace of their physical selves from history: the source of all the wisdom that has saturated the soil. Part 2: Architecture as a Character The subjects of this image are as nameless and integrated into their environment as the structure they have created. Without the subjects, you might still imagine them to be this way. The concept of architecture being a character of its own is something that I strongly believe in. During school I wrote a number of essays on this topic in relation to film, but in gaming the effect can be much more profound. Take the Forerunners as an example of this. In Halo, you don’t really interact with too much of the Forerunner race, save for a few exceptions. Nothing on the level of your interaction with the races of the Covenant, at least. Now, think about how much you know about the Forerunners. Seems strange, doesn’t it? Even without being directly told anything about these Forerunners, you have a clue as to what they were like, the lives they led, their outlook on the universe. For this, I look towards architecture. You’re subtly hinted, from that first beacon in Halo, towards a race best described as solemn. Tall, spired structures project skyward, dropped in the most unlikely of places. The feeling I get when I see images of this type of architecture is probably best described as forlorn. The namelessness, the anonymity, the voicelessness. The Forerunner’s architecture is meant to express them as a people, and if we consult the Ur-Didact once again, we can see that they viewed themselves as a race that was to be forgotten in body, but remembered in spirit: ”From my life let the best be taken. Let the growth inherent in this youth be examined and maximized. Let all that is potential and beloved of the Mantle be nurtured and encouraged. Let all that was past be put away, and all that is future brought forward, made real and physical…” – Ritual Prayer Leave any suggestions for which game to cover next in the comments below, or any general comments about the article. As this is my first actual article any feedback is greatly appreciated! Aaron Cote is an architecture student studying at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture. His posts can be found at Monolith, a gaming community created by his brother, Tyler Coté.

Prepare to laugh, cry, and be amazed in this week's Top 10 Halo 4 Kills of the Week.

Alfredo picks up a multitude of head shots while discussing the reasons why Disney ruined an iconic Nickelodeon show.

Alfredo tears apart some Spartans while debating which gameshow for kids was the best -- Guts vs. Legends.

Alfredo slashes through the opposing team while reminiscing on how he avoided his studies.

Alfredo racks up multiple kills as he calls out the biggest jerks of his childhood.

Halo 4's final piece of DLC included in the War Games Map Pass, the Castle Map Pack, is available now on the Xbox Marketplace. For those without the pass, the map pack is $10.

The pack adds three multiplayer maps (Daybreak, Outcast and Perdition), with Outcast featuring "frequent Mantis vs. Wraith battles." The maps were designed for objectives and vehicles.

How Power Rangers made him smile and a dollhouse gave him stitches.

McFarlane Toys' second run of Halo 4 action figures will include special vouchers for exclusive DLC in 343 Industries' game. Master Chief, Elite Ranger, Storm Jackal and two different Spartan figures will be offered - plus a deluxe nine-inch tall Didact figure, planned for the fall.

In a blog post over on the McFarlane Toys site, nothing is revealed regarding the exact nature of the DLC, just that more information on the specifics are promised for later. The first run of Halo 4 figures from McFarlane didn't include any complementary DLC.

The Halo universe's sentient artificial intelligence programs - smart AIs - have a limited lifespan. After seven years, they begin to break down, acting irrationally and eventually thinking themselves to death. This process is known as Rampancy and closely resembles humanity's own end-of-life conditions such as dementia. In Halo 4, the rampancy of Master Chief's personal AI, Cortana, serves as a central element of the story, putting the Chief in a desperate bid to save the life of his longtime companion.

Speaking during a Halo 4 postmortem at GDC, 343 Industries franchise creative director, Josh Holmes, revealed that telling such an emotional story within the confines of a first-person shooter was no easy task. "At the beginning of our campaign in Halo 4, Cortana is 8 years old, and she's struggling to keep hold of her mental faculties," said Holmes, "and the Chief is faced for the first time with an obstacle that he may not be able to overcome." He's charged not only with saving the galaxy, but with saving his best friend. It was a radically different direction for a Halo game, and one that was difficult for the team. "There was a lot of skepticism from members of the team [about] whether this was something we should even take on."

"Early on, [senior writer Chris Schlerf] was having a crisis of confidence. He was literally tearing his hair out, because he didn't know how to tell this story," said Holmes. "There were times when he came to me, and he said, 'Maybe we shouldn't do it. Maybe we should just focus on the A story and put this story aside, because I don't see how we're going to be able to tell it.'" But for Holmes, telling the story of the relationship between Chief and Cortana was very important. It was "the human heart of Halo 4's campaign." And, as Holmes soon revealed, some of the inspiration for Cortana's breakdown came from a very personal place.

If a dude sniping from the passenger seat is No. 2, what glories does the top spot hold?

Speaking at a Halo 4 GDC panel (there were a lot of them), 343 Industries franchise creative director Josh Holmes spent some time discussing the game's story, specifically that of the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana. We asked a question during the Q&A period - the only question, really. Head past the break to find out what it was, and how Holmes responded, but be warned that it involves a major spoiler.

"We had a number of concerns about the Forerunners that we thought went not completely according to plan and could be improved upon," 343 Industries design director Scott Warner told the audience at his GDC 2013 panel, "The Design of New Enemies for Halo 4," which discussed the design philosophies behind the game's new breed of bad guys.

First and foremost, communication issues between the design and artwork departments exacerbated problems early in the studio's existence - growing pains associated with starting a new company. "We were a brand new team at 343," Warner said. "You have to consider the challenge that we had was starting from zero people and going to about 340 before we shipped."

In a similar vein, the "absence of high level vision" on the various creatures' gameplay mechanics caused 343 to spend time developing ideas that would eventually prove fruitless: "It would have been easier for us to understand if we'd had more definition around these characters early on, as far as who they were." An early prototype build was shown as an example, in which two Promethean Knights balled themselves up like Samus and attacked Master Chief.