HALO 3 RECON GameInformer issue

M

MegaDrive20XX

Segatron Genesis... call me the wizard.
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/11/12/game-informer-halo-3-recon-3-to-5-hours-earn-recon-armor/

Eager for more info on Bungie's Halo 3 expansion, Halo 3 Recon? The scoop addicts at Game Informer are sporting it as their December cover story which, far from being spartan, is chock full o' details on the unusual offering. As we saw in Tokyo, the boys at Bungie are downplaying the game's length, insisting it's not "a $60 game" and is more like "a three to five-hour expansion pack."

Perhaps most interesting – especially for the scrupulous amongst you – is the ability to earn Halo 3's ultra-rare "Recon Armor," previously reserved for Bungie staffers and their community-based BFFs. Now, instead of hacking someone's account to get the armor, you can instead complete the gauntlet of 0-point "Vidmaster Challenge" achievements included in the September title update; once you've purchased Halo 3 Recon, that armor will ostensibly be unlocked in Halo 3 multiplayer. Worth the not-$60 pricetag? For some of the Bungie hopeful, undoubtedly.
 
Strubes said:
Ultimate turn-off right there.
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As opposed to... Halo 2 and 3's 3-5 hour campaign?  Plus add in the fact that it's not going to be full price?  Plus everyone already knew it was just going to be an expansion. Sorry yo, but I'm more excited than I was before for it now. :D
 
aleeock157 said:
As opposed to... Halo 2 and 3's 3-5 hour campaign? Plus add in the fact that it's not going to be full price? Plus everyone already knew it was just going to be an expansion. Sorry yo, but I'm more excited than I was before for it now. :D
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Understandable..but I think I had a lil more than 3-5 hours in Halo 2 and 3's campaign. Bungie went downhill after Halo 2. That was the best one, IMO.
 
Yeah, I kind of had higher hopes for this game as well.

I suppose it was wrong of me to expect this game to be one they specifically stated it wasn't, but I still want more, real, Halo games. I was hoping this game could be a full stand-alone title set in the Halo universe, one that could maybe start a trilogy of its own.

Way to aim high Bungie... ::)
 
stealth toilet said:
Yeah, I kind of had higher hopes for this game as well.

I suppose it was wrong of me to expect this game to be one they specifically stated it wasn't, but I still want more, real, Halo games. I was hoping this game could be a full stand-alone title set in the Halo universe, one that could maybe start a trilogy of its own.

Way to aim high Bungie... ::)
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Yeah, I hear you there. I was excited to hear about a new Halo game just for the reason of "I wonder where they'll take the series from here?"...and it turns out just to be an expansion.
 
Well I personally can sit down and beat Halo 2 and 3 in a night, so *shrug*. I'm actually surprised that they would even think to make this game, considering they said at one point that they were done with Halo and wanted to work on other projects.
 
aleeock157 said:
Just got it in the mail today, gonna post up some tidbits and important quotes for all.
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Please do. I am eager to learn more about this game, but too lazy and cheap to find out anything about it myself. :D
 
Master Chief and his bright galaxy-spanning locales have been traded for an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper dubbed "the rookie" who is searching for his missing squadmates on the open world night streets of New Mombasa. You will also play as other members of the squad with real names, faces, and boisterous personalities in scenes of classic linear Halo action. For newcomers who haven't memorized the Halopedia, it can simply be viewed as a story about a squad's downfall, while diehard fans of Halo lore can finally find out just what happened between Halo 2 and 3 following the Prophet of Regret's slipspace escape from New Mombasa.
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Alright, we get some information on the story and timeline of the Expansion. You're a rookie ODST who dropped down to New Mombasa (maybe to help with the invasion that MC already half way cleaned up? :lol) and gets seperated from his squad. Timeline-wise, it apparantly goes from the end of the Metropolis level in Halo 2, where Regret escapes in the slipstream jump and you follow, til.... I don't know yet, :lol Let's keep reading...

The Buildup

"What the h*** kind of armor was she wearing?" asks an ODST in regards to a new female soldier who recently arrived on the ship.

"I don't know," says another. "Wasn't looking at her gear."

Mickey, Dutch, Romeo, and Buck are doing their best to distract themselves before the big drop. After some chiding, the squad gets their straight-faced commanding officer to give up the woman's name. "Ms. Naval Intelligence, our new boss," he scolds. "So check your mouths, find your chairs, and get set for a combat drop."

The squad gathers their gear and dissipates. The only ODST wearing a helmet dozes in the corner. "Wake up, buttercup." Romeo shouts.

"Relax, rookie," another says. "He don't mean nothin'. Besides, now's one of those times it pays to be the strong silent type."

The player then gains control of "the rookie" and walks to his drop pod. "Latest intel reports Covenant troops are amassing beneath the carrier," says the female naval captain over the radio."

They're pulling back? Why?" asks a soldier.

"We're not going to find out waiting up here," she replies.
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Here's what I would assume to be the opening scene... Not too crazy about how it sounds reading it. Sure hope it's better in actuality.

"The first thing we said when we looked at each other was 'We're not just going to rehash some Halo 3 missions just to pump out an expansion pack,'" [Paul] Bertone recalls. "'If we're going to do it, we're going to do it the Bungie way. We're going to give people an expansion pack like they've never seen before.'"
"We wanted to give people a story that was self-contained, compelling, fun to play, but which ended," [Joseph] Staten says. "There is no expansion pack to an expansion pack. You gotta hit it right and it's gotta be good. From the very beginning we though, 'Look, let's bring in a whole new cast of characters, let's put them in this interesting context, but then let's tie the knot. Let's make this story end.'"
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I have faith in them to do by what they say they are, I just hope that this time it's not all talk. :-\

With a violent rumble, the rookie's pod rockets away from the dropship. Through the thin vertical window it's possible to see a swarm of other ODST pods raining down. The glistening city of New MOmbasa materializes below, as does the target objective, a large Covenant ship transporting the Prophet of Regret. Though the pod can't be maneuvered, it is possible to look around and admire all of the knobs and readouts on the interior.

"Stand by to adjust trajectory on my mark," the captain shouts.

"What'd she just say?" an ODST asks.

"Mark!"

"We're way off course!"

"We're heading exactly where I need to go."

"We're going to miss the carrier!"

"Radiation readings? Did the Covenant just set off a nuke?" another ODST chimes in.

"No, the carrier's going to jump," replies the captain. "It's a slipspace rupture."

"Stabilize and pop your chute," shouts the squad leader. "We're going in hard."

The screen fades to black.
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Another intro storyline exerpt. A drop gone bad apparantly.

"The reason why we chose the ODST is it's absolutely a character that we've had ideas about how to develop and put more front and center in Halo games," Stanten says. "It's a character our fans are often asking to play so it was a natural fit. He's got an opaque visor so you don't see his face. It's perfect."
That's not to say that the Master Chief wasn't considered as the main character at one point, but eventually Bungie decided to forgo Halo's iconic character altogether. The team seems to be avoiding stepping on the toes of the Chief's next starring vehicle, whether it's Halo 4, a game bridging the Marathon and Halo universes, or one of the other popular theories running wild throughout the fanbase.
"When we were thinking about the Chief or the Arbiter stories that we could tell, there was just no story that fit into a three to five-hour expansion pack, which is what we're building here," Bertone says. "Even if we were excited about the Chief or the Arbiter, I don't think we would have been able to do it justice with the scope of this project and where it sort of sits with the projects that we're working on here."
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Ok... I was really hoping for an Arbiter story, but I guess it's for the best that it's not. Even they said that they wouldn't do it justice in 3-5 hours...

12 Hours to Covenant Invasion
6 Hours from Drop
The sun has long set and New Mombasa is now draped in the cover of night. The rookie's been out for a while and his squad is nowhere to be found. He jumps out of his drop pod and first-person control kicks in. The streets are strangely calm, barely lit by a few glowing signs and lined with tropical palm trees and ferns. A space tether burns in the background (a massive tower that extends outside of the Earth's atmosphere). It appears that the shock from the Covenant's slipspace escape has snapped off the top half of the tether, causing several large chunks to crash down on top of nearby buildings.

For some sense of direction, he pulls out a PDA to see a topdown, 3D wireframe map of the city. A squademate's beacon flashes a few blocks away and he sets it as a target. The marker appears on the on-screen HUD as he crosses a plaza. The rookie hears audible commotion up ahead so he turns on a filter called Visual Mode. While the look remains dark, unlike the green hue of night vision, everything appears outlined in glowing neon lights. A pack of Brutes outlined in red are holding position against a few glowing green ODST allies.

He presses on towards the beacon signal. Once he's within a couple dozen meters, a circular perimeter indicates he's getting close. After searching around in Visual Mode, the rookie locates an object highlighted in yellow hanging from a telephone wire overhead. A brief cutscene triggers showing him poking at the object with a long pole and catching it as it falls to the ground. He looks over the sniper rifle with a pronounced bend in the barrel. It's obviously Romeo's. The screen fades out as the rookie pieces together what happened.
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We get the first look at how the new ability "Visual Mode" looks.

A total of four beacons will be scattered thoughout New Mombasa. Players can track them down in any order they choose in the open world map. Once they find on eof these objects, players will jump back in time to earlier that day and control the missing squad member for an entire level up until they reach whatever event fate has in store for them. These so-called "scenes" last for about half an hour and are structured more like traditional, action-packed, linear Halo. When they're complete, control returns to the rookie. All four scenes fill in the gaps as to what happened during the six hours he was unconsious and contribute to the overarching mystery of what happened to the city.
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Since gamers are playing as an ODST rather than a Spartan, the gameplay has changed in several subtle ways. While you'll gain new gadgets like the PDA, Visual Mode, and a silenced SMG, you'll lose shields (but not the ability to regenerate health), a motion tracher, and the ability to dual-wield weapons. The ODSTs are also shorter, slower, and can't jump as high. While this sounds alamring at first, it's all part of the plan.
"[Imagine] you as the Master Chief are going up against a Brute Chieftain with a hammer," Staten says. "You're faster than him. You can jump over him. You have motion tracker. So if you run in and he pounds you, you can turn around, run to cover, look at the motion tracker and know exactly where he is. In Recon that's a lot different. The Chieftain's not only closer and taller, but you have no motion tracker. He's as fast as you. So if you manage to dodge him and turn around and run, you know he's going to catch you and you don't know where he is. It's immediately a very different feel. It's scarier. It's a lot more tense. You don't feel like a chump. You feel like a very capable ODST marine, but it's a different feeling."
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PRICING
Since Recon is considered an expansion pack, we asked if the game would be released at a lower price point similar to the $40 games like Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise, which were also published by Microsoft. "We don't know what the price will ultimately be," says community and PR director Brian Jarrad. "That's not something we'd be the final deciders of, but the spirit of this project is certainly an expansion of a smaller scope." Creative director Joseph Staten agrees. "[We] do not view this as a $60 title, and not in any bad way," he says. "It's a great value pack thing that we want to do. We're going to make it worth a lot -- we just don't want to charge a lot for it."
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There's still parts I left out but I got the most important points I believe. *fingers fall off now*
 
I forgot to add that it adds 2 new multiplayer maps to Halo 3, called Assembly and Orbital.

Assembly
Hardcore Halo fans may have already heard about this map, but we got some serious playtime and a guided tour of all its secrets. In regards to speculation on the web, yes, this is a Covenant Scarab manufacturing facility. We can also clear up some foggy Halo lore. Lekgolos, the worms that make up Hunters, also control Scarabs. In the map you can watch the massave carapaces become infused with these beings via a liquid-filled tube.

"One of the things our fans have been asking for for a long time is some small symmetric or arena-style maps and this is an answer to that," says multiplayer design lead Lars Bakken. "We wanted to make another small to medium map that's good for slayer, good for capture the flag - you know, four-versus-four. Something that'll really fit the niche of what players really want to play right now."

While the overall shape of Assembly is circular, it's not completely symmetrical. One side contains a tower with a rocket launcher at the top, the other end has a flat area with pillars inspired by pinball bumpers. Flags spawn behind one-way mirrors, allowing defenders to see outward while offensive players can't see in.


Orbital
This map has never been publicly shown until now. It takes place atop the Quito Space Tether (basically a massive tower that transports cargo and people easily in and out of the atmosphere), so if you look out the windows you'll see Earth below. Particularly ballsy players can even stop to read plaques dedicated to Tobias Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa, inventors of the Slipspace Drive, which opened the door to human space exploration.

"The interesting thing about this map is that it's a pretty asymmetric space, but t's essentially two long tunnels overlapping each other," Bakken says. "The idea behind it is we wanted another medium map that's good for one-sided game types like one bomb, one flag, and territories. Each base has a big door that works well for [these] games. It's another obstacle to overcome when you're infiltrating the base. The first is just to get down to the base, pop open the door, and then open up the fastest possible route back. So you open up the door, grabe the flag, and leave."

As apparant in the screens, the long hallways mix well with the sniper rifles and rocket launchers hidden throughout the station. Mongoose and Ghost vehicles offer a maneuverable, yet quick way to navigate the tunnels. Beware, they also tend to draw more attention from opponents.
 
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6201698.html

Offical, HALO 3 RECON has been renamed to the title

HALO 3 ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers)
 
Yeah, ODST is a ridiculous sounding acronym.

Why not just call it one of the words of that acronym? Halo 3: Orbital, or Halo 3: Shock? Halo 3: Shock Troopers would have been hella sweet. ODST? More like OMFG... :lol
 
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