Halo 4
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Players running into Halo 4 server issues
Some Halo 4 players are reporting problems connecting to the game's multiplayer servers. Users on the Halo Waypoint forum are apparently encountering a "server unavailable" error when attempting to connect to multiplayer matches.The Xbox Live status page reflected the issue earlier today, though at the time of this writing it indicates that all services are up and running. We were able to play two online matches without a hitch, but users are still reporting problems, including being unable to join games, play with friends or access their unlocked loadouts.Microsoft is aware of the issue, and Xbox Live guru Major Nelson informs Joystiq that the Halo team is working to resolve it.
Halo 4 midnight launches at 4,400 US GameStops
Dare we assume you'll be out at midnight on Monday, driving from store to store in the hopes that just one will sell you a copy of Halo 4? It's a pretty safe assumption, but just to be certain that you know, GameStop has announced 4,400 of its US locations will be open at midnight to ring you up for a copy of Halo 4.All participating stores will kick off the festivities starting at 9pm local time – though, if you're on the east coast, Hurricane Sandy may have thrown a monkey wrench into the midnight launch plans like it did with Assassin's Creed 3. Some east coast stores are likely to cancel or alter their midnight launch plans, so GameStop suggests calling ahead.
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Episode 5 finishes its fight
The final episode of Forward Unto Dawn is now live, and you can watch it here on Joystiq. Machinima's live-action prequel to Halo 4 follows Corbulo Academy cadets who suddenly find themselves right in the heart of war. One cadet in particular, Thomas Lasky, has the spotlight shone upon him relentlessly, and in this final episode it's time for him to step up and be counted. With the help of a certain John-117, of course.While Forward Unto Dawn isn't the Halo movie some have been hoping for, Microsoft still pumped $10 million into the series, which totals at around 84 minutes. In other words, this is as close as you're going to get for the time being.If you missed them, we've got episodes 1, 2, 3, and 4 right here.
Billboard: Halo 4 highest-charting game soundtrack yet
Halo 4 won't be out for a few more days, but the official soundtrack from composer Neil Davidge has been widely available since the middle of October – and it's done well. Billboard ranked it in the #50 spot for its Billboard 200, which is the highest a video game soundtrack has ever reached on the charts.Davidge's score sold 9,000 copies in its first week and Billboard says it outperformed all the series' predecessors in the Top Soundtracks category. That includes the Halo: Reach soundtrack, which made it to number eight back in 2010. The official Halo 4 soundtrack reached third in Top Soundtracks.The Halo 2 soundtrack still has a record over Halo 4's score, however. It managed to move more than 9,000 albums during its second week on shelves. The previous record holder for top video game soundtrack on the Billboard 200 was the soundtrack to Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock at 107. Yup, the honor goes to an album of a video game in which you play along to that album.
Halo 4 gets tough on sexist players
343 Industries wants to make it clear: It will brook no further discrimination of any kind in Halo 4. Executive producer Kiki Wolfkill and studio head Bonnie Ross say that sexist discrimination of any kind will be met with a lifetime ban from both the game and the Xbox Live network.Ross says that "most people look at a franchise like Halo, and automatically assume it's run by a guy," but this particular franchise is run by a few ladies, and they're not having any discriminatory nonsense in their latest sequel.We agree with the sentiment, and hope that the harsh penalties make sure that the losers who make sexist and other offensive comments get shown the door for good. The ideal should be to make sure all forms of this offensive discrimination are squashed as far and wide as possible, no matter who's running the show.
Metareview: Halo 4
Microsoft's 343 Industries, which inherited the Halo franchise after Bungie walked away, actually pulled off Halo 4. Actually, that's not fair. 343 didn't just deliver a competent game, it took the collective cynicism of the internet and created, as our review put it, "one of the finest shooters in years." Destructoid (100/100): "343 Industries have done a remarkable job at continuing the Halo legacy. They've gone all out, creating a fantastic sequel that brought forth a major focus on storytelling while upping the visual and audio direction to a level that will be tough for anyone to rival with these few remaining years of the current console generation." IGN (98/100): "Halo has been rebuilt. It has been redefined. And it has been reinvigorated. The Xbox's original king has returned to his rightful place on the throne." Game Informer (93/100): "343 Industries introduces an episodic cooperative experience with enormous potential to change the way post-release content is delivered in games. Spartan Ops brings a new cinematic episode every week, along with five connected missions. The large battles and objectives available in these missions are ideal for a group of friends, and at a little over an hour per episode, it's perfect for a weekly gaming meet-up." Gamespot (90/100): "Halo 4 is every bit the massive shooter package that its predecessors were, and it holds the series' standard high. The thrilling and emotional return of Master Chief and Cortana is the highlight, and the campaign breaks new ground in narrative quality for the franchise. The top-notch competitive multiplayer picks up where Halo: Reach left off, infusing the action with some mainstream elements while still remaining undeniably unique. Spartan Ops may stay a mere sideshow or prove its worth in the weeks to come." Eurogamer (80/100): "At the end of Halo 4's campaign, after the credits have rolled, 343 Industries posts a short message thanking fans for trusting the company with their beloved universe and asking us to remember that this is just a first step. It's a telling memo that reveals a certain nervousness about the task at hand: a plea that we understand the weight of responsibility these creators have felt in adopting Master Chief."
Halo 4 comes to iOS ... as a Mountain Dew/Doritos/7-Eleven promo app
The good news: There's an official Halo 4 game on iOS. The better news: it's free! The moment you become furious with us for those first two sentences: the full name of the app is "Halo 4: King of the Hill Fuled by Dew." Yes, "fuled."The exclusive soft-drink soaked experience brings in 7-Eleven and Doritos for the most authentic Halo experience, allowing you to compete to become "king of the hill." And by "hill" we mean "7-Eleven," by "king" we mean "person who is always in a 7-Eleven," and by "compete" we mean "scan Mountain Dew and Doritos products in that 7-Eleven you're constantly loitering in."You'll unlock double XP and an "Exclusive Custom Locus Helmet" for the non-Dew-fueled Xbox 360 Halo 4 by playing, and you'll forever associate "alien warzones" with 7-Eleven. Just like they want you to, apparently.
Halo 4 review: Our new Chief Operating Officer
Halo 4 is adamant about proving its competence and convincing you of its necessity. You don't often see a monolithic franchise putting up a fight for fans, but the departure of Bungie has awakened doubt – enough to incur a fierce response from Halo's new custodians at 343 Industries. And so the developer launches the best kind of protest, which is to wave an impressive, throbbing shooter in your face. The speed at which that uncertainty evaporates is the real surprise. You enter with a fair fear of Halo being stale; then Master Chief exits the cryogenic casket like a crisp piece of let-us-start-killing-things. Meanwhile, his companion Cortana skirts around fatigue, madness and Microsoft metaphor – the inevitable fate of software that's been in service for much too long. But she too comes out stronger, more endearing and heroic than ever before. Maybe she's just been inserted into one too many alien plinths over the years.%Gallery-169920%
Halo franchise up to 46 million games sold worldwide
The Halo franchise is up to 46 million games sold worldwide. Microsoft gave us the impressive figure today ahead of the launch of Halo 4, which was recently revealed as comfortably Microsoft's most expensive game to date.According to Microsoft, Halo has so far generated $3 billion in revenue, there are 120 million pieces of user-generated content in Halo 3 to date, and 5 billion hours have been logged into Halo games via Xbox Live. We won't speculate on what all these figures may rise to following Halo 4's release next week.
Halo 4 Spartan Ops trailer features Spartans, ops
A fresh trailer for Halo 4's Spartan Ops mode has surfaced on the web. The trailer shows off some gameplay as well as a few of the cut-scenes from the episodic series of cooperative missions. It looks like the Covenant are at it again – despite that whole "truce" thing – and the UNSC has deployed a fresh batch of Spartans to take care of business. Check out the trailer above.
New Halo 4 figures include the most adorable Cortana ever
Funko's Pop! Vinyl line of collectible figurines is welcoming four new Halo 4 figures into its already plentiful ranks of super-deformed pop-culture characters. Available on November 8, the new line includes Master Chief, both red and blue Spartan Warriors, as well as the unbelievably cute Cortana figure seen above.Seriously, it's like if Betty Boop were a hyper-intelligent, holographic artificial intelligence from the future. Check out all four figures in the gallery below.%Gallery-169460%
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Episode 4 hails to the Chief
If you've been keeping up, you'll know the situation in Halo 4's live-action tie-in is definitely up to red alert. So it's about time a certain somebody showed up, really.
Spencer: Halo 4 is Microsoft's most expensive game
Halo 4 is the most expensive game Microsoft has ever made, Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer tells Polygon. It is "absolutely" the most money Microsoft has ever spent developing a game, he says. "Nothing's even close."Estimates for development costs of Halo 3 average out at $60 million, and that was including a massive marketing budget of about $30 million. Halo 3: ODST ended up bringing in more than $170 million in its first 24 hours on the market. Overall, Halo is a $3 billion franchise, Spencer says.
Halo 4 'War Games Map Pass' grants entry to 3 map packs for 15% off
The War Games Map Pass that we noted comes in the Limited Edition of Halo 4 is just what it sounds like – a season pass with a fancy name. Sold separately, the War Games Map Pass runs $25 (2,000 MS Points) and grants access to three multiplayer map packs scheduled for December, February and April: Crimson, Majestic and Castle. This is a 15 percent discount if bought individually at retail price. Crimson, set to launch in December, includes Wreckage, Harvest and Shatter maps. Majestic includes Landfall, Monolith and Skyline, and is set to launch in February. Castle has Daybreak, Outcast and Perdition, set for April.The War Games Map Pass also includes two in-game helmets and a unique emblem.
Halo 4 gets its gameplay trailer
If you prefer your trailers heavy on the action and light on the live, check out this little number for Halo 4 which made its debut last night on FX.
Xbox SmartGlass launches for Windows 8 tablets October 26
Microsoft confirmed today SmartGlass will launch alongside Windows 8 tablets on October 26, with Dance Central 3 and Forza Horizon among the first games to support it. The Xbox 360 app, which turns devices into secondary screens for the console, will be available for Windows 8 phones at launch on October 29. SmartGlass is expected to arrive on iOS and Android in 2013.SmartGlass is implemented in the latest Xbox dashboard update, which Microsoft tells us it's rolled out to 3 million users so far. Another wave will receive the dashboard update today, so more users should have access to SmartGlass when the companion app becomes available for Windows 8 tablets on Friday.
Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Episode 3 is not a drill
If you need more live-action Master Chief in your life after the Halo 4 launch trailer reveal, the third episode of Forward Unto Dawn is here to help you - albeit with only a tiny bit more Chief. If you've not been keeping up with Machinima's tie-in series, you can check out the first and second episodes here on Joystiq. As for this episode, things start to get really serious when those ever-daunting words of "this is not a drill" ring through the halls of the Corbulo Academy.
Halo 4 'Scanned' launch trailer is here
Halo 4's extravagant 'Scanned' launch trailer takes a peek behind the helmet of Master Chief, the stoic cyborg with humanity at heart. It's not exactly a biopic, but you get a decent dose of anguish and cybernetic aliens for your 2:22.
Halo: Silentium concludes Greg Bear's Forerunner trilogy in March 2013
Originally slated for January 2013, the third installment in Greg Bear's series of Halo novels will now drop in March 2013, Tor Books has announced. Entitled Halo: Silentium, the novel wraps up Bear's Forerunner trilogy, which appropriately details the story of the Forerunners, the mysterious, extinct race that ruled the galaxy thousands of years prior to the events of the Halo games.Curiously, Master Chief also runs into Forerunners in Halo 4. How does that work, you ask? Sounds like you have some reading to do.
Halo 4 pirates being banned from Xbox Live [update: consoles may be banned]
In a move that should surprise no one at all, Microsoft is issuing permanent Xbox Live bans to pirates of Halo 4. Pirates are now receiving emails explaining the situation, reports MCV. The emails note that the user in question has been "permanently suspended for illegitimate prerelease title play." Lest the word "permanent" be unclear, the email goes on to note that "Xbox Live privileges will not be reinstated." Microsoft pursued a similar course of action prior to the 2010 release of Halo: Reach.It's worth noting that the email refers to Xbox Live "account privileges," which may indicate that Microsoft is banning user accounts but not the actual console on which they reside. In such cases, users can regain access to Xbox Live by starting a new account (which means paying for a new account in the case of Xbox Live Gold). We've reached out to Microsoft to find out if consoles are being banned as well.Microsoft acknowledged reports last week that Halo 4 had been leaked onto the internet, and that it is "working closely with its security teams and law enforcement to address the situation."Update: Microsoft has responded to Joystiq, reiterating its stance. While it wouldn't confirm if all Halo 4 pirates will receive full console bans, it did confirm that both account and console bans may occur.
