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Halo |OT8| A Salt on the Control Room

Btw. here is the Forward Unto Dawn Avatar Prop, you'll get with the purchase:
184168_440x350.jpg


Meh I need something sooner. Can anyone recommend any headsets for me? That price range is about my limit.
What is your limit?
 
Me, Over, Bobs' and OddOne are on reach, anyone want to join us for customs? I will make it clear that we will be playing silly, wacky stuff, with a sprinkling of seriousness.

Just send a message to my GT if your interested.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Me, Over, Bobs' and OddOne are on reach, anyone want to join us for customs? I will make it clear that we will be playing silly, wacky stuff, with a sprinkling of seriousness.
TheOddOne plays Halo? I don't I've ever played with him before.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
WARNING - WALL OF TEXT.

PAX 2012 Impressions - HaloGaf, Halo 4, Based Frankie, and BS Angels.


PAX 2012 was my second PAX. The first, a blurred stupor of lights and sounds, was in 2010. 2010 was the year Reach was set to launch, and PAX 2010 was the first time I got to see Reach in person. Halo 4...is not Reach. It is a better game all around. My time was very limited with Halo 4, so take this write-up however you see fit, but the game immediately and thoroughly felt better than Reach ever has.

I almost didn't get to play Halo 4. The line was up to 4 hours long all weekend, and by Sunday afternoon I was worried I would miss my chance. I happened to stop by the Halo 4 booth earlier in the day and grab Jessica. I had a nice 15 minute chat about PAX, the game, and working at 343/dealing with online communities in general (as I do community stuff for THQ). At that time the line was still around the 3 hour mark, however. Around 4pm I finally came back to the Halo 4 area, waved Jessica over, and asked what the deal with the line was. She noted that it was now as short as it had been all weekend, and let me jump under the rope to get over to the end of the line. I waited about 35 minutes, and was finally able to get into a game of CTF.

I immediately sat down and jumped into the options. I am an inverted (the CORRECT way to play :p ) player so I changed that over, got my sensitivity to 4, and switched to bumper jumper. The bumper jumper layout is similar to reach, but puts sprint on "X" and your AA on "A" (if I remember right). After getting that all set up I had enough time to get one "class" set up. My class consisted of BR, Promethean Pistol, thruster pack AA, shield regen speed for the tactical package, and something radar-based for my support upgrade.

The game starts. I run around for the first 5 seconds in a drunken stupor before finally gaining my senses and going off about my Halo business. The first thing I noticed was that the reticule placement seemed different. I was assured it was in the same place as previous games (slightly below center) but it, combined with the new UI, looked a bit odd right off the bat. I adapted quickly though.

I then proceeded to test out my AA, the thruster pack. As soon as I hit the button I knew that this AA could be one of the most useful in the game. Even with it being a brand new AA, it clicked for me right away and 5 minutes later I was using it as though it had existed for years in Halo. Let me be clear here; thruster pack is NOT evade. It pushes you a shorter distance, only has one use before recharge, and doesn't alter your hitbox from what I could tell. That aside, I found myself using it a great amount to avoid a grenade, or jump into cover quickly. You can't run away with it, but you certainly can use it to get to cover in more open levels easier. After using thruster, I believe I will be starting off Halo 4 using it day 1.

Sprint. Sprint has been a point of discussion and turmoil within HaloGaf for eons now. My view on the subject is well known, I like sprint. I think it adds much needed speed to Halo. Anyways, playing Halo 4 reconfirmed my views. Never did I see people using it to run away, and if it ever happened the player never got away. You won't see people using it to get away from fights, but more to get back into them. Spawning, then being able to run back across the map and get back into the fray a lot faster is fantastic.

The Ghost. The Ghost is one of my all time favorite Halo vehicles, so needless to say the first one I saw was mine. To my surprise the Ghost now has acceleration. You no longer go from 0 to whatever within a second, you gradually build speed over 2-3 seconds. I didn't like or dislike this new acceleration, but it will be something to get used to for those who typically jumped into a ghost and sped off. I think the new acceleration will prevent people from escaping in ghosts as easily too.

Weapons. Out of all the weapons I used I found out one thing. Halo 4 is NOT all about melee. From my short experience with it not once did I feel the urge to stop shooting, and run up to the person for a melee. If I did melee, it was usually a last ditch effort to avoid certain death. Halo 4 relies on your shooting skill much more than previous games did. Melee-happy folks will be sorely disappointed. As has been confirmed by others the BR and DMR felt great, and felt like they each had very specific range usages. Once using the BR I was instantly familiar with it. Yes, it does have that slight bullet drop, but not once was I hindered by it. I felt 100% confident landing my shots. The DMR is the DMR. It has a slight bloom, but feels infinitely better than the Reach base DMR. The Promethean Pistol feels decent as well. Not uber powerful, but helpful in a tight spot. It has a nice charge attack too that packs a punch. Grenades still feel good in Halo 4, but are not quite the mini-nukes we have in Reach. Chucking a random nade to save your ass won't really work anymore, you have to be very tactical about their use.

Map. I enjoyed the new map 343 showed off at the event. I didn't get the proper time to explore it, but it felt like it had a good amount of scenario-specifc areas. Areas for long range battles, short range battles, vehicles, etc. Each side had a handful of Warthogs, but I never felt "left out in the open" as I do constantly on some of Reach's maps with vehicles. No one really got the tank going more than once in our game, so I cannot speak to spawn kills. I only got spawn killed once, and it was by a person not a vehicle.

Overall I feel good about Halo 4. I am still wary of the power-ups 343 has introduced, but once I picked my shield regen and started playing I completely forgot those "perks" existed. Never did I feel that I lost a kill due to some invisible ability the other player had, and this is what excited me the most in my time with the game. The "perks" seem to give you a slight edge in one area or another, but do nothing for you if you aren't competent at the game already, and only slightly help you in very specific scenarios otherwise.

I want to thank 343 for being great to HaloGaf last weekend, and Frank & Jessica specifically for chatting with me about the game. Thanks to Duncan, and all the other HaloGaf guys who showed up for making everyone feel welcome, and being awesome overall.

TL;DR
I don't think I can go back to Reach now... SLRP
 

heckfu

Banned
So you folks would recommend Tritton over Turtle Beach? I really enjoyed the headsets this weekend, even the stereo ones, so I feel like it'd be a good investment for late night dongtime with Frankie.
 
So you folks would recommend Tritton over Turtle Beach? I really enjoyed the headsets this weekend, even the stereo ones, so I feel like it'd be a good investment for late night dongtime with Frankie.

I would. I have Trittons and my brother has Turtle Beach, and I definitely prefer my headset over his. And that Halo 4 headset looks rad.
 

wwm0nkey

Member
So you folks would recommend Tritton over Turtle Beach? I really enjoyed the headsets this weekend, even the stereo ones, so I feel like it'd be a good investment for late night dongtime with Frankie.

I really enjoy mine and they last quite awhile too.
 
So you folks would recommend Tritton over Turtle Beach? I really enjoyed the headsets this weekend, even the stereo ones, so I feel like it'd be a good investment for late night dongtime with Frankie.

The one's I use when streaming/Halo are Trittons. Very good sound quality in my experience.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
If AAs are in campaign, please let us keep them if we die in co-op. In Reach co-op, you default back to sprint whenever you respawn. My buddy and I played through the campaign on Legendary on launch day, and we were both extremely frustrated and disappointed when we got a cool AA only to die a few minutes later in the next encounter. We barely had a chance to use the new toys. :-(

Edit : I imagine we'll have the option to place AAs as pick ups in customs. It'd be cool to have auto-turrets as pick ups.
 

senador

Banned
Deadly Cyclone mentioned bullet drop on the BR in his wall of text. I thought BR was hitscan, drop would imply travel time and would mean he was just smoking something? Or is it possible to have hitscan and bullet drop?
 

nillapuddin

Member
If AAs are in campaign, please let us keep them if we die in co-op. In Reach co-op, you default back to sprint whenever you respawn. My buddy and I played through the campaign on Legendary on launch day, and we were both extremely frustrated and disappointed when we got a cool AA only to die a few minutes later in the next encounter. We barely had a chance to use the new toys. :-(

Edit : I imagine we'll have the option to place AAs as pick ups in customs. It'd be cool to have auto-turrets as pick ups.


at the very least it should drop and be pick-up-able again

your right that is very very frustrating in Reach
 

Droid

Member
Deadly Cyclone mentioned bullet drop on the BR in his wall of text. I thought BR was hitscan, drop would imply travel time and would mean he was just smoking something? Or is it possible to have hitscan and bullet drop?

The speed of the bullet is irrelevant due to the fact that each bullet of the spread is its own packet. That is, each bullet sends its own information from xbox to xbox. This is where and why dropping occurs. Sometimes the Host will not receive all three packets due to various reasons, so when that happens only 2 out of 3 or even 1 out 3 bullets are received by the host and transmitted to the other players in the match.

In the case of Halo 3, poor netcoding led to a plethora of bullets from a burst not being received and that's how you end up with something like 26 bullets in your BR.
 
I read the interview with Frankie by Das Kalk and Sam. During reading I noticed a worrying bit about Spartan Ops:
DK: You were saying that Spartan Ops is episodic content, does this mean that much like a TV show, we'll see the episodes released on the same day every week?

Yes, it's going to air, technology allowing, at the same time on the same day on a per-week basis. Of course, it requires Xbox LIVE for a couple of reasons, one is that it's streaming content, [...]

Streaming? I hate streaming content. I hate it. I assume the streaming content refers to the CGI cutscenes. At my current location and internet connection, I'll never enjoy the Spartan Ops CGI cutscenes. :(
 

Gunnerdude

Neo Member
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
On the topic of headsets -- which of the major companies have the best warranty? If I'm going to drop a few hundred on a headset, I better be able to return it if it breaks.
 

Gunnerdude

Neo Member
So the stereo set that's 60 bucks is fine for games?

I know nothing about headsets...

yes, or anything comfortable that fits on your head and produces sound :)

Here is the best review I've found on headsets in the last couple years ment for high end gaming:

http://www.tested.com/news/feature/627-7-high-end-gaming-headsets-tested-and-reviewed/

Please note this is a dated artical over two years old so there are lots of newer models out but the company reviews remain the same more or less

The thing about 7.1 headsets...

WHAT SIDE DOES THE 7TH SPEAKER GO!?

55-27654-image003.jpg


This is a picture of the Razer Tiamat 7.1 headset.... i still only count 5.....
 

Slightly Live

Dirty tag dodger
I read the interview with Frankie by Das Kalk and Sam. During reading I noticed a worrying bit about Spartan Ops:


Streaming? I hate streaming content. I hate it. I assume the streaming content refers to the CGI cutscenes. At my current location and internet connection, I'll never enjoy the Spartan Ops CGI cutscenes. :(

Yup, you and Letters will be frequent Youtube viewers.
 

FyreWulff

Member
Back in Omaha now.

I have a dull headache, but I can't tell if it was Pax Pox from putting the headphones on for Bltiz on the last day or the VRM BWOM BWOM of the Omegathon finale.


The thing about 7.1 headsets...

WHAT SIDE DOES THE 7TH SPEAKER GO!?

in your brain
 

Recarpo

Member
On the topic of headsets -- which of the major companies have the best warranty? If I'm going to drop a few hundred on a headset, I better be able to return it if it breaks.

I can't really speak for any other companies, but Astro has a 1 year warranty if anything breaks and you can pick up an extended warranty if you want. Their customer service is also some of the best I've ever dealt with.
 

Bsigg12

Member

The Tritton Warhead 7.1 seem to be universally found to be a pretty good product.

IGN likes them for what they're worth

Digital Trends goes a little more in depth with the product

Kotaku's Owen Good offers up a more realistic review based on the fact that it's $300 dolllars

Note: All these reviews are for the Warhead 7.1 which is available now. Unless there is something special about the Halo 4 edition other than the decals on the headset/base, the overall consensus is these are some great headphones.
 

senador

Banned
No 5.1 or 7.1 headset is worth it since you don't really need 5.1 or above for video games. If you want wireless just get the primers.

I would say that is a matter of opinion based on how much you care about surround sound. My A40s have far more depth and directional sound that my stereo headphones.

Speaking of A40s, I'm about to take pics and box them up to sell. Very lightly used if anyone is interested. ;) I want to get the A50s.
 

IHaveIce

Banned
I read the interview with Frankie by Das Kalk and Sam. During reading I noticed a worrying bit about Spartan Ops:


Streaming? I hate streaming content. I hate it. I assume the streaming content refers to the CGI cutscenes. At my current location and internet connection, I'll never enjoy the Spartan Ops CGI cutscenes. :(

what ? shit, I will have the same problem. :/
 
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