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A few samples of the soundtracks from Halo 2: Anniversary have been revealed, six to be exact, well one full track and 5 samples. You can get an early listen to them now. Image from IGN IGN spoke to with the Audio Director at 343 Industries, Paul Lispson, to reveale these music samples for the game as part of their October's "IGN First". The six pieces of the remastered tracks are up on SoundCloud and they are: The Gungnir Mix - full length track (Mijolnir Mix) Second Prelude (Prologue) Breaking the Covenant (Misha Mansoor's replacement for Breaking Benjamin's "Blow me away") Impart (Impend) Kilindini Harbour (Earth City) Unforgotten Memories (Unforgotten) All of Marty O'Donnell's and Mike Salvatori's original work for Halo 2 will be completely remastered for Halo 2's ten year anniversary. The entire Halo 2: Anniversary soundtrack CD album will be released on November 11th and can be pre-ordered at Amazon now. What do you think of the soundtracks so far? Are you looking forward to hearing the full versions and indeed the rest of the album? View full article

Head of Xbox and Microsoft Studios, Phil Spencer, announced that the Xbox One UI will be getting customizable themes such as background screenshots and pictures. Phil Spencer sat down with TiC Podcast to discuss all things Xbox, he announced that the Xbox team are working on new ways for users to customize their Xbox One's dashboard. Such things will include the ability to take pictures and in-game screenshots to set as the background for the dashboard. “I was told themes and background pics are something that we are working on and screenshots, you know people beat me up on screenshots,” Spencer stated. These features are still currently in development so there isn't a confirmed date when they will be released, all that can be said at this time is they will come with a future monthly update. He went on to say "I think both themes, backgrounds and screenshots are things I know people want so we are going to deliver on them. But we can’t give a when yet.” The Xbox UI will be more customizable than ever when these updates roll out in the future, and no doubt having the ability to create personalized images and in-game screenshots will pique the interest of many Xbox users. Be sure to check out the full podcast What do you think of these new features? Are you happy to hear in-game screenshots and images can be used to customize your own dashboards? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts on it. Sources: Xbox Mad, TiC Podcast View full article

Well Agent Locke is an established character with an image, identity, background story etc. so customizable armor may not happen. 343 may want his armor to be a part of who he is, how he looks, like the way it is with the Mater chief. Noble six didn't have much of a background, identity or even a specific gender, it was up to the player to decide what Noble six looked like so the situation with Agent Locke may be different when it comes to customizing him.

Yesterday 343 Industries revealed the 6th remastered map that will be shipping with Halo: The Master Chief Collection for Halo 2: Anniversary, the reveal can be read here. That final map is Warlord and it is a remake of the Halo 2 map Warlock, Warlock was a DLC map and it was one of two maps (the other being containment) that came with the free Bonus Map Pack. Bravo at 343 Industries did announce that the final map would not be a DLC so that comment has come across a little bit of a mystery but most likely it was just a simple change of plan. IGN got access to the map and posted a full length video of gameplay of one of Halo's most classic game types, King of the Hill, here we get to see the map in action. So what do you think of Warlock/Warlord being the final map and how did you like the gameplay? Where you hoping for another map to make it on the list? View full article

This is also a good one

October is just around the corner and more free Xbox games are available so let's see what is on offer for next month with Games With Gold. For the Xbox One Crimson Dragon will be free for the third month running while the latest game from ID@Xbox, Chariot, will be the new title to download. Both games will be free all month long. Check out Chariot's official launch trailer. For the Xbox 360 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 will be free to download next month. It will be available to download from Wednesday, October 1st - 15th. Then from October 16th - 31st Darksiders 2 will be available to download for free. So that's it for Octobers Games With Gold what games will you be downloading? Source: majornelson.com View full article

September's free titles for the Games With Gold scheme have been revealed, so here's what's free and when. Starting September 1st and throughout the month both Super Time Force and Crimson Dragon will be free to download for Xbox Live Gold Members for the Xbox One. Crimson Dragon became free last month and will carry over as part of next months Games With Gold scheme. All images are originally from majornelson.com For the Xbox 360, Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine will be free to download for Xbox Live Gold Members from September 1st to September 15th. The last game to get for free in September for the Xbox 360 is Halo: Reach, it will be available from September 16th and will remain so for the remainder of the month. See anything you like from Septembers line up? Then make sure to download them while they're free. Source: majornelson.com View full article

Congrats to all of you!

Studio head of 343 Industries, Bonnie Ross, sat down with IGN for a quick interview to talk about Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Nightfall, Halo 5: Guardians and more. In the Interview Bonnie confirms that unlocks from the Halo 5: Guardians beta will carry over to the final game, this will obviously include things such as armor, skins etc. Bonnie also spoke about DLC for Halo 2: Anniversary "As for the DLC question - right now we don't have any plans for DLC but we've been asked this a lot. As soon as you guys find out what the last two maps are, let us know what you think and we'll see what we can do." Despite having no plans for DLC for Halo 2: Anniversary it is very clear their doors are open to it and we could be seeing more remastered maps. So for those who thought six remastered maps wasn't quite enough there is now hope more will arrive in the future. To watch the full interview click on the video below. Are you happy to hear that content from the Halo 5: Guardians beta will carry over to the actual game? If 343 Industries does release DLC for Halo 2 what maps would you like to be included? View full article

Over the past couple of days there has been an avalanche of Xbox news that has come out of this years GamesCom, from reveals of Halo: The Master Chief Collection to Xbox exclusive deals and new bundles. But one piece of news that has gone unnoticed by many (myself included) is that the Xbox One will soon allow users to watch Movies and TV shows from USB devices or DLNA through a home network. One of Xbox's lead engineers, Ashley Speicher, talked about a list of features that will be coming soon to the Xbox One in future updates and one of those features is that it will be compatible with a long list of media file formats, some that are already compatible with the Xbox 360 and some that weren't before such as .mkv, gif's, and Mpeg 2TS. "Soon, Xbox One owners will be able to watch videos, listen to music, and browse photos from USB and DLNA with the most popular file formats, including Mpeg 2 TS, .MKV and animated gifs by the end of the year," Ashley Speicher said in an interview with Xbox Wire. This feature will come to great use to Xbox One owners as it offers a large list of supported files but may somewhat bring controversy as pirated content can be used. To get the full listed of supported file formats click the source link below. Another useful feature that is coming will allow users to view their friends, join parties, read messages and view achievements through snap mode, so there won't be any interruption while playing games or using apps. One of the other new features coming is called "Threaded Messages" what that does is that it allows users to view full conversation history it can also be done. There will also be an update to friends activities, users will be able to view the most played games their friends have been playing and a Gamerscore leaderboard will be coming which will allow gamers to compare how much their Gamerscore has gone up compared to their friends over the last 30 days. Click the source below to watch the interview and to get a look at the new features coming to the Xbox One. What do you think about the new features and apps coming to the Xbox One? Are you looking forward to them? Leave a comment below. Source: Xbox Wire View full article