RedStarRocket91

The newest addition to our staff is someone who has been an incredibly prominent member of the community ever since he joined, providing both a friendly presence in the shoutbox and a series of fantastic custom games lobbies at regular intervals in the form of his Ninjas vs Forum events. In the short time he's been here he's already achieved the prestigious honour of becoming our Member of the Month for January, and it's with great pleasure that I'm pleased to be able to officially bring him on to the staff. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the newest member of our Promotions/Events team, Onsokumaru! You can check out his outgoing MoM post here - and if you haven't already done so, make sure to come along to one of his custom games lobbies!

The votes are in, and the time has come to announce the winners of our "Drawn By Fate" Community Art Contest! Decision-making was hampered by the high quality of many submissions, and indeed the final choice was so difficult that we've elected not one, but two winners! The first winner, and our new Facebook page cover photo: Submitted by Darth Mayh3m. And our second winner, the new headline image for our YouTube channel: Submitted by Magical Love. We'd also like to extend honourable mentions to Edward Kenway, The Dumb Marine, and Sikslik7 for their own entries, which proved extremely strong contenders, and our thanks to everyone who took part in the contest. We'll shortly be posting all of the entries in a gallery on our Facebook page, and handing out awards to both of our winners.

Very, very disappointing to see this. The idea of a console subscription service is that it's in lieu of having to pay separate subscription fees to games' online multiplayer services, and I really hope this doesn't set a precedent of companies beginning to charge online fees for each individual title they produce. The fact that it doesn't require PS+ is irrelevant as a year's subscription is substantially more expensive than the corresponding fees for a year's subscription to PS+, which most players are probably paying for anyway. It wouldn't be so bad if it were just $2-3 a month, but that's $180 over the course of a year, which would pay for something like three years of Xbox LIVE.

The Halo community has produced many Forgers since the introduction of the map alteration system back in 2007's Halo 3, and some of the most talented among them can be found on one of the web's most popular submission sites - our friends and affiliates at Forge Cafe! Forge Cafe is one of the largest dedicated Forge sites on the internet, with over 400 maps spanning both Reach and Halo 4 across a variety of gametypes and genres, from enormous competitive vistas to frantic Infection maps, from artwork and aesthetic creations to fully-playable minigames - if you've ever wanted something new and exciting to add to your custom game lobbies, there's something for anyone and everyone in their forums. Best of all, as of this week Forge Cafe has gone through a huge update to a new site format which will prove instantly familiar to all members of 343 Industries Community Forum, and its cool green and black colour scheme which will no doubt inspire nostalgia in some of our senior members. We'd like to encourage all of our members with any level of interest in the creation, testing or playing of Forge maps to head over, sign up and get involved! Check out the announcement video here!

You might want to check rule 10 of the nomination thread ;D

Perhaps it's because people would far rather make a choice about what kind of gametype they want to play than which maps they want to play? It's great to have a playlist for DLC, but when it means that I might get stuck playing a gametype that I hate, then I'd almost always avoid it: this is why the individual Objective playlists in Halo 4 are often larger individually than the entire Team Objective playlists from previous Halo games. It doesn't help that it requires multiple DLCs: as some people have some but not all of the maps, they won't be able to take part in the DLC playlist anyway. Likewise, if someone really enjoys one map pack but hates the others, then there's a real risk of getting stuck playing a gametype that you don't like on a map that you don't like - and why would anyone choose to do that?

His post was removed as it didn't contribute anything to the discussion.

Topic locked. This is a forum, not a blog, and as such any topics you create should aim to promote discussion and analysis, rather than simply state opinions.

Overall, I'd have to say Firefight edges it for me, although it's very close. Spartan Ops tends to be a lot more varied than Firefight: I particularly enjoyed the missions set during the invasion of the Infinity in Week 7, as the setting and objectives felt quite different and fresh compared to the rest of the Halo co-op experience. I also liked the way that some missions focused very heavily on the use of vehicles and heavy weapons, rather than just sticking those found in loadouts with the occasional power weapon dropped in every 5-10 minutes. The weapons made a really big difference there, as I find Halo 4's arsenal to be significantly more satisfying to use than the one found in Reach. The downside is, of course, that once you've played a mission, that's the extent of its replay value: if you start it up again you can choose a different loadout, but that's basically it. You can't alter player settings or even set non-standard weapon and equipment loadouts, activate regular or custom skulls, customise enemy types and traits, switch hazards on and off, adjust the objectives or play as part of the opposing team - all of which can be done in Firefight, providing a potentially massive increase in replay value. You want to have 10% HP, take 300% damage from all sources and fight nothing but Hunters without any respawns and while defending a generator? You clearly need professional help, but while you're waiting for your straightjacket Firefight will keep you occupied. With Spartan Ops, Mission X will always be Mission X - and if 343i have set skulls up in a way that you don't like, there's nothing you can do about it. While Firefight's maps can be very repetitive, at least you can customise them in almost any way you want. It's also nice to know that you can actually lose a game of Firefight, rather than just respawning infinitely until the level is over: use of checkpoints or a life pool would have definitely enhanced things, as being the last player alive in Firefight added a tension that just isn't present in Spartan Ops. For me at least, another issue is that I don't particularly enjoy fighting against the Prometheans, as their low number of unit types and, frankly, cheap tactics and abilities makes me dread any mission that contains them, especially on the higher difficulties where I tend to play. This is a problem specific to Halo 4 and of course there are players out there who no doubt prefer fighting them over the Covenant, so it's a highly subjective complaint, but it's enough of an issue for me to warrant a mention. The very last thing is perhaps my biggest issue of all: Xbox LIVE. For very long periods of my Xbox career I've found myself unable to access the internet, and Firefight provided many hours of entertainment during the periods where I couldn't jump into matchmaking - precisely the time where I'd particularly want something to be able to do that didn't involve other players. An online requirement for Spartan Ops means that there have been times where I've been forced to ditch Halo 4 altogether in favour of other games, and for players who don't have access to XBL it must be particularly galling to know that part of their game's price specifically includes access to a game mode that can quite easily be played solo (and indeed, is often more fun as a solo experience) but which they can't access arbitrarily. As a long-time offline gamer, this alone is enough to push me in Firefight's favour. So overall: Spartan Ops is very good, and I've had a lot of fun with it, but as a concept Firefight just wins out!

That's perhaps accurate on Legendary, but on anything lower the Flood really weren't all that hard - especially if you could get your hands on a Shotgun, which could one-shot them even at medium range and usually blew off enough body parts to stop them reviving. Heck, even hosing them down with the Assault Rifle was usually sufficient, the only real problem was that it wasn't possible to score headshots on them, and even then the effectiveness of other weapons usually made that unnecessary. That said, I'm hoping any future instalments of Halo really make use of the Xbox One's power, not to just make a slightly prettier game, but instead to provide a dramatic increase in the number of AI characters in any encounter. Instead of twenty or thirty Infection Forms plus ten or twelve regular Combat Forms, I'd really like to see literally dozens of Flood actively engaging the player: they don't really have to be all that hard to kill individually, but they need to make the player feel constantly under pressure from the sheer weight of numbers. A bit more diversity of forms would be nice, too: I'm really hoping to see infected indigenous lifeforms, sort of like the Pure Forms from Halo 3 but as separate, more specialised variants.

As of today, the Map Submission and Feedback forums of our affiliates at THFE are moving from 343i.org to our affiliates at HaloCustoms, in order to allow THFE to provide more regular analysis and responses to any submissions. Over the coming days, THFE will be working to move all existing submissions over to their new forums - so don't worry, you'll still be able to find your maps and feedback once the transition is complete. We'd like to wish the very best of luck to THFE with their new submission forums, and look forward to continuing to work with them on other projects in the future. In the meantime, if you're a forger and still want to submit your maps to 343i.org, our own submission forums are still fully functional, and we'll continue to provide spotlights of the very best community-submitted maps via both Weekly Wrap-Ups and the Monthly Mega Wrap-Up.

Well, how about playing a tournament of 2v2 Halo on a selection of the best competitive doubles maps existing today chosen especially by the talented map makers at our affiliate Forge Cafe for the chance to win a selection of fantastic prizes? If this sounds like the kind of thing you'd be interested in, the good news is that it's not a hypothetical situation! Competitors from three sites will be coming together over the next few months to participate in perhaps the biggest cross-site tournament in Halo 4's history, and we want you to take part. To participate, all you need to do is sign up at your respective sites, check to see when your match is and who it is against, and then play the game. There's currently no time limit on signing up, so you have plenty of time to find yourself a partner for the battles to come. If you're the mercenary type however, don't worry: while teams will need to be fixed before the tournament begins, you're free to change your teammate as many times as you wish until registration closes, and if you don't enter with a partner we'll find you one from the other single entrants. It's a bit like speed dating - but with less kissing and more bullets. Maps, fixtures and results will be kept updated at Forge Cafe, so remember to check there regularly to stay up to date with how the tournament is progressing and to get download links for any required Forge maps. If you want to take part but don't already have an account, why not register? It's fast, completely free, and also entitles you to earn site awards, take part in discussions on the forums, and participate in our regular Community Events. If you're from 343 Industries Community Forum, you can register here! If you're from our friends at Forge Cafe, you can register here. If you're from our friends at HaloCustoms, you can register here. Registration in this thread will need to take place in this format: Team Name Member 1's Forum Name and Gamertag Member 2's Forum Name and Gamertag For example: The Competitors RedStarRocket91, GT RedStarRocket91 BlueMoonMissile19, GT BlueMoonMissile19 We wish the best of luck to all participants, and we'll keep this thread updated with all the latest news and information. Terms and Conditions This tournament is open to all members from 343 Industries Community Forum, Forge Cafe or HaloCustoms, including staff: the only requirement is that your account is in good standing and remains so throughout the duration of the tournament. While you can sign up at any site that you're part of, please bear in mind that you can only register at one participating site at any time, and should you wish to register at another you'll need to withdraw any existing teams. Attempting to enter using duplicate accounts or gamertags is grounds for automatic disqualification from the tournament if discovered, as is any attempt at match-fixing or cheating. Replays will need to be provided to validate the outcome of each match, so please make sure to save a copy of the file in order to avoid disputes. While participating in the tournament, it is your responsibility to ensure that registration details are accurate and up-to-date, and your responsibility to attend each fixture. Staff of all three sites may be called in to resolve any disputes, and any decisions made are final and binding. View full article