RedStarRocket91

This is actually a really great idea. It's already possible to melee a hunter to death anyway, so it's not like this would be game-breaking - provided that the armour on a Hunter's back is sufficiently tough, then they wouldn't necessarily be any easier to kill, as by the time the armour comes loose and you can assassinate them they would only be a melee or two away from death anyway. The only thing I'd suggest would be that rather than simply holding down melee to assassinate Hunters, instead they're boarded like vehicles, allowing you to either melee them to death or plant a grenade. This also means that you'd never be in a situation where you end up accidentally performing an assassination when you simply want to kill an opponent quickly, as trying to melee them to death quickly would never accidentally trigger the animation.

I'm actually a lot more worried about Chief's mental state than his physical health - sure, he's ageing, but it's mentioned in one of the novels that the average human life by the time of Halo often exceeds 120 years - making Chief perhaps as young as 35 by today's standards, and that's before we consider that he's spent a very great deal of time in cryogenic stasis, during which he wouldn't have been ageing at all. Indeed, between Halo 3 and Halo 4 four years passed and he spent all of that in suspended animation, meaning at the very worst he's only biologically about 43, which isn't really that old at all. Even in the modern military, soldiers are quite capable of staying fit well into their 50s, and they neither have cybernetic enhancements, suspended animation, or a life expectancy of 120. So physically, the Chief is going to be absolutely fine for a good few years yet, and possibly even longer based on whatever the Librarian did to him. Mentally though, he's got to be a complete wreck. From his perspective, it's only been a few months since he saw Reach fall, and in that time he encountered the Flood and was almost infected by one, fought almost continuously for days on end on Halo, broke a suit of Mjolnir armour through heavy use, watched Earth get invaded by the Covenant, had a severely damaged Cortana put back into his head, watched both Miranda Keyes and Johnson die, was caught in the firing of a Halo ring, had a rampant AI directly connected to his thoughts, watched an entire space station full of civilians disintegrated, and then had his only companion die right in front of him in order to save his life - and that's not even counting getting back to Earth and discovering almost every other member of the Spartan-II programme has been killed or crippled since he last saw them. None of that can be good for his emotional health, and it's mentioned in Reach and the associated literature that Spartans often display antisocial or psychotic behaviour even at the best of times. If Chief weren't a Spartan he might well have snapped already.

I actually quite like the idea of Halsey coming back as one of the bad guys. One of the big parts of the reveal trailer for the next Halo was the Chief looking at Cortana's broken interface chip - and the fact that he kept hold of it suggests that he, emotionally and allegorically, can't let go of Cortana. One of the earliest plot points of Halo 4 was that Cortana and the Chief were trying to get back to Earth not just for its own sake, but because if they could make contact with Halsey then there was a chance of restoring Cortana to full health and extending her life by a few more years. I mention this because I think it could lead to a very interesting plot point in the next Halo. Halsey is almost certainly going to be working against the UNSC in the next Halo game, which means that at some point the Chief is probably going to end up being ordered to find/kill her - and that could set up a very difficult moral choice for him. On the one hand, she's an extremely dangerous woman who poses a very clear threat to the weakened UNSC and who has direct ties to both the Storm and the Prometheans - but on the other hand, in addition to being essentially mother to everyone in the Spartan-II programme, she's also the only chance the Chief has of ever seeing Cortana again. My guess is that when the Chief finally has her at gunpoint, he'll have to make a choice between killing her and thereby potentially saving millions of human lives but being left completely alone in the universe, or putting the gun down and joining her, which could then lead to a full-scale war against humanity but a chance to see Cortana again. 343i mentioned that their original plan was for Halo 5 to be a much darker entry than anything previously in the series, so I don't see this kind of decision as too much of a stretch. Plus, taking Halsey's side would open up a whole new set of potential enemies to fight - and deep down, I think every Halo fan has always wanted to see what a real Spartan vs Spartan fight would look like. Even better if we imagine some of the new enemy types - Spartan-IIIs in their SPI armour firing silenced weapons meaning they don't appear on the motion tracker when firing, ODSTs dropping in from the sky all around you mid-battle and opening up with heavy weapons like Spartan Lasers and Rocket Launchers, Marines pounding away with Frag Grenades and Assault Rifles, and even enemy Spartan-IIs with unique weapons based on who they are - Linda with her Sniper Rifle, Kelly rushing with a Shotgun, etc.

Staff Response Creating a topic simply to attack another player is in blatant disregard of our site's rules, and moreover extremely poor sportsmanship. If a CSR 1 player is matched up against a team of CSR 15-30 players, how exactly would you expect them to perform? The simple truth is that anyone who purchases a Halo game has the right to play it, regardless of how poor their own skills may be, and creating an abusive topic with a link to the player's gamertag invites personal abuse and flaming. This player may be perfectly capable when matched against players at least vaguely near his own skill level, and if anything we should be discussing the utter failure of the matchmaking system to put players into appropriate games, rather than heaping anger on someone whose only crime was trying to play some Halo. Link removed, thread locked.

Unfortunately, unless you have an extremely fast internet connection with a very low ping time, there isn't a lot you can do about the lag in Spartan Ops - for some reason, Halo's netcode really doesn't like maps with AI and large numbers of NPCs. If at all possible, try playing over a LAN connection or in splitscreen, as otherwise there will be noticeable lag, however small. If you can't play over a LAN, the next best thing is to try and make sure nobody else is using your internet connection while playing, and ideally partying up with someone who has a good connection of their own.

Provided you're using the same gamertag as the one that the War Games Pass was registered to, you should be able to get all of your DLC back without paying anythign extra. To do this, you'll need to transfer your licenses to your new console: Sign in as normal Go to the 'Settings' menu Go to the 'Accounts' menu Find the 'Billing Options' section, and select 'License Transfer' This will update all of your DLC so that it's now registered to your new console: from there, all you need to do is open up your download history and re-download everything you lost.

Choo Choo, everybody! http://youtu.be/7cXuWBMZfi8

As of today I'm incredibly pleased to announce the return of Lil Dog to the News Group. Sporting a newly-streamlined name, Dog is a very popular member of the site and a fantastic writer with a strong commitment to bringing the biggest news to the site in an accessible and engaging style. I hope you'll join me in welcoming a great asset back to the staff, and if you haven't yet had a chance to read one of his articles then now would be a great time to start checking the news page! So without further ado, please welcome back our newest member of the News Group, Dog!

As of today, I'm incredibly pleased to announce the newest addition to the moderating team here at 343industries.org. We're constantly trying to improve the standard of moderation, and one of the main areas where we know our coverage has been less than desirable has been in the shoutbox. Our new Community Moderator is therefore not just a fantastic addition in his own right, but someone who knows the shoutbox inside out and back to front. Hailing all the way from Australia, he's the most prominent shouter the site has ever had, and the only non-staff member ever to not just earn a unique award, but to actually have one of his own to hand out. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you our newest Community Moderator, the Shoutbox King himself, Azaxx! I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Azaxx to the staff - it's been a very long time coming!

Provided the assassination is being carried out by a teammate, I tend to try and avoid stealing assassinations because it feels kind of unfair to take away a moment which is genuinely awesome for someone else: the only times I'll deliberately go for a yoink medal are when I'm playing with people I actually know and who I can tease about it later (like Community Events or matchmaking with friends) or when that person has already deliberately yoinked one of my own assassinations, because I'm petty. That said, I'm quite happy to steal other player's assassinations if it's a free-for-all match, or they're on an opposing team on multi-team.

I actually prefer Forge World, but I think that's purely because I spent so much time forging in there. There's just something about the look of the Forge pieces in Halo 4 which I find a bit off-putting, it's like they don't quite fit together properly. I also quite like the way that the natural terrain in Forge World can be used either as an incredibly pretty backdrop, or actually worked into maps themselves: one of the best Forge maps I've ever seen was a re-imagining of Battle Creek which was built almost entirely from the natural terrain of Forge World, with just the bases and a large exterior wall to contain the action. That said, I REALLY like having a nice, smooth surface to forge on without needing to spend ages putting down coliseum walls and aligning them, especially in light of the rotation glitch which occasionally interfered with maps in Reach. So overall, definitely in favour of Forge World, but Forge Island certainly has its benefits!

About five months ago, 343 Industries updated some of the playlists in Matchmaking to include a modded gametype called 'Mini Slayer', which is basically just a Slayer variant with much smaller Spartans. As this is a mod directly approved by 343 Industries and actually playable in Matchmaking, any gametypes with very very small player models should be perfectly safe.

We have a winner!

Nope!

I am the one who walks unnoticed by your side; I am your mirror, the arbiter of your campaign. Though I may fall, I shall always return to your side; And freed from iron, as long as I remain, so shall you. What am I?

Spartan Thorne?

Your notification settings in your user profile don't actually affect whether or not you'll receive notification for replies to topics: if you want to see every reply made to a topic, you'll need to manually enable the 'Follow this Topic' notifications using the button just below the shoutbox on the thread's page. You can then choose how often you'd like to receive notifications about a topic, so while if you choose 'Instantly' you'll get one notification for every reply as soon as it happens, if you were to choose 'Weekly' you'd get one notification a week telling you how many replies were made to that topic. 'Instantly' is very good if you are actively participating in a discussion and don't want to have to use quotes to get someone's attention every time you make a reply, or want to read every response as soon as they're made: however, this can lead to a very large number of notifications. Weekly updates are much more useful if you're following a high-traffic topic and don't want a lot of notifications, and for topics that you'd just prefer to follow for updates.