RedStarRocket91

Here at 343industries.org, every Member of the Month is different. Some of our MoMs have been chosen for their fantastic contributions to discussion in and around the forums, and their ability to either start great debates or add really insightful and thought-provoking comments to existing threads; some, for their tireless work in helping keep the forums running cleanly and smoothly, whether filing reports on questionable content, making newer members feel welcome, or going out of their way to do something special for the forum; some, for their constant work in not only creating great Forge content for our members to use, but sharing their Forge knowledge so that others can improve their own creations. But while every MoM is unique, they all have one thing in common: each and every one of them has made a special effort to make our forums the wonderful community they are today, going far beyond what is merely necessary in order to bring us something truly special. Our newest MoM is no different: although he's recently stepped down from his Staff position to pursue other commitments, his name will be immediately familiar to anyone who's been involved in Halo's Custom Games scene at any point in the past few years. Having hosted a Custom Games lobby especially for members of our forum every Friday without for the best part of a year and still going strong, please give a huge round of applause to our July 2013 Member of the Month, ♠ Spades N AZ ♠! Congratulations, ♠ Spades N AZ ♠! Thank you for your great services to the forum over the years - and enjoy your month in the pink! If you haven't already had the pleasure of playing with Spades at one of his Custom Games Lobbies before, you have no idea what you're missing out on! Find out more information about our newest MoM and his upcoming Custom Game Nights on Halo 3 here!

But it's still listening to me D:

The popularity argument is a bit of a strange one to deal with. It's often very tempting to dismiss it outright by pointing out that there are an awful lot of popular things which are also regarded pretty poorly: Justin Bieber is the prime example, as while he has more fans than God, a lot of people would say that his music is very poor and that his attitudes toward other people can be very unpleasant. Similarly, the Call of Duty series is a very popular target when people want to hurl criticism at gaming, and yet that breaks new sales records every year. It's also often tempting to point out that there are a lot of very good things which either aren't massively popular or are basically unknown to the mainstream: this is particularly true in music, but games like the Condemned series, while being very good, just don't get the recognition they deserve. Ultimately though, population is just a very good way of showing not what is necessarily good, but what people like. Big difference. Is the food at the restaurant where I used to work better than the one at the nearest McDonalds? Of course it is. But that McDonalds probably gets five to ten thousand customers over the course of a day, while that restaurant is lucky to hit two hundred. That's because, while McDonalds' food isn't very good, people like it. So the 'not many people play Halo anymore' argument kind of stands up even though it doesn't. As an argument about the quality of the game, it's completely rubbish. But at the same time, you can't sell games as costly as modern AAA titles without there being plenty of people who want to buy them, and so how many people play it might go a long way to giving you a good estimation of how much you'll enjoy it, even if it doesn't tell you how good it actually is.

I wouldn't mind a third party Kinect, provided it didn't do anything except sit and tell the Xbox One it was plugged in so that I could play my games without having the real thing watching me all the time. And yes, I know they've said you can turn it off completely. I just don't believe them. As for third-party game pads, I'm pretty sure they're here to stay. As long as it's possible to make pads which are either cheaper or better quality than the official line, there will always be a market for them. Last generation, there weren't so many third-party controllers purely because it wasn't really possible to improve on the design of the standard Xbox 360 pad. There were, however, quite a few which weren't very good, but were very cheap, and modded controllers with auto-fire and turbo buttons have been just as popular as ever, so I'd expect to see that continue.

Depending on where you saved your game and the order you've completed missions, it's possible that the game has recorded Tayari plaza as incomplete. However, you can manually set Navpoints by using your VISR's street view mechanic: if you look around the city, there should be other areas marked with objective spheres, and you should be able to set a custom Navpoint which you can follow all the way to the mission of your choice. Good luck, hope this helps!

Is it possible for you to try and use the disc on any other console? If you've had problems with multiple discs and they're all either new or in a very good condition, it's probable that the issues might actually be being caused by your system, rather than the discs. If it doesn't work on any other consoles, then it's just the disc that's faulty and your best option is probably to just try and get it replaced again.

Yeah, once you get rid of PS+ you do lose access to any free games you've had through it - though in fairness, you're only losing something which you weren't really paying for anyway. I think the same thing is set to happen with the free games for XBL Gold members though, so if you've downloaded Fable III, you'll lose access to it if you get rid of Gold. As for the risk-taking... yeah, I can get behind that, but the thing with risks is that you shouldn't be taking them for their own sake: you need to be taking them because there's a higher chance than not that you're going to profit from it. And a lot of the risks they're taking seem to be done out of a raw desire to control their customers, rather than because there's any genuine benefit to them. Blocking used games, a mandatory internet connection, forcing people to put a spy camera in their homes? These aren't risks taken in the hope that gamers will see them as more convenient: they're about controlling us, pure and simple. As for the Sony fanboys... there an awful lot of very good serious and logical arguments against the Xbox One in addition to those from people who just want to troll, and a great deal of them are actually being made by Xbox owners, and people who were excited about what the Xbox One would be before it was announced. I'm not a particularly big fan of either Sony or Microsoft: I just go to the system which I think is best. And for this coming generation, there's very little that could persuade me to continue giving Microsoft my custom short of a serious rethink of their restrictive policies.

This sort of idea has actually been surprisingly popular lately. There was a similar sort of idea in the 'Hazard' variants of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, which added various challenges such as reduced visibility and damage over time in certain areas, and of course the Gears of War series has been playing around with map-specific modifiers, first with the Forces of Nature DLC and then the declassified challenges in Gears of War: Judgement. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops II experimented with dynamic maps elements like moving crates. I don't think putting AI-controlled units into multiplayer is a terribly good idea though, because it's an extra layer of calculations to perform and then send, and AI-intensive data is why you can get so much lag with three Grunts and a Jackal on-screen when playing co-op Campaign over the internet, but 8v8 Big Team games can play just fine. But other than that, I can definitely see the potential in this! If a blizzard arrives every two or three minutes, reducing visibility for anyone outside and perhaps affecting aim assist, or there was some sort of electromagnetic reaction which harmed shields and scrambled the motion tracker of anyone in range of a damaged reactor, or in a damaged spaceship with very narrow corridors the gravity generators might occasionally fail, so for a few second everyone might be weightless and when the generators came back on the gravity might be in a different direction, so you'd have a completely new map layout, or there might be a bomb goes off halfway through so that a big chunk of the map changes and ends up being laid out completely differently. I don't know that these would be good for regular competitive play, as they might be a bit too unpredictable, but they could be great fun for Custom Games or Social playlists, where the more chaos, the better!

This particular issue has actually been clarified, and it turns out Microsoft actually had nothing to do with it: Source: The Escapist

Consider it this way. You need a $60 LIVE membership for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One in order to access online multiplayer (note that this does NOT automatically qualify you where a publisher demands an online pass), join parties, access both free and paid apps like BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Netflix and LoveFilm, and download paid DLC items from the marketplace. The $60 you'll be giving to Sony allows access to online multiplayer and also means you'll get free games which you can keep for as long as you maintain your PS+ membership. Any apps, whether free or paid, also don't require purchase of PS+ to use. and of course, you can ignore it altogether if you have a PS3, and keep playing online as much as you wish. So basically, 'Sony fanboys' should shut up because they're paying the same price for a better service? I'm sorry, but I don't buy into that. Xbox LIVE was always superior because, while it was subscription-based, you got a lot more out of it than you did via Sony's system: servers tended to be a little less laggy, an advantage that existed far too long into the PS3's life-cycle, chatting with friends was easier and more convenient, the user interface controls were better and of course games themselves tended to be a bit cheaper (at least at first) because Sony needed some way of paying for their servers without a membership fee. PS+ however is a better service than XBL, even though it's going to be mandatory for online gaming, because you get more out of it. And I'm sorry, but Microsoft's garbage about giving people free games in the future is a sad and transparent PR stunt. Halo 3 came out SIX YEARS AGO, and Assassin's Creed II has had something like four games come out since its own release. This is not some way of appreciating players, it's a poor attempt to try and con them into thinking that's what they're doing because these titles have run their course and there's no more profit to be made out of them. And the chances are that if you're a Halo fan, you already own Halo 3, just as Assassin's Creed fans probably already own the second entry. PS+ subscribers get titles which are sometimes only a few months old: when Deus Ex came out, I'm pretty sure it was made freely available to PS+ members after only two months or something. As for the 'exclusive' deals on Xbox... look for yourself. You're still paying dozens of pounds or dollars or euros because the big titles tend to only get small discounts, and Games On Demand does not account for value depreciation. X-Com: Enemy Unknown is a good example, though I freely admit this could be exclusive to Britain as I don't know what pricing is like elsewhere. I quite decided I wanted to pay it, and a few weeks back I saw a deal offering 10% off via GoD. Since it was then about a year old, I assumed I'd probably end up paying about £20 for it, as games normally retail for £40 on launch day. However, the GoD version was £60 BEFORE DISCOUNT. They're taking our membership fees to give us 'exclusive deals' which make things more expensive then they were on release day, and while anecdotal I've never heard of any similar stupidity over on PSN. So is making PS+ mandatory a good thing? Of course not. But at least you're getting what you pay for, and at the same price as XBL. It's time for Microsoft to realise that in a capitalist market, you've got to compete to stay relevant, instead of demanding more money to access content that's already been paid for elsewhere as with Netflix (and until a few weeks ago, online passes on EA games), and handing out old, worn-out titles which most fans probably already own as a way of pretending that you're offering the same level of service as a competing platform which is handing out new, A-list titles.

Ultimately, it's down to two simple factors: how much you love Halo, and how much you dislike the Xbox One. If you weren't at the very least happy with how Halo 4 turned out, I can't recommend an Xbox One. A console is not something cheap that can just be bought on a whim for most people, and considering we don't know anything about Halo 5 yet, we have no idea just how good it's going to be. If you're buying a console even though you don't like it or think there are better alternatives just because it has one game, would you still be happy with your choice if that game turned out not to be great? Make the assumption that you're going to like Halo 5 about as much as you liked Halo 4, whether that means you love it, hate it, or are somewhere in between. Would you have been happy if you'd bought an Xbox One and Halo 4 had been a launch title, or would you have regretted it? If you don't think the Xbox One is going to be very good, you shouldn't rely on Halo 5 being so amazing that it will make you stop caring about the system's problems. That said, the best idea of all is to just wait until the consoles have been launched, and then make a decision based on feedback from friends and people whose opinions you value and trust who've actually had contact with the systems you're considering.

Could you give a few of those reasons in a bit more detail? I'm finding it quite difficult to think of good reasons to buy the Xbox One, and it would be great to hear exactly what some of the positives are compared to, say, the PS4

Honestly? Choosing whether or not to get an Xbox One is a very difficult decision if you happen to be American, and a lot easier if you aren't, because those of us born outside of the USA either have severely restricted features like a greatly reduced library of stuff we can stream in terms of music and video, or miss out on it altogether in terms of live TV. It also doesn't help that nobody outside of the USA cares about the NFL, NBA or MLB, so the promised revolution of sports wouldn't affect us even if we could actually access it in the first place. I don't even know those are the correct names, that's how little attention they get. The only real selling point the Xbox One has in its favour at this point is its exclusives, which basically boil down to a new Halo which we know nothing about, potentially a new Gears of War, that Ryse thing which looks to be a fairly poor QTE-ridden Roman knock-off of Saving Private Ryan, yet another Forza, and that Titanfall thing, because there's a real gap in the market right now for another 'realistic' iron-sight, cover-based first-person shooter with futuristic elements. As much as I love Halo (and believe me when I say that dumping the Chief is one of the most difficult decisions I've made in my gaming career, right up there with shooting Mordin) I just can't in good faith encourage anyone to go out and buy an Xbox One, not with the way it stands right now. It's intrusive, invasive and made with an astoundingly arrogant complete disregard for consumer rights or convenience, and just by buying the thing you would be telling Microsoft that you approve of their anti-consumer attitudes. Do yourself a favour and get something else instead. The PS4 is a better choice in every department, with the only drawback being the lack of Halo - and if Microsoft flop as badly as I'm hoping, they'll either have to do something to start selling systems, which probably means big changes to the Xbox One to make it more user-friendly, or they'll have to start making their exclusives available elsewhere, so we might even see Halo 5 on the PC. So in essence, don't get an Xbox One, or at least wait until it's failed and they're desperately changing software and license agreements to try and bring in customers before getting one. Don't let your love for a truly great series blind you to the outrageous conditions being foisted on us by its masters.

My signature does sort of give it away

Why don't we just work out a way to accommodate both sets of fans? It worked pretty well in Halo 3: I'm pretty sure it could be made to work again in Halo 5. Just have two sets of game modes and call one casual and one competitive. The 'Casual' playlist could feature things like Action Sack, Big Team Battle, Infection/Flood, Grifball, and Skirmish (a playlist with a random assortment of Slayer and Objective modes) in free-for-all, team and multi-team flavours. Loadouts could be chosen freely and there's be an emphasis on 'fun' maps like Sandtrap, Guardian, Cold Storage and Last Resort, and any Forge maps would have more an asymmetrical style with an emphasis on fast, chaotic action. All weapons would be available, with an emphasis on rarer and more exotic weapons like the Scattershot, Fuel Rod Gun, Concussion Rifle, SAW, Gravity Hammer and Binary Rifle, and power weapons would come with more ammunition and lower respawn timers so that at any time there's likely to be quite a few of them in use. There could also be more of an emphasis on vehicles, so that you're more likely to see things like the Scorpion or Wraith in play. The 'Competitive' playlist would naturally play very differently. There would be more emphasis on 'competitive' game modes like Team Doubles, Lone Wolves, Team Slayer, Capture the Flag, Dominion and Elimination, and there'd be both neutral objective game modes (Multi-Flag CtF) and attacker/defender objective game modes (Single Flag CtF). Loadouts would be pre-set according to game modes, so that there might be a choice between the Battle Rifle and Carbine or no choice at all, and any maps appearing would emphasise balanced, competitive play: maps such as The Pit, Snowbound, Sanctuary, Battle Creek and High Ground would appear, and Forge maps would be retain the idea of providing tactical, map-control based action. A smaller number of weapons would be available, and where possibly these would be the 'Pro' weapons from each set: the Shotgun instead of the Energy Sword, the Sniper Rifle instead of the Beam Rifle, the Sticky Detonator instead of the Concussion Rifle etc, and all power weapons would have longer respawn timers and less ammunition in addition to being less common: this would make controlling the power weapons much more important, and mean they would need to be used more tactically. Any armour would generally be restricted to less powerful single-crewman vehicles such as the Mongoose and Ghost, to help keep the emphasis on infantry warfare and prevent any one team or player from gaining a particularly big advantage. While the specifics would need to be examined, I think the general idea is pretty sound, and would make everyone a bit happier than just setting everything up to cater to one set of players.

Put simply, no. If they make them available on PC then they're no longer exclusive and so there's no reason to get an Xbox One - by keeping it just to their console, they can effectively hold Halo fans to ransom, which will help to make up hardware sales whose profits would otherwise have gone to PC. As much as I really want to see Halo 5 on PC, the sad truth is that it's just not going to happen.

No it isn't. Your topic was about the best game as a whole from a statistical perspective. This one is about personal favourite moments, rather than any whole match. I think my absolute favourite moment, by a fairly long way, was on Capture the Flag on Ragnarok. The other team had a Warthog rushing toward our base with three players in it, against just me with a Sniper Rifle and four bullets. The first shot took the head off the gunner, the second killed the passenger, the third missed altogether, and the last killed the driver as he jumped out to try and shoot me. That made me feel pretty awesome, even though there's no way I'll ever manage to do it again.

I used to play with a 3, but lately I've been experimenting with a 5. While long-range combat was a lot more difficult at first, I'm starting to get a feel for it again. I'm still not playing as accurately as I did on the lower sensitivity, but the gap is definitely closing and I'll probably be back to where I was previously in a month or two. Plus, I'm fighting a lot better at close ranges than I was, and I think this will be really useful now that we've had the huge automatic weapon buff and I'm seriously considering an Assault Rifle/Storm Rifle primary weapon loadout.

As far as I'm aware, in Custom Games you're using the original, unaltered weapons unless you've specifically downloaded the updated variant of each game mode. In matchmaking, it's possible that you're just dropping a bullet from each burst here and there. Try aiming for the chest for the first three bursts, and then targeting the head for the fourth to maximise your chances of landing every bullet.