RedStarRocket91

Something that I really liked about Reach, which I don't think a lot of people notice while playing, is that when you take permanent Health damage, you can actually hear your Spartan's heartbeat. For me it really added that little bit of extra immersion, so I'm not fundamentally against adding breathing noises - after a while, you wouldn't notice them anyway, just like people stop noticing the HUD lines in Halo 3. That said, if it's loud enough to be obtrusive, then it might be a problem. Anything that interferes with my concentration is bad for gameplay, so I hope they just keep it understated unless you're sprinting or being shot at.

Happy birthday, Twam! Hope you're having a great day!

Kind of disappointed. I was actually hoping they'd expand dual wielding, rather than just cut it altogether. Feels like we've actually taken a step backwards in terms of gameplay, and I'm now that much further from my dream of holding a Shotgun in one hand and a Rocket Launcher in the other. I actually feel that dual wielding would have worked really well with bloom. You get absolutely devastating firepower but your aim blooms significantly faster and larger than if you had only one of the same weapon. Plus no ability to scope in with pistols, which balances them out. For me, dual wielding added another layer of strategy to the game and made it that much more dynamic. I suppose part of the decision is to help balance weapons better, but with the addition of bloom I'm fairly sure they could have been balanced to still fit into the weapon sandbox when held alongside another weapon. On the bright side, I guess this means the hilariously awful Mauler won't be returning.

It might not have any. After all, it's actually displayed on a screen on the inside of the helmet, the thing you see on the front is just a camera.

Could definitely work. Think of the lines at the edge of Chief's HUD in Halo 3, or Rookie's VISR in ODST. You could still see through them, so it didn't obstruct vision, and it definitely added to the immersion.

I actually quite like the sound of this 'Execution' thing. You get a choice of a simple punch to the face or something more drawn out for style points/XP at the risk of getting shot by your opponent's teammates, exactly the same as with assassinations. It'd only require a tweaking of the current Assassination system as well, so might not even be that code-intensive. As for collision damage, I'd definitely like to see that. They've said that they want players to feel more like they're wearing all that armour: if I jump and hit something below, be it a Grunt or a Spartan or even a Warthog, I want them to know about it. Preferably from the respawn screen.

I voted no. I don't want to see it back for the simple reason that if the developers wanted you to be able to move at normal speed with the flag, they just wouldn't add a speed penalty. Flag juggling isn't particularly difficult, so it's not a skill problem - anyone with a working index finger can flag juggle. So it's not a question of skill, but purely one of gameplay. Plus I want to kill Jeff Steitzer every time someone does it.

Well, none of it's really necessary. You could play with default armour and perform exactly the same in combat. I think maybe part of it's a psychological thing - you see someone all done out like that, with bulky armour and extra knives hanging off their shoulders charging towards you, and it's intimidating. They just look more dangerous and I think a lot of players sort of cramp up and play more cautiously as a response, which in turn increases the chance of them getting killed. Pure speculation of course, but I know I'm more hesitant when being shot by someone with armour like that than just default kit. It also might throw someone's aim off a little. They're so bulky that opponents take shots thinking their bloom has shrunk so it only fits across the body, when in fact it's expanded beyond it. Basically opponents rush shots and miss more, giving them an advantage: hitbox size is wholly unaffected.

It has to be the AK-47. Cheap to build, easy to maintain, incredibly hard-wearing, works with almost any kind of ammunition, and fully automatic to boot.

Blue. Doesn't my name give that away...? Sweet or Sour?

I personally prefer Battlefield, purely because I believe it's more skilled, and because Halo is my preferred arcade-style shooter. I also don't like how unrealistic Modern Warfare is, and how over/underpowered some weapons and attachments are. Plus the spawns are some of the worst I've ever seen in a videogame.

Empire at War's a lot of fun if you're into Star Wars, there's a good mix of actual battles and strategy on the galactic map. The space battles are really cool, too. Rome: Total War is a blast, though it can be fairly processor-intensive. It also has more fun battles than either Medieval, Empire, or Shogun, but the actual campaign map is a little lacking in comparison. Barbarian Invasion is also probably the best expansion for it, if you're interested in going down that route. As far as Command and Conquer goes, Red Alert 2 probably has the most fun multiplayer, although Tiberium Wars has the most balanced and realistic: I wasn't really impressed by either Tiberium Twilight or Red Alert 3, the first of which seemed like an obvious attempt to make money without really thinking about gameplay, and the latter of which is so concerned with being 'quirky' that it often forgets that it's a game. Earth 2150 is a HUGE amount of fun to play, and probably has the most interesting style of campaign that I've ever seen in a videogame. The only problems are that the you might find it hard to get a copy of it these days, and the multiplayer is somewhat unbalanced - that's not the end of the world, though. I've heard Earth 2160 is a lot of fun, but haven't played it personally, so I can't really offer advice on that from a personal standpoint. As ever, Starcraft is incredibly fun and perfectly balanced, and has a lot better campaigns than it's often given credit for - Starcraft 2 in particular has a very well put-together campaign. If you wan to stay on the Blizzard path, you could also check out Warcraft 3, which is still fairly easy to get hold of and has great multiplayer - especially if you download some of the custom maps that people have made. Its expansion, Frozen Throne, is well worth a play too. The only other game I can think of is Civilisation, and that's strictly speaking a TBS rather than an RTS, but is still a lot of fun. I personally liked the fourth more than the fifth, as the latter was just too streamlined for my tastes, but they're both worth a play. Beyond the Sword is probably the best of the expansions for that, anyway. Hope this helps, and happy gaming!

I would get like a driver or a gunner, right? If just me, the Wraith. If I got someone else to take the gun, the Gauss 'Hog. WYR eat cookies or cookie dough?

If it were just for a day, I'd like to be Oscar Wilde.

I jumped ship from Bungie.net shortly after Bungie Day last year. I was sick of all the trolls in the forums, the endless flaming, the mods who either sat back and did nothing or banned at random, whose only interactions with the community smacked of arrogance and even elitism. I was here for a long time before I started posting with anything that could be called 'regularity'. Part of me was worried that all I'd done was jump out of the proverbial frying pan: that my new forum was going to turn out exactly the same, if not worse, than the one I'd just abandoned. But it didn't. And that's in large part due to the fantastic moderating team we have here. You weren't just tough on trolls, flamers, spammers and troublemakers, though goodness knows that alone made this place feel a lot more friendly, a lot safer to post in. That alone would have been enough: but you didn't stop there. You actually got involved with the community. We'd see you every day; making the new members feel welcome; joking around in the shoutbox; commenting in threads and supporting people's right to their opinions. We got a good sense of who you were, too: the 'man behind the mod', so to speak. You were always there to support people who were in a tough place, always happy to dispense advice when it was asked for. You never made fun of someone just because they didn't agree with you, but stuck to what you believed all the same. You laughed with us when we found something funny, but never let it get out of hand. When the trolls turned up, you were our first line against them and you never let us down. You've spoken to almost every regular contributor on this forum at some point, be them old or new, and it really helped our sense of community to know that the mods were human beings too, that they weren't some mystical beings to be feared as much as respected. In the end, we can't pretend we have a claim over you greater than those in the real world. You've been a good friend to all of us, and the least we can do in return is wish you all the best with real life. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that everyone hopes to see you again at some point: but until then, take care of everything out there, and we'll do our best to keep it clean in here. Good luck, AD.

Team Doubles. It has, in my humble opinion, some of the best maps in the game and provides the most intense combat.

For doubles, having a headset is an absolute MUST. Let me say that one more time to make it clear: you MUST have a headset! In 4v4 Slayer, there are enough players that you can get away with playing a Lone Wolf style. You cannot afford to do this when there's only two of you. Your opponents, if they have a shred of skill between them, will move together and attack together. Unless you and your partner do the same, you are simply going to be outgunned. If you aren't communicating, you will get caught out of position and gunned down. Your partner will then be outnumbered and will probably have to give up a good position in order to avoid dying. Call out where you want to go. Say what weapons you have. Let each other know when you're low on ammunition, grenades, or Health. When you run out of power weapon ammunition, let your partner know so that you can get control of it again and prevent your opponents getting hold of it. Learn power weapon spawns and rush them. If you both go looking for a fight straight away chances are your opponents will get hold of both the map's power weapons, and then you're in serious trouble. Either pick your favourite or split up, but make sure you control at least one power weapon by the thirty second mark. Get a precision weapon as fast as you can. You will typically be engaging at much longer distances than regular 4v4 games, so there is no advantage in having an Assault Rifle over a Needle Rifle or a DMR. Get a Plasma Rifle if you want to fight at medium-close range, at least that way your partner can get headshots quicker and you'll earn some Assists. DO NOT SPLIT UP. EVER. If you're killed, your first priority is to get back to your partner. Everything else is secondary. Don't run around trying to get a Revenge medal, don't go for a power weapon, don't run at your opponents spraying your Assault Rifle in anger. Get back to your partner or be prepared to spend a lot more time looking at the respawn screen. I hope this helps, good luck out there!

Tyrael, stop reading my mind. Seriously, this sums up my thoughts pretty much perfectly.

Set the Respawn Timer to 30. Set 'Place at Start' to False. Hope this helps!

Out of everything, I'd still go with the Warthog. Do you prefer RTS or RPG games?

If the credit system doesn't mean anything, what's the problem with getting credit banned? Anyway, I'm actually with you on this. It's shocking that this day and age that people should be punished for not being good at a game which they've paid for. If you're bad you should lose games, and that should be as far as it goes. I despise the idea that just because someone isn't very good at the game, they deserve the humiliation of a penalty as well.

Depends if the grenades are balanced or not. Frags might have a bigger blast radius than stickies, or a much quicker and more reliable detonation time. If you think back to Halo: CE, Plasma Grenades took about three seconds to detonate after they'd attached to someone whereas Frags went off pretty much instantly. Would you really want grenades that take that long to go off as part of your initial loadout?

...oh man, I can't unsee that now! Well done on making the connection though! I really like the Hawker Typoon.