We stand here today in Halo 3's shadow. 9/25 is the big day for all the Halo fans out there, some of which have probably been persistently researching the game for the last few months. The hype is huge with all this talk of new vehicles, weapons, and gameplay modes that are sure to combine for one truly awesome experience, online and off. Today, we take a look at some of the most exciting new details about the newest addition to the legendary Halo series.

Vehicular Awesomeness-

Several new vehicles have made their way into Halo 3. Among them are the Elephant, the Hornet, the Prowler, the Mongooseand the newest Warthog type.

ELEPHANT:

The elephantisbasically a floatingfortress. The crazy thing is that players will actually be able to drive this fortress! Each of two teams will have a fortress, and each fortress will hold spawn points for players and vehicles. They can also hold flags for CTF, which should make for somevery intense CTF games.

HORNET:

The hornet serves as the counterpart to the Covenant's banshee. This new flying vehicle can hold up to 3 players (pilot, and two others). According to sources it has only been seen in campaign mode as of now, but it will most likely appear in multiplayer as well.

PROWLER:

The prowler is basically the Brute version of a Warthog. This vehicle will hold a turret, and will have enough room for a driver and 3 passengers.

MONGOOSE:

Ahhh, the famous Mongoose screenshot. Here, you see 2 players on the mongoose simultaneously. The exciting thing is that you will actually be able to ride on the back while carrying the flag. No more standing on top of warthogs trying to flee. Some may think that this feature is "cheap," because it can make for some rather quick escapes. However, the mongoose is left fairly open to any type of gun fire. You know what that means Snipers! A potential double kill! Although the mongoose will no doubt be helpful, it can also prove to be a very dangerous ride.

WARTHOG TROOP TRANSPORT:

This new warthog isn't quite as exciting as some of the other vehicles. Its just a warthog that holds more marines instead of having a turret. Killtacular anyone?

The Right to Bear...

Let's take a look at some of the new weapons of Halo 3.

Normal ****weapons:

Spiker- a new Brute weapon
Nail Grenade- grenade with sharp, nail-like fragments that stick to walls.
Spartan Laser- this is Halo's BFG (doom reference). Gives warthog fanatics an all new feeling of fear while driving.
Mauler- a dual-wieldable Brute shotgun. Not quite as powerful as human shotgun.
Gravity Hammer- works like an energy sword, kicks like a warhammer. This new weapon will knock vehicles around, and it even has a short range lunge ability.

*Most Halo 2 weapons will appear in Halo 3, but with slight modifications. The ****c assault rifle from Halo will also be available. It is said to have a lower firing speed and smaller magazine clip, but it will be more accurate at longer ranges. People are calling it the "ultimate spawn weapon," because it makes it easier to hold out on your own after spawning in crowded areas.

Support Weapons:

Halo 3 introduces some hefty new weapons called support weapons. What is unique about these weapons is that they will actually switch your view from first-person to third-person for a better field of vision. Some of the new additions are the machine gun turret, missile pod, flamethrower, and covenant plasma turret. These weapons are two handed, and although they are immensly powerful, they slow your character down quite a bit.

Equipment-

Another one of Halo 3's new additions is the use of equipment. These power-ups are meant to momentairily change the dynamic of a fight, giving a player more of an advantage in a tough situation. Among these new equipments are bubble shields, regenerators, flares, radar jammers, power drainers, tripmines, and gravity lifts.

Graphics, Sound, and Physics-

Some of the new graphical improvements are the high dynamic range, real-time reflections, and global lighting. The game also has a draw distance of 10 miles, which will undoubtedly improve the game's overall environmental setting. Sky and water effects have also been improved. Halo 3's graphic engine is basically an improved version of the Halo 2 engine. It will be nice to see a game that looks amazing without the Unreal engine.

Sound has durastically improved in this series. Halo 3 will support 5.1 surround sound audio, and will house over 50,000 audio pieces, 40,000 of which are NPC dialogue pieces. This is amazing considering that Halo 2 only had around 15,000 dialogue pieces. This increase, as well as Bungie's promise that NPC interaction will be more fluid than ever, shows us just how full of life this game really is.

As for physics, Halo 3 uses a version of the Havok physics engine. This engine was also used in Halo 2, as well as plenty of other games. Certain objects will be affected by the engine, including crates, shrapnel, barrels, vehicles, plants (as in tree leaves), etc.

Miscellaneous-

-All 49 Halo 3 achievements.
-When holding 2 different weapons, one will be holstered. This makes it nearly impossible to hide powerful weapons from unsuspecting foes.
-Three different versions will be released: regular, limited, and legendary. ($59.99, $69.99, and $129.99)

*Post your opinions inside>>

Welcome to The Reviewer's Legion's 5th Monthly Word Review Spot!  For those of you who are still awaiting the results from last month's edition, Killer Instinct, we will have the results soon.  The judging process for the last Review Spot will take place during the submission process. 

Please read the rules if you are planning on entering.

Main Focus

Do you remember all of those awesome games you used to play when you were young?  You probably spent hours with Mario and Sonic, or maybe even with Pac-man or Space Invaders.  Back in the good old days, graphics didn't matter to you.  You played games for what they were; you played to have fun.

Now that we are older, we often look back on these great games we used to play.  Some games are fun to go back to, but for other games, you might wonder why you ever even played them in the first place.  The main focus of this review spot is to overcome your childhood bias.  Many reviewers often give outstanding scores to the classic games, just because they had fun with them.  But here, we ask you to review a classic game just as you'd review a current generation game.

We ask that you take into consideration the graphical capabilities of the time period, and how the visuals compared to other games of the time.  Were they under par, or over?  We also ask that you focus on replay value, as well as sound and other qualities of a great game.

Judging Process

Each review will be judged on 5 different categories:

1. Detail- Be sure to include enough deatil so that people who may have never played the game can get a good picture of how the game worked.

2. Fairness- Give games fair scores.  Even though you may have really enjoyed the game as a kid, that doesn't necessairily mean that the game would be enjoyed by everyone.

3. Pictures- This is an important part of the submission process.  If you want, you may still simply submit links to your reviews.  But we were hoping that you might post your whole review, and also add some meaningful screenshots of the game between the text.

4. Coverage of Aspects- Points will be deducted if you do not cover all aspects of the game.

5. Spelling, Grammar, & Structure- Please, take your time with the review.  Pay attention to spelling and grammar, because if we receive a submission with very poor spelling and grammar, it will not be accepted.  Also, make sure that you structure your review well.  You don't have to lable each paragraph as graphics, sound, etc.  Instead, think of some more interesting lead-ins for your paragraphs.

Final Notes

You will have until January 25th to submit your review.  Only one review submission per user is allowed, and the submission must be a review of a game that is before the N64 and PS1 generation.

3 Winners will be selected, and there will also be a miscellaneous reward for the most improved reviewer.

If you visit this link and scroll down to the second post on the page, click the link that says ^^Spoliers^^.  Then you will see the top 10 Union Events in the Union Awards.  I am proud to announce that we have been recognized for our first issue of the Reviewer's Legion Monthly Magazine!  All of our time and effort paid off in the end, and even though it was painstaking to get the formatting correct, it was worth it.  I hope that we can get more people invloved with the second issue of the magazine!

YEAH!!!

Gears Of War Update 

 Cliffy B Interview plus New Gears Of War Commerical

As you probably are or arnt aware Gears Of War went Gold today, epic announced that its killer Xbox 360 title had finished development and will soon be shipping for mass production for retail upon Nov 11-17th.

The Interview

Lead designer Cliff Blezinski has been recently interviewed by Nextgenration.com on Gears Of War going gold, heres what he had to say.

Interview can be found here

Next-Gen: What’s the mood like for you when you get this close to the end of a project?

Cliff Bleszinski: It’s a combination of feelings, really. You put everything you can into a project for a couple years; you work with all the talented people on a day-to-day basis; everybody bleeds for the project an then all of a sudden - poof—let it go.  You let the publisher put it out there. You let the gamers get their hands on with it and you hope and pray that they just love the hell out of it.

Are you satisfied that you’ve been able to put everything into the game that you wanted to in the time that you had?

As a designer I don’t know if it’s ever possible to be fully satisfied but my gut tells me, ‘yes’. I sit down and I play the game and I have a blast with it, whether it be single player versus or co-op.  I mean, co-op’s especially bad. I feel like I’m seeing the whole experience completely new.  It’s like, if you ever see a cool movie and you bring a friend to see it who hadn’t seen the movie yet, right?  It’s that shared experience, that makes co-op so great.

We were talking in the office the other day about the potential for four-player co-op. Just from a technical standpoint, is four-player co-op something that could possibly have been produced as a micro-transaction?  As something you could purchase on Xbox Live, maybe?  

I think that would be pretty cheesy, and would piss gamers off if we shipped it as a two player and then charged them for four player, right?  I mean, I can see the forum threads about that right now.  That’d be pretty lame of us. It was a matter of balancing the story and balancing elements of potentially having four live human players versus the Locust as well as making sure each active human player is able to play through the game story wise.  That was the main issue.

Do you have any ideas right now for any additional tweaks or downloadable content, or things, new life that you want to breathe into the game even after it’s shipped?

We’ve kicked some ideas around as far as to what we’d like to do and generally speaking if we do something it might be some new versus arenas that you could play in and against. But those of you who are familiar with Mark Rein our VP and his opinions about episodic content will know that it’s really not our bag.

Let me put it to you this way, if you could get a full season of the Sopranos on DVD or wait for it week by week, what would you rather do?  You’d rather have the option of just watching it all on your own instead of having to wait for network to spoon feed it to you, right?  That’s kind of our angle, coming from that.

Why do you think Microsoft has gotten so heavily behind this game?

It’s an extremely solid, fun shooter; everything feels tight and snug and heavy and badass. That’s exactly what we were going for.  Plus it looks great and it plays great over live. It’s the kind of game that I think your average  Xbox gamer or console gamer wants to play.  It’s not a goofy little platform game, it’s something that you would like to show of on your nice plasma screen TV and you’re like, ‘check this **** out, man’.  

We’ve heard a lot from developers in recent years about just how difficult it is to get  original IP off the ground. Is Gears of War an object lesson in how to successfully launch a new IP from scratch.  

Developers generally try to make their properties way too generic or way too unique.  It’s ray guns and aliens and invaders from space and that same **** we’ve seen over and over again, right?  And as much as Gears has the big badass marine-looking guy in the armor, they’re not shooting laser guns across from each other, there’s not like, giant ID4 spaceships and stuff like that.  As well as, at the same time it’s not so strange looking that your average person couldn’t, kind of latch onto it and get it, right?  And I think that there’s a sweet spot that we’re hitting right in the middle of that.

Let’s talk about the game’ length, which has been a matter of debate recently…

I don’t think you can ever win by admitting what the length of your game is before it ships. If you say it’s twelve hours, then gamers will say ‘there’s no way, that’s not enough’. If you say it’s twenty to thirty hours then gamers are going to say ‘I’m sure it’s filled with lots of padding and bull****.’  So that’s a lose-lose situation.  

If you are a hardcore gamer and you’re playing on the easy setting you can probably get through the game quicker than others.  If you’re not that good of a gamer and you’re playing on a harder setting it’s going to take you longer.  

The length of the game depends on the player.  The bottom line is, we know we are making a game that is worth your sixty dollars. Shooters generally fit into this nice twelve, thirteen, fourteen hour category, whereas RPG players want it to be forty hours of random combat.  And then when you play a game like Warcraft, you want hundreds of hours to the point where you have a little arm brace on you and you’re getting morbidly obese little pimples, as South Park did such a good job of pointing out. So I think it’s largely based on genre, it’s based on gamer ability, and gamer expectation.  

It seems increasingly difficult right now to read about Gears of War  without this other title Resistance Fall of Man popping into the conversation. When you’re looking at competition like that, is that a game that you keep an eye on or do you just not, you just keep your head down and do your own thing?

I’d be a liar if I didn’t say I was searching through forums on occasion and you know looking at what the other companies are up to.  I’m a big fan of Ratchet and Clank and what the guys over at Insomniac are doing but I think if you really take a good look at Gears and take a good look at Resistance, the main similarity is that you are shooting stuff and from there both products actually deviate in twenty different directions.  

I played Resistance at Digital Life last week but looking at the way the game is played with your backpedaling shooting at lots of these little spider guys and you’re, you know, you’re running around all crazy and rushing right up to these guys and going through these kind of concrete pike filled tunnels; that’s it’s own game.  

Gears is just not that game.  Gears is much  more about hide and go kill and flanking your foe and dealing with the scenario that we’ve proposed of enemies bursting forth from beneath you all the time, and they really feel like drastically different games.  So, I mean, to play fair and be honest, I think that there’s plenty of room for both products.  

We’re guessing that Gears of War is going to be a hit. Do you have any plans for where you’ll go next with this franchise?

I mean, anybody who develops an initial game in any sort of franchise always has ideas about where it could go and where it could lead, but I really don’t like talking about that. Let Gears come out, let’s just see how it does, and then we’ll figure it out after that, right?  Because I think there’s no better way to jinx your trilogy than announcing it as a trilogy.  

From reading the interview you can really tell that he pays attention to the fan responces, especially when he talks about the length of the game.

 Is a great read, and is deffinatly worth your time. 

The New and Possibly Last Trailer

Also recently released upon the gears Of war frount was possibly the final piece of marketing that we are going to see regarding Gears Of War before its release in the U.S on the 11th of November, and in Europe on the 17th November

With that said Epic and Microsofts last promotional video for Gears of war is absoloutly fantastic, may be a little short but the atmousphere that builds up around the character, the game and the anticipation of the game is imence, the music fits well with what is going on in the video, the graphics are stunning, and the way it has been put together really builds up the atmousphere around the game which promises to be an outstanding experience.

Heres the Video

Remember if you want this game on launch to Pre Order yourself a copy, as it is highly likely that it will not be on the shelves for at least 2-3 days due to pre orders alone.

Here are some sites you can pre order this game from.

Play.com | Ebgames |

Here is some new Gears Of War footage from After Hours.

Video

The game is looking absoloutly stunning and as you guys know I will be getting to play this game in 1 week, just before release along with some other unreleased Xbox 360 games, due to an upcoming Microsoft event in my City Centre.

I will be uploading impressions, screenshots (depending on my camera and whether I will be allowed to take pictures) hands on preview and much more, will all be uploaded either on the 3rd, 4th or 5th of November hopefully.

From what I have seen from this game so far it seems to effortlessly blend together the fine line between being a movie and a game and that it draws you in to its characters with intense action, solid controlls, great sound effects and overall outstanding looking graphics.

Here are some new Images of Gears Of war.

There not perticually new in a sence just a higher Res and they look amazing.

Images - (Thumbnails)

Note: If you are having trouble viewing the images throught the thumbnails you can view the images in a closed topic on the main board here.

The Monthly Word has returned!  For this edition, users may only submit reviews for ** M-Rated Games **.  You can submit a review to any M-Rated game, but we prefer games like Condemned, Manhunt, Silent Hill, etc.

Rules & Restrictions:

1. There is no length restriction, but you should try to make your review at least 4-5 paragraphs long.  1 paragraph reviews are usually not taken seriously, so we don't recommend submitting any.

2. All submissions should be in by October 30th, 2006.  That should give everyone ample time to complete their review.  Any reviews submitted after the deadline will be considered "dead." (meaning we will not use them)

3. Yes, you may use old reviews, but we always encourage you to write new ones.

4. Brains!

Judging Layout:

Step 1: The Judges will be chosen, and we will have 10 judges in total.  There will also be 5 back-up judges in case others are unable to attend.  Please, if you want to be a judge, make sure you are up to it.

Step 2: All of the review submissions will be looked over, and then we will decide on the 10 best reviews for the contest.  This is a 2 round deal, since we found that 3 rounds was a bit cumbersome.

Step 3: Voting will begin, and then the votes will be tallied up.  The best 3 reviews will be ranked.  The winners will receive badges, which will appear on our upcoming Member Badge Thread.

Judging Categories:

All reviews will be judged based on 5 deadly categories:

1. Grammar/Spelling
2. The use of "Horror" adjectives
3. Accuracy
4. Readability
5. The # of blood stains on the review. No, just kidding.  The 5th category is word choice and style.

Well, that's pretty much it.  Good luck!

Greetings true believers!  No, I'm not Stan Lee, but I am here to announce the Game Idea contest that we are putting on in cooperation with the Game Idea Central Union.  You'd be surprised by the number of gamers who are so enthusiastic about game ideas.  I'm sure everyone has at least 1 idea to share.  All ideas are welcome, and even if you have doubts that you will win the contest, its worth a try.

You can also see this topic in at the Game Idea Central Union.  You should check out Sparda590's union; there are some really cool discussions going on.  Its the perfect place to get some quick opinions on your game ideas.

If you are interested in entering this contest, please post either here or at Game Idea Central.  Read the rules inside!

After a long and hard judging process, we have finally received all of the judging submissions.  The scores have been tallied up based on average scores.  Congratulations to the winners of the Monthly Word Review Spot #3!

Winners:

1st Place:
Mystic_Flames     8.7

2nd Place:
Gleba2388     8.4 
Lukeriela     8.4
R3V0LUT10N     8.4

3rd Place:
Fifamaniac123     8.3
gugi_nayar     8.3 
Riotai     8.3

Remaining Ranks-

Domstercool     8.2
Chappellesshow2     8.2
Vyse86     8.1
Hydrolite     7.7
Sparda590     7.7
Ponsardin     7.5
YearoftheSnake5     7.4
Decadent_Black     7.1

As you can see, the scores are very close, and it was very hard to judge the reviews.  They were all great.  The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd plave winners will receive a specialized tag for their awesome reviews.  They will be finished soon.

A contest has been started by Gamespot users where other members nominate unions for several different awards.  Take a look inside to see some of the categories, along with the rules of the contest.

Vote inside for your favorite review.  Each review is based on either an RPG or Adventure title.

I'm back and wondering which of the upcoming games you want for the current consoles.          

Welcome to the Monthly Word Review Spot #3.  This is a contest for miscellaneous game reviews, which will be voted on based on several aspects.  At this time, we have 10 selected entires from the Monthly Word Board Topic in our forum.  However, the deadline for submission has not passed yet.  You may continue to submit reviews for this contest in this update or on the board until Friday August 11th.

For those of you who are new to the Review Spot, here is how the judging works:

Each person may submit as many reviews as needed, but only one will be selected.  The first round of the Monthly Word is the time when people are still submitting reviews.  Each review will be read, and then we'll decide if they are good enough to move onto the next round.  That begins round 2.

Round 2 is the stage where we have selected our reviews for the contest.  We may have a few reviews, or we may have a lot depending on the number of submissions.  This is where the judges come in.  Each judge is PMed a list of the selected reviewers in round 2, along with the link to their review.  The judges are asked to score the reviews based on a 1-10 scale, 10 being outstanding, and 1 being poor.  Remember, you can use .5's in scoring to get a little more accurate.

Each review is judged based on the following categories:

1. Spelling/Grammar- one should remember that without proficient spelling and grammar, readers will not take your review seriously.

2. Accuracy- is the review plausible in terms of the score?

3. Detail- is there enough detail to support the internal ideas within the review, as well as the scores given to each aspect of the game (graphics, sound, etc.).

4. Flow- is the review easy to read?  One shouldn't have to go back a read a sentence a few times before they understand it.

5. Humor- a review doesn't have to be laugh out loud funny all the time, but a reader should at least see an attmept at it.  This category doesn't make a huge impact on overall score, but it helps sometimes.

6. Structure & Organization- We're not saying you have to write out "Graphics:", "Sound:", etc., in your review.  Just make sure that it is organized.  You don't want to talk about sound in the last paragraph if you've already discussed its major points in the first few paragraphs.

7. Length- your review does not have to be long all the time, but it needs to be at least 4-5 paragraphs if you are going to include enough detail.  There are some excpetions to this rule though.

8. Helpful?- would the review be helpful to a person who is considering purchasing the game?

9. Word Choice- did the author use descriptive adjectives and nouns?  This is a very important quality of a review.

10. Varied Sentence Patterns- be sure to use different sentence patterns.  Don't just say things like "The graphics were good, the sound was ok, the replay value was good, etc.

Once the scores are submitted, we post the winners in the board topic and on the homepage.  We give 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, as well as an honorable mention.  That's basically how it works.  So keep writing reviews; we appreciate your submissions!

We have finally finished the first issue of the magazine.  Please check it out, its stickied on the board.

Vote for the next gen game you want the most.  The votes will be included in the magazine, along with some of the responses.

A while back I told you about how it would be cool if we had our own online magazine.  Well, I am currently working on it, and I need people to help me with it.  I'm hoping to make it at least 50 pages, so I can't do it on my own.  If you want to help, and you have good writing/art skills with photoshop, post here. 

This is our second Review Spot. I have looked over the reviews that have been submitted in the stickied thread on our board. There are a lot of great reviews there, but its not too late to submit entries. If you have a review you'd like to submit, put it in the Monthly Word Review Spot sticky, or post it here.

Requirements:

1. Review must be at least 400 words long
2. Must be submitted on Gamespot
3. The review must be you OWN word. (we will check for plagiarism)
4. There is no maximum length
5. Officers cannot submit reviews (for this contest)

Judges & Scoring:

I will need 4 judges for this contest. Judges must be officers, so apply here. (First 4 replies will be selected as judges.)

Reviews will be scored on readability, grammar/spelling, helpfulness, (for lack of a better word) and humor.

Deadlines:

All reviews must be submitted by Friday, June 30th. Any entries after then will not be accepted. The judges will select 10 reviews for the final round, and they will each be scored. Winners will go up in rank in member review experience (if possible). 3 winners will be chosen, along with 1 honorable mention.

Here are some of the anticipated releases for the next few months.  What do you think about these new releases?  Are you planning on buying any of them?  Look inside...