The rumor mill is working overtime as this year’s scaled-down E3 approaches.

The latest comes from “sources” who are reporting to GameSpot’s Rumor Control column that Bungie will announce a new, “grittier” Halo universe game: a squad-based shooter that follows a group of ODSTs and doesn’t feature the series’ iconic Spartan warrior, the Master Chief.

GameSpot’s rumor control columnist is calling this rumor “certainly not bogus”. Let’s wait and find out.

There are ways in which this is certainly a safe path for Microsoft to take with the property. They are staying mostly within the same genre that Halo fans are familiar with. They’d be giving the Cortana/Master Chief pairing a must-deserved rest, perhaps avoiding both story inconsistencies and franchise fatigue. They’d also be expanding on part of the Haloverse that many fans would like to see more of.

Make it an online shooter with a persistent world, like PlanetSide, and you’d likely have me hooked.

Alright, let me start of by saying that if you are on insane, you are screwed. Go home. If you are already at home, leave. This level scared me away from the game (and these walkthroughs) for a long time, but now I am back to save those of you stalling here. My apologies, but I wasn’t doing much better. I made it through the level in a couple of hours while writing this guide, so it should be doable. Good luck, and thanks to hawk for inspiring me to go back and face my fears.

Level 4 – Painting the Town Red (or the one where Stubbs dies a lot)

To start off, turn around. This needs to be quick. Our intended path is to the left at the intersection and we are looking for the first entrance into the parking garage along that road. Possess one of the two cops that are behind you at the start, and shoot the other one. Try to leave Stubbs around the corner and out of sight of the intersection. Now take the cop out and left at the intersection and try to kill as many people with guns as you can. It is important that you don’t kill the civilians, as they will provide you with nourishment soon. Your cop will probably get got pretty quickly, but hopefully you took a few of his friends down. Some letter jacket kids should now be heading your way (assuming you left Stubbs safe). If they aren’t try to attract attention a few times by poking out. They should come running in no time. Eat them and use the hand you now have to possess another cop, preferably one that isn’t right in the middle of a pack. Kill as many as you can with him, and return to Stubbs. You should still have a fart left from the start of the level. Get yourself running and head for the center of a group of cops. If everything went well there should be about 5 cops total, and you will probably need to hit 3 of them to survive. Using a gut here isn’t a bad idea either, it can thin the cops a bit and provide a couple of zombie distractions. (A technique called the leaping fart can come in handy, jump, and then fart in mid-air {Im not even sure if this helps, but it looks funny}). You should be able to eat the three you gassed, and take out the other two by eating them, as they will be distracted. If you are low on health use the gut for a quick kill. The intersection should now be clear, and there will be three cops in view. One on the bridge, and two down at the end of the road (we are still on the road to the left of the intersection. You should be able to go eat the two at the end, and I generally ignore the one up high. You made it past the intersection! Way to go, but I can’t say life (death?) is going to get much better…

If you were able to eat the cops you should have a bit of a group with you. Turn right at the end of the road and run past the entrance of the garage to draw some civilians out. Eat them all before you think about going in. Avoid going around the corner, as there are a lot more baddies over there and we are going to do our best to avoid them. Once in the garage go left and eat the two cops, then turn around and get the rest that are on the other side. If you kill all of those cops, you should be left at the end of the garage as if you had turned right directly after entering. Turn left when you have to, and then head up the spirally ramp. There will be something like 3 cops on your left , 2 and the right and 2 right in front. First try to lure one of them down, eat him, then if one is left alone posess him and kill the rest. If you do this you should be able to take him up a bit longer. You want to go left from the spiral ramp and you should be going up hill. When you reach the uphill sloping part, get off to the left. Run up a ways, this will trigger a cop car which will come down, if you are the cop, stay up, and pick the two cops off, if you are stubbs, run down so you can be close to them when they get out and eat them. You can also blow them up with a gut if you don’t get down quickly enough.

We are at another sticky point now. Around the corner, there are a whole cluster of cops, just waiting to punch holes in you. The basic strategy here is to try to lure some of them around the truck where you can eat them , and possess one. Kill as many as you can, rinse and repeat. If you are having trouble getting any to come around the truck, try a grenade. Sometimes it makes them run at you, or sometimes it kills them. If they die, wait until the cops start shooting at the zombie, then run out and eat the closest one. You will then be able to possess again. Repeat until they are all gone, then head up to the top of the ramp to meet an old friend.

Bowl your head if you want to, if you think you can make it through without it is worth a try as well. The head bowl is a nice ability to hold on to. Through the door in front of you is a whole pow-wow of cops, so hopefully you have your abilities full. If you go in, throw a grenade at a group on one side, then fart on the other side, you should make it through ok. Don’t worry about building an army, because you can’t take anyone through with you.

Exit the elevator. If you have a hand, possess the first cop you see, if not eat him, and possess the next one. Do what you can to clear the entire top level off before you go down. You should be able to do it using only one or two cops. On the bottom level there are two different sets of cops. One right in front of you and one all the way to the left, in the big indentation in the wall by the door. If you have a hand and need to possess someone the group by the door is smaller, but beware. If you take Stubbs too close to the door, it opens and lets a whole new swarm of cops in. Make sure you have the entire bottom level clear before you go near the door.

Kill the cops that have probably come in near the door, and go outside. You have to be careful here, because you will get hit from above, and hard. There are doors on either side of the courtyard leading up. IF you are shooting around on the bottom part of the courtyard, try to leave the civilians alone, you will want them later. You can charge up with a cop and try to clear off the top level, or you can climb a hand up there and possess one that is already up.
With the courtyard clear Proceed up the little hill and to your right. There is a mostly empty walk to the theater. When you reach the theater there will be come cops and civs around. I generally bowl a head, but you shouldn’t find too much resistance here.

The road only goes one way, so follow it. You will reach an area with two bridges up above. Do some damage in the middle, but don’t waste any abilities. You are heading to a room just a little ways down the road and to the right. Go up and possess a cop on the bridge, killing the other. Focus on clearing your walking path, don’t worry about the cops on the bridge across from you just yet. Good grenade or fart use is important at the end of the hall because there are quite a few cops in a small space. The next bridge only has 3 cops so you should be able to dispatch them without any real trouble. Use whatever powerups you have left to clear out the next room and take the elevator down. Remember, if you have a cop possessed, try your best to take out as many other cops with guns as you can. They are the biggest threat to Stubbs. The nightstick guys aren’t nearly as big a deal.

Out of the elevator, you get a bit of free-food. Use this to fill up your abilities. Keep an eye out, because in front of you a lot of cops will swarm out of a small area. Hit them all with a couple of grenades or a head roll, and you will be done with the level before you know it! This is quite possibly the hardest level in the game, so hold your head up high! If you are lucky, I will come back and get you through the next level.

Microsoft has increased the storage capacity for it’s Premium system SKU bundling a 60 GB hard drive instead of a 20 GB hard drive. The Premium system is still $350 even with the added hard drive space. The 20 GB SKU dropped in price to $300; a $50 savings. Buy a 20GB system from Target and they’ll throw in a $25 gift card.

There’s no price drop mentioned in the announcement for the 120 GB Elite system or the “no hard drive” Arcade system.

E3 is this week. Look for more announcements from Microsoft starting tomorrow (Monday) about entertainment hardware and software.

Old Gregg was nice enough to detour from his date with Howard Moon at the Black Lake to play Rock Band with us this evening.