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Escalation #9: The Bombshell Edition
Comic Book Resources has posted a preview of Halo: Escalation #9… and I must say, there is some info released in those 6 pages that could be considered spoilers (both for the comic series, and for the direction 343 looks to be taking the Halo franchise). If you’re into that sort of thing, give it a read! Thanks, Gina Johnson.(Louis Wu 21:43:33 UTC)
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Spinning plasma pistol
A few days ago, Rockslider released a video showing off a plasma pistol… which reacted oddly to stimulus. We weren’t able to put up mirrors for it, but you can swing by his post for links to YouTube and self-hosted versions.(Louis Wu 21:38:50 UTC)
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Halo at gamescom 2014!
Halo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown Finals Recap

All last week in Germany at ESL’s booth, hopeful Halo fans lined up and formed teams to meet each other in Team Slayer on Halo 2: Anniversary maps Sanctuary and Ascension. Many tried but only four teams proved worthy to face ESL’s four invited teams in the finals on Sunday.
The four invited teams: Reason to Choke, TCM Gaming, VwS Gaming, and Team Vibe faced off against the teams that survived the week’s gauntlet; DMM, DZS, Next Gen, and sG.
All the teams fought bravely and furiously. Several of the games came down to the wire and had us out of our seats all over the world. We thank our partners at ESL and Twitch for bringing this all together with us this week.
Most of all we thank every one of you that tried, died, and survived. You guys are why we do this and who we do it for. Congrats to TCM Gaming for winning the championship! We’re sure we’ll see more from everyone who made it to the finals, too.
If you missed it, don’t worry. We’ve got all the action saved here for you.
If you’d like to read more about all the players our friends at ESL have a pretty in-depth write up about them here.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown Finals LIVE

The time is nigh! All week, some of the best Halo players in the world – old and new – have faced each other at ESL’s booth here at gamescom. They’ve all fought hard for a place on stage today, but only the top teams will walk away with part of the $10,000 purse and all the glory that goes with winning.
No matter where you are you can watch with us live thanks to our friends at Twitch. We’re kicking off the live stream direct from Germany at 1:30 AM PDT (10:30 AM UTC+2)
Set your bookmark and get your popcorn ready. It’s nearly showdown time!
http://twitch.tv/HaloHalo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown Qualifier – Day 4

The last group to move on to the finals, starting at 11:00 a.m. CEST (2:00 a.m. PDT) on Sunday, is…
Team name: Next Gen
Players: Diffluent (Netherlands), iNewbCake (Netherlands), NXG Snipemare (Germany), HardLiner (Germany)Halo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown Qualifier – Day 3

A big part of Team Halo is very busy on an away mission at gamescom in Germany – but they don’t get to have all the fun.
Home Team Halo was able to recruit four of our 343 Industries Pro team: Mason “Neighbor” Cobb, Eric “GH057ayame” Hewitt, Sean “DeRsKy” Swidersky, and Vartan “Killer V” Karakashyan, for an hour or so of 2v2 Team Slayer for your viewing enjoyment. We’ll broadcast live tomorrow at 2:00 PM PDT from our Twitch channel: http://twitch.tv/Halo
This is all just prelude to the Halo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown finals LIVE this Sunday, August 17 starting at 11:00 a.m. CEST (2:00 a.m. PDT).
And the next group to move on to the finals is…

Team name: DMM
Players: Soul, Dynamics, Flo Back, AlienHunterHalo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown Qualifier – Day 2

Day 2 is over, and we have another group moving on to the finals!

Team name: DZS
Players: dzs Speed, dzs BlizZ, dzs TriczR, dzs JobstHalo: The Master Chief Collection gamescom Showdown Qualifier – Day 1

Many tried, many died, and this team of four emerged victorious today in Hall 9 at the ESL booth. They’ve got free passes to return to the battlefield this Sunday for the finals and a chance at the $10,000 purse!
Team name: Symphony of God
Players (left to right): Strife, Daaan, Anima, Sunrise
Country: GermanyWe’ll be livestreaming all of the matches in the finals this Sunday on our Twitch channel so set your VCR!
We’ll keep you updated all week long here and on social media. Be sure to follow us to keep up with all the action live from gamescom 2014!
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Halo
Twitch: http://twitch.tv/Halo
Instagram: http://instagram.com/Halo
Facebook: http://facebook.com/Halo
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Halo 2A Gamescom Showdown
Depending on your timezone, you may have been fast asleep during the Halo 2 Anniversary Gamescom showdown. No need to fret, there’s a Twitch archive of the entire 6.5 hours of competitive Halo play. You can also watch the rebroadcast of the showdown on the Halo Twitch channel.(mastrbiggy 23:45:59 UTC)
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Dennis Reese talks Halo 3 and Halo 4
Polygon talked with Dennis Reese, senior producer on TMCC, about the technical improvements of Halo 3 and Halo 4. It’s good to see that Halo 3 and Halo 4 are receiving a lot more than just a framerate and resolution bump. Although not explicitly stated, it seems that Halo 3 and Halo 4 might come with the ability to switch between classic and remastered – interesting. Thanks, randomlyrossy.(mastrbiggy 22:01:12 UTC)
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Podtacular 438: Shrine


Continuing our Gamescom coverage, more details about the Master Chief Collection continue to surface from interviews with 343 Industries to YouTubers uploading gameplay footage from Halo 2 Anniversary Multiplayer. Since the Xbox briefing on Tuesday, Xbox put on two different streams to dive further into the information presented during the briefing. Our next glimpse at the Master Chief Collection will be at Pax in two weeks. Meanwhile, we wrap up our Gamescom coverage and can’t wait to get our hands on it in Seattle.
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Newcomer: Episode 2
Remember The Darkness? The Newcomer is back – episode 2 is almost entirely Halo, but those Destiny dweebs are still around! Go watch. (Thanks, Zero.) (Louis Wu 23:15:09 UTC)
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DoG’s Guide to Halo
Den of Geek has put together a Guide to Halo’s Expanded Universe – and it’s a great catch-up tool. Go give it a read, see if you’ve missed anything over the years!(Louis Wu 23:12:26 UTC)
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2014’s Halo Barn Video
LiteVisionsYT uploaded some off-screen footage of Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer. The beginning of the video shows what the UI looks like and some of the customization options for your Spartan. Thanks, CyReN.(mastrbiggy 22:52:05 UTC)
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2014’s Halo Barn Video
LiteVisionsYT uploaded some off-screen footage of Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer. The beginning of the video shows what the UI looks like and some of the customization options for your Spartan. Thanks, CyReN.(mastrbiggy 22:52:05 UTC)
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Team Slayer on Shrine Direct Feed
GameRiot posted a full match (direct feed) of Team Slayer on Shrine – looking sharp! Thanks, XBLYourExWife.(mastrbiggy 22:42:01 UTC)
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Catch Up, No Mustard
Is it still Monday? No? This might be late, then. Rooster Teeth released Episode 13 of this season’s Red vs Blue, and the way the pirates are working becomes a little clearer. It’s good to see Freckles again! Go watch.(Louis Wu 22:38:32 UTC)
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RUL Podcast EP 8
CruelLEGACEY dropped by to let us know that episode 8 of the Ready Up Live Podcast is available. In this episode the crew talk about what they’ve been playing, Gamescom news, and spend a good chunk of time sharing their impressions on MCC and the Halo 5 beta info. Go listen!(mastrbiggy 20:02:18 UTC)
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ASE Ep. 122 Vidmaster You Think You’re Big Time? You’re Gonna Die Big Time!
Marathon Infinity’s “Vidmaster Challenge” features remixes of three levels, the first of which is Try Again from the original Marathon. Each level includes grey, upgraded enemies.
A few notes about our playthrough:
We played Marathon and Marathon Infinity on Normal difficulty. We increased the difficulty on Marathon 2: Durandal to Major Damage to compensate for our somewhat higher familiarity with the levels of that game.
Big Time here is being played on Total Carnage; since the entire point of the Vidmaster Challenge is increased difficulty, there didn’t seem much point in not playing it on the highest difficulty.
However, it was clearly designed for solo play where any death means a restart. We use irons’ Co-Op script so that we share weapons and don’t lose them upon death. We had some sync problems on playback as with the earlier vidmaster levels, but here it only prevented me from capturing Blackstar’s chase camera angle. I have no idea why.
I think we’re supposed to kill everything in this mission, although the sometimes inaccurate enemy counter still shows a few remaining when we hit the final terminal.
What a ride!
This podcast uses:
Aleph One, free and open source versions of Marathon for Windows, Mac and Linux at http://source.bungie.org
Remixes of the Marathon soundtrack by Craig Hardgrove at http://themarathonmusic.com
We use irons’ Co-Op script:
http://simplici7y.com/items/co-op
Thanks to the maintainer of the Marathon Story Page, the denizens of the Marathon Story Forum and the Marathon Spoiler Guide:
http://marathon.bungie.org/story
http://forums.bungie.org/story/
http://marathon.bungie.org/spoiler/m2/
Subscribe to the Narcogen’s YouTube channel for Anger, Sadness and Envy video podcasts:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIof4Cp3-cam7bAFzDEwK_wzSSEya050i
Subscribe to the iTunes channel or RSS feed for shorts and audio podcasts:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/anger-sadness-and-envy/id266991411?mt=2
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AngerSadnessEnvy
Music used in this episode:
“What About Bob?” by Alexander Seropian, remixed by Craig Hardgrove (intro music)
“New Pacific (Reprise)” by Alexander Seropian, remixed by Craig Hardgrove (outro music)
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Podtacular 437: Gamescom 2014 Halo Debrief


Gamescom has been a whirlwind of Halo information and juicy details on the upcoming Master Chief Collection. At the end of the Xbox Press event Tuesday morning, Halo took to the stage to tell us about the upcoming Halo Channel App for Xbox one and Windows 8.1 devices, more details on the Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta, live gameplay demo of Delta Halo, and Sanctuary unveiled as the next map to officially join the Halo 2 Anniversary multiplayer experience. On this impromptu podcast, we discuss everything revealed during the Halo presentation and other information released throughout the day.
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Halo Channel Demo
During Gamescom, Kiki Wolfkill sat down with Geoff Keighley to demonstrate what the Halo Channel is and all the features and services that are integrated into the app. I think it looks pretty great, if only we had a front page that could be integrated into the service. One day, perhaps.(mastrbiggy 20:12:07 UTC)
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The details are in the armor…
…or is it armour? Anyway, MoaHerder from HaloArchives posted an analysis of the Halo 5 beta trailer that points out some interesting things that I completely missed, doh! The most interesting part of the analysis is that MoaHerder highlights that Nihilus Shadow found that one Spartan models has 104 written in braille on the chest plate. It might just be a fun little easter egg, or it might have bigger implications in terms of who we can expect to see in Halo 5. Thanks to zofinda for pointing this out – go read!(mastrbiggy 20:07:39 UTC)
