From Kari:

FLAG tournament founders Kari Toyama and Tasha Pettengill are excited to announce the 7th annual FLAG tournament to benefit breast cancer research. This year’s tournament will be held on Xbox LIVE in Halo 4, November 16th – November 18th. In 2011 the community raised over $5,000 to benefit charity and this year we need your help to raise the bar.

Event Details
2v2 Tournament
Grifball Tournament (In partnership with Grifball Hub)
Creative Bundle
• Halo 4 Screenshot Contest
• Haloshop-a-thon
• Halo 4 Forge Challenge
• Halo Fan Art Contest
• Details here: http://www.flagtournament.com/creative-bundle-contest-details/

Event Schedule
Friday, November 16 – Creative Bundle submissions open
Saturday, November 17 – 2v2 Team, Creative Bundle submissions deadline 11:59pm PST
Sunday, November 18 – Grifball

Participate
Registration is now open at http://www.flagtournament.com. There is a $10 per person, per event entry donation. All donations are collected through Razoo and go towards the fight against breast cancer.
• $20 per team for 2v2
• $40 per team for Grifball
• $10 per person for Creative Bundle (donation allows entry in all creative categories)

About FLAG
The Fight Like A Girl Tournament (FLAG) is an annual Halo tournament that raises money and awareness for breast cancer research. Hundreds of gamers come together over one weekend to have fun, play Halo, and donate to our cause.

Kari Toyama and Tasha Pettengill have organized this tournament since 2006. To date, FLAG has raised over $27,000 for breast and cervical cancer research.

Questions?
Please feel free to email info@flagtournament.com

7th Annual Fight Like a Girl Halo Charity Tournament

From TheWarpZone:

Halo 4 is here and Master Chief is BACK!

Glad You Came – A Halo 4 Music Video Parody of The Wanted

In less than eight hours, we’ll be celebrating the launch of Halo 4 around the world starting with New Zealand, one of the closest countries to the International Date Line. Then, as the sun makes its daily procession around Earth, each consecutive region will host their frenzy of Halo 4 activity, marking the biggest game launch in Microsoft history.

In all, over 10,000 retail stores in more than 40 countries will play host to Midnight Madness launch events. In the U.S. alone, 7,000 retail doors will be flung open at midnight for a few hours to help the most eager Xbox 360 gamers and Halo fans get a jump on the rest of the population sleeping snugly in their beds. In addition to these retail activities, many countries and regions will host public launch celebrations. Europe kicked off launch festivities with theatrical flair in the principality of Liechtenstein earlier this week. Dubbed “Experience Halo”, it was truly a Halo experience to remember. In all, more than 30 marquee launch celebrations will occur in major cities including Tokyo, Sydney, Hong Kong, Dubai, Toronto, Mexico, Germany, Spain, Italy and France. The United Kingdom will host an extra special activity: A spectacular stunt on the Thames in London between O2 Stadium and Tower Bridge. Executive Producer Kiki Wolfkill will be on hand for the festivities. I can neither confirm nor deny that it will be awesome. I can tell you, however, that it will be AWESOME.

For those of us stateside, Midnight Madness will take place in every major metropolitan area at GameStop, Best Buy or Microsoft Stores, to name a few participating retailers. The Microsoft Store in Austin, Texas, will host activities by leads from 343 Industries, Rooster Teeth and Certain Affinity. Best Buy in West Hollywood and Pembroke Pines, California will deliver a $10k cash prize to the winner of their Halo 4 launch night tournament. Here in Seattle, 343 Industries, Xbox 360 and the Microsoft Store in University Village welcomes one and all to join us for an evening of excitement as we ring in the release of Halo 4. Game play stations will be set up so fans can play before the game is available, the Master Chief and our brand-new, built-to-scale Warthog will be available for photo opportunities and 343 Industries – from our Creative Director Josh Holmes and Franchise Development Director Frank O’Connor – will attend the launch event en masse to meet fans and share in the launch excitement. The University Village store will also host very special guests, including the voice of the Master Chief, Steven Downes.

Regardless of where you live or how you celebrate, we hope you enjoy the newest installment in the Halo franchise. We’ll see you soon, either at one of the launch events or on the virtual battlefields of Halo 4!

From petetheduck:

I created this Rube Goldberg machine to give Halo: Reach a proper Forge farewell! I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks Bungie and 343 Industries!

Remember Reach – A Halo Rube Goldberg Machine

From MythicTyrant:

A new Halo game is on the horizon, and Skulls have been confirmed (the classic pallet, fortunately). You know what this means: It’s time to evolve our Campaign skills beyond the realm of Legendary and go all out Mythic!

What is Mythic difficulty? The name derives from the Heroic, Legendary, and Mythic ranks of the Bungie forums and the Halo 3 map packs. Mythic, however, was the only “rank” to never become an official difficulty. Since it is deemed to be the highest, the hardest mode the game has to offer needed to earn its title. Thus, Mythic was formed.

More specifically, Mythic difficulty refers to playing the game on Legendary with all skulls activated. We like to refer to this as SSLASO to incorporate both single player and co-op modes. No, that extra “S” wasn’t a typo. Unlike simple SLASO (Solo Legendary All Skulls On), SSLASO stands for “Single-Segment Legendary All Skulls On”, meaning the player must make it through each mission individually on Legendary with all Skulls on, from start to finish, in one go. No deaths. No saves. No reverting to the previous checkpoint in co-op mode. This is a challenge to be feared.

As such, this thread will serve as the main hub for Waypoint enthusiasts to visit for all their Halo 4 Campaign needs. I will be posting the guides for each mission here as they become available. For more information and guides for all Halo games, please check out my home site www.mythictyrant.com as well as Mythic Nation where all Mythic Conquerors and Apprentices (past and present) gather to share even more valuable Campaign information. You can also view all previous Mythic Guides on HBO’s homepage.

I look forward to embarking on this journey with all of you. Godspeed, and as always, I’ll see you on the battlefield!

The Halo 4 Mythic Difficulty Guide

From IGN:

It’s Halo week on Cheap Cool Crazy! Featuring: A real fake Energy Sword, a Halo-themed Xbox 360, Halo 4 Limited Edition, the best Master Chief costume ever made, and a life-size and fully-drivable Warthog!

Cheap Cool Crazy – The Halo 4 Episode

GAEMS, along with Mad Catz and 343 Industries, have come together to host an amazing Halo 4-themed giveaway! There are numerous prizes up for grabs, and with the primary entry requirement being posting a reply in the appropriate forum thread, there is no reason to refrain from throwing your hat in the ring. You can enter until 11:59 p.m. PT on November 6, 2012, so check out the specifics below, read the rules, and then get to entering. Good luck!

Please note: We will only accept one entry per person regardless of the number of comments posted. This giveaway is open to numerous countries and regions, so please read the rules for the specifics.


Grand Prize
GAEMS Halo UNSC Vanguard, MSRP $349.99
Tritton Halo 4 Warhead 7.1 Wireless Headset, MSRP $299.99
Xbox 360 320GB Limited Edition Halo 4 Console, MSRP $399.99

2nd Place
GAEMS Halo UNSC Vanguard, MSRP $349.99
Xbox 360 250GB Console, MSRP $249.99
Xbox 360 Halo 4 Limited Edition Wireless Controller, MSRP $59.99

3rd Place
Tritton Halo 4 Warhead 7.1 Wireless Headset, MSRP $299.99


Read the rules
Enter here

From BravoMLG:

This is the world’s first ever Halo 4 montage, from Tashi – http://www.twitter.com/tashi0106. These clips were captured all in one day. Enjoy!

In with the New – The First Ever Halo 4 Montage

We are pleased to announce, just days away from the worldwide Halo 4 launch and the first MLG Halo 4 tournament in Dallas, the Competitive Skill Rank system in Halo 4. The CSR will appear post-launch in an update to Halo Waypoint and associated Smartglass applications.

When will it launch?
The short version is CSR will launch early next year when it’s ready. We have an extensive post-launch plan for Halo 4, including DLC, playlist updates, and title updates. As soon as we have a confirmed launch date for the Waypoint update that includes CSR, we’ll make an announcement. Set your expectations for release timing appropriately since this will require delicate tuning, testing and implementation for Waypoint Web, Waypoint Console and Smartglass integration and is a feature designed specifically for the competitive community.

What is it?
At Halo 4’s launch, the competitive skill system will measure your performance against other players in Halo 4 War Games and use this information to match you up against opponents of comparable skill ranks. When the CSR system is fully implemented post-launch, Waypoint will assign each player a visible and detailed Skill Rank, viewable in the player profile section of Halo Waypoint.

How will it rank me?
All players will be ranked on a per-hopper basis, so, for example, you will have a unique CSR for your Slayer Pro games vs. your CTF games. CSR is currently planned to use a familiar and easy to understand 1-50 scale (subject to change or alteration). Your CSR will go up and down based on match outcomes.

Which playlists will support CSR?
All competitive playlists will support and track CSR. As the playlists will continuously change post-launch, the exact list of playlists that will support CSR will be determined when the system is ready to drop.

Will a CSR be ‘assigned to me’ once the system launches? Or do I need to start fresh?
Matchmaking and hoppers will be tracking and analyzing data from Day 1, and when the final settings for CSR are in place, we’ll make the call on whether to use existing data as a baseline for your CSR, or to start everyone fresh in new playlists.

Why the delay?
We know how important skill rank is, and we take skill integrity very seriously – we want to make sure we’ve taken the time to test, tune, and balance the CSR system in a live environment, and identify problems and potential exploits before launching the system publically.

Taking the time to test and tune the system ensures we can deliver a very accurate and meaningful skill rank, and gives our competitive playlists time to mature to for optimize a wide range of playlist and game settings.

Enjoy the launch!
We’re incredibly excited for Halo 4 to launch, and to see you at one of our worldwide events, or online November 6th. We see this announcement as just one of many new experiences and features coming post-launch to Halo 4 and are excited to share more with you in the future.

From MachinimaPrime:

Sark and Kovic discuss Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn with Anna Popplewell, who plays Chyler Silva in the live-action web series.

So Who Died? – Halo After Dawn with Sark and Kovic

From Prima Games:

We recently sat down with Kiki Wolfkill, Executive Producer at 343 Industries, and chatted about the journey of making Halo 4. Read the complete interview via the link below!

Prima Halo 4 Collector’s Edition – Developer Interview

From Prima Games:

No help when you’ve got the flag? Don’t be afraid to defend yourself. Further improve your multiplayer experience in War Games by getting additional tactics and tips straight from the Major League Gaming Pros via the link below!

Halo 4 Tips: Improving Your Play

From HaloFanForLife:

I made a graphic novel of the third episode of Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. Using the screenshots I took as well as typing out some the dialog, I added Photoshop effects and laid out the project in InDesign. Feel free to download this as it’s FREE. If you repost this anywhere, please give me credit as: Designed by Sal Salerno of HaloFanForLife.com. Enjoy!

Fan-made Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn Graphic Novel: Part 3

From machinima:

In Part 2, we speak with the incomparable Monty Oum and the dudes from Achievement Hunter as we expand on the network of shows and employees Rooster Teeth has grown to support. Includes a chorus of YouTube celebrities including Freddie Wong, Brandon Laatsch, Adam Montoya (SeaNanners), and Rooster Teeth’s own Burnie Burns, Gus Sorola, Geoff Ramsey, Monty Oum, Jack Pattillo, and Barbara Dunkelman.

Infonaut: Red vs. Blue vs. Hollywood Part 2

Airing today at 5 PM ET/2 PM PT on ESPN2 during a special one-hour episode of SportsNation, one of the newly spawned rivalries in professional football will be rekindled and set ablaze via the most anticipated game of the year. Victor Cruz and his teammates will go head-to-head in Halo 4 against Rob Gronkowski’s squad to settle the score once and for all. In a best-of-three showdown, Team Cruz (Victor Cruz, Ramses Barden and Terrell Thomas) and Team Gronk (Rob Gronkowski, Wes Welker and Donald Thomas) will go blow-for-blow to crown the Halo 4 Bowl champion.

Not only can you can catch all the action on ESPN2, but you can also jump on Twitter and Facebook for a chance to win some amazing Halo 4 prizes, like the Xbox 360 320GB Halo 4 Limited Edition Console, the GAEMS Halo UNSC Vanguard Personal Gaming Environment, the Halo 4 TRITTON Warhead 7.1 Wireless Surround Headset, Halo 4 video game copies, and more. Here’s how to get into the game:

On Twitter…
During today’s episode of SportsNation, fans should jump on Twitter and voice their support for either Team Gronk (#SNHalo4Gronk) or Team Cruz (#SNHalo4Cruz). Whichever team wins the best of three series, the users who tweeted with that team’s hash tag will be eligible to win Halo and SportsNation prizes. The @SportsNation twitter feed will contact winners by DM.

On Facebook…
Today, the official SportsNation Facebook page (www.facebook.com/SportsNation) will post a photo from Halo 4 Bowl – just SHARE the post to be automatically entered to win the grand prize.

See you then!