You’re a busy person, and we have a thing for releasing as much Halo-related content our multi-fingered appendages can handle. That means—assuming you aren’t a speed reading super-soldier—you probably missed a few stories along the way. Not only do we forgive you, but we’ll also happily provide a convenient weekly wrap-up of absolutely everything we covered during the last seven days. Don’t worry about saying thank you. We’d rather you spend that time soaking in the goodness that is this entertaining collection of articles. Off you go!

News
The Halo Bulletin: 2.15.12
Halo Avatar Collection – February
Office of Halo Intelligence: Part 4
McFarlane Toys Introduces New Halo Product Lines at 2012 NY Toy Fair
Reach Weekly Challenge – 2.13.12

Videos
Last Forger Standing 4 – A Community Forge Competition Show
Chillax – A Halo: Reach Funtage
Superiorosity SX – A Halo: Reach Racetrack Review
Express – A Halo 3/Reach Montage
Halo: Reach – Achievement HORSE #62
r/Halo 2 – A Halo: Reach Community Montage
Forge Spotlight 13 – A Halo: Reach Machinima Series
Helljumper 2 – A Fan-made Halo Web Series
Beaver Creek Walkthrough – A Halo: Anniversary Gameplay and Commentary Video

Fun Stuff
Halo eValentines for Your Favorite Player 2!
Halo Shoes – A Valentine’s Day Gift
Chance to Win a Custom-made Mega Bloks Heart!
Toy Fair 2012: Square Enix
Halo IRL: Ivory Tower
You Know You Play Too Much Halo When – Part 3
Halo: Reach Gamer Health Kit
Friday Caption Fun 40

Community Happenings
Community Member of the Week: crazybydefault
The Running Riot Goes Feet First into Helljumper
10,343 Halotracker Challenges, In the Bag!

Halo: Reach Screenshots
Elites with Cones – Absolutely Hilarious
Batman – Fun with Forge
Orbitally Deployed Sangheili Troops – Fun with Forge
Night Hunter – Simply Amazing

Author: Advanced 90

Office of Halo Intelligence, or OHI for short, is a semi-regular diary-type feature brought to you by various members of the Halo 4 development team. Kenneth Scott, Senior Art Director of Halo 4, kindly agreed to write the fourth entry. We hope you enjoy an inside look at the making of our next title!

From the 2.15.12 edition of the Halo Bulletin:

Big thanks to Jessica for dragging me gently into this week’s OHI. The 343 Art Team (and 343 in general) is thundering on all cylinders, and the seismic rumble has the neighbors all up in arms. When your landlord is the UNSC, you tend to giggle when the homeowner association mail starts to pile up!

With Chief making an appearance at the NY Toy Fair, the internet has bubbled with lots of questions around Chief’s design changes. Having cut my first game developer experience on Daikatana, I’ve developed a healthy respect and fear of the internet. I will step onto a message board with all the cautious ginger one would employ pulling lost forks out of a sink garbage disposal. I did want to risk mangled finger burger to talk a little about some of what brought us to our current design.

Above all, we wanted the player to really feel what it’s like to be the Master Chief. This manifests itself in a lot of ways, and for those who read the Fall of Reach, there’s a lot of character depth behind that helmet that has yet to make its way into the game experience. Every person who was allowed to touch him had to, HAD TO, understand his history as a person. The Chief’s origin is pretty sad and grim: A strong, vibrant child stolen from his parents, he underwent dangerous bioengineering that destroyed the weaker of his friends, and trained to stomp out human Insurrectionists. Pretty morally nebulous beginnings for someone who ultimately saved humanity. Of all FPS heroes, he is distinct in that his arc is aspirational and not a cynical view of the universe.

A big focus on the Chief’s armor was his physicality and putting the player in those mighty shoes. Getting that weight across in the design had us looking at a lot of contemporary military vehicles, and we pushed detail and form into the armor that implied that history. This is the bleeding edge of military technology.

A Spartan tossing his chest plate should feel like an anvil dropping….

A Spartan sprinting across concrete should be a stealthy whisper….

Putting on your helmet should feel like powering up an F-15E….

These are the sorts of experiences we want to give the players.

Kenneth

Last week, for our Friday Caption Fun festivities, you provided quips for an image featuring a precariously perched Spartan. Here are the top captions you left for that particular image!

“Suddenly, Blue Spartan realised that the question wasn’t ‘Why are we here,’ but
‘Why am I balancing on a gun in 1-inch deep water?’” –Sqartan1176
“Everybody was Kung Fu fighting, that ‘Hog was fast as lightning.” –RegulineSix
“It was only then that Caboose realized a tiny jet ski wasn’t the best thing to ride on….” –The Storm War
“The Water ‘Hog was rejected because it shrank when put in water.” –Aerohed
“Teaching Spartans how to swim was not met with much enthusiasm from the Spartan community.” –m3rkMS
“Aw, crap! Two inches of water! Sorry Reach, you’re on your own!” –Jedi Maddog
“Geoff from Achievement Horse finally managed to win a round when he stuck this landing.” –GunRunner48
“Didn’t I warn you that no matter what you do, tank beats EVERYTHING?” –AlfaSirius
“One small step for Spartan, one giant leap for…. OH -Yoink!-” –MLG SU11YDUD3

Now that we’ve wrapped up that picture, let’s start a new one. Up for your captioning pleasure this week is a picture featuring a rather infectious Spartan. Soak in the screenshot, then leave your witty and relevant quip in a comment. Off you go!

Author: shatteredwings

From Paul B:

This is Episode 1 of my Map Walkthrough Guide series covering all the maps that launched with the Anniversary Map Pack. First up is Beaver Creek. Enjoy!

Beaver Creek Walkthrough – A Halo: Anniversary Gameplay and Commentary Video

From xorth:

Wow. Never thought we would see this day. The users of Halotracker have completed 10,343 challenges.

Why is this significant? It shows you how tight this community is, and how it pulls people together to enjoy and continue playing Halo. When you could be off getting credits for in-game challenges, you were out there getting ours. Ours, which were often a lot harder, and all you got was some player page awards, it really shows how talented and dedicated you guys are.

We should all give the the challenge producers one big curtsie, for they make these challenges every week. This feature is for you, by you, and I’m glad you enjoy it. Sabj got this program going little less then a year ago, and the Challenge Creators group took over from there. They get nothing in return for doing this work. This is all for you.

Some Stats

Firsties
• 10,343rd challenge submission: Hellraizer87.
• First challenge submission: sabj.
• First person to hit 100 Challenges: pimpumpam.
• My psychologist just hit 400 challenges complete!


You
• 658 people have submitted a challenge.
• Assuming an 8-minute game and one game to get the challenge, users have spent 1,379 hours getting challenges.
• 2,839 awards have been given out.


Fail
• 1,009 challenges have been rejected.


Other
• The busiest day was 2/13/2012 with 256 challenges completed.
• Rockin has processed 2,212 with Cyberdistortion not too far behind with 1,665.
• Yours truly, xorth, has dominated the scene with 98 challenges processed!


As you can see, this is a group effort. I hope you continue to enjoy our challenges. Cya at 20k!

10,343 Halotracker Challenges, In the Bag!

From SuperFastHD and submitted by Ben:

Helljumper is a fan-made web series based on Microsoft’s acclaimed video game franchise, Halo. Adapted from the short story, “Dirt,” by Tobias S. Buckell, it tells the story of a few human ODSTs as they fight through 27 years of brutal war with the Covenant. They evolve from a rag tag group of recruits in the UNSC to being cold battle hardened veterans that are shadows of their former selves.

In episode two, Gage and his team hear about the attack on Harvest by the Covenant, so he volunteers to be part of the evacuation team for the remaining civilians on the planet. By the time they arrive, Harvest is already overtaken by Covenant. They struggle to find their way through the mess.

Helljumper 2 – A Fan-made Halo Web Series