Halo 5 Update: Hammerstorm!

To my, and to Halo fans every where's pleasure, 343 industries has dutifully kept their promise of releasing regular, free content to those who play Halo 5. This is because 343 doesn't want to separate the player base between those who pay for DLC and those who don't. 343 has been upholding their word with monthly updates, all of which bring new features and unique game play to the game. Before we get into the details of the February update, I'm going to reiterate on the past updates.

Back in November, we got our first update, Battle of Shadow and Light. Here, 343 gave us 48 new REQ unlockables, including new armor sets, and new Warzone weapons. Along with these, 343 gave us a new game type with its own playlist in Arena matchmaking. Of course, this is Big team Battle, which is an 8v8 large scale map Arena based game type.



In December, we received my favorite update, Cartographer's Gift. For the first two months of playing the game, along with much of the Halo community, painfully waited for Forge to be released. But it was well worth the wait, because Halo 5's version of forge is the biggest expansion to the map building game type in all the Halo's to come. We received several features that have been long awaited by Forgers, such as copy and paste functions, grouping, vastly improved scripting, and much more. We also got four new maps to play around with in multiplayer. In addition to Forge and new maps, we now have our good old SPNKR Rocket Launcher back, coming in several forms of REQ cards. This especially makes me glad to see, because the community has been begging for this version of the Rocket Launcher since the showcase of  new Halo 5 version. It makes me happy to see 343 responding to community feedback, and incorporating it into their updates. This will be the first of several throwbacks to old versions of weapons.

The first update in 2016 was Infinity's Armory. This update was pretty small compared to others, but we still got some new content. First, we got a new map for Arena playlists. We also received
some new armor sets. My favorite part of this update of course was the Halo 2 BR. This gun gave me major nostalgia, and is loads of fun to play with.

Now for the most recent update: Hammer Storm. Here we got another new map, and several new REQs, including new armor sets. But the most notable thing about this update is that we got 3 new game modes: Community favorite: Grifball, Assault, and Fiesta. Now that we have assault, we can recreate many other gametypes in custom games, such as ricochet from Halo 4. I especially look forward to when I can play fiesta, so that I can more easily get Spartan Laser kills, among other power weapon kills, as I am trying to get all my weapon commendations complete. Along with Grifball, we got the Gravity Hammer (of course). He also got our 3rd throwback weapon, the Halo CE magnum. This thing is amazing, skinned the same as in Halo CE, and even has a completely different shader on the weapon to give it that authentic look. 

Those are all the updates so far, but there is still much to look forward to, as there is still four confirmed updates to come. There is already speculation on which these titles mean. Hopefully, Memories of Reach will feature armor sets and old weapons from Halo Reach. Hog Wild will most likely introduce new Warthog variations and gametypes. The final update is pretty self explanatory: Firefight is coming back!

Blog Review:

Today, I wanted to shed some light on a Youtuber that I discovered sometime last year, under the name Cereal Kill3r Studios, his real name being Dave. To my disappointment, his account has been dormant for about a year now, but he has lots of helpful content on his channel already. He provides in depth detail on how an expert such as himself goes about the process of making a Halo Spartan Suit. This man is a true artist and craftsman, and he is probably my most admired person that I have seen do this craft on the internet. This video here highlights all the lengthily processes that go into making an armor build to this degree: 

This man covers everything in his videos from sizing the pepakura files on your computer, to putting the final details on the finished product. It is from this man that I got my inspiration for my dream to make a full suit of my own. At first, it seemed like a fantasy beyond my reach, but after watching Dave craft his armor with such ease and his guiding wisdom, my goal became obtainable in my mind. My only hope that he may someday return to Youtube to make more videos to help others like me to create something.

 Here's a link to his Youtube Homepage.

Happy 2016!

This last year of Halo:

The beginning of 2015 did not start out well at all with the recent release of the Master Chief Collection at the end of the previous year. If any of you had this game last year you remember staring at this screen for hours trying to get a match in this broken nightmare of a game, several months after the game was released and after many bug fixes. 

But yet there was still hope for Halo fans. Halo 5 would release later in October. 343 did an excellent job at hyping up Halo 5 with an extensive advertising campaign. Halo 5 was fresh with new innovations to the Halo Universe and multiplayer combat and game play, and was well executed. Although it had some shortcomings, Halo 5 left me satisfied and will continue to entertain me for time to come until more Halo content comes out. 343 also ended the year with a December update which provided a brand new innovation of forge, more multiplayer maps, and a promise for more. 

Coming in 2016:

But what is to come this next year? Halo Wars 2 is scheduled to release sometime in 2016, most likely towards the end of the year during the holiday season. This is exciting because it will bring a whole new experience to the Halo universe. Most other Halo games are first person shooters (FPS) but this game will be a real time strategy game(RTS). This type of Halo game was attempted before back in 2009. Although I didn't think it was horrible, and actually had fun playing it, the game received very negative feedback from the Halo community. The game was way too over simplified for an RTS and didn't allow for a lot of freedom in game play. However, I believe this will not be an issue in Halo Wars 2, because it will be able to utilize the next gen (current gen) hardware. The developers have learned from their mistakes and know what the halo community wants. Having enjoyed the first Halo Wars, I don't think that I can be let down with this one

How To: Pepakura!!

Pepakura is a paper modeling software and method for building things, which is a common way for fans to make cool cosplays of their favorite characters. Halo armor is possibly the most common thing constructed using the Pepakura method. First, you want some supplies. You definitely want a self healing cutting mat. This will extend the lifetime of the extra x-acto blades you are also gonig to buy. A metal straight edge is also recommended. You are going to want to buy 110 lb cardstock to print these on; regular paper is too flimsy, and cannot support the weight of the structure you are building. Later, you will also need a hot glue gun with plenty of extra glue.

Next, follow the links in resources to get either pepakura viewer or designer (I recommend both. They're free). After downloading the software, go to the 405th.com and become a member, which is free. You can find links to these places under resources. After making an account, go to the file archive and browse the available armor pieces. Download the ones you like and open them using the Pepakura designer or viewer. If you want to scale the object to your body size, look up a sizing tutorial, as there are several on Youtube. When open, It should look like this:

When you go to print on your card, don't worry, the program won't print the image on the left, but the templates on the right. You are going to want to buy 110 lb cardstock to print these on; regular paper is too flimsy, and cannot support the weight of the structure you are building. Now it is time for cutting! There will be three types of lines on the print out: Solid, dotted, and dashed. 

Cut on all of the solid lines. at the end you should end up with something like this: 

Before gluing, you need to prepare the folds. That is what the dotted and dashed lines mean. The dotted lines equate to a mountain fold, which looks like this: ^. And the dashed lines equate to a valley fold which looks like a V. Now it's time to glue. There are numbers all along the edges, and they tell you what pieces line up with what. for example, if there is a 21 on one edge, and a 21 on another, those two edges get glued together. As you have noticed, there are several tabs that are just used to glue the pieces together. 

After gluing them all together, you get a whole armor piece. In this case, I mad a low definition forearm piece of the MJOLNIR Mark VI armor. 

The higher definition they are, the smaller the pieces, which means more time cutting and gluing. Here is a medium detail forearm for the opposite arm that I made recently. 

These are the the other medium detail forearm along with some ultra high detail hand plates that I have already made. 

Sadly, they are all being scrapped, because I am going to swap the forearms with ultra high detail models, and the hand plates were scaled to large. So that is like 16 hours down the drain. On the bright side, those are just "practice" rounds for when I am making the real deal. I plan to have a full suit completed by Halloween 2016, and after that, I can bring the armor to some Cons. 

After the model has been fully put together, you need to use fiberglass resin to coat the card to make it hard and rigid. Then automotive bondo is used for fine detailing, along with several layers of paint. 

But all of that is for another day. :) 

Guess Who's Back

Hello everyone, welcome back if you are a returning viewer. If you are new, welcome! Be sure to view any of my previous content. For those who do not know me, my name is Conor. If you've read any of my previous posts, you would know that Halo has been a passion of mine since I was first able to play the original game when I was five or six. I love spreading knowledge of this franchise, and this school assignment was the perfect excuse to do so.

In this blog, you can expect to find anything Halo related. There is any number of things that I may cover, like from upcoming Halo game titles (H5: Guardians is just around the corner!), novels, bits and pieces of Halo lore, or news on the television series being produced by Steven Spielberg. I have actually started a project that is Halo related recently. I am currently in the process of building my very own MJOLNIR Mark VI Power Assault Armor, or the Spartan armor that Master Chief wears during Halo 2 and Halo 3. The project is still in the early stages, and is a very long term project. But you can definitely count on some content based on the processes and methods that I am using to construct the armor.

If you have any questions that you want to know more about or want me to publicly answer in a blog post, just comment, and I will do my best to fulfill your requests. Hope to see you guys soon.

The Story of the Precursors

For those who are unfamiliar with lore from the Halo Universe, this may be a bit confusing.

The Precursors were ancient beings, almost God-like, who had the ability and technology to create, and accelerate the evolution of intelligent life.

These are the creatures that created the Forerunners and Humanity. They had a philosophy, called the Mantle, which the holder of the Mantle had the responsibility to keep peace and preserve the biological diversity within the galaxy.The precursors eventually wanted to pass this responsibility to one of their creations, as their legacy. They chose the humans for this fate The Forerunners found out about this, and wanted the Mantle to be their responsibility, as they saw themselves as superior. The rose up against their creators and ruthlessly annihilated them and drove them to (near) extinction, so they could seize the mantle for themselves. As a fail safe, the last remaining precursors transformed themselves into a powdered dust forms, which could be later revived into their former selves. But after eons of waiting, the dust became flawed and corrupt. When ancient humans found the dust, (prehistoric humans were an extremely advanced, space faring race before they lost  the Human-Forerunner War and were devolved by the Forerunners), it had become the cancerous plague we now know as the Flood.



So there we have it, the mystery of the origins of the Flood are no longer mystery. The Flood, all this time, had been perverted, insane, remains of what was left of the ancient Precursors.

Happy New Year!!

For the first blog of 2015, I am going to talk about is my Halo new years resolution. This year, I am not going to pre order Halo 5 Guardians, like I have with other Halo games. My main reasoning for this is because I do not want 343 industries to release another broken game. If any of you heard of the master chief collection or bought it, you know that the game's launch was a colossal failure, the worst in Halo's history. There were several issues and bugs, the most notable group of them all being the almost unplayable multiplayer. Several months in advance, 343 industries knew that they were giving us a severely broken game. By pre ordering games, you show the developers faith that you have already committed to buying their game. You also do not know how well the game will perform until after the release date, but if the game performs like junk, you have already bought the game. If you are going to buy Halo 5 Guardians, at least wait until the release date this year, and for the day one reviews start pouring in. This way, you are assured that you get a quality game, or get out of being ripped off by a bad one. This also show 343 industries that our money is not as easily earned, and that they need to work harder to take it from us.

If you want a more in depth explanation of why you shouldn't pre order Halo 5 Guardians, here's a link to a video ( warning: viewer discretion is advised. there is swearing in this video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCC499Gf4DY