Forums | MacLife

And here it is: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/49996

800pts for just 3 maps is kind of a rip tho. I'd expect at least half a dozen or up to 10 for that price.

Quality over quantity.

Available for 800 Microsoft Points exclusively on Xbox LIVE Marketplace, each map presents a totally different play style. Standoff’s symmetrical valley, with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types, while Rat’s Nest’s vast, labyrinthine passages bring something new to the “Halo” multiplayer experience: an indoor vehicle paradise, strongly influenced by the Campaign mode, ideal for big team battles. Finally, Foundry is the ultimate Forge map – players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, place stairways, walls, bridges and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map they can think of.

Q&A w/screens at BNet

Last edited by Bat (2007-11-19 9:03 pm)

NightCougar_37 wrote:

blah blah blah

Dude.  Have you been to a theatre lately? If you want to see huge amounts of money for little entertainment, that's the place to be.

10 bucks is a pittance these days.  And for the amount of play time you'll get, well worth.

Or.. better yet... dont buy em and we'll tell you all the fun you are missing

NightCougar_37 wrote:

If you want to toss away $10 like that on just 3 measly maps then go right ahead. I've seen companies do much better and for $10 I want just a lil more for my $$$. Coming out of UT days, i'm used to seeing mappacks with over 10 maps for totally free...so asking for at least 6 maps is nothing extreme specially since most of them would probably be tiny spam fest maps.

In fact I don't think i've ever seen a mappack called a mappack with just 3 maps. Don't think I'd pay more than $5 for 3 maps.

You didn't pay for servers, matchmaking, Friends lists etc. in original UT days either.

Microsoft sends word that the Hidden Fronts map pack will be ready for purchase on Thursday May 3rd for Gears of War. For 800 Microsoft points you get 4 new multiplayer maps for GOW: Bullet Marsh, Garden, Process and Subway.

On Thursday, May 3 ['07] at 9 a.m. GMT, Xbox LIVE gamers should ready their weapons and prepare for battle as “Gears of War”, rated M for Mature, releases four new action-packed multiplayer maps in the thrilling “Hidden Fronts” Multiplayer Map Pack. For 800 Microsoft points, COG soldiers and the Locust Horde will clash once again for control of these four dynamic new areas, including Bullet Marsh, Garden, Process and Subway.

$10 for 4 GoW maps from the makers of UT. How much for UT3 content?

http://www.maclife.com/forums/post/1397042#p1397042

Inflation happens, and you're amortizing service costs. Plus microtransactions are big moneymakers nowadays.

Last edited by Bat (2007-11-20 4:29 am)

I don't care for the nickel and dime business model either but I look at it the way Warin suggested. I've got X dollars to spend on fun. How are those dollars best spent? Let's see $10 movie or wait a few weeks and put that $10 towards the DVD? $50 will give me months of video game enjoyment vs 5 movie visits.

Dunno about other areas but around Chicago $10 per hour of entertainment is the norm/average. I wish I could see a show for $10 but really it's more like $20. Play paintball for 8 hours will cost about $80, $100 if you rent the gun. $40 to get in the zoo and we're there for about 4 hours. Lazer tag is $7-$10 an hour and I can blow $10 in quarters at an arcade in an hours time.

GoW PC and UT3 PC have something I wish Live would/could do and that's user created content. Last I looked my UT2004 folder was 18Gb, 80% good user created content.

And in terms of other content for Halo 3, my copy of the OST arrived today at 8am. Thanks Amazon!

IT IS MADE OF WIN AND GOOD. There is not a single unlikable track on it.

Booksley wrote:

And in terms of other content for Halo 3, my copy of the OST arrived today at 8am. Thanks Amazon!

IT IS MADE OF WIN AND GOOD. There is not a single unlikable track on it.

I don't have it yet... you really know how to hurt a [s]grunt[/s] guy. But I know something you don't...

If you were one of the (undoubtedly) many who grabbed the Halo 3 Official Soundtrack from the iTunes Store since it became available in the last 24 hours, take a look at disc 2, track 5.

"No More Dead Hereos"

From any other game publisher, of course, this would be attributed to a simple clerical error, either by Bungie or by Apple. However, since this is Bungie and Halo, it is obviously a cleverly-hidden hint for faithful Bungie fans that the Master Chief will soon have his own line of heroic sandwich cookies.

http://rampancy.net/story/bungie/22/11/ … kie_Secret

Let's not forget the generic Halo smacktards. For an intelligent, literate, story-driven game, Halo has always attracted an unholy percentage of the worst-behaved gamers. 'Nuff said.

Now, about H3 itself...

For shame, Bungie.
Angry Robot has posted their Top Ten Disappointing Things About Halo 3 - while some of them seem sort of gratuitous, I gotta agree with the Achievement thing. See what you think. Thanks, Rock Opera Jr. (Louis Wu 16:56:20 UTC)

Top Ten Disappointing Things About Halo 3

The ten things that made me say, “For shame, Bungie. For shame…”

10. They replaced the needler with a potato gun.

9. The endless product placements. I was okay with the Mr. Lube decals on the Warthog, but the cutscene where Master Chief declared he was “going to kick some extreme ass… right after I deal with my extreme thirst!”, and then chugged a frosty Mountain Dew™ was a tad gratuitous for my tastes.

8. To be honest, the whole gay love triangle subplot seemed a little tacked-on.

7. The way Master Chief took on an entire alien invasion single-handedly, and then, despite overwhelming odds, managed to emerge victorious. What is he, some kind of one-man army? Ludicrous.

6. Way too much Nickelback on the soundtrack.

5. I have a sneaking suspicion the only reason this one sold so well is because of all the people who bought it just so they could sign up for the Bratz Fashion Designer Superstarz beta test.

4. Only the people who dropped $130 on the Legendary Edition can unlock the “For The Same Amount Of Cash, You Could Have Bought Malaria-Preventing Mosquito Nets For An Entire Mid-Sized African Village” Achievement.

3. Cortana’s ongoing refusal to get her tits out for the lads.

2. The big plot twist where the Chief gets busted down to private right before the last climatic battle. Call me crazy, but ending an epic war trilogy with a potato-peeling minigame seems like a bit of a letdown.

1. Just didn’t live up to the high gaming standards set by 50 Cent: Bulletproof.

http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=21158

http://angryrobot.ca/2007/11/22/top-ten … out-halo-3

Phydeaux wrote:

Wait, is there an achievement that you need Legendary for? That's kind of low.

Well, there's Campaign Complete: Legendary, tho Co-op counts. Maybe there should be a separate solo Achievement. I've been holding off; I don't look forward to Cortana solo, tho I might have done it unremembered. I've done the rest one or more times, many in one session.

Also:

10. They replaced the needler with a potato gun.

The Needler is the best it's been in years. Well-balanced and usable. And I've faithfully used it. In every iteration.

I get the chunk of the ten are jokes, but still.

They're all jokes, tho some have an edge. The Needler joke doesn't seem like a weapon-tuning comment. The Needler's fine, tho I miss the color shading from Halo PC. Needler detonation deaths are a Medal.

Phydeaux wrote:

PINK MIST AWAY

Ph34r it.

Anyway, here's another thing not really wrong with Halo 3... caution: spoilers!

I haven't played very much MP, so I'm only so-so, but I'm pretty good at Campaign, including Co-op... even when some *koff* folks [s]keep rushing foolishly ahead[/s] ..er, advance with exceeding bravery into the teeth of the foe instead of getting all strategary like certain others who destroy 30 vehicles.

Anyway, it's all there bar the witty banter. I'll keep the film up for a bit... almost doubled the 50,000 needed for Ranger on this one.

Last edited by Bat (2007-12-01 3:16 am)

Yeah, you were definitely middle of the spectrum with HH at the aggressive extreme. Next time there we'll see if we can shoot you over the top, if one getting it doesn't get it for all (I forgot to check). Learned some lessons about scoring (I rarely have it turned on, but there isn't much left to earn in SP).

(For that matter there are some good related Easter Egg lines- I've heard, instead of, say, 'Hey! You stole my kill!,' a Marine might say 'Hey, I was workin' on an Achievement!'.. if I ever hear that from an Elite I'll die of laughter. )

And both these games have sold too damn many copies. (That's bad, right?)

Microsoft: 5 Million Halo 3 Sales; 1 Million Mass Effect Sales

Game Daily has a article themed Q&A with Jeff Bell, Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing for the Xbox 360, where he talks about the console's holiday sales push. Bell states in the article that the Bungie developed shooter Halo 3 has sold 5 million copies since its launch and the more recent launch of BioWare's sci-fi RPG Mass Effect has registered more than one million copies since it was first released on November 20.

http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=18684