Fallout: New Vegas brings back that old, familiar feeling

Sorry about the wait - New Vegas has been owning my life for the past two weeks or so. And you're about to hear all about it.

Though Fallout: New Vegas came out just over a week ago, I’ve put in a considerable amount of time with the game. And what I’ve found is that if you loved Fallout 3, you’ll love New Vegas. But if you didn’t care for Fallout 3 and couldn’t understand what the big deal was about, then prepare to be left scratching your head once again.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas are, for most intents and purposes, the same game. Before you jump to any conclusions, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of upgrades to game mechanics, new elements of gameplay (like modding weapons and combining items) and plenty of new items, quests and characters. New Vegas is similar to its predecessor in the way that it uses the same engine, graphically looks about the same, and really doesn’t introduce anything drastically new to the formula. If this were almost any other game, the internet and the gaming community would be throwing fits of simultaneous nerd-rage. But because Fallout 3 was so beloved, Obsidian and Bethesda’s “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to New Vegas pays off – offering fans everything they loved about Fallout 3 with plenty of upgrades. (Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people on the internet throwing hissy-fits over the fact that New Vegas and 3 are incredibly similar. But people on the internet tend to throw hissy-fits about most anything, really.)

Before I get into anything, I want to get out my opinion on the matter of Fallout: New Vegas not being all that different from Fallout 3. In most console series, gamers have come to expect leaps and bounds worth of progress to be made on a game in between iterations. We’ve come to expect impressive graphical updates, new gameplay modes, etc. from each new update to our favorite series. But in the case of New Vegas, updating the graphics and implementing new modes, co-op or multiplayer would’ve watered down the incredible experience that New Vegas offers. Like I stated earlier, Bethesda and Obsidian know that the Fallout series is incredible and that its greatest strength is presenting a huge, open world with plenty of opportunities for exploration, combat, and storytelling and taking an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality towards 3’s established format.

First, and most importantly, it is actually possible to hit enemies outside of VATS in New Vegas. The FPS mechanics of Fallout 3 were so horrible, you were pretty much wasting your time trying to hit anything with out using the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. Thankfully, they’ve been upgraded to play as well as any other shooter on the market.

Another great change from Fallout 3 is how quickly New Vegas throws you into the fire. In 3, you had to play through a series of events in your characters life as you grew up in the Vault. Creating a character, distributing skill points and even learning to shoot all took part during a 30-45 minute introduction to the game. In New Vegas, though, you’re given a bit of info on how you ended up in Goodsprings, you create your character, and you’re almost immediately given free reign to explore the Mojave Wasteland as you see fit. Granted, you’ll want to stick to quests early on since wandering the wastes can be extremely dangerous – enemies as insignificant as ghouls or Radscorpions can be hard to handle if you’re a low enough level. Not to mention Cazadors (giant, stinging flies) which I’ve found are a huge pain regardless what level your character is.

Stats and leveling up are pretty much the same, though there are plenty of new Perks to choose from. This time around, you’ll only get to pick a Perk every two levels, instead of every level like Fallout 3. Also making their way back into Fallout are Traits. Like Perks, Traits will give your character a specific boost to your stats. Unlike Perks, Traits are only taken once (when your character is created) and each have certain trade-offs. For instance, a Trait may up your character’s Intelligence considerably but at the same time reduces your Charisma. You don’t necessarily have to take any Traits – I nearly didn’t but ended up picking one, which would increase my accuracy by 20% but decreases my firing rate by 20%. It’s a decent trade-off, considering I mainly use single shot weapons like pistols and rifles.

The biggest change to the formula is perhaps Hardcore mode. Though you may suspect that Hardcore would be a difficulty level, it’s actually a game modifying choice separate from the difficulty. While difficulty seems to only affect the amount of damage you and enemies take, playing in Hardcore mode requires you to sleep, eat and stay hydrated while you explore the Mojave Wasteland. Hardcore also gives ammunition as well as items weight in your inventory meaning you need to pay close attention to what you carry while traveling. Having NPC companions doesn’t hurt, though, as I (and many on the internet) have started viewing them basically as “walking storage lockers.”

I’d recommend installing New Vegas, regardless of how often you plan on playing it. The game is plagued by bugs and frame-rate issues and installing the game alleviates these problems slightly, but doesn’t completely fix them (more on the bugs later). The loading screens are bad when installed but painful without and since they can happen quite often (for example, I’m in a building, I walk outside, load screen, fast travel to The Strip, load, open the door to The Strip, load, walk into a casino, load, etc.).

Honestly, I’m not sure what else I can write about New Vegas without going into my own experiences with the game (and offering my own biases at the same time). Since it’s practically identical to Fallout 3 (and remember, that’s not a bad thing), I’ve basically already covered most of the latest additions.

As I played through Fallout: New Vegas, I kept having déjà vu/ flashbacks of Fallout 2 on the PC. I’ve been a fan of the series since the very first Fallout (which was released way back in 1997) and even though the first game is a classic, I’d pick Fallout 2 as my favorite between the two original games. Being back in the Southwest was just part of it – having gambling (like in New Reno from Fallout 2), plants (like Xander Root and Broc Flower) as well as Healing Potion, as well as groups of people like the Nightkin and Great Khans all had me remembering the countless hours I spent with Fallout 2. I’m pretty sure (not certain) that some of the music in New Vegas is straight out of Fallout 2 – specifically the creepy music from the Children of the Cathedral in Fallout 2 is used in New Vegas.

I almost feel like I’m not doing my job very well by only just now bringing up how many glitches and bugs there are in New Vegas. Honestly, if it were any other game or series, I’d probably be joining the rest of the internet in complaining about how “unfinished” New Vegas is, or that is “unplayable.” Sure it could use a little more polish, but it’s completely playable. And Obsidian has also already released patches for the PC and console versions of the game. While I’ve only experienced a few freezes and the “rotating arms,” as I call it, glitch (your character’s arms will sometimes disappear, then slide down the front of the screen like it’s doing circles around your head), others have had it much worse. Corrupted saves, game-breaking glitches, getting stuck in scenery, quest-giving NPCs disappearing/dying randomly – these are only some of the problems many have reported. You know what, though? The reports of these glitches even had me feeling nostalgia for Fallout 2 – and if you’ve played it, you know what I’m talking about (or should anyway). Fallout 2 had this ridiculous glitch that affected the car you could find, which would make traveling between locations faster. You could store items in the trunk of the car indefinitely but the game shipped with a terrible glitch – when you fast traveled for the first time after getting the car, the front half of the car would disappear and only the trunk would show up at your location, effectively making the car useless. In this day and age of immediate information you would have heard about this kind of glitch all over Facebook but back then, I was pretty angry at having to start the whole game over after finding and installing a patch to fix the car after I had already begun a game.

I’m having a TON of fun with New Vegas – maybe even more than with Fallout 3. Everything feels so much larger, more involved and more in depth in this game than the last. Perhaps this game’s biggest accomplishment is actually giving your choices weight. There are numerous different factions in New Vegas and even more decisions on the path you can take through the game. With all your actions affecting your reputation with the different factions and tribes, you don’t even necessarily have to be part of the NCR or Caesar’s Legion to complete the main story. For the first time in a long time, I really had to weigh my choices when it came to who to side with, who to help and who to undermine.

Honestly, even taking all the bugs and glitches into account, the most annoying aspect of the game is that the American Southwest is a huge pain to navigate. The relatively flat, low land of the Capitol Wasteland made wandering and exploring easy and fun. Exploring the Mojave Wasteland feels more like a chore with all the rocks and impassable hills that require you to find specific routes to destinations instead of being able to wander into pretty much any location. I can’t even count how many times I’ve tried to make my way to an unknown location (marked with an open triangle on my compass) only be met with a stretch of impassable rocks that seemingly offers no way through or around. Not only that, but what’s with huge locations (like Camp McCarran) only having one entrance? I had to walk all the way around that huge place to find the one way in.

I can already tell I’m going to be playing New Vegas more than 3, if only just to finish each faction’s particular line of quests. I’m being a good guy right now, telling people they don’t need to give me rewards for finishing their quests and helping the NCR (the typical good guys). But I’m really looking forward to my next character, who will most definitely be evil but will work with Caesar’s Legion or may even take over The Strip for himself. Either way, I’m already nearly 50 hours into my first playthrough and still haven’t had the desire to put the controller down.

Halo: Reach DLC announced along with Forgetacular Contest

Those folks at Bungie sure know exactly how to keep their audience happy. First they moved their much needed October multiplayer update up a few weeks to sate all the complaints about needing a Team SWAT playlist. Not to mention the rest of the update, set to go live on 10/19, which will introduce the Team Snipers playlist as well as an all Infection playlist (dubbed Living Dead) just in time for Halloween.

Earlier this week, Bungie announced the first round of DLC for Halo: Reach dubbed the “Noble Pack” and will drop on November 30. For 800 MS points, the Noble Pack will add three all new maps to various Reach playlists.

The first map, named Anchor 9, is set on a UNSC suborbital drydock. A smaller map, Anchor 9 will be used mainly in Rumble Pit, Team Slayer, Team Objective playlists. Though it’s a smaller map, it seems to be following the Bungie mapmaking pattern of larger maps regardless of the games it’s intended for. It’s said to feature a large, open area in the center of the map with hallways surrounding it as well as an antigravity area outside of the station.

The next map, named Tempest, is an asymmetrical map that was once a Forerunner installation. Featuring two different base areas, Tempest will be featured in Big Team Battle games as well as Objective-based games like One Flag or traditional CTF. Bungie also noted that Tempest will provide a large palate of objects and features to use in Forge.

The last map, named Breakpoint, is set at an underground UNSC laboratory compound retrofitted to stave off the Covenant assault. Breakpoint is the largest of the new maps and will be used for Big Team Battle and Invasion games.

I’m not even gonna try and pretend like I’m above spending 800 points on three maps – I’ll be buying it day one. I’d be happier with 4 or 5 maps for that price, even if they were remakes. Bungie has once again let me down, though, by not delivering a remake of Hang ‘Em High – possibly the greatest, asymmetrical CTF map ever created. But three maps isn’t all you’ll get for your 800 points – Bungie is also adding 250 more achievement points with the Noble Pack. There hasn’t been word on what these achievements will entail yet.

But wait – there’s more. Along with the announcement of the Noble Pack, Bungie also announced the “Forgetacular Contest.” Using the incredible powerful map editing tool, Forge, players are being given the chance to become part of Halo history as well as winning some sweet gear.

From now until November 28, players can submit an original creation to Bungie for a chance to not only win one of seven Limited Edition Halo: Reach Xbox 360 console, but also to have their maps integrated into Halo: Reach playlists. Bungie hasn’t said how many user-created maps will be made part of Halo: Reach playlists, but their website states, “Further, any and all awesome maps that meet the Bungie quality bar will be slated for integration into Xbox LIVE Matchmaking for millions of players to enjoy.”

There are some stipulations, though. The Forgetacular contest will feature seven different, specific game-types for amateur mapmakers to create for – Invasion, Race, Infection, Big Team Battle, Team Slayer, Symmetrical Arena, and Capture the Flag. More rules and regulations for the contest can be found at http://www.bungie.net/news/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=Forgetacular.

Halo: Reach afterthoughts

After some extensive time spent with Halo: Reach’s many modes, I’ve come to some conclusions about the game. Some good, some bad – either way, I’ve already made it to Major Grade 1 and I still haven’t gotten burned out on the game.

-It used to be that vehicles in Halo were nigh-invincible – hit a Warthog from Halo: CE with as many rockets as you want, it still won’t explode. In Reach, it seems like every vehicle was modeled after the Ford Pinto – everything from Ghosts to Scorpions go up in a ball of fire from collisions to small arms fire. It’s mainly just an annoyance but it’s just odd when you used to be able hop in a Scorpion and not have anything to worry about except getting jacked to now you have to worry about everything from kamikaze Ghosts to sniper rounds being able to take you out.

-Big Team Battle is still kind of an oddity to me. Usually I prefer smaller games on smaller maps to playing Slayer or Snipers on a huge map. Lately though, played BTB on Hemorrhage or Paradiso has been a ton of fun. Because of this, I’m always a bit wary when picking BTB. Usually in the voting, there will only be one straight up Slayer game to choose, with the other two choices being Territories, some kind of CTF game or whatever. And for some reason Bungie has non-vehicle friendly maps, like Countdown and Boardwalk, in the BTB playlist and winning on these maps usually boils down to who has less cannon-fodder on their team than who actually played better. I still enjoy BTB, though, since most people usually seem to vote for the Slayer game anyway. Always having a bunch of vehicles to choose from is great and it’s pretty easy to get kills since you usually start with a DMR and not an assault rifle.

-My last point reminded me – I hate Countdown. Oh my god, do I hate that map. But not because it’s necessarily a poorly made map – it’s too busy. There’s too many hallways, floors, narrow passageways, lifts and places for people to camp. If it were just a little smaller, it’d probably be a great. As it is, though, Bungie just tried to do too much with it and it comes off far too busy and cluttered for my liking.

-More maps I’m tired of already/just plain dislike – Boardwalk (Too busy. Plus, does anyone honestly ever even go into the lower/sewer part of the map? No, so why even have it.); The Spire (Just a lame map overall. First there’s The Spire itself that’s incredibly tall and fairly useless, unless you were looking to draw more attention to yourself. The area around the Spire is too cluttered with rocks and random stuff for any battles going on at the base of the Spire to be fun. Then there’s the far side of the map that’s literally completely useless and hardly anyone goes over there unless they get spawned there.). In fact some of the only maps I like are ones Bungie made with Forgeworld and shipped with the game, like Pinnacle, The Cage and Asylum (and two of those maps are remakes – what’s that tell you, Bungie?)

-Most underrated weapon in the game? Some might say the Needler, which is definitely right after my number one choice. No, my pick for the most underrated is without-a-doubt the Plasma Pistol. While its single fire is next to useless in multiplayer (it’s actually incredibly effective against enemies like Brutes in the campaign, though), the charged shot can be devastating. Not only does the charged shot still take down shields in one blast, it homes even better than in Halo 3, and makes for incredibly easy headshots/beatdowns. It’s so powerful, nerd-ragers even dubbed the BR(DMR)/Plasma Pistol combo the “Noob combo” since it’s so easy to destroy someone’s shields with a charged shot then pull out your DMR for an easy headshot kill. The Plasma Pistol was powered up even more for Halo: Reach as it can now temporarily disable vehicles with a charged shot. I can’t tell you how many times a charged PP shot got me out of a tough situation that involved a Warthog or a Ghost or even a Wraith harassing me and usually ended with that vehicle in flames or hijacked.

-I’m not afraid to say it - Elite Slayer is great. Not only because the new Elite models are pretty awesome but there’s just something about being to start with a Needler, Plasma Pistol, two Sticky grenades and Active Camo that just can’t be beat.

-Team SWAT was both a blessing and a curse. SWAT was at one point a part of the Team Slayer playlist but was made its own because of nerds raging all over the internet about how much they hate it. It seems much more difficult to get headshots in Team SWAT than it was when SWAT was a part of Team Slayer - I don’t know if this is true or just some excuse I came up with during a poor performance but I’ll just throw it out there. Not only that, but the introduction of Team SWAT has seemed to lead to a huge increase in camping in SWAT – especially on Sword Base. Most maps in SWAT are fairly small, with bigger maps like Power House and Hemorrhage thrown in there as well. Sword Base is a smaller map, all things considered. Two, three story levels of the complex face each other with a narrow ground floor in between. The sides are connected by ramps and walkways and there are also lifts to take players higher on either side. On the top floor of one side is a large open room, partially made out of bulletproof glass. Too often lately while playing SWAT I’ve noticed that whatever team happens to control this room first makes a habit of never leaving it. Ever. As you can image, sitting on one side of the map, watching the other team camp in one spot makes for some very boring games. Camping will happen in any game type, but in a game as fast paced as SWAT usually is, dealing with campers is even more annoying.

-I never played Halo ODST but if I had, I would’ve realized how much I love Firefight. Playing the regular campaign is fun but there’s always objectives getting in the way of my alien slaying. Most of the time, playing Firefight is a ton of fun – even if people do like playing Rocketfight or Sniperfight. One aspect of Firefight really, really annoys me and though it’s a small complaint, it should be one that’s easily fixed but hasn’t yet been. The respawn time in Firefight is a little bit longer than in a standard multiplayer match (somewhere between 7-10 seconds where as MP is around 3-5) – but that isn’t my complaint. Each round of Firefight is divided into five waves. If you’re stuck respawning at the end of a round – i.e. you’re still respawning when the next wave of reinforcements is announced – your respawn countdown is reset. I know, it’s really minor but if my respawn timer gets reset literally as I’m about to respawn one more time, I won’t be responsible for my actions.

-It’s hard to say which Armor Ability I use the most or even would say is the most useful. Generally I use Sprint because it’s a good all purpose skill that can get you out of hot areas or help you close the distance on a weakened enemy. Lately, though, I’ve been trying to get better using Armor Lock to survive explosions, sword attacks and sticky grenades. It always seems to work better when supported by teammates so that when an enemy is focused on your Armor Locking, your buddies can swoop in and catch them off guard. One of my favorites for fooling enemies is the Hologram (which was replaced by the incredibly useful Evade in some playlists). The Hologram fooled people pretty good at first but lately, and especially once I ranked up more, people have stopped falling for it as easily. The Jetpack is a fun ability to use but in practice it gets you into more trouble than it’s worth. It’s a useful ability to get height on enemies in Firefight and also to traverse levels like Countdown and Sword Base more easily, but most of the time the Jetpack just turns you into a helpless, floating target.

-As you can probably tell, I spend more time playing multiplayer than the single player campaign. For a while I had been trying to get the “Monument to all your sins” achievement, which is for completing the campaign on Legendary by yourself. After completing about 5 missions solo on Legendary, I decided that 125 achievement points just isn’t worth the frustration of Legendary. In co-op with some friends Legendary isn’t so bad. On your own, though, a few Grunts can take you out easily, let alone fighting off multiple Elites, Jackals and Grunts all at the same time.

That’s about all I can think of now. I may have more afterthoughts on Reach in the future but it’s going to get put on the backburner with Fallout: New Vegas coming out in just a few days.

Why Halo: Reach's multiplayer will have its hooks in me until Fallout: New Vegas

When I picked up Halo: Reach after work on the day it was released, I almost immediately dove right into the campaign. Most of my friends, on the other hand, still haven’t even played the campaign. Why? Because Reach offers arguably the best multiplayer experience of the series (next to Halo: CE, of course). From the new weapons, to the updated gameplay, to the new voting system and Daily/Weekly Challenges, Reach’s multiplayer offers a wide range of experiences where anyone will find something they can enjoy. Well, most people anyway (I’m looking at you, whiny message board poster who’s irate that he should have to play a game mode he doesn’t like very much).

If you’ve ever played a Halo game before (or any FPS for that matter), you pretty much know what to expect from multiplayer. You pick a playlist (such as Team Slayer, Team Objective, Big Team Battle, Multi-Team, etc.) and once matchmaking finds you a game, you’re given three different map/game types to choose from. Based on your performance, you earn credits which act as XP to earn new ranks as well as being used to purchase new armor pieces to customize your Spartan.

I’ve been hearing a lot of nerd rage over the internet lately about how the voting system sucks and people only pick the same game types. While I can’t disagree that people tend to pick Swat, Snipers or DMRs (Designated Marksmen Rifle, Reach’s Battle Rifle) more than anything else, I wouldn’t say it’s a problem with the game. The voting system offers players more input on what they want to play over the Halo 3 system of vetoing a map/game that matchmaking picked. I also have this to say to those ragers – maybe get some more friends and play custom games if you’re so pissed about the voting system. That or you could at least get some like-minded people to vote for what you want – that is, if you weren’t so busy writing horribly worded missives on the internet about how Bungie allegedly ruined an aspect of the game.

Moving on, I have a confession to make. Often I’ve tried riding my high-horse, saying I don’t play games to earn achievements. With Halo: Reach, though, the first thing I do when I start playing is check the Daily Challenges. Each day, Reach is updated with four new challenges worth various amounts of credits. Along with the four dailies is one weekly challenge that will offer up big time credits. Last week’s was pretty demanding (complete 30 or 40 games of matchmaking) while this week’s was a little simpler (completing a campaign mission in co-op on Legendary). Playing for challenges is justified (to me, anyway) because that black visor and those armor effects aren’t going to buy themselves.

Also, I tried Firefight for the first time to complete a challenge and ended up absolutely loving Firefight. I never played ODST (outside of using the disc to play the Halo: Reach beta) so I never got to try Firefight before but it is a total blast. And I haven’t even really tried messing with custom Firefight games yet, which could yield even more awesome that I didn’t even consider (a friend was telling me the other day about a Firefight map he downloaded that was all Hunters, with only rockets and infinite shields and got a ton of credits on it).

Speaking of which, players can now download user-created maps through the File Share service, as well as being able to share pics and videos. I was actually very surprised to see just how many of my matches that the game actually saved (had to be 15-30) for me to watch over and edit. While on the File Share, the first thing I did when I booted up Reach was download a map of Hang ‘Em High and Lockout. While they aren’t perfect, they brought back a ton of memories of countless hours spent (wasted?) fragging fools.

Which leads me to my next steam-of-consciousness point – the maps that came on disc in Reach. Why, all of a sudden, is every map huge? I miss the days of tight quarters maps like Lockout or Guardian. Every map seems gigantic now. Not Sidewinder or Sandtrap (whatever that desert map was called from Halo 3 that no one ever played) huge, but still pretty large. Games of Swat on Hemorrhage (Reach’s remake of Blood Gulch) or Boardwalk are just too much – I feel like I spend more time trying to find enemies than actually killing them. I still really love Pinnacle (the Ascension remake) and Asylum (the Sanctuary remake) but too many maps (like The Spire, Boneyard and Powerhouse) just feel too big. I’ll be extremely interested to see what Bungie has in store for their first map pack.

One reason for the larger maps, though, is a game type new to Halo – Invasion. Modeled after Battlefield’s Rush mode, Invasion tasks a group of gamers with accomplishing a series of objectives while another team attempts to stop them. On The Spire, for example, a group of Spartans is tasked with first deactivating a set of generators (by staying within a specified zone for 20 seconds), then making their way to The Spire itself, activating the lifts to the top floor and stealing a datacore from a team of Elites. As a set of objectives is completed, a new selection of loadouts is opened up for both teams. There is also a mode titled Invasion Slayer which eschews the set of objectives in favor of a straight up, six-on-six deathmatch, complete with new loadouts being unlocked every few minutes as well as areas either team can capture that will reward them with heavy weapons or vehicles. While Invasion is a neat idea, I had more fun playing Invasion Slayer than I did with any game in the standard mode. Generator Defense is also a part of the Invasion playlist but honestly, if I hadn’t played it in the beta test, I wouldn’t know what it was since I’ve never seen anyone even vote for it, let alone play a game of it.

Though I’ve been playing Matchmaking in some form or another since Reach was released (I’m already a Captain Second Grade…I know, I really need get out more), I do have some complaints. First off, what’s with banning for quitting out of games? Apparently this is Bungie’s response to people rage-quitting if they (or their team) is doing poorly but I’ve read about people getting 24-hour bans for quitting out of as few as two or three games. Nerds rage-quitting is always going to be a problem, but is dropping the banhammer really the answer?

Next, and this one really gets me heated, is the betrayal/booting system. In an effort to reduce team killing, Bungie implemented a system where you can boot someone from a game for betraying you – even if it was the first time you betrayed them and it was an accident. Too many times (and I mean too many) I’ve gotten the boot for accidentally killing someone with a rocket (in a game of Rocketfight [Firefight with unlimited rocket launcher ammo] no less) or just accidentally killing someone. One time in a game of SWAT, I was shooting at a game across from me (on the second level of Countdown, IIRC) and a guy sidestepped right in front of me (shooting at the same guy I was, no doubt). In two shots, I had killed the guy across the way and then shot my (idiot) teammate in the back of the head. I couldn’t finish saying “Sorry about that” before I got the boot. Let’s recap – it was my first betrayal, I was #1 on our team, and my teammate got himself killed. But no, I did the “betraying” and therefore got the boot. Seriously, Bungie, is it so much to ask for a warning before being able to get booted?

Outside of those points, Bungie is really making an effort to keep up with community concerns and complaints. For instance, there has been a huge outcry on the internet about having SWAT in Team Slayer and Big Team Battle playlists. SWAT, for the two of you who’ve never played Halo, is a mode without shields or radar and everyone starts with DMRs and pistols where a headshot is an instant kill and anything less will probably get you killed. Even though its simple and games are usually short, many people vehemently despise SWAT and, as such, Bungie will be making SWAT into its own playlist with the coming October update (an update that has been moved up and will now go live on Oct. 5). From Bungie.net, here is a list of all the update that can be expected from the October update:

• SWAT Playlist added (SWAT removed from Big Team Battle and Team Slayer)
• Campaign Matchmaking (live on 10/15 – You will be required to have earned the Grade “Corporal” to enter this Playlist)
• Team Slayer rebalanced to highlight default Slayer game variants and include new offerings
• Classic Slayer removed
• Removed “Pro” game variants from the Arena Playlist
• Removed Boardwalk from Arena Team Doubles Playlist
• Added “Return to Battlefield” volume to Space on Zealot in the Arena Playlist
• King of the Hill (multiple Playlists, including Arena*)
• Rocket Race
• Juggernaut (Rumble Pit Playlist)
• *King of the Hill not included in Arena
• Sudden Death will be added to all Assault game variants, including Invasion
• Team Objective will now feature the map Powerhouse
• Replacing Drop Shield with Evade for King of the Hill, Territories, and Oddball
• Replacing Hologram with Evade in Oddball, Capture the Flag, Assault, and Stockpile
• Replacing the Scorpion on Hemorrhage with Wraiths (Hemorrhage Heavies variant, TBD
• 
  

I’m really, really looking forward to King of the Hill coming back. Headhunters is fun, but King of the Hill is a classic.

And on a final note, I read this morning that Bungie is dropping a massive banhammer on hackers. Well not so much a ban, but a punishment none-the-less. Many gamers had recently been exploiting a glitch that “allowed players to complete a Challenge 20+ times via itentional network manipulation (i.e., disconnects.).” As of this morning, Bungie had reset the Credits and ranks of “approximately” 15,000 gamers and imposed a one day credit earning ban on top of that. Bungie also noted that many more of these punishments will be handed out as the studio becomes more confident in its autobanning system.

And there you have it. My Halo: Reach review is finally complete. Fairly comprehensive, I believe, though I’m sure I missed some stuff. If you find anything I missed, want to bring something to my attention or even play some Reach with me, find me on Facebook or leave me a note in the comments.

Left 4 Dead DLC “The Sacrifice” and Gears of War 3 pushed way back

Ok so maybe I’ll be taking Halo: Reach out of my 360 a little bit sooner than I expected. With “The Sacrifice” comic that’s been running for a few weeks now (that I wrote about last week) Left 4 Dead’s latest DLC pack, also called “The Sacrifice,” will be released on October 5. Acting as a prequel to “The Passing” DLC, this latest pack will be available for both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2.

Though we saw in “The Passing” that it was Bill who sacrificed himself so that Zoey, Francis and Louis could continue on, players will be able to make that choice themselves in “The Sacrifice.” I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if this choice boils down to whoever happens to be unlucky enough to make it to the escape vehicle last. Additionally, those who download this DLC for Left 4 Dead 2 will also get the No Mercy campaign from the original Left 4 Dead. For getting two new campaign maps, “The Sacrifice” is pretty cheap, in my opinion, being priced at 560 MS Points ($7).

But when there’s good news, bad news usually follows as well. Many websites are reporting today that Gears of War 3, the highly anticipated sequel to the blockbuster Epic Games franchise, is being pushed back 5 months to Fall 2011. After Cliff “Don’t call me Cliffy B” Bleszinski announced on the Jimmy Fallon Show that Gears 3 would be hitting shelves April 8, 2011 (even though, at the time, it was scheduled to be released April 5), Microsoft Games and Epic have announced recently that Gears 3 would be delayed until Fall to be one of the premier titles of the holiday season.

I’m actually a little saddened by this. Even though I barely played Gears 2 (even with the cool Horde mode), I was looking forward to Gears 3. The more colorful screen shots, the new weapons, Beast mode and the new direction the story was taking all had me very interested in this game. I wondering, though, if the game is behind schedule and this is all just a clever misdirection by Microsoft. Either way, gamers will have to wait even longer until they find out what happens to Marcus, Dom and the rest of humanity on the planet Sera.