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[ToyMachine228]

And MS wouldn't charge full price for a cutdown Halo title...surely!

The reason Microsoft is throwing in Halo 3 multiplayer maps and other stuff along those lines is so they can get the price as high as possible. Still though, as long as Bungie keeps saying they don't see it as a full-price title, they can hopefully build that into public opinion and give Microsoft no choice in the matter, or there will be public outrage. Still, I'm thinking $39.99.

 

[Rapping Granny]

Sweeettttttt can't fucking wait for this, it might be the Halo 2 sequel I was waiting for.


Next month's cover better be about Killzone 2.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Why is there no Killzone 2 cover month for GameInformer or Gamepro?

Publisher couldn't afford it?

 

[Beer Monkey]

Ratchet & Clank averages twice as many installments per year than Halo, even if you include two Halo games in 2009.

"Milking" is fine if the quality is there.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

The reason Microsoft is throwing in Halo 3 multiplayer maps and other stuff along those lines is so they can get the price as high as possible. Still though, as long as Bungie keeps saying they don't see it as a full-price title, they can hopefully build that into public opinion and give Microsoft no choice in the matter, or there will be public outrage. Still, I'm thinking $39.99.

Yeah I was thinking along those lines too, bundle all the DLC maps and try to justify pricing it at $60 (probably one reason why the new map packs aren't going free, doesn't diminish the perceived value of Recon upon release).

Hey ho, lets see how it turns out I guess.

 

[Mr. Pointy]

If this is a nice disc/DLC $30 expansion with a sick multiplayer mode, then it'll be awesome. It's Bungie, they won't fuck it up.

 

[ToyMachine228]

If this is a nice disc/DLC $30 expansion with a sick multiplayer mode, then it'll be awesome. It's Bungie, they won't fuck it up.

Far as we know, the only multiplayer attached to Recon is new Halo 3 maps.

 

[Smokey]

That's a nice cover.

plenty of haters as expected, but fuck em!

 

[dammitmattt]

3 to 5 means 3 hours.

Should be a DLC gig.

How do you know that it's not going to be downloadable? And more importantly, why does it matter?

 

[WrikaWrek]

How do you know that it's not going to be downloadable?

Is this another attempt at "You are talking about what you don't know?" :lol

Bungie themselves said it wouldn't be DLC aiight!?

 

[Omar Ismail]

My theory:
Halo 3 Recon is going to be the first and flagship title to usher in Microsoft's new downloadable game service. Not Xbox Live Arcade, but a new category of $30 titles that are a lot meatier, similar to some of PSN's downloads (GT5P).

And eventually we'll get full downloadable titles. Hard drive "installs" are 90% of the way there, all they need now is integrated DRM into the files instead of DRM through the discs.

 

[Walshicus]

Where can I get the information in this magazine, here in England?

 

[Deleted member 21120]

My theory:
Halo 3 Recon is going to be the first and flagship title to usher in Microsoft's new downloadable game service. Not Xbox Live Arcade, but a new category of $30 titles that are a lot meatier, similar to some of PSN's downloads (GT5P).

And eventually we'll get full downloadable titles. Hard drive "installs" are 90% of the way there, all they need now is integrated DRM into the files instead of DRM through the discs.

I think it's already been confirmed that it won't be downloadable.

Also, for whoever else was asking, it doesn't have its own multiplayer mode.

 

[ToyMachine228]

Oh and I just want to say...I love that SMG with a Silencer I hope Recon does a lot of tinkering with stuff like that.

 

[DancingJesus]

Only 3 hours?

Damn...

 

[dammitmattt]

Is this another attempt at "You are talking about what you don't know?" :lol

Bungie themselves said it wouldn't be DLC aiight!?

It's still not 100% confirmed, and as we've seen before, Microsoft makes the final call.

With that said, why does it matter to you what format the game?

 

[The Nature Roy]

Only 3 hours?

Damn...

Yeah, that sounds awfully short. The scarier thing is generally when a developer claims 10-12 hours, that really means 6-7.

Still, I'm looking forward to learning more. I actually liked the campaign of Halo 3 quiet a bit and had plenty of fun with the co-op.

 

[WrikaWrek]

It's still not 100% confirmed, and as we've seen before, Microsoft makes the final call.

With that said, why does it matter to you what format the game?

What does it matter what?

I happen to think that if it's such a short campaign, why not go with the DLC? I think it would make more sense to release such an expansion that way. It would do a much better job of passing this as a sort of "episode" imo.

And it was on Bungie net that it won't be DLC.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=15806

Will the Recon campaign content or the other multiplayer maps be available through Xbox LIVE Marketplace?

Beyond the Mythic Map Pack early next year, there are no plans to release other portions of the Recon package outside of the retail box.

I guess it's not 100% until a year after it launches, you never know. And yes, it's up to MS, like the pricing, will it not matter to you either if it's 30$ or 60$?

Do you have a problem that i have an opinion? You seem like it.

 

[dammitmattt]

What does it matter what?

I happen to think that if it's such a short campaign, why not go with the DLC? I think it would make more sense to release such an expansion that way. It would do a much better job of passing this as a sort of "episode" imo.

And it was on Bungie net that it won't be DLC.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=15806

I guess it's not 100% until a year after it launches, you never know. And yes, it's up to MS, like the pricing, will it not matter to you either if it's 30$ or 60$?

Do you have a problem that i have an opinion? You seem like it.

The pricing/content balance is VERY important to me, but unlike you, I'm not ready to criticize Bungie or Microsoft until we actually have a reason. Bungie has said it will be priced as an expansion so I'll believe them until I have reason not to. You are complaining purely based on your own speculation that it will be priced too high.

Also, why does it matter whether it's DLC or disc-based if the price is right? The only legitimate complaint would be if you somehow couldn't get the Mythic maps exported so you could play them with either disc.

 

[Mr Vociferous]

I happen to think that if it's such a short campaign, why not go with the DLC? I think it would make more sense to release such an expansion that way. It would do a much better job of passing this as a sort of "episode" imo.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure that the Tsavo Highway delta test for Halo 3 was well over a gig for Microsoft employees. 3-5 hours of content tells me that there's at least 3-5 missions, possibly more depending on their size. I only have a 20gb hard drive, but I'd gladly push the existing content out for DLC on this game. Some people might not be so forgiving, particularly if it hedges close to 2gb's or more.

All of that said and while your premise works in both your and my situations, it fails to reach every single Xbox 360 Halo fan (practically guaranteed sale) who does not have a hard drive or access to an internet connection -- or to those who have both but don't have Xbox Live. I think Bungie and Microsoft will be trying to make this system of delivery acceptable for everyone in the long run.

Now, I wouldn't be opposed to having a digital distribution of the campaign and the new maps in advance of the game's release date, to promote hard drive ownership and Xbox Live subscriptions. Any fantastical thing (and this is pure fantasy) that can get this product into my greedy little hands quicker is fine by me.

 

[REV 09]

recon sounds fine to me if priced right. i'm pretty confident in the quality of the expansion. What i'm more worried about is Microsoft trying to pass a 3-5 hour expansion with a few extra maps off as their big 09 title for the hardcore crowd.

2006:Gears of War
2007:Halo 3
2008:Gears of War 2
2009:better be more than Halo 3:Recon

 

[Esch]

Are they updating the engine at all for this expansion?

 

[gbovo]

recon sounds fine to me if priced right. i'm pretty confident in the quality of the expansion. What i'm more worried about is Microsoft trying to pass a 3-5 hour expansion with a few extra maps off as their big 09 title for the hardcore crowd.

2006:Gears of War
2007:Halo 3
2008:Gears of War 2
2009:better be more than Halo 3:Recon

Call of Duty 6?

 

[The Librarian]

recon sounds fine to me if priced right. i'm pretty confident in the quality of the expansion. What i'm more worried about is Microsoft trying to pass a 3-5 hour expansion with a few extra maps off as their big 09 title for the hardcore crowd.

2006:Gears of War
2007:Halo 3
2008:Gears of War 2
2009:better be more than Halo 3:Recon

Alan Wake, Halo Wars...

3 to 5 means 3 hours for me.

Fixed.

 

[gbovo]

Alan Wake, Halo Wars...


Fixed.

Halo Wars comes out in February 09. Alan Wake is kind of an unknown quantity right now (beyond little rumors here and there).

 

[AndresON777]

I'll buy it either way but I hope it's not over 40, though if they include Halo 3 maps it'll prolly be 50...at least.

 

[The Nature Roy]

Does anyone remember how long Bungie claimed the Halo 3 singleplayer campaign would be prior to launch? That might be a good reference point.

 

[Blader]

If it's only 3-5 hours, it better not cost anymore than $30. That's just way too short to spend even $40 on.

 

[REV 09]

Alan Wake, Halo Wars...


Fixed.

Alan Wake nor Halo Wars will satisfy the Gears/Halo crowd...at this point i think the only possibility is a new IP or a reinvention of the Perfect Dark franchise. I don't doubt that MS has a lot of unannounced stuff in the pipeline, but i haven't seen THE game to get yet for fall 09.

CoD6 should be hot, but that's multiplatform...not to diminish multiplatform titles.

 

[FFChris]

recon sounds fine to me if priced right. i'm pretty confident in the quality of the expansion. What i'm more worried about is Microsoft trying to pass a 3-5 hour expansion with a few extra maps off as their big 09 title for the hardcore crowd.

2006:Gears of War
2007:Halo 3
2008:Gears of War 2
2009:better be more than Halo 3:Recon

Alan Wake.

 

[WrikaWrek]

Fixed.

It's not fixed.

Devs always say like "Oh it's 8 to 12, it's 10 to 15", but it's always the lower number they give that ends up being real for a traditional gamer.

I mean seriously, 3 to 5 hours? So the error margin is of 60% or some shit? :lol

Give me a break.

 

[Chinner]

It's not fixed.

Devs always say like "Oh it's 8 to 12, it's 10 to 15", but it's always the lower number they give that ends up being real for a traditional gamer.

I mean seriously, 3 to 5 hours? So the error margin is of 60% or some shit? :lol

Give me a break.

these are halo fanboys. they'll probably look at each texture for 10 minutes and think of a back story to it. "ah so the mud on this stone was caused by a increase of humidity and wind that caused the mud from the cliff to melt and drop onto the stone"

 

[The Librarian]

It's not fixed.

Devs always say like "Oh it's 8 to 12, it's 10 to 15", but it's always the lower number they give that ends up being real for a traditional gamer.

I mean seriously, 3 to 5 hours? So the error margin is of 60% or some shit? :lol

Give me a break.

How do you know it won't take me 5 hours to complete it? How do you know it won't take Ghal 5 hours? How do you know it won't take Voc, Coco, EazyB, Ram, Doms, Nutter, etc, 5 hours?

It was fixed. You aren't the only person who loves Halo.

Alan Wake nor Halo Wars will satisfy the Gears/Halo crowd...

As a whole maybe not, but I don't care about the "Gears/Halo crowd" either way.

 

[The Nature Roy]

As a whole maybe not, but I don't care about the "Gears/Halo crowd" either way.

Yeah, but you can be sure that Microsoft does (at least their wallets). They need an exclusive AAA shooter for Holiday '09. I agree that a short Halo campaign expansion probably doesn't quite fit the bill.

 

[WrikaWrek]

How do you know it won't take me 5 hours to complete it? How do you know it won't take Ghal 5 hours? How do you know it won't take Voc, Coco, EazyB, Ram, Doms, Nutter, etc, 5 hours?

It was fixed. You aren't the only person who loves Halo.

Yeah, the game can take 20 hours to finish if i want to. I'll just walk around. Shoot some walls, etc

 

[The Librarian]

Yeah, the game can take 20 hours to finish if i want to. I'll just walk around. Shoot some walls, etc

You're missing the point.

 

[WrikaWrek]

You're missing the point.

No i'm not. Basically they are saying "If you like FPSs, you will finish this in X amount of time, if you never touched a game of this type in your life, or you just plain suck, it might take Y amount of time".

Do the math. 3 to 5 hours, it's a huge difference, which means a huge difference in skill is involved.

 

[Hellion]

Never trust reviews from magazines that have game exclusive! some integrty was sacrafied for this =/

 

[The Librarian]

No i'm not. Basically they are saying "If you like FPSs, you will finish this in X amount of time, if you never touched a game of this type in your life, or you just plain suck, it might take Y amount of time".

Do the math. 3 to 5 hours, it's a huge difference, which means a huge difference in skill is involved.

:lol
You're telling me to do the math when you are the one who said that when they say "3 to 5 hours" it means "3 hours?" Okay.

Point is that what might be a 3 hour game to you might be a five hour game to someone else. As I said, you aren't the only Halo fan around.

 

[WrikaWrek]

:lol
You're telling me to do the math when you are the one who said that when they say "3 to 5 hours" it means "3 hours?" Okay.

Point is that what might be a 3 hour game to you might be a five hour game to someone else. As I said, you aren't the only Halo fan around.

Point is that they made content to last 3 yours. Depending on your skill/difficulty (Not content), the game might take up to 5 hours to complete.

If you can't understand that, then i don't know what else to say to you, i think it's pretty simple, and i can't dumb it down any further.

 

[The Librarian]

Point is that they made content to last 3 yours. Depending on your skill/difficulty (Not content), the game might take up to 5 hours to complete.

That "3 hours" depends on the difficulty, etc. Since there isn't a standard level of skill people have, there's no way to make a game a certain amount of time for "x" person. What may be a 3 hour game to you may be a five hour game to someone else.

Edit:
They could have made it to be 3 hours on easy for all you know, and thus will take you longer on other difficulties, and that 3 hours on easy still depends on the skill of the person, so you don't know.

 

[Dyno]

It's a great idea, but 3-5 hours? Come on! Just cook it a while longer. Is this episodic crap really working for them?

 

[Dirtbag]

Never trust reviews from magazines that have game exclusive! some integrty was sacrafied for this =/

:lol

Dude its a preview

 

[Deleted member 21120]

If it were 12-16 hours, then it'd be a AAA title, which we've already had three of, which would mean that Halo is being milked. But it's a 3-5 hour campaign, which is... somehow... also a milking.

Let it go, Dax; if Wrika isn't excited about the team working on it, the story that's being told, and the things that we've heard about the game via podcasts, then this isn't an argument you're gonna win.

 

[DeadGzuz]

No thread for the reviews?

Motorstorm got robbed, 7.25 - he says:

"Compared to recent racing offerings like Pure, Pacific Rift fails to get the heart pumping"

WTF? Then in the same issue they give Baja a 8.0. It's official , GI is a random number generator for review scores.

 

[GhaleonEB]

If it were 12-16 hours, then it'd be a AAA title, which we've already had three of, which would mean that Halo is being milked. But it's a 3-5 hour campaign, which is... somehow... also a milking.

Let it go, Dax; if Wrika isn't excited about the team working on it, the story that's being told, and the things that we've heard about the game via podcasts, then this isn't an argument you're gonna win.

Yeah. The entire concept sounds like a love letter to hardcore fans.

It's semantics, but I see more as fan service than milking. The ODST, the Recon reference, the fictional setting and the fact that it's campaign content made by the old-school Halo crew at Bungie all seem aimed at giving various sets of Halo fans exactly what they want. For those who are into the fiction - you know who you are - the setting is crazy fucking awesome. ODST's have long been a fan favorite. And more campaign is something a lot of us have been begging for. The fact that the feature set is coming with it - four player co-op, saved films, skulls (I assume) - mean it's going to have way more depth than most expansions.

As for the length, I can see why it's a wide range. Halo 3's campaign can be four or 15 hours, depending how you set it up. Assuming Recon has skulls, that could extend a single-player romp vastly, not to mention the various co-op permutations. It may be a short trip, but if it's half as deep as Halo 3's campaign, hoooooo boy.

I'm just excited we're getting more campaign play from Bungie. It utterly sucks balls that Microsoft is holding half of the Mythic maps back for a full year to bundle them with this, but that's Microsoft for you. Bungie has said many times they don't consider this to be a full-price game, but an expansion, but with MS holding MP content back for it I assume that's so they can jack the price up a bit. I'm guessing we'll see $39.99 for it.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

recon sounds fine to me if priced right. i'm pretty confident in the quality of the expansion. What i'm more worried about is Microsoft trying to pass a 3-5 hour expansion with a few extra maps off as their big 09 title for the hardcore crowd.

2006:Gears of War
2007:Halo 3
2008:Gears of War 2
2009:better be more than Halo 3:Recon

"Secret Xbox 360 game"

 

[Kibbles]

Alan Wake, Halo Wars...


Fixed.

Halo Wars? :lol Besides that comes out in February.

 

[Mr Vociferous]

As for the length, I can see why it's a wide range. Halo 3's campaign can be four or 15 hours, depending how you set it up. Assuming Recon has skulls, that could extend a single-player romp vastly, not to mention the various co-op permutations. It may be a short trip, but if it's half as deep as Halo 3's campaign, hoooooo boy.

I'm not sure why there's any concern about length from anyone at this point. I don't typically play Halo 3 co-op in 6-10 hours stints, I do it in 3-5 at the very most -- and, I'm usually playing the same handful of my favorite levels every time. If these missions are as fun as Bungie's previous urban missions, I'd guess that we'll have a nice campaign block we can play in one sitting for months at a time. We'll also have six new multiplayer maps, which is likely to be the culmination of map design for Halo 3, since Halo 2 also had some of its best maps released post-launch. I'm confident H3R will be well worth the wait.

 

[Manager]

No thread for the reviews?

Still none? Saw in the Remnant thread that it got 7.