Bungie Update:

More Matchmaking Awesomeness!! http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topne...

Well I don't play Forza that much online either, rather I meant playing time trials and not all the other single player stuff like the HUGE single player career mode. Not racing against other cars and only against the clock is such a small fraction of the experience.

Halo's campaign is fun, but the online part opens up SOOOO many aspects of the game's design you can never come close to appreciating in the single player.

Put down the CS bud, you are in for a real treat
Bad Company 2 is another amazing FPS online if you have a lot of patience with retard teammates.

Heh it's interesting you'd mention pros, it's precisely what has kept me so interested in cs 1.6 and before it 1.5 as long as I have. I find the competitive aspect of it highly entertaining. The displays of skill, the various strategies used by the top teams (especially the europeans, swedes especially), the surprise upset matches, the amazing double, triple overtime matches. All of it is just stuff I've always found highly exciting and there were so many awesome tournaments with awesome teams to watch thanks to HLTV ips with a one round delay from the real match. World Cyber Games, Cyber Professional League, Electronic Sports World Cup, and various big European lans, some of which I don't remember the spelling for at this moment.

It also helps that I've known and played with a number of professional players and am pretty good friends with what was easily the most popular north american gaming team out there at one point, Team 3D. At one point they branched out and added what was the best Halo team out there at the time, think they go by Final Boss now, not sure how good they are anymore, don't really pay attention to the Halo scene that much. And then, of course, I worked on their website for that Directv Gaming League, The Championship Gaming Series, although they were playing crappy CS Source then, with crappy rules which totally killed a big part of what made me like the competitive scene in the first place, but it didn't take long for 1.6 to come back to the forefront of the competitive scene.

If my experience with CS was based purely on the public gaming side of things, I would've bee done with it a long time ago, but the competitive scene really opened it up for me as something that was completely unique and unlike anything else out there, which gave the game replay value like I can't even explain, because I was always so fascinated by watching these amazing players and teams compete against one another. Nonetheless though, as awesome as the competitive scene still is, it isn't anything like what it use to be, and I don't bother trying to take teams I play on too seriously anymore, even though I still play on them for fun every now and then, so Halo Reach and tons of other online titles here I come :)

Wow, awesome bungie update :)

Amazing stuff.

Loads of player questions on ARENA answered by the devs.

http://halo.bungie.org/misc/ferrex_arena_answers_2...

Bungie taking it to another level again.

wow those were some very interesting answers

Whoah thats allot of cool info right there.

:D

Nice pic, i wonder how the controls on the jet-pack will feel?

I'm glad they got rid of the gold visors, should be a bit easier to hide now

Yet more proof that Bungie gets gameplay!!

No in-game benefits to armor? That's what they think! My Spartan looking cooler than someone elses' will directly lead to me being a better Halo player :P

When people see my Spartan, they will lose all self esteem.

Can I just say hat's off to Bungie for not jumping on board with this whole "carrot on a stick" trend of making players level up to unlock new weapons as a way to get the player to log in more hours and keep playing. Sure it is addictive and does add incentive to keep playing, but it also makes being a casual player even MORE punishing for those who don't have time to play the game 200 hours a day.

Very very few devs get gameplay and balance like Bungie do. I really hope Bungie does a much more serious toned game after Reach as I love their games, but I am getting pretty tired of the entire Halo vibe. That being said, I certainly expect Reach to be the best console shooter so far this gen, at least in terms of online value. I'm still not convinced how good the campaign will be, but if it's as much like CE as they say, then it should be pretty damn good.

Very cool idea.

Whenever I think of the type of game I'd like to see Bungie do after Halo Reach, my mind keeps running on the upcoming Platinum Games title Vanquish :P

So, they're including full customisation with regards to your Spartan, whilst maintaining balance in gameplay? Take note, Infinity Ward. Take note.

QFT! It's so obvious Bungie puts so much love into their game, maybe its because it the game that made them but it feels like most devs now don't love their games as much.

..that too was a dig at Infinity Ward.

5000 cR's for Oonsk!

I would like to see an option to turn off the "red vs. blue" color scheme though. With all the cool character customization, it's a shame to make an awesome looking spartan that you really can't appreciate nearly as much when most of the game types force the red/blue color scheme on you.

I'd like to see an option where you could turn this off and just have different colored icons above each players head like in BF or most other shooters, just so we can better enjoy the fruit of our creative labors more often

Not a huge deal, just something that bugged me in Halo 3, I didn't like the look of my armor nearly as much when all red/blue. Too cartoon looking imo.

I think Halo 2 players had icons above their heads, I'm not so keen on everyone using their own colours on team based games, especially if you play with no map, just like MW2 therey will be so many betrayals.