Rockmanneo12

The new Cod4 and Halo3 Map packs are out. Cod4 coming out last week and halo3’s coming out just yesterday. Since Dark had a better look at the maps I’ll let him leave an explanation below. As for Cod4 if you’ve played Cod2 you’ll recognize one of the new maps, “China Town” to be a remake of an old favorite. the Halo3 map pack itself had a few remakes. One from Halo 1 & 2. I’m sure I left out enough for Dark to fill in but I can’t remember much on the Cod4 maps because I’ve been busy playing other games. I’ll post links to Gamespot reviews of these map packs below.10 Bucks a map pack may seem expensive to the cheap but it really isn’t, help those map designers feed their familys even though they definitely have the money you Pricks!

(Click here for more info on the Cod4 map pack)

(Click here for more info on the Halo3 Legendary Map pack)

As for PC games we have resorted to Half-life one mods.

The Specialists

-Matrix style game play

Half-Life 2: Jaykin’ Bacon Source

-Death simulator

Sven Co-op

-Solo play will get you no where.

Go to the pages yourself if your interested.

As for me, I’m waiting on GTA4 and Mario Kart for the Wii to come out. (A week and a half’s wait) In my free time I’ve been progressing in my scripting education in lua.

Practice doesn’t make perfect but it compiles easier. ™

-Rockman
This has led me to tampering with PMod again. Speaking of which there’s a guy named DarkNovaClan on the FacePunch Forums who’s been doing model animations for all the models. he even fixed those nasty weapon animation problems with CSS models. Go to the PMod thread to see my latest changes to the thread to go by his explanations. The only recent changes to the script I made were to exclude a few more loose animations from being added to the player menu because that’s just uneeded clutter.

He also did a really good mod that I recomend getting that adds seats to the game (Like PHX did the airboat seat) but unlike that one little seat we got in PHX these have perfect sitting animations. Plus he adds a passenger seat to the Vehicles (not Airboat). Here’s some pics:

If your interested here’s a link the the FacePunch Thread. There’s also these new Halo3 models out. We just need to get around to hexing in those new animations before we skin our own versions. Here’s a link to that off garry’s mod community downloads.

Maps for Legends

I downloaded the Legendary Map Pack yesterday and played through them. Keep reading for my thoughts on these levels, and also to eyeball the sweet banners I made for each map.

Avalanche! The much-anticipated remake of Sidewinder. To my knowledge it’s the largest map in any Halo game, even surpassing Sandtrap in size.

Overall the geometry of Avalanche remains essentially unchanged from Sidewinder, keeping the same horseshoe-shaped level with a base at either end of the horseshoe, but some awesome things lay in between. The outside curve of the horseshoe is now an open cliff edge, and vaulting over it will cause you to fall to your death into a floe of icebergs.

The ladders in the base were replaced with ramps, with a Man Cannon at the top which launches players out into the middle of their team’s side. At the landing of that Man Cannon there’s one which leads right back to where the first one launches from, which will probably make for some frantic attempts to capture the flag and make a quick getaway.

The teleporter in each base is still there, which leads out to two lookout points on either side of the horseshoe curve, which are two elevated points with rocket launchers, with plain sight to the center of the curve, which has a tripmine and a Spartan Laser in the center. Interestingly enough, there are also Man Cannons embedded in the walls behind these lookout points, and jumping into one will propel you into the center.

Halfway out each team’s side there is a shortcut tunnel which connects the two sides, with a shotgun spawn in the middle. Also connected here is a Man Cannon which can launch players to and from a corridor which leads to the tripmine and Spartan Laser.

Gameplay-wise, it plays the way you’d expect a large vehicle-based map to play. The DLC matchmaking playlist currently sets up team matches with four on each side, and even with four on each side, the map is still very large. Definitely a Big Team Battle map.

Cosmetically speaking, the map looks beautiful. Looking into the skybox, the map is situated on the Halo ring which was being constructed above the Ark at the end of the Campaign. Off in the distance you can see smoldering red patches where the ring is still being put together.

Also cool to notice are that all of the Human vehicles have had their traditional paintjobs replaced with white snowfield camouflage. A nice touch. The Hornet makes it first appearance as a default vehicle, but at a price. The machine gun firepower has been reduced, and there are no homing missiles. This only applies to this map, however.

Blackout. The remake of Lockout. While Guardian was supposed to be the throwback to Lockout, fan requests have brought back this classic almost exactly the same as it was back then. Now, however, instead of being situated under an icy cliff on Halo, it’s now a human weather station in the Antarctic. Comes complete with dazzling aurora effects in the night skies above.

Not much new to say about this map, the geometry is almost exactly the same as its Halo 2 counterpart, with most of the weapons in their same places. Even the fusion cores are where they used to be. The Battle Rifle platform which sits opposite the level to the Sniper Rifle tower is a little bit larger, but that’s pretty much it.

Ghost Town is something entirely new, but if I had to equate it to an existing map, I’d say it’s like a larger version of Halo 2’s Turf. It’s a lot of close, tightly-packed corridors with little room for vehicles. Ghost Town is a two-tiered level, and a lot of attention should be paid to what may be above or below you. I haven’t played on this one as much as the other two, but it was still a decent map to play some Shotty Snipers on.

They also added some new Forge stuff which I unfortunately didn’t get around to getting screens of. Spawnable items in the game actually create color filters on your screen, which can be placed in the level for both neat screenshots, as well as providing the right atmosphere for a level. The Gloomy effect darkens all of the colors, while enhancing light sources, which creates a real horror-movie style atmosphere. Put this on Blackout and you’ve got yourself a scary zombie match.

My final verdict? Well worth the $10 (800 Microsoft Points) I paid for it, and I say that overall this is better than the Heroic Pack. The pack weighs in at over 400+ MB, so go download it now!