News:Oracle Newsletter Volume XVII

{| border=0 colspan=0 colspacing=0 class="toccolours" style="margin: 1em auto;text-align:left; font-size:90%; width:100%;" The Oracle The Official Newsletter of Halopedia Volume XVII - September 15, 2007 Player customization Written by Ajax 013, tbd
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Player Customisation
I’m sure you’ve read, heard of or watched new on player customisation on Halo 3, but what do you really know? Today I’m going to drag you into the deep, murky and unknown world of Player Customisation in Halo 3 and maybe give you a few ideas come Halo 3.

Colouring
Remember in Halo 2 how you could sit there, take a choice of your two colors and have two distinct section of your armor change color? Boring wasn’t it? Usually it ended up pretty monotonous. No fun. However come Halo 3 the coloring has received a new overhaul, breathing new life and originality into it. Lets start from the top.

You can now choose the colour of every individual piece, no longer having to be restricted to changing only a small section. Your shoulders, limbs, head and legs can all be changed to make your avatar of destruction all the more fearsome or ridiculous looking. Lets see who is first to turn their Spartan into Hello kitty.

Now there is a new opening for decaling your armour. You can now add ‘go faster stripes’ to your armour (though no 1337 effects to your speed). You can add stripes to your limbs and your helmet, some with a decal denoting ‘VI’, AKA your armor. Though its unknown what color you can get for these, you can only imagine the effects possible.

Gamer tag
Remember just picking an image, a pair of colors then a background? Not exciting is it? Well now that’s had a overhaul as well, lets delve into that….

Now there are more images, much more, with things like pirates, kitties (hell kitty Spartans again!) and all the originals back. But no more of the same backgrounds any more, you can no choose a geometric shape to be printed on your back ground and then turned into an emblem of your awesomeness. Cool, no?

Armour Permutations
Now, the one you’ve been waiting for, the armor permutations. Everyone has seen these before, with two being officially revealed by Bungie. However, due to diligent work by the halopedians and myself, we’ve confirmed images of eight MJOLNIR variations and five Elite variations, with a total of 10 MJOLNIR and 5 Elite variations being confirmed in Epsilon. Now lets have a quick run down of what we’ve found.

There’s the Mark VI of course, but we all know of that but there is also Close Quarters Battle Armor, a bulked up MJOLNIR suit complete with added guards and even a knife sheath in its chest plate. Best not to tango with this guy. Next comes the EVA, a space suit first brought to mention in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx. Though believed to be inspired by the SPI armour of the Spartan-IIIs, this is a whole different beast with little common links in their design. Going on to the ones we know little of, there is the ‘Ninja’ armour, a suit first spotted by sharp eyed halopedians in the Bungie Day picture on the 7th of July. Later leaked imagery, including Bungie’s own Luke Smith using it at PAX ‘07 and the image being leaked to the internet confirmed this further. The next, the ‘Killzone’ armour is a armor found in leaked renders of the MJOLNIR variations. Like a horrific love child of the Gear’s armour from Halo 3’s xbox 360 nemesis, Gears of War and the helmet of the Helghast soldier from Halo’s PS2 and 3 nemesis, Killzone, it appears totally alien next to the other MJOLNIR armor sets. It was later spotted on the 17th of September in a recent update on Isolation. Discovered at the same time, another, totally unknown armour, with a unique design bearing no similarities to those the came before, there is little known on this. Next is the ‘ODST’ armour, first discovered being used by Frankie O’Connor at PAX ’07 against his comrade Luke Smith, was quickly reconfirmed on the 17th of September in a recent update on Isolation. The last armor to be found, also on the Isolation is many retro fan’s dream. Remember your first adventure on the derelict ring world? Ever wished you could get your old mark V back? Well now you can, with the Mark V returning to frontline service! Nothing quite beats the golden days of deep space alien killing! Apart from that, there are two more yet to be announced but we eagerly await their arrival!

Now onto our Elite comrades, though somewhat neglected, having only half the designs, they do have just as many original designs though. They have the tried and tested Elite Combat Armor, everyone recognises this as their default, then they have the Elite Assault Armor, a design inspired in no part by the Elite Ranger, their Zero G warrior. Now here’s one with an unconfirmed name, the Elite Flight Armor, armor for the discerning pilot. With some design ideas taken from that of the Assault Armor, it gives a similar but wholly different feel of awesome. However, onto the more unknown, there is the first unknown armor, a set compared to the armor of iron man (though doesn’t help much the only picture found is red!) with two blue eye slits then a blue light in the forehead. On the second, similar in ways to the Ranger as well, this one holds a pair of blades on the cheeks, like something you’d expect a brute to wear.

Oh, there’s more?
You still hyped? You better be, but this one goes out to the ladies. There is now an option to change your gender, giving you the option to give your Spartan a female voice. Though its unknown if you have this choice with Elites (can anybody imagine a female Elite? How about reversing and slowing voice clips of Cortana?) but the new choice is a must for the ladies of gaming and gender benders everywhere.


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