Halo 5 Multiplayer Beta

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope for Christmas you got your Xbox One and Halo the Master Chief Collection because on December 29th 2014 the Halo 5 Guardians Multiplayer Beta will begin.

On December 19th a select lucky few who are in the Xbox Preview Program, like myself, were given special codes to enter the Beta during that weekend. Rest assured, I unfortunately missed it but I'm overly excited for it. Be careful out there, others have already had their hands on it for a weekend so the bar has been set.

The Halo 5 Multiplayer Beta, during the course of it's three week run, will have various unlockables in the form of new maps, new armor, and variations such as visor colors. Your spartan customization resembles what we've seen in Halo Reach and Halo 4.

The Beta will also add new abilities to the Halo universe.
Thruster Pack: The thruster pack will enable you to jet forward to close in the gaps between you and an opponent or side to side for evasion. 

Ground Pound: The ground pound is exactly as it sounds, your spartan will come slamming down with a devastating aerial attack.

Clamber: For the first time ever you will be able to clamber up those ledges that you just missed.

Sprint: Sprinting is nothing new to the Halo franchise however this time around you have unlimited sprinting ability to move around the arena or to give you two more spartan abilities. The catch however, once your shields are down, you can still sprint and move to cover, but your shields will not recover while sprinting. 

Slide: Once you reach terminal velocity you will be able to hit your crouch button and slide, enabling you to slide in under danger. 

Charge: Hitting the melee button while running will cause you to charge into an opponent knocking out their shields.

Smart Scope: Smart scope will allow you to scope and fire with every weapon as they will now be tied to your hud. 

To see these abilities in play, and if you haven't seen the ViDoc yet, I've embedded it below from IGN. 
Remember, the Halo Multipler begins December 29th and will run for 3 weeks. Red and Blue, time ot suit up!

-Nurd!

Xbox 720 vs Xbox 720?

Rumors has it that when the Xbox "720" comes out the console wars will start and that you may very well have to decide which to buy, the Xbox 720 or the Xbox 720.

Information has been leaked that when the Xbox 720 is released onto the masses that Microsoft will have two very different models to choose from.

The first Xbox will be the kind that we all know and love. This will be the gaming centric model that will include Xbox live and is said to run compatible with Windows 8.

The second model is going to try and tap into the casual gamer's market and not be able to play the AA titles that we see on Xbox today, like Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War, etc. This model will be predominately focus on streaming media like Netflix, Hulu, among the other apps featured in the Xbox dashboard.

The Xbox "720" has been rumored to use AMD's 7000 series graphics based on it's 28nm Graphics Core Next (GCN) Southern Islands tech.

A document that leaked in June 2012 indicates that the Xbox 720 will come packing 1080p 3D support, Blu-ray player and DVR functionality.

It has also been rumored that the Xbox 720 will no longer play used games (a similar rumor has been said to be true about the PS4) however this has not been confirmed yet. The fact that the Xbox 720 will require a constant online Internet connection may be one way that Microsoft plans to enable this feature. Such a move would kill the secondary game business for new games, however, in my point of view, it may simply be a way that Microsoft could limit your gamer score; by only allowing achievements from "new" games.

The aforementioned leaked document gave note that the suspected price point will be set at $299 but with two units on the horizon I would expect a higher price point for the gaming platform Xbox.

Microsoft recently went on a buying spree of URLs and one that seemed to stand out was xbox8.com lending to the idea that the Xbox 720 may see a name change by street date to Xbox Infinity.

By whatever name the flow of suspected and leaked information may indicate that official press for the new Xbox may be at hand, however I wouldn't look for anything prior to E3 2013 with an expected release date by Christmas that year.

-Nurd!