I woke up this morning and decided to turn on my 360. To my suprise there were a few downloadables waiting for me to click on em. How was I to know that today would be a great day in gaming?

First things first. TODAY ONLY is Bungie Day! What does that mean? Well it means that there are a few goodies to download, but as stated earlier, only until midnight tonight. For the Halo fans out there, we have a brand new multiplayer map, its small but a lot of fun. Also we get a bunch of gamer pics commemerating the day, and a new theme for our dashboard. I am pretty happy with the new level, though I still long for the hugh snow level from Halo 1 to be available for download someday, but its cool. Small enough for some frag action, but big enough to give you a few seconds to break in between kills. The theme is meh, but I like the pics. They are nothing amazing, but hell I will not complain about free stuff!

Secondly we have the long awaited Rainbow Six Vegas 2 maps! Last week the patch went through which upped the A.C.E.S count so we could level without just grinding like mad. Hell I went up 3 levels and only need 30K more to get to Elite when the patch came out. But it also fixed some issues. Below is the complete update listing… 

*** Update Features ***New A.C.E.S.Grenade IndicatorWeapons & Gadgets Balancing

New Ranks

An additional 99 Elite Ranks have been added for bragging rights. For those of you who are already Elite, you may have noticed that your XP continued to accumulate while playing. Once you have the update, your XP will automatically be applied towards the new Elite ranks, so it is possible that you have already ranked up multiple times past Elite.

A total of 100 A.C.E.S. are available for each category: Marksman, CQB and Assault. Each A.C.E.S. level past 20 will reward you with 5000 XP that applies to your rank. For players who have already reached A.C.E.S. 20 and continued to collect A.C.E.S. points, you will be happy to know that the update will automatically advance you to the level you have earned. For example, if you have enough A.C.E.S. points to reach Marksman 25, you will automatically be at Marksman 25 and earn 25000 (5000 x 5) towards your next Rank.

When you are within the damage radius of a Frag or Incendiary grenade, an indicator will appear on-screen telling you which direction it is. The indicator can show multiple grenades at once.

Here are a couple of notes about Weapons and Gadgets:
• Explosion delay of the incendiary grenade has been increased
• Detonation speed of the C4 has been slightly increased
• Increased the damage of Sniper Rifles at long range
• Increased the base accuracy of the Light Machine Guns
• Adjusted the rate of fire for some of the Assault Rifles, Shotguns and an SMG
• Sped up the time it takes to zoom in & out with weapons, making it more responsive

To better clarify: the zoom for all firearms have been significantly sped-up and you can now fire DURING the zoom transition. 

Respawns in Team Deathmatch – Host OptionVoice Chat – Host OptionScore in DeathmatchTeam Leader – Spawn ChangeShow Dead Players in LobbyTerrorist Hunt Spawning
* * * * *

An added host option has been added for Random Respawns. Random Respawns OFF will play like the classic Versus style where each team spawns in their designated Alpha or Bravo base. Random Respawns ON will have your players spawn randomly throughout the map after they die the first time.

Added as a host option for Player Match & System Link, players now have the option to talk to their team mates while dead.

Displayed on the bottom left of the HUD in Deathmatch, players can now see their score along with the top opponent’s score.

Players now respawn next to the leader by default, unless players specifically choose to spawn back at the base.

Players who no longer have lives remaining will now have a skull icon displayed next to their name in the pause menu.

Terrorists will no longer spawn right in front of you or behind you, or in a room you just cleared.

High Stakes SettingLimited HUD (High Stakes)Health System (High Stakes)Cover System (High Stakes)Weapons & Gadgets (High Stakes)

High Stakes is a host option for every Versus mode that really pushes tactical gameplay to the next level. Here’s a detailed description of High Stakes:

The Radar is disabled. Enemies will not be visible on the Tactical Map (back button on 360/select button on PS3). Grenade indicator is disabled.

Health regen is disabled. If you are shot and close to death, you’ll enter a visual state of critical health (screen turns monochromatic).

The cover system as been changed in High-Stakes mode to encourage players to peek instead of pop-n-shoot. The camera has been moved so your character cannot look past their cover unless they expose themselves around a corner.

Aim Assistance has been completely disabled. Bullet spread has also been increased when not zoomed-in (you will notice your crosshair indicators are much wider when not in zoom). Realistically, a person holding a gun would have better aim when zoomed-in than when he’s walking around. This encourages players to really take aim instead of run-n-gun. Also remember that the zoom time has been sped-up and you can now fire WHILE you zoom in and out. Players now have less ammunition (1 for each gadget you choose and less clips for your guns) so you really need to play conservatively and rely on precision use of ammo.

Kill Camera & Friendly Fire (High Stakes)
Kill Camera is always disabled and Friendly fire is always enabled.

Now for the new maps. 2 of them are just night versions of maps we already have (Murdertown, and CQB Training), and the 3rd is Calypso Casino level from the first vegas game. Yes yes I was also a little meh about getting 2 maps I already had, but just setting them in the night makes them so funky and your tactics a lot different. With the lack of crisp viewing distance, it is harder to plan out your attack and to make sure your flank is clear. The Casino was the level I was most excited about, only problem it isnt the best setup. You will take out half of the enemies in the level on the roof. I was hoping it would be more of an infiltrate the casino by taking out a few guards then take out the guys inside thing. But then again, its free and gives me another level to enjoy. I have been wanting new levels forever, and I am glad that Ubi decided to give them to the loyal customer. THANKS GUYS!

And on a side note, all you guitar hero and Rock Band fans get a free song to commemerate the 4th of July. I cant vouch for the Rock Band song, but the guitar hero is a lot of fun and worth the download.

Oh and so you all know, my gamertag is TenderRoast1. Feel free to hit me up on XBox Live and we can play some matches of a game. Have a good one!

This entry was posted by James on Monday, July 7th, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.