I have been a bit deprived of Xbox LIVE recently. This week saw me once again logging onto LIVE to see what things I have missed.
So after downloading several gigs worth of demos onto my hard drive, I came across Halo Waypoint. Now me being the journalist I am, I personally have not heard much about this new addition to LIVE. Which is quite surprising really, seeing as I live and breath all things Halo pretty much. You could probably imagine my excitement when I saw the words, Halo, Download and Free pop up on the screen, so without hesitation I proceeded to download this interesting little gadget.
Now I approach games in two different ways. The casual way, which is for things like beautiful Katamari and Guitar Hero, these games I am not fussed about getting 100 percent completion, I am there to enjoy the game and what it has to offer. Then there is the completionists way, where I approach a game and want to milk it for every little thing it has to offer me. Halo for me is a completionists game, I have owned Halo 3 for years now and still have not got all the achievements.
This is when Halo Waypoint steps in and gives me a helping hand. For those of you out there who have no idea of what this little gem is I will fill you in. This is a Halo dashboard that links all your Halo games together in a nice neat little package as well as updating you on all things Halo.
So how does it go about wrapping all you halo games up? Well what it does is it calculates your overall achievement score on Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. It then takes that number and applies it to its own unique scoring system giving you an overall Halo Career score and set of awards. It even shows you how many achievement points you have gained over the corse of your Halo gaming career.
Before I get to carried away with my excitement let me give you some examples. Waypoint says I have an overall Halo achievement score of 1405G. That is all my gamer points added up from Halo 3, Halo Wars and Halo 3 ODST. It then takes that number and applies it to Halo Career Milestones. At the moment I am on Milestone 25, for hitting the 1400 gamer point mark. I can progress through these milestones by unlocking more achievements from any of the three games. But thats not all, you are also granted Waypoint Awards. These are medals given to you based on elements of gameplay thought the Halo 360 series. For example I have 8 out of the 15 awards which include: Special Weapons, Explorer, Halo 3 A.C.E, Halo 3: ODST A.C.E and so on. These awards are given to you depending on how many achievements you have unlocked in that particular bracket. So if I were to go into Explorer, it will show me the achievements needed to unlock that award, like finding all the skulls in Halo 3 or finding the audio tapes in ODST. The more achievements you unlock for that award, the higher your award tier. So I have a Tier 4 Explorer award because I went out my way to find the skulls in Halo 3 and stuff like that.
This is a fantastic tool for completionists, and general Halo braggers out there to really show off their achievements. But it doesn’t stop there, oh no. Waypoint gives you avatar unlockables. These unlockables are tied into Halo achievements, so If you say unlock a certain achievement on ODST the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper armour will be unlocked for your avatar. It’s little things like this that get geeks like us all riled up and wanting to unlock all Halo achievements, I mean c’mon, dress your avatar up like an ODST with guilty spark flying round your head? … Awesome!
Aside from the Halo career path, Waypoint updates you with the latest Video, images and news from all corners of the gaming globe. Wanna catch up on Red Vs Blue? or take a look at IGN’s Halo features? Or maybe you want to know the latest on Reach or the new Halo DLC? Well it is all here, plus it will be updating all Halo fans with the Halo anime series as well.
Halo Waypoint is, in a word, Huge and awesome (ok that was two words) but it does bring the games into a nice neat little package, packed full with its own achievements and awards, with a side order of news, videos and images on all things halo. This is a must download for anyone who has been bitten by the Halo bug.





