Xbox Live Preview: The Halo Waypoint Update

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Jesse Burrows and I’m a new writer for Gamesthirst.com. I bring 25 years of social gaming and passion to the gaming table. With the introduction being said lets jump right to business, shall we?

After turning on my Xbox 360 to check out the free Forza 3 LCE that was accidently leaked (It does look nice on the dashboard), I found the Halo Waypoint update, available to Xbox Live Update Preview consoles only. First off, let me say I’m not the Halo player that I used to be since Halo 2, but I did play Halo 3. This update is for all you Halo fans out there.

The update offers everything a fan would be interested in. From a set of achievements, to a complete update on all the Halo news. As I navigated through the menus, I unlocked an avatar award, which got me excited and anticipating what else the update had to offer. On the menu, two options exist to open up everything:

The Intel and Career tab. The Intel tab gives all the latest news and past events that went on with the Halo: ODST launch, I personally won’t check out this tab since I haven’t really been playing Halo. It also opened a new set of menus called Career Milestones, Waypoint Awards and finally, Achievements. The Career Milestones tab tracks your progress from all three Halo games (minus Halo 1 and 2); you have to complete 40 milestones to reach a grand total of 2,900 points. For all you who have not completed the fight like me, you can have about eight milestones completed when you start the update. I really don’t know what the reward is for having the milestones complete because I haven’t.

This update gives me the fuel to buy the game again so I can unlock all the milestones. The waypoint awards are a collection of 15 awards that show when you beat the games on various levels. The achievements tab is exactly what it says it is. Last, but definitely not least is the Learn More tab, which breaks down everything you need to know to navigate around the Waypoint. Anyone out there who is a Halo fan and doesn’t have access to the update now can check it out on November 5.

10/31/09 Jesse Burrows