Jetpacks aren't exclusive to Spartans, they're used by Marines in Reach and mentioned several times in the books as a means to move around in zero-G, there would definitely have been some aboard the The Dawn at the end of Halo 3.

As for the other changes to the armour.. well.. how're they gonna sell a new range of action figures if they look exactly the same as the old ones?

The armour changed between Halo 2 and 3 and was never explained, I don't think it's worth getting hung up on. (Obviously some people will say it's game breaking and that they'll never buy another Microsoft product until they patch in the correct armour, but those people are MENTAL.)

Personally I'd like the jetpack to be a permanent feature of the suit, do away with Armour Abilities and just have jetpack and sprint as ever presents.

I'm currently reading harvest, and will move onto the cole protocol after that. I loved ghosts of onyx, that made me want to play 3, and look at the trailer for 4 again. Can't wait.

Which books do you recommend next? Grasslands, or cryptum?

Then get hold of cryptum and primordium. They are very very different from what you are reading at the moment.

Its glasslands

But that one, you have to read glasslands if you dont have it. It follows right on from onyx, I couldnt put it down, absolutely brilliant.

Then get hold of cryptum and primordium. They are very very different from what you are reading at the moment.

Is all of that on Kindle? do want.

Indeed. Minds will be blown

Jetpacks aren't exclusive to Spartans, they're used by Marines in Reach and mentioned several times in the books as a means to move around in zero-G, there would definitely have been some aboard the The Dawn at the end of Halo 3.

Im still early in but the forerunner lad has just revived that librarians husband.

The sentance that hooked me was in the prologue, the last line about how his action unleashed the last wave of the flood. Must. know.what.happens

Thats nothing, the ending of primordium, is just incredible, the final few sentences

With Halo 4, we’re taking a different approach and focusing on the storytelling aspects of art from the design standpoint. We don’t do that everywhere in the game, but we wanted to take this opportunity to really focus on Master Chief as a human being.

In Halo 4, we are interested in doing something the franchise does well on the book side, and that’s helping shape the narrative. Halo is a compelling and deep universe, and we want to tell the story of this bio-engineered super-soldier.

One of the Master Chief’s most notable physical characteristics is that he’s wearing 800 pounds of tank and jet fighter. So we pulled that design into the armor and HUD. When you play Halo 4, it’s important you understand that you’re more than just a gun on the screen. To give you that feeling, we have represented that weight with player physics, without interrupting crosshair and shooting accuracy.

When we first looked at the Chief’s armor, we studied what was done in Reach. We knew he needed to be understood as a nimble yet heavy superhero, and contrast that with Reach armor design that was more on the bulky side. Our goal is to hit that sweet spot where we represent what is fictionally true about the Chief while making sure you feel like you’re a super-powerful human being when you're playing him.

There’s a lot of dark history in the fiction, but the Master Chief has always been an aspirational character. In fact, the Chief’s looking up is important to understanding his character. What’s interesting is that we have an opportunity to use that understanding of the Chief to tell different stories with subtle physical cues. As we develop the visual ID, the Chief’s current head-tilt is in an interesting territory where he’s typically looking up into the danger that he needs to conquer, but the camera tilt is potentially posing a question. Is he looking up, or is the camera tilted so that he’s actually looking down?

Above all, we wanted the player to really feel what it’s like to be the Master Chief. This manifests itself in a lot of ways, and for those who read the Fall of Reach, there’s a lot of character depth behind that helmet that has yet to make its way into the game experience. Every person who was allowed to touch him had to, HAD TO, understand his history as a person. The Chief’s origin is pretty sad and grim: A strong, vibrant child stolen from his parents, he underwent dangerous bioengineering that destroyed the weaker of his friends, and trained to stomp out human Insurrectionists. Pretty morally nebulous beginnings for someone who ultimately saved humanity. Of all FPS heroes, he is distinct in that his arc is aspirational and not a cynical view of the universe.

A big focus on the Chief’s armor was his physicality and putting the player in those mighty shoes. Getting that weight across in the design had us looking at a lot of contemporary military vehicles, and we pushed detail and form into the armor that implied that history. This is the bleeding edge of military technology.

A Spartan tossing his chest plate should feel like an anvil dropping….

A Spartan sprinting across concrete should be a stealthy whisper….

Putting on your helmet should feel like powering up an F-15E….

These are the sorts of experiences we want to give the players.