Halo: Side Factions

Halo: Side Factions first person shooter (FPS) video game based on the science fiction events and setting of the Halo Universe. Developed by Bungie Studios, it is a direct story that hopefully will fully fill up the empty tales among other human forces.

Plot Synopsis
The game takes place around the Human-Covenant War between Halo 2 and Halo 3. However, rather than playing as the Spartan-117 or the Arbiter, the player takes role of an ODST, Lieutenant Daniel Ferguson of the 22nd ODST Unit.

The squad featured in the game, known as Victor Squad, traveled to various locations in the Halo universe, including New Mombasa and Installation 05 (also known as Delta Halo), as well as in a Hannibal-class frigate. The game is one of the first in the Halo universe to feature a more militaristic style, which sets a darker tone than most other games that are a part of Halo. Bungie say that if the other media are seen from the point of view of the Spartan, then Victor Squad is from the point of view of the ODSTs.

Squad
The most important feature of the game is that the player will control squads of units. The producer claimed that controlling the squads will be very easy and would automatically find cover by going behind a Scorpion or just using the natural terrain.

Interface
The game features systems almost similar to its brothers, though there were a few changes in interfaces and user options. For example, the shield bar was removed from the game and replaced with a armour pressure. The new armour pressure system views the amount of damage it can withstand before solely presenting the initial damage on the user.

Multiplayer
The game also features a multiplayer mode for deathmatch and capture the flag gameplay, with Xbox Live support for 16 players on the Xbox. A new feature added to the game (Absent from its brothers) is the ability to revive fallen squad members if they were temporarily paralyzed. Also, the squad members would assist and revive you when they have handled the threat.

The campaign consists of 14 levels (13 playable + 1 tutorial). All are in chronological order, starting from the start of the First Battle of Earth till the end of the Battle of the Ark.


 * 1) Training Ground - Welcome back to Elementary School. (Brief Tutorial).
 * 2) Encampment - Insurrectionist Encampment. Damn Innies...
 * 3) Trepidation - Board the URF Stallion. Capture Commander Ryes.
 * 4) Downtown - Home Sweet Home. New Visitors.
 * 5) Invaders - Covenant Insertion. (The War We Never Face)
 * 6) Open Fall - Swarm of Plasma Bombardment (Never Leave A Man Behind)
 * 7) Cityscape - Defend Ol' Faithful. Rampage!
 * 8) Ringworld - Zero Atmosphere. Hard Ground. That's easy...
 * 9) Alternate Zone - Break into Holy Redemption and capture the Minor Prophet of Disdain.
 * 10) Holy Redemption - Good Name. Bad Inhabitants.
 * 11) Dead Rising - Escape the Flood.
 * 12) Operation: CATALYST - Epilogue of the Secondary Campaign
 * 13) Sheepskin - New Skin. New Weapons. Same Fuckers.
 * 14) Frontlines - Weapons check. Equipments check. Guts?
 * 15) End Game - Reclaim the UNSC Acclamation. Earth is Calling.
 * 16) New Uprising - The War just got Heated up.
 * 17) Mombasa Insertion - Hard Drop. Win the City.
 * 18) Covenant Intro - Scarab meets Mythos.
 * 19) African Crisis - Gorilla Hazardous Warfare. Banana Squad en route.
 * 20) Gravesite - Same Ol' Feeling. Different Methods.
 * 21) Installation 00 - Enemy has Intel. Beat them up to it.
 * 22) Two Factions - Clash of the Enemies. Which First?
 * 23) High Charity - Recover the Archive. ONI Operation.
 * 24) Surprise Approach - Flood Encampment. Zombieville.
 * 25) Final Atonement - Activate the Pulse Generator. Fly back home.

UNSC Faction

 * 22nd ODST Unit
 * Victor-17 (Daniel Ferguson)
 * Victor-11 (Eriq Kreole)
 * Victor-03 (Yung "Young" Su Ji)
 * Victor-20 (Alex Mendez)
 * 17th ODST Unit
 * Oscar-14 (Devon MichouOscar)
 * Oscar-15 (Jarred Jr.)
 * Oscar-19 (Harvey "Joker" Lynn)
 * Oscar-20 (Ivan "Comrade" Shukhov)
 * Oscar-27 (Seth "Shammerai" Wholf )
 * Staff Sergeant Nolan Byrne
 * UNSC AI MIL ALY 0137-5 Aliya
 * Sergeant Major Avery J. Johnson

URF Faction

 * URF Commander Isaac Ryes

Covenant Faction

 * Prophet of Disdain
 * Commander Lepidus

UNSC Faction

 * UNSC Marine Infantryman
 * UNSC Orbital Drop Shock Troopers
 * UNSC Marine Dropship Pilots
 * Office of Naval Intelligence Personnel

URF Faction

 * URF Infantryman
 * URF Special Forces Unit
 * URF Insurrectionist

Covenant
Before the Covenant Civil War
 * Sangheili
 * Mgalekgolo
 * San 'Shyuum
 * Unggoy
 * Jiralhanae
 * Kig-yar
 * Yanme'e
 * Lekgolo
 * Special Purpose Sniper
 * Alien Trooper
 * Stalker

Flood

 * Standard Forms
 * Infection Form
 * Combat Form
 * Carrier Form


 * Pure Form
 * Tank Form
 * Stalker Form
 * Ranged Form

Forerunner

 * Sentinel
 * Constructor
 * Enforcers

Weapons
Known Weapons within the Game:

Covenant Standards

 * Type-1 Antipersonnel Grenade (Plasma Grenade)
 * Type-25 Directed Energy Pistol (Plasma Pistol)
 * Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle (Plasma Rifle)
 * Type-33 Guided Munitions Launcher (Covenant Needler)
 * Type-33 Light Anti-Armor Weapon (Covenant Fuel Rod Cannon)
 * Type-50 Sniper Rifle System (Covenant Beam Rifle)
 * Type-51 Carbine (Covenant Carbine)
 * Type-52 Directed Energy Support Weapon (Plasma Cannon)
 * Type-2 Antipersonnel Fragmentation Grenade (Spike Grenade)

Non-Usable

 * Type-1 Energy Weapon/Sword (Energy Sword)
 * Type-2 Energy Weapon/Hammer (Gravity Hammer)
 * Type-25 Grenade Launcher (Brute Shot)

United Nations Space Command Standards

 * BR55HB SR Battle Rifle
 * MA5B/MA5C Individual Combat Weapon System
 * M6C Personal Defense Weapon System
 * M7/Caseless Sub-Machine Gun
 * M9 HE-DP Fragmentation Grenade
 * M19 SSR MAV/AW Rocket Launcher
 * M90 Close Assault Weapon System
 * SRS99C-S2 AM Sniper Rifle
 * MA5K Carbine (Mk. I and Mk. II)
 * C1-04 OCG

Non-Usable

 * Weapon/Anti-Vehicle Model 6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle (Available in Campaign only)

Support Weapons

 * M247 GPMG
 * Missile Pod (LAU-65D/SGM-151)
 * AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun

Equipments

 * Cellular Optical Particle Imaging (C.O.P.I.)
 * USNC Weapon Ref.#31 (Gel-Drop)
 * TR/9 Antipersonnel Mine
 * Power Drain
 * Bubble Shield (Fixed Location)
 * Radar Jammer

Non-Usable

 * Flare
 * Regenerator
 * Deployable Cover

Vehicles
Known Vehicles within the game:

Covenant Standards

 * Banshee
 * Ghost
 * Wraith
 * Spectre
 * Shadow
 * Anti-Air Wraith

Non-Usable

 * Phantom
 * Assault Carrier
 * Seraph Fighter-Interceptor
 * Scarab

UNSC

 * M12 Warthog LRV (Anti Infantry)
 * M12G1 Warthog LAAV (Anti Armour)
 * M274 Mongoose ULATV
 * M808B Scorpion MBT
 * M831 TT Warthog
 * M101A Tarantula Light Tank
 * M801A Scorpion SBT

Non-Usable

 * Elephant
 * UNSC Heavens Gate
 * UNSC White Star
 * D77-TC Pelican Dropship
 * D77H-TCI Pelican Dropship
 * D41-TC Snowhawk Dropship
 * Albatross Heavy Dropship
 * C709 Longsword Fighter-Interceptor
 * Military Cargo Trucks
 * Civilian Transportation (Bus, Cars, etc)
 * Sparrowhawk
 * Class IV Fighter (Talon)
 * EF-35B Fighter (Thunder)
 * AV-14 Hornet
 * Kestrel
 * Mythos

Maps
It has been noted that a total of 3 Map Expansion will be release 7 months after the initial sales begun. Each expansion would have a total of 3 new additional maps, featuring new gameplay capability and special user interactions. With the Forge feature, objects usable for pure fun can be added to enhance the gameplay or just for machinima use.

Standard Maps

 * Turf Revamped (Earth-setting)
 * Cryptnosys (Forerunner-Setting)
 * No Remorse (Earth-setting)
 * Base H107 (Earth-setting)
 * Snow Ledge (Earth-setting)
 * Anxiety (Forerunner-setting)
 * UNSC Adriatic (UNSC Ship-setting)
 * Desolate Keep (Forerunner-setting)
 * Crossfire (Earth-setting)
 * Launch Bay (UNSC Ship-setting)
 * New Mombasa (Earth-setting)
 * Reunion Tour (Forerunner-setting)
 * Sandstorm (Forerunner-setting)

Service Tags
Like its brother, the Service Tag is how you and your teammates can be identified quickly on the battlefield, instead of the long names and complex number combination. The service Tag is comprised of two letters followed by three numbers. A few examples of Service Tags are ST107 and GS343.

Armour Customization
There are two player models which you can choose from, the standard ODST biped or the Rebel biped. Each model has several armour customization, though none of them have any special effects during gameplay.

The Armour Customization is fairly different from Halo 3's Armour Permutation as it only provides add-on attachments such as Radio Backpack (Body), Biofoam pack (Legs), Scope Gear (Head), Combat Knife (Arms). This feature gives a newer look for the ODSTs from being the standard form.

HUD
The HUD (Head-Ups Display) contains the following readouts:
 * A gauge tracking the quantity of ammunition available for weapons carried.
 * A motion tracker (Up to 25m).
 * A counter tracking the number and type of Grenades carried.
 * A targeting reticule.
 * Acknowledgment lights from other members of the wearer's team.
 * Maps and information uploaded over the wearer's TACCOM.
 * A Fiber Optic Probe is installed to integrate Tactical Situation.

Forge
The Forge is an "object editor" that can be used to edit multiplayer maps. The Halo: Side Factions' version allows more freedom to edit/make maps than its brothers.

In Forge, you can edit objects, spawn points, weapons, vehicles, scenery objects and even alter the properties of the objects within the map. While in Forge Mode, the editor would take form of a Monitor, similar to those of Halo 3's Forge mode. Due to its relatively huge map size, Bungie added a new feature to the Forge Mode; the ability to change the environment of the map (Tundra, Desert, etc) and creating simple structures (Bunker, Armory Room, etc).

This sports a larger degree of freedom for multiplayer matches and provides excellent visual enhancement for Machinima production.

Theater
Similar to Halo 3's, the Theater mode allows players to save films from the Campaign, Multiplayer, and Forge, and also get film clips and screenshots. However, the ability to go beyond maps (otherwise known as glitching out of maps) has been fixed.

Soundtrack
The Halo: Side Factions OST was composed by newcomer, Justin R. Durban along with the help of Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori. Within the Soundtrack, many songs returned from Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 3 and had been rerecorded to suit the new atmosphere of the ODSTs. It comes in a two-disc set featuring all the music heard in-game.

Newly Added
Please note that all of the listed songs are under CreativeCommons and are not to be used for neither commercial nor personal use unless given the permission to do so. For more information, contact here.


 * The Master and The Chief
 * The Spartans
 * Smuggler's Ransom (Saving a Hostage)
 * CTW Battle Movement 1
 * CTW Battle Movement 2
 * Blastpit
 * Anomalous Materials
 * WGH Topside

Related Articles

 * UNSC Munitions Archive
 * Halo: Side Factions Teaser Trailer