Halo Waypoint & Active Avatar Awards

So it would seem after not much notice at all, Halo Waypoint is readily downloadable through Game Marketplace

Don't know what Halo Waypoint is? Well its basically a program that keeps track of all your halo achievements from Halo 3, Halo Wars, ODST and no doubt Reach when that lands.

It also keeps you up to date with various bits of information. It was nice to find a streamable video on the up coming Halo Legends anime with a bit of background info on how it came about, the various japanese artists involved. All looking very cool right now, so looking forward to that.

Once you load up Waypoint, it puts you into an area of the program called the Portal. Portal list various areas to go to including, Intel, Career and a Main Feature (where the Halo Legends video is located)

You click on Intel. Intel gives you videos, news, in game screen shots, it even has an in program link to downloadable marketplace items specifically for Halo games.

Career Milestones is where all you data is collated. A list of all your Halo game achievements pops up stating how many you have out of the whole Halo franchise (this excludes Halo 2 PC) For ever 100 Gamerscore you have, you reach a "Career Milestone". The program also tells you exactly what date you achieved these milestones, which is nifty.

There are some nice in program awards. For attaining certain achievements, you pick up an award (do not confuse Waypoint Awards with XBL Awards) which is basically a military like badge. So for example, for completing the campaign modes, you get a Halo 3 A.C.E badge. Each badge has a tier, so the more achievements attained within that badge, the higher your badge tier.

The biggest bit of news was that came about by downloading Halo Waypoint however was that XBL Awards are now fully active. Awards seem presently available for Splosion Man, Lips and Halo games. After Halo Waypoint retrieved all my data, a pop up saying "Awards unlocked" came up. Popped into Customise Avatar, and there it was, a lovely full body ODST suit as well as other bits and pieces. I must say it was nice to know the hours of game play had finally been awarded. Not by much, but still, these items do go for 400MP in the marketplace.

Well heres looking forward to what awards L4D2 and MW2 and other upcoming games bring!!