@Orionsaint: You can buy those on ThinkGeek.

I hope that's not pre-rendered, because the game looks like it's running an upgraded version of the Frostbite 2.0 engine from BC2.

@Kyosuke_Nanbu: How many servers you think you need is never how many you ACTUALLY need, whether it's one or a thousand.

I want that goddamn rifle.

@Thorinator: Yeah, I'm not gonna lie- Griggs caught one in the head, and Ghost was shot at point blank with a .44 magnum THEN set on fire.

Looks pretty cool, but I'll hold my judgment until I have something playable or with more footage.

So it's gonna be the two Special Operations games this fall.

@fuegerstef: Mainly because we have shitty computers and don't have the money to sink into a decent system.

@Ilmyrn: I say sterile in that it's not... visceral. There's not blood everywhere, not a team of doctors doing the procedure, but some robots- it's very impersonal.

So lets track what media characters are responsible for things I find attractive:

First off, let me get it out of my system: GODDAMNIT BUNGIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING

@Phantasos:

@madammina: Marketing isn't put up right when a store gets it. Sometimes we get it about 1-2 weeks in advance, so it's entirely possible that whoever took this picture may be in the back room or behind the counter while the store is closed.

@Husher: This is true. However, The Fall of Reach describes Spartan candidates at 12-14 as looking like Olympic athletes with the intelligence of doctoral candidates.

@madbassman39: In Ghosts of Onyx, they make reference to Spartan IIs being restrained with electronic nerve blockers attached to their necks. This technology could be in play here, although if I'm not mistaken, II and III augmentations are ALL done under sedation, especially the II procedures.

@ddhboy: The ones that rejected the Spartan II augmentation process were disfigured, if not outright killed.

@GeneralBattuta: Based on what I remember from Ghosts of Onyx, this essentially was the augmentation process, only not quite so solitary. Spartan IIIs are meant to be disposable- you only send the IIs in when it's really hit the fan since they're so bloody expensive. All they really do is pump the subjects full of…

@Manly_McBeeferton: Cpl. Mendez? Franklin Mendez?

Oh shit.

Ok, based on the fact that Recon snipers and M60 snipers can be bad enough in BC2, I'm kinda glad they didn't implement prone, at least in that situation. That'd make it about ten times worse. M60s would never miss.