Halo Waypoint was announced as being a one stop shop for all things Halo. Well today Microsoft made Waypoint available to users who are in the early preview of the new Dashboard update. Click the jump for our hands on!

After downloading Waypoint (it was 139mb) I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I knew that this was supposed to track my Halo career across ALL of the Halo games and give me insider info on the Halo universe. Once the download finished and I booted it up something very unexpected happened. For the first time, my Xbox popped up and told me that I had unlocked an Avatar Award. So just for downloading you get a free prop (343 Guilty Spark) for your Avatar. This was very welcomed by me especially since most of the Avatar items are overpriced. I would much rather unlock them than pay for them.

Inside of Waypoint there are milestones that you achieve based on how much gamerscore you have earned across the Halo games. For instance, my milestone level is at 30 and I currently have 1945 gamerscore. In order to make it to milestone level 31 I need to get to 2000 gamerscore. There are also awards that are specific to Waypoint. As of now there are 15 awards that all require different achievements from the Halo games. These awards also have tiers which are unlocked by getting more achievements specific to that award. Example, the Explorer award has 6 tiers, the achievements it requires are all the skulls from halo 3, the mythic map pack, and the audio logs in Halo 3: ODST. So if you only have two of those achievements you will only be tier 1 on the Explorer award. The obvious point of this whole award system is to get players going back to the halo games to grind for achievements. Also you have the ability to check your friends Waypoint progress and see if your ahead or falling behind. Also if you have played Halo 3:ODST you will probably unlock even more Avatar awards once you check your career for the first time. Here are the items I unlocked after I had downloaded Waypoint and checked my career:

-Halo 3: ODST shirt (shirts cost 80MS Points)
-Halo 3: ODST Hoodie (Hoodie’s cost 160MS Points)
-Halo 3: ODST Full Armor (The full outfits usually cost at least 400MS)
-Halo 3: ODST Helmet (these are usually 160MS Points)
-343 Guilty Spark Avatar Prop (these can cost up to 340MS Points)

All of the awards I unlocked are ONLY made available by unlocking them. None of these items showed up in the Avatar Marketplace. So in all I got roughly 1,140MS points worth of free stuff. Which equals to this in REAL money:

15 dollars of free stuff is pretty cool, and is really starting to show the promise of Avatar awards.

So in the end Halo Waypoint is just a sort of insider electronic magazine that keeps you up to date on all things Halo and also lets you earn some cool awards. This is just the beginning and Microsoft has said that Waypoint will be getting more features and updates regularly. Including an early look at the Halo Legends anime series, which is as of this time not available. We will continue to update this post in the coming days if any new noteworthy features become available.

Has anybody tried this out yet?  I will give it a whirl when I get off work.

I got it and unlocked about 7 avatar awards. I am only a level 32. There are about 4 more awards to be unlocked too. Couple helmets, couple shirts, and the Guilty Spark prop. Neat little thing.

They should actually do this for Live wide games. Actually use your gamer score for something other than bragging rights. That would probably make people more likely to grind for them if there were rewards for getting them.

i cant find it where is it on the dashboard?

It is on one of the news type menus. Community news or Inside XBox or something.

can you please be moer specific

I am at work right now and I don't remember exactly.

is it like a beta i have to be registered or can everyone access it.

Oh.    You do need to have been selected to be in the Update Preview Program.  Sorry, forgot about that.

the avater awards I think will really start to show towards the end of the year and through 2010 with all those cool exclusives coming out(we know left for dead 2 will have them and who knows maybe mw2 for this year O kind of hope for dragon age along with assasins creed as well)

aww. whens the officail realease date. thats the only thing im interested in in the whole new update. november 3?