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Bungie Weekly Update 06.18.10Posted by urk at 6/18/2010 6:11 PM PDTI just flew in from LA, and boy, are my arms tired! Actually, my feet are feeling the bulk of the burn in the wake of this year's E3 extravaganza. And my fingers after attempting to transcribe the absurd amount of customization options we're planning for Firefight 2.0 (which you'll find embedded below). And my fragile mind, from nearly melting down after what felt like endless hours of backstage Reach demos. The latter was much easier than I'd anticipated. After Marcus got a face full of makeup, he went way above and beyond to set the stage beautifully for us at Microsoft's E3 keynote with the first ever glimpse of SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE! After the spectacle, everybody and their mother wanted in on a sneak peak at Bungie's space faring goods. We quickly became experts at blasting through the sweet slice of sand and stars, too. After dozens upon dozens of showings, we could run up the beach in our sleep, initiate the launch sequence blindfolded, and shatter the first wave of inbound Covenant bogeys without even breaking a sweat. During one play through Mike Zak forgot to switch the controls back after we made the hand-off, but without missing a beat, he played through the first half of the demo inverted even though he's always been a non-inverted guy (he's Canadian, go figure). Nobody even picked up on it, though. His run was still golden. If you haven't seen the play through for yourself, you should take a moment to drop by our Reach project page. There you'll find both the Campaign and Firefight trailers we launched earlier in the week alongside a pile of new screenshots and renders we packed into the cargo bay. And while we tackled the press corps' finest behind closed doors in our media briefing room (which was lavishly disguised as an ultramodern (and super cramped) living room), Sketch and Tung descended unto the teeming sea of humanity to tackle the public theater experience below. They even went off script and opened up some four player Firefight to participants plucked straight out of the audience. According to Brian, Tung was on fire and turned in a couple of "perfect games," though apparently the films have been lost to the annals of time. Personally, I find it hard to believe. During some hands-on sessions we ran in the later hours on Tuesday night, Tung challenged me to a Firefight showdown. "Let's see who the better player is, Ginger," he sniped. Three Waves and twelve minutes later, I'd amassed 12,621 points. Joe Tung, self-proclaimed best player at the studio? A paltry 5,771. Now, I've never claimed that math is my strong suit, but I'm pretty sure that's nearly twice the points. Who's the ginger now, Joe? A Tale of Two StudiosAs folks were lining up outside the theater, things got downright dirty between our boys and the Gears of War 3 crew. It's tough enough to split time and share precious theater space with a rival studio, but swag is where you gotta draw the line. On days two and three things reached a boiling point and t-shirts emblazoned with crimson Cogs began bombarding the Halo: Reach line. A full scale swag showdown of Epic proportions erupted. The fighting was fierce. The tweets rained down like fire, my friends. But just when things looked most bleak, with Sketch threatening to "swagstomp" Epic with a volley of Reach-themed pins, t-shirts, and bottle openers, Cliff arrived at the theater bearing a peace offering. Sporting a fresh Gears of War 3 t-shirt hot off the presses, Sketch declared that a delicate cease fire had been struck between our two camps. The Swag Wars of 2010 were over. Bungie + Epic = Battle Bros to the End. Brian's BungiePic PhotoStream BonanzaSo, we promised some good coverage of our E3 escapades and hopefully you followed along in realtime. If you missed out on any of the embedded journalism Brian brought to Bungie Tweets, we've got you covered. Sketch went ahead and posted the cream of the crop into a sweet flickr slide show, complete with commentary. Bam! The image of me being hounded by the Japanese paparazzi probably warrants some additional explanation. Our resident expert on all things Asian (and Mr. Miyagi to our young hero, Carney-san), Joe Tung, tells me they were simply enamored because they believe that gingers don't have souls. The reality is that I'm huge in Japan. (And that they may or may not have been told I was Frankie.)  Wax On I'd also like to note that while I was happy to see the Dirty Manassas on the drink menu, I was heartbroken to see that "Six on the Beach" didn't make the grade. Some of my best work. Oh, well. Maybe next year. On The Home FrontWhile the majority of this update is dedicated to wrapping up all the E3 aftermath, it would be a damn shame if we didn't give some props to the studio-at-large. Most of the Reach team stayed behind this week with bigger fish to fry, continuing to blitz through the remaining bugs as Reach proper comes into the ZBR home stretch. It's almost there. The monumental amount of work involved with prepping our E3 content for show (and still being injected into what will become the retail build) is absolutely mind blowing. Though our E3 away team got to bask in a little bit of glory this week, witnessing firsthand the stunned looks on everyone's faces as space was finally revealed and we unwrapped Firefight live for the very first time, we want to make sure that none of our stay at home heroes went unsung. For Marcus and the team, Reach has been a massive investment of talent, resources, and time. When we say this is the most ambitious game Bungie has ever built, we're not just blowing smoke. The proof is in the pudding. Reach is huge and it is awesome. Space combat in Campaign and Firefight 2.0 are two examples that we felt strongly demonstrate what this team is capable of. We were damn proud to show them both off on the rest of the team's behalf. We hoped you like what you saw. Stay Tuned. Just Wanna Do Something SpecialOne thing you might have seen was female Spartans. Real female Spartans, too. No longer will our Halo-playing ladies be relegated to gear fit for a knuckle draggin' male. Nope. It's all form-fitting fashion from here on out.  Brian wanted me to make sure that I clarified the distinction between male and female and further expounded on the role that player customization plays across all of Reach's modes. All of your Spartan armor choices and investments, with a few notable exceptions (i.e. Flaming Helmet in Campaign cutscenes) translate across all game modes. That goes for gender as well. So, while we were showing off Noble Six's female side in our Campaign trailer and in Firefight, if you're more into the manly stuff it'll totally be your call. You get to flip that switch.  And there's more. Noble Six isn't the "strong, silent type," either. Both male and female voice actors were cast for the role, so whichever gender you choose, you'll won't miss out on any facet of the full campaign experience. You might also note that I've unmasked another Armory exclusive in the screenshot above. In Firefight, you'll be able to earn additional first person Firefight Voices via the Armory. In the E3 build, we let players listen to Noble Six, Carter, Kat, and Jorge regale them as they cut wave after wave of Covenant infantry down to size. Of course, there will be plenty more to choose from in the full game, but I don't have time to dig too deeply into all the details. I've got some Firefight business to take care of. Firefight 2.OMG!Yup, Firefight is back. Yup, it's better than ever. And yeah, as promised on Bungie Tweets earlier this morning, I'm about to drop an epic breakdown of most of the options you're likely to have at your disposal in September. I say "most" because there are still some things about Firefight we're not ready to reveal and I say "likely" because Lars wanted me to make it abundantly clear that the game isn't shipped until it's shipped. Until then, everything is subject to change. That said, get ready for Scrollpocalypse 2010. Here's the Firefight options stripped right out of the build we brought with us to E3: FIREFIGHT SETTINGS
You still with us? Pretty mind blowing, eh? Lars also wanted me to make it clear that while you do have a ridonkulous number of levers and knobs to fiddle with, you are still operating in the confines and context of Firefight. It's not limitless. He's been seeing some forum posts with blueprints for gametypes that might be a bit ambitious even for Firefight 2.0. The analogy he used is that this is the house that Firefight built - you won't be busting down walls and ripping out studs - but, sure, feel free to rearrange the furniture. Oh, and I can confirm that Buggers are out of Firefight altogether and that the Black Eye skull isn't in unless you specifically customize the experience to include it. The default matchmaking version of Firefight will be one full Set, start to finish (unless you run out of lives), and when I checked in with Lars this afternoon he was busy prebaking a bunch of additional game types to bring to the table for launch. Of course, we'll be keeping our eye out for sweet community variants as well, so when the time is right, make sure you drop your awesome Firefight variants into your File Share so we can dig out the good stuff. Wrapping UpHere's a few other highlights from the week, in no particular order:
And with that, we're done here. Honestly, it was such a whirlwind experience that it's nearly impossible to encapsulate. One of those gotta be there type things. If you were there and dropped by the experience, thanks for checking out the goods. If you weren't, well, I wouldn't worry too much. Launch is right around the corner and we'll be making some more noise sooner or later. See you next week. |
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