Evening started out nicely. There was a desk in front, and a couple helpers handing out nametags and selling the Official Halo T-Shirt (yup, got one). I was a few minutes early (I'd been there in the hotel for two days, what do you expect?), so I got in with the first batch.

It was a largish (not "convention-center" sized, but fair) room, dark, with arrays of TVs (decent, but not great) and Xboxes (both release models and dev-kits), mostly arranged in 16-player groups. At opposite ends of the room were four (two on either end) MASSIVE frontal-projection televisions, set up (as I understand it) with co-op play and some three-person teams.

Let's see, who showed? Marty was there, with his "surly dwarf" father, as well as a few other guests (his former audio partner, one of the voice acters from Oni, etc.). Matt, of course, was MCing. Oh, heck, just read the list directly below this :) Although I must have missed Alex's appearance. As I hear, more Bungie-lords would have come, but it was darned short notice.

Food was supplied by the restaurant, very nearby (same building, actually), and was good stuff. Free, all. There was a second room, smaller, a little quieter, set up with single-player for people to ogle at.

I got to meet Dan Rudolph, Mark Levin, Locucious... let's see, I missed mnemesis and Theocracity. Great fun. Near the end of the night, Matt got up and held the raffle (for which we had been given tickets earlier), in which he handed out (got the information to FedEx, actually) five (5) copies of Halo... five (5) Halo T-Shirts... and ONE {1} Free Xbox and copy of Halo. It was dirt funny, actually was all smooth, until the climactic Xbox handout, where for the life of them, NOBODY could find the winner. After enough cajoling, Matt drew another number, who... also could not be found. Sheer madness, especially because, if I remember correctly, the two number who were missing both added up to seven... :) They finally found the bozo on the third drawing, and he happily took his gear and trotted off.

I still think the first two had been bound and gagged.

Now, the game. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've seen this thing actually play. Plus, I'm given to understand that our equipment wasn't the best. The effects? Gorgeous. The art? Beau-tiful. The physics? You must SEE to BELIEVE, Young Grasshopper. The controls are a little tricky, and I kept forgetting whether I preferred an Inverted stick or regular (it turns out it doesn't matter much get used to either pretty fast), but after a couple games, it's dead-natural. The sound, even with our crappy speakers, is unbelievable. Major judos, kudos Marty and his guys.

Some random thoughts. The sniper rifle is surely the most amazing weapon in this game. It speaks like some sort of demon, running down a field, sniper rifle in hand, I zoom, quick, on the opposing base (CTF, it was), see a sniper, drop my crosshairs on his eyeline, sqe
KER-WHAM, and my view zooms out, to see my body on the ground, a long line of fog lanced into me. I jumped about ten feet high. Cool?

I saw one gun, a rifle, laying on the ground, get hit by a stray shot, and SPIN around. No bullshit. It was amazing.

I harangued the Candyman a bit, and got an interesting tidbit of information actually IS a PC/Mac version. It plays shit, no effects, no HUD, and a score of other things that won't work, but... It LIVES. It WILL tranfer over, to some degree. Although it was probably unwise to say that, as most mindless trolls have no comprehension of compatibility at all...

Matt Soell (pronounced "cell" as opposed to "soul", contrary to previous belief) is one of the funniest men alive. He kibitzed with fans for most of the party, relating hilarious anecdotes of Bungie living, odd snatches of humor, and other such thing (we were talking Metal Gear Solid, and he mentioned his grievances when you meet Revolver Ocelot? "Now you'll see why they call me Revolver!" He wanted him to say [as it would be far more interesting] "Now you'll see why they call me Ocelot!"). Great dude.

Oh, I cornered him and asked about the Letters to the Webmaster page, and got, as you might expect, a "How the heck should I know?" Dirty old man :)

The skull truly is as cool as they made it sound.

Have you ever seen two Warthogs flip, end-over-end, thirty feet into the air, and smash into each other face-first M:I2 style? Try it :) Oh, and one landed ON one of the Sidewinder bases.

Some loser managed to get a Warthog INSIDE the aformentioned base, sitting it right on top of our flag, and was quite unable to move.

Matt mentioned some morsels to look out for, including the Truth and Reconciliation, which will be the main Halo page, and the SeventhColumn.org site, of which they refused to talk :)

And the Bungie Store is reopening, with some new coolness.

They showed us a very funny little cinematic they'd thrown together, with a Marine sergeant giving us the low-dowon on Halo. Very cool. I hope they release it.

They're unsure about who will be doing the port.

I discovered Mark Levin's secret identity :P

There was quite a hoard of people outside to start with, but they eventually either left or got in (we were at the fire-safety maximum, but if somebody left, they let another in).

They broke it up at about 11, but I got in a "Frog blast the Vent Core!" in :)

I think my father snapped off a bunch of film, so I'll see if I can snag some and upload a few shots in a while. Besides, Marty was filming the entire filthy event, so that'll be interesting.

Anyway, that's about all I can think of now. I'll pop up again if there's anything useful.

Adieu, my people.

Frog
BLAM