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 | June 2005 |  |
June 2005 Archived News
News June 30 2005
MLG St. Louis Writeup Online
Quick note before I dash out the door - swing by MLGPro.com for a great writeup of the MLG St. Louis event, from Dyslexia. This looks like a good time none of us should have missed! Thanks, Dolbex! (Louis Wu 21:47:28 UTC) (permalink)
RvB Walkthrough of Gemini Posted
Red vs Blue has posted a 6:22 walkthrough of Gemini - Burnie warns you that this might spoil the initial experience of playing the map, because it's so detailed, but if what you really want is to know how to get around, you can't beat this. Hi-res WMP9 is 49.6 mb, low-res is 14.6 mb. We'll have QuickTime versions up for you a bit later. Go watch! Thanks, meesta pink. Update: We've put up QuickTime versions now: Hi-Res (50.2 mb) | Lo-Res (22.8 mb). Enjoy! (Louis Wu 16:19:18 UTC) (permalink)
New Flythroughs Up
It's June 30, which means it's okay for us to post the final three map flythroughs that were created by Film Oasis for Bungie. You can find links for Backwash, Gemini, and Terminal on our Maptacular Vids page. Just a minute or so long each... but man, do they make you want to play these maps. Awesome stuff! Update: Apologies - the Terminal flyovers were named oddly - fixed now. Sorry! (Louis Wu 11:58:09 UTC) (permalink)
Lots of Movie Mirrors at TWTv
Feenix writes to point out that both massive versions of The Harvest 2 (wmp9 and quicktime) are mirrored over at That Weasel Television, and they've put up mirrors of the Film Oasis flythroughs - Containment, Warlock, Sanctuary, Turf, Relic, and Elongation. Always nice to have more mirrors! (Louis Wu 11:46:35 UTC) (permalink)
HaloCE work continues
HaloCE Updates, from MasterGrief: The Zelda: Ocarina of Time mod is coming along nicely (a magic meter, and new melee attacks with the sword) - you can see tons of new screenshots in this Gearbox Forum thread, and BitterBanana has created a much less buggy, more realistic chasecam - go download version 1.07. More people should play this game! (Louis Wu 11:41:36 UTC) (permalink)
Screenies - for those who missed 'em
I meant to mention this the other day, but forgot; I'm sure there are a few people who missed it. In the 'Relic Revealed' article over at Bungie.net, SketchFactor mentioned that new screenshots had been posted, as well. This has been true for ALL the map overviews, starting with Elongation. You can find three new pics of each map in Bungie's Screenshot section, starting on page 6. They're dated according to the writeup, so Elongation and Backwash are on June 22 (clearly, that's when the policy began), Terminal (four pics) on June 22, and Relic on June 28th. The action shot off Terminal ROCKS. (Louis Wu 11:37:53 UTC) (permalink)
Tastes Great! Less Filling!
IGN's posted a Grudge Match between Halo and Halo 2 - IGN editors duke it out over which is better. Thanks, Sir Jivealot. (Louis Wu 11:26:49 UTC) (permalink)
Where's their sense of History?
Gamespy is counting down the Top 25 Xbox Games of All-Time (hehe - or since 2001, I guess) - Halo made #6. Halo 2 hasn't been mentioned yet. Thanks, Spenser. (Louis Wu 11:17:24 UTC) (permalink)
News June 29 2005
Ultimate Slayer - Again
A week ago, we mentioned a fun film by Final Supremacy - a story of a Team Slayer game on Coagulation. (That is - a machinima of a game, sort of.) We killed their bandwidth by mentioning it, so I told them to submit the film to the MPRRS for review, so we could help host it. The reviewers were unhappy with the long credits, and it didn't pass - by the smallest of margins. I'm putting it up anyway. 52 mb, zipped DivX format. Enjoy. (Louis Wu 21:18:49 UTC) (permalink)
Relic/Elongation vids continue to spread
More copies of the Film Oasis movies - TeamXbox has the Elongation and Relic films, in WMP9 format, and Computer and Video Games has them as well (though at a smaller screen size), along with text writeups of the levels. Glad to see they're getting more press now! (Louis Wu 20:58:11 UTC) (permalink)
Dymdez Montage 2 Trailer
Z, over at Halo2Forum.com, lets us know that they've released a trailer of Dymdez's next montage - some nice timing and lots of superfast snipes. DivX format, 15.6 mb. (Louis Wu 18:55:55 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Rocks the House
IGN has posted an article entitled 'The Best First Person Shooters on Xbox' - and Halo and Halo 2 took the top two spots (not in that order, though). Nice! Thanks to RC Master for noticing. (Louis Wu 18:51:48 UTC) (permalink)
Map Pack - Fair Game
There's a great piece over at Bungie.net - apparently, the message that EB Games has been giving to Australian buyers of the Maptacular Map Pack (that they'll be banned if they go online with the new maps before the street date of next week) is false; you will NOT be banned. In Sketchfactor's words:
Bungie and the Live Team will not be taking any action against anyone who has these maps early, despite rumors that have been circulating the 'net.
You won't see the new maps in matchmaking playlists before Monday, July 11... but you're welcome to play custom games with your friends (provided they have the maps as well, of course) with no fear of bannage. W00t! (Louis Wu 16:54:55 UTC) (permalink)
A Marathon Slog.
Man, you know it's bad when Cortana gets into the punning. Careful stepping into today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 15:49:18 UTC) (permalink)
Lego Scarab
Chargoyle has been working on a Lego Scarab, to scale with the Lego people themselves. You can see pics at his website - fun! (Louis Wu 15:30:19 UTC) (permalink)
Live Action Halo Movie - coming soon!
Gregory Austin let us know that Zool Inc is working on a live-action Halo fan film. It's entitled "117", and he's sent along a small teaser poster for the film. In his words:
Set in the style of "The Fall of Reach", "117" details the life of Master Chief, starting from his first promotion to Petty Officer, to the dawning of the Mjolnir body armor.
Post-Production will begin soon, and we will release a teaser trailer. Expect more updates soon!
Keep your eyes open! (Louis Wu 15:20:27 UTC) (permalink)
Game Viewers for newest maps visible
HaloChat pointed out on our forum that games using the new maps (not to be played by the general public before next Tuesday, on pain of banning) can be seen on the Bungie.net stats pages - using the Game Viewer, you can get a decent idea of the overall layout (in some cases, better than the gameplay vids released recently). Follow the links in his post for more details! (Louis Wu 15:15:44 UTC) (permalink)
Wednesday's Words
Eight new stories in the Fan Fiction section today - go read! (Louis Wu 15:08:58 UTC) (permalink)
Tied the Leader Weekly Update
It's time for XerxdeeJ's weekly Tied the Leader update - his blog contains an endorsement of CarnageStats, a slam at cheaters, defenses against cheating, a rant about how often Warlock shows up in matchmaking, and a pair of readers polls - Map Picks and Best Gamertags. Go read! (Louis Wu 14:48:14 UTC) (permalink)
The Harvest 2
trigger119 announced the release of Crossfire's 'The Harvest 2' yesterday on our forum - but things were so crazy I didn't get around to mentioning it. (This is partly because I wanted to watch it before I wrote about it - and the thing is 30 minutes long.) It's the full version of the vid we mentioned a trailer for a few weeks ago - film quality is pretty good, storyline works nicely. The BloodSignature team did a great job of keeping it all together for a half-hour video! trigger119 is hosting a WMP9 version at halomachinima.com for them (right-click/option-click to download - streaming won't work) - it weighs in at 114 mb. We've decided to put up a QuickTime version, as well, to help out - 110 mb. I'm actually pretty happy to see folks taking on more ambitious projects! (Louis Wu 14:06:19 UTC) (permalink)
Another Four Official Flythroughs
There was some serious demand for the Relic flythrough we posted yesterday - seems when Bungie.net mentions something, folks come to grab it. We put a second copy online to handle the additional load - which seems to have lessened. Because of that, we've posted the four older flythroughs - Containment, Warlock, Sanctuary, and Turf. All of these have been online before - but these versions (especially the QuickTime ones) are higher quality than most of what has been released, and none of them have watermarks. (Speaking of lack of watermarks, GameTrailers.com has put up their own versions of Elongation and Relic - they're identical to the ones we posted yesterday, but it's always nice to have multiple sources! Thanks to Christian Andersen for letting us know.) (Louis Wu 13:45:06 UTC) (permalink)
Fan Review of New Maps
Bearded Ferret wrote up a nice review of the Maptacular Map Pack, which he got his hands on yesterday. Go read for his recommendations of gametypes and highlights. (Louis Wu 06:52:43 UTC) (permalink)
They can fix me...
Duo, saddened that nobody noticed on their own, has pointed out that the w00tness strip from a couple of days ago contained four covenant cruisers with gravlifts and two crashing cov cruisers. Geez, people... where've you been? (There's an absurdly high-resolution version, as well.) (Louis Wu 06:49:49 UTC) (permalink)
The Art of Deception
Looks like Eisen Feuer has updated his Art of War strategy series at TalkXbox.com - The Art of Deception is a great read. It'll help you fool your enemies into dying before you do. There's a hefty writeup, complete with pictures, plus a video, demonstrating the techniques, in two formats. Go read and watch! Thanks to Thomas for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 06:42:56 UTC) (permalink)
Maptacular gameplay
XboxZone, in Australia, has made good use of the early release of the Maptacular Map Pack down under - you can find 5 eight-minute movies (one for each of the new maps, all WMP9 format) showing lan play in the offices. Free registration for download required. Thanks to Rodney Campbell for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 05:49:02 UTC) (permalink)
Relic Revealed
Bungie continues its new map overview series with a fantastic writeup of Relic - great pics, great gameplay stories, invaluable strategy tips. What timing on my part - when I posted the Relic flythrough vid earlier, I had no idea they'd be putting this up tonight - read one, watch the other, immerse yourself in Relic goodness! Thanks to all the folks who wrote in about this - looks like Tru7h SeeKer was first. (Louis Wu 02:00:02 UTC) (permalink)
RvB Elongation Walkthrough, QT versions
Apologies for the delay - QuickTime versions of the recent RvB-created Elongation walkthrough (Hi-Res, 26.2 mb | Lo-Res, 12.2 mb) are now available from our server. I meant to get these up a couple of hours ago - family obligations made that impossible. If you'd rather have the WMP9 versions, they are, as they were 3 hours ago, available from Red vs Blue themselves. (Louis Wu 01:51:15 UTC) (permalink)
News June 28 2005
Film Oasis Overviews - Relic
As promised, the Hi-Res Film Oasis flythrough/overview of Relic is up for your enjoyment - man, I love the timing in this one. Marty's music is SO well incorporated... wow. And the imagery and camera work give you a fantastic sense of the epic feel of this map for CTF games. Go grab a copy! (Louis Wu 22:43:28 UTC) (permalink)
Elongation Walkthrough at RvB
Red vs Blue has released their next map walkthrough - this one is Elongation. Burnie's walkthrough is much less exciting than the Film Oasis version we released a few hours ago, but it's far more practical, if what you need is weapon placement and commentary on flow. (Grab 'em both!) We should have QuickTime versions available in a few hours. Thanks to many people - first was Ibeechu. (Louis Wu 22:33:03 UTC) (permalink)
Briar's SMGs
Briar, the guy we mentioned yesterday making some really nice Master Chief armor, has added a pair of shots for the SMG to go with it. (They're the first two shots on the page.) Thanks to beetlecrazy12 for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 22:20:59 UTC) (permalink)
More About the Posters
Word came from Bungie - those two posters you can buy on eBay, for potentially inflated prices... you'll be able to buy them anywhere soon, at standard poster prices (the last batch at the Bungie store were $8.95, if that helps). Here are larger versions: Master Chief on Turf (577x894, 212k) | Arbiter (577x894, 140k) (Louis Wu 22:12:16 UTC) (permalink)
Maptacular Vids - the way they SHOULD be seen
Some not-so-standard promo vids of the new Maptacular levels have appeared recently - Containment was first, followed by Warlock,then Sanctuary and Turf last week. I've been a little unhappy with these releases - some have had encoding problems, others have watermarks or splash screens added by the sites releasing them. I did a little digging, and we've gotten permission to release high-quality, watermark-free versions of all of them. We're starting with one you haven't seen yet - Elongation. We'll add Relic later today or tonight, fill out the existing releases in the next couple of days, and then start on the final 3 maps. Thanks to the Xbox.com team, Film Oasis (who made them), and Bungie (whose fantastic work is so beautifully shown off in them) for helping make this happen! (Louis Wu 19:17:50 UTC) (permalink)
New Posters - for auction only, right now
Wow, funky. 7he One found some posters on eBay - they're listed as 'fully licensed', though I haven't seen them for sale anywhere else yet. Nice looking images! (Louis Wu 11:59:01 UTC) (permalink)
MLG St. Louis - an overview by Overswarm
Overswarm wrote up his impressions of the MLG St. Louis tournament last weekend, complete with pics; you can find it in his Not So Common Sense strategy guide, in the Articles section. (Louis Wu 11:31:56 UTC) (permalink)
Less Buggy Bipeds
We mentioned the Vertex Weight Injector, a tool created by rec0 to add new bipeds to HaloCE, a few weeks ago. Yesterday, he released a new, less buggy version of the app - you can find a download link and comments in this Gearbox forum thread. Thanks, MasterGrief. (Louis Wu 11:05:03 UTC) (permalink)
RvB Merch Mania
Thanks to the seven thousand people who wrote to point out that the Red vs Blue Season 3 DVD is now on sale in their online store. Season sponsors will get a $10 discount via email (look for the code before you buy) - otherwise, the DVD is $20. (This is a preorder only; the DVD won't ship until July 6.) While you're at the store, be sure to hit the 'New Items' link at the top left; there are a bunch of new shirts and some stickers for sale as well. (Louis Wu 11:01:26 UTC) (permalink)
Aussie Halo Players get lucky - sort of
Wow - THIS is gonna cause problems, I can tell. Looks like EB Games Australia might have made a pretty big mistake; they're selling the Halo 2 Maptacular Map Pack NOW - you can buy the DVD in stores. (It's not supposed to be on sale before July 5.) However, they emailed customers with this info:
"...Customers will not be able to access live with this title before the 7th of July. If a customers tries to access live before the 7th of July there account will be disabled. We apologize for the late notice on this information but we have just been notified."
Ouch - how many Australian accounts do you think will get disabled by folks who didn't get (or didn't read) this email? Thanks to BeardedFerret, who wrote to us with the DVD in his hot little hands - and who is looking forward to some lan play with these maps in the next week. Update: I misunderstood BeardedFerret's first note; the email went only to EB Games stores in Australia, not to customers; it was information for store personnel only. (BeardedFerret works in an EB Games store, which is how he saw it.) His store won't be displaying the Map Pack on shelves before the 5th, and only selling it to people who ask for it - but he's guessing that this will NOT be the case in most stores. Buyer beware! (Louis Wu 10:44:45 UTC) (permalink)
News June 27 2005
Master Chief Art, from Toyfare
Guardians found an as-yet-unlinked-here image by Greg Horn, an artist who creates pieces for Toyfare magazine (among other places). We mentioned a couple of other pieces of his last year - but the BR shot is new to me, at least. Nice work! (Louis Wu 18:45:20 UTC) (permalink)
Another Wearable Suit - REALLY high-quality
Holy... Webshift just wrote to tip us off to Briar's Armor, a website devoted to armor replicas of various sci-fi characters. The Halo stuff is amazing. Doesn't look like it's for sale (yet) - but keep an eye on it! (Louis Wu 17:53:23 UTC) (permalink)
RvB-created walkthrough of Backwash
Very cool. Over at Red vs Blue, Burnie Burns, who created walkthroughs of the first four downloadable maps a couple of months ago, is repeating the effort with the newer maps. A walkthrough of Backwash (41 mb in hi-res WMP9 format, 19 mb in low-res WMP9) is now available for sponsors (thanks, Sharky) - should be on the main page (for everyone) in the not-too-distant future. And as soon as we can, we'll have QuickTime versions up for you, as well. Good stuff! Update: The WMP9s are available for everyone now at RvB. Still working on the QTs. Update 2: QuickTimes are now available on our server - Hi-Res (43.3 mb) | Lo-Res (19.7 mb). Enjoy! (Louis Wu 17:14:07 UTC) (permalink)
The Mister Chief comment is spot on.
Ben Ritter (aka BitMaP) posted a spoof CNN article yesterday - pretty funny jabs at both EA and Bungie. (GameJunkieJim also reposted it over at Bungie.net.) Give it a read! (Louis Wu 17:07:21 UTC) (permalink)
CurrentFilm looks at Halo 2
Aaron Beierle has written a review of Halo 2 for CurrentFilm.com - plot gets a 9/10, the DVD gets 9.5/10, Sound gets 10/10 (go, Marty and co!). Check it out. (Louis Wu 17:02:20 UTC) (permalink)
Killtacular Pack Maps on XBL - now free.
Whoa. Very cool. For anyone who didn't buy Sanctuary and Turf when they came out - it seems they're available now, for free, in the Content Download section of XBL. Go get 'em! Thanks, Echohammer419. (Louis Wu 15:36:03 UTC) (permalink)
You Should See Him Move A Piano.
Stuntmutt continues to take shots at his HBO Helljumper buddies (or maybe himself, hard to tell) in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 15:09:55 UTC) (permalink)
Monday Morning Lit
Fifteen new stories in the Fan Fiction section today - looks like writers were also busy this weekend! (And I'm happy to see the page is now working correctly... story processing is much easier on the new system, so I'm a happy camper.) (Louis Wu 15:05:37 UTC) (permalink)
Cheaters - looks like your time has come
Looks like someone's been busy this weekend; many, many people who've been cheating using modded maps are now banned from Halo 2 Matchmaking. A recent example can be found in this forum post by pwn4ge, a member of the PraetoriaGuard clan - they were cheated in a Containment game (they even filmed it - I'm waiting to hear if I'm allowed to link to the film; I'll update this news post if I am), and the cheater is now demonstrably gone from Matchmaking. Nice! Update: The movie, showing the cheating (33.5 mb, WMP9 format) can be found on the PraetoriaGuard website. That's some fast running! (Louis Wu 14:52:52 UTC) (permalink)
News June 26 2005
MLG St. Louis - a nailbiter
Another great writeup over at MLGPro.com - thanks to 3Suns for the heads-up. Sounds like a pretty amazing tourney! (Louis Wu 23:56:41 UTC) (permalink)
Covenant Weaponry
Stephen Loftus brings us yet another analysis piece - this time by way of his connections with ONI. It's a look at Covenant Weaponry, as found in Halo. It contains a wealth of information, including physical parameters, weapon strengths, and general mechanics. Check it out! (Louis Wu 19:17:59 UTC) (permalink)
Shameless Showing Off
retsamolah has put together a fun montage - mostly it's to show KP jumping off various walkways on Lockout, I think (after taking slight damage from rets, so that rets gets the kill), but it's fun to watch. We're not hosting it - KP is, over at spartans.bungie.org. 49.2 mb, QuickTime format, nice matching of snipes to Mark Knopfler's awesome fingerwork near the end of the song. Do NOT watch this with the intention of rating skill, or because you like to denigrate folks who play in Team Training, or whatever - this is just for fun. Enjoy the construction - or don't bother watching it. (Louis Wu 17:36:43 UTC) (permalink)
The Video Game Revolution
There's a fun article over at Yes Weekly, a Greensboro, NC news magazine - it looks at a local gaming center, and extrapolates to how gaming in general has evolved and grown over the years. Halo 2 plays a pretty prominent role in the writeup. Thanks to demus, who pointed this out in our forum. (Louis Wu 16:37:12 UTC) (permalink)
Psst - wanna buy a statue?
docpan dropped by our forum with an offer; he's got a 6-foot-tall Master Chief figure he needs to sell, and he figured he'd offer it to hardcore fans before putting it up on eBay. If you're interested, stop by the thread, and see what's what! (Louis Wu 16:25:42 UTC) (permalink)
Coagulation Mod Released for HCE
Merecatfish points out that The Halo 2 Conversion Map Team (CMT for short) has released Coagulation, their version of the Halo 2 map for Halo CE - there's a thread devoted to the subject over at the Gearbox forums. There's a video, created by KOD_Legend, showing you what it looks like (65 mb, WMP9 format, really long) - they did some great work. Check it out! (Louis Wu 16:03:04 UTC) (permalink)
The Cup Is Not The Experience.
I haven't highlighted a forum post from Matt Soell in quite some time - partly because he hasn't been around (in a posting sense) for a while, but also because he no longer works for Bungie. However, he posted a note this evening that is worth a read by anyone interested in the marketing side of video games, and how it conflicts, sometimes, with what the 'fans' want. (I put 'fans' in quotes because they're generally people who believe they deserve the title more than the millions of people who bought Halo 2 BECAUSE of the marketing hype.) If you're new around here, Matt was the public mouthpiece of Bungie for many years, until his departure 2 years ago. He resurfaced about a year after that, at Wideload Games, the startup created by Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian. The man has a way with words, and a pretty grounded perspective on all of this stuff. Read it and let your blood pressure drop. (Remember that all of this is personal opinion; he's not representing Bungie, or Wideload, or anyone else but Matt in this post.) (Louis Wu 03:57:42 UTC) (permalink)
MLG St. Louis - Rockin'!
Apologies for the delay in this news; I've been unavailable for updates most of today. MLG St. Louis is fully underway now (day one is actually past), and there's a ton of content available at MLGPro.com. You can watch today's matches on their Video On Demand service - there's a writeup of the FFA Finals online, so you can see what you're getting into. Overswarm, who writes the Not So Common Sense Strategy Guide here at HBO, is doing commentary on the VoD streams... go listen! Thanks to synide for the heads-up. Update: eep - forgot, you can get full results for today's matches over at Team3D, thanks to F13ND. (Louis Wu 03:32:30 UTC) (permalink)
News June 25 2005
HBO Forerunners - Content out the Ying-Yang
N1NJ4 writes to point out that the HBO Forerunners website is up and running, with tons of fun content for you. There's a clan blog (interesting idea, with a half-dozen entries already, mostly decent reads), various art and video tidbits, and a trailer for the upcoming clan vid, "Forerunner Chronicles" (24.3 mb, WMP9 format, 1:31 long). Check it out! (Louis Wu 19:51:32 UTC) (permalink)
Kr4zed Montage
kr4zed submitted a montage vid to our Movie Peer Review Rating System - and the reviewers liked the timing, and the video effects. (They would have been happy with more spectacular gameplay - but apparently it was good enough to pass even with this gripe.) It's available in WMP9 format (36.6 mb) or QuickTime format (32.1 mb). Not bad for a fourteen-year-old! (Louis Wu 12:32:23 UTC) (permalink)
Master Chief Suit - work continues
Alan James sent in some new pics of his Master Chief suit in progress; he's got leg pieces and gloves started. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 12:15:39 UTC) (permalink)
No Scope King
Almost a month ago, (GT))Juggler posted a teaser for 'No Scope King', a vid he was putting together that collected no-scope snipes from various games. Last night, this movie was released, and promoted on halo2forum.com. (Bandwidth is being provided - in its entirety - by Mythica; the halo2forum thread is just an announcement.) Unless you enjoy wallowing in mud (and nastier substances), I'd suggest passing over the thread; many (most?) of the posts either rant about how Juggler must have cheated to create this footage, or rant about how stupid other posters are for not seeing this. I've played with Juggler - quite a bit - and I'm not at all worried about the veracity of this footage; he's quite a good sniper, with or without a scope, but more to the point, his skill isn't the point of this vid. It's about watching fun no-scope snipes. And Juggler does a really nice job putting them together. The video is 2:22 long, and weighs in at 35.8 mb in QuickTime format (720X480), or 26.4 MB in WMP9 format (600x450). (The WMP9 has the correct aspect ratio - the quicktime is a bit stretched. On the other hand, the QT has higher video quality, and is larger.) Go watch - but watch it to enjoy the filmmaking. (Louis Wu 11:47:04 UTC) (permalink)
Terminal on your PSP
Mintz08 continues his PSP-ready conversions - this time with the 3D Terminal screenshots released yesterday. I'm still having trouble understanding the draw, but there it is for anyone who wants it. (Louis Wu 11:23:09 UTC) (permalink)
What should come next
Diss3nt has written up a blog entry with his thoughts about Halo 3. It's a little bit schizophrenic (after ranting about how Halo 2 got too much advertising, and how that detrimentally affected the fanbase, he complains that wants to see more promotional focus on the storyline - it was too neglected in the Halo 2 ads), but there's a lot of feeling behind it. He started a comment thread about it on our forum, as well. (Louis Wu 11:19:58 UTC) (permalink)
News June 24 2005
Now that just ROCKS.
Shishka, covering for the missing Sketch and Frankie, has posted not one, not two, but THREE gorgeous 3D screenshots of Terminal - you'll need QuickTime to see these, but oh, they're so very nice. I'm loving the last one. Shishka, fresh off a victorious sword lunge, is about to become winshield splatter. w00t! (We got this first from B.net itself, but thanks anyway to 3Suns for the email heads-up.) (Louis Wu 23:20:15 UTC) (permalink)
I'm Invisible!
Captain Spark released another 34 dialogue snippets today - you can grab them from his website, or browse them individually in our Dialogue Databank. (1363 snippets to date - wow!) (Louis Wu 20:37:14 UTC) (permalink)
Buyer Beware
mrsmiley writes to point out a new strip over at Halo Babies - maybe you gotta worry about where you're getting your info... (Louis Wu 19:43:21 UTC) (permalink)
The Oracle Speaks
Mercury has written up an article on his blog suggesting that the trash-talking and rudeness we often experience is as much due to adults as it is to kids (both directly, and indirectly in how adults provide role-models for younger players). Interesting viewpoint. Comments can go in this thread. (Louis Wu 17:33:14 UTC) (permalink)
With Friends Like These...
Stuntmutt says 'watch your custom button layouts' in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 12:28:45 UTC) (permalink)
Fan Fic - rather suddenly
Normally, we don't have two Fan Fiction updates in two days... but today is Jillybean's birthday, and she's submitted a story, so we're posting the queue again (it's a total of four stories). Yes, she's a front-page wh— um, attention-seeker. Live with it. (Louis Wu 12:03:35 UTC) (permalink)
Master Chief Model
Wortrow found an interesting series of renders over on the Scifi-Meshes.com forums - Doug Godfrey, aka JoKeRr, has modeled the Master Chief, and is in the process of animating his work. (There's a small website begun, as well.) It's out of the ordinary; this wasn't built by starting with Bungie models, it was created from the ground up. (You can see the progression of the model through the thread, now over 150 replies long.) (Louis Wu 11:52:26 UTC) (permalink)
Offline Web Pages - on your PSP
Mintz08 has been porting various web pages to the PSP - he started with some Weekly What's Updates, moved on to the Enkidu Fan Fiction, and last night posted the Bungie.net Terminal preview. If you have a Playstation Portable, and you're interested in reading some of these web pages offline on it, check out his posts! (Louis Wu 11:47:38 UTC) (permalink)
News June 23 2005
The Needler Walk
Back in April, ArchieGates (a Gamespot user) released a pair of Needler songs; they're pretty funny stuff. Looks like a couple of weeks ago, he released song number 3 - you can grab a copy off our server (2.4 mb). Funny stuff! Thanks to bighairyape for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 19:12:42 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 2: Episode 1: Cairo Station Trailer
comradx has released a trailer for the first episode of his upcoming feature-length Halo 2 film. (We posted an overall trailer a couple of months ago.) There are 7 episodes planned, with a trailer for each; Episode 1 should hit the web on July 4. The trailer is 18.8 mb in QuickTime format, 20.7 mb in WMP9 format, and combines cutscene footage with in-game play and additional voice work. Thanks to the MPRRS, for processing this. Update: thanks to trigger119, who pointed out that our hosting is pretty much unnecessary - it looks like this video has been online, on a dozen mirrors, for a few days now, according to this High Impact Halo forum thread. You've got a ton of choices, including BitTorrent. (Louis Wu 17:03:51 UTC) (permalink)
Tied The Leader
XerxdeeJ posted his weekly mention of Tied The Leader, his gaming blog, on our forum - Halo-related entries include Team Tactics Scorn, a LAN party poll, the new Tom and Jerry, Quitters, and Cheaters (more flying warthogs). Go read! (Louis Wu 16:46:43 UTC) (permalink)
Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...
Whee! Flying warthogs. The Geezer Gamers got into a matchmaking game on Containment last night - and the other team had clearly modded maps. Bad news for them - it's on film. (9.1 mb, WMP9 format. Unfortunately, it's on Putfile.) Thanks, Martin. (Louis Wu 16:35:47 UTC) (permalink)
First Drop accessible again
DarkChief wanted folks to know that his fanfic, First Drop, which was mentioned a couple of days ago but which went offline pretty quickly at that point, is back up, now that HaloTips is back online. (Louis Wu 15:40:00 UTC) (permalink)
Violence Isn't The Answer
Wow. I simply couldn't pass this up. Bonekin posted a video entitled "Violence Isn't The Answer" - it's a full Rumble Pit Training game of Foundation King, in which Bonekin wins by a healthy margin... without firing a single shot or meleeing a single opponent. Zero kills, zero assists, zero shots fired, playing on a level where the hill doesn't move, and is normally a grenade death trap... but he took the match by more than a full minute. Pacifism... the choice of a new generation. (Louis Wu 11:03:23 UTC) (permalink)
Mental Image
trigger119 writes to point out Mental Image, a new machinima created by his friend Vice Ruetoy. It's in the 'something the government is giving me is making me crazy' genre - it's 44.1 mb, WMP9 format. Voice stuff needs some work. You can post comments to this thread (this was put up yesterday, but the movie was replaced last night with a version with better sound). (Louis Wu 10:38:10 UTC) (permalink)
Map details - all in one place
Hedfones has written up a pretty complete collection of information about the new maps coming out, combining details from many, many different sources and providing download links in one convenient place - go read his thread over at HaloPlanet! (Louis Wu 10:33:05 UTC) (permalink)
Magnet giveaway regionalized?
Socrates points out that the magnet thingy we mentioned yesterday seems to be confined to the east coast of the US - there aren't any out west yet. Bizarre. Update: (And this will be the last I say about these things) - we got a few emails saying that Socrates was incorrect; that there ARE magnets to be had on the west coast. We have absolutely no idea what the distribution of these really is, and in fact it doesn't really matter; this is your heads-up that there MIGHT be magnets in your local game store, or there might not be. If so - cool, grab 'em and have fun. If not - sorry. We really don't need to hear from other locations. Thanks! (Louis Wu 10:30:38 UTC) (permalink)
Thursday's Writing
Due to a relatively boneheaded move on my part, the new Fan Fiction submission page was set up to eat submissions, rather than post them. With some help from Wado and Mark Lieberg, I was able to track down the cause of the problem - and the latest 4 entries are now up on the Fan Fiction page. Apologies to any authors who submitted stories that subsequently vanished. (Louis Wu 10:26:13 UTC) (permalink)
Dogs, and Mice. And Dogs.
Count Zero has taken time out of his busy schedule (of answering emails and sucking his thumb) to compile the next collection of questions and answers for the HBO Mailbag. Remember: the emails are all REAL. We really get this stuff. (Louis Wu 10:06:47 UTC) (permalink)
More Halo 2 Action Figures
A number of new action figure pics have been added to Joyride's Halo 2 section - mostly stuff coming out later this year. The four that coviehunter noticed specifically were the Prophet, Hunter, Pink Spartan, and Spectre... there are more, scroll through the list! (Louis Wu 09:52:04 UTC) (permalink)
Maptacular summary at CVG
Computer and Video Games has posted a summary of the five newest maps (along with screenshots); if you haven't gotten your fill of this sort of info, go read! (Louis Wu 09:48:57 UTC) (permalink)
News June 22 2005
Riding the Bullet (blocking) Train
Continuing their series of one map preview per week, Bungie has put up an in-depth look at Terminal - its strengths, its weaknesses, the best Starbucks kiosks in the station. Wait - that's not right. But the rest of it is. Go read! Very cool graphics - screenshots, closeups on scenery items, even a map. (Louis Wu 22:07:09 UTC) (permalink)
Free magnets from EBG
Davidgojr writes to point out that EB Games is giving out free Halo 2 Maptacular Map Pack magnets; he sent along a scan (242k). In his words: "The magnet itself is on the left side of the dotted line. It's hard to tell from the image but each of the three spartans as well as the rocks and wording are raised, textured areas to give the magnet a sort of 3-D feel to it." Go get one! Update: OscarGordon writes to say that they're not just at EB Games - he's seen them at Gamestop, Gamecrazy - they're everywhere. Go get 'em! (Louis Wu 20:31:21 UTC) (permalink)
Ultimate Slayer
We got word of a vid called 'Ultimate Slayer' - it's a 7:24 long machinima... of sorts. It's actually the story of a Team Slayer game in Coagulation. Nice filming, and some funny moments! The actual vid is 113 mb, but it's stored in zipped format, and the download is only 56 mb. DivX 5 format. Go grab a copy from the Final Supremacy website. (Louis Wu 20:14:59 UTC) (permalink)
VGL Announces Tour Dates
Video Games Live, the upcoming concert tour involving video game music, has announced 17 new dates, with tickets going on sale this Friday. You can find the full press release in our misc section. Looks like I'll be in Boston on August 22! Update: whee... the PR company has asked for a 'recall' on that press release. Sorry about that. Dunno WHERE I'll be in August, I guess. More when we know it. Update 2: Minor corrections have been made, the press release is back online. (Louis Wu 18:07:10 UTC) (permalink)
Rockets. Not A Precision Weapon.
Last week, Stuntmutt commented on the unintended side effects of one of the more powerful weapons in Halo 2. A lot of people were confused. Today's One One Se7en is another try at the same message. (Louis Wu 13:40:30 UTC) (permalink)
Pro Players Talk
F13ND, over at Team3D, has written up a pair of articles - an interview with Ogre 1, one of the top pro players, and a series of interviews with 4 top players (the same five questions to each), in preparation for MLG St. Louis. Go read! (Louis Wu 13:04:05 UTC) (permalink)
Girls on Live - is it worse than boys get?
J. Paradise over at Daily Game, has written up part 1 of 'Confessions of a Girl Gamer', in which she talks about the abuse she takes online due to her gender. Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, has written a retort - it's not that he approves of the behavior she deplores, it's that he doesn't believe she's any more abused than male players. Interesting pair of reads. (Louis Wu 12:55:52 UTC) (permalink)
News June 21 2005
2old2type podcast ep 3
DSmooth writes to let us know that 2old2play.com's 3rd weekly podcast episode is available for downloading - in two versions (one with the pg-rated words bleeped). 36-38 mb, depending on rating. The Halo 2 content includes a discussion of upcoming maps. Go listen! (Louis Wu 18:40:02 UTC) (permalink)
Master Hot Stepper
Jamie Noguchi's brother works for Bungie. Jamie writes a comic called Angry Zen Master. Jamie's latest strip takes a calculated, insider look at Bungie's latest doings - go read. And if you're disappointed that the secret's out... blame Jamie's brother Mat. That guy just can't keep his mouth shut. (Thanks, mnemesis.) (Louis Wu 18:00:02 UTC) (permalink)
Noobs, Experts, and In Between - redux
Last month, we posted a short trailer for 'Noobs, Experts, and In Between' - it hadn't passed the MPRRS, but I liked it, and it had been close. The creator has redone it a bit, and this time it DID pass - so we're hosting ANOTHER copy. 1:16 long, 4.3 mb in WMP9 format, or 4.1 mb in QuickTime format. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 14:18:16 UTC) (permalink)
Lost Time
Playfeed wrote a review of Halo 2 that starts with "Last week I found Halo 2 in a Limited Collectors Edition tin a pawn show for $15 bucks..." - what blew the reviewer away was how much fun the game actually was. He admits that he ridiculed the game when it came out, entirely because of the massive hype... but he now regrets that. Interesting! (Louis Wu 12:48:08 UTC) (permalink)
Sanctuary and Turf, in living color
Two more of the high-quality flythrough trailers, commissioned by Microsoft, have been released - Gametrailers.com has both HD (640x472) and regular (480x360) sizes, in both WMP9 and QuickTime, while TeamXbox has 640x480 WMP9 versions. The Turf film, in particular, is a fantastic example of how to marry audio to video, even without 'action'. Thanks to all who let us know - 3Suns was first. Update: These are available for Gamespot Complete members, as well, over at Gamespot. (No streaming versions yet.) Thanks, Kliend. If you want streaming, head over to IGN. Update 2: Both Sanctuary and Turf are also available, in the 640x480 WMP9 versions, at CANOE. (Louis Wu 12:34:21 UTC) (permalink)
News June 20 2005
Stryke Force Ep 6 Teaser
Stryke Force has posted a teaser for episode 6 on their website - the WMP9 is up now, and weighs in at 8.5 mb. The QuickTime should be up soon, at roughly the same size. They're also recruiting for an XBL clan, so if you like their stuff, check out the clan! (Louis Wu 20:25:27 UTC) (permalink)
Now that's just...odd.
DoctorEvol pointed out a site called 'Kiss The Chief'... a series of pics of the MC, after he gets out of the military and stops working out. Bizarre stuff. (Louis Wu 19:26:01 UTC) (permalink)
T and R - done.
I think this was the last big challenge from Halo, trick-wise... Ms. Man has gotten to the bottom of Truth and Reconciliation, in single-player. (He did this in Co-op mode back in October.) You can find the vid in WMP9 format linked off the High Impact Halo forum (26.6 mb), or grab a QuickTime version from bungie.org (27.5 mb). Warning: the music will make your brain explode. And not in a good way. (Louis Wu 19:21:36 UTC) (permalink)
Moving up to the Big Leagues
LordGideon has written up Lesson 3 of his Video Production Guide - this one looks at how to use Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, for folks who want to take a step up from Windows Movie Maker. Clear, concise, helpful - go give it a read! (Louis Wu 19:16:45 UTC) (permalink)
Storm Gaming Tourney
Hardcore sends along word of a Halo 2 4v4 Slayer tourney hosted by Storm Gaming Ladders - more details can be found on their website. $1/player, money is due by July 31. Go look! (Louis Wu 17:16:00 UTC) (permalink)
Who's Got You?
They say it's not cheating, really - but it can be pretty darn annoying. What? Well, you'll have to read One One Se7en to find out. (Louis Wu 12:15:57 UTC) (permalink)
First Drop
DarkChief writes to point out First Drop, a fanfic he's writing on his website, Halotips.net. Give it a look! (Check out the rest of the site while you're there.) Update: eep, looks like his account has gotten suspended. Skip this one for now - it'll be back soon. (Louis Wu 12:11:42 UTC) (permalink)
n00b.
Marl heard one too many Livers call someone a n00b - and snapped. You can read his rant on his Xanga site. (Louis Wu 10:42:31 UTC) (permalink)
Project Torlan Closing
The top two guys on Project Torlan (the Halo to UT total conversion project) have dropped out, for personal reasons, which will likely bring this project to an end, though they still plan on releasing most of their work in development this summer. Sadness. Thanks to zugy for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 10:19:09 UTC) (permalink)
A sigh of relief
Time for bed, here... but before I go, something that's been in the works for quite some time. The Fan Fiction section has been moved - it's now hosted on a far more robust connection, and the code has all been rewritten in php. Should look (mostly) the same - well, the huge page listing is gone at the top of the main page, and some of the search functions are a little more interesting - but the downtime should stop happening. There's no guarantees I got everything right, so if you run into a problem, please let me know. Otherwise, though, go read the eight new stories posted this evening. (Louis Wu 03:12:57 UTC) (permalink)
News June 19 2005
Go hug your father.
In honor of Father's Day here in the US (a holiday my family usually gives pretty minimal attention to, except for this year, it seems), HBO is going to take the day off. I'll be back posting later tonight or tomorrow - apologies for the downtime! (Louis Wu 14:07:48 UTC) (permalink)
News June 18 2005
Another Working Rocket Launcher
A bit ago, we heard from Juan Martinez, who was working on another Rocket Launcher model. (We mentioned one last month.) Yesterday, he sent us pictures - that thing looks pretty cool! Check it out. (Louis Wu 18:16:50 UTC) (permalink)
Sin City: Trailer
Steve The Plank released 'Sin City: Trailer' last week over at High Impact Halo; it was greeted with approval. He submitted it to the Movie Peer Review Rating System, where it was ALSO greeted with approval. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet - you can grab the original WMP9 (6.8 mb), or a cropped (to get rid of a lot of the extra black space - actual film size hasn't changed one pixel) QuickTime (also 6.8 mb) from our servers. Nicely captures the grit of the Sin City movie, with great editing and a close attention to the original trailer. (Louis Wu 13:45:45 UTC) (permalink)
A breath of fresh air
Over at Rampancy.net, Narcogen takes a close look at the recent rumors swirling around about Halo 3, taking them apart point by point. He doesn't have any more (or less) info about this stuff than anyone else on the net - he just seems to have his feet more firmly on the ground than many. Read this post, if you're at ALL thinking that the current rumors might be true. It contains something relatively important in the analysis of rumors... common sense. (Louis Wu 13:14:11 UTC) (permalink)
HALOader now does comparisons
Gravity lets us know that HALOader, a stats program, has been updated - it now handles gamer comparisons. Swing by and give it a look! (Louis Wu 13:05:57 UTC) (permalink)
The Calm Before The Storm
The Codex, Episode 14, has been released - this one keeps getting better. Great filming, great voice work, an interesting storyline. Nice cliffhanger, even. Go watch - and let 'em know what you think! (QuickTime and WMP9 formats.) (Louis Wu 13:01:58 UTC) (permalink)
Spider Monkeys, Inbound
Mercury is worried about how a Halo movie might turn out. He pins down why in a nice blog entry over on The Oracle. Go read! (Louis Wu 12:58:06 UTC) (permalink)
How to get better. Really.
Over at Geezer Gamers, there's an article containing foolproof tips for improving your Halo 2 performance - if you're a geezer gamer. I have to remember to work on my reflexes later today. Thanks, Jamey Tisdale. (Louis Wu 12:55:50 UTC) (permalink)
News June 17 2005
Looking for Internet Cafes with No Spumoni
The Weekly What's Update has been posted already at Bungie.net (thanks, Frankie) - go read it for stuff about what's happening with the hackers using modded Containment/Warlock maps, plus lots of other tidbits. Go read! (Louis Wu 20:30:19 UTC) (permalink)
That's a LOT of people.
Wow - this one's unusual. Laird, from Sponsors vs Freeloaders, sent along a rather large request. Easier to simply quote him (with a few typo corrections):
In the footsteps that of episode 8, I am taking auditions for Freeloaders for episode 9. So if you're looking for a role on SvF please feel free to send an audition to laird@sponsorsvsfreeloaders.com (Note all auditions need to be adlibbed, a normal format (Mp3, wav, ogg), and be yourself (different voices etc...) Please don't alter your voice recordings in anyway so we can judge it in its raw format.)
Wow - they're looking for 50 actors. Go audition! (Louis Wu 20:19:44 UTC) (permalink)
Infectious.
When in doubt, pun really badly. That's Stuntmutt's motto, nicely demonstrated in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:47:12 UTC) (permalink)
Bah. Humbug.
Yeah, Fanfic is offline again. Yeah, it's being worked on. No, it won't be up before tomorrow. Yes, a long-term solution is in the works. Yes, the fastest way to really annoy me is to post snide comments about how this section is always down on our forum. That is all. (Louis Wu 16:45:17 UTC) (permalink)
Get close enough to kiss 'em!
Another batch of dialogue snippets from Captain Spark - once again, you can snag 'em in bulk from his website, or browse the new ones in our Dialogue Databank. (Louis Wu 15:57:06 UTC) (permalink)
Farewell - a montage
A week ago, rywateska posted a note on our forum about a montage vid he put together, to commemorate his need to leave the Halo 2 community. It was hosted over at cheapassgamer.com (still is, in fact) - but he then submitted it to our Movie Peer Review Rating System. The reviewers liked it - an impressive feat these days for a montage vid. Great timing, nice music, decent video quality. We're releasing two versions - a QuickTime (44.2 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org) and a WMP9 (45.8 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org). If you haven't already seen this, grab it now! (Louis Wu 13:51:00 UTC) (permalink)
Dual Wielded.
Today's Halo Babies comic needs no real writeup. Or, maybe more accurately, any writeup I do will simply be digging a deeper hole. (Louis Wu 12:23:26 UTC) (permalink)
Grenade Collecting for Dummies.
Awesome. Over at High Impact Halo, Dark Helmet has created a fantastic tutorial vid showing how to collect grenades for Halo 1 grenade jumping - not just the basics, but how to make a really nice, tight pile. Soundtrack is from South Park, and deserves a NSFW warning. 29.4 mb, WMP9 format. For the heck of it, I've added a QuickTime version - 28 mb - as well. (I wrote this up about 8 hours ago, but somehow forgot to post it. Duh.) (Louis Wu 02:28:00 UTC) (permalink)
News June 16 2005
Bunker 27 Episode 1
Not long ago, Goose submitted Bunker 27 Episode 1, "In the Beginning", to our Movie Peer Review Rating System. The vid didn't pass, but he got a decent amount of useful feedback; he went back, re-edited the film to fix some of the problems reviewers noted, and resubmitted. Second time's the charm; this one made it through. Nice visual effects, silly humor, good filming. If there's anyone stupider than Donut out there... it's Goose. (The character, not the real-life filmmaker.) Grab this in WMP9 format (31.2 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org) or QuickTime format (27.8 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org) and enjoy! If you like it, they'll make more. (They'll probably make more anyway, actually. They said they would, anyway.) (Louis Wu 16:21:31 UTC) (permalink)
Leyk Update
I've been meaning to write this up for some time - apologies to everyone involved. About 6 weeks ago, we posted a note explaining the hardships facing a prominent community member, Tina Leyk, and put a link on our front page, giving folks access to a PayPal link to help out, if they chose to. Not long ago, I heard from Tina about her situation - there's good news and bad news. The good news is that the Halo community saved them; they were able to remain where they were, without being evicted. (Thanks, to everyone who pitched in - you guys rock!) The bad news is that a couple of weeks ago, they were hit with a major vet bill; they learned that their cat looks to be in the early stages of kidney failure, and the initial bill of $400 (CDN) is kicking their butts. I'm passing this news on because I believe that anyone who's pitched in something to help them deserves to know whether they've done any good (you have, believe me), and to update folks wondering how they're doing in general. Here's hoping it all works out in the end! (Louis Wu 16:13:12 UTC) (permalink)
Wouldn't it be nice?
A few days ago, Agonizing_Gas wrote up a satirical post on the 2old2play forums about a 13-year-old who realized his attitude on XBL was influencing his life - yesterday, stosh posted a sanitized version on Bungie.net. We were gonna pass on this... but it was noticed both in our forum (though, scarily, the poster believed it might be a true story), and via email by a bunch of people - so if you haven't seen it, go read. It's pretty funny. (Louis Wu 16:05:08 UTC) (permalink)
Show me the money!
Yet another R.net heads-up... this one is a blog entry from Wil Wheaton, discussing the recent agreement between the Screen Actors Guild and video games publishers (we mentioned it last week). Wil's point of view is that actors deserve more. There's a well-written counterpoint over at Game Girl Advance, suggesting that while everyone might WANT more, actors aren't any more entitled to residuals than, say, animators - but that if publishers had to pay EVERYONE residuals, nobody would publish games. The whole issue is becoming more important, as gaming continues to make inroads into mainstream entertainment, and budgets (and profits) continue to climb. Stay tuned - we may have something more in-depth about this in the near future. (Louis Wu 15:52:21 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Main Theme Transcription
Another transcription of the Halo main theme has been posted at Rampancy.net; Devin Eastman has submitted an archive including a MIDI file, a PrintMusic document, and a PDF containing the score. You can find comments by Devin in the R.net news post. (Registration - free - is required to download the archive.) (Louis Wu 15:34:27 UTC) (permalink)
Articles that shouldn't be written (yet?)
IGN posted a short piece about what they want to see in the Halo movie once it hits the big screen. I found this at Rampancy.net, where Narcogen said their list 'makes Baby Jesus cry' - he ain't kiddin'. (Louis Wu 15:28:33 UTC) (permalink)
Area 55 out
Area 55, from Halo Hoger, has been released for HaloCE. Animated scenery, new enemies and character models, custom dialogue. 10 mb or so. Give it a try! Thanks, MasterGrief. (Louis Wu 15:21:12 UTC) (permalink)
The Overviews Continue
More versions of the Microsoft-commissioned map overviews are appearing - 1Up.com was first out of the gate yesterday with Containment, though the aspect ratio is all wrong. (Their QuickTime link works now, though - thanks, Blackstar.) GameTrailers.com is now serving QT and WMP9 versions of this - 480x360, about 8 and a half megs each. (Thanks, Christian Andersen.) They're also hosting similarly-sized versions of a Warlock trailer from that series. The first version of Warlock to show up, though, was at TeamXbox, in WMP9 format, at 640x480 (16.1 mb) - thanks, Oddworld. Look for the other 7 maps to be spotlighted soon around the net. (Louis Wu 13:22:50 UTC) (permalink)
News June 15 2005
Backwash Profiled
In keeping with the plan to highlight a new map each week until the release of the Map Pack in early July, Bungie.net has posted a preview of Backwash. Screenshots and developer commentary bring this map to spooky, eery life - check it out! (Louis Wu 20:40:25 UTC) (permalink)
A Link To Halo.
Stuntmutt gets off track in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 14:32:08 UTC) (permalink)
Battle of the Bobs
The Clan of Bobs is looking to start up its own weekly challenge match, modeled on Bungie's Halo Humpday Challenge. If you're interested in participating, swing by the page and give it a read! (Louis Wu 13:53:10 UTC) (permalink)
Containment overview posted
1Up.com has posted a multiplayer video of Containment today - nice footage, in a variety of formats. The QuickTime link, at the time of this writing, does not work - but I'm sure it'll be up later. The aspect ratio on the large downloadable WMP9 is a little screwy, too... but (as the news post says) this (and vids like it, covering the other 8 maps) were made by Microsoft (well, FOR Microsoft, anyway), and will likely be available from many outlets in the not too distant future. Nice camerawork! (Louis Wu 13:19:47 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie Store Sweepstakes Ends Today
Bungie.net reminds you that your chance to win a Master Chief statue at the Bungie store is running out - their sweepstakes closes today. Read the b.net news post (or the Contest page at the Bungie Store) for details! (Louis Wu 13:12:37 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Poo
Z, over at Halo2Forum.com, let us know about a new vid posted last night. It's called 'Halo Poo', and it's a disappointment vid... but it's live-action, and parts are pretty funny. There's some unpleasantness (fake vomit, in the form of oatmeal and water), but mostly it's a look at the surprise and disappointment these guys felt when they played Halo 2 on live the first time. Watch it with a sense of humor - or pass it by. WMP9 format, 38.2 mb. (Louis Wu 12:49:02 UTC) (permalink)
Owning at Halo
Charles Hoban pointed out The Bob and George Fancomics Pages - specifically The Ninja Bot, whose episode #218 looks at Halo 2 on Live. Odd... (Louis Wu 12:40:33 UTC) (permalink)
News June 14 2005
Cheating FAQ
No, not a FAQ on how to cheat. ;-P
I just noticed over on Major Nelson's blog that Bungie has recently posted an updated FAQ on cheating and Halo 2. Lots of answers about modified content, clans, reporting, and all that stuff, so go check it out, and remember: play fair, it's more fun. (mnemesis 19:47:06 UTC) (permalink)
Script Editor Needed
Kyrceck is looking for a script editor for an upcoming machinima project. Read more about the project (and the folks already involved in this forum post... and drop him a note if you're interested! (Louis Wu 19:20:40 UTC) (permalink)
Madda Cheeb!
A couple of months in development, the Madda Cheeb Flash Game is now available for play over at the Fire Team Charlie website. Be careful - it plays really screwy on Safari under Tiger. Works fine on other browsers/platforms, though. FUN! Thanks, Madda Cheeb. (Louis Wu 17:41:22 UTC) (permalink)
Blogging is good for you
XerxdeeJ let us know that Tied The Leader has new content - Gamertag embarrassment, voice acting contracts, Halo personals, real-life Halo love, stupid excuses for losing, and day jobs of famous characters. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 17:02:20 UTC) (permalink)
Please Don't Ever Push That Button Again.
Before anyone writes frantically to let me know the Fan Fiction comments links are all broken... let me tell you that the Fan Fiction comments links are all broken. (No details are necessary, beyond an admission of colossal stupidity on my part.) I'm working on fixing them. It's going to take a little while. Sorry. Update: fixed. (Louis Wu 15:12:45 UTC) (permalink)
'...'
Über-Chief 69 points out that Resolute Episode 14 has been posted. I'm not sure I get it. (Louis Wu 14:02:21 UTC) (permalink)
Insert Quarter to Purchase Health
The Wahttehhog Clan has released their first video in an ongoing series - it passed our Movie Peer Review Rating System yesterday, so you can grab a copy in either QuickTime format (35.2 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org) or WMP9 format (36 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org). Dialogue's pretty funny. <g> (Louis Wu 13:27:12 UTC) (permalink)
Video Games Live - Heating Up
The Video Games Live tour, bringing the music of many popular video games (including Halo), has kicked off its PR campaign - you can find the first press release in our misc section. (Louis Wu 13:07:50 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 2 HUDless screenshot tutorial
prometheus wrote up a pretty cool tutorial about how to create a Halo 2 HUDless screenshot; if you're interested in Halo scenery without all the text and personal info, check this out! (Louis Wu 12:34:22 UTC) (permalink)
Experience Calculator for Everyone
Infernus441 posted on our forum with a series of links to different versions of his Halo 2 Live Experience Calculator - it's available for PC, Mac, and online (in Perl). Check it out! (Louis Wu 12:19:07 UTC) (permalink)
Kiwi places 7th in worldwide tourney
New Zealand's Gameplanet has a news article about the Kiwi representative in the Halo 2 Worldwide Tournament that ended last Friday. Thanks, Google. (Louis Wu 12:16:49 UTC) (permalink)
GGZ Post New Movies
Dennis Powers points out two movies at Gearbox Game Zone - the first is called 'They said it was impossible', and it takes a look at HaloCE, and shows what's been possible with it. (This might have been prettier had it been filmed on a machine with a more powerful graphics card - but the composition is quite nice.) Available in both WMP9 and QuickTime, 25-37 mb. The second is Halo Tron 2.01, a remake of Tron with some help from the Halo engine. Interesting idea! Again, WMP9 and QuickTime formats, 29.7 mb each. Go watch! (Louis Wu 10:48:40 UTC) (permalink)
News June 13 2005
Flame War - Blood on the Snow
Yesterday, Yaksha visited our forums to let us know that Sponsors vs Freeloaders, Episode 7: 'Flame War - Blood on the Snow' was available for download at their website. Downloads were painfully slow, though, due to demand... so they put up a smaller version. However, it's pretty darned impressive at full res, so we're tossing up a pair of mirrors for the high-res version (76.9 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org), and adding a pair of high-res QuickTime mirrors (68.9 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org). Go grab this; it's filmed in Halo CE, and it's really well done. (It helps if you've watched previous episodes; the storyline makes very little sense otherwise.) They've REALLY gotten away from their silly, mostly-for-a-lark roots; this story turns deadly serious near the end of this episode. Definitely up there with the best of 'em. (Louis Wu 19:40:16 UTC) (permalink)
Press X To Eject.
MC makes a few cosmetic modifications to a classic weapon to more accurately reflect its purpose in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 17:51:43 UTC) (permalink)
Monday Morning Fiction
Eight new stories for you added over the weekend in the Fan Fiction section... go read! (Louis Wu 15:33:33 UTC) (permalink)
Gamestop, the last crusade.
Tricky writes that Waffle Hut has another Halo-related comic. If the last panel doesn't mean anything to you, you should check this forum post from last week. (Louis Wu 14:19:09 UTC) (permalink)
How to build your own MC suit
Chris Bryan created a Wearable Master Chief Suit over the course of a year or so. We chronicled the work with pictures - and one of the things this page generated was a whole lot of questions, both for Chris and for us, about HOW this was done. Chris has put together a short tutorial, using the belt as an example - give it a read! (Louis Wu 13:35:11 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 2 playtested on an Xbox 360
TotalVideoGames.com has a story about Major Nelson playing Halo 2 on an Xbox 360 - and not being able to tell the difference, despite the fact that the 360 is not yet optimized. Nice! Though we heard this from Google News, there was also a post on our forum by altodarknight. (Louis Wu 13:32:06 UTC) (permalink)
News June 12 2005
Gamespy gets in on the Map Action
Gamespy has put up their own Map Pack Preview, with info about (and video of) the remaining five maps. The video comes from the same games that IGN and Gamespot put up last week - it seems like in some cases, at least, it's different segments, and you don't need to be a subscriber to download. Thanks to Zether and 3Suns for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 14:34:25 UTC) (permalink)
Xbox Live - more than just gaming
Slicksnake pointed out an interesting use of Xbox Live; The Sarrow, over on the GameFAQs forum, posted a note stating that he'd be doing readings of the Halo novels on Xbox Live - comments in the thread suggest he's pretty good at it. Now if only you could get XBL in your car... (Louis Wu 14:21:49 UTC) (permalink)
Xbox.com Content
A hunt through the Xbox.com site turned up a few articles that we've not mentioned - here's what you can find.
- Summary of the Killtacular Map Pack
- Summary of the Bonus Map Pack
- Comments from fans who played in the Game With Fame series:
- Spotlights with national winners in the Worldwide Halo 2 Tournament, which wrapped up Friday (there were none with the winners from Australia, Belgium, Ireland, and Japan):
- Billykater, Austria
- I DaMan I, Canada
- GermanFreak, Denmark
- Iw 1K1LL, Finland
- I Theos I, France
- Pr0gamer, Germany
- Runningboy, Hong Kong
- N3 L3lL1nShOk3r, Italy
- Oddwing, Korea
- MexLoco, Mexico
- King Tuur, Netherlands
- Bob69er nz, New Zealand
- ZpiKeY, Norway
- tidusSG, Singapore
- I Lops I, Spain
- Shellman, Sweden
- Otcho Boy, Switzerland
- I Kobegod I, Taiwan
- o0 Lethal 0o, United Kingdom
- | terry15|, US
Will that hold you for a while? (Louis Wu 14:15:58 UTC) (permalink)
News June 11 2005
Modeled PoA Progress
Stephen Loftus has made a bit of progress on his Pillar of Autumn model - you can find the new photos on his model page. this looks pretty impressive! (Louis Wu 22:40:58 UTC) (permalink)
Jump Tactics Spoof: Episode 4
A few days ago, Halogrid.com released Jump Tactics Spoof: Episode 4 - and at the same time, submitted it to our Movie Peer Review Rating System. The MPRRS reviewers are taking a bit longer than they used to to review films - but last night, they passed this video, enjoying things like the modded content, the lack of a HUD, and the silly humor. It's not so much of a real jumping vid spoof, as it is just a bunch of folks getting together and doing silly things... but they do a nice job, and it's put together well. It's 11:13 long, and weighs in at 73.1 mb (WMP9) or 75.0 mb (QT)... big! Go grab a copy. In addition to the four mirrors listed at Halogrid.com, we can add these two for the WMP9 version: mythica.org | bungie.org. Also, we've put up a QuickTime version for those who can't deal with WMP9 - you can grab it here: bungie.org | mythica.org. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 16:57:41 UTC) (permalink)
Interview with David Hufford
clarksbrother points out an audio interview he did on the Not So Late Show with David Hufford, Group Xbox Manager, about the Xbox 360 - this is relevant to Halo fans because the interview touches on backwards compatibility for Halo and Halo 2, comments about Halo 3 (and when it might, or might not, come out), and some info about the Halo movie script. Nothing that hasn't been posted here before - but it's from a voice we haven't heard much from. 26 minutes long, just under 12 mb, available on the NotSoLateShow.com website, as well as a mirror. (Louis Wu 16:48:42 UTC) (permalink)
Old interview, uncovered
There was an interview with Brian Jarrard in the January 2005 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly - and Guardians has found a copy of it online. (It went along with the interviews of Tyson Green and Pete Parsons that month.) It's old info (from December, I think)... but still pretty interesting stuff - and in some cases, things that simply haven't come up elsewhere. Give it a read! (Louis Wu 16:02:18 UTC) (permalink)
The Best Mister Chief Ever
Oops - I forgot to mention last night's Weekly What's Update, posted over at Bungie.net - some basic info about the Halo movie script, the Halo World Championships, and what will (and WON'T) happen when the new maps are released next month. Go read! (Louis Wu 15:31:11 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie.net - from the inside
For the truly geek-minded among you, there's a fascinating case study of the Bungie net website, written up by the MSDN Solution Architecture Center. (Yep, I guess I fit in that category...) How the site was developed, what's behind it, what challenges had to be overcome... for people interested in the backend part of things, this is a great read. Thanks, Matt Stum. (Louis Wu 13:23:07 UTC) (permalink)
Codex Ep 13 - Cornered
The Codex Series has posted Episode 13 - things aren't looking too good for the humans. Nice film work, as usual. Go watch! (Louis Wu 13:18:02 UTC) (permalink)
More E3 reminiscences
Two more E3 picture collections from Bungie fans - Djof's is here and Hippieman's is here. Again - minimal Halo content, but there are some nice pics of community members. (Louis Wu 13:13:32 UTC) (permalink)
Squad 7 Ep 1
Sector 7 Halo has put up Squad 7 Episode 1, the first chapter of their machinima project. 3:21, 30 mb. Seems like it must be a setup for the rest of the series... (Louis Wu 12:59:01 UTC) (permalink)
Cabel vs the World
XboxZone.com.au has posted a writeup of their finalist's experience in the International Halo 2 Tournament that ended yesterday Cabel came in 5th, but it was a good run. Go read! (Louis Wu 12:53:21 UTC) (permalink)
News June 10 2005
King Tuur Takes it All
Thanks to Major Nelson (via mot), who let us know that King Tuur, of the Netherlands, is the winner of the Halo 2 Worldwide Tournament! (Louis Wu 21:48:57 UTC) (permalink)
Wrong Side Of The Tracks.
An old term will take on new meaning come July 5... check out today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 20:23:58 UTC) (permalink)
Spiral Path Megabattle
Rockslider has updated his website with a new section on the Spiral Path megabattle (your last chance with a tank on AotCR). If you like fighting massive battles, check this one out! (Louis Wu 17:25:29 UTC) (permalink)
Servant Chief
A 33-year-old journalist competed in a major Australian tournament recently - the writeup is pretty funny, though his performance (and that of his team) was pretty abysmal. Fun stuff. (Louis Wu 17:17:26 UTC) (permalink)
That was deeply satisfying.
Captain Spark released another batch of dialogue snippets, this time all Elites. You can snag the entire batch at his website, zipped, or peruse them at your leisure in our Dialogue Databank. (Louis Wu 16:54:50 UTC) (permalink)
The Times dishes movie dirt
The Business section of today's New York Times took a pretty in-depth look (free registration required, or visit bugmenot.com for a user/pass) at the Halo movie deal. It contains details about what Microsoft was asking (stuff I haven't seen elsewhere yet), as well as what each party got (Microsoft seems to have gotten 10% of the movie's gross - less than the 15% they asked for, but still a subtantial chunk)... but all of it is contingent on MS ceding some creative control, something they may not be willing to do. Great writeup - and nice to see a picture of the Master Chief on the front page of the NYT Business section. Thanks, wayn0ka. (Louis Wu 16:32:16 UTC) (permalink)
Friday Fan Fiction
Because of the day or so downtime on the Fan Fiction section this week, there are only 8 new pieces for you today - go read! (Louis Wu 16:01:27 UTC) (permalink)
Local Upcoming Tourneys
Couple of tourneys we've heard about: Video Gamers League has posted details of their Orlando Regional Championship, to be held at the Xtreme Auto Xpo next Sunday, June 19, in Kissimmee, FL, and Scooter pointed out that tomorrow, in West Chester, OH, there's a singles and doubles tourney hosted by Game Junkie. If you're in either area, go play! (Louis Wu 14:34:53 UTC) (permalink)
Now THAT'S a slammer.
Greendude was cleaning out his closet, and came across a collection of pogs, a game that gained new popularity about 10 years ago (follow the link for more info). He found one that looks eerily like the Master Chief... weirdness. (Louis Wu 14:23:58 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Cutscene Library - Complete
The Halo Cutscene Library is now complete - we've posted the Final Credits today. And for those who don't want to download individual files, HaloChat has bundled up all of the WMP9 Hi-res versions (minus this one, I'd assume), and made them available in a single 368 mb zip download. Wonga! (Louis Wu 14:06:19 UTC) (permalink)
E32K5, remembered.
Our own Count Zero has finally compiled his photos from E3 this year - there's very, very little Halo content, except for the Plasma Fiesta subsection. And I must say I was disappointed with his Booth Babes section - he missed some of the best ones. All that aside, though, there are a LOT of pics, and some very funny captions. Check it out! (Louis Wu 13:37:00 UTC) (permalink)
A Perfectly Legitimate Strategy
Today's Halo Babies comic takes a look at one of Bungie's strategies during this week's Halo Humpday Challenge. Oooh... (Louis Wu 12:58:45 UTC) (permalink)
The Fun Stops Here
SketchFactor wrote up Bungie's version of the Halo Humpday Challenge against the Halo Babies crew (you've already seen HB's version) yesterday - there's a veiled threat that unless the next challenger tosses the match and lets Bungie win, they might cancel the whole idea of the HHC. Ouch! (Louis Wu 12:50:26 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 2 XBL software for OSX
mindquirk hivebrain writes to say that his Mac OSX software, which includes a Friends List viewer, a Halo 2 Stats viewer, and a standalone Halo2 emblem designer, is now fully compatible with Tiger, and available for download. Go Grab the suite - or just the apps that interest you! (Louis Wu 12:44:50 UTC) (permalink)
Worldwide Halo 2 Tourney - Finals Today!
The last two contestants (winners from Japan and the US) have been added to the Worldwide Halo 2 tourney, so finals are all set for today. Xbox.com has set up a Tournament Bracket to allow you to keep track of the action - check it out! Thanks to TeamXbox and Daily Game for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:33:21 UTC) (permalink)
The Halo Movie Script - Updated
Lots and lots and LOTS of people have been sending us links to stories about the Halo movie script being shopped out recently - they must have missed this news post, and this one, both of which went up on Tuesday. However, today, there's NEW news - Variety has put up this story (it was free if I watched an ad), which says that Fox and Universal have agreed to split costs on making the movie, and to pay Microsoft $5 million up front for the script (half of what they asked for). It's unclear how much of the actual movie's gross is also on the table. And it looks like this film will be in theaters by 2007. SUPERTOY found this at Aint-it-cool-news. Update: GAH! Looks like I'm as guilty of recycling old news as all those people writing to us. :( Sorry, mnemesis. (Louis Wu 12:27:58 UTC) (permalink)
Microsoft Nihilists to have Last Laugh?
Supertoy sends word that AICN is reporting (with back-up from Variety) that Fox and Universal have partnered to purchase the Alex Garland Halo script mentioned earlier this week. Not like it wasn't going to get bought by somebody, right? (mnemesis 06:06:05 UTC) (permalink)
Fanfic back up
Thanks muchly to Fazeaway, who's minding the store while Deimos is away - the Subnova branch of HBO is back up and running properly, which means Fan Fiction is back online. Go read! (Louis Wu 02:25:57 UTC) (permalink)
'sploding somethings.
There's a great summary of Elongation, complete with screenshots and developer commentary, up at Bungie.net right now. This is the first of 5 weekly map previews, leading up to the release of these maps in early July. Thanks to all the folks who sent in links - I think Nedus might have been first. (Louis Wu 02:23:50 UTC) (permalink)
News June 9 2005
The Last Spartan, Tabbed
There's a new guitar tab - this time for The Last Spartan - over at Powertabs.net... thanks, Shadowsniper689. (Louis Wu 19:48:39 UTC) (permalink)
Discounted Halo 2 figures
Like Halo action figures? Wanna save a little dough? Over at littleplasticmen, all in stock, non-exclusive HALO 2 action figures are only $11.70. (Gee, I wonder how they came up with that price?) Sale runs through Sunday. Thanks, hacksolo. Update: PJ Hamlen points out that littleplasticmen's shipping costs are several dollars more than their competitors - so even though the figures are less, if you only buy one or two, you won't save very much money. Bummer. (Louis Wu 16:38:32 UTC) (permalink)
Getting off the ring - one way or another
Nearing completion of the Halo Cutscene Library - today's releases all show the end of the Maw, and include the standard ending cutscene, as well as the short piece that changes if you play on Legendary, and the scene you get if you DON'T make it to the Longsword before the ship explodes. Go watch! (Louis Wu 15:17:40 UTC) (permalink)
Voice Acting - Stars, or Contract Talent?
The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have been getting ready to strike over contract disputes with video game publishers - but a deal was struck yesterday that will keep that from happening (pending approval from the unions themselves). Voice actors will receive a substantial increase in minimum pay for video game work, but will not receive residuals (payment for each game sold). Residuals are standard for movies and television, and as voice acting in video games like Halo 2 and GTA: San Andreas is being done more and more by big-name Hollywood stars, this looked to be a thorny issue (probably will be again, in the future). Thanks, Mr Yun. (Louis Wu 14:51:44 UTC) (permalink)
Still Dancing
Over at Kikizo.com, there's a nice long video interview with J Allard about the Xbox 360 - and of course, Halo 3 gets mentioned. The interviewer asked if the idea that Halo 3 would ship to coincide with the PS3 (a comment that's already been discredited) would go against the existing philosophy of 'we'll ship when it's ready' - Allard's answer did a so-so job of staying away from the whole CONCEPT of Halo 3 (which is the current goal of Bungie PR):
We're never going to ship a Halo game (if we were to make, hypothetically, Halo games in the future) - we want to have the Bungie team - we want to give them the amount of time they need to create the product that they envision.
So: he's not saying that anyone's working on Halo 3 - but if they WERE, they'd be given free reign to finish it they way they wanted to. (This clip is about 6:30 in or so.) Thanks, Eastbeast314 (who found it on Major Nelson's blog). (Louis Wu 10:24:07 UTC) (permalink)
Fanfic Problems
Apologies - the server handling our fan fiction section is currently having problems. Its maintainer, Deimos, is on his honeymoon, and won't be back for a couple of weeks; we're hoping to get things running again before then, but for now, at least, FF is offline. Sorry about this! (Louis Wu 09:18:36 UTC) (permalink)
The Legacy of Halo Nationals
Major League Gaming has posted an info page for MLG Philadelphia, coming up in late July. It includes a look back at the Pennsylvania tourney that started it all for some of the staff - an interesting reminiscence of a much less professional time. Go read! Thanks, 3Suns. (Louis Wu 09:15:37 UTC) (permalink)
News June 8 2005
The beginning of the end
We have two cutscenes from the Maw for you today in the Halo Cutscene Library - the opening scene from the level, as well as the Bridge scene. Beautiful imagery, diabolical villians! Go watch. (Louis Wu 18:05:41 UTC) (permalink)
Game Glitching
Ferrago.com has an article about glitches in videogames - and the last (and biggest) example is Halo. Thanks, aaron. (Louis Wu 17:59:04 UTC) (permalink)
117 Days Later.
In today's One One Se7en, Stuntmutt takes a look at the Halo Movie buzz, and comes up with a scenario that makes me pray that Alex Garland doesn't like sticking with the same actors from movie to movie... (Louis Wu 15:39:32 UTC) (permalink)
Game On
XerxdeeJ posted a note about updates on Tied The Leader, his Halo-related blog. I swung by - and there are quite a number. Profiled XBL personalities, women gamers who can kick his butt, silly things you hear on XBL, a disturbing Halo 2 clan, and how multiplayer gaming has evolved over the years are just a few of the new bits. Go read! (Louis Wu 15:29:26 UTC) (permalink)
The Lost Humpday
Last week's Halo Humpday Challenge never happened; or maybe it just got postponed. There was a challenge match between Bungie and the Halo Babies crew last night, however. (mrsmiley spammed his Friends list last week, telling us not to bother him, because they were preparing for this match - Thursday, I think - so maybe something came up that kept it from taking place until now.) There's no writeup at either halobabies.net or bungie.net yet - but thanks to Bestmasterchief, you can look at the stats for the three games right now. They split the first two games, and the third (team slayer) was a squeaker... but Halobabies pulled it out, 2 out of 3. Nice going, guys! Update: mrsmiley has posted a writeup of the event on Halo Babies now - he takes great pleasure in showing off a nice triple kill in hi-res glory, and coming really close to calling Bungie cheaters on game 2. Hehe - let's see how this turns out in the Bungie writeup! (Louis Wu 14:59:04 UTC) (permalink)
Outpost Coag Ep 8
Outpost Coagulation Episode 8 has been released - you can grab a copy at Treeskunk's website, or at HaloMachinima.com. 8 minutes long, and the voice acting continues to improve. Nicely done, overall. 56.4 mb, in WMP9 format. (There's something funky about halfway through that keeps me from being able to encode this as a QuickTime file - it plays fine, but it won't convert. Sorry.) According to the Treeskunk website, this might be the last episode for a while. Update: trigger119 wrote to say that although the main writer was going to be gone for the summer, he (trigger) would finish the last two episodes of the season, so there are more coming. (There'll also be outtake releases and such while Bzerker's gone.) (Louis Wu 14:42:27 UTC) (permalink)
Reflections and Dynamic Mirrors
Wow - it's pretty impressive how far SuperSunny is bringing the rendered view of Halo CE - check out the screenshots in this forum thread. Thanks, MasterGrief. (Louis Wu 14:37:18 UTC) (permalink)
...and TeamXbox, too.
Yeah - more vids from the 5 new maps at TXB, too - 7 of 'em, to be precise. All in WMP9 format. Thanks, Reconaz. (Louis Wu 14:10:46 UTC) (permalink)
If it's on IGN...
ON-X points out that there's new map gameplay footage at Gamespot, as well (surprise, surprise). Go grab the five new vids! (Louis Wu 13:40:03 UTC) (permalink)
New map info at IGN
IGN has posted a summary of the last five maps to be released next month, as well as new vids for all of them (downloadable for Insiders, streaming for the public). If you haven't seen what these look like yet - go check 'em out! (Louis Wu 02:37:59 UTC) (permalink)
...and the salsa was to die for.
The highlight of E3 this year for many of us was actually not part of E3 - it was the party at Deanero's house on Friday night. Originally dubbed 'Plasma Fiesta', its name seems to have morphed to 'D3' - Dean's Desserts and Deathmatch. There's a great writeup of the party, complete with pictures and lessons that can be learned for your own lanfests, over at Bungie.net - and never let it be said that SketchFactor doesn't take every opportunity possible to rub in the fact that Frankie missed the salsa at this year's event. Go read! (Louis Wu 02:37:25 UTC) (permalink)
News June 7 2005
QT7 for Windows - Public Preview
Not directly Halo-related, but somewhat important for the viewing of files on this site - Apple has released a Public Preview of QuickTime 7 for Windows. Go grab a copy today! Thanks, Sorahn. (Louis Wu 20:46:11 UTC) (permalink)
That Movie Script
More details on the Halo movie script, shopped to Hollywood studios yesterday - Frankie says it's pretty darn good. (The rumors, though, at places like Coming Soon (thanks, Saint [lpn]) and Gamespot (thanks, Savage Yoshi) are that the demands made by Microsoft - $10 million advance against 15 percent of the film's gross - are enough to have scared off New Line and Dreamworks already.) More when we know it! (Louis Wu 20:30:38 UTC) (permalink)
Eskimo
My goodness, I can be forgetful. Another vid passed through the Movie Peer Review Rating System last night; it's called 'Eskimo', and it was created by Jamie98s, recently in our news for his 28 Days Later re-enactment. Eskimo is a 4:25 long vid telling the story of a man's journey to find his eskimo friend. Warning: it does NOT have a happy ending. (Funny, maybe... but not happy.) You can grab it in WMP9 format (14.6 mb) or QuickTime format (14.5 mb). Enjoy! (Louis Wu 20:03:39 UTC) (permalink)
Keyes added to Cutscene Library
The Halo Cutscene Library now has the five cutscenes from Keyes available - a couple are quite short, but that's how it goes. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 17:39:22 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Tricking Tribute
anti noob created a really nice Halo 1 tricking tribute vid, grabbing some of the best moments from dozens of vids showing some of the best Halo tricks released, nicely put together. 13:16 long, 58 mb, DivX encoding. In addition to the thread on our forum, there's a thread at High Impact Halo - toss in your own 2 cents! (Louis Wu 10:55:10 UTC) (permalink)
Buckwheats
Johnny Suede pointed us to a link to his montage vid, Buckwheats. Lots of snipes, nicely timed to Drowning Pool's Bodies. 54 mb, MPEG1 format. (Louis Wu 10:34:46 UTC) (permalink)
Mjolnir Mix, Tabbed, Again
deadmonkey found a new guitar tab for the Mjolnir Mix over at Mxtabs - check the forum thread for possible corrections. (Louis Wu 10:19:03 UTC) (permalink)
ODST.net Summer League Promo Vid
ODST.net has put up a promo vid for their upcoming Summer League - you can find a link in this forum post. (Hehe - clever way to release a montage vid.) 11.2 mb, WMP9 format. (Louis Wu 10:05:50 UTC) (permalink)
Speed Runs and Dead Marines
Rockslider continues his long-term investigation into Halo, with a couple of suggestions for fun on Truth and Reconciliation. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 09:56:59 UTC) (permalink)
A Day at the Races - coming soon
Bloodmoon Studios is working on a new machinima project called 'A Day at the Races' - you can find the trailer for it on their website, or at That Weasel Television. The full movie (about 4 racers who have to deal with each other, as well as an evil villain) is coming soon. Check it out! (Louis Wu 09:50:06 UTC) (permalink)
Tea Bag.
Many, many people emailed us about yesterday's VG Cats comic - a new look at an old taunt. looks like Target4Hire was first. (Louis Wu 09:41:47 UTC) (permalink)
The Studio Stunt
Wow. So a couple of months ago, the rumor making the rounds was that a Halo script was being written for the big screen by Alex Garland, who wrote The Beach and 28 Days Later. And then we heard nothing. Until today. Defamer has a piece that says that couriers dressed up in Master Chief armor have been bringing the script around to all the major studios to be read (and bid on) today. If we get word on how this turns out, we'll be sure to let you know. Update: Looks like it didn't go over so well... an updated blog entry at Defamer suggests that the script... well, is not so good. Thanks, Anton P. Nym. (Louis Wu 01:30:19 UTC) (permalink)
News June 6 2005
The Videogame Violence Issue, revisited
Remember that series of articles on CBS Gamecore, written by William Vitka, in which the various viewpoints about videogame violence were put on display? Looks like 1UP.com is following suit - a few months later. Same guy on the 'ban 'em' side (Jack Thompson, a lawyer looking to sue the gaming industry for murders he says are attributable to Grand Theft Auto), and another familiar name on the 'games can be good for you' side (Henry Jenkins, who's been involved in the debate for quite some time). It's a good read. And while you're on the subject, check out this article at the New Hampshire Union Leader, found by Wiggum - an interesting viewpoint that suggests that the legislation banning sale of M-rated games to minors might be, in fact, the impetus that spurs more of these sales. (Louis Wu 19:54:24 UTC) (permalink)
2old2type - second podcast
2old2type Radio (a subsidiary of 2old2play) has released their second weekly episode as a podcast - it covers site info, as well as upcoming tournament news, the new consoles, and how upcoming games will affect Halo 2's success. Check it out! (Louis Wu 19:02:15 UTC) (permalink)
Video Games Live tour shapes up
A couple of months ago, we mentioned the Video Games Live Concert - a celebration of game music. At the time, there was just one show scheduled, in LA, on July 6. The tour continues to fill out - there's now an August 11 date in Atlanta, GA. (Check back at their website regularly for more info.) And the good news for Halo fans - Marty O'Donnell will be in LA for that opening show! Get your tickets now. (Louis Wu 18:32:54 UTC) (permalink)
Composer looking for Halo work
Nicholas Singer, a professional composer who studied at Oxford and the National Film School, is looking for single-player Halo mods that need original music. You can hear some samples of his work in the forum post - I'd say anyone who picked him up would be doing pretty well! (Louis Wu 18:24:28 UTC) (permalink)
A Day in Halo and Halo 2
In early May, Raz0r_117 submitted his movie, entitled 'A Day In Halo And Halo 2', to our Movie Peer Review Rating System. It didn't pass - although reviewers liked the diversity of the montage, they thought parts were repetitive, and the quality of the video was pretty low - but Raz0r found hosting for this at That Weasel Television. You can go watch it there! (If you disagree with our reviewers' opinions, speak out on our forum.) (Louis Wu 17:23:39 UTC) (permalink)
That lightbulb is MEAN.
Today, in the Halo Cutscene Library, you'll find the Two Betrayals cutscenes - the Chief gets his eyes opened. The hard way. Go watch! (Louis Wu 16:48:31 UTC) (permalink)
Giving Life to your Gaming World
There's an interesting read over at Pitchfork Media, a music review site. John Cage's Xbox looks at game audio as an up-and-coming genre, attracting more big-name composers - and the problems that come with the mixing of worlds (in this case, movies and games). I'm really surprised Marty O'Donnell and the Halo audio crew aren't mentioned here... but it's a good read nonetheless. (Halo DOES get a one-line mention, justifying the article's on-topicness here.) Thanks, Ashes. (Louis Wu 16:20:54 UTC) (permalink)
Gravemind, Transcribed
Thanks to our own Count Zero for submitting another level transcript - Gravemind is now available in the Halo Story Page navbar. As more levels come in, we'll be adding them! (Louis Wu 15:37:00 UTC) (permalink)
If You Think The Last One Was Rushed...
Stuntmutt speculates about Halo 3 in today's One One Se7en. You ask me, though, that last balloon sounds more like J Allard than Frankie... (Louis Wu 15:09:13 UTC) (permalink)
Helljumpers, face off!
kapowaz pointed out a writeup of a Halo PC match between the HBO Helljumpers and his own Helljumpers (not affiliated with HBO). Looks like the HBO team got their butts kicked pretty bad... it's an entertaining writeup. (Louis Wu 15:06:34 UTC) (permalink)
News June 5 2005
Squad 7 Promo
Sector 7 is putting together a machinima series, called Squad 7. The promo for the series (51 seconds long, QT format, 8 mb) is available on their website. Thanks, JPOGDNA (Louis Wu 19:58:07 UTC) (permalink)
New Level Transcript Online
Thanks to Peptuck, who submitted Level Transcripts for both The Arbiter and Oracle. The Arbiter is now online - Oracle should be soon. (Apparently, a number of other levels are in progress, thanks to fan response to mnemesis' call for help last week.) Remember: these are works in progress; if you come across a mistake, PLEASE send us a note; we'll fix it. (Update: Gravemind is also up, thanks to Count Zero. Thanks, Count! -mnem) (Louis Wu 19:52:12 UTC) (permalink)
Collecting the Index
Two new cutscenes added to the Halo Cutscene Library today - The Library is now documented. Go grab 'em! (Louis Wu 15:51:02 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Themed Recital
Anelf3 submitted an audio recording of a piano recital he performed a couple of weeks ago - his subject material was the Halo theme (figured out on his own, rather than read from published material). The MP3 is 2.7 mb, and just under 3 minutes long. Give it a listen! (Louis Wu 15:09:17 UTC) (permalink)
Sunday Reading Material
Fifteen new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today. A quick note - one of these pieces is an analysis of in-game relationships - it belongs in the Halo Story section, rather than the Fan Fiction section. I let this one go, because up until now there hasn't been a rule against them (I didn't think one was needed) - but if others choose to use the Fan Fiction section to submit story speculation, we'll be rejecting the entries. Thanks. (Louis Wu 14:51:01 UTC) (permalink)
What have they to say now?
Jillybean has snagged several forum threads and bundled them up for inclusion on the Halo Story Page - you're welcome to toss in your own two cents about the credibility of any of the theories mentioned! (Louis Wu 14:26:43 UTC) (permalink)
News June 4 2005
Things turn ugly for the crew
Today, the Halo Cutscene Library adds the three cutscenes from 343 Guilty Spark - please download the files to your local hard drive (instead of streaming them from our mirrors), and if the download is going very slowly, try a different mirror. (The middle cutscene is quite large.) Enjoy! (Louis Wu 19:01:51 UTC) (permalink)
Halo mod for Madness Interactive
Titan85c noticed a Halo mod for Madness Interactive over at Matrix Rayne Online - there aren't any screenshots, but there's a downloadable zip (4 mb). If you have Madness Interactive, check this out! (Louis Wu 18:20:05 UTC) (permalink)
Takin' Care of Business
Henri sent us a link from the High Impact Halo forums, containing download links (three resolutions, all WMP9 format) for his jumping vid. Mostly new maps. Take a look! (Louis Wu 13:43:06 UTC) (permalink)
Video Production and Halo - a Guide
Recently, the PraetoriaGuard clan has appeared on the movie-making scene, to considerable praise. Now, we're happy to bring you some of the secrets of its leader, LordGideon, who is working on a guide to help you make movies, hosted right here at HBO. It's written for Windows XP users - because that's what LordGideon uses. It will cover a variety of software applications, from video to audio, from freeware to expensiveware. Check out the first two lessons now! (More are coming.) (Louis Wu 13:34:38 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Armegeddon
There's a Worms-based Halo Flash movie at Newgrounds - that is, a movie showing a Worms-like battle, but with Halo-themed worms. Well done, but a bit slow. Thanks, Eww. (Louis Wu 11:47:43 UTC) (permalink)
Emergency Response
Episode 12 of the Codex Series, 'Emergency Response', has been posted - 6:40 worth of great storyline, cinematography, voice work. This one rocks. Go watch. Thanks, trigger119. (Louis Wu 11:10:38 UTC) (permalink)
Restoring that IROC
Bungie's Weekly What's Update was posted last night (as usual) - there's information about cheating (including a clarification about the difference between Bungie banning folks and Xbox Live banning folks, and a new email address for reporting cheaters), plus some other random stuff - it's been a bit of a slow week. Go read it! (Louis Wu 10:04:08 UTC) (permalink)
News June 3 2005
TIE Ep 12
Red Leader says there's a new This Island Earth up. Go check. (Louis Wu 20:28:09 UTC) (permalink)
IE toolbar from H2Press
H2Press.net has released a toolbar for Windows Internet Explorer - it adds handy links to a variety of Halo-related RSS feeds, as well as direct buttons to fansites and bungie.net. Read about (and find download links) on their forum. (Louis Wu 20:07:42 UTC) (permalink)
Biped addition tool for HaloCE
rec0, over on the Gearbox forums, has released a tool for adding new bipeds (and other characters) into HaloCE. You can find a download link (and basic instructions) in this thread. Thanks, MasterGrief. (Louis Wu 20:05:28 UTC) (permalink)
New Multiplayer Map Resources
Kaboris pointed out a page on the Xbox.com Japan site (I can't find a corresponding page yet on the main Xbox.com site) touting the multiplayer map pack. it's got a bunch of screenshots that haven't been released (legally) anywhere else yet, and walkthrough vids of the first four maps (a lot like the ones Red vs Blue made, except without voiceover, explaining what you're looking at, and only available to PCs - the movies won't play on macs.) Go look! Update: Jimmy points out that those ARE the RvB movies - minus Burnie's voiceover. (Louis Wu 18:42:51 UTC) (permalink)
Console Yourself.
You knew it was only a matter of time before One One Se7en started taking potshots at the new consoles... (Louis Wu 15:10:57 UTC) (permalink)
Insurrection, Remixed
nof found a superiffic new Halo remix over at OverClocked ReMix this morning - it was posted a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first we've heard of it. It's a reworking of 'Insurrection', and while it sounds a lot like the original, there are also some pretty cool additions. Check it out! (And no, we don't think there's any such word as 'superiffic' - nor would we ever use such a thing, normally... we were goaded into it by the Gnawfster.) (Louis Wu 15:07:56 UTC) (permalink)
AotCR - Cutscened.
Half of Halo's levels are now documented in the Halo Cutscene Library - the two scenes from Assault on the Control Room were added today. (Chester The Destroyer also posted a couple of bloopers he recorded at some point, when he was working on recording cutscenes he never submitted to us - the second one is pretty cool!) (Louis Wu 14:52:37 UTC) (permalink)
A Montage - and a reason to watch them
A few days ago, we mentioned a high-quality montage vid released on Halo2Forum.com. It was submitted to our Movie Peer Review Rating System, as well - and has passed. If you already grabbed the ginormous WMP9 version at halo2forum.com, you can pass on this - but if you haven't, you might want to take a look. The thread referenced in that previous post is full of people complaining that Vrbas isn't a spectacular-enough Halo player to warrant praise for the montage - but I'd disagree. He's good - but that's not really the point. The point is that he made a really well-constructed montage; very, VERY high quality visuals, beautiful timing, interesting footage. Whether he's good enough to win MLG St. Louis is irrelevant - most of the people playing in that tournament can't come close to making a montage this enjoyable to watch. We're offering a 66 mb QuickTime version (bungie.org | mythica.org) - if you can't stand QuickTime, the links are still up for the 110+ MB WMP9, over at Halo2Forum.com. (If they go down, we can BitTorrent it - but I don't think we can handle a direct download of that size at this time.) Update: HaloChat has secured some hosting for both versions at FileFront - think big, big pipes. Go grab. Update 2: That Weasel Television has mirrors of both versions, as well - thanks, Feenix! (Louis Wu 13:38:56 UTC) (permalink)
Darth Chief
There's a new Halo Babies posted today - comes with a spoiler warning for Star Wars III, but it's pretty funny if you've seen the movie. (Louis Wu 12:18:13 UTC) (permalink)
News June 2 2005
What IS that thing?
Wanna give us a hand with our content needs? mnemesis has posted a Help Wanted ad on our forum - he's looking for level transcriptions. Read the post if you're interested - as he said, it would be better if we didn't have duplication of effort, so telling us BEFORE you start is a good thing. And... thanks, in advance! (Louis Wu 21:18:40 UTC) (permalink)
Story Speculation
Whee... Jillybean updated the Halo Story Page with a fan-driven theory, which led another fan to write a blog entry disputing the conclusions, which led to a forum thread about the whole idea. So many words - and the speculation continues! (Louis Wu 21:16:01 UTC) (permalink)
Your father is a coconut?
There's an interesting article over at Gamasutra - a report of a round-table discussion behind the scenes at E3, involving several industry personalities, including Joe Staten of Bungie. The topics under discussion was character and story development, and how they fit into games today - I'm loving where the conversation eventually got to. Each member brought his own perspective to the table - Joe's experience with Halo and Halo 2 helped shape his views. Thanks, Deanero. (Louis Wu 21:10:11 UTC) (permalink)
Harvest 2 Trailer
BloodSignature has released the Harvest 2 trailer, a trailer to the sequel to Harvest. 9.5 mb, almost 3 minutes long. You can grab it from their site, or from a mirror at halomachinima.com. Thanks, trigger119! (Louis Wu 20:39:03 UTC) (permalink)
And still MORE bandwidth...
Thanks very much to the kindness of SanchezTheLlama, we've added a third cutscene mirror to our Halo Cutscene Library - you can now download from bungie.org, mythica.org, or enfinityservers.com. w00t! (Louis Wu 19:05:25 UTC) (permalink)
Cutscene Library Grows - SC Up
Gah. Yesterday was so busy here, I forgot to release any new cutscenes in the Halo Cutscene Library - apologies! If you swing by today, you'll find all 5 scenes from Silent Cartographer have been added. I'll do my best to stay on schedule. (Louis Wu 13:27:49 UTC) (permalink)
XBL Experience Calculator - now for Macs, too
Infernus has released a Mac version of his Xbox Live Experience Calculator - you can grab a copy over at Rampancy.net. (The PC version was first mentioned in this forum thread - there are download links in this post.) (Louis Wu 13:16:28 UTC) (permalink)
PraetoriaGuard mirrors
trigger119 wrote to point out that HaloMachinima.com has mirrored all of the PraetoriaGuard vids (including yesterday's Episode 3, both versions). Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 12:50:33 UTC) (permalink)
2old2type - listen instead of read
Eep - this came in yesterday, but I missed it. DSmooth, of 2old2play, pointed out a new podcast they're doing, called 2old2type. The first episode is about 60 minutes long, and chock-full of info from E3 this year, including Halo 2 map info. Go download and listen! (Louis Wu 12:43:59 UTC) (permalink)
UK Tourney League
Duke87 wrote to us about UK Halo Match Maker, a UK-based tournament community that's looking to launch its league this Sunday. Matches will be 4v4, with up to 10 people per team - the league will operate like a football league, with one match (3 games) per week, with 3 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss. You can also find league information or an application form for participation around the place. If you're in the UK, check this out! (Louis Wu 12:39:55 UTC) (permalink)
Free Video Hosting
Mike Riess writes to say that his website, h2press.net, is offering a free video hosting service for Halo vids, with 'unlimited space and bandwidth'. You can read the details in this forum post. (Louis Wu 12:33:14 UTC) (permalink)
News June 1 2005
Blah blah blah blah blah!
Captain Spark whipped out another 30 unique dialogue snippets - you can grab the lot in zipped format on his website, or view them individually in our Dialogue Databank. (Louis Wu 20:45:19 UTC) (permalink)
Where's The Beef?
What happens when plasma grenades fall in love? What's a tynosaur, and why should you run from it? What ARE popcorn shrimp, anyway? These questions, and many more (as well as a mini-melee montage) can all be found in the latest video release from PraetoriaGuard's website - hit 'Downloads', and grab Video Three, "Where's The Beef?", in either WMP9 Advanced or WMP9 Standard formats (thanks, Gideon, for taking care of the Mac crowd!). A bit over 22 mb, in either format - 8 minutes of hilarity and Cheech and Chong imitations. (Louis Wu 20:21:45 UTC) (permalink)
Strong The Farce Is With This One.
With the release of Revenge of the Sith recently, there's been some silly Star Wars/Halo arguments on our forum (okay, maybe not silly, but... no, silly). Stuntmutt joins in with a new One One Se7en. (To be fair to him, he never really intended this to see the light of day - if it makes you groan, blame me.) (Louis Wu 13:49:55 UTC) (permalink)
28 Days Later
I'm breaking a rule because... well, because I want to. Last night, Jamie98s posted a movie on our forum - it's a remake of 28 Days Later, in the Halo engine. It's 25 minutes long, and does an amazing job of capturing the feel of the film. (It's abridged, clearly - but it uses the audio track from the film married to footage from Halo 2, and stays very true to the atmosphere of the original.) The movie is quite large (73-74 mb, depending on flavor), due to its unusual length. You can find a number of mirror links in Jaime98s's forum post - but most of them are limited in the number of downloads they'll support, so we're putting up several mirrors of our own (the rule I'm breaking is the 'no posting movies without MPRRS approval' rule).
WMP9 (72.5 mb): b.org 1 | mythica.org | b.org 2 | HBO Spartans
QuickTime (73.5 mb): b.org 1 | mythica.org | b.org 2 | HBO Spartans
Go watch this - there's a lot of work put into it! Update: trigger119 has made copies of both versions available at Halomachinima.com, as well. Thanks, trigger! (Louis Wu 13:36:56 UTC) (permalink)
ODST Summer League
sh33p has decided to start a summer league for fun, not rank. Rules are posted at his website, and motivation and basic info can be found in the forum post. If you're looking for an alternative to matchmaking, this might be for you! (Louis Wu 12:50:20 UTC) (permalink)
OlapStats becomes HaloStatsOnline
Cigma posted a note in our forum about OlapStats.com - and how it's become HaloStatsOnline.com. They're still offering basic services for free, but they've added an advanced membership category ($10/year) that gives you extra features. Check the links for more details. (Louis Wu 12:47:43 UTC) (permalink)
| June 2005 | |
