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 | November 2007 |  |
November 2007 Archived News
News November 30 2007
Puzzleball 03 - with schwag
c0ld vengeance continues his creation of Forged puzzle maps; Puzzleball 03 has been released. This one even has a prize for the fastest finisher - a copy of Crackdown, courtesy of Simpsons rule. Go read the rules, and get to practicing! Update: Due to a forum archiving, the original puzzle post is no longer accessible for replying; c0ld's created a new one. If you're reading this after the archiving, use that to post your results. (Louis Wu 19:37:19 UTC) (permalink)
Serious Issues.
Many people are annoyed by the delays occurring with the Halo: Uprising comic from Marvel. Judging by today's One One Se7en, Stuntmutt is one of them. (Louis Wu 18:47:22 UTC) (permalink)
Tenuous Security
TTL Demag0gue has gone back to the poster-edged look for Reclaimer - Chapter Two, Part Five looks great, and makes it clear that the Viper team is in trouble. (Louis Wu 11:24:52 UTC) (permalink)
Friday's Fanfic - on Friday!
After being posted a couple of days late last week, the weekly Fan Fiction update is back on track. This week's offering is understandably light - six pieces. Go read! (Louis Wu 11:20:50 UTC) (permalink)
HBO Press... I like that.
stan has proven that he has way, way, WAY too much time on his hands. (Louis Wu 11:18:17 UTC) (permalink)
WTFiction?!
1UP has put together a graphical summary of the Halo 3 storyline, for folks who might be confused about certain points. Not all the info is canon (for example, I was under the impression that Installation 05 was closer to Earth than Installation 04), but in general, it's a decent overview, in an entertaining format. Thanks, BlueNinja. (Louis Wu 11:11:10 UTC) (permalink)
Halo movie - speculation returns
Don was the first to let us know about an article on Yahoo! Games - it's another summary of games that might be up on the big screen in the forseeable future. Halo's on the list, though the project is currently in limbo. Yahoo is pessimistic about the chances that a decent flick coming out of the franchise... (Louis Wu 10:39:37 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Stats - and a Bungie Beatdown
Halo3.junk.ws is quickly becoming the place to go to look at your Halo 3 stats; the options they offer over Bungie.net are ridiculous. They've just added a game browser that lets you filter your games based on more than 20 parameters - date played, game length, headshots, type of medals... you can see exactly how you perform, in any way you choose. If the results were directly linkable, for example, I'd show you how selecting '11/28/2007' games for Indutiomarus would yield the three Humpday Challenge games that the Junk.ws team played against Bungie this week. They lost that challenge - but you can read either their writeup (on their front page, or on their forum with comments), or you can read Bungie's writeup, on Bungie.net. Looks like it was a good match! And the stats can be exhaustively analyzed using the tools these guys have put together. If you haven't signed up for a (free) account - do it today! (Louis Wu 10:35:41 UTC) (permalink)
News November 29 2007
Halo 3's water is the best
The 'Break it Down' blog looks at a couple of articles that detail the evolution of water in video games... and decides that Halo 3 is better than any of the games they looked at. Go read why! (Louis Wu 21:07:44 UTC) (permalink)
Creeping Death
Due to some true foolishness, Another Halo Comic Strip has been offline for several hours - but it's back now, with a new funny. Hmm... I'm not sure 'funny' is the right word, in this particular case... in fact, some of you may wish I'd kept the site broken after reading it. In any case, though, it's up, and you should look. (Louis Wu 20:34:15 UTC) (permalink)
Believe Ad Diorama Details
Microsoft's Larry Larsen went into the Microsoft company store with a camera to take some cool footage of pieces of the huge diorama built for the Believe ad. Taylor Smith, of the Xbox Global Marketing Team, helps to explain what you're looking at. Amazing stuff. (Louis Wu 20:22:29 UTC) (permalink)
Journey's End
On Essentials, Disc One (the disc that comes with both the Limited and Legendary Editions of Halo 3) is a six-part documentary called 'Anatomy of a Game: Making Halo 3'. (We reviewed it just before Halo 3 was released.) One of those parts focuses on Halo's story - and that piece, reshuffled a bit, is now available as a free HD download from Xbox Live Marketplace. (It's fifteen minutes long, and more than 750 MB.) It's a fantastic piece of work, and if you haven't seen it, certainly go grab it. If you don't have Xbox Live, it will be available shortly for download on Bungie.net (and here). Thanks to AlStrong for the first heads-up. (Louis Wu 19:41:45 UTC) (permalink)
VGL to play at Spike's VGAs
I've you've never seen a Video Games Live concert - they'll be on TV during Spike TV's 2007 Video Game Awards, airing December 9. Thanks to Music 4 Games for the full details. (Louis Wu 18:58:24 UTC) (permalink)
IGN's Top 100, 2007
Another Top X list - this time it's at IGN, and it's the Top 100 Games of All Time. (Well, the 2007 edition, anyway.) You can read a summary of their older rankings in last year's newspost - but the bottom line is, Halo's slipping. In 2003, it was 39th. 2004 - 18th (but this one was fan-picked). 2005 - 30th. 2006 - 14. And this year? 32nd. Halo 2 and Halo 3 haven't been mentioned yet - so either they're higher-ranked than Halo (possible for Halo 3, unlikely for Halo 2, given the previous scores it received)... or they're not on the list at all. The top 20 are still to be posted. Thanks, Avateur. (Louis Wu 18:25:09 UTC) (permalink)
Written for the guys, I think.
Jimmy Jangles wrote a not-safe-for-work essay on why Halo 3 is better than sex. Um... yeah. You decide. (Louis Wu 18:13:44 UTC) (permalink)
Top Ten Best Weapons in an FPS
The Angry Pixel has comiled their list of the Top Ten Best Weapons in an FPS. I look askance at any top 10 list that contains two Turok references in it... but hey, to each his own. Halo 3's Gravity Hammer comes in at #8. Thanks, mjolnir15. (Louis Wu 18:06:34 UTC) (permalink)
Multiple Saves in Halo 3
Rockslider has taken a bit of time to write up a tutorial explaining how to create multiple Halo 3 saves without having to play through for each one. Given that it seems to exploit a set of circumstances that might or might not be closed to exploits in the future, this might not work forever... but it works now. If you like to set up complicated situations, and want to save more than one of them, check this out! (Louis Wu 16:31:14 UTC) (permalink)
Comparing the Halos
Over at The Hushed Casket, D15AV0W3D has taken a look at all three Halo games, and tried to figure out which one is 'best'. Go read his rationale, and see if you agree! Thanks to Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 16:24:57 UTC) (permalink)
Weapon-Lowering on Live - Not Gonna Happen
Time Glitch asked Frankie about the Weapon Lowering feature in Halo 3, and why it only works offline. Frankie told him that they just weren't able to justify the testing resources needed to ensure this glitch wasn't exploitable in online play. (This didn't go over very well with the respondents - either on our forum, or on Bungie.net - but the bottom line is, the missing functionality isn't due to an oversight. They thought about it, and CHOSE not to include it - so the likelihood of it being re-added at a later date is slim.) There are a number of workarounds - but all are compromises; the unfortunate truth is that creating machinima with characters that aren't continually pointing guns at each other's faces is more difficult in Halo 3 than it was in Halo 2. Sorry, guys! (Louis Wu 14:34:15 UTC) (permalink)
Exclusive Active Camo Spartan from McFarlane
McFarlane is offering an exclusive Active Camouflage Spartan, in EVA armor; if you're interested, you MUST preorder it from the Spawn Store. The figure will be released in March 2008, and will sell for $12.99. The preorder period began yesterday, and ends on December 12. GamesBond007 was the first to let us know, though if you would like to discuss this, there's a thread about it on our forum. (Louis Wu 14:16:26 UTC) (permalink)
Zukan discusses machinima
Fanportal-World has interviewed Zukan, a Halo machinima maker who's been off the scene for a bit (he got sick). Great read. Thanks, Lordstemplar1. (Louis Wu 14:06:27 UTC) (permalink)
MLG Gametypes v2 released
MLG has posted their MLG Gametypes v2 - tweaked maps, tweaked gametypes, lots of testing. Thanks to synide for stopping by to tell us about it - and check out the feedback so far; some people are happy, some are unhappy. I suppose that's the way of the world... (Louis Wu 14:04:41 UTC) (permalink)
News November 28 2007
Wired's Halo 3 Supergeek Contest - Winners Announced
Wow. Somehow we totally missed the fact that Wired Magazine was running a Halo 3 Supergeek contest, looking to give away cool schwag to the biggest Halo 3 geek out there. I found out about it today, when they posted the winners. I'm guessing we've got readers that could have cleaned up... (Louis Wu 20:22:54 UTC) (permalink)
You have some brains... on your face.
937 sent in over a hundred dialogue snippets for our Halo 3 Dialogue Databank; great stuff from Elites, Brutes, and Humans. Go listen! (Louis Wu 18:10:09 UTC) (permalink)
For shame, Bungie.
Angry Robot has posted their Top Ten Disappointing Things About Halo 3 - while some of them seem sort of gratuitous, I gotta agree with the Achievement thing. See what you think. Thanks, Rock Opera Jr. (Louis Wu 16:56:20 UTC) (permalink)
No Scope.
Last week, Achronos made it clear you wouldn't be able to interact with the huge satellite dishes on Standoff - Stuntmutt suggests he's wrong, in today's One One Se7en. Oh, Stunt... (Louis Wu 14:34:07 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Piano - Pretty
Nice - Hawty McBloggy found a pretty cool rendition of the Halo 3 menu music... along with a tuturial on playing the Halo 3 Announcement trailer piano solo without sheet music. Go watch! (Louis Wu 13:11:25 UTC) (permalink)
Assault Mode
TTL Demag0gue let us know that the next episode of Reclaimer (Chapter Two, Part Four) is now up. Hendricks? Who's Hendricks? Update: DOH! (Louis Wu 12:38:20 UTC) (permalink)
Outpost Isil Episode 1
Treeskunk Productions has posted Episode 1 of Outpost Isil: Rekindle the Flames. We get a chance to meet three of the characters of the series, and the storyline has begun to be unveiled. It's available in a bunch of different formats; you can pick the one you want from Treeskunk's page (thanks, Bzerker), or Twilkey SRT has kindly provided direct download links to all versions (plus GamingTV mirrors) on our forum. Go see! (Louis Wu 12:35:54 UTC) (permalink)
Xbox Solution - believing again
I haven't posted too many Halo reviews recently; there were so many, coming so fast, that trying to process them all was pointless. They've slowed down, though, so new ones, usually written by people who've taken some time to digest the offerings of the game, are probably worth pointing out. Xbox Solution just put one up - Halo 3 reaffirmed the writer's faith in Bungie (lost after Halo 2). Give it a read. (Louis Wu 12:31:43 UTC) (permalink)
Getting closer to Halo...
This weekend, BobFlop pointed out a video on LiveLeak which showed off a new exoskeleton being tested by the US Army. It's similar to other vids (and other human assistive tools) discussed in the past; I thought it was fun, but not really Halo-related. Well, that video made it to CNN yesterday, and our mailbox was flooded. Almost every person who sent it to us pointed out that it could be seen as a precursor to MJOLNIR armor. So... in the interest of keeping the mail at a reasonable level, I'm posting this; go watch the vid, and decide what you think. Even if it's not Halo-related... it's pretty amazing tech. (Louis Wu 11:57:15 UTC) (permalink)
News November 27 2007
Marty made the Under 90 list.
IGN points out that Details magazine has rated the top 50 men under 45... and Jason Jones comes in at #43. I guess heading the studio that released Halo 3 is worth something... thanks, Wolverine Monkey. (Louis Wu 23:26:22 UTC) (permalink)
Buying Spree.
ViralSyris found a bunch of new stuff at the Bungie Store - swing by his post for direct links. Just in time for Christmas! (Louis Wu 19:06:15 UTC) (permalink)
Be My Monitor
Eep, almost missed this. Hawty McBloggy has put together a list of the Top 10 Romantic Halo 3 Lines Useful for Forge Proposals. Some of them actually seem like they'd work better as pickup lines (if they worked at all)... but hey, whatever. Go check 'em out! (She takes no responsibility if using them gets you covered in stickydooms.) (Louis Wu 17:15:49 UTC) (permalink)
TTL Tuesday - it's that time again
Today's Tied the Leader update from XerxdeeJ mentions some, but not all, of their new content. In addition to a genteel challenge issued to anyone who hasn't faced the TTL Gunslingers, there's a piece describing an AP article on gaming as social networking; deeJ was interviewed for it, and has quotes in it. (It's definitely the beginnings of a new type of interaction, and it's interesting to see how Halo is participating at the start.) And there's a reminder that Gamertag Radio has made its nominations for this year's Xbox Community Awards (TTL is up for Team Community of the Year). Go read! (Louis Wu 16:45:37 UTC) (permalink)
In Good Hands
ZZoMBiE13 seems to be trying to outpun Stuntmutt in today's episode of Another Halo Comic Strip. To make up for the awful punchline, he's providing you with some killer artwork. Seems like a fair trade. (Louis Wu 16:10:53 UTC) (permalink)
Halo3X - a Stats Manager for OS X
This looks pretty cool - an open-source stats manager for OS X. Unfortunately, I can't get it to work on my machine; maybe it's PowerPC only? Update: finalcuthalo has recompiled the source code, and this now runs fine on Intel and PowerPC macs. (Louis Wu 14:01:01 UTC) (permalink)
Create-A-Hero contest at Halopen
Halopen is hosting a Create-A-Hero contest; come up with a Halo-based superhero, right down to the costume, and you might find him (or her) featured in Halopen's upcoming 'Superheroes' movie. (Winners will also get some prizes from Gamestop.) Go read all the details, and get to designing!
(Louis Wu 13:59:32 UTC) (permalink)
Toms recommends the helmet
Looks like the Legendary Edition made it into Toms Hardware Holiday Buyers Guide this year - thanks, RVideo. (Louis Wu 13:57:06 UTC) (permalink)
Awesome Price on Halo 3 Legendary
Whoa. Don't know how long this is going to last... but today's Gold Box Deal of the Day at Amazon.com is the Halo 3 Legendary Edition... for $59.99. If you want
the Cadillac for the price of a Taurus... go buy. Now. Update: Sold out... hope you got what you needed! (Louis Wu 13:12:17 UTC) (permalink)
News November 26 2007
Holiday Console Suggestions
The New York Daily News needed help narrowing down your videogame choices for the holidays - so they went to the Penny Arcade team. Their advice? You can't go wrong with Halo 3. Thanks, Quikthnkr. (Louis Wu 18:56:27 UTC) (permalink)
HUDless screens rock.
argodaemon let us know that the Halouvre has a boatload of new content, built up over the past few months. If you haven't been recently, you haven't been! (Louis Wu 18:23:09 UTC) (permalink)
Green Fingers.
Today's One One Se7en bugs me a little. (Louis Wu 15:53:55 UTC) (permalink)
Misc Art - Getting There
Once again, I'd like to apologize for the inexcusably long queue for our artwork sections; I've just posted over 50 new images in the Miscellaneous Art section, and this only clears the queue through August 1. Yes, that means there's still four months of backlog! On the plus side, I've also added a (long-asked for) easy way to increase the number of images you can see per page; it was always doable manually, but now there's a link at the top. Another nice tidbit; in searching for older unposted Misc Art entries, I found a bunch of wallpapers that should have been posted last week; they'll go up soon. (So will the next batch of Misc Art, I hope.) Some of these current images were posted on our forum, and all of them are pre-Halo 3... but there is some amazing work in this batch, so you should look through! (Louis Wu 14:40:23 UTC) (permalink)
Awakening
TTL Demag0gue let us know that Reclaimer Chapter Two, Part Three is now online - looks like Viper's woken up something... bad. (Louis Wu 11:18:06 UTC) (permalink)
Custom Halo and Marathon action figures on eBay
Blayne Scott has created a bunch of custom Halo action figures - he's currently selling them on eBay, because he's moving. Swing by his forum post for links and pics (there's some pretty cool stuff in there!). Near the bottom there's a general link to ALL his eBay auctions; there are a bunch of non-customized Halo action figures for sale, as well. Go see what he's got! (Louis Wu 11:15:16 UTC) (permalink)
Games in Concert 2, December 8
Apparently, the idea of video game music performed by professional orchestras is catching on; Music 4 Games has an article about a show coming up in Holland in a couple of weeks. Games in Concert will contain music from over a dozen video games, including Halo. The performance will be conducted by Laura Karpman. (Louis Wu 10:58:54 UTC) (permalink)
News November 25 2007
The Riot 75
Sigafoos wrote to say that The Riot 75 is now up - 16 mb, 41 minutes of good stuff. There's an interview with Athena and Excardon of halo3.junk.ws, and the beginning of the Community Awards (no registration needed to vote). Go listen! (Louis Wu 23:20:15 UTC) (permalink)
Friday's Fanfic - Late
In the midst of this holiday weekend, I managed to forget to post the week's Fan Fiction submissions - they're up now. Sorry. Go read. (Louis Wu 17:18:04 UTC) (permalink)
Master Chief Cake
Kotaku has a pic of a Master Chief cake made by a reader for her husband (well, commissioned, I guess). Rice Crispy Treats for brains! Mmmmm... thanks, Ross Mills. (Louis Wu 17:11:43 UTC) (permalink)
I'm not sure that first one should be pink...
Hawty McBloggy found a couple of new Halo 3 themed Xbox 360 faceplates on eBay - go see if your Xbox needs a lift! (Louis Wu 16:33:03 UTC) (permalink)
News November 24 2007
Yahoo's Best Social Games
Yahoo says Halo 3 is one of the games you should be looking at for holiday parties. Right up there with Smarty Pants and Super Mario Galaxy. Thanks, TylerDurden76. (Louis Wu 17:48:34 UTC) (permalink)
Over a third of a million.
Maximum Fear let us know that the Campaign Contest kicked off by Community Projects (we mentioned it on the 17th) is now over - the winner is Ezandora, who submitted a run of the Covenant which scored an insane 347,620 points. Read about it on Bungie.net. (Louis Wu 15:44:50 UTC) (permalink)
I didn't know they could fly
Another Halo Comic Strip looks at a problem many of us have right now... excuse me, I need to go make some soup. (Louis Wu 13:49:45 UTC) (permalink)
Inside Halo, and More
We're a bit late this time around... but Sodagod reminded us that his Inside Halo news program is still going strong on Machinima.com - Episode 2 was released a couple of weeks ago. Watching it gives you a whirlwind overview of the Halo community over the past month or so (with lots of humor) - and it brings to light one of the biggest headaches facing Halo machinimators today: the weapon-lowering trick for Halo 3 does NOT work over Xbox Live. The Bungie guys are on break this week - but I plan to see if I can get an explanation for why this was set up as a local-only function sometime soon... because it makes people like Sodagod crazy, and you wouldn't like him when he's crazy. While you're there, you should also check out his Inside Halo Overviews - I haven't found any convenient way to link to each of them on Machinima.com, but there's a great playlist on YouTube that links to most of them so far. There's one on Equipment, several on vehicles (the new Covenant Vehicle overview isn't there yet, but you can watch it on machinima.com), and one on skulls. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 13:34:35 UTC) (permalink)
V8 Parody
Aglor pointed out a small vid made by Team Banana Yellow - it's a parody of the old 'I coulda had a V8!' ads. Brought a chuckle... (Louis Wu 13:01:02 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Wars Monthly Update
The most recent Halo Wars update was posted earlier this week on the Halo Wars forum - it contains a shout-out to Joe Staten for his work on Contact Harvest, and a nice tidbit about the addition of voice snippets to the sound mix of the game. I wonder if, down the road, there'll be a databank of those snippets on some Halo Wars fansite... thanks to Simpsons Rule for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:59:10 UTC) (permalink)
News November 23 2007
Fun Icular.
Today's One One Se7en is a groanworthy addition to the collection. (Louis Wu 20:54:46 UTC) (permalink)
Free Halo 3 Dashboard Theme... in Stores
Wow, very cool. There's a new article at Xbox.com which discusses a gorgeous Halo 3 theme based on the Emotion pic - it's free, but it's only available at Xbox 360 kiosks in your nearest game store. Go get it! (Bring a memory card.) Thanks to Xbox 360 Fanboy for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 20:54:11 UTC) (permalink)
I need a rawreapon.
bs angel found a new Master Chief outfit on eBay - this one is for your dog. Say WHAT? Yep, go look. (Louis Wu 20:47:35 UTC) (permalink)
Complications
TTL Demag0gue has posted Chapter Two, Part Two of his Reclaimer comic - he seems to have shifted completely away from the filtered look of his earlier artwork; this one is straight screenshots. Viper's about to find something... big. (Louis Wu 16:54:45 UTC) (permalink)
IGN reviews Halo Uprising #2
IGN felt that this issue has little depth, but pretty pictures. "Flawed but enjoyable" is how they put it. Thanks, AfroRyan. (Louis Wu 16:50:42 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Marine Dedication
QuickTactical has been taking lots of screenshots of Halo 3 marines - and he's put them together in a 9-minute slideshow, available on YouTube. (Louis Wu 16:47:56 UTC) (permalink)
Infection Montage
sabrefang put together a rather long, but pretty interesting, montage of Infection games - really nice camera work! Check it out. (Louis Wu 16:45:39 UTC) (permalink)
Serious Halo
Rick pointed out a pretty silly Flash animation at Newgrounds - Master Chief dances as he lists the things that interest him. Rick apologized. (Louis Wu 16:29:47 UTC) (permalink)
Best Buy Deal Up North
Xbox Circle noticed that this week's Best Buy circular in Canada offers you a free copy of Lost Planet if you buy the Halo 3 Legendary Edition for $99. (Remember - this is a Canadian deal; in the US, the Legendary Edition is $129, and there's no free game.) (Louis Wu 16:25:58 UTC) (permalink)
The Faces of Halo
Over at Sci Fi Tech, they've taken a look at the faces behind the voice talent in Halo 3. Some of them even worked those visual assets into the game! (Louis Wu 02:21:58 UTC) (permalink)
Killer Weapons
Ross Mills points out a list of the 50 greatest fictional weapons of all time - Halo contributes 2 to the list (Plasma Grenade and Energy sword). Not bad! (Louis Wu 02:18:50 UTC) (permalink)
Tsavo Fun at Bad Cyborg
Rockslider has taken a look at two different parts of Tsavo Highway for their replay value... go check out his findings at Bad Cyborg. (Louis Wu 02:12:47 UTC) (permalink)
CPL's Winter Tourney purse loses 90% of its value
Wow. You might remember that a few weeks ago, the Cyberathlete Professional League made huge waves by announcing a Halo 3 tournament in December with a one million dollar purse. They've made a few changes, it appears... the one million dollar tournament is being moved to the CPL Summer Event (next July), and the winter tourney now has a $100,000 purse. The announcement suggests that the changes are due to shenanigans involving other professional gaming leagues... hmm. Anyway, just a heads-up in case you were planning on attending. (Louis Wu 02:09:48 UTC) (permalink)
TGAWAFAL
Obsydian was the first to point out to us the newest Bungie anagram - I'm pretty sure it's not "Two Green Aardvarks Walk Away From A Leopard"... but it could be pretty much anything else. He found it on the Halo 3 Soundtrack. Any guesses? (Don't forget, mnemesis keeps track of ALL the Bungie acronyms over at Bungie Sightings - if this one is too much for you, try some of the others!) Update: looks like siliconmaster482 was actually the first to mention it, on Tuesday - sorry I didn't notice. (Louis Wu 01:56:37 UTC) (permalink)
Mashed Potatoes for All
V10L3N7 JAY stopped by with some Thanksgiving love from Section Three. Thanks, Jay! (Louis Wu 01:53:15 UTC) (permalink)
Recovery One, Part Three
I've recovered enough from my tryptophan-induced stupor to point out that Red vs Blue has posted Recovery One, Part Three; you can find it on their Sponsors forum, if you're a sponsor, or you can download it in HD splendor (for 80 Microsoft Points) from Xbox Live Marketplace. I'm really digging this story; it's engrossing, tightly written, and makes me want Part Four, now. (While you're at their website, swing by the store; they've got some new t-shirts (thanks, Merc) and new books and calendars (thanks, Dan the Stick).) (Louis Wu 01:50:42 UTC) (permalink)
News November 22 2007
Don't call us...
ZZoMBiE13 celebrates his 20th submission today in Another Halo Comic Strip - and takes a look at Rock Band, in the process. And with that... we'll wish you a Happy Thanksgiving - that's it from HBO until tomorrow! Time to go make stuffing... (Louis Wu 12:18:40 UTC) (permalink)
Side by side, we march as one
IceWeasel found yet ANOTHER piece of hidden audio in the Halo 3 soundtrack; swing by the forum thread for discussions about it. (Louis Wu 12:15:35 UTC) (permalink)
Spriggs, Episode 1
I stumbled across Spriggs, a Halo 3 machinima, this morning - episode 1 has good voice acting, nice footage, and a lot of potential, humor-wise. Go watch! (I'm not sure about bandwidth - so if we do something stupid, like take them offline, I'll put up local copies of the vid.) (Louis Wu 12:14:08 UTC) (permalink)
Things to look back on fondly
Gamepro has put up an article entitled '65 Most Amazing Halo 3 Moments' - and that's exactly what they tried to cover. Spoilers galore, of course. Nice summary of the game!
(Louis Wu 12:11:16 UTC) (permalink)
A bit more explosive than the original
InAmb3rClad noticed a pretty cool screenshot someone (okay, novaBung0307) created on Sandtrap. Amazing what you can do with guns and boxes! (Louis Wu 12:00:53 UTC) (permalink)
Post-production is important.
Edge Magazine (via Next Generation) has a great interview with Marty O'Donnell - for an old guy, he's pretty wise.
As an artist, the more you do customer surveys, or do focus testing, the more you will completely lose focus on what it is that caused you to be a creative person in the first place. It's just something I like to remind the guys all the time: stop looking at what everyone else is doing. We should just be creating what we're creating.
Go read the rest - it's good stuff. (As a bonus, it's got one of the creepiest pics of Marty I've ever seen.) Thanks, Red_Breast. (Louis Wu 11:53:09 UTC) (permalink)
Zen-like Simplicity
A column known as The Unreasonable Stance (not without reason) has taken the position that Pac-Man beats Halo in every gaming category. Heh. Thanks, Anton P. Nym. (Louis Wu 11:36:45 UTC) (permalink)
News November 21 2007
Halo 3 Legendary - for Cheap
Khanh Huynh noticed a story on Kotaku - apparently, some of Amazon's Black Friday deals have leaked a bit early; you'll be able to grab Halo 3 Legendary Edition for $79.99. Nice! (Louis Wu 21:34:01 UTC) (permalink)
Halo theme for GH3 - free tomorrow
MLG's Ryan Thompson was the first to let us know that Activision and Microsoft are teaming up to release the Halo theme, MJOLNIR Mix edition, for Guitar Hero III, for free - tomorrow only. You can read more details at most big gaming sites - say, Joystiq. (Louis Wu 21:31:27 UTC) (permalink)
Tsavo Highway Legendary Tip
RVideo accidentally stumbled on a way that makes one of the toughest battles in the Tsavo Highway levels get a lot easier... he wrote it up for you. (Louis Wu 21:21:25 UTC) (permalink)
Knock Bite.
Stuntmutt played with one of the easter eggs in Halo 3 in today's One One Se7en. Geddit? (Louis Wu 16:33:41 UTC) (permalink)
Eclipse
Jamie98s has released a new machinima project - this one is called 'Eclipse', and it's about a mysterious planet that is engulfing suns as it passes through galaxies. When it reaches Earth, ODSTs are deployed to investigate. This movie is 12 minutes long, and created with a modded version of Halo 2, plus lots of post effects. There is no dialogue, but this actually works pretty well. 106 mb in WMP9 format, 104 mb in QuickTime format; grab a copy, and see what he did! (Louis Wu 16:16:24 UTC) (permalink)
Sometimes, it pays to comparison-shop
As mentioned previously, the Halo 3 Official Soundtrack went onsale yesterday, in record stores everywhere (well, everywhere in the US, anyway). For those having trouble finding it locally, it's also available via download - you can swing by the iTunes Store, and spend $19.98 for it (you'll get DRM-encoded 128kbps AAC files)... or visit the Sumthing Digital store, and grab it for $9.99... and get 192kbps totally DRM-free MP3 files, instead. Hmm... (Thanks, kapowaz, for the heads-up on the better deal.) Update: the Sumthing Digital files are not 192kpbs... they're actually 320kpbs. Thanks to Sorahn for noticing. (Louis Wu 15:45:13 UTC) (permalink)
Terminal shapes - in vector format
A couple of days ago, we mentioned some wallpapers created by Capt Spanish, based on Terminal-inspired artwork he'd built in a vector drawing program. There was some interest expressed in the vector files - so he's obliged. You can snag an Adobe Illustrator file (340k, zipped) or a generic EPS file (556k, zipped). The Illustrator file contains all of the paths he created, so the shapes themselves are editable; the EPS is openable with more applications. Grab the one that works best for you! And thanks, Capt Spanish.
(Louis Wu 14:24:54 UTC) (permalink)
I will miss you, sharer of my gas...
Captain Spark has been collecting dialogue for a while now, even though his website is currently offline. He recently sent us several dozen snippets from grunts and marines - there are some hilarious ones in here! Go listen to the newest editions in our Halo 3 Dialogue Databank. (Louis Wu 13:27:28 UTC) (permalink)
Oh, Snap.
Trindacut is tired of all this hype about Halo 3. He's written a piece over at Rampancy.net explaining how Halo 3 should be more like Pokemon Snap. I'm not sure I agree with all of his points... but it sure wasn't cool for Bungie to kill his dog. (Louis Wu 12:36:07 UTC) (permalink)
Travelogue: The Search for a New Stage
This Spartan Life has posted Episode 5, Module 4 - a travelogue that continues the storyline from earlier modules, which uses the new Halo 3 maps to great advantage. Nice camera angles! More details can be found on their front page, and their Episodes page. (Louis Wu 12:35:47 UTC) (permalink)
Archimedes
TTL Demag0gue let us know that Reclaimer: Chapter Two, Part One is now online - this is your chance to meet Team Viper (Louis Wu 12:35:31 UTC) (permalink)
Lost Spartan Video
Delta, inspired by SilverBrin's Lost Spartan release yesterday, spent several hours putting together a video for it. I think it works really well, actually, and is pretty impressive for an afternoon's work! (Louis Wu 12:35:12 UTC) (permalink)
HBO-COERCE: Back, for a limited time
Whoa, nostalgia. JayWHY stopped by to annnounce that for a limited time (tomorrow, through the weekend, though it seems to be up now), the HBO-COERCE HaloPC server would be up and running for a Thanksgiving Reunion. The forum post also has a link for a Ventrilo server. Jump in and remember the good old days! (Louis Wu 12:34:35 UTC) (permalink)
Stranger and Friend
grantix posted Issue 3 of his Helljumper screenshot comic - our hero learns something about himself. (Louis Wu 12:34:19 UTC) (permalink)
How to trap a noob
Ultimate Dragon put together his own Rube Goldberg-esque creation in Forge; it's not a suicide, like we mentioned yesterday, it's more of a mousetrap. Er... noobtrap. Go see.
(Louis Wu 12:34:01 UTC) (permalink)
News November 20 2007
MLG Halo 3 Film Festival Nominees
The MLG Halo 3 Film Festival is now in its public voting phase - 200 videos have been narrowed down to 20, 5 in each of 4 categories. Go watch, and vote for your favorites! There's some decent money on the line for the winners... so pick carefully! Thanks, trigger119. (Louis Wu 21:56:36 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3: A Call to Arms Machinima Contest
Xbox.com and Ziddio (a division of Comcast) have teamed up to sponsor a Halo machinima contest: "Halo 3: A Call to Arms." Create a short (20 second - 2 minute) machinima project, win, and you've got a shot at a home theater system, a VIP trip for 2 to the first MLG event of 2008, or a copy of Halo 3. You've got until December 19 - go read all the details! Thanks, trigger119. (Louis Wu 21:14:44 UTC) (permalink)
Uprising #2 Preview
Halo Uprising #2, the second of Marvel's four-episode Halo storyline, is (after many delays) due to be released tomorrow. You can see a six-page preview of it (plus the cover and table of contents) over at the MySpace Comic Books MySpace Blog, though - thanks, So Hood.
(Louis Wu 19:53:16 UTC) (permalink)
I don't understand the market.
So Gamestop increased sales by almost 60% over last year at this time, increased third-quarter earnings by more than 200% over last year, exceeded predictions for the quarter by 30%... and STILL lost 7.2% of its stock price today. (The market is worried about the fourth quarter.) This stuff is voodoo. Top-selling games for the quarter included (duh) Halo 3. (Louis Wu 19:29:52 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 OST Fan Review
John_117 got his hands on the Halo 3 Official Soundtrack (released today), and posted a mini-review in our forum. Go read what he thinks! (Louis Wu 19:26:04 UTC) (permalink)
New screens of McFarlane Figures
Spawn.com has a whole bunch of new screenshots of the final McFarlane Series 1 action figures - thanks, P1 Groupe Italia. (Some of the shots are older - some are not. None are dated.) (Louis Wu 17:39:16 UTC) (permalink)
Lost Spartan
SilverBrin has made a bunch of Halo-related music in the past; he's back, with a piece he created for the MySpace Halo 3 Soundtrack contest a month or two back. It's called 'Lost Spartan', and this is what he had to say about it:
"My objective was to write something that I wanted to hear while I play halo 3, and despite the halo spirit coursing through each beat, does not quote or reference, mutate, or sample any Bungie Microsoft O'Donnell Salvatori materials. It still, in my opinion, whole-heartedly qualifies as a halo fan piece and is very much in the style of my older goodies. It is pretty fun to listen to while playing."
We're hosting it - it's a 4 mb MP3, and it's pretty powerful! (I'd agree with him, it's fun to listen to.) Go hear. (Louis Wu 17:32:52 UTC) (permalink)
Incognito
Mass Effect is released today in the US - and Another Halo Comic Strip is there to comment. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 16:38:00 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 - driving the security industry, too
Bart Gordon pointed out an article in DC Velocity's current issue on upcoming changes in the protection of retail sales. DC Velocity is a logistics trade magazine (Halo 3 made the cover!), and the article is talking about enhanced RFID chips that can actually enable an electronic-based item (like a video game) at checkout. (That is: on the store shelf, the DVD is just a hunk of useless plastic - it doesn't become a game until the cashier activates it by sending a special signal to the RFID chip.) Halo 3 is simply an example of a game that's pushing the development of this technology, by dint of its market presence... but it's interesting to see its use, nonetheless! (Louis Wu 16:26:58 UTC) (permalink)
More Screenshot Art
AusQB posted a screenshot compilation on YouTube - this wouldn't really be news, except that he's actually got a Bungie.net group, Ar7is7s of Halo, devoted to cool shots. (The screenshot compilation is pretty well-done, but the shots themselves suffer tremendously from being forced into YouTube's tiny, overcompressed format.) Swing by the B.net group if you're interested in joining other folks excited about making artistic Halo 3 screens! (Louis Wu 16:08:43 UTC) (permalink)
Weekly Forge Contest
Xupaosso has kicked off a website called 'Weekly Forge Contest', which houses a... well, you can probably guess. Week One - build a Slayer map on Guardian using at least two crates. Read the page for full rules and a description of the goals. (No prizes; this is all about making cool stuff.)
(Louis Wu 16:05:03 UTC) (permalink)
That's gonna leave a dent.
Nitro288 pointed out a fun glitch found by AxS Kamikaze - not at all sure what caused it, but man, that Phantom pilot needs driving lessons.
(Louis Wu 16:00:55 UTC) (permalink)
A pretty elaborate suicide
Heh - Ice V spent considerable effort setting up a Rube Goldberg-style suicide on The Pit; the saved film doesn't seem to be available, but the YouTube version's still pretty cool. There's a forum thread started by a friend of his at Bungie.net, for comments - thanks, InAmb3rClad. (Louis Wu 15:33:23 UTC) (permalink)
MLG talks to Commish about Game Tweaks
MLGPro.com has an interview with their league commissioner, John Nelson, about the changes to gametypes that are made possible by the flexibility in Halo 3. There's also plenty of info about what will, and won't, be included in competition setups; for example, maps with shield doors will NOT be included, nor will equipment. It's a pretty interesting read. If you'd rather read the whole thing on one page, try mlgcanada.com.
(Louis Wu 15:22:02 UTC) (permalink)
Contact Harvest - a Bestseller
Contact Harvest went on sale 3 weeks ago - and the press release sent around yesterday (visible, among other places, at Game Daily) suggests it's a hit. It debuted at #3 on the November 18 New York Times Bestseller list, and is still at #4 this week. (You probably have to be logged in to see those pages; bugmenot.com can help.) Additionally, it debuted on the USA Today Bestseller List at #23 on the November 8th list, and is at #44 on this week's list. (USA Today doesn't break out books by fiction/non-fiction, paperback/hardcover, trade/mass-market - this is why CH's position is lower overall than on the NYT list.) Congrats, Joe and company! (Louis Wu 14:51:38 UTC) (permalink)
Top Montages, Summarized
Z pointed out an article written by Steam, over at 360WTF; it covers some of the top montages made in Halo 2, the Halo 3 beta, and Gears of War. (Examples are included.) Go watch!
(Louis Wu 14:37:00 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 - a hit with casual gamers?
I saw this article via Google News yesterday morning - but passed on front-paging it for a number of reasons. Anton P. Nym noted it on our forum yesterday afternoon - but I was busy, so I didn't take a second look. When I got up this morning, the report, from a company called 'BrandIntel', which discusses the increased awareness of Halo 3 among casual gamers, was all over the internet - Gamasutra, Joystiq, Kotaku, the list goes on. It's an interesting study; Halo has always appealed to the 'hardcore' gamer, but this is the first time that it's been of serious interest to more casual communities. It's a solid endorsement of the success of Microsoft's marketing campaign, I think, and will probably affect how companies market A-list titles from this point on. I'm not sure I like that idea, actually... (Louis Wu 14:32:00 UTC) (permalink)
News November 19 2007
DLC, with a Bungie Spin
If you missed the initial announcement of the upcoming Halo Downloadable Content, or the followup screenshots, you should swing by Bungie.net, and read this story. Actually, even if you DIDN'T miss that other stuff, you should read the story. A large chunk of it is a Q&A with Chris Barrett, the creative director of DLC and Steve Cotton, the DLC design lead, and it's a pretty interesting read. It'll give you a pretty good sense of what to expect come December 11 (or next spring, should you choose to wait for these maps to be free). (Louis Wu 23:11:33 UTC) (permalink)
Gratuitous Humor.
Stuntmutt looks at the downloadable version of the original Halo (due on December 11) in today's One One Se7en. Funny man. (Louis Wu 20:17:45 UTC) (permalink)
Extra Medals in Halo 3
Blackstar has been creating new medals for new experiences in Halo 3 for a few weeks; we've finally gotten around to adding a page for them. His latest medal is 'What Goes Around', awarded to bark0de for an amusing death on Sandtrap. Check out the whole collection! (Louis Wu 20:08:52 UTC) (permalink)
GeeVeeGrab - Halo 3 films, without a capture card
Interesting; cortinator points out that GeeVee.com is offering a beta service whereby they'll automatically convert your fileshare'd saved film clips to streamable video... this could be pretty useful for folks without a capture card! Check it out. (Louis Wu 19:41:58 UTC) (permalink)
Heroic Map Pack Screens
Thanks to Edelman; I hadn't noticed the link to screens earlier.
- Standoff: 1080p (517K) | 480p (121K)
- Rat's Nest: 1080p (470K) | 480p (106K)
- Foundry: 1080p (441K) | 480p (102K)
Gotta say... they're pretty! (Louis Wu 17:58:01 UTC) (permalink)
Lycos releases web search numbers
Wow, this is truly strange to me. According to EarthTimes.org, Lycos has posted its 8th annual list of the most popular toys and video games, based on web search activity... and Halo 3 came in 10th, well below 6th-place Halo 2. How is this possible? Are Lycos users living in the past, or something? (Louis Wu 17:47:11 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack
Over at Xbox.com, the big announcement alluded to in last Friday's Bungie Weekly Update has gone up - on December 11, 3 new multiplayer maps will be available for download, for 800 Microsoft Points ($10 US). These will all be free by spring 2008, just in time for the NEXT wave of downloadable content. Go read - and get ready! (Thanks, KP) (Louis Wu 17:22:31 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Flash games down under
Stuntmutt sent us links to a couple of Flash games available on Australian websites; there's 'Halo Fore', a golf game on the Red v Blue charity site, and 'Grunt Attack', a twitch shooter. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 17:19:29 UTC) (permalink)
Saving Grace
TTL Demag0gue has posted the last part of Chapter One of his Reclaimer comic - we'll be moving on to Team Viper soon. (Louis Wu 14:44:17 UTC) (permalink)
Wall Painting Update
John_117 has updated our forum on his progress of his Cortana/Master Chief wall painting - you can see the latest screenshot in his post. (Louis Wu 14:42:42 UTC) (permalink)
Music Transcriptions at R.net
Also at Rampancy.net this morning are two music transcriptions from spartan182 - a partial solution of the Halo 3 Announcement Trailer, for piano, and Unforgotten (the main menu screen music). You must be logged in to download. (Louis Wu 14:41:09 UTC) (permalink)
Time to go back to Halo.
Rampancy.net has a rant from VVV about how broken Halo 3 is. I have to say that I disagree with him on so many points that a rebuttal is pointless; we're not talking the same language. Others may not feel the same. (Louis Wu 14:38:20 UTC) (permalink)
Metroid Online Map Team Public Release
Seraphim let us know that the Metroid Online Map Team has released a pair of maps (in Release Candidate status), for testing. If you're a Halo Custom Edition player, grab these puppies and give 'em a try! (The release announcement contains screenshots and a movie, so you can see a little of what you're getting.) (Louis Wu 14:30:47 UTC) (permalink)
Terminal Wallpapers
Capt Spanish has been working quite a bit on Terminal graphics; he's created a bunch of custom-made images that took their inspiration from Halo 3's terminals, but have his own touches. You can find 4 separate designs, in two form factors each, in his forum post. We're still working on making the vector formats available to the public. (Louis Wu 14:25:25 UTC) (permalink)
News November 18 2007
Wallpaper Dumpage
This summer was pretty rough, real-life-wise... and then Halo 3 came out. Art submissions have suffered the worst from this; the Wallpaper and Misc Art queues haven't been touched for many, many months. I'm still working on the Misc Art queue (it's enormous)... but the Wallpaper queue is cleared out, I think. 84 new images - though I suppose you can't call most of them 'new', some were submitted 4 months ago. Be sure to check the images themselves; lots have variations you might like better than the originals. (I might have missed a few; I'll do a more thorough check soon. Please don't resend images you think we missed, it'll just confuse me. You're welcome to send me an email TELLING me I missed something; if it's still in the queue, I'll get it up soon.) Sorry! (Louis Wu 23:37:38 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Revolutions Trailer (v1.0)
Sharkiest pointed out a movie on Gametrailers done by Sabin17 - it's a remake of the Matrix Revolutions trailer using Halo footage. Great synching! (Louis Wu 22:05:26 UTC) (permalink)
Don't be the red guy.
Everything Awesome has 10 "Don'ts" for Halo 3 - some are screenshots, some are movies, all are pretty funny. (Louis Wu 22:03:56 UTC) (permalink)
The Riot #74
Second Foundation is now providing a live video feed of their recording of the Riot podcast, shown on mogulus.com. (I'm not sure how to find it, and there's no infiormation on the site itself, nor on Mogulus... but I guess this will become clearer over time.) The current episode, #74, filmed/recorded this morning, has news, a clan challenge, and an on-the-fly announcement from Obienator. Go listen! (Louis Wu 20:44:05 UTC) (permalink)
New material from Elnea
So Elnea's been making Halo art, movies, music, and comics for a while now... but she has this weird aversion to bandwidth help. She creates stuff that's WAY above the mainstream, quality-wise... but she doesn't want to be a burden, or something. Last night, though, she crossed a line. She posted remastered versions of five pieces of music... on MySpace. Yes, Tai Chi Knees now has a MySpace page. Okay, fine. Everyone who can tolerate that site is welcome to go explore her offerings there... but for those of you who are like me, who would love to hear these newly-produced (and amazingly polished) pieces WITHOUT having to visit MySpace - we're mirroring all five. Phooey to her, I say.
- I Want Master Chief (3.7 mb) | original news post
- Halo Unyielding 2 Cinematic Trailer Music (1.7 mb) | original news post
- Halo Unyielding 2 Battle Scene Music (8.2 mb) | original news post
- More Than Just a Voice (3.8 mb) | original news post
- MJOLNIR's Child (4.8 mb) | original news post
She's right - the remixes are amazing. (Compare old to new, if you're not sure.) 'More Than Just a Voice' really gets under my skin, and brings out - in a serious way - the relationship between Master Chief and Cortana that's usually discussed with sniggers. This is good stuff. And well worth spending bandwidth on. (Louis Wu 16:33:54 UTC) (permalink)
Halo to X-Plane - now Bigger
Mid7night returns to X-Plane Halo building - and adds the UNSC Marathon-class Cruiser, and the Covenant Assault Carrier to his fleet. The screenshots don't show very much - but based on his previous work, I'd say these are probably pretty cool! If you have X-Plane, go grab 'em. (Louis Wu 16:10:01 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Character Maker
This popped up on Google News; I don't know how well it works, since i don't have a machine I can install it on at the moment, but Shifu-Hacks has a small (200k) program that can show you various armor permutations. Looks like it runs on WIndows XP. (Louis Wu 16:07:26 UTC) (permalink)
Scanner psych
The Boston Globe has an article that suggests that playing games like Halo 3 increases your ability to spot threats quickly - and would be useful training for airport security screeners. How many of them would protest that training regimen, do you think? (Louis Wu 16:04:01 UTC) (permalink)
He's a hollow shell of a man.
LX925 fell into one of the generators on Snowbound... and lost his limbs. (A larger version of this screen can be found in his screenshots collection on B.net.) (Louis Wu 16:02:05 UTC) (permalink)
So Easy a Spartan Can Do It
Sean Somers ointed out a Halo 3 parody of the "So easy, a caveman can do it" ad campaign, created by mans1ay3r. It uses only static assets, and the animation harkens back to the old-skool Flash parodies of the late 90s - great memories! (Louis Wu 15:56:52 UTC) (permalink)
News November 17 2007
Campaign Scoring Contest
Community Projects has kicked off another contest - this one involves playing The Covenant with Campaign scoring on. The winner will receive 1600 Microsoft Points ($20, a couple of Arcade games). Go read the rules and details at Bungie.net. THanks, Maximum Fear. Now... it's time to head down for some tailgating, before the Yale-Harvard game kicks off. (Louis Wu 15:02:02 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Escape Teaser
newguy2445 and Godhand have been working on a 2D Halo game for a while - they've released a teaser trailer for it, on YouTube. Not much there... but it sounds like they'll be done sometime next year! (Louis Wu 14:48:19 UTC) (permalink)
Where's the cup-holder?
ZZoMBiE13's Saturday offering for Another Halo Comic Strip takes an easy shot at a classic target. And check out his new Cortana! (Louis Wu 12:37:55 UTC) (permalink)
Prelude
Jamie98s is back, with a short project - he says "it's kind of a trailer but not really". Filmed in Halo 2, with some interesting mods and lots of post-production work. Sad... but powerful. About 20 mb, in either WMP9 or QuickTime formats... go watch! (Louis Wu 12:35:56 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Stats Signatures
Veegie stopped by with some cool signature info - if you're interested in a Halo 3 signature (for forums other than ours, say) that contains your stats - swing by HaloTech and add your gamertag. There are a bunch of options - nicely done! (Louis Wu 12:23:53 UTC) (permalink)
Halofigures.net opens
Wow, pretty cool. R.Geiter let us know that he's created a site covering all the Halo action figures that were available to the public. Great resource! (Louis Wu 12:21:40 UTC) (permalink)
Free Halo 3 for upgrading Xbox owners
Weird. This WAS on Bungie.net for a short time, but is gone now - but it's still on Xbox.com. (It was gone from THERE, too, for a bit, but it's back.) If you have an Xbox, and a Live account, Microsoft is offering you a deal: buy a 360 between November 21 and December 21 and migrate the Live account to a Gold subscription (this doesn't cost anything)... and they'll give you Halo 3 for free. w00t! (Be sure to read the details; you also have to register with a special promotional code.) (Louis Wu 12:18:34 UTC) (permalink)
Todd McFarlane talks Toys, and Halo
Gamasutra has a great interview with Todd McFarlane, discussing his involvement in the Halo Action Figure industry (among other things). Check it out! (Louis Wu 12:12:07 UTC) (permalink)
What Halo 3 has done to the Industry
Straight.com has an overview of the Halo story (its history, not the in-game story), which is sort of centered around Bungie's Mike Zak, one of Halo 3's Environmental Art leads. Nice summary - and some nice background on Mike! (He also made the cover of the magazine.) (Louis Wu 12:08:19 UTC) (permalink)
Spike VGA Show - coming soon
The 2007 Spike Video Game Awards are coming up on December 9; Halo 3 has been nominated for Most Addictive Game Fueled by Dew, Game of the Year, Best Shooter, Breakthrough Technology (for Saved Films), Best XBOX 360 Game, Best Original Score (though not Best Soundtrack), and Best Multiplayer Game, and Bungie's up for Studio of the Year. That'a a pretty impressive list! (Louis Wu 11:49:18 UTC) (permalink)
Forge, from 1UP Honcho
DL.TV has a video walkthrough of Forge, hosted by 1UP's Mark MacDonald. If you've put off figuring out how this works, go watch!
(Louis Wu 11:46:15 UTC) (permalink)
Are you spoiled?
Heh - fun editorial over at FileFront - has Halo 3 spoiled you for other games? (It's not just about the gameplay... it's about the options.) (Louis Wu 11:40:52 UTC) (permalink)
Cpt Anarchy and Vash interviewed at MLG
Another interview up over at MLGPro.com - this one with another pair of pros, Cpt Anarchy and Vash. Again, they hold forth on Halo 3, how the gameplay is changing, and what they're looking forward to - nice read! (Louis Wu 11:30:26 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Ad Campaign - Blazing a Trail
There's an interesting writeup from a non-gamer who attended a marketing conference in Las Vegas this week - MS's Jeff Bell discussed the ad campaign for Halo 3, and what they'd hoped to accomplish with it. 55% of the ad budget was spent on "non-traditional marketing and social media extensions" - seems like it turned out pretty well for them! (Louis Wu 11:27:16 UTC) (permalink)
It's just kind of there.
A guy who used to review video games for a living, but now works for ExtremeTech, takes a look at the current crop of games he's got around. Halo 3 (well, the whole Halo series) takes a whupping.
My theory is that, just like television and movies, mediocrity pleases the gaming masses more than true inventiveness.
Ouch... harsh, man. (Louis Wu 11:24:49 UTC) (permalink)
Safetyless Shotgun, Revisited
Rooster Teeth's Burnie Burns shares my unhappiness with the quality level of YouTube videos - so he grabbed the fileshare'd version of the 'rogue shotgun' video we mentioned yesterday, and whipped up a nice little downloadable version. Nice camera work, too. You can snag it in WMP9 or Quicktime formats from us - about 6 mb, either way. For those folks suggesting this is lag... look again. (Louis Wu 11:20:55 UTC) (permalink)
PLAY! coming to Seattle
According to a news item at Music 4 Games, The PLAY! concert, a video game music show, will be coming to Seattle in late January - and Marty O'Donnell will be there, doing Halo stuff. Tickets are onsale now. (Louis Wu 11:17:12 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie Weekly Update - last for a bit
Last night, Luke posted the Bungie Weekly Update at B.net - a bunch of SF 49ers showed up at Bungie's offices to playtest the upcoming new maps, they've tracked a few campaign/achievement stats about the Halo 3 population, there are more playlist changes coming to Xbox Live, and there's some big news coming Monday. As usual, you can also read it in our Weekly Update Archive.
(Louis Wu 11:14:20 UTC) (permalink)
Halowulf
rkwlnvrdy13 found a contest for fan-made Beowulf trailers - one of the winners was Halowulf. Timing is quite good. (Louis Wu 11:11:56 UTC) (permalink)
Bored of the Ringworld
Vincent stopped by yesterday with a whole passel of sprite comics he's created over the past year or more. In general, we stay away from sprite comics these days... but these are quite good. I've left his .png links alone, but also added a local .gif mirror for each comic; same visual, considerably smaller filesize. (Louis Wu 11:10:59 UTC) (permalink)
News November 16 2007
Halo draining manpower from the PC camp
QJ.net has some statistics from the online PC gaming companion XFire that would suggest that something happened in late September/early October that caused a lot of PC gamers to stop playing PC games... XFire's senior director of marketing suggests it might be Halo 3. Heh. (Louis Wu 18:18:28 UTC) (permalink)
Hat Trick.
Bungie has taken to awarding the Recon Helmet to people who make them happy. This has led to people doing all sorts of silly things to try and make Bungie happy. (This will never work; they've said, very clearly, that the easiest way NOT to get the helmet is to ask for it.) Stuntmutt looks at this bizarre phenomenon in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:35:49 UTC) (permalink)
Friday's Fan Fiction
Fourteen new pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section - busy week! (Louis Wu 15:52:47 UTC) (permalink)
'Casting The Highway
It's time for more Anger, Sadness and Envy - Episode 3 of Rampancy.net's podcast is now available. Trindacut and Narcogen look at Tsavo Highway. 48 minutes, 22 mb - go listen! (Louis Wu 13:21:09 UTC) (permalink)
Fame Humping
Bungie used yesterday's Game With Fame as fodder for this week's Humpday Challenge (a bit off the hump). The writeup's a little... disjointed (in a couple of places sentences just go off in weird directions; looks like it wasn't ever proofed), but the end result is solid - three wins for Bungie, out of three games in the Social hoppers. They're taking next week off, for Thanksgiving, so the next chance anyone has to beat them at this game will be November 28. (Louis Wu 13:17:57 UTC) (permalink)
Custom MC on eBay
Hawty McBloggy found a Custom Halo Master Chief figure on eBay - made from a GI Joe base. Interesting-looking! (Louis Wu 13:08:12 UTC) (permalink)
Advantages
TTL Demag0gue continues the exposition in Chapter One, Part Nine of Reclaimer - Ferial explains why he's bothering. Sounds like things will shake up a bit next week... (Louis Wu 12:59:56 UTC) (permalink)
Another TV Halo Ref
Angela, a character on The Office, heads to Wired Magazine's offices... and plays Halo 3. Oddness. Thanks, NickLee808. (Louis Wu 12:57:09 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 still selling well
Halo 3 sold 3.3 million copies in the last 5 days of September - and according to Kotaku, another 434,000 in October. It was the biggest single-platform console game of the month, beating Guitar Hero III's 383,000 Xbox 360 copies. (If you count the Wii and PS2 sales of GH3, though, it climbs to 1.4 million for the month.) Will the numbers climb again in November, as people buy the game as a Christmas gift? Only time will tell! (Louis Wu 12:54:40 UTC) (permalink)
WhizKids Scarab - now for sale
Last summer, if you visited the San Diego ComicCon, you had a shot at buying a battle-damaged Scarab from WhizKids, only $250. Well... if you missed out on that chance, never fear; as of last Wednesday, you can buy the Scarab Vehicle Pack at your local hobby and game store. You get the Scarab, some cards, a map, and Halo ActionClix rules. MSRP - a cool $249.99. (No battle damage on this one, I don't think.) Thanks, Kotaku. (Louis Wu 12:50:18 UTC) (permalink)
I guess Bungie forgot the safety.
So last week, we got an email from omfg a cat69 about a funky death he caused; after he died, he dropped his shotgun... which went off when it hit the ground, and killed his opponent. He sent a link to his fileshare, but I passed on the news, because I'm afraid that we're getting too many of these kinds of things these days. He posted it at B.net a few days later, with links to his fileshare, and a YouTube version... and got lots of good responses. (Several people pointed the thread out to us, but again, I passed.) Well... I'm not passing any more, because now this sort of death has its very own medal, courtesy of Blackstar. (It was actually created because of a thread started by Evlmidget25 - I guess omfg a cat69's experience isn't unique. But if I'm gonna front-page the occurrence, I'm sure gonna mention him...) (Louis Wu 12:35:48 UTC) (permalink)
Flashy Blades
Harlan pointed out that there's a new Top 5 list on MSNBC - the Top 5 Game Swords. Halo's Energy Sword made the list. (Picture's credited to Bungee Studios - awesome.) (Louis Wu 12:17:13 UTC) (permalink)
A deal coming up next week
chrisvioxxx noticed that the circular for Target for Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), as seen on the Black Friday Ads website, contains a deal for Halo buyers on Page 6; buy the Halo 3 Edition Xbox 360 for $399, get a $60 gift card for free. (In other words - buy the console, get the game for free.) (Louis Wu 12:11:16 UTC) (permalink)
News November 15 2007
Gears of Bored
Another Halo Comic Strip takes a look at what's happening on other parts of Xbox Live... heh. Bad ZZoMBiE13. (Louis Wu 21:19:13 UTC) (permalink)
A Voice in the Dark
Grantix stopped by to point out Helljumper, Issue 2 - looks like that Spartan's in trouble. (Louis Wu 21:14:46 UTC) (permalink)
Mike Gravel, Sword Hog
Mike Gravel has been excluded from the Democratic debate this evening in Las Vegas; you can watch this video to see him explaining to NPR's Diane Rehm why this is... or you can visit this YouTube page to see him explaining the REAL reason in today's episode of Elevator, a web-based video series created by HBO Fan Fiction writer Woody Tondorf. After watching this, I'd vote for the guy! (Louis Wu 19:27:29 UTC) (permalink)
Key word: Original
Major Nelson has clarified that the Xbox Originals, officially announced yesterday as older Xbox games to be available for download on Xbox Live Marketplace, will NOT contain additional functionality; they will not have Achievements or be used in your Gamer score. And though it wasn't mentioned specifically, I'd GUESS that this means that the downloadable version of Halo will not be 60Hz-compatible for PAL regions, since the original game wasn't. These are not enhanced versions of the games - they're just downloadable versions of them, at a nice price. (This news item was up much earlier this morning, but somehow got mangled and then deleted.) (Louis Wu 16:08:04 UTC) (permalink)
More Cortana Cosplaying
MsValentine continues to hone her Cortana outfit; last month, she added a very cool wig to the outfit... and a Grunt Birthday Skull. There are some really amazing poses in this group... including a bunch of shots with MC's helmet, and a few with a nice reversal of the MC/Cortana standard placement. Go check out the latest pics! (Louis Wu 15:58:38 UTC) (permalink)
Playin' With the Chief
Strangely enough, we have word of ANOTHER video that looks at what happens to Master Chief in Multiplayer... DigitalPh33r, the guy behind the Master Chief Sucks at Halo series (and other funny bits) has released Playin' With the Chief, a video that might give you an idea of just how single-minded Master Chief really is... funny stuff. Thanks to madtsunami for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 14:30:10 UTC) (permalink)
After the Ark
Raulboy posted a piece he made for class - how does Master Chief deal with matchmaking? (Not too well.) About 10 mb, in either QT or WMP9 formats, linked from his forum post.
(Louis Wu 14:26:44 UTC) (permalink)
Ogre 2 and Ghost hold forth on Halo 3
Over at MLGPro.com, there's a dual interview - Ogre 2 (from Final Boss) and Ghostayame (from Carbon) - discussing Halo 3, how it differs from Halo 2, and what the future might hold. Good reading! Thanks, 3Suns. (Louis Wu 14:17:22 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Leaderboards
Cody Miller noticed a new site - Halo 3 Leaderboards. It's unclear where they get their data from (a few forumgoers suggest that they're not in the rankings but should be), but it's a great place to go for aggregated leaderboards. Here's hoping it doesn't lead to the cheating that made Bungie pull down THEIR leaderboards early in Halo 2's lifespan.
(Louis Wu 13:26:57 UTC) (permalink)
GWF Developers: details
A couple of days ago, we mentioned the Game With Fame Developers day - which is today. Participants, and a time for the Bungie dev team participation, were unknown at the time. They're up now - you can see who from the Halo Wars dev team will be playing from 9am - 1pm today, and who from the Bungie team will be playing from 3pm - 5pm today. (All times are Pacific.) Thanks, KP.
(Louis Wu 13:10:37 UTC) (permalink)
Free Halo 2 theme on XBLM
Se7enth Prophet noticed that in honor of Xbox Live's 5th birthday, there's a free Halo 2 theme available on Xbox Live Marketplace. Go to Themes -> Xbox Live is 5ive to find it.
(Louis Wu 13:06:54 UTC) (permalink)
When ad dollars stretch too far
Yesterday morning, x Zero x mentioned that Tuesday night's episode of Caveman, a comedy on ABC, contained a Halo reference. I didn't get around to mentioning it in the news... but last night darthbob noticed that there was a clip of it on Kotaku. I'm gonna have to agree with them - it looks more like paid-for product placement than an honest pop culture reference. Oh, well. (Louis Wu 12:45:55 UTC) (permalink)
Halo: Featured on Wikipedia
TKD 117 was the first to let us know that Halo: Combat Evolved is the Featured Article of the Day on the English version of Wikipedia today - Happy 6th Birthday! (While it's true that the game itself was released a few days before the 15th, nobody could PLAY it until the Xbox hit the shelves.) (Louis Wu 12:26:56 UTC) (permalink)
News November 14 2007
Go Forge Yourself
Cozmo23 let us know that Clan O7AH is hosting the First Annual Go Forge Yourself Contest; you've got until December 17 to create something cool. There will be prizes for the Most Creative Map, Best Looking Map, and Best Overall Map. Check the site for full details and rules.
(Louis Wu 21:43:13 UTC) (permalink)
As Stupid As Possible.
Bungie slipped in a few cheap shots in the dialogue of Halo 3 - Stuntmutt helps you find one in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 17:20:09 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Cheat Codes
Heh - this is hilarious. The only downside is now I'm going to lose a ton of time going through the rest of the site... (Louis Wu 17:16:32 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie to be well-represented at GDC
The newspost about the Game Designers Expo reminded me that the Game Developers Conference is coming soon, as well - February 18 in San Francisco - so it's time to see who from Bungie will be talking this year. It's a pretty big list:
- Chris Butcher will be discussing Matchmaking in Halo 3
- Hao Chen will be talking about Lighting And Material Of Halo 3
- CJ Cowan will look at the Halo 3 Cinematic Process
- Yaohua Hu will discuss Lightmap Compression In Halo 3
- Marty O'Donnell will do an Audio Post-Mortem of the game
- Luis Villegas and Sean Shypula will talk about distributed processing to speed up development tasks, will lessons from Halo 3
Sounds like it'll be a great show for folks who want to learn the Bungie magic! Update: Tom "Achronos" Gioconda reprimanded me for missing his talk - Making the Community Part of HALO. (My only excuse is that 'Bungie' is not mentioned as his company affiliation.) Ironically, that's probably the most relevant talk to this website! (Louis Wu 17:04:37 UTC) (permalink)
New goodies at the Bungie Store
In an interesting move to a wider variety of wearables, the Bungie Store has added a Master Chief Thermal Twofer, a Short Sleeved Work Shirt, and a Reversible Beanie. Thanks, ViralSyris. (Louis Wu 17:02:53 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie audio team giving keynote at GD Expo
Very nice - Jay Weinland and CJ Cowan will be giving the Keynote speech at this year's Game Design Expo in Vancouver, BC (January 2008). They'll be talking about "the tools and processes that helped create the sound and visuals for Halo 3". Thanks, RotaJota. (Louis Wu 16:51:01 UTC) (permalink)
Battles at the first tower
Rockslider has put up a new page at Bad Cyborg; there are directions for putting together large battles on The Covenant. Go read! (Louis Wu 15:57:09 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 FFA online tourney
RedSpades wrote to say that he's hosting a Halo 3 FFA Tournament on his site, WinMicrosoftPoints.com - admission is free, prizes include the book Halo Effect, an iTunes gift card, and a 1-month XBL Gold card. Details can be found in this forum post. Update: The tourney starts Saturday, November 17 - if you're playing, check the site for details. (Louis Wu 15:55:08 UTC) (permalink)
Sniping for Christ
Christ and Pop Culture has a podcast devoted to the subject of whether it makes sense to use Halo as a recruitment tool for Christian outreach groups. Yes, this subject is in danger of being oversaturated (we actually suggested that a month ago) - but this podcast talks to someone who games for fun, and is a seminary student. He makes some interesting points. (Louis Wu 15:51:19 UTC) (permalink)
More Than Genetics
TTL Demag0gue has posted Wednesday's Reclaimer comic - in Chapter One, Part Eight, Ferial continues to explore the idea of will, and what you can do with it. (Louis Wu 12:34:35 UTC) (permalink)
Great Uses of Forge, from MLG
MLG takes a look at some of the things Forge makes possible in an article on MLGPro.com - interesting read. Thanks, Grady Durden. (Louis Wu 12:30:27 UTC) (permalink)
Large Online FFA at Violated Gaming
Chad Souter let us know that ViolatedGaming.com is holding a 256-player single-elimination FFA tournament on November 19, at 6 pm CST. Entry is free, and the entire tourney will be completed in a 2-3 hour stretch. They've got 51 players so far - go sign up! (Louis Wu 12:25:16 UTC) (permalink)
OMRA
trigger119 stopped by yesterday to announce the OMRA - the Online Machinima Rating Association. They're planning on it mostly being used for videos released through GamingTV, but they're also making the ratings graphics available for download, so that machinima makers who elect NOT to host their vids at GTV can still incorporate the ratings. (Because this means that some movies that use this rating system will be self-rated, you should take the ratings with a grain of salt... but the idea is an intriguing one nonetheless.) (Louis Wu 12:20:28 UTC) (permalink)
Oh no, where do we go?
Oh no, where do we go?
Hawty McBloggy found an entertaining (if NSFW) Halo rap on YouTube - go watch. (She warns that it's slow for the first 4:50 - she's got that colon in the wrong place. It's only 45 seconds.) There's more information about Warped Corp, the group that put this together, on the actual YouTube page. (Louis Wu 12:16:25 UTC) (permalink)
News November 13 2007
Rare Collectibles for Sale
You might remember the name Curt Chiarelli; he was the sculptor that created the molds that Joyride turned into Halo action figures. What came out made a lot of gamers happy - but not as happy as they might have been had they seen the (far more detailed) originals. Many of the details that Curt carefully added to his models were obscured by paint, or actually filed down to expedite the manufacturing process. Last year he sold two castings made from the original Cortana molds - and I can tell you they're gorgeous. (One was acquired for me.) He's back this year, with a (very) limited-edition run of the Covenant Grunt - a total of 25 castings will be made, and some are already spoken for. He's planning on keeping the figure a neutral gray so as to show the form and detail to its best advantage. If you're interested, he'll be retailing these at $500 - send him an email to discuss reserving one! (Louis Wu 23:56:56 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Video Diaries
MTV's got a series of video clips following a Halo addict through the days following Halo 3's release - how he blew off work, his girlfriend, tennis finals, and his family to play. You might know this guy. (Louis Wu 23:18:35 UTC) (permalink)
The Fame Game
Ruzhyo noticed that there's a Halo-related comic over at YouGamers' Limit Break. (Louis Wu 23:16:49 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Ranks
If you're curious about the full Halo 3 Ranks table, halowiki.net has posted one. Thanks, PEZ. (Louis Wu 23:15:19 UTC) (permalink)
Playlist changes live
If you jump on Xbox Live, you'll find that the Halo 3 playlist changes discussed in last week's Update are now live. Changes are detailed in the Bungie.net post. Thanks, evildoctorwill. (Louis Wu 20:25:48 UTC) (permalink)
2007 Guilt O' Lantern: Results
A couple of thousand of you stopped by our Guilt O' Lantern voting page this year, and picked three victors from the amazingly rich crop. Swing by the results page for full details - and congratulations to Daniel Dirk, Cipher002, and Nathan Scheck, our prizewinners! (Louis Wu 14:28:19 UTC) (permalink)
Artistic Halo, Revisited
We've mentioned a couple of sites devoted to artistic Halo 3 screenshots - yankeyhotel maintains abstrakt, and TTL Demag0gue maintains Mendicant Bias. This morning, MasterNoob stopped by to say that he's doing it, too; check out his gallery on Bungie.net for some cool shots! (Louis Wu 13:53:06 UTC) (permalink)
Don't jump on his head
Master Chief meets a rival in Another Halo Comic Strip... heh. I doubt the guy can keep up. (Louis Wu 12:33:11 UTC) (permalink)
Autographed Halo 3 Legendary Edition, for Charity
Hawty McBloggy found a pretty cool copy of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition on eBay - this one has been signed by Master Chief (Steve Downes), Cortana (Jen Taylor), and Sergeant Johnson (David Scully). 100% of the proceeds will go to the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, supporting women filmmakers. Starting bid is $100, and you've got a bit under a week to make up your mind. A cool collectible, and a good cause - what's not to like? (Louis Wu 12:09:58 UTC) (permalink)
Screenshot competition
Mukelo wrote to point out a new competition at Invalid Mob Gaming - they're holding a Screenshot competition. Submit a multiplayer Halo 3 screen from your FileShare, get a shot at a 1-month Xbox Live Gold subscription code. You've got until November 30. Check it out! (Louis Wu 12:06:10 UTC) (permalink)
Downloadable Halo - coming soon
Wow, very cool. According to Next Generation, the fall Xbox 360 dashboard update, due December 4, will allow (among other things) folks to download Halo from Xbox Live Marketplace. Yes, you read that right. 1200 MS points ($15) will get you a downloadable copy of the original Halo. (Or Crash Bandicoot, or Burnout 3, or...) NOW I see why I might need that Elite hard drive. Thanks, Red_Breast. (Louis Wu 11:55:03 UTC) (permalink)
Blowing off steam, the TTL Way
If it's Tuesday, we must be in Tied the Leader land. XerxdeeJ stopped by early this morning to point out a couple of new articles - one was inspired by c0ld vengeance's Puzzleball creations, and gives you access to three new puzzles (at varying difficulties), and the other is a rant that takes aim at the Writers Guild, ill-informed bloggers, and pretty much anyone who messes with their beloved Halo. Heh. Go read! (Louis Wu 11:50:57 UTC) (permalink)
Helljumper launches
grantix is starting up a screenshot-based comic, in the style of Section 3 and Reclaimer. I find it pretty hard to read (you have to expand each panel separately to read the text), but it's early yet. (Louis Wu 11:40:02 UTC) (permalink)
Grab a Halo collection for cheap
Master D0rk is moving on from Halo - but he's giving the community a shot at his gear before he puts it up on eBay. He's got all three Xbox games (Limited Editions of both Halo 2 and Halo 3), plus the Graphic Novel, all five novels, and a couple of 7-11 cups... and he's looking for $100 plus shipping. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me! (Louis Wu 11:37:42 UTC) (permalink)
Game With Fame: Game Developers
On November 15, the Game With Fame program will have your favorite game developers playing on Xbox Live. Halo-related activity: the Halo Wars dev team will be playing Halo 3 from 9 AM - 1PM (Pacific Time), and the Bungie dev team will be on doing the same thing at a to-be-determined time. Mark your calendars - Thursday's the day to be online! (Louis Wu 11:35:03 UTC) (permalink)
News November 12 2007
Halo Dialogue Statistics, from the source
So recently, we've been getting a lot of email asking for information about the lines of dialogue recorded for each of the three Halo games; it's unclear to me whether there's a trivia contest going on somewhere, or if everyone just had the same idea at the same time. Either way, it seemed prudent to check with the only folks that could say for sure - the Bungie audio crew. Jay Weinland has all the files on his hard drive, so it was easy enough to look at stats:
- Halo: 8,087 files produced
- Halo 2: 21,090 files produced
- Halo 3: 39,377 files produced
These numbers include alien speech, such as Jackals, Hunters, etc. And Marty wanted to clarify that not all of these are actually triggerable - the numbers that you actually have a chance of hearing are 15-20% below those numbers. Still, even if you can only hear 32,000 of them... 40,000 lines recorded for Halo 3. Wow. (Thanks, guys.) (Louis Wu 21:09:43 UTC) (permalink)
Landing Strip.
Stuntmutt takes a shot at some non-player characters in today's One One Se7en... blame Max. (Louis Wu 18:24:54 UTC) (permalink)
From release to dissolution in five months
Ouch. Looks like the Hired Gun team (the guys who ported Halo 2 to Windows Vista) no longer exists. Not sure what that means for future support of the game... thanks, rapture. (Louis Wu 18:13:38 UTC) (permalink)
Blue Realm Wearable Helmet
BARBARIC_RAGE commissioned a wearable helmet from Devin White's Blue Realm Studios - the end result is gorgeous. Check it out. (Louis Wu 17:38:24 UTC) (permalink)
Custom-painted Legendary Helmet
Very cool. BARBARIC_RAGE found a truly Legendary Edition of Halo 3; it's just like the one you can buy at the store (has sealed game disc/sealed Essentials discs/original packaging)... except that the helmet is custom-painted and battle-scarred. Really nice paint job, too. The eBay Auction ends in about 3 and a half days... figure out what you're willing so spend on this and get to bidding! (Louis Wu 17:04:20 UTC) (permalink)
What you gon' do with all that junk?
Indutiomarus reminded us that Halo3.Junk.ws is now live, and accepting new members. This was one of the most useful (and long-lasting) stats sites for Halo 2, and now they're back with stats aggregation for Halo 3. Add your gamertag, and keep track of lots of statistics you never knew you cared about! (Louis Wu 15:40:38 UTC) (permalink)
Pumpkin Voting Ends Today!
A quick reminder: voting will end today for the 2007 Guilt O' Lantern pumpkin carving contest. If you haven't voted yet, do it today... because at midnight (Eastern Time), voting will be offline! We'll tabulate the results and post the winners either tomorrow or Wednesday. (Louis Wu 13:30:37 UTC) (permalink)
Interview with a Faceplate Designer
Hawty McBloggy has posted an interview with SpaceGhost2K, a guy who creates very cool custom faceplates for Xbox 360s. A bunch of the shots in the interview show off his Halo-related work - but he's got amazing stuff in a LOT of genres. Go look! (Louis Wu 13:11:12 UTC) (permalink)
Reclaimer: Chapter One, Part Seven - Will
TTL Demag0gue is up early, with a new episode of The Reclaimer - it's a look at a basic human instinct. (Louis Wu 11:00:34 UTC) (permalink)
Make your own targets.
sorahn found a site that allows high-quality vectorization of bitmap images (man, I remember when you had to PAY for programs that did that!), and immediately put it to use vectorizing the popup targets from The Pit. Pretty! (EPS files available, for folks who want to populate their OWN shooting galleries.) (Louis Wu 10:56:56 UTC) (permalink)
Posterboard turret
gunluva whipped out a posterboard machine gun turret yesterday - not bad for 30 minutes work! (Louis Wu 10:54:24 UTC) (permalink)
Podtacular 134
Big Goalie Dan stopped by to point out that Podtacular 134 is now up - and hour and 22 minutes long, 40 mb large, and full of tales from the foxholes. Go listen! (Louis Wu 10:50:51 UTC) (permalink)
The Waiting Game
After a very long hiatus, Mister Froggy is back with a new episode of Halo, Articulated, skewering Marvel Comics for the delays over the Halo comic book. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 10:47:37 UTC) (permalink)
News November 11 2007
The Riot 73
Sigafoos writes to let us know about The Riot 73. It's their birthday tomorrow. Go listen - 30 mins, 12 mb. (Louis Wu 20:06:25 UTC) (permalink)
Section 3 Issue 10: The Trap
V10L3N7 JAY stopped by to announce that Section 3 Issue #10 is now online. Looks like the Spartans might be facing some tricky times ahead... (Louis Wu 18:08:48 UTC) (permalink)
Reverse yourself on Narrows
Phoenix42 sent us a note yesterday, pointed out a glitch he'd discovered on Narrows. I'd been meaning to test this out myself - but he's posted it on our forum now, so someone else can confirm it. (Louis Wu 17:49:59 UTC) (permalink)
Things to do when you're bored
Over at HaloGrid.com, Two Eight Six recreated the Weapon Bold Hoody design (from the Bungie Store) on Construct. Pics can be found in Trindacut's post on our forum. (Louis Wu 17:47:47 UTC) (permalink)
You did NOT just call me the N-word.
Yesterday, the latest episode of Pure Pwnage was released - and Jeremy gets all into Halo 3 (until, of course, he hits a snag). If you've never watched this series before, you should start at the beginning - we haven't mentioned it here because (up to now) it's focused on PC gaming, but it's a must-see show. Thanks to RVideo for the heads-up (I'd checked yesterday afternoon, but it wasn't released until late in the evening). (Louis Wu 17:20:53 UTC) (permalink)
Invading enemy strongholds
PEZ let us know that there's an article about coordinated multipoint attacks in Halo 3 over at halowiki.net - go see. (Louis Wu 17:09:23 UTC) (permalink)
To Catch a Master Chief
MasterChief2829 noticed another MadTV skit starring their Master Chief - swing by GameTrailers to watch it. (Louis Wu 14:23:24 UTC) (permalink)
Sexy Cortana
Mitsur was fastest to tell us about a new piece of artwork from popular Deviant reiq, over at DeviantART - Cortana's looking a little sexier than usual. (Warning - if you poke around the rest of his gallery, be aware ahead of time that much of it is NSFW.) (Louis Wu 14:21:22 UTC) (permalink)
Game1 Expo - Gaming Down Under
PALGN has an article on the Game1 2007 Expo in Australia (which just wrapped up) - the very first picture in the piece shows a structure I'd LOVE to have in my backyard. Halo was on display at the show, and Halo 3 tourneys were held all day long. Sounds like a fun time! (Louis Wu 14:18:29 UTC) (permalink)
A reception like never before
Canada.com has an article on Video Games Live, and how it's actually received by the orchestras they play with. Halo gets only a tiny mention, but it's an interesting article nonetheless. (Louis Wu 14:13:57 UTC) (permalink)
Shellshock
Z pointed out a new Halo 2 montage called Shellshock - good gameplay, nice editing. Lots of extras. The download package is over 130 mb (though the actual movie, in .mp4 format, is under 90 mb). Go watch. (Louis Wu 14:11:01 UTC) (permalink)
Official Halo 3 Soundtrack Website Opens
Greg, at Music4Games, was the first to let us know about the Official Halo 3 Soundtrack website - it's full of goodies. You can listen to snippets of songs, watch a short (but well-done) remix of the audio portion of the Making Of documentary found on the Essentials Disc One of the Limited and Legendary Editions, read about the discs and the people involved, and (eventually) play in a mini-sandbox of Marty's devising. Good stuff! (There's also a thread on our forum, if you want to discuss this.) (Louis Wu 14:01:17 UTC) (permalink)
News November 10 2007
That Trigger-Pulling Sound
Elnea is getting closer and closer to Halo Action Figure Theater Episode 100. She SAYS there won't be any more non-integer versions between here and there, so 99 (posted last night) should be a decent setup... it's getting scary. (Louis Wu 18:09:10 UTC) (permalink)
I thought it seemed familiar!
ZZoMBiE13 made a connection that seems obvious in retrospect in the latest installment of Another Halo Comic Strip. Warning - there are Halo 3 story spoilers here. (That said, I think this is brilliant.) (Louis Wu 16:11:49 UTC) (permalink)
Knowing your surroundings
PEZ let us know that that over at halowiki.net, there's a new article from Mr killtacular discussing situational awareness in Halo 3 - know your surroundings, and die less. Go read.
(Louis Wu 16:07:01 UTC) (permalink)
Cake, delicious cake
The Bungie Weekly Update is live - it focuses on the new Heatmaps you can see in your Bungie.net profile, but also has dollops of info about upcoming downloadable content, the Halo 3 soundtrack, and a very cool coincidence; almost 3 years to the day from its release, Halo 2 will see its 777,777,777th game played on Xbox Live. You guys should all get on Halo 2 tonight and make it happen on its birthday, rather than one day later... As always, if you have any trouble with Bungie.net, you can access the Weekly Update in our Weekly Update Archive. (Louis Wu 02:54:23 UTC) (permalink)
News November 9 2007
Realização Destravada!
Today's One One Se7en looks at one of the ways folks fleshed out their Halo 3 Achievement lists. (Stuntmutt's not kidding, either; it's too bad the achievement list on Xbox.com doesn't look like your own Xbox...) (Louis Wu 17:53:49 UTC) (permalink)
Secrecy
TTL Demag0gue continues his Reclaimer series - Chapter One, Part Six is now online. What does Ferial know? (Louis Wu 15:35:59 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie Pics - and an eBay'd Collectible
EmpressCortana stopped by with pictures from her Bungie tour last week - and a link to an eBay auction of a signed copy of Halo 3. Swing by, look at the pics, bid on the game... she's going to use the money for college textbooks. (Hey - that's better than beer, right?) (Louis Wu 15:23:29 UTC) (permalink)
A Compendium of Strategies
Over at MLGPro.com, Brick has put together a bunch of user-created videos that can teach you some cool strategies and techniques. Go read, go watch, and get better! (Lots of jumping vids, but also grenading weapons to you, angles for throws from particular positions TO particular positions, etc. Videos like this were common for Halo, and pretty useful - I saw fewer of them for Halo 2. This link will be a central location for the ones Brick thinks are worth sharing with the community, so check back. Thanks, trigger119. (Louis Wu 15:18:23 UTC) (permalink)
Pixelated Pupils - a Halo-ween series
On October 8, we mentioned a Halo-related comic at Pixelated Pupils; every strip since then (starting here) has been Halo-related, and the most recent strip makes me wish I'd done more this Halloween. Thanks, AngelicLionheart. (Louis Wu 15:04:23 UTC) (permalink)
Tuesday Night Halo Trivia
Also at Planet Halo - they're kicking off a weekly trivia game sponsored by Master Replicas; stop by on Tuesdays at 5:30 pm Pacific and play to win the Halo Weapons Replica Collection! (Louis Wu 14:53:14 UTC) (permalink)
Do Something Amazing - your vote is needed
Right after Halo 3 was released, Planet Halo announced a contest whereby cool film clips could win you cool schwag. The entries have been tabulated, the internal votes are in - and they've got three finalists for you to look at and vote on. The original film clips have been turned into HD movie files (WMP9), so you don't need an Xbox Live account to see 'em. The winner goes home with a new Xbox, but all three of these entries will walk away with SOMETHING. Go help decide what. Thanks, Fluffy. (Louis Wu 14:50:35 UTC) (permalink)
Friday's Fanfic
Nine new pieces up for your perusal in the Fan Fiction section this week - go read! (Louis Wu 14:19:37 UTC) (permalink)
Do they get any younger?
MasterChief2829 has a talented little brother - the kid's three and a half, and he's playing Halo 3 online (and doing reasonably well). Go watch the movie. (Louis Wu 14:11:29 UTC) (permalink)
Heatmaps: it's like Google Carnage.
The changes to your Stats page over at Bungie.net continue; mouseovers of the weapon images bring up great detailed pictures and text, and there's a new tab available: Heatmaps (thanks, RevDotNed). You can see frequency plots of kills or deaths by location on each map. There are global maps, as well, showing the aggregate data for the Halo community (thanks, Psychophan7). Pretty pictures - and educational, too! They'll tell you what parts of a map are safer (or less safe), for you or for everyone. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 14:08:59 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Humpday, Bungie's Viewpoint
The Bungie take on this week's Halo Humpday Challenge with Podtacular (Podtac's was already mentioned yesterday) is now online. You know how if you tell a lie long enough, you begin to believe it? Luke claims that they're undefeated so far - it's pretty clear from the reading of this one that they've forgotten that they were beaten by the HBO team, and only 'won' by lying about which games were actually part of the challenge. Poor Bungie... thanks, Aidsterramma. (Louis Wu 14:03:18 UTC) (permalink)
McFarlane Figure with Removable Armor
Fragclone was the first to notice a new post at the Spawn website (home of McFarlane Toys) - looks like next March, we'll be seeing an exclusive McFarlane Spartan figure - he's wearing CQB armor, but more interestingly, it's removable (and interchangeable with other McFarlane Spartans). Awesome! You can build your own avatar. (Louis Wu 13:59:45 UTC) (permalink)
Cortana on the Wall
John_117 has been working on a wall painting for the inside of his house, with his girlfriend; he posted a picture of the early progress on our forum. Great start! (Louis Wu 13:56:53 UTC) (permalink)
News November 8 2007
Co-op Cutscenes - Take Two
We've added another set of cutscenes that have minor changes when playing in Co-op mode; go look at the first three cutscenes from The Covenant (one | two | three) and the opening from Cortana. Again, thanks to Cody, Simpsons Rule, and Psychophan7 for the recordings!
(Louis Wu 22:22:11 UTC) (permalink)
Halo'll kill ya.
Warbirds pointed out a feature at AOL.com on living better - it outlines some of the things that keep us from being healthy. Page 7 focuses on video games, and mentions Halo specifically:
"Your own imagination is the greatest entertainment device in the world - unfortunately it dies from lack of use when you live for 'Halo 3.'"
Probably good to remember another tidbit of advice from that article: "moderation is key." (Louis Wu 22:11:41 UTC) (permalink)
A fan-proposed stats page
Va1or posted a proposal for some changes to the Bungie.net stats page displayed for each Halo 3 player on Xbox Live. His ideas are actually quite good - take a look and see what you think! (I have no idea what Bungie thinks of these ideas, and even if they liked them how much work it would be to implement them... so don't look at this with an expectation that you'll see it on B.net any time soon; I just thought he put some decent thought into layout, and came up with some clever display concepts.) Update: though it's almost certainly not related, Bungie DID make some changes to the Stats pages today; visit to see what's different! (Louis Wu 19:12:49 UTC) (permalink)
Proposing, Halo 3 Style
Swing by Xbox.com for a heartwarming story of love and acceptance among the rocket launchers. Thanks, KP. (Louis Wu 18:50:30 UTC) (permalink)
That was probably enough guitar.
Marty O'Donnell (bearded? Must have been a busy month!) sat down with Eurogamer just before the Video Games Live concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London a few weeks ago. They talked about the evolution of music through the Halo trilogy, and how Marty approaches music creation, be it for advertising or video games. Great read! Thanks, kapowaz. (Louis Wu 18:31:54 UTC) (permalink)
Fixing Bad Habits
PEZ let us know that there are a couple of new articles at halowiki.net you might be interested in - they deal with bad habits in multiplayer, and how to overcome them. Read Bad Habits in Team Games, and Bad Habits in FFA Games, and make your gameplay better! (Louis Wu 18:29:47 UTC) (permalink)
Astronomic sleuthing
RVideo found some interesting pictures at NASA - go see what you think! (There are minor story spoilers in these pics - don't look if you haven't played Halo 3.) (Louis Wu 16:49:42 UTC) (permalink)
Podtac gets Bungiefied.
Ouch - looks like Podtacular was the next group to take on Bungie in the weekly Halo Humpday Challenge - and lose. The writeup's not on B.net yet, but CapnKrunk has posted details on the Podtacular website. Thanks, Samus 117. (Louis Wu 16:46:50 UTC) (permalink)
Harold talks about the future
A couple of days ago, Anton P. Nym found an interview with Marty O'Donnell at Develop Magazine, and they were supposed to be posting a second interview with Harold Ryan yesterday. Looks like it went up today (thanks again, Steve). It's a really interesting read - Harold talks about how the decision to split came about, and what it means for Bungie, in a depth I haven't seen in other places. There's some fascinating news for Bungie fans, tucked away between statements about how great this is going to be for everyone... check it out carefully! (Louis Wu 16:37:21 UTC) (permalink)
SUCKTACULAR
ZZoMBiE13 looks at the downside of Halo 3's Saved Films feature in Another Halo Comic Strip. I feel for ya, buddy. (Louis Wu 16:17:35 UTC) (permalink)
Weapons Guide - Plasma Rifle
Rampancy.net's Weapons Guide expands to include the Plasma Rifle. Go see why you need it. (Louis Wu 15:52:07 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Pelican in Flight Simulator X
gijake noticed a movie showing off a Halo Pelican checking out the Battlestar Galactica fleet in FSX. Sort of low-res... but fun, nonetheless. (Louis Wu 15:50:45 UTC) (permalink)
News November 7 2007
Marine Armor, and a Rocket Launcher
Joey Rantz created a suit of UNSC Marine armor last year, after being inspired by Chris Bryan's work. Great stuff - go look at the pics! (Louis Wu 20:13:45 UTC) (permalink)
Try this in real life, you'll die.
Whoa. EGG0S has put up a video in the MLG Gameroom that shows some astounding exploits of a physics glitch in the Halo 3 engine; I'm not positive, put it looks like what's happening is that when you toss equipment, it can actually provide support for a short (very short) time; if you're in the air, and you throw it down, you can actually JUMP OFF IT. This makes pretty amazingly long jumps possible. Go watch. Thanks, trigger119. (Louis Wu 19:33:04 UTC) (permalink)
Humday Challenge.
Stuntmutt speculates about the Covenant heirarchy in today's One One Se7en. You can smack him later. (Louis Wu 16:54:16 UTC) (permalink)
Co-op Cutscenes - Take One
Cody Miller, with help from Simpsons Rule and Psychophan7, has finished going through the Halo 3 cutscenes while playing Co-op. There were 8 changes they found, most pretty subtle. We're putting up the first half of those today: you can find co-op scenes from Sierra 117, Tsavo Highway, Floodgate, and The Ark in our Halo 3 Cutscene Database. Update: Vincent pointed out that the Sierra 117 cutscene has the Arbiter in it in solo play, as well - so we've yanked that cutscene. To atone, we've posted the opening scene of The Ark, which we'd missed this morning. And finally, we've replaced the Cortana Rescue movies with versions that contain the (very important) first line - our original versions had that cut off. You know... just in case you hadn't downloaded enough stuff yet today. (Louis Wu 15:49:19 UTC) (permalink)
The Other Project
TTL Demag0gue has posted the next episode of his comic series - Reclaimer: Chapter One, Part Five can be read on his website. The relationship between the Reclaimer Project and the Viper Project becomes clearer... (Louis Wu 14:21:07 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Dialogue Databank - Now Open
Folks have been asking when the Halo 3 Dialogue Databank is going to come online - and as usual, it's simply been a matter of finding time. I think it's been found, though; the first batch of snippets, from Captain Spark and Hellhawk, is now online. Go listen. (And if you feel like recording... do so!) (Louis Wu 12:48:54 UTC) (permalink)
Wait... HOW long did it take her to write that?
Hawty McBloggy looked at the case of the five-star general we mentioned yesterday... and came up with some other activities he could have been doing instead of boosting. (She also came up with a new medal for him; it's probably not safe for work.) (Louis Wu 12:45:16 UTC) (permalink)
Tally Ho, What?
Obienator is working on a new machinima project (search our news for older ones; they've gotten some pretty nice feedback), but he's despairing of ever finding the perfect voice actor for a specific part. He needs someone who can do a believable "distinguished English gentleman" voice - if he can't find someone, he's going to have to cut a special scene. If you think you can help, contact him through his website, or better yet just drop him an email.
(Louis Wu 12:41:40 UTC) (permalink)
Fight Like a Girl - a Success
Cayote stopped by to let us know that the Fight Like a Girl tourney was a success - 256 participants, and $4300 raised to fight breast cancer. The forum post even contains a couple of thank-you vids. This community ROCKS! (Louis Wu 11:55:25 UTC) (permalink)
Video Game VIPs
Yahoo says the Master Chief is among the top 10 Game VIPs, ever. Thanks, TylerDurden76. (Louis Wu 11:48:57 UTC) (permalink)
Counter Measures
J23 noticed a Halo 3 reference in a recent episode of EXTRALIFE, a webcomic. Be careful what you eat. (Louis Wu 11:46:06 UTC) (permalink)
Master Chief Halo 3 MADtv skit
A couple of days ago, we pointed out a Halo 3 spoof on Mad TV - Miguel C. sent along a GameTrailers link where you can watch the skit. They did a pretty good job nailing the particulars! (Louis Wu 11:29:52 UTC) (permalink)
Endings
A couple of weeks ago, Narcogen looked at the end of Halo 3, and how well a job Bungie did in 'finishing the fight'. He's now gone back and looked at other aspects of the storyline(s), to see how THEY tie in. Nice read! (Louis Wu 11:26:49 UTC) (permalink)
A new action figure?
Arancio Atlas found an odd link for what looks like a 12" McFarlane statue... typo, or a new product? (The standard McFarlane line is 6" tall.) Update: Ranger_000 exposed my dirty secret - I don't actually read the news I post. This figure was included in the list that came out a few weeks ago. (It wasn't added after the news post, since it's listed in Littlebigman's transcript, as well.) Update 2: Turns out there HAVE been pics of this figure out there before; we even linked to one, indirectly, back during the San Diego Comic-Con. (The figure is in the bottom of the picture just above the main pic of the Gentle Giant busts.) Thanks to BARBARIC_RAGE, who reminded me of this (and pointed out a far better pic taken the same night). Date's wrong, and the sign specifically says no photography... but it's still an amazing-looking statue. (Louis Wu 11:24:06 UTC) (permalink)
The Pandora Experiment Trailer
PuzzledBread stopped by with a trailer for an upcoming machinima project entitled 'The Pandora Experiment' - it teases, but does not give too much away. Could be good! (Louis Wu 11:22:30 UTC) (permalink)
Could have been worse - he... nah, it couldn't.
Injunfett was surprised by Halo 3 spawn logic - check the film. I think I might have been annoyed, too. (Louis Wu 11:17:26 UTC) (permalink)
News November 6 2007
Halo 2 Zombies - in Halo 3
BolognaFire loves zombies. He loves them so much, in fact, that's he's created a gametype (and map) that comes as close to Zombies on Foundation as you can, in Halo 3. He's thought an awful lot about this, and has laid out many of his ideas in this forum post. There are also more than a dozen screenshots and a link to his FileShare, where you can download the map and the gametype. Go look. (Louis Wu 20:48:48 UTC) (permalink)
MLG TV Returns with 07 season
Brick let us know that the first episode of this year's MLG TV show will be airing on G4 TV on November 16th at 11pm, with a rebroadcast on November 20 at 2am. with additional episodes (there are six, total) airing every Friday at 11, rebroadcasting late Monday night at 2 am. Details can be found at MLGPro.com. (Louis Wu 19:48:15 UTC) (permalink)
Kid-sized mjolnir armor
Hawty McBloggy found a pretty slick kid-sized Spartan costume, with Rocket Launcher and Missile Pod, for sale on eBay. Go read her writeup! (Louis Wu 19:14:25 UTC) (permalink)
Marty today, Harold tomorrow
Develop Magazine has a 2-part interview with Marty O'Donnell (Part One | Part Two), with an interview of Harold Ryan coming tomorrow. (The intro to these pieces can be found here.) The Marty interview is fascinating; he touches on the reasons why it's a good thing that Bungie and Microsoft have split (ostensibly the reason behind the interview), but then discusses everything from what makes games iconic to why Bungie couldn't work with the business model that Wideload's using (small core team + contractors/low burn rate, rather than big team/high burn rate). And the cool surround sound options you get in most 360 games these days? You can thank Marty for that. Thanks, Anton P. Nym. (Louis Wu 17:10:32 UTC) (permalink)
Big Bang's Halo
Last night's episode of CBS's Big Bang Theory revolved around Halo, and what it does to people who play it. If you missed it, you can watch it online at CBS.com. (Thanks to JeSteR 343 for the first heads-up. (Louis Wu 16:58:37 UTC) (permalink)
That Pumpkin Needs YOU!
Just a reminder: voting's been up for a day and a half for the Guilt O' Lantern contest, and several thousand votes have been cast - if yours isn't among them, go look over the offerings, and pick a few! (Some people were having trouble getting past the first page of results - turned out to be my fault, and it's fixed now. If you were one of those... try again!) (Louis Wu 13:57:04 UTC) (permalink)
Paraphrasing Nietzsche
ZZoMBiE13's got a new take on an old saying in today's Another Halo Comic Strip. I gotta say... that bouncing thing happens to me all the time. (Louis Wu 13:48:50 UTC) (permalink)
That is one big cheater.
I don't think I'd normally even post this as news - but it sort of blows me away. oriol pointed out a newspost on Grunts R Us that purports to find the first Five-Star General in Bungie's ranking system. I went to look, just because I couldn't imagine how good the guy had to be... and I found page after page after page after page of boosting games. In fact, I had to go back 60 screens (of 25 games per screen) before I found my first non-cheating game! (I didn't look at EVERY screen, so I might have missed one or two - but the VAST majority of those first 60 pages are filled with boosting matches in Social Doubles.) This continues until about the 190th screen (of 218) - that's well over 4500 cheating games out of a total of 5400. THAT'S what it takes to get to 5 Star General? No thanks. (This, folks, is the sort of attitude that made Bungie turn off Leaderboards in Halo 2.) (Louis Wu 13:42:04 UTC) (permalink)
It's described as unique - yep, it sure is
bs angel found a pretty interesting female Spartan sculpture on eBay - she thought it was a bit too anorexic to blog about, but hey, we've got no such qualms. I'm not really sure what's going on with that energy sword, though... (Louis Wu 13:04:37 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Wars Update - a little late
Bah. Michael Smith let us know several days ago that the Halo Wars crew had posted a new Update on Halloween. It even included a link to a video at a local TV station, where they were featured. Unfortunately, I totally spaced on posting it... and when Trindacut reminded me of it this morning, it was already too late for the video - the station has moved on, and is no longer serving it. Go read the update anyway, though; you can see what Ensemble's latest ideas are for improving the gameplay of the upcoming release. (Louis Wu 12:56:15 UTC) (permalink)
News November 5 2007
Halo 3 Clip Competition Results
Mukelo has compiled a montage of the best clips submitted to his Halo 3 Clip Competition - visit Invalid Mob Gaming to watch it!
(Louis Wu 22:40:33 UTC) (permalink)
Playing Strategically
PEZ let us know about a new halowiki.net page helping you to improve your game by playing strategically - go read it - and add tips if you've got 'em!
(Louis Wu 22:38:17 UTC) (permalink)
Community Projects Forged Map Contest
Maximum Fear sent word that Community Projects, a Bungie.net group, is organizing a contest; create a map variant using Forge and send it in, and you could win a whole bunch of Microsoft Points for use on Xbox Live. Check out the post for more details!
(Louis Wu 22:36:42 UTC) (permalink)
Now You're Thinking With 'Porters.
Stuntmutt's been playing a lot of... another game. Go read about it in today's One One Se7en. (There's music involved; check your speakers. And there are spoilers for a non-Halo game. Sort of.) Some things never change. (Louis Wu 18:17:59 UTC) (permalink)
UK tourney in two weeks
MatchBox360 is hosting the MatchBox360 XL Tournament in Birmingham, England, on November 17 and 18 - and it looks like XLEAGUE.TV has just signed on as a sponsor. (I can't link to the actual article, because the whole front page of MatchBox360 is javascript-driven, but it's currently the top article.) The event will be filmed, and they've tossed in £1000 for a Halo 3 FFA tourney, as well. Go read more at MatchBox360 (Louis Wu 18:07:53 UTC) (permalink)
Recovery One Part Two
Rooster Teeth's newest Red vs Blue series, Recovery One, has had its second episode posted for sponsors on their website, and available for download in HD (80 points) on Xbox Live Marketplace. This one's WAY darker than Red vs Blue. WAY darker. (Louis Wu 16:29:28 UTC) (permalink)
WETA to make high-end collectibles
Charley117 poked around the WETA website and found this page... I can't wait to see what they are selling! (Louis Wu 16:01:23 UTC) (permalink)
Reclaimer: Chapter One, Part Four
TTL Demag0gue has decided to update his Reclaimer comic on a more regular schedule - Monday, Wednesday, Friday this week. Monday's is live; Chapter One, Part Four delves into the origins of the Reclaimer project.
(Louis Wu 15:59:05 UTC) (permalink)
The man behind the warthog
Onebitrocket noticed an article on the WETA website which looks at Peter Osborne, the man responsible for the creation of the functioning Halo Warthog WETA built for Neill Blomkamp. I gotta buy that guy a beer! (Louis Wu 15:06:04 UTC) (permalink)
Puzzleball 02
This was posted yesterday, but yesterday was a very, very bad day: c0ld vengeance has followed up with a second Puzzleball map. (We mentioned the first one here.) Early feedback suggests this one might be a little frustrating... give it a try!
(Louis Wu 15:03:17 UTC) (permalink)
Section 3 Issue 9: The Rescue
V10L3N7 JAY continues his Section 3 comic series - Issue #9 is now up. Looks like it's gonna get hot...
(Louis Wu 15:01:11 UTC) (permalink)
Make your gameroom walls pretty.
Hawty McBloggy points out a series of gaming prints available from Pavel Dolgov - all are pretty impressive, two are specifically Halo-related (and therefore newsworthy). You can buy 'em in a bunch of sizes, with or without frames - go see what there is!
(Louis Wu 14:58:47 UTC) (permalink)
Boarding Action... sort of
Grunts R Us has done some work on Construct, and turned it into a 'Boarding Action'-like map. They use the external pieces to great advantage; it works pretty nicely! (You can download it here.) Thanks, Fires7orm. (Louis Wu 14:55:46 UTC) (permalink)
Jonathan Quail, Teaser 2
A week or two ago, CROSSFIRE released a teaser for his next machinima project. Yesterday, trigger119 stopped by to let us know that a second teaser is now up at Gaming TV - again, it's very difficult to tell what the film's about, but at least we know what it'll be called now. Cinematography looks fantastic. (Louis Wu 14:42:38 UTC) (permalink)
Bungie Tour Impressions, Another Take
EmpressCortana accompanied kornman00 on his tour of Bungie last week (she'd won the tour auction he held a couple of months ago), and she's written up her own summary of the event. Go read it, with pics, in her forum post!
(Louis Wu 14:37:33 UTC) (permalink)
Terminals and Skulls and Fans, Oh My!
We're still working on our local Terminal Guide, but that doesn't mean the rest of the web is waiting for us. Anthony stopped by yesterday to announce a nicely formatted skull/terminal guide he's put up at The Final Fight (it's in two parts, links are both in his forum post), and altfan113 let us know that Halopedia has transcribed all versions of all terminals in their Terminals section. It's out there! (Louis Wu 14:36:31 UTC) (permalink)
Terrorism... and Halo
We have a pretty strict rule on our forum - there's no discussion of politics. This is because we are, at heart, a gaming community - and political discussions tend to be fractious. Barring discussion is simply an easy way to keep the peace. Sometimes, though, gaming and politics mix in our news - and we mention it here, because it can be of interest to the community. There were two separate articles I ran across this morning that caught my eye - one is about a child in trouble, the other about an adult making connections. GameRush has a story of a boy in Pennsylvania who was suspended from school for drawing Halo weapons (the school says they're part of a larger body of evidence that the boy might have been planning to hurt someone, his mother says he's just obsessed with the game). And Wired's Clive Thompson draws parallels between Halo and the real-world politics that give rise to suicide bombers. On the surface, they're both WTF articles, making you wonder if Jack Thompson is going to be able to find a way to use them to stir up trouble. They both can give you something to think about, though, and (assuming you can stay away from inflammatory rhetoric) can provide interesting conversation fodder for our forum. (A quick warning: as soon as the conversation veers away from the immediate topic, and strays into nationalistic namecalling, it'll be closed down. We are, after all is said and done, a gaming community. If you want to discuss world politics in general, there are thousands of forums to do it in - please don't use ours.) (Louis Wu 12:03:41 UTC) (permalink)
News November 4 2007
Halo 3 Cutscene Library: Fleshed Out
We've finished off the remainder of the single-player cutscenes from Halo 3 - you can find them in our Halo 3 Cutscene Library. We're still planning on adding those variants that appear when you play coop - but for now, you can see the ending scenes and the credits! Thanks for all the recording is due to Cody Miller - thanks, Cody! (Louis Wu 22:45:17 UTC) (permalink)
The Riot 72
Sigafoos told us about The Riot 72 - 11.5 mb and 29 minutes of the usual stuff, plus zombies. Everything is better with zombies. (Louis Wu 22:40:10 UTC) (permalink)
Guilt O' Lantern Entries Up - Go Vote!
Took longer than I'd hoped, but the voting for this year's Guilt O' Lantern pumpkin-carving contest is now online. There were a few entries we had to disqualify (pictures were too small, etc), but there are 54 pumpkins for you to peruse - pick your top 5. Please - don't stop after page 1; there are amazing entries that were submitted near the end, as well. (I'm not saying there aren't great pumpkins on the first page... but we've seen in the past that people get bored, and vote only for pumpkins on the first page or two. Look at 'em all before you decide!) You've got at least a week; we'll probably shut voting down next Monday. (Louis Wu 16:36:52 UTC) (permalink)
Same Old...
We've got a one-two punch for you today from ZZoMBiE13 and Stuntmutt - a joint joke (well, sort of) that starts in Another Halo Comic Strip and ends in a Sunday One One Se7en. I take no responsibility for the stomach upset. (Louis Wu 16:31:00 UTC) (permalink)
Cliff path slaughter
Rockslider has started a section for Halo 3 Fun on his Bad Cyborg website - first article looks at some slaughter available on The Ark. Check it out! (Louis Wu 16:21:17 UTC) (permalink)
Podtacular 133
Big Goalie Dan let us know that Podtacular 133 is up - strategies for beating Crow's Nest, as well as skull locations, are included. Just over an hour, 30 mb. Go grab it!
(Louis Wu 16:19:49 UTC) (permalink)
Mad TV Halo 3 Spoof
Delta was the first to let us know about a spoof of Halo 3 in last night's Mad TV. If you missed it, apparently it'll be available on iTunes soon (thanks, bad pogo). (Louis Wu 16:18:20 UTC) (permalink)
Don't Die.
PEZ pointed out a halowiki.net page with Halo 3 survival tips - add your own! (Louis Wu 16:13:47 UTC) (permalink)
Halloween - Cheap doesn't have to mean ugly
LadyRziha stopped by last night to post pictures of the costumes she made for her husband and her brother. (A few years ago, she made a costume out of plastic jugs for her husband; this time, she used cardboard. Way cheaper, way easier, and they look fantastic!) (Louis Wu 16:12:31 UTC) (permalink)
News November 3 2007
Look at all those clouds.
Capt Spanish took some GORGEOUS shots way, way, WAY outside of the Ark; they're linked in his forum post. (Louis Wu 20:56:34 UTC) (permalink)
Dated Eggs
RVideo let us know about a thread over at Halo3Forum which has pictures of other date-related goodies to be found on Valhalla. If you liked the Halloween tombstones, go see what they've found! Update: looks like they missed some; Grunts R Us found 2 more (Earth Day and Cinco de Mayo). Thanks, oriol. (Louis Wu 19:40:43 UTC) (permalink)
Forge Hub - Getting Better All the Time
TrueDarkFusion let us know that Forge Hub has expanded dramatically, and now contains a tutorial section along with new high-quality creations. Swing by and see what you can find!
(Louis Wu 19:39:08 UTC) (permalink)
Medal Search
It seems that a bunch of groups are using the recently-filled-out Infection medals to narrow down what's still missing from the medal chest. Herr Zrbo pointed out this thread at the Bungie.net forums - they're only missing one. And PEZ told us that halowiki.net is hunting down just a single medal - check the page for details. (It's the same one, for what it's worth.) Can you help? (Louis Wu 19:36:58 UTC) (permalink)
Lego Rifle
GryphonOsiris found (at TechEBlog) a Halo battle rifle made of Legos - and man, it's pretty impressive-looking! Update: DOH! PlasmaFire pointed out that this is just a mirror of a page we highlighted almost 2 years ago. Looks like the steel trap needs oiling again... (Louis Wu 19:33:10 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Repair
1UP has revisited an article from 2005 which discussed the ways in which Halo 2 'was broken'. They looked at the charges leveled in that piece against Halo 2, to see whether they were addressed in Halo 3. The upshot? According to 1UP, Bungie fixed most of what was supposedly wrong in 2005 - but broke a bunch of new stuff. Interesting sidenote - when that article was first published, I was significantly less dispassionate about it than I usually am about news bits; it seems that it actually offended me. (I actually lost respect for 1UP when they published it, because I didn't think it deserved the space it got.) Unfortunately... some of the new complaints are just as silly as the old ones. I'll agree with them on the spawn point issues, but the rest of the second page seemed like filler material. Thanks to Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, for finding this. (Louis Wu 19:30:38 UTC) (permalink)
Back from the Inside
Kornman00 has written up his tour of Bungie Studios, won in a charity auction back in March, and realized a couple of days ago. It's a five-page long PDF, downloadable from Halo 2 Vista Forums (follow the first link), and it's a great read, even if he WAS required to heavily censor himself. Go look! (Louis Wu 18:54:45 UTC) (permalink)
Thunderstorm
Rampancy.net has a guide to getting (and using) the Thunderstorm skull, from NThro. If you don't have this one, go read how to grab it - and then fight a newly-promoted Covenant army. (Louis Wu 18:38:12 UTC) (permalink)
The Scarab that Wouldn't Die
NOBLE STABBINGS stopped by our forum to point out a thread from High Impact Halo - it makes me giggle. He destroyed the scarab on the Ark before you were ever supposed to fight it... and it STILL showed up to the battle. This is really amazing. Go look! (There are links to pictures, movies, and a FileShare clip, so you can see it any way you want.)
(Louis Wu 18:34:08 UTC) (permalink)
The Storm, cleaned up
Morpheus managed to record the Storm's closing cutscene with no musical overlay; we'll likely do this again ourselves, at some point, just to keep formats consistent, but in the meantime, you can see/hear it with just the input from the scene itself if you follow links in his forum post. (Louis Wu 18:28:10 UTC) (permalink)
Haloween, revisited
One of those days - sorry for the lack of news. Yesterday a couple of people stopped by our forum with pictures of Halo-related Halloween costumes - Brandon found some pics online at a Predator forum - check the second picture down for a foam master chief and a purple Cortana. And HookMeUpImLocal posted a whole passel of pics of himself in a Mister Chief costume, meeting all sorts of other celebrities. I bet Frankie'd love one of those! (Louis Wu 18:25:50 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Cutscene Library: Halo
The four cutscenes from the level 'Halo' are now online in our Halo 3 Cutscene Library. All that remains are the ending scenes of the game and the credits! (And, of course, the coop variations.) Enjoy. More news coming later today... (Louis Wu 13:53:47 UTC) (permalink)
Halloween Week Wrapup
The Bungie Weekly Update went up last night, as usual for a Friday - it contains info about some Bungie Favorites (including the recently-used Infection types that were played on Halloween), an update about the upcoming downloadable content, some advice about network connections, and some goodies they've found on the web. Go check it out! (It is, of course, in our Weekly Update Archive, as well.) (Louis Wu 13:18:23 UTC) (permalink)
News November 2 2007
Two New Halo 3 Guides
TalkXbox.com has posted two new strategy guides - one for The Pit, 4v4 Team Slayer, and one for Last Resort, Assault/Territories. They're looking for feedback on these - they were written by different folks. Let 'em know what you think! (Louis Wu 19:37:07 UTC) (permalink)
Present Arms.
Great crossover today from Stuntmutt - go read One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 18:02:42 UTC) (permalink)
Building Excitement
Interesting - FirstShowing.net has news of a new Peter Jackson/Neill Blomkamp project, called 'District 9' - a live-action sci-fi flick. FS suggests that this might be a way to stir up interest in the Halo project again... not a bad theory. Thanks, Anton P. Nym. (Louis Wu 17:10:18 UTC) (permalink)
Rampancy.net - Podcast and Pistol Page
Good stuff over at Rampancy.net - there's a new episode of the Anger, Sadness, and Envy podcast, and there's a new page for the Weapon Guide - this one covers the Halo 3 Pistol. The podcast covers Crow's Nest, but spends a lot of time discussing voice actors and acting. (Louis Wu 17:00:40 UTC) (permalink)
Wasted Grievances
TTL Demag0gue continues his Reclaimer comic - Chapter One Part 3 is now up. (Louis Wu 16:50:34 UTC) (permalink)
On like Donkey Kong
Rota Jota points out a Halo-related strip (maybe the beginning of a series?) at PvP today. (Louis Wu 16:49:08 UTC) (permalink)
People will sell anything these days.
InAmb3rClad let us know (with not inconsiderable scorn) that someone is selling the service of beating two levels of Halo 3 on Legendary - all you have to do is pass along your gamertag and password, and then once he's finished, you can recover it. Before you jump in on this one, read this timely warning from Major Nelson, seemingly written specifically to keep you away from offers like this one. (Louis Wu 16:32:02 UTC) (permalink)
Remote Control Warthog
Hawty "eBayWatch Babe" McBloggy found a remote control warthog for sale - you've got almost a week, starting bid is $75, and there are no bids yet. Go read about it. (Louis Wu 16:26:04 UTC) (permalink)
A helmet claimed
Yesterday, we mentioned an eBay'd helmet - we got mail from Spase, at the 405th, whose helmet that is. He sent along a link to a bigger pic of the helmet, if you were on the fence. (Louis Wu 16:21:13 UTC) (permalink)
Face It - now for sale
You might remember 'Face It', a song commissioned by Xbox Australia for Halo marketing. According to ODST05, you can now actually buy it. (Louis Wu 16:14:09 UTC) (permalink)
Stickydoom
DJLO missed our deadline for the Guilt O' Lantern contest - but he still made a pretty cool little pumpkin thingamabob. You can watch a YouTube video that covers the pumpkin (and some other stuff), or you can watch shortened versions that show just the pumpkin itself (about 3 and a half megs, in either WMP9 or QuickTime formats). I bet this would have done pretty well! (Louis Wu 15:00:30 UTC) (permalink)
Remakable maps
MLGPro.com put up a list of five maps they'd like to see remade for Halo 3 - I'd probably pass on their last two, but it's a good list nonetheless. I found it via Google News, but evildoctorwill got it posted on our forum before i had a chance to put it on the front page. (Louis Wu 14:44:35 UTC) (permalink)
A pair of helmets, sold yesterday
He was a little late for actual bidding (or I was, in posting), but MikeSierra noticed a pair of helmets (one standard, one a hybrid from a bunch of popular sources) that sold yesterday - they both went for between two and three hundred dollars. Next time! (Louis Wu 14:41:43 UTC) (permalink)
Geezers Taken to the Cleaners
Bungie played (and beat, badly) a contingent from the Geezer Gamers in this week's Halo Humpday Challenge... ouch. Thanks, DHalo. (Louis Wu 14:37:58 UTC) (permalink)
Friday's Fan Fiction
Ten new pieces for you this week in the Fan Fiction section... go read! (Louis Wu 14:35:56 UTC) (permalink)
She knows how to pick 'em.
A bit later than expected, but the Cortana cutscenes are now online in the Halo 3 Cutscene Library. 3 vids, about 2.5 minutes of total footage. (Louis Wu 02:15:28 UTC) (permalink)
News November 1 2007
Master Chief Helmet for Sale
HaloFan pointed out an auction on eBay for a Master Chief helmet - you've got a bit over 2 days, current bid is $305 (reserve isn't met yet)... a bunch of nice pics. Go look!
(Louis Wu 22:07:14 UTC) (permalink)
Mad Cow's Master Chief Suit
Yesterday, Mad Cow posted a teaser pic of his newest Mjolnir armor creation - we've put up a page containing a whole bunch more. You can see progress pics over the last couple of months, and lots and lots of final pics. Go see! (Louis Wu 21:28:41 UTC) (permalink)
Always Listening
Jillybean awakes from her Halo 3-induced slumber to post a few bits to the Halo Story page... more coming soon! (Louis Wu 19:53:49 UTC) (permalink)
Guilt O' Lantern - Submissions Closed
Late last night, the Guilt O' Lantern submissions window closed; in the next day or three, we'll be posting all valid entries online for your perusal and voting enjoyment. You'll have a week to pick your favorites... and the winners will get some pretty nice schwag bags. I realize this is a bit late to entice new folks to submit - but I just heard this morning that the 343 Guilty Spark recording for the answering service/voicemail will include the option of Steve Downes, the voice of the Master Chief, as well; you get 'em both! As soon as the pics are organized, we'll put up the voting page.
(Louis Wu 19:32:23 UTC) (permalink)
Pretend it's still yesterday
Do you ever feel like you missed something? ZZoMBiE13 does - check out Another Halo Comic Strip. (Louis Wu 19:28:12 UTC) (permalink)
Vengeance Trailer
Deekor stopped by with word of a trailer for his new machinima series, Vengeance. Swing by HollywoodNHouse for multiple download links. Artsy! (Louis Wu 19:05:18 UTC) (permalink)
MC in Manitoba
Quikthnkr noticed that over at Geek Tragedy, there's a montage of photos taken from the Manitoba Comic Con - and one of them shows a pretty nice Master Chief outfit! (Local copy of the corner in question, if the original disappears.)
(Louis Wu 19:02:25 UTC) (permalink)
More eggs in High Ground trash
Jordan117 found ANOTHER couple of eggs in the trash on High Ground - check out his forum post for details. I like these!
(Louis Wu 18:48:43 UTC) (permalink)
Inside the Shadow of Intent
Owlicious got into the Shadow of Intent, a Covenant ship high above you when you play the Ark. Nice pics! Thanks, Dojorkan.
(Louis Wu 18:47:17 UTC) (permalink)
The Bungie Store increases inventory
ViralSyris found a whole BUNCH of new stuff at the Bungie store - trading cards, Wall Graffix(s), belt buckles, a passcase (is that just a fancy name for a wallet?), and a messenger bag. Check his forum post for all the links.
(Louis Wu 18:45:23 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 - the Comic
BlueNinja decided to turn the Halo 3 story into a comic. He posted some pics, got some feedback, redid his work. The second go-round was pretty well-received... check out the first couple of panels!
(Louis Wu 18:43:12 UTC) (permalink)
A Portal novel, as the Companion Cube... win.
LackOfKnowledge pointed out yet another Joe Staten interview, this time over at G4. More questions, more answers. That guy can TALK. (Louis Wu 18:41:30 UTC) (permalink)
A ratings issue
It's been a crazy day - no updates so far. Let's see if I can catch up. We'll start with an article over at Gamer Dad, bemoaning a rating system that classes Halo in with games like Manhunt and GTA. (As Achronos pointed out in the thread started by GryphonOsiris, this is most likely due to the Flood, more than bad language or violence against Marines.) Gamer Dad's got a point, though; if we're hoping for reasonable use of a system like the ESRB, the system has to make sense, first and foremost - and Halo's a great example of where it breaks down. (Louis Wu 18:33:33 UTC) (permalink)
| November 2007 | |
