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Wednesday, August 25, 2004 |  |
Can you hear me now?
Boxer points out that the next episode of Adventures in Disaster is posted at akba.info. Man... I would HOPE they have this cleared up by then... (Louis Wu 21:06:25 UTC) (permalink)
Truth and Recon, through Military Eyes
The Junkyard's analysis of Halo levels by an experienced Marine pilot continues, his time with a look at Truth and Reconciliation. I was amused at the discussion about entering the grav lift area ("Going through the maze inside the plateau is a bad idea, especially if it's guarded. Going on top of the plateau would have been a better idea") - Halo tricksters had the right idea all along! Thanks to Mhaddy for letting us know about it (even if I forgot to post it this morning). (Louis Wu 19:47:37 UTC) (permalink)
The Smallest Spartan
Miguel Chavez, the Number One Bungie Fan, sent along a picture (72k) of The Smallest Spartan, otherwise known as Rafi Chavez. I'm not really sure whose desk that is behind him, but I'm pretty sure you've seen it on the webcam at some point. (Louis Wu 18:53:26 UTC) (permalink)
He's Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
Dang, I said I was done talking about Zanzibar today... and then Stuntmutt had to go and cover it in One One Se7en. I wonder if there's a coral reef? Update: Go load it again. Make sure your speakers are on. Yes, it's true, I'm a moron. (Louis Wu 14:55:30 UTC) (permalink)
Attack of the Giant Grunt
This was released yesterday, but would have been completely buried... timboh56 created a trailer for a stop-motion picture he's putting together, 'Attack of the Giant Grunt'. It's short - but it's quite good, so we've mirrored both the original WMP9 version (721K) and a new QuickTime version (812K), so that you don't have to hammer his personal website. C'mon... it's tiny. Grab it. (Louis Wu 14:13:16 UTC) (permalink)
cG vs Strive - on haloTV
synide, from haloTV, wrote to say that [cG]rapture finished the first of the cookedGamers at Summer CPL 2004 videos, cG vs Strive/Reality. You can watch it over at haloTV.net. It's about 20 minutes long, 720x480 format, and streamed straight to your desktop. It was filmed behind the cG team; you get the players' reactions as well as the gameplay itself. Nice vid! There are more on the way - check back at haloTV.net often. (Louis Wu 12:57:03 UTC) (permalink)
I don't even LIKE Bees.
Since the ilovebees phenomenon started back on July 23, I've been ambivalent about posting updates related to it; on the one hand, it's clearly Halo2-related, so it falls within our purview... on the other hand, we're just not equipped to handle a game of this magnitude. A few weeks ago, in response to forum flooding, I banned the word 'bee' (and some common variants) from our forum, to try and convince people to think twice about posting this information. I wrote a short piece, explaining where HBO officially stood on the matter, and requested that discussion be taken elsewhere. I stopped short of outright banning of the discussion, however.
Until today. Last night, I had to delete more than 350 posts on our forum that added nothing but noise; once again, folks were simply regurgitating what they found elsewhere on the net, without even TRYING to read what others had already written. The general excuse for this is 'this forum is too hard to understand' or 'there's too much here to look through'. And that's the point. The puzzle is pretty interesting; cut through the silliness and there's a lot to like about it. And it's definitely related to Halo 2, so once all is said and done, we'll do our best to wrap it up and include any relevant information in our various sections. For now, though, conversation MUST take place somewhere else - because what was happening here was not conversation, it was unintelligible noise. (And oh, yeah - for now, please stop sending us updates about what's happening on the various ILB-related websites; we're not going to post anything on the front page about it... that would simply encourage folks to discuss it again on the forum which would lead to... well, you know.) Update: Fluffy, site director at HaloPlanet, reminded me that they've just opened a new bee-related forum over there; yet ANOTHER good place to go and discuss this stuff. (Louis Wu 12:37:48 UTC) (permalink)
Zanzibar - it won't go away.
Wow. I hate for the front page to be dominated by a single file - but I guess this one is pretty big. The MLG Zanzibar Halo 2 Mirror page now has quite a few direct download links, if you've had trouble with BitTorrent - and Two Degrees, another peer-to-peer sharing network which made its HBO debut last winter, is back as well. (As of this writing, BitTorrent has served over a terabyte worth of files in about 18 hours - not too bad.) I've also put up a 320x240 version, for folks on slower machines (some computers can't handle 640x480 video), and for those on slower connections, there are representative rounds; you can download either a full 3 minute Offense or Defense round, in either 640x480 or 320x240 sizes. Filesizes on these get as small as about 10 mb, so almost everyone should be able to handle them. (If you've already got the large file, you gain NOTHING by downloading the segments; I just cut them out of there. Please save our bandwidth by NOT downloading, in that case.) If you feel you can mirror any of these versions, go ahead and send the links, we'll add them. mrsmiley, the player in the vid, has also written up his experience over at Halo Babies - and included ANOTHER 8 minute video (WMP9 format, 32.1 mb) which gives some flavor for the day. This will be the last I mention this today - check the Mirror page for new links, if you're missing anything. (Louis Wu 11:37:33 UTC) (permalink)
Zanzibar Footage Update
As of now, a bit over 8 hours after posting the first link, the BitTorrent network has served up over 5300 copies of the MLG Halo 2 gameplay video (almost 650 Gigabytes). You guys rock. :) However, there are lots of people who can't use BitTorrent - they're on firewalled corporate networks, or family members have a problem with p2p software on the computer... for whatever reason, these people will not be able to see this film until it is made available via normal web channels. And this process has begun. The first few direct links have been posted on our forum - and we'll continue to add new ones to our Mirror Page as they come in (if you have the bandwidth to spare, throw a copy up, send us a link, we'll add it; when your bandwidth runs out, let us know, we'll yank the link). Please - if you CAN use the BitTorrent network, DO so. (Hopefully, later tonight we'll also have a Two Degrees link up for you, as well.) But the direct downloads are there on the Mirror page if you need them. (Tonight, or tomorrow, smaller versions will begin to appear, as well. I hope.) Once again, thanks to Dolbex and the entire MLG crew (and Bungie!) for making this accessible; it's clear from today's downloads that this is a cool drink of water to a LOT of parched Halo 2 fans. Update: Oops, almost forgot... mrsmiley, the player in the vid itself, started a thread on our forum to answer questions people had about the gameplay (or his performance :) ). Check it out! (Louis Wu 01:26:03 UTC) (permalink)
Tuesday's news in brief:
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Halo 2 Countdown Widget Zanzibar Gameplay - in Hi-Res Glory When Pigs Fly Lots and Lots and LOTS of 2v2 footage Next Up: MC on a Pogo Stick Big Cortana |
Monday's news in brief:
