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Thursday, October 28, 2004 |  |
Rebel Without a Pulse
Wideload, Alex Seropian's new company, has finally announced the name (and subject) of its first title, which will be made using the Halo engine: 'Rebel Without a Pulse', a 'multi-format zombie action title' to be published by Aspyr Media next year. There's a press release at Yahoo News... except that Yahoo can't seem to find it for me. There's a small blurb about the game (with a quote from the press release) over at Voodoo Extreme for folks who want a LITTLE more info - when we get our hands on the actual press release, we'll post it. Update: According to a Wideload representative, the difficulty in finding the press release stems from a DNS problem - we all need to be patient. Fun tidbit - the actual title of the upcoming release is "Stubbs the Zombie in 'Rebel Without a Pulse'" - the focus is on Stubbs, not his epithet. (Louis Wu 15:52:09 UTC) (permalink)
New Goodies to Buy
Swirlfire noticed a couple of new items at the Bungie Store - an LED rechargable flashlight, and a lanyard. If you gotta have every tchotchke, go buy! (Louis Wu 15:31:12 UTC) (permalink)
Price fixing? Or something else?
This came in yesterday, but I wasn't around enough. Elite TAR sent us a link to a Dutch site with a rant about MS business practices - I'm basing this news post on his translation. Apparently, GCShop.nl is a student-run store which sells games at cost, in an attempt to give students an alternative to piracy. They were intending to sell Halo 2 LE copies for 52 Euros - but Microsoft told them that if they didn't raise the price to the MSRP of 65€, they wouldn't actually receive any. And they didn't. The biggest problem with this story is that other online stores (like, for example, this one in Germany) offer the Limited Edition for something very close to the reported 52€... and do NOT have this problem of price-fixed blacklisting. In any case, the issue is apparently being discussed in several forums around the net - folks should realize that there might be another side to this story. Update: Just noticed another article (this one in English) about this with roughly the same explanation as Elite TAR's (though without an explanation of how other retailers in Europe are managing to sell for less than the MSRP without a problem). Thanks, Slashdot. (Louis Wu 15:18:02 UTC) (permalink)
Taking out those aggressions
Calvin comes up with a novel way of passing the time until November 9 in today's Calvin and Halo. Thank goodness the weather here doesn't match his, though... (Louis Wu 15:09:26 UTC) (permalink)
TXB says it'll be worth it
TeamXbox has posted a Top Ten Reasons why Halo 2 Will Live Up To the Hype article - there's a good bit of meat there. Go check it out. Thanks, Mid33. (Louis Wu 15:07:15 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 2 Guide for (some of) the masses
Eric "Moose" Policaro writes to say that he's got a Halo 2 guide that includes all currently released or confirmed information on the game. Unfortunately, if you're a Mac user, you'll have real trouble reading the guide (your best bet is Internet Explorer, and even that's borderline), and if you're a PC user that doesn't use IE, you won't be able to use it either. If you have Windows IE, though, go look. (Louis Wu 14:44:10 UTC) (permalink)
Thursday's Reading
Thirteen new pieces for you (several poems and a parody song included) in the Fan Fiction section today. Go see what you can find. (Louis Wu 14:31:29 UTC) (permalink)
Fashion Chief
This is just... odd. Thanks to Gossip, for finding the (in his words) "silliest cameo of
a video game character." (Louis Wu 12:34:37 UTC) (permalink)
Halo PC - another retrospective
A long, interesting post from Randy Pitchford, over on the Gearbox forums. It was in reply to a pretty negative post that covered a lot of old ground - but the response itself does a better job of explaining why Halo PC ended up the way it did than a lot of responses in the past. Worth a read, if you've ever been disappointed in the gameplay of Halo PC. (Pitchford spends less time blaming Bungie/Microsoft for the problems, and more time explaining the decisions that led to the problems.) Thanks again to Narcogen at Rampancy.net. (Louis Wu 12:32:05 UTC) (permalink)
That's what I call temptation.
Wow - almost 2 weeks before release, and some stores already have their copies of Halo 2 (with strict orders not to sell them before November 9, of course). Pics in this Teamxbox forum thread, heads-up goes to Rampancy.net. (Louis Wu 11:03:27 UTC) (permalink)
First Strike German preview
Marc, from Halo Universe, writes to say that they've got a preview of "Erstschlag" (First Strike in German) up on their site - you can read the first chapter. You can also win 3 copies of the novel and 2 Halo 2 Plantronics headsets. Helps if you read German. (Louis Wu 10:57:43 UTC) (permalink)
Bottle caps. I wanna see bottle caps.
IVIr I3ob wrote to say he and a frind had made a Halo 2 SMG out of Home Depot paint sticks. New one for me... (Louis Wu 10:55:07 UTC) (permalink)
Biggest Fan Ever
Mothergoat writes to say that his contest to find the Biggest Halo Fan Ever has ended - won by Conrad Tobias. Visit this forum thread for some pictures that might... well, scare you. (I'm hoping he set a lot of this stuff up just for the contest...) (Louis Wu 10:50:29 UTC) (permalink)
Campaign or Multiplayer?
Another Countdown to Halo 2 article at IGN - a look at whether you should start with Campaign or Multiplayer when you get the game. Rather than answer the question themselves, they went to IGN message board readers. Lots of different views. (Louis Wu 10:45:15 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Commercial - Extended
Variation was able to send us a 60-second variant of the Halo 2 commercial now playing on US television (Hopefully, today, I'll be able to find time to compile a list of all the different versions that have been put out there). It's the same commercial - just fleshed out a bit. This version is 320x240, and available in both WMP9 format (2.3 mb) or QuickTime format (3.7 mb). More grist for the speculation mill... Update: Thanks to ajenteks, who pointed out that our links for the 60-second commercial are totally swamped. I've tossed new copies on mythica.org - both the WMP9 version and the QuickTime version are there. Grab whichever mirror is faster for you. (Louis Wu 10:42:16 UTC) (permalink)
More details on the MTV special
We mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, but the official press release came out yesterday, so here's the word from the top about the upcoming MTV special:
New York, NY - October 27, 2004 - MTV: Music Television today announced that "Making the Video Game: Halo 2" will premiere on MTV on Friday, November 5th at 11:00pm ET/PT, and MTV2 on Saturday, November 6th at 9:00pm ET. The special will give viewers an unprecedented inside look at the most anticipated video game of 2004. "Making the Video Game: Halo 2" will go behind the scenes to discover the secrets, the storylines, and the graphics that will keep every last obsessive Halo fan glued to their TV. The special will also include interviews with the game developers, celebrity Halo fans, and the bands involved in the new soundtrack including Incubus and Hoobastank. Both the game and soundtrack hit stores on November 9th.
"The MTV audience is the gaming audience," said John Shea, EVP, Sponsorship Development and Integrated Marketing, MTV, VH1, and CMT. "Halo 2 is destined to be one of the biggest video games of the season and we're excited to give fans a behind the scenes look."
The press release also contained the first official (as far as I know) notice that Halo sales have passed the 5 million mark. Nice! (Louis Wu 10:33:29 UTC) (permalink)
Midnight Madness Store Locator
Wondering who might be selling Halo 2 at midnight on November 9? Worried because there are no EB Games near you, and you're afraid you might miss out on the early purchase? Never fear, Xbox.com has come to your rescue - if you live in the US. Visit the Midnight Madness Store Locator, put in your zip code and the maximum distance you're willing to travel, and you get back a list of all stores participating in this event in your area. I discovered that even here, in the boonies, there are 4 stores within 10 miles that are participating... Thanks, Steve Cherrier. (Louis Wu 10:28:52 UTC) (permalink)
IGN Desktop
If you're an IGN Insider, there's a new Halo 2 desktop available to you. If you're not an Insider... sorry. Thanks to MarkHawk and creaper609 for letting us know. (Louis Wu 10:22:53 UTC) (permalink)
New music at nilerogers.com
I'm not even gonna try and count the number of people who wrote to us about the two new clips at nilerogers.com - there are dozens of them. KNIGHTOFDRAGONS was first, though. Launch the Listening Station if you're on a fast connection, and give a listen to snippets from 'Peril' and 'In Amber Clad' - they're both great. If you're on a slow connection, you can grab the 'Peril' snippet (1:16, 1.1 mb) and the 'In Amber Clad' snippet (1:13, 1.1 mb) separately. (Louis Wu 10:11:54 UTC) (permalink)
Cold Pizza invites - out there!
A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned a contest in which 50 lucky winners would get to play Halo 2 on live TV in Times Square on November 4 - yesterday, we heard from Brian Graham that he received one of the invites, and last night, we discovered that our very own Miguel Chavez got another one! Looks like HBO will be nicely represented. Keep your eyes on ESPN's Cold Pizza show on that Thursday morning, to see this goodness. (Louis Wu 10:05:30 UTC) (permalink)
Comics and more
MiD33 points out that the first three episodes of his HALOlego comics (among other things) can be found at his new website, ForTru7h. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 10:00:44 UTC) (permalink)
TWL Championships Live on haloTV
Been out all day, the Halo mail is PILING up - I'll get to it eventually, I hope. Wanted to post this now, though, because of the time factor. haloTV is broadcasting TWL's 5v5 CTF Pro League championships, starting just 90 minutes from now (8:30 cst). The stream will be capped at 250 viewers, so get in soon! (Louis Wu 00:04:05 UTC) (permalink)
Wednesday's news in brief:
Tuesday's news in brief:
