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Wednesday, March 2, 2005 |  |
Bafta dominated by HL2
The Bafta Interactive Entertainment Awards were held yesterday and today in London - and Halo 2 went home with the Best Xbox Game award. In every other category for which it had been nominated, however (Action/Adventure, Online & Multiplayer, and Animation), it was beaten out by Half-Life 2. Ouch! Thanks to ICDedPpl, who saw it at Mirror.co.uk. (Louis Wu 21:51:10 UTC) (permalink)
Up to Speed
Afterwar 15 has been posted at Black Arts Studios - with some extra dialogue to explain what accidentally got left out of episode 12. Thanks, Kevin. (Louis Wu 21:05:54 UTC) (permalink)
Conversations %%! Universe
Included with the Limited Edition of Halo 2 was a booklet titled, "Conversations From The Universe," detailing a few choice bits of interactions between various entities within the Halo universe. A number of folks have mentioned this booklet, and some of the information it contained, in forum posts over the last few months. Over at the Halo Story Page, we've finally completed a transcription of the text, available on our Resources page for your perusal. Unfortunately, we had a kind of electro-magnetic incident here recently and much of the original text was corrupted. We've put up as much as we can at the moment, such as it is, so go check it out and see what you think. (mnemesis 18:28:01 UTC) (permalink)
BOTD2: Biohazard
Not long ago, ipushmycar announced the release of BOTD2: Biohazard, a followup video to Beach of the Dead. (The trailer was released in mid-January, to rave reviews and heavy anticipation.) Beach of the Dead 2 does a fantastic job of telling a classic zombie tale with no dialogue at all (beyond the narrator's voiceover at the start). This is really well-made machinima; great camerawork, great 'acting' - it hooks you early and holds you right through the end. The initial release was WMP9-only, and came in two flavors; a high-res 640x288 version that weighed in at a whopping 84.7 mb, and a low-res 320x144 version that was still a hefty 40.3 mb. In addition, both of these suffered from pretty heavy interlacing issues. ipushmycar went to the extra effort of reencoding to fix the interlace problem, and sent us a version we could turn into nice QuickTime releases; again, there's a high-res (640x288, 45.5 mb) version (mythica.org | bungie.org) and a lowres (320x144, 24.3 mb) version (mythica.org | bungie.org). If you still need the original WMP9 versions, the links for both flavors are in ipushmycar's forum thread. Watch this one! Update: (30 July 2006) A recent forum thread reminded me that TrickingIt.com no longer exists - which means the WMP9 versions of this film are no longer linked anywhere. Here are some local copies (hires, 640x290, 42.4 mb | lowres, 320x144, 26.4 mb). (Louis Wu 16:41:07 UTC) (permalink)
As Tammy Wynette Once Sang...
The actual strip in todays' One One Se7en is quite funny - but the title pun makes me want to tear my eyes out and beat Stuntmutt with them. (Louis Wu 15:44:48 UTC) (permalink)
Tainted Love - in VERY hi res
You might remember a movie called Tainted Love - 12 minutes of Halo 2 gameplay, presented in Widescreen format. The Tainted One wasn't satisfied with just presenting this to you in a web-sized box; he decided that folks should be able to see this in full wide-screen, DVD-quality goodness. To that end, he created a couple of HUGE versions; they measure 840x480 in screensize, and weigh in at 2 or 3 Mbps (depending on the version you choose) - be careful, because if you want to play the WMP9 version on a PC, you're gonna need a real processor. (The QuickTime is a bit more forgiving, but still looks pretty darn impressive.) Because of their massive size, these are available ONLY as BitTorrent downloads; Please be patient at the start, and once you've grabbed a copy, leave your BitTorrent window open to share the love. The QuickTime version is 207 mb, the WMP9 version is 283 mb. Behold one man's obsession with good-looking Halo footage! (Louis Wu 12:15:08 UTC) (permalink)
Last Stand - now with 5 episodes
A couple of weeks ago, Phoenix_9286 posted a link to the start of his new 'comic' (I'm not sure it can be called that; it's more of a storyboard tale, or something - he creates it by combining in-game screenshots and comic-style dialogue balloons). I forgot to mention it - but recently, he posted a link to the fifth episode - and the writeup below that contains links to the first 4. He's cranking them out at a Stuntmutt-style rate, and there's a plot, even, so it's time to mention this. Go read 'em over at DeviantArt. (Louis Wu 11:08:09 UTC) (permalink)
Size DOES Matter.
Stephen Loftus continues his in-depth analyses of the structural underpinnnings of the Halo universe - tonight, we have a treatise on how he's determined sizes of various objects and creatures. A good read, with great graphics. Check out his Halo Scale Comparison! (Louis Wu 03:16:53 UTC) (permalink)
Tuesday's news in brief:
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Back into the Breach Halo 2 Respawn Times Geometric plates The Head ILB Content Revisited J-U-M-P-S Tournament Playable Art Hearts and Minds |
Monday's news in brief:
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It's Probably Not True Old and Canny beats Young and Stupid every time Game With Fame - Writ Large Washed Down With 117 Up. More tournaments The Pillar of Autumn, Realized |
