|
Search the News Archive |
Spoilers are currently disabled. (All newsposts are visible.) |
 |
Thursday, July 28, 2005 |  |
GearboxGameZone movie info
Dennis Powers writes to point out that GearboxGameZone has mirrored The Squadron videos, and has added over 20 new Halo vids in the past two days, including most of the videos available on the "This Spartan Life" website (and a bunch that aren't - there are now WMP9-encoded versions of the first 5 episodes). Go see what you can find! (Louis Wu 22:48:38 UTC) (permalink)
Where's Lance When We Need Him?
Looks like the Halo Babies team has taken a page from the Bungie playbook and is challenging other Halo community teams to Xbox Live duels. There's a writeup from Dark Halo posted over at the Halo Babies website, detailing a recent match between the HBN crew and the Marty Army - looks like this series was a blowout. Details and gamelinks available in the writeup! (Louis Wu 20:45:07 UTC) (permalink)
There's Something About Halo 2
Last fall, we mentioned 'There's Something about Halo', a Flash vid over at Newgrounds - now, the team behind it has a preview of TSAH2 online (click the floating 'TSAH2' thing). That's some weird dancing... thanks, Tactic. (Louis Wu 20:36:46 UTC) (permalink)
The Squadron Ep 1: The Pigeon Has Landed
The MPRRS continues to process submitted movies - The Squadron is a machinima series from the folks at Broken Console. Episode One is nearly 12 minutes long, and introduces the main characters and the storyline. Reviewers liked the humor and the flow. Check it out! WMP9 format (26.4 mb) or QuickTime format (26.7 mb). (Louis Wu 20:26:42 UTC) (permalink)
Autographed Halo 2 poster on eBay
Conner Reeves is selling a Frankie-signed Halo 2 poster on eBay - starting bid is just under $15, and there are 4 days left in the auction. Here's your chance for a personal Mister Chief on your wall! (Louis Wu 19:13:55 UTC) (permalink)
Wham looks at the map pack
WHAM! Gaming (a subsection of the CANOE network) reviewed the Multiplayer Map Pack last week - they liked most of the maps, but had problems with Gemini, Terminal, and Warlock. Issues aside, the collection earned a 9.5/10 from them. Thanks, Anton P. Nym. (Louis Wu 19:10:54 UTC) (permalink)
Wait... simulated reality? My head hurts.
Okay, this isn't Halo-related in the slightest, I don't think - but it DOES hold some interest for those of you who follow Bungie, the company, and the people that (used to) work for it. According to USA Today, there's a new reality TV show coming soon - Xquest will be brought to you by Ron Howard (who looks NOTHING like Ritchie - or Opie, for that matter - any more) and Brian Grazer, and will take contestants into space - well, simulated space. Simulated space? Yeah - "the travelers and viewers will be transported to space virtual-reality style, thanks to high-tech graphics and the help of co-producer Alex Seropian, a creator of the popular Halo game." Wonga! Is this what Wideload is doing after Stubbs ships? Thanks, x amount. Update: Thanks to a story in Variety (which isn't reachable without a subscription, unfortunately), I now understand this has nothing to do with Wideload; Seropian is also a principal of Spectrum MediaWorks, a company looking to tie together television, videogames, and 'networked media' - and it's under this umbrella that he's working with the Xquest project. (The Variety article specifically discusses the lack of connection between this project and Halo, in any form.) (Louis Wu 19:01:43 UTC) (permalink)
AMAS Kicks off the 2005 Machinima Film Festival
The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS) issued a press release and call for entries for this year's Machinima Film Festival - submissions began to be accepted a week ago, with a final deadline of October 6. Get cracking! (This press release was originally posted on their website on July 11, but we just got a copy today. Sorry for the delay!) (Louis Wu 18:42:06 UTC) (permalink)
More Schwag for your Bucks
In an effort to help the free-market economy keep the money flowing, Bungie has updated their Store with some new merchandise. A carabiner keychain, and four new shirts. Of particular note is a very old-school Marathon shirt, faithfully re-created by Shishka. Nice. Check it all out! (mnemesis 18:41:15 UTC) (permalink)
Hillary vs. the Xbox: Game over
The 'Video Games are Evil' concept has blown up again in recent weeks, spurred primarily by the release of the Hot Coffee mod for Grand Theft Auto (google it if you don't know what it is) - and the whole 'Violence in Video Games' controversy has been reopened because of it. I haven't written much on the subject (though I've been toying with some blog posts, if life ever slows down enough to think coherently about them), but that hasn't stopped people from sending in links. One came in this morning that I found to be a great read, and a summary of most of the arguments I've been making for a while now. (I'm not claiming ownership on these arguments - LOTS of rational people have been arguing these points - I'm just saying that this one sums up my views pretty well.) Steven Johnson (we mentioned him a couple of months ago) has written an opinion piece in today's LA Times; it's an open letter to Hillary Clinton, discussing the Senator's recent call for a study on the effects of video games on our youth. He makes some solid points - and mentions Halo 2 a couple of times, which gets him on the front page here. Go read! (Thanks, Christopher Lyons.) (Louis Wu 18:29:36 UTC) (permalink)
Halogen update
A couple of days ago, we mentioned that the Halogen website would be posting lots of new info over the next couple of weeks - the updates started today; there's a new website online, Flash-based, and though it's not finished yet, I guess they'll be adding to it as time goes on. (It's actually quite buggy if you're not on a PC running IE - or at least that's my experience. But hey - when one browser on one platform has 75% of the marketshare, why bother designing for anyone else?) Thanks to Logical2u, via email, and MatX, on our forum, for noticing. (Louis Wu 18:12:41 UTC) (permalink)
Montage Vids from halo2Forum
Z, from Halo2Forum.com, dropped us a note about a couple of montages they're hosting - Hellzfire's First Montage is 56 mb, WMP9 format, and full of sticks and noscope snipes. Titan VIII's 3rd Montage is 95.7 mb, WMP9 format, and of course has its share of sticks and snipes, but seems to focus on the Battle Rifle. There is plenty of room for comments in the above-linked threads. (Louis Wu 17:11:13 UTC) (permalink)
Fire Coming out of a Monkey's Head
jezek, of Haloz Productions, submitted a video called 'Fire Coming out of a Monkey's Head', which tells the story of the Gorillaz song using the Halo engine. The MPRRS reviewers liked it (though a few thought it didn't have enough action in it - I think we're getting jaded) - it's nicely laid out. Give it a watch! WMP9 format (26.3 mb) or QuickTime format (26.6 mb). (Louis Wu 15:39:35 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 2 is G-Phoria King
Wow. As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Bungie was up for 7 honors this year in G4TV's G-Phoria awards - the ceremony took place last night (though it won't be aired for another couple of weeks), and Bungie swept all 7 of those categories! Nice! Gamespot's got an article with more details - thanks to altodarknight, who was beaten for the heads-up by Google News Alerts by only a couple of hours. (Louis Wu 15:20:33 UTC) (permalink)
Wednesday's news in brief:
Tuesday's news in brief:
