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Friday, October 26, 2007 |  |
A Million Bucks for Halo 3
Whoa. The Cyberathlete Professional League is hosting a Halo 3 tournament during the Extreme Winter Championships - with a purse of $1,000,000. First place gets a quarter of that, as an instant cash payout... the rest is split between at least 64 places. More details are at the announcement page on the CPL's website, with registration opening on Monday at Halo3Competition.com. That's some serious cash! (Louis Wu 18:26:13 UTC) (permalink)
Going Weaponless in Multiplayer
blackouTT let us know that ClazM49 found a pretty cool way to get rid of your weapon for filmmaking; it's much easier than the built-in button combo. You can only do this in Forge - but that means all multiplayer maps are accessible. You need two people: first, spawn a missile pod. Then, time it so that one person picks up the pod at the same moment that the other person deletes it; the person picking up the pod will be left open-handed. Do not press 'Y', or you'll lose the effect... and you can only do this as a Spartan, not an Elite. Coolness! (Louis Wu 18:19:04 UTC) (permalink)
Deus Ex Machina
DigitalPh33r, the guy behind the 'Master Chief Sucks at Halo' series, started a new Halo 3 series called 'Deus Ex Machina', about a superhero involved in helping out the little guy. Major Silva found the first two episodes on YouTube (one | two), or you can download them from machinima.com. Pretty nice work! (Louis Wu 18:11:06 UTC) (permalink)
Red No Longer Vs Blue.
Stuntmutt looks at an inadvertent (I hope) side effect of making all the online achievements available only in ranked FFA play in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 15:43:26 UTC) (permalink)
Halo: Landfall
Spectacular. The Neill Blomkamp pieces have been available only partially - and for only some of the world's denizens - on Xbox Live Marketplace; as of today, that's changed. You can download 'Halo: Landfall', a single 315 mb piece that's been edited together from the three separate movies, from the Game Videos section of Xbox Live Marketplace - or directly from Halo 3 (hit the start button, then scroll down to 'Marketplace'). It's free. Thanks to Xboxtoday.com.br's Marcelo Vega for the heads-up! Update: A little more news on this. Major Nelson put up a blog post about this, and lists a number of countries in which this film is NOT available - but that might be a temporary thing; I have word that it's possible that it's just a matter of text localization in those countries. Also, a bit more info about the piece itself - it is in HD (I wasn't sure until I could see it), and the putting-together was done by Bungie/Film Oasis. (Bungie's been pretty unhappy that it's been so difficult to see these in HD splendor up until now - so props for making it happen!) There'll be more info soon - stay tuned. (Louis Wu 14:53:29 UTC) (permalink)
Kotobukiya Statues for Cheap(er)
gryphonosiris pointed out a site that's selling ARTFX Kotobukiya statues for $85 (green variant only, apparently) - even when you tack on the $11 or so in shipping (it varies by destination), it's still cheaper than buying it locally. (Then again - if you're a Barnes and Noble member, it's $90, with free shipping... so make sure you look around. ) (Louis Wu 14:40:21 UTC) (permalink)
He's Gettin' Out.
pete_the_duck continues his experimentation for getting outside those pesky invisible barriers Bungie added to many levels (to keep you in the playing field). He's come up with pretty innovative ways of getting outside of ANY campaign level - he gives specific instructions (and provides cool pictures) for The Storm and Floodgate. Check it out! (Louis Wu 14:27:18 UTC) (permalink)
Grab your own screens
finalcuthalo has put together a script that will let you grab screenshots from Bungie.net's RSS feeds. (He's using the same open-source software, and doing the same thing sorahn did to create his haloscreenshots.net website - the difference is, he's releasing instructions so that you can use it yourself without having to work out the details.) (Louis Wu 13:57:38 UTC) (permalink)
That didn't take long...
So, yesterday, we let you know that High Speed Halo had kicked off a 'Million Point Challenge' - they were looking for campaign runs that added up to at least a million points. One of the first runs mentioned in the thread had over a quarter-million points in it, for The Ark; when it was suggested that a million points might be low, Cody Miller replied that only a few levels had the potential for REALLY high scores. Heh. At 8 am this morning (just over 17 hours from the point at which the challenge was announced), goatrope let us know that the challenge had been met - with only 6 levels. Anyone want to try for 2 million? (Louis Wu 13:41:41 UTC) (permalink)
How you get rich in Seattle
ZZoMBiE13 isn't letting up on his comic submissions - Another Halo Comic Strip has yet another new funni for you today. This one contains Halo 3 story spoilers; don't read it unless you've finished the game. If you HAVE finished the game, though... it's pretty funny. (Louis Wu 13:25:10 UTC) (permalink)
Stereoscopic Screenshots - Make your Own
Earlier this week, we mentioned a guy who was creating stereoscopic screenshot from Halo 3. He recently added a tutorial so that you can make your own. And Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, did a little research so Mac users could play, too. (Louis Wu 13:22:52 UTC) (permalink)
Do Grunt Work, Win Big
Advanced Media Network is giving away a copy of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition to the person who submits the longest list of entertainment-related websites. (Read the contest page for more complete details.) You've got until November 1 to enter. Heh - $130 seems cheap for this sort of datamining... (Louis Wu 13:20:16 UTC) (permalink)
Stats Reloaded: Custom Leaderboards
Z pointed out that Stats Reloaded has introduced a new feature - custom leaderboards. You can create your own leaderboard (sign up your clan, for example, or your website community) - and your own scoring method. To show you an example, he pointed out a custom leaderboard someone's created, which contains (scroll down a little) the algorithm used to calculate positions. It's interesting to see how the position within this leaderboard compares to the overall SR leaderboard position (shown in the last column). Go try it out!
(Louis Wu 13:16:09 UTC) (permalink)
The newest rumor flies
I find this more interesting more for how rumors get started than for the actual news... but let's break it down: Gaming Target noticed a two-sentence comment in December's EGM that contains, on its surface, some basic info about a new game coming out of Microsoft in the near-to-middlin' future, along with some speculation about which studio might be involved. They expanded the speculation considerably by suggesting that Peter Jackson might be involved, and that the whole thing might be Halo-based. Xbox 360 Fanboy picked up on this - they counsel caution, but still, the rumor chain grows. By the time the story makes it over to 2old2play, the focus has shifted from the fact that it's a Microsoft-driven MMO to "The latest rumor surrounding the unrevealed Peter Jackson game is that it will be an MMOFPS." How did this become about the Peter Jackson game? That was pure speculation on the part of the first reporting site! Thanks to Wires, who found it at 2o2p. (If we learn anything that definitively ties the EGM rumor to Halo, we'll certainly let you know.) (Louis Wu 13:05:40 UTC) (permalink)
Halo Humpday - a solid Bungie win, for a change
Last night was also the night that this week's Halo Humpday Challenge got posted (thanks again, LackOfKnowledge) - the EA Tiburon team met, and were demolished on the field of battle by, the Bungie crew. Harshness! I think the page's thumbnail says it best... (Louis Wu 12:53:17 UTC) (permalink)
Storytime ROCKS.
Bungie has posted their newest podcast - the first hour is Dave Dunn telling stories of the old days at Bungie Studios, and the last 20 minutes has Paul Bertone talking football and ripping on Luke. It's a pretty great listen - go grab a copy and hear tales of Chris Butcher sleeping in fields and doing something with mushrooms. Thanks to LackOfKnowledge (and serpx) for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:46:51 UTC) (permalink)
Friday's Fan Fiction
Monster week for the Fan Fiction section - 19 new pieces. Go read! (Louis Wu 12:45:18 UTC) (permalink)
Halo 3 Guide from Community Radar
Nathan Gibson let us know that he and the website Community Radar have put together a Halo 3 Guide - it's 52 pages long, and available in both PDF and Microsoft Word formats. You can grab it from the Community Radar website. They're also looking for folks to help update and expand upon what they've got - if you're interested, follow the Submissions link at the top of the page. (Louis Wu 12:30:04 UTC) (permalink)
A couple of short vids from Obienator
Don Whitford let us know that Obienator released a couple of short vids recently - there's "an extended edit of a plasma sword fight", and a Halo-flavored tribute to Penny Arcade's riff on Valve's Portal. Both are on YouTube - go watch! (Louis Wu 12:29:26 UTC) (permalink)
Thursday's news in brief:
Wednesday's news in brief:
