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May 2007

May 2007 Archived News

News May 31 2007

Vs. Mode, Final Round
JeBr0nie noticed that the third and final part of the discussion between MTV's Stephen Totilo and Newsweek's N'Gai Croal is now available for reading. (We mentioned Round 1 and Round 2 in the last couple of days.) This one contains suggestions of how to make Halo multiplayer more beginner-friendly... but I'm afraid that if some of these suggestions were implemented, the game wouldn't be Halo any more. (Some ideas totally rock, however - a computer-aided analysis of your playstyle, pointing out what you did wrong? That would go a LONG way to improving skills, I'd think.) Give it a read. (Louis Wu 17:20:22 UTC) (permalink)

Bench
Sodagod wrote to point out a new Machine Enema project... 'Bench'. A janitor discovers a homicidal... sitting place? This one's pretty odd... but as with all Machine Enema projects, it's really, really well-done. Worth the download. Almost 8 minutes long - we're mirroring both the original WMP9 (61.4 mb) and a QuickTime version (63.5 mb). (Louis Wu 16:28:13 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Box Art?
Cocopjojo noticed that Amazon has what looks to be an official-looking picture for the Halo 3 box art; we know what the Legendary Edition looks like, and we know what the Limited Edition looks like... but as far as I know, no official packaging for the Standard Edition has been released yet. This might be it. (Louis Wu 14:53:24 UTC) (permalink)

WorthPlaying says H2V is Worth Playing
WorthPlaying took a look at Halo 2 Vista - they felt it's a bit dated, but "a worthwhile title despite its age, and it's a prime example of how a console-to-PC port can be done properly". Nice. (Louis Wu 14:26:09 UTC) (permalink)

HTB Update
Sane Intolerant wrote to let us know that he's got three new comics up in his Halo Toy Box series. Average Life and Sans The Bellfry [sic] look at Halo 3 Beta gameplay, and Don't Do Nectar uses Halo characters to look at the upcoming game 'Haze'. Check 'em out. (Louis Wu 14:23:06 UTC) (permalink)

News May 30 2007

Fear of Google, and Machinima-making Cats
Very cool. Linnea and OboeCrazy were interviewed by Luke over at Bungie.net - ostensibly because of their unsettling 'I Want Master Chief' - but the interview touches on many, many subjects; go learn a little more about these women! (Maybe you'll figure out what drives them.) Thanks, halosavior. (Louis Wu 23:14:45 UTC) (permalink)

Shadow of the Day
trigger119 sent us a link to Shadow of the Day, a new video from HaloGrid's blackouTT. Tells a solid story with nothing but action, and some subtitles; cinematic effects are really well-done. For all the people who say "I don't have good voice actors, I can't make good Halo machinima" - watch this, you'll find out how wrong you are. (Louis Wu 22:34:14 UTC) (permalink)

Tuning it Fine
Frankie discussed the graphics of Halo 3 (what you've seen, and what you haven't) with the folks at Next Generation - give it a read to see what you're in store for. Thanks, LordGideon. (Louis Wu 19:28:16 UTC) (permalink)

An astouding body of work
Okay, the thing i hate most about getting behind on art updates is that it becomes far too easy to bury fantastic work in a flood of submissions when I finally DO catch up. And I'm afraid that's exactly what's going to happen today; I've finally, after 3 months, gotten the bulk of the Miscellaneous Art queue processed, and posted to the Miscellaneous Art section. If you count variants, there are well over 100 new images on display here - and they range from quick sketches to amazingly detailed works of art. Please - take your time, check out everything. There are plenty of incredible pieces that might not make themselves obvious from the thumbnail display. To the artists - I'm really sorry, and I'll try to do better next time. To everyone else - explore! (Louis Wu 18:27:51 UTC) (permalink)

eBay'd Art
Spartan Erik ran across a nice Halo painting on eBay - 24"x30", acrylic. Auction ends SOON (less than 4 hours as of this writing). (Louis Wu 17:00:31 UTC) (permalink)

Vs. Mode Round 2 - Fight!
Yesterday, we mentioned the first round of a new 'Vs. Mode' discussion between MTV's Stephen Totilo and Newsweek's N'Gai Croal - Round 2 went up today. Two guys who know nothing about Halo try to figure out how to make it fun. Interesting read! Thanks, mercury. (Louis Wu 16:56:11 UTC) (permalink)

Splash Damage.
Stuntmutt is served appropriately for his sins in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:41:06 UTC) (permalink)

Don't get in his way.
Sean Bradley has been working for a while on a wieldable energy sword - and recently, he gave us permission to document his efforts. Awesome pics - this was truly a labor of love! (Keep your eyes peeled; there's more coming in the not-too-distant future.) Go check out his stuff - from basic sketches to a working, glowing sword! (Louis Wu 15:25:43 UTC) (permalink)

Critical Reception
Gamasutra took a look at the negative press that Halo 2 Vista is getting, to try and pin down why. (Louis Wu 14:46:34 UTC) (permalink)

Zune-a-zune-a-zune-a-zune-a-zune
Having trouble coming up with a song or a movie to enter into our Halo Zune giveaway? Fear not - Gamepro has one to give away as well - and all they want in return is a Halo-related haiku. Check it out! Thanks, JeSteR 343. (Louis Wu 13:55:38 UTC) (permalink)

GoW vs H3
At Gearheadsofwar.com, there's a discussion of Gears of War vs Halo 3, and what features of each game appeals to players. Thanks, Major Silva. (Louis Wu 13:52:24 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Beta Customs
There's a lot of buzz on Halo forums about Custom Games in the Halo 3 Beta. I've written up some thoughts about them (including some of the reasoning why this kind of thing makes, or doesn't make, the news here) in a forum post. You'll also find a link to one of the more complete guides to the existing Custom Games screens. Please - take the caveats to heart. Poke around, enjoy yourself - but always remember that Bungie did not enable these games in the Beta for a reason. Yes, their oversight allowed you access - but do NOT mistake that for planning; there is no implicit agreement that any of the options you can mess with now will be available in the shipping game. Enjoy them as concepts, not promises. (Louis Wu 12:55:19 UTC) (permalink)

News May 29 2007

Halo Goodies on eBay
Gryphonosiris found a pretty cool Spartan helmet, signed by the entire Red vs Blue crew, on eBay - almost a week left, you can be sure this'll go for a pretty penny. (He also noticed another one of those 3.5 foot statues.) (Louis Wu 22:49:22 UTC) (permalink)

Alpha
Alexei pointed out a pretty nice piece of artwork created by his buddy =sphereuk - take a look! (Louis Wu 17:47:41 UTC) (permalink)

The Scissor Sisters Game with Fame
Yesterday, Jillybean stopped by the forum with a somewhat cryptic message about the Scissor Sisters and Halo 2 - it didn't make sense to me until I saw a press release this morning. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, that press release isn't anywhere public yet - but here are the relevant paragraphs:

LONDON, 23rd May 2007 -It was revealed today that chart topping superstars, Scissor Sisters, will be taking on gamers from across Europe in a unique Game with Fame event on the Halo 3 Multiplayer BETA via Xbox LIVE™.

The band, who launched Xbox Soundtracks in February with their remixed version of "She's My Man" cut to the Halo Wars trailer will be playing members of the 6 million strong Xbox LIVE community at 11.00 BST on 30th May 2007 direct from their hotel in France before going on stage later that day as part of their latest tour.

11.00 BST is UTC+1, or 6am EDT, or 3 am PDT. So, if you're interested in finding these musicians online, you should start looking in about 18 hours. (Louis Wu 16:10:15 UTC) (permalink)

Has Bungie nailed the 90 feet?
MTV reporter Stephen Totilo and Newsweek reporter N'Gai Croal have begun a new 'Vs. Mode' - a discussion of the pros and cons of a particular game. The game, in this case, is Halo 3. Part 1 is up now. Interesting read! (Louis Wu 15:24:55 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: Pramape AotCR
Yesterday, EwoudCP stopped by to point out a Flash video he'd created at Newgrounds - Halo: Pramape AotCR. Take a look! (Louis Wu 15:22:12 UTC) (permalink)

Zune Giveaway - folks are shooting themselves
Wow. Sometimes... I gotta wonder. So we're offering folks the chance to win one of four free Zunes, right? And there's a page we've put up that contains rules and regulations. They're pretty simple rules and regulations... or so I thought. I looked into the uploads directory today, to get a sense of how much work we were going to have ahead of us when this contest ends - and there were 62 uploaded entries. Thinking that I could get a jump on the sorting, I downloaded them and began to look through them... and commenced pounding my head against my desk.

• 11 entries were commercially-released songs
• 4 entries were previously-released material (songs or movies)
• 18 entries did not meet our format/size requirements
• 2 entries weren't even Halo files

Folks - if you want to participate in this contest, read the rules. File types, file sizes, SCREEN sizes - they're all defined. And the rules state that if you can't bother to meet those requirements, your entry will be discarded. Why waste your time - and mine? Check before you submit. Thanks. (Louis Wu 14:50:32 UTC) (permalink)

So Easy a Spartan Could do it
Mister Froggy takes a look at the vehicles in the Halo 3 Beta in the latest Halo, Articulated. (Louis Wu 14:06:32 UTC) (permalink)

Spartan Laser, Evolving
On Saturday, we mentioned CitizenErased27 and the work he'd begun on a Spartan Laser replica. Over the weekend, there were a pair of new updates - Saturday night saw some dimension calculations, and this morning we were treated with pictures of the basic frame, completed. Progress is continuing apace! (Louis Wu 12:06:51 UTC) (permalink)

News May 28 2007

Beta Matchmaking Update
The Halo 3 Beta matchmaking has gotten some shaking up - there's a new ranked Big Team option, along with a Double Team unranked playlist. Go read full details at Bungie.net - thanks, sorahn. (Louis Wu 19:40:03 UTC) (permalink)

Tickling Ears
Ever wonder about how sound is integrated into Halo games? There's a great new article up at Bungie.net about this. Give it a read - it'll open a door or two. (Louis Wu 18:44:21 UTC) (permalink)

Zune questions - now with answers
We've gotten quite a few questions about our Zune Giveaway Contest - some of the most common have been added to a new Frequently Asked Questions page on the contest site. As more come up, we'll add them, too. Please check this page first if you have questions. Thanks! (Louis Wu 18:12:31 UTC) (permalink)

From Russia, with Pixels
Almost missed this - Funkmon noticed a cool pic at Destructoid - tiny Halo reference, but lots and lots and lots of other videogame references.

Deus Meus (Spartan Battle Prayer)
A couple of years ago, Elnea created a beautiful song for inclusion in a machinima series being created by some friends. Things changed, and the machinima got shelved... so she now has permission to release this song to the public. It's powerful moving. Go listen. (As always, if this note does something terrible to her bandwidth, we'll put up a local copy.) (Louis Wu 16:21:17 UTC) (permalink)

Blam! Blam! Blam!
Stuntmutt took at look at the detachable turret in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:20:43 UTC) (permalink)

Complaining about complainers
411mania.com has a rant about the people complaining about the Halo 3 Beta. (Louis Wu 16:18:53 UTC) (permalink)

The Return of the King
Anton P. Nym found a 360Prophecy comic strip on Xbox.ca that might resonate with our audience. Jman pointed out that the most recent episode is also Halo-related (and if you follow the Archives link, you'll find even more). (Louis Wu 16:12:29 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Wishlist
Gamespy has a Halo 3 Wishlist (thanks, The Lamontser). Our forum isn't very impressed with it. (Louis Wu 16:08:03 UTC) (permalink)

I Want Master Chief
Every now and then, someone creates a Halo-related tribute that hits on a lot of levels; maybe it's funny, maybe it's touching, maybe it's emotionally deep. Maybe it inspires you. Maybe it makes you laugh. Maybe it makes you cry. Or maybe... maybe it just scares you. Recently, Oboe Crazy and Elnea, regulars of the Red vs Blue community, created a music video which will make you laugh, might make you cry, will certainly scare you. It's so right... and so wrong, on so many levels. It features some amazing music playing, some disturbing singing, and some images which will burn themselves into your brain. Don't download this unless you're ready to be shaken up. First unveiled at CanWest last week, this is now available to the public - grab it in WMP9 format (41.9 mb) or QuickTime format (40.4 mb). Steel yourself. (Louis Wu 01:04:06 UTC) (permalink)

News May 27 2007

Overswarm expands into competive gaming in general
We got word from Overswarm, the creator of the Not So Common Sense Halo strategy guide we host. He's set up new digs at www.overswarm.com - go see what's up! (Louis Wu 20:54:20 UTC) (permalink)

High Shade grenade challenge
Rockslider CONTINUES his Halo fun exploration - his latest bit involves grenades, shades, and the Maw Run. Give it a read! (Louis Wu 14:43:06 UTC) (permalink)

Emerald: The Trailer
Simply Greg stopped by to point out a trailer for 'Emerald', a new machimina project from SnowGlobe and FantasyCubed. I read the responses on our forum before watching the video - and I have to say, they all got it right. This one's definitely a 'What the...?' - but with music like that at the end, how bad could it be? (Louis Wu 14:41:10 UTC) (permalink)

The Robbed that Smiles
Neloms posted links to a set of YouTube vids that represent a school project in which Othello is reproduced (well, sort of) in the Halo engine. Interesting... (Louis Wu 14:30:11 UTC) (permalink)

News May 26 2007

Over The Top
2P START! had a comic this week that looked back at the music of Halo; I think their predictions might be a bit off. Thanks, Walshicus. (Louis Wu 22:29:47 UTC) (permalink)

He takes care of his kids
Red vs Blue Episode 98, Same old, same old, went up for sponsors this morning. (It'll be up for the general public sometime Monday, probably.) The storyline gets even more complicated (on its way to a conclusion in the next two episodes) - and there were several laugh-out-loud moments. Great stuff. Thanks, hezekiah. (Louis Wu 22:24:19 UTC) (permalink)

Reassurance
The surfing comic Blue and Blond has a Halo 3-related strip today - thanks, Mathijs Buster. (Louis Wu 22:19:07 UTC) (permalink)

Seul
Urban Reflex has written up his game of the week for his Halo 3 Beta blog, Ordained Insight. An interesting blow-by-blow... comments can go on the blog, or in his forum thread. (Louis Wu 22:11:18 UTC) (permalink)

Absurd bickering and hyper-verbal co-workers
Great article at Austin360.com, focusing on the 100-episode run of Red vs Blue, coming to an end in the next few weeks. It includes a look back on the influence RvB has had on the machinima genre, as well as some of the best moments in the series. Give it a read! Thanks, aaronspuler. (Louis Wu 21:53:32 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Beta - beaten by GoW and Crackdown
Interesting. According to Major Nelson, the Halo 3 Beta was the 3rd most-played title on Xbox Live last week - behind Gears of War and Crackdown. (Heh - I guess all those people playing Crackdown while waiting for access to the beta added up... thanks, BrentGamer. (Louis Wu 21:09:24 UTC) (permalink)

Legendary Tattoo
alex chainsaw stopped by the forum to show off his Legendary tattoo - impressive detail! (Louis Wu 14:13:17 UTC) (permalink)

Spartan Laser Replica
CitizenErased27 has begun work on a Spartan Laser Replica - you can see plans (and read about them) in this post. Great start - looking forward to the final product! (Louis Wu 14:10:42 UTC) (permalink)

A no-win situation
Gamespot was pretty unhappy with Halo 2 Vista - too little, too late is overall feeling. Thanks, boesman. (Louis Wu 14:06:53 UTC) (permalink)

Jackson counting on Halo 3 to renew movie interest
Interesting - Peter Jackson did an interview for OnFilm Magazine in which he discussed, among other things, the Halo movie.

Jackson said he expected renewed interest from Hollywood studios 20th Century Fox and Universal Pictures to have Halo made as the Halo 3 video game will be released later this year.

He and partner Fran Walsh would be involved again in Halo only if Blomkamp is the director. "We wouldn't want to do it with anybody else. It'll be Neill's call."

Thanks to Mariachi, who found it at Dark Horizons. (Louis Wu 14:03:59 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Pre-Sell Kit
Devin Olsen was in Wal-Mart, and noticed a new 'Halo 3 Pre-Sell Kit' - a poster and a reservation for the game. Costs $10, but that goes towards the price of the game, so the poster's free. If you haven't already preordered, and you want to - this might be a nice deal! (Caveat - he lives in Canada. No guarantee these will be in the US.) Update: aaron points out that you can get a similar deal at Circuit City. (Louis Wu 13:57:36 UTC) (permalink)

Ranking System Calculator
oriol pointed out that the Grunts'R'Us team are working on a Rank calculator - they need your statistics to help. Swing by this page, and add your details - see what they come up with! (Louis Wu 13:48:16 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: Blood Covenant: They're Not Dead Yet!
Xieros let us know that the Halo: Blood Covenant team has set up a new website and added a new screenshot. The site redirects to another domain for me - one that doesn't resolve - but Marcus-626 pointes out that Halowiki has updated info about the revival of this game. (Search our news for older information.) (Louis Wu 13:46:30 UTC) (permalink)

Like a child on Christmas day
Talkxbox has posted an impressions article about the Halo 3 Beta. Thanks, Joel Kownacki. (Louis Wu 13:30:33 UTC) (permalink)

A Real Visionary
Mister Froggy has posted Halo, Articulated #42 - you can finally get an idea about who's complaining about the Beta. (Louis Wu 13:21:07 UTC) (permalink)

Zune Giveaway Quick Update
Wow. The Zune giveaway was announced just 3 hours ago, and already we have 31 people registered to be able to submit, and two actual submissions. Just wanted to remind everyone, the submission deadline is June 10 - over two weeks from today. There's absolutely no advantage to rushing your entry in now; doing so locks you out of making changes, of choosing a different subject, of basically putting any thought at all into the idea. Just a suggestion... sleep on it. (Louis Wu 02:12:48 UTC) (permalink)

Heat Maps are cool.
The Bungie Weekly Update is (predictably, in the middle of the Halo 3 Beta test) all about the Halo 3 Beta test. Good stuff. Go read! (It's here, too, of course, in the Weekly Update Archive.) Looks like LoneRanger 2.5 got to it, finally. (He got it wrong the first time.) (Louis Wu 00:18:11 UTC) (permalink)

News May 25 2007

Zune over Miami
Don't say we never gave you anything... you know those cool Zunes with the Halo art and the movies and the other stuff? Thanks to Bungie, we've got a bunch of 'em to give away - and we want you to have one! (And you, and you, and you too.) All you've got to do is create some cool content - and one of these puppies could be yours! Full details are on our contest page - go read about it, and then get to creating! (Louis Wu 22:53:37 UTC) (permalink)

Halownage
Halomega's changed to Halownage, and to kick off the change, they're got a clip of the week with a $25 reward. (Warning - that thread is not safe for work.) They've also got a 1v1 montage and H3 gameplays. (Louis Wu 19:06:28 UTC) (permalink)

Checkin' it twice
Everybody loves lists - MSNBC has the top 5 first-person shooter weapons (thanks, a paramedic); Halo's Pistol makes it in... and GamePro looks at the 11 Worst Trends in Video Games (thanks, SG); Halo's in there for 4 of 'em. (Louis Wu 18:25:55 UTC) (permalink)

GTV Update
We got word from trigger119 that there's lots of new content at GamingTV.org; there's a Director's Cut of blackouTT's Hemisphere, a video called 'Snowblind' showing Halo 3 Beta gameplay from blackouTT as well, and a new section being fleshed out - Moviemaking Tutorials, where you can find tips and tricks from Halo machinima creators. Check it out! (Louis Wu 18:17:40 UTC) (permalink)

That is what I truly want to be
Paul Maestri has found a way to look on the bright side of the Spartan Laser (if you aren't holding it yourself) - made me laugh. Check out Halo Heads #59. (Louis Wu 18:08:15 UTC) (permalink)

Beta Blocker.
One of the new Matchmaking features you can experience in the Halo 3 Beta is the ability for a group to veto a map. What happens when you expand this idea? Check today's One One Se7en for an answer. (Louis Wu 15:47:54 UTC) (permalink)

FS2H Tour Video #1
Devrous has posted FS2H Tour Video #1, which (as you might expect from the name) is a tour of some of the assets in his Freespace 2 Halo mod. Looking great! (Louis Wu 15:18:19 UTC) (permalink)

Banshees... In... SPACE!
Last night, JAY132 stopped by to say he'd gotten a banshee into space. What does that mean? Well, it means Bungie bothered to make the sky above Valhalla high enough that if you actually GET there (which you're really not ever supposed to do), you can see the atmosphere fade away. Amazing. Jayshum's vid is linked here (it's on YouTube), plus there's a similar vid from Clan Hat Trick both on YouTube and in higher res on Mythica. Cool stuff! (Louis Wu 15:16:03 UTC) (permalink)

Friday's Fanfic
Busy week in the Fan Fiction section - 14 new entries. (Including a scary film script from Dave Luck.) Go read. (Louis Wu 14:57:28 UTC) (permalink)

Wait - the A10? No...
Okay, he's getting out of control - Mid7night posted a new X-Plane import... a Warthog. THAT'S NOT A PLANE! Check it out. (Louis Wu 14:37:57 UTC) (permalink)

Don't Touch A...?
HookMeUpImLocal stopped by to post the latest acronym from Bungie - this one's on the Halo 2 Vista box, and reads 'DTARAGS'. He's got some ideas about what some of the letters stand for - go see what you can add! (Louis Wu 14:30:08 UTC) (permalink)

Gravemind looks at the Beta
You might remember Gravemind - when he decides to analyze a subject, he doesn't hold back. (There was the Halo2/Halo comparison and a look at the graphical evolution of Halo, among others.) He's back - and this time, he's set his sites on the Halo 3 Beta. Read his exhaustive analysis at 1Up.com. (Louis Wu 13:34:06 UTC) (permalink)

Going Black
Marcus-626 was the first to point us to an article at Gamespot about the projected financial impact of Halo 3 on Microsoft's bottom line... Goldman-Sachs seems to be suggesting that Halo 3's earnings in the first 5 days of release should be somewhere between $170 and $220 million dollars - a 50-100% increase over what Halo 2 made in the same timeframe. Scary numbers! And it sounds like this has been the plan all along... (Louis Wu 13:13:59 UTC) (permalink)

Hot Coffee for the Master Chief
So the really big news in the Halo community this morning appeared on the Next Generation site yesterday - an email from a Microsoft representative read, in part,

It has come to our attention that an unfortunate, obscure content error which includes partial nudity was included in our initial production of "Halo 2" for Windows Vista.

They're recalling boxes already on shelves so that they can put a warning label on the outside - and they've posted a patch online that will remove the content. More details about what, exactly, the 'partial nudity' refers to are unavailable - but hotly speculated. First I heard about this was from FyreWulff, on our forum. Update: Nick has posted the 'partial nudity' that started this whole mess (confirmed by the ESRB in this GameDaily article). The image isn't particularly safe for work - but I hardly think it's worth getting this bent out of shape about, either. Maybe that's just me. (Louis Wu 12:04:22 UTC) (permalink)

News May 24 2007

In ur pockets, stealin ur lunch money
Bungie.net has a new Humpday Challenge writeup online - there aren't any custom games in the Beta, so Bungie just went into BTB Training and kicked a whole bunch of patootie. Painful destruction - almost unfair. Fun writeup, though. Thanks, mercury. (Louis Wu 23:15:12 UTC) (permalink)

Talk, talk, talk
eddie m noticed a story at halobase.de - a popular German comedian recorded 1200 lines (in 2 days) for a single marine character in Halo 3. Gonna be a lot of dialogue! (Louis Wu 18:22:39 UTC) (permalink)

Free Zune from GTR
Gamertag Radio has hit 100 episodes - and to celebrate they're giving away a free Halo 3 Zune. To win, send in an honest review of Episode 100 (yeah, you have to listen to it first), and they'll let you know the random winner is next week! (Louis Wu 17:33:26 UTC) (permalink)

H2V - info all 'round
A bit more Halo 2 Vista info: Official release date in Europe seems to be June 8, and halo2pc.org has some useful info for folks. There are directions for manually downloading the recent patch for folks who are having trouble with the auto-update, and some tips for getting a dedicated server up and running. Thanks, rapture. (Louis Wu 17:30:49 UTC) (permalink)

Around the World, Halo-Style
A roundup of Halo coverage around the net today:

• PunchJump - 'smart mayhem'
• Reuters - a console beta trend? (Thanks, JeSteR 343)
• Journal and Courier (Lafeyette, IN) - super happy awesome fun times, returned
• Star News Group - 'New Halo Glows'

Pretty positive today! (Louis Wu 17:19:02 UTC) (permalink)

News May 23 2007

Serious H2V Delay
Wow. According to Microsoft's Life Cycle Support page, Halo 2 for Windows Vista won't be available until July 4, 2007. That's a heck of a recall! Thanks, Aj Collins. Update: TheGhost writes to say that that page has been up for at least a month, and so probably has no relation at all to the current recall. He also says that folks at h2vista.net are already well along in their efforts to unlock the editing kit, and new maps are already being created. Good to hear! Update 2: We now have an official response from a Microsoft spokesperson:

"Halo 2" for Windows Vista did not release to retailers on May 22, as previously announced and will now ship from manufacturers on May 31. "Shadowrun" will be the first game to debut the highly anticipated Games for Windows - LIVE system on May 29. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers.

That's much better than July 4! (Louis Wu 21:46:03 UTC) (permalink)

GD talks to Frankie
GameDaily interviewed Frank O'Connor a little while back - nobody told us about it until today (thanks, Impervium) - mostly common-knowledge stuff about the Beta at this point, but hey - go read! (Louis Wu 21:43:10 UTC) (permalink)

Rule of 3 - Finally
w00tw00tw00t! The Rule of Three contest winners who still haven't received a beta code finally have a way to get in to the beta! Read this. (Louis Wu 17:49:55 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 At Night
Mariachi (who's clearly pushing for the Daily Postactular, but currently only has a Triple Post) has put up a couple of photoshopped images; they show off Halo 3 Beta maps... at night. First was High Ground, followed quickly by Snowbound. Personally, I'd LOVE to play on these! Update: Valhalla has been done now, too. (Louis Wu 17:43:51 UTC) (permalink)

Sorting the wheat from the chaff
Also at Bungie is a new top story - Frankie interviews Kari Erickson, Bungie's recruiter, about what it takes to get a job at the Best Microsoft Game Studio Evar. Thanks, Stuntmutt. (Louis Wu 17:28:17 UTC) (permalink)

Whaddaya wanna know?
Over at Bungie.net, a news post suggests you can submit questions to this week's Bungie Weekly Update in this forum thread. (I'm pretty sure Achronos meant 'subject', rather than 'succept' - but maybe Bungie knows more words than me.) Thanks, calmkiller. (Louis Wu 17:25:41 UTC) (permalink)

Re:Loading.
Stuntmutt looks at buttons in today's One One Se7en. I hate to say it, but I have the same problems he does. (Louis Wu 16:33:55 UTC) (permalink)

MSNBC goes Halo-crazy
Two new articles on MSN.com this morning - a listing of the top 5 games that should be movies (thanks, Mariachi), which includes Halo, of course (would we be mentioning it if it didn't?), and a beta writeup (thanks, JeSteR 343) that suggests that since everyone who's currently playing the beta is already a fan (they're mostly self-selected, after all), the overwhelming praise should be taken with a grain of salt. (Louis Wu 16:29:40 UTC) (permalink)

Strongside Gives Pointers
MLGPro.com has a new Player Commentary vid - Strongside looks at a couple of games from Charlotte - really interesting discussion. Check it out! Thanks, 3Suns. (Louis Wu 15:54:08 UTC) (permalink)

He's at it again.
Whee doggies. Jack Thompson, the self-aggrandizing lawyer bent on shutting down the violent video game industry (or at least making a decent profit off suing it) has fired his next shot across the bow of the SS Microsoft. According to GameAlmighty.com (thanks, Mariachi), Thompson has written a threatening letter to Bill Gates - 'make sure that no copies of Halo 3 [The BabyKiller™ -ed] get into the hands of minors, or "I shall proceed to make sure that Microsoft is held to that standard by appropriate legal means." I'm sure Bill's gonna get right on that. (Louis Wu 14:00:45 UTC) (permalink)

Another reason to buy a Zune
Nice... if you read the description of the new Halo 3 Zune at Gamestop, you'll see it comes preloaded with "collection of music, videos and artwork" - and the artwork is described as "Over 120 different images, including game concept art, storyboards, paintings, and conceptual marketing imagery". I guess I figured they were simply bundling up what Bungie has to offer on Bungie.net. I was wrong. Deepblue pointed out a gallery at Gizmodo that contains dozens of new pieces - concept art, poster ideas, sketches... I wish the quality were higher, but the artwork itself is amazing! (Louis Wu 13:32:26 UTC) (permalink)

Marvel Info Emerges
Two new tantalizing tidbits on the Marvel Comics website - a short summary of the second episode of Halo: Uprising (the 4-part series coming this summer), and a description of an episode of 'Marvel Spotlight' that focuses on the Halo universe. Thanks, plsh. (Louis Wu 12:29:58 UTC) (permalink)

Gamepro Weapons Showcase
Gamepro.com has put up a short vid they call a 'Weapons Showcase' - it's designed to show you some of the Halo 3 Beta guns in action. I suppose if you haven't looked at any of the OTHER beta footage that's been released... thanks, demus. (Louis Wu 12:25:30 UTC) (permalink)

News May 22 2007

H2V - Recall?
We got word from NecroDragonX, who works at a Circuit City in Pennsylvania, that his store received a recall notice for Halo 2 Vista:

Halo 2 for the PC has been recalled due to manufacturer issues with the discs, please pull all product from the shelves and send back to our claims department with your DEF'd merchandise. Thank you for your co-operation.

Apparently, this is an issue even though the street date for the game is tomorrow, because many stores have been selling it early. More on this as we learn about it... (Louis Wu 22:08:14 UTC) (permalink)

TSL Ep4 Module 6: Epilogue
This Spartan Life has posted Module 6 of Episode 4 - the Epilogue (plus end credits). 3 minutes long, a wrapup of the Mr. Poopy Doo situation. (If you don't understand - go watch.) (Louis Wu 21:40:36 UTC) (permalink)

The Tyderium Escape
Paul Maestri has updated Halo Heads - Episode 58 continues the Star Wars crossover... with a twist. Of the arm. To the face. (Louis Wu 20:08:23 UTC) (permalink)

Important Beta Maintenance
Tomorrow, Bungie's running some special error-checking stuff for a 3-hour window - they're not LOOKING for you to crash your Xbox in that timeframe, but if it DOES crash, they want you to let the data upload that follows finish. Read more details (well, clearer instructions) at Bungie.net. Thanks, calmkiller. (Louis Wu 19:53:16 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2: The Series Episode 5
Jamie98s has released Episode 5 of his machinima project 'Halo 2: The Series' - The Oracle follows the Arbiter's fight through an infested lab and beyond, on his quest for the Heretic. I think Jamie98s has done a great job with the overall atmosphere of the levels; he's captured the suspense and fear very well (in some places, better than the game itself). This segment is 15 minutes long, and weighs in at a bit over 135 mb, in either WMP9 or QuickTime formats - grab a copy and watch! Update: mirrored now at GamingTV.org - thanks, trigger119. (Louis Wu 19:31:54 UTC) (permalink)

The Fine Line
Over at Rampancy.net, Narcogen has written up an article that looks at the weapon spawning mechanism of Halo and Halo 2, and discusses the differences between 'fair' and 'fun'. Great read! (Louis Wu 19:30:58 UTC) (permalink)

More Hands-on stuff
Rampancy.net found another couple of Beta articles. (I like the headline.) They've also got their OWN 'quick report'. (Louis Wu 15:51:13 UTC) (permalink)

TTLT
Tied the Leader has new content (thanks, XerxdeeJ) - there's an article from last week, lamenting the end of the Friends & Family 'exclusive' period (don't hate deeJ too much, folks, he just misses the cameraderie), there's a 'Map Feedback' article looking at High Ground, and there's a call for actual beta feedback (with some pretty funny examples explaining why). What are you waiting for? (Louis Wu 15:18:46 UTC) (permalink)

Angry Robot Goes Halo 3-Crazy
Rock Opera Jr let us know that his blog, Angry Robot, has quite a bit of Halo 3 content. He's right, there are a bunch of articles and a podcast. Go check 'em out! (Louis Wu 15:01:38 UTC) (permalink)

Profitable, But Not Transformational
An article at Seeking Alpha suggests that Halo 3 will not make a huge difference in Microsoft's standings in the console wars, because 1) it's an M-rated game (meaning it won't appeal to everyone), and 2) the 360 installed base is only 10 million units. Interesting to see whether time proves them right... (Louis Wu 14:59:23 UTC) (permalink)

MLG Meadowlands Pro Roster
MLG has posted the final team rosters for the Meadowlands event, coming up in early June. Those top teams are still doing some rearranging... thanks, 3Suns. (Louis Wu 14:42:22 UTC) (permalink)

Podtacular 114
Podtacular Episode 114 is up - 1:15, 63 mb. Guest this week is Talli, from the Cayote Gavegirls (and Gamerchix). Go listen! Thanks, Big Goalie Dan. (Louis Wu 13:44:30 UTC) (permalink)

Handmade Medals
Wayward Spleen™ has been working at reproducing the Halo 3 medals in high-res - you can find a few in this post, and a few more here. Nice work! (Louis Wu 13:33:48 UTC) (permalink)

Tuning Lightmaps for Gameplay
D. Scott Brown wrote up an interesting article about tuning lightmaps to improve gameplay. Examples from Halo 3, Halo 2, and Gears of War are included. If you're not interested in the stuff behind the magic of what you see onscreen, this won't be for you... but I found it an intriguing read. (Pretty pictures, even.) (Louis Wu 13:31:36 UTC) (permalink)

StatsReloaded - Reloaded
We got word that Statsreloaded.com has been completely overhauled - lots of new features, more capacity, with Halo 3 Beta stats coming in the next few days. Give it a look-see! (Louis Wu 13:23:02 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Vista Achievement Guide
Grunts'R'Us has posted a full Achievement listing for Halo 2 Vista, complete with pictures and discussions about how to best access these. (We mentioned a couple of these last month - but the first was text only, and the second had smaller pictures, and no comments.) Thanks, oriol. (Louis Wu 13:19:22 UTC) (permalink)

Location, Location, Location
CinemaBlend has an article looking at the three maps in the beta, and discussing what works (and what doesn't) on each of them. (Louis Wu 13:13:38 UTC) (permalink)

Longsword for X-Plane - Released
Mid7night has released his Longsword model for X-Plane - if you have the program, you no longer need to look at his pretty pictures, you can download the model and play with it yourself. Nice! (Louis Wu 13:08:21 UTC) (permalink)

Wow, those would be fun.
Karol117 pointed out a Polish website with pictures of a Halo 3 marketing campaign I've never seen before... (text is in Polish, obviously, but the pictures speak for themselves.) (Louis Wu 13:06:15 UTC) (permalink)

News May 21 2007

Needleshock
Mister Froggy sent word that Halo, Articulated #41 is online - it's a look at the new Halo 3 Needler. I think a lot of us have felt this way. (Louis Wu 23:24:12 UTC) (permalink)

And... they're out.
Wow, that was fast. Over at High Impact Halo, there's already a video of some folks exploring Valhalla in a Banshee... OUTSIDE THE MAP. Looks like some texturing still needs to be done... (Louis Wu 22:13:18 UTC) (permalink)

Guess who's back...?
Check out Tina Leyk's Halo Fan Art gallery - the top two pics are new. (Well, I'm embarrassed to say that the second image was posted at DeviantART back in December, but I didn't notice.) Mombassa Sandstorm was created for her brother several months ago, and Infiltration was just finished yesterday. Wow, I'd forgotten how much I missed her work... (Louis Wu 21:37:05 UTC) (permalink)

Banshees Are Back
The Halo 3 Beta Matchmaking Playlist has been updated - Team Training has been swapped out for Big Team Battle Training (6v6, no Snowbound), and Team Skirmish has been tweaked. More details at Bungie.net. Thanks, Mike Scott. (Louis Wu 21:09:45 UTC) (permalink)

Monday Movie Playlists
trigger119 has started up 'Monday Movie Playlists' at GamingTV.org - random movie playlists, that you can contribute to. Read the details in this forum post, then check out the first list. (Louis Wu 20:55:59 UTC) (permalink)

High Plains Goodies
Ooh, cool - CertainAffinity.net scored 5 new pieces of Tombstone concept art. Check 'em out! Thanks, Ducain. (Louis Wu 17:05:41 UTC) (permalink)

Missile Toe.
Stuntmutt decided to take a look at some of the new features of the Halo 3 Beta this week - he's starting big. Check today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:00:32 UTC) (permalink)

Seeker, Now Betterer
You might or might not have noticed the Seeker search box on the right side of our home page - as we mentioned last week, Deimos has resurrected this multi-site search tool over at Subnova, and it covers enough Halo content that it's worth giving you easy access to right here. It leverages Google's massive search capabilities to look through a number of Halo sites (the list of sites covered has grown, check the About page for latest details), and should help tremendously in narrowing down what you're looking for. And you can use it to search just HBO (all sections, including our forum) - while we offer search functionality in a lot of places, they're not linked, so you won't find hits in, say, the News database and the Wallpaper database without doing searches in both places, using our local search. (The other side of the coin is that the newest content might not be indexed by Google yet, but will ALWAYS be indexed here - so we'll keep offering both options.) Give it a try! (Louis Wu 15:31:39 UTC) (permalink)

Blood Horizon
It's been a little while since we've heard new music from Mothergoat - but the Halo 3 Beta has inspired him, and this morning he released 'Blood Horizon', a hard-rockin' paean to the Master Chief's fight against the Covenant. 4.6 mb, mp3 format, available from his site or ours. (Both links, plus lyrics, are in the forum post.) And there's another one coming later this week... (Louis Wu 14:59:47 UTC) (permalink)

Screenshot Mania
rapture has taken about 200 screenshots of Halo 2 Vista (originally 1600x1050, but Flickr went and crushed 'em down to 1600x1000) - you can get a pretty good sense for how the graphics look, compared to the Xbox version. Check it out! (Louis Wu 14:46:16 UTC) (permalink)

Get a WHAT?
Davis Beutler was watching an Australian show called 'Rove Live' (a hosted variety show, similar to The Tonight Show in the US), and noticed a news tidbit about the Halo 3 beta. I grabbed a clip of the relevant snippet - but if you like it, follow his link for more. (Louis Wu 14:36:35 UTC) (permalink)

Gaming Abstinance
Ross Mills noticed a Halo 3 Beta reference in a recent F@NBOY$ Mini comic. Definitely random... (Louis Wu 14:32:54 UTC) (permalink)

AMC Winners Announced
A bit over a month ago, we mentioned the Affinity Machinima Challenge, a contest put on by the HaloGrid crew. Well, this morning HaloGrid announced the winners in all three categories (seems like the Montage category got dropped) - and impressively, SodaGod, of Machine Enema, took first place in all three categories! (We've already discussed two of his entries - Omicron won for 'Action', and Bad Soda won for 'Comedy' - add to that 'Hush Little Baby' as a (disturbing but also compelling) music vid, and he's got a clean sweep. The second place finishers (Drunken Dog's 'Staring at the Sun' for music, GeneticSpartan's 'Evil Lair Commercial' for comedy, and blackouTT's 'Hemisphere' for action) were also quite good - swing by the announcement thread and download 'em all! Thanks, imSuck. (Louis Wu 14:26:08 UTC) (permalink)

Press Roundup
A few new Halo 3 Beta Impressions articles out now - Gamespy, Game Feed, Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows (heh - gettin' in on the console action, I guess). The beta's certainly picking up its share of press... Update: Here's one more, pretty extensive, from Ciarán Walsh (from our forum). Update 2: And another one, from GameDaily. (Louis Wu 14:06:39 UTC) (permalink)

Warthog Hell
Obienator put together a great vid from a game he played recently - he calls it a 'big slice of humble pie', but I call it a lot of fun. His forum post contains a YouTube link, for those wanting a quick-and-dirty view - but there are also, now, downloadable versions (856x480, a bit over 50 mb each) for those who want to watch the pwnage in high-res glory. Wait for the ending - it's priceless. (Louis Wu 13:23:58 UTC) (permalink)

News May 20 2007

Third egg on High Ground
This has come up a whole bunch of times in our forum (and, apparently, even earlier on Bungie.net's forum - thanks, Sain7) - Ibeechu finally got us a recording. From the radio that sits next to the console that has the Morse Code and Cortana's scaryface you can hear a clip from 'Under Cover of Night', from the Original Halo Soundtrack. Nice! (MP3 format, 840k) Explanation for additional sounds are in Ibeechu's forum post. (Louis Wu 20:26:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo-themed Gaming PC
A-Power Gaming is manufacturing a Halo-themed PC, which comes with Halo 2 Vista and Vista Ultimate, all for CAD $1659. Take a look. Thanks, Engadget. (Louis Wu 16:22:05 UTC) (permalink)

New goodies at the Bungie Store
There are a few new items at the Bungie Store right now - a new Halo 3 pen (thanks, x1zero), and the Halo 3 Beta shirt distributed at the recent Halo 3 press event (in both Charcoal and Brown - thanks, darthbob). (Louis Wu 16:19:48 UTC) (permalink)

Rooster Teeth Guitar
GamerX5000 spent a little time customizing his Guitar Hero II controller - nice work! (Louis Wu 16:14:52 UTC) (permalink)

I think you've played with him.
Mintz is angry at a recent Extra Life comic - he says that they portrayed him without a shirt, when in fact he nearly always wears one while playing. (Louis Wu 14:01:36 UTC) (permalink)

Time to Kill
halwiki.net is converting over to Halo 3 (seems a little early, but...) They're currently building a 'Time to Kill' chart, looking at each of the weapons in the Halo 3 Beta. If you'd like to help, swing by and see what they need! (Louis Wu 13:58:51 UTC) (permalink)

Old Friends, Improved
CinemaBlend took a run at a few new gametypes in the Halo 3 Beta - and loved 'em. Go read why. (Louis Wu 13:56:46 UTC) (permalink)

The good and the bad of progress
PC Authority looked at Halo 2 Vista; they're unhappy with the general trend towards console games, but they still had a few good things to say about H2V. (Louis Wu 13:43:43 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Leather
Another company's getting into the Halo merchandising game - by August 15, you should be able to buy Halo 3-branded leather items made by Enmon Accessories - ranging from a $10 belt to a $300 set of luggage. Hmm... (Louis Wu 13:41:35 UTC) (permalink)

H2V - on (some) shelves now
rapture was able to get his hands on Halo 2 Vista last night - it was sitting on a shelf in his local Circuit City. Check it out. (He was also kind enough to send along a copy of the Halo 2 Vista manual - sometimes these are hard to find down the road, when you just need to know that one little thing. You can download it here (20.3 mb).) (Louis Wu 13:38:47 UTC) (permalink)

News May 19 2007

Of Leaks, and Such
The last few days have seen many, many reports around the net of information gleaned from the source files of the Halo 3 Beta; for the most part, we've stayed away from this information. If you want it - it's certainly out there. We're just not going to help you find it. I ran across this blog entry from Nick, at HaloDev, today - it does a pretty good job of explaining why. (I think I'd probably have taken a tone that was slightly less authoritarian - but remember that Nick comes from the community he's writing about, and he's pretty disappointed with their lack of self-control. The arguments laid down are quite solid.) (Louis Wu 22:17:14 UTC) (permalink)

Unforgotten - performed live
WhiteRaven performed the piano solo from Unforgotten, off the Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Volume Two, for a school induction ceremony a couple of weeks ago - he did a fantastic job, and today, he's reposted the audio and a video. (Transcription is his own - midi coming soon.) Go listen! (Louis Wu 22:03:56 UTC) (permalink)

Oh So Betaful
trigger119 pointed out a new movie he's hosting at GamingTV.org - it was created by ClearviewPro, and follows the pattern of Jamie98s' 'Oh So Beautiful' series... except with the Halo 3 Beta. That is - he's collected a bunch of footage of cool tidbits you can find around the new maps - pretty scenery, really detailed props - and set it to a Jack Johnson song. pretty nice! (Maybe the next one will lose the zoom bar on the left...) Go grab it in WMP9 or QuickTime formats. (Louis Wu 21:43:25 UTC) (permalink)

B Sik's Retrospect
Z sent us a link to a Halo 1 montage from B Sik - it's called 'Retrospect', and it's just loaded with nostalgia. WMP9 format, 90 mb, worth every byte. Take a break from Halo 2 and Halo 3, and check this puppy out! (Louis Wu 14:10:15 UTC) (permalink)

Scary Cortana
Another cool little egg on High Ground - this one has been mentioned before, but it took Foxcross and Ibeechu to get a film out to you guys. That same computer console that plays Morse Code also has some video footage... and if you don't blink, you get a nice look at a pretty scary Cortana. Hmm... (Louis Wu 14:08:11 UTC) (permalink)

Project Bob Teaser
Laird (who's likely enjoying CanWest right now, with a lot of other RvB fans) sent along a link to a teaser for Project Bob. Your guess is as good as mine what 'Bob' is... but the teaser looks great! Update: We got mail from Alexander Winn, of Edgeworks Entertainment, pointing out that several of the shots in this trailer came directly from Episode 7 of the Heretic. We haven't heard from Laird yet - but when we know what's' going on, we'll certainly post it here. (Edgeworks is as suprised as we are.) Update 2: Turns out there were some misunderstandings about the clips used - Laird has asked us to pull the link for the trailer. This was confusion, not an attempt at plagiarism. (Louis Wu 14:06:00 UTC) (permalink)

Crazy
Sane Intolerant pointed out a pair of Halo Toy Box comics - Beta Crazy and Crazy Beta. Guess he's had a crazy week. (Louis Wu 14:02:56 UTC) (permalink)

Like a Virgin
There's another Halo 3 Beta first impressions article at Ars Technica. (Louis Wu 13:47:19 UTC) (permalink)

More ranks and medals guides
oriol003 has gotten into the ranks and medals game - at Grunts'R'Us there are pages for Halo 3 Beta ranks and medals. That's the third set I know about... (Louis Wu 06:14:51 UTC) (permalink)

An Awkward Moment
Oh, the dangers of changing your settings... check out Halo, Articulated #40. Thanks, Mister Froggy. (Louis Wu 06:12:27 UTC) (permalink)

The Heretic Ep 7 - Children of the Ark
Edgeworks Entertainment has posted the finale of their machinima series, 'The Heretic' - a massive 23 minute piece that wraps up a great storyline. (Well, SORT of wraps it up - there's some nice setup for future work here.) Beautiful CG footage, awesome battle scenes, satisfying emotional manipulation. Go watch this! Thanks, Chester the Destroyer. Update: There's a blooper reel, too - thanks, CtD. (Louis Wu 05:54:49 UTC) (permalink)

You gotta love drive-thru liquor stores.
CertainAffinity.net wrote up a bunch of great questions (and some silly ones) for Shishka, over at Certain Affinity - more than a couple are Halo-related, and even if they weren't, they're good readin' - so go read. Thanks, Ducain. (And Shishka - those guys are better than me.) (Louis Wu 05:18:43 UTC) (permalink)

Beta Impressions
Major Silva wrote up his impressions of the beta over at UNSCDF, then told us about it. (Louis Wu 05:12:38 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: Uprising Interview
Wolverine Monkey noticed a cool interview with some of the team behind the upcoming Marvel Halo comic - go read for details... well, not really, but there's still some good stuff. (Louis Wu 05:09:42 UTC) (permalink)

What's Next?
Wow. This sort of disturbs me. When nerd goes chic... (Louis Wu 05:05:14 UTC) (permalink)

News May 18 2007

Das Hasselhof HeiseMusischeundknightrideren palazenplatz
The Bungie Weekly Update is up very early this week - mostly because Frankie is in Europe, where it's later now. So for him, it's the same. Or something. Anyway, go read it. Beta stuff (yeah, they're sorry), a huge discussion about game ratings in Germany (and fun facts about Berlin), and Banhammer stuff. Good reading! (Luke needs to work on his Mister Chief. I realize Frankie's standards weren't very high, but...) You can, of course, read it in our Weekly Update Archive. (Louis Wu 18:43:48 UTC) (permalink)

Beta Blues
Funny Beta-related cartoon at Red vs Blue today... (Louis Wu 18:27:31 UTC) (permalink)

Not All It Was Cracked Down To Be.
Trust Stuntmutt to find humor in a miserable situation - check today's One One Se7en. ...wait, WHAT? Scratch that 'humor' part... (Louis Wu 16:39:43 UTC) (permalink)

Win a free copy of Halo 3 at Machinima.com
Adam Kovic, from Machinima.com, sent word of a new contest - grand prize is a Halo 3 Legendary Edition, plus an accessory of your choice. (There are two other prizes as well, containing the other two versions of Halo 3.) You've got until June 16 to submit a video of yourself 'doing anything in Halo 3'. Winners will be decided by user voting. Go read about it! (Louis Wu 14:34:18 UTC) (permalink)

H2 Vista available in AU - now
Over at h2vista.net, there's news that Halo 2 Vista has been released in Australia (a bit ahead of the revised schedule) - and that there are indications that the map tools work under Windows XP. (Not the game itself - just the tools. Still - that's great news for folks who find Vista to be slow.) Thanks, TheGhost. (Louis Wu 14:29:29 UTC) (permalink)

Simulated Pelican
We've mentioned Halo-related content for Microsoft Flight Sim before (here, and here) - now Bobflop points out a Pelican addon at Simviation. Take a look! (Louis Wu 14:12:41 UTC) (permalink)

FS2H is back
Devrous had some hard drive problems recently - but he's back now, with new content for his Freespace 2 to Halo conversion. Check out his forum post for pictures and movies! (Louis Wu 14:09:28 UTC) (permalink)

Kotaku shirt giveaway - details
A few days ago, we mentioned some Halo 3 Beta shirts that Kotaku was planning to give away - they've decided how, now. Dress up as the Master Chief, take a picture of yourself, and send it in - best couple of pics win, I guess. You've got until June 1. Thanks again, madcowjim. (Louis Wu 13:52:46 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper - sort of
This is pretty strange... Gamespot has bundled up 25 Halo 2 desktops created by Bungie (and served from Bungie.net) and made them available for download - to Gamespot members. (Again - these are all available at Bungie.net - in many more resolutions than can be found in this pack - and have been for years.) Maybe they're just looking for traffic? ...nah, that couldn't be it. (Louis Wu 13:49:15 UTC) (permalink)

Friday's Fanfic
Ten new pieces available in the Fan Fiction section this week - go read! (Louis Wu 13:42:09 UTC) (permalink)

Beta bliss
Geek.com has a review of the Halo 3 Beta. (Louis Wu 13:20:43 UTC) (permalink)

Ooh... Build-A-Bear.
Here's someone who thinks 'Limited Editions' are silly. Do you agree? (Louis Wu 12:58:58 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Graphics Tour
Gamespot put up a feature entitled 'Halo 3 Graphics Tour' - it contains 3 pages of screenshots from Halo 2 and Halo 3 (mouse over the pics to see the Halo 3 versions). I think they could have done a better job of picking screens that matched each other, to better compare the differences... but it's still pretty clear that Halo 3 has gotten one heck of a nice paint job. Thanks to Milhouse for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:52:25 UTC) (permalink)

Spoons
Heh - Yesterday, VG Cats put up a Halo-related strip... this is definitely one of the biggest problems with the Mongoose, just ask Joe Staten and KP. Thanks to Pak in the #hbo IRC channel for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:34:36 UTC) (permalink)

When he's done, I'm taping up my head.
You might remember, a bit over a year ago, gunluva posted some pics of some Halo weapons he'd created from cardboard and duct tape. Well, he's back, with a Spartan Laser, a sniper rifle, some ARs, and a BR. Check it out! (Louis Wu 12:29:59 UTC) (permalink)

Rule of 3 Fiasco - Update
Wow. For all the people who said that Bungie doesn't care... you guys can pull your feet out of your mouths now. Microsoft screwed up AGAIN - and for some reason, the 3pm remailing of the 'Rule of 3' codes never actually happened. Rather than letting their fans continue to swing in the wind, SketchFactor posted a couple of notes in the Bungie.net forums, telling people to mail in their requests. Those guys are handling these requests personally - in the middle of a public beta, 4 months before they have to ship the biggest product they've ever made. THAT'S fan support. Update: we're pulling the email address for now; Bungie is totally and utterly swamped, and they couldn't get to you before tomorrow even if you DID send a note in. Please be patient - we'll repost the info tomorrow, when they've got folks who can help get responses out. (They're hundreds of emails in the hole right now - they've done what they can, but if they don't go home soon, they're going to keel over.) (Louis Wu 02:16:51 UTC) (permalink)

News May 17 2007

If you mod... beware.
Not much else to say. (Louis Wu 22:37:51 UTC) (permalink)

Rule of 3 - Update
Over at Bungie.net, there's an update for the 'Rule of 3' contestant winners - Microsoft plans to resend ALL codes one more time, this afternoon at 3PM PDT. (That's in just over 2 hours, at the time of this writing.) MAKE SURE you're not blocking mail from halo3beta{at}microsoft.com, if you're expecting this message. Thanks, Sketch! (Louis Wu 19:50:41 UTC) (permalink)

Another Beta Egg - Solved (mostly)
A few days ago, Anton P. Nym noticed that one of the computers in the small room behind the flag on High Ground was emitting Morse Code - it took a little while for a recording to be made, but today, Cocopjojo uploaded one, and in short order Ducain translated the messages. Two famous Bungie slogans, and what looks to be an acronym... a very cool little egg! (If you have any suggestions for the acronym, be sure to send 'em in!) Update: the acronym has been reinterpreted - it's actually the same acronym that can be found on the Halo Soundtrack. Thanks, Ibeechu! Update 2: A little bird suggested I check out this interview from 2001; John Howard and Joe Staten talked to IGN about the upcoming (at that time) Halo. (We originally mentioned this article here.) Digging through it, you'll notice a phrase, supposedly favored by Marty O'Donnell, which bears a striking resemblance to the acronym discussed here. Shame on us (the whole Halo community) for missing it at the time! (Louis Wu 19:04:10 UTC) (permalink)

Rule of 3 Woes
We've received a number of emails from folks who won entrance to the Beta via the 'Rule of 3' contest last December, but haven't yet gotten their invite - and I can only imagine that Bungie has received orders of magnitude more. It truly does suck to have won a slot into the beta this way and then not be able to use it... but I'd ask all involved to stay calm and try to work out the problems. I wrote up a forum post explaining some of the issues; give it a read. (Louis Wu 15:08:51 UTC) (permalink)

Bungalo Blues - the Beginning
Second Foundation, the guys behind the Riot podcast, are kicking off a new project soon - Macro-Syllabic is creating an 'audio play' (think I Love Bees style) called 'Bungalo Blues'. It's not out yet (they're not really foolish enough to try and compete with the Halo 3 Beta right now), but they've got an info page up, so you can see what's coming, and who's involved. Their writer is well-known around here - which may or may not bode well for the final product. Thanks to Cyclone Ranger for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 14:14:43 UTC) (permalink)

The Paper Spartan Army Grows
Nomi's been pretty busy recently; if you check out her Paper Spartans page, you'll find a number of new spartans (scroll to the bottom), as well as a cool reproduction of the UNSC logo. (It's hard to tell from that photo, but it's made the same way the paper spartans are - with layers of construction paper.) (Louis Wu 14:06:25 UTC) (permalink)

Halo-wood... gah.
Dry Ice, our reporter on the ground in Hollywood (heh), found a writeup of the Hollywood press event on Xbox.com - complete with video footage. Get a look at the place, the people, and watch an interview with Joe 'New0001' Tung, Halo 3's Multiplayer Producer (and notorious sniper whore). (Louis Wu 13:59:05 UTC) (permalink)

Bobbing for Stories
Shishka is a name that is familiar to most long-time Bungie fans; he's been around for quite some time. He went from fanboi to Bungie employee to one of the first members of the Certain Affinity team - and you can read about that path in his new blog at 1Up. If you're a Halo fan, you've seen a lot of his work - now go learn about the man! Thanks to Ducain, at CertainAffinity.net, for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 13:54:10 UTC) (permalink)

Soup To Nuts, from Sketch
Game Informer talked to Brian Jarrard recently about the beta - go read the interview. (He mentions numbers in the interview; he says "I wouldn't be surprised if a couple hundred thousand people log in and try the beta at some point in time." According to Bungie.net right now, there have been 246,940 Halo 3 players in the last 24 hours - and remember, the Crackdown problem wasn't fixed until about 10 pm EST last night (on a weekday) - 3 AM on the other side of the Atlantic!) It's a good read, for some of the thinking that goes on behind the scenes - it's quite extensive, check it out! (Louis Wu 13:40:18 UTC) (permalink)

OMG EMO
Yesterday was not the Halo community's finest hour - anywhere you went, you found people frothing about the Crackdown/Halo 3 Beta issue, and while there were a number of cool voices counseling calm, there were many, many more strident ones, screaming for somebody's - ANYBODY'S - head. (We received actual death threats here at HBO. As though 1) we had ANYTHING at all to do with the problem, and 2) threatening to kill us would help the problem go away...) There wasn't all that much to be lighthearted about - but I ran across this story at Joystiq that helped a lot. Go read it - and laugh. (Louis Wu 13:03:40 UTC) (permalink)

Seeker Returns
Deimos, over at Subnova, has resurrected Seeker, the Halo search engine. This time, he's let Google do the heavy lifting - they're pretty good at that stuff. This puppy will search, in one fell swoop, a whole bunch of Halo websites (the current list is HaloGrid, High Impact Halo, HBO, Subnova, and Rampancy, but if you think your site should be there, check the About page for info on adding it). Give it a try! (Louis Wu 12:54:33 UTC) (permalink)

Hello Needler, My Old Friend
BitMaP stopped by with a new episode of Strouperman - it takes a look at one of my new favorite weapons. And takes a shot at the stick-in-the-muds. (Louis Wu 12:49:52 UTC) (permalink)

MLG's All Over the Beta
MLG has taken a look at many, many individual pieces of the Halo 3 Beta; each piece gets its own review. Swing by their news page for coverage of everything from maps to equipment. (Thanks, 3Suns.) While you're there, there are a pair of interviews, conducted last Friday at the press event in New York - one with Harold Ryan, Bungie's Studio Manager, the other with Frankie. Thanks to Ryan Thompson for the links. (Louis Wu 12:11:22 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Wars - Still Coming
In the midst of all the Halo 3 Beta insanity, Ensemble decided to post a Halo Wars update on their forum - this one discusses playtesting, and the progress of the game's visuals. Thanks, Littlebigman. (Louis Wu 12:04:16 UTC) (permalink)

Light Fuse, Run Away
Sketch has updated the Bnet news post, explaining that the Crackdown issues have been resolved. There will be a quick title update to Crackdown for you to download, which will enable the Halo 3 beta download therein. Furthermore, as a consolation, Bungie has extended the duration of the beta four days, from June 6th to June 10th. Major kudos to the folks at Bungie and Microsoft who went into overdrive to resolve the problem and push the solution to us so quickly. (KP 02:27:15 UTC) (permalink)

News May 16 2007

You'd have thought it was CRACK.
Today's been pretty unpleasant for anyone waiting to get into the Halo 3 Beta with a copy of Crackdown - but there's light at the end of the tunnel. Frankie has posted an update on Bungie.net - the problem "will be resolved shortly". When there's more info, we'll let you know. Hang tight - and try not to let your blood pressure rise too high! (Louis Wu 23:11:53 UTC) (permalink)

Haloid - How-To, and Why
You might remember Monty Oum - he's the guy who created Haloid (which has been served up 1.8 million times from GameTrailers - and which you can download, in high-res splendor, from us... something more than 20,000 of you have already done). Well, GameTrailers sat down with him to talk about Haloid - it's an interesting video interview. And if you want to see how he did what he did... there are a series of 'Haloid Deconstruction' vids which are pretty fascinating, even for a non-modeler like me. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Go watch! (Louis Wu 22:35:25 UTC) (permalink)

Jim Beam
Today's Penny Arcade takes a look at the Spartan Laser and the potential for, er... unintended consequences one might find. Tycho also continues with his impressions of the Beta that he began Monday on their news page. Check it out! (mnemesis 18:20:47 UTC) (permalink)

In This Frame.
I think Stuntmutt misunderstood those cool wireframes Bungie's been putting up... check today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:31:56 UTC) (permalink)

Photos from LA
Major Nelson (whose site has been crushed by angry Crackdown owners looking to berate someone for not being able to play right now) has posted, on Flickr, some photos of the Halo 3 Beta Event that took place in Hollywood last night. Mountain Dew Halo Fuel, Legendary helmets, a Halo 3 Zune, and cool scenery. (We were as amused by the game-specific info signs as he was - here's Mig, standing next to the Restrooms sign in New York last Friday.) Thanks to Dry Ice for the heads-up. Update: Dry Ice found another collection - this time from Gamerscoreblog. Nice! (Louis Wu 15:34:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 - coming to XP
Wow, here's some interesting news... Falling Leaf Systems has announced that they will be providing compatibility software that will allow Halo 2, an exclusive Vista title, to run on Windows XP. If you order Halo 2 through their site, you'll get the compatibility libraries FREE when they're released (current estimate is July). Not sure how they plan to make any money... but this seems like a pretty cool thing for folks who'd love to play Halo 2, but can't justify the shift to Vista right now. (Louis Wu 14:25:33 UTC) (permalink)

StickyCannon - Now Local
A couple of days ago, we mentioned a YouTube vid showing a funny Halo moment (lots of things will fly through a Mancannon, but few of us realized that plasma grenades were on that list). YouTube is great, and all, but I'm still nervous that if I come back in 6 months or a year, that I'll be able to find a vid I liked... so we contacted SG Noodles (he goes by RoundeyeSamurai on Bungie.net), the creator of the vid, and got a downloadable copy from him. You can grab this from us - it's 1.7 mb, in either WMP9 format or QuickTime format. it's a really cool little clip - I wanted to make sure it was archived, and now it is. (Louis Wu 14:18:30 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Zune Preorders - up now
sorahn points out that you can order a Zune Halo 3 Edition now from Gamestop - delivery will start on June 15. (Hey, they gotta sell those things SOMEHOW, right?) (Louis Wu 14:08:49 UTC) (permalink)

Crackdown owners - it's coming. Really.
As many, many people have noticed, there's some sort of problem with the Crackdown method of downloading the Halo 3 Beta. Bungie knows about it - there's a short note on the Bungie.net front page. Please - be patient, things WILL work out in the end. (Louis Wu 13:50:37 UTC) (permalink)

Interviews in Machinima - imSuck
Over at GamingTV.org, you can read an interview with imSuck, of HaloGrid.com. Go see what drives him! (Louis Wu 13:10:59 UTC) (permalink)

Audible
It sure ain't music to Tim's ears... check out today's Ctrl+Alt+Del. (Louis Wu 13:00:27 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Release Date Set
Looks like Kotaku was right - Halo 3 will be released on September 25, 2007. Newsflash can be found on Xbox.com. Bungie's take - an interview with Executive Producer Jonty Barnes. (Europe gets the game one day later than the US - hey, that's WAY better than in the past!) (Louis Wu 04:05:28 UTC) (permalink)

Get to reading, you!
Previews of the beta at andPOP and Xbox.com (thanks, Spec Ops Assault), interviews with Shane Kim (thanks, madcowjim) and Lars Bakken - it's a busy night for Halo 3 news. (Louis Wu 03:45:18 UTC) (permalink)

The Joy of Losing
MTV has an article on what Bungie could do to make the game more fun for losers. Thanks, 3Suns. (Louis Wu 03:36:36 UTC) (permalink)

Beta Complex
There's a hilarious new Red vs Blue PSA either on the RvB website or (in much prettier resolution) on the Xbox Live Marketplace - it's called 'beta complex', and it should give you an idea of what to expect in the beta. Well, if you're like the RvB guys, that is. Great stuff! Thanks, SPARTAN-137. (Louis Wu 03:29:24 UTC) (permalink)

Kotaku says September 25
Okay, we don't usually post rumors - but this one might be solid. Kotaku is running a story that the Halo 3 release date will be announced soon - and that, in fact, they have that date already. They're calling September 25 (which would mean that Nevan has won Simpsons Rule's Guess the Release Date contest - but don't get your hopes up TOO high yet, Nevan). When we have confirmation (for or against) this rumor, we'll put it right up. Bungie said 'Fall 2007' - this date makes it into that category - by 4 days. Hmmm... (Louis Wu 02:50:13 UTC) (permalink)

News May 15 2007

Welcome to the Beta
In preparation for tomorrow's official Halo 3 Beta kickoff (for the vast majority of participants, rather than the small group that's been playing for the past few days), Bungie has put up a comprehensive guide to the Beta - check it out for details about everything from networking to controls. Go give it a read! (Louis Wu 21:16:26 UTC) (permalink)

Beta Updated
Bungie has updated the beta, to allow for easier future updates. The biggest change - existing saved films won't work any more. Sorry! (Louis Wu 19:28:21 UTC) (permalink)

[T]rickity Trick Four
Heh - cool. goatrope stopped by our forum to point out a new vid - [T]rickity Trick Four. Lots of jumping, a cool film glitch, and a hilarious use of a Bubble Shield on Snowbound - take a look! DivX format, 66 mb, hosted by Mythica. Update: some folks were having trouble with the encoding on that original release; there are now options. There's a YouTube version, there's an MLG-hosted embedded version in this post by synide, and we're hosting a QuickTime version. Watch it how you want. (Louis Wu 18:42:14 UTC) (permalink)

A foot wide and a mile deep
Ars Technica has an article entitled 'Why can't I win a round?' - it's a good read. Halo 3 beta impressions from someone who wishes he were better... (Louis Wu 17:43:41 UTC) (permalink)

Medals, Medals, and More Medals
Wayward Spleen™ has started to model the Halo 3 medals, in high resolution; you might remember that he did this for Halo 2, back in the day, as well. sorahn is doing a great job of keeping track of the known medals at this stage, and Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, is doing the same - and now we'll have nice, hi-res versions as well! (sorahn, by the way, asks that if you've gotten the 'Hail to the King' medal (5 kills from the hill without dying), you send him a game link, so that he can add the medal to his page.) (Louis Wu 17:10:48 UTC) (permalink)

Tied the Leader Tuesday
Tied the Leader has a bunch of new content for you (kudos, as always, to XerxdeeJ, for allowing us to be lazy and click through from our own forum) - the standard features, a 22 Questions interview with Chris Paladino, of GamerScoreBlog, and a Community Profile of a group called Game Almighty, along with beta-related stuff. There's a tester poll, looking for your beta impressions, and a summary of the New York press event, with a podcast and cool pictures. (A hearty thanks goes out to XerxdeeJ, for leaving out the recording he made of me sounding like a total jerk.) (Louis Wu 13:47:34 UTC) (permalink)

Harenil's first Halo 3 Beta Montage
Z pointed out a nice montage of Halo 3 Beta footage at halo3forum.com - 83.3 mb, WMP9 format. Gameplay from Harenil. (Louis Wu 13:38:12 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Beta review from old guys
2old2play has a review of the beta, as well. Hefty. Thanks, Sunburned Goose. (Louis Wu 13:34:34 UTC) (permalink)

MLG Content Bonanza
New MLG stuff: plasma pistol review, the lengths people go to for the beta, TSquared looks at his life, video commentary from Fonzi, and the Top 10 moments of 2006. Should be SOMETHING to read or watch in there... thanks, 3Suns. (Louis Wu 13:32:39 UTC) (permalink)

Great Beta Moments
Neo-genesis pointed out a really funny Youtube clip - I never realized you could do that with a mancannon! (While we're pointing out funny clips, BOLL posted one a couple of days ago...) (Louis Wu 13:24:29 UTC) (permalink)

Beta press continues
Stuff.co.nz has its own beta impressions - go read. (Louis Wu 12:57:07 UTC) (permalink)

News May 14 2007

Halomega Weekly Update
F1rsTxLas7 sent us an update from Halomega - there's a beta gameplay vid from Valhalla, a minitage from Rektangle, a celebration of their first anniversary, and more. Go check 'em out! (Louis Wu 21:12:04 UTC) (permalink)

A Harvest Sown In Strip #27.
Last week, some details about the next Halo novel were released - Stuntmutt realized that a few things were finally made clear, as explained in today's One One Se7en. (To save you some clicking, strip #27 is here.) (Louis Wu 20:09:44 UTC) (permalink)

Movies, movies, movies
trigger119 stopped by with lots and lots of movie links to be found at GamingTV.org - drama, gameplay, music vids... go see what's what. (Because we've hosted mirrors of all the other episodes, we're putting up mirrors of Episode 4 of Jamie98s' 'Halo 2: The Series' - this one is 'The Arbiter', and covers The Arbiter and Oracle. It's available in its original WMP9 format (77.3 mb), or a locally-produced QuickTime version (81.1 mb, a good 28 mb smaller than the version available on GTV.org). Grab the one that plays best for you.) (Louis Wu 19:42:45 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Confessional
Thanks also to Narcogen for a link to this article - I'm not sure how you'd describe it, so I'll just suggest you go read it. (Louis Wu 19:36:32 UTC) (permalink)

The more things change
Narcogen has written up his own Halo 3 Beta impressions article at Rampancy.net - it's a look at how things have changed since Halo 2. Good stuff! (Louis Wu 19:33:55 UTC) (permalink)

Cool H3B shirts
Wow, I'm sad now. Apparently, if you went to the SAN FRANCISCO Halo 3 Beta Press Event, you got a cool t-shirt. (They didn't have these in New York.) Kotaku picked up a couple of extras, and they're planning to give them away. madcowjim gets props for noticing. (Louis Wu 19:29:06 UTC) (permalink)

The Third Time
Penny Arcade has been playing the Halo 3 Beta, too - it's doing things to them that they don't like very much. Thanks to Stuntmutt for the first heads-up. (Louis Wu 19:26:58 UTC) (permalink)

Three Things Every Beta Player Must Do
MTV has a piece explaining what you should do to prepare for the beta - thanks to JeBr0nie, who found it on Major Nelson's blog. (Louis Wu 19:23:09 UTC) (permalink)

H3B Minitage
Z let us know that Oxfire has whipped up a 'minitage' of Halo 3 beta footage; this isn't straight gameplay, it's more like a standard montage (but short). 33 mb, WMP9 format. (Louis Wu 19:04:04 UTC) (permalink)

More Giant Hummers
Kotaku had someone at the Syndey, Australia, event, as well - a short writeup and some pics are here. (Louis Wu 17:11:18 UTC) (permalink)

Taking to the Skies
halosavior pointed out an interview with Richard 'Major.Dump' Boisvert, the CGI guy behind some of the new space scenes in the most recent episodes of Edgework Entertainment's The Heretic. There's a bunch that's been censored until the series is complete, but even without those bits, it's still an interesting read. Check it out! (Louis Wu 16:36:51 UTC) (permalink)

Battle Rifles on eBay
We got word from the Briar's Armor folks that they've finished their BR design, and there are 5 models up on eBay right now for sale. Starting price is $200, there are about 6 days left in the auctions - go see! (Louis Wu 16:32:24 UTC) (permalink)

French Beta Hands On
Tanuki Kitsune let us know that there's a French writeup of the Halo 3 beta at Halo.fr - seems quite long! (Louis Wu 16:25:38 UTC) (permalink)

It's On The Mind
Today's Ctrl+Alt+Del combines the Halo 3 Beta and one of the most popular shows on TV - made me smile. Go read - thanks, Black Six. (Louis Wu 16:22:50 UTC) (permalink)

3 Updates and a Competition
Urban Reflex has been blogging about the beta - read the details at Ordained Insight. (Louis Wu 16:18:39 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: Elite Chronicles 2
Spartan Erik pointed out a new Flash vid at Newgrounds - I got bored after a couple of minutes, but you might like it better. (Louis Wu 16:16:55 UTC) (permalink)

CVG is very bored.
CVG posted a review of Halo 2 Vista - they were very, very disappointed. It uses words like 'soulless', 'tiresome', 'lazy', 'clueless', 'repulsive'... ouch. (They even claim it has bad music, which suggests to me that the reviewer got to the point where he figured he might as well trash the whole shebang...) (Louis Wu 15:53:53 UTC) (permalink)

Guess the Release Date
Simpsons Rule has decided to give away a Halo 3 Legendary Edition package - to the person who can guess the release date of Halo 3. (He got the idea from c0ld vengeance.) He kicked this off last night, but it seems a lot of people aren't bothering (or aren't able) to check which dates are taken - so I put up a quick page which should help. Caveat - this is not updated in real time, so it's POSSIBLE you'll still end up picking a date that's already gone - but it should help a little. If you've already voted, you should make sure that the date you picked is, in fact, assigned to you; if it's not, and your post is earlier than the one I've linked, feel free to email. Otherwise, pick a different date. (This page will cease to be updated when all dates in September, October, and November are gone.) (Louis Wu 14:19:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Beta Weekend
The flood of thoughts and impressions about the Halo 3 Beta continues to roar through the internet's tubes, flooding the habitats of poor ferrets the world over:

• Associated Content discusses some of the changes between Halo 2 and Halo 3 (I don't know where their info comes from, in some cases)
• The New York Sun looks at the effect of Halo on society
• Pro-G has a Halo 3 Hands-On
• 411Mania has a preview
• Gametrailers has a two-part walkthrough (thanks, Nevan) - Lars Bakken plays and talks (and dies a lot, because it's really hard to narrate and pwn at the same time)
• HaloNorge has a multipage guide to the beta in Norwegian
• Eurogamer has put up a screenshot gallery of beta shots, and posted a First Impressions article
• MSNBC was in New York for the press event Friday
• MyGEN has posted a Hands-On
• The BBC's Darren Waters (he's written a number of Halo articles in the past) has been playing the Beta all weekend, and has written up some of his thoughts

I'm sure there are more - but that should get you started, this Monday morning. (Louis Wu 13:18:28 UTC) (permalink)

News May 13 2007

The Riot 48
Sigafoos pointed out that The Riot 48 was released - discussions about - well, given that the Halo 3 Beta kicked off a couple of days ago, I bet you can guess what some of the discussion is about. 33 minutes, 13 mb. Go listen! (Louis Wu 21:22:45 UTC) (permalink)

Red Herring, HBO style
Now that the F&F beta preview is in full force, it's time to come clean - I like to dress up like a gru.. oops, wrong confession. Look at my post here for all the details on how we contributed in getting some names on the F&F list - why the forum was apparently being spammed by moi - and how we thought we could avoid looking like elitist jerks. (Ding 16:48:23 UTC) (permalink)

Canadian H2V review
I know there's more news out there - but it's gonna have to wait. Last tidbit for a while - the Winnipeg Sun has a review of Halo 2 Vista; they think it's more about the synergy between consoles and PCs than it is about the game itself. Hmm... maybe. (Louis Wu 13:57:27 UTC) (permalink)

Uncommunicado
Late Friday night, Red vs Blue Episode 97 was posted for sponsors. As you might expect, with the end coming soon, the action and storylines are heating up - this was a funny one. Only 3 left! (This should be available for the general public some time tomorrow.) Thanks, Twilight Draco. (Louis Wu 13:52:33 UTC) (permalink)

Mad Catz to make Halo 3 Faceplates
DHalo noticed that Mad Catz has announced that they're going to be making official Halo 3 merchandise - at this point, that means faceplates. (Louis Wu 13:49:36 UTC) (permalink)

Mother's Day
Mister Froggy put up a Mother's Day episode of Halo, Articulated - #39. (Louis Wu 13:47:59 UTC) (permalink)

Happy Mother's Day - and MLG Impressions
Everybody's got a mother in their life - theirs, their kids', their relatives', their friends' - find one and tell her how important she is. The fact that I'm not a mother will necessarily cut down the time I've got to post Halo news today - so I'm going to do my best to clear out the in-box right now, and move on. First up - MLG has both video and text-based impressions of the Beta online - go read and watch. Thanks, 3Suns. And geez, while I'm here, let's look at some of the other big Beta pieces out there. Game Head has put their interview with Bungie employees online - thanks, Mondo j. Gecko. Gamepro has posted a guide to the beta. Gamespot did a nice interview with Bungie folks at the SF show - thanks, LoneRanger 2.5. RVideo put up a post that links to lots of footage - discussion threads are at Halo3Forum.com, downloads are hosted by Mythica. Halo Informer wrote up a Hands-on. There are many, many more. (Louis Wu 13:33:04 UTC) (permalink)

News May 12 2007

The de facto face of Bungie talks to Joystiq
Joystiq interviewed Frank O'Connor yesterday at the Halo 3 Beta press event - it's a fun read. Mostly beta stuff, but they certainly get into a few other subjects (Halo movie, Shigeru Miyamoto, Luke Smith...). Go read. Thanks, White Rabbit. (Louis Wu 18:26:01 UTC) (permalink)

Shirley You Jest
Mister Froggy sent word of Halo, Articulated #38 - he says "Master Chief proves he isn't too smart". Um, yeah. (Louis Wu 18:17:57 UTC) (permalink)

Pelican Tooling
Mid7night posted a couple of movies of his X-Plane Pelican flying around inside (and outside) a Marathon-class cruiser - cool stuff! (Louis Wu 18:13:37 UTC) (permalink)

That's not MY friend.
Wow, this is TOTALLY absurd. Some people have decided to sell their friends and family invites (yes, the ones that got them into the beta 5 days before the rest of the world) on eBay - this one is going for $910 right now, and the auction doesn't even end until 24 hours after the seller could have actually started playing. Someone's willing to pay $1000 to play Halo 4 days earlier than he otherwise could... that makes me sad. I don't know if there are rules about selling F&F invites... but I think there should be. It's 'Friends and Family', after all; there's something... not nice about turning that into a profit. (Thanks to serpx for the link, and skum4182 for the thread.) (Louis Wu 13:59:11 UTC) (permalink)

Dean Takahashi talks Halo 3 with Sketch
In San Francisco, Dean Takahashi snagged Brian Jarrard for an interview between fragging sessions - read the result in his blog. (Louis Wu 13:52:07 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Zune
Gizmodo posted pics of the new Zune Halo 3 Special Edition - thanks to MarkHawk, via email, and sorahn, on our forum, for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 13:50:41 UTC) (permalink)

The first Halo 3 Beta Easter Egg?
whiteraven found an easter egg in the Halo 3 beta - maybe the first? If you use your binoculars, you'll string of binary code on the edge - this translates to 'Dave', the designer of the interface. Nice find! (No, marathon symbols visible on the AR don't count - they've been seen already.) (Louis Wu 13:48:28 UTC) (permalink)

UNSCDF is back
Major Silva pointed out that UNSCDF is back up and running - with a boatload of new content. You can find a summary - and links - in his forum post. (Louis Wu 13:46:15 UTC) (permalink)

Halo3-based HUD concept
BOLL was hit with inspiration, and created a concept HUD for Halo 3 - very, very cool. Go read his rationale, and look at the final product! (Louis Wu 13:44:30 UTC) (permalink)

X-Plane Sparrowhawk, revisited
There was other news yesterday, too. DuBbLe wrote up a summary of his Sparrowhawk in X-Plane, complete with pictures and movies, for example. Check it out. (Louis Wu 13:43:04 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 Press Kit
If you're realiy into screenshots, grab the Halo 3 Press Kit from Xbox.com - it's nearly 700 mb, because it contains ridiculously high-res pictures (6400x3600) in uncompressed TIFF format. They are oh, so pretty, though... thanks to Metapfhor, who provided a link in his forum post. (Louis Wu 13:39:07 UTC) (permalink)

Nerf vehicles lolz
The Bungie Weekly Update got posted last night, by Luke Smith, who got left behind in Seattle as SketchFactor and Frankie hobnobbed with the press in San Francisco and New York, respectively. Nice interview - and a link to new screenshots on Bungie.net, lots of 'em. You can, of course, read it in our Weekly Update Archive. (Louis Wu 13:37:05 UTC) (permalink)

Beta Info Deluge
There is more Halo 3 Beta coverage out there than anyone can read or watch, I think - you can find videos at Xboxyde, Gamespot, Kotaku, there's a roundup at Gearheads of War (thanks, 3Suns), dogsounds wrote a review, 1Up wrote a preview (thanks, LoneRanger 2.5), Dean Takahashi wrote an impressions article... there are hundreds and hundreds more out there, this is a tiny taste of what you can find. (I'm pretty sure I won't be able to keep up on all of it, so after this post, you're on your own.) Get to reading! (Louis Wu 13:32:20 UTC) (permalink)

There goes the rest of my free time!
The big news today? Well the Halo 3 MP beta was previewed today for the press and industry, and for folks that are lucky enough and got into the Friends & Family program, you get an extra week of gameplay before everyone else (Crackdown owners, etc.) gets their hands on the beta. Kiss your *own* friends and family goodbye as you get sucked into Halo 3 gameplay! (Ding 00:35:56 UTC) (permalink)

News May 11 2007

New videos at MLG
Over at MLGPro.com, 3Suns found some new content worth taking a look at - there's a Top 10 Plays of Charlotte video (a fun watch!), and a ranking of their favorite submissions to the new 'Game Room' user-fueled collection. Go see what's there! (And... that's it for me today. Off to NY, for some meetings and a press conference! Be good.) (Louis Wu 13:19:24 UTC) (permalink)

With Friends And Family LIke These...
You'd think, from reading today's One One Se7en, that Stuntmutt's been hanging out for the past 24 hours in the #hbo channel on IRC. Maybe those guys really ARE that predictable... (Louis Wu 12:09:16 UTC) (permalink)

I Voted For Palpatine
It's been a long time, but buying a house can take it out of you. Paul Maestri is back now, though, and there's a new Halo Heads comic for you today - if it's been a while since you read episode 56, you might want to refresh your memory. I'm likin' where this looks to be goin'. (Louis Wu 06:15:39 UTC) (permalink)

Friday's Fanfic
A bit earlier than usual, but the week's Fan Fiction offerings are now up - 13 in all. At least one author didn't bother to follow the rules... I guess there's always next week. (Louis Wu 06:12:20 UTC) (permalink)

And... one more.
We've posted a few ridiculous Halo schwag collections recently - we got one more in the mail today. (I posted it on the forum, because that seems like the easiest place to put it.) ZigZag Master says he's obsessed - I'd have to agree. I think this is probably the last one of these for a while we'll highlight; I'm sure there are other crazies out there, but I don't want to overdo this. (Louis Wu 05:46:55 UTC) (permalink)

The things people do for charity
Last week, we mentioned a charity auction in Australia, to raise money for the Make-A-Wish foundation... Spec_Ops_Assault pointed out that the auction is now over, with the custom-painted 360 going for a whopping AU $24,300.00. Now that's some real cash! (Louis Wu 05:15:12 UTC) (permalink)

Betalicious
MrJukes has been a part of the Halo moviemaking community since the very beginning; we still host an old mirror of his website, because his jumping vids ROCKED. If you swing by Bungie.net, you'll find a cool interview with the man - and a link to 'Betalicious', his latest piece of work. It's an ode to Halo 3 beta play (he works for Microsoft, so he's been playing on the internal alpha and beta for a while now) - it should pump you up for next week's beta kickoff. Because we know that a lot of people simply can't enjoy WMP9 versions, we've put up a QuickTime version - this is the second in our H.264 series (yes, it looks like we're FINALLY moving away from Sorenson3Pro, at least to some degree). Go read the interview, go watch the movie - and you can jump into a pretty big forum thread if you want to comment. Update: QT is now mirrored by Blackstar - thanks! Update 2: Wraith - Ops has offered a second one. (Heh - I think that's probably enough now...) (Louis Wu 02:58:04 UTC) (permalink)

News May 10 2007

Halo: Contact Harvest
Bungie.net has an interview with Joe Staten, the author of the next Halo novel, 'Contact Harvest', coming this fall. It's the story of the first contact with the Covenant - told from the point of view of many, but primarily "a young UNSC Staff Sergeant named Avery Johnson." There's lots more - go read! Thanks, Stuntmutt. (Louis Wu 19:30:54 UTC) (permalink)

4 million in NA alone? Wonga.
I'm not sure I like the fact-checking ("five different Greater Cincinnati Gamestop locations'?), but the numbers are pretty amazing - according to Xbox Evolved, Gamestop is reporting that they've already taken 4 million preorders for Halo 3 (at Gamestop, EB Games, and Funcoland stores). If this is true... that's a lot of copies. Thanks to Major Winkey for the heads-up. Update: Okay, at the prompting of Kyle Carmitchel, I did a little research... and this seems really, really, unlikely. According to Gamestop themselves, they operate 4,066 stores in North America - to hit that 4 million mark, these stores would have to AVERAGE 1,000 preorders each. In what I'll freely admit is a totally unscientific study, I called the 6 Gamestops within 25 miles of my home, and asked 1) how many preorders they had already for Halo 3, and 2) how this number ranked in that store's preorder history. Answers ranged from a bit over 100 to just over 200 for question 1, and "near the top" for every store for question 2. It's popular, folks... but 4 million North American preorders is not a reasonable estimate. (Louis Wu 14:04:07 UTC) (permalink)

European release for H2V pushed to June
Looks like Europeans will be waiting longer than the rest of us - again. Yesterday, we mentioned that the US release date for Halo 2 Vista was bumped back two weeks, to May 22. According to Xbox 360 Wire and a Microsoft press release, the European date is now 'June 2007'. Oh, well... (Louis Wu 14:00:51 UTC) (permalink)

Stat Reset/Playlist Update
Last night, SketchFactor posted a note on Bungie.net - the playlist update and stat reset mentioned a few weeks ago are both now operational. (Well, according to sawnose, the full reset didn't actually complete until about an hour ago - but you get the idea.) Things to keep in mind: you'll need Tombstone and Desolation to play in 5 of the 9 matchmaking playlists, if you downloaded those maps before Monday, you'll need to do it again, and those maps will be free for download sometime in July. w00t - get to playing! (Louis Wu 12:09:33 UTC) (permalink)

Hired Gun Head Talks Halo 2
Jo Clowes sat down (well, stood up) with Tina Wood, of Microsoft's Channel 10, to discuss Halo 2 Vista - interesting conversation. 7 and a half minute movie, various sizes - go watch! Thanks, darthbob. (Louis Wu 11:53:36 UTC) (permalink)

News May 9 2007

5 Meeellion Players.
Wow. 15 minutes ago, the 5 millionth unique Live account (not including guests) started a game of Halo 2 online... that's a lot of fraggers! (Louis Wu 20:28:01 UTC) (permalink)

Frigate Flyby
Nabsuh posted a cool little animation of a frigate (retextured) flying by the camera. Tiny, fun - go look! (The local QT mirror is H.264 encoded; I'm thinking it might be time to move that way, finally. QuickTime 7.1.6 plays this admirably on a multitude of machines here; let us know if it works for you (and if not, what you're playing it on)!) (Louis Wu 18:01:45 UTC) (permalink)

LiL Poison's Getting Old!
Okay, not OLD, really - he just turned 9. But man... the kid's been present on the pro scene for YEARS! Happy birthday, LiL P! (There's a documentary about him coming out next year...) (Louis Wu 15:49:54 UTC) (permalink)

Flushed Out.
One Porta-Potty joke wasn't enough for Stuntmutt - there's another one in today's One One Se7en. Child. (Louis Wu 15:46:14 UTC) (permalink)

Reid 18 Montage 5 Remix
Back in December, we mentioned Reid 18's fifth montage; we just got word from Z, at Halo3Forum.com, that Vox has remixed it. I found it a bit hard to watch in places, but the synching is really good. Take a look - WMP9 format, 91 mb. (Louis Wu 13:40:19 UTC) (permalink)

Podtacular Episode 112
Big Goalie Dan pointed out that Podtacular Episode 112 has been released - they're still focusing on leaked content. 75 minutes, 72 mb. (Louis Wu 13:08:49 UTC) (permalink)

Austrocity opens
DuBbLe stopped by to announce Austrocity, a new Australian Halo 3 Beta blog - swing by for some basic info about what's coming in the future. (Louis Wu 13:05:12 UTC) (permalink)

Blastacular Head-to-Head
If you're an IGN Insider, you can go watch a video comparison of the Blastacular Map Pack maps (Desolation and Tombstone) with their original Halo counterparts (Derelict and Hang 'em High). (If you're not an Insider, there's not even a low-res free version - but don't worry too much, they just run around the maps and point out how gameplay has changed.) (Louis Wu 10:54:18 UTC) (permalink)

How did Joyride go out of business?
Yesterday, we mentioned an insane Halo action figure collection - today, there's another one. Joerhyno has been doing his own collecting... I'm floored by this one, too. Update: Wow, PFG posted HIS collection... nice! (Louis Wu 10:51:01 UTC) (permalink)

Sonic Halo
Spartan Erik pointed out a new Halo Flash vid at Newgrounds - thewax70 has set the first couple of cutscenes (audio and action) up with Sonic the Hedgehog graphics. I found it to be really well-done - definitely worth a watch! (Louis Wu 10:45:40 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Vista - delayed until May 22
Last week, we mentioned that game retailers had been adjusting their availability listing for Halo 2 Vista from May 8 (yesterday) to May 23. All week long, European and Australian sites have been contacted by Microsoft with the news that the overseas versions would, indeed, be delayed until May 23 (release date in Europe was May 18 to begin with, so it was only a few days) - but it wasn't until yesterday that that news OFFICIALLY made it here. I can't find an actual copy of the press release, but many sites (like, say, Kotaku and GameSpot) are reporting that Microsoft has officially announced a new date of May 22. Reasons cited are "to make some improvements to the install experience and address other technical issues." While we're mentioning Halo 2 Vista, we should point out a pair of new reviews for it - GameZone loved it, while GameDaily (with their third review) suggests that it's okay, but not good enough to warrant an upgrade to Vista. (Louis Wu 10:23:14 UTC) (permalink)

News May 8 2007

This End Up
RVideo noticed a tiny asset in the Halo 2 map files that I've never seen reference to before (yeah, I know - I'm just waiting for the 'OLD!' emails); his image is pretty self-explanatory, and pretty interesting from the perspective of this Halo fan(atic). Check it out (100K)! (Louis Wu 15:26:40 UTC) (permalink)

All Tied Up
XerxdeeJ pointed out that new Tied the Leader content is now up - a ginormous 22 Questions interview with Epileptic Gaming (it's really 3 interviews in one, so bring a big mug of coffee), and a discussion of spoilers, and why you should avoid them. Go read! (Louis Wu 15:12:02 UTC) (permalink)

Should Microsoft Acquire MLG?
Over at Nation of Gamers, there's an article suggesting that it would make good business sense for Microsoft to purchase MLG. (Personally, I think that not only is this not true, but I doubt EITHER party would be interested in the attempt... but that's just a personal opinion. Go read the article for another one.) (Louis Wu 13:09:50 UTC) (permalink)

He could reenact '300'. (Both sides.)
Dielectric posted a bunch of pictures of what can only be described as an insanely large Halo action figure collection. This is like nothing I've ever seen. (Louis Wu 13:06:32 UTC) (permalink)

The Impact of Being a Gaming Parent
Over at 2Old2Play, there's a great article about the impact that a gaming parent has on one's kids. Halo (not surprisingly) is mentioned more than once. Thanks, litereddonut. (Louis Wu 13:05:04 UTC) (permalink)

Secret Identity
Mister Froggy told us that Halo, Articulated 37 is now available. If I hear one 'Jenkins' joke about this strip, I'm going to hunt you down and kill you with a spoon. (Louis Wu 12:42:32 UTC) (permalink)

News May 7 2007

Early shots of Haloclix figures
Over at HCRealms, GAMA took a couple of photos of Haloclix prototypes at a recent show - it's a bit difficult to dig your way in to see the pics from the links in the first post, but we've put up local versions (hunter/arbiter | odst/tartarus). These look pretty good! Thanks, GLuebben. (Louis Wu 21:39:55 UTC) (permalink)

HTB Updates
Sane Intolerant let us know that there are three new 'Halo Toy Box' comics up on DeviantART - Loose Ends (closing same), Hax0rs Never Prosper (looks like it hurts), and Halo 3 Blooper Reel (um...). And so it goes. (Louis Wu 21:02:46 UTC) (permalink)

Initial Thoughts.
I Love Bees still pops up periodically in our forum. Stuntmutt has some thoughts about that - check today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 18:18:18 UTC) (permalink)

Where Xbox Meets Lunchbox
JeBr0nie found a nice article in the Washington Post - it looks at companies that are putting game consoles in break rooms (and two of their three examples involve Halo). Wow... a company that encourages its employees to play Halo, on company equipment! Nice! (Louis Wu 17:45:23 UTC) (permalink)

Omicron and Bad Soda
Last night, we got word from Sodagod that Machine Enema had released two new movies. Both were created for the Halogrid Affinity Machinima Challenge - they contain footage ONLY from Tombstone and Desolation. They are, as usual for Machine Enema creations, superbly well-constructed, with fantastic visuals, top-notch voice acting, and wonderful plots. The first is 'Omicron', and takes a different look at some characters he's worked with before... the second is 'Bad Soda', and made me laugh - a lot. You can grab Omicron in either WMP9 format (57.3 mb) or QuickTime format (64.4 mb) - and the same with Bad Soda (QuickTime format is 54.1 mb, WMP9 format is 47.2 mb). Once again, in case I wasn't clear before - both of these are absolutely worth the download. (Louis Wu 13:30:43 UTC) (permalink)

Ceramic Halo 3 Helmet
Over at Bungie.net, WOZMAN84 posted pictures of a ceramic Master Chief helmet he created for a class; folks suggested he point this out to us, and I'm glad they did. Should look great on the shelf! (Louis Wu 12:55:20 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Tattoo
JapAniMan stopped by yesterday to point out his new tattoo - Halo lovin' at its best! Nice work. (Louis Wu 12:52:25 UTC) (permalink)

Game Head - Special Halo 3 Episode
On Saturday, we got mail from Tim Sweeny, telling us to check out the latest Game Head - the end of it mentions that they're going to be at Bungie's headquarters next week for a big Halo 3 show. I didn't follow up, because I knew that the 'big show' wasn't going to be in Kirkland... it was going to be in San Francisco and New York. (I thought Game Head was just trying to cash in on the upcoming publicity.) However, this morning, Cocopjojo pointed out info about this show on our forum - it's the TIMING that lines up, but the show itself should be pretty fun, they did a bunch of interviews at Bungie's headquarters, and they're releasing it to coincide with the press event this Friday. Good stuff! Update: for folks who just want to see the Bungie teaser, we're hosting local copies - 18 seconds, 2.3 mb, in either QuickTime or WMP9 formats. (Louis Wu 12:48:21 UTC) (permalink)

News May 6 2007

The Riot 47
Sigafoos points out that The Riot 47 is ready for download - half an hour (12 mb) of clan stuff, PraetoriaGuard mocking, and Bungie news. And PraetoriaGuard mocking, again. (Louis Wu 17:40:36 UTC) (permalink)

Longsword, Seagull, and In Amber Clad
RVideo spent some time modding New Mombasa - making longswords flyable (along with In Amber Clad's bridge). The end result is pretty cool to look at; you can download it at Halo3Forum.com (WMP9 format, 85.7 mb). For those of you hating WMP9, we're hosting a QuickTime version (72.2 mb) - very artistically staged! Give it a look. (Louis Wu 15:00:57 UTC) (permalink)

Wafers made of plated titanium
Ducain was out in the middle of nowhere last weekend - and ran across an interestingly-named church (even the FONT looks familiar). Makes me wanna go fishing... (Louis Wu 14:30:51 UTC) (permalink)

Simultaneous discoveries?
Heh - yesterday, we mentioned some posted, but unlinked pictures darthbob found on bungie.net - the thread got bigger, and a number of other shots were discovered (including a pair of mongoose pics. This morning, when I got up, Google news pointed me to TalkXbox, where an article posted today shows off all 5 new shots found yesterday. I can't imagine they'd just post these without attribution if they found them here, so I'm gonna say congratulations for the simultaneous discoveries! (Louis Wu 14:23:15 UTC) (permalink)

News May 5 2007

Waking
Alex Schwartz sent us word of 'Waking', a 4-part machinima he and some friends created for a machinima class at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It uses several different game engines (Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Second Life, and Unreal 2004), as well as outside effects added with Maya - the end result is pretty impressive. Running time is about 30 minutes, split between the four acts. Storyline has some Ender's Game, some Matrix, some Terminator... fun stuff. Go check it out! (He started a forum thread here, if you'd like to discuss it.) (Louis Wu 20:03:40 UTC) (permalink)

Red Bull Flugtag - Halo Style
Porsche6864 stopped by to point out that his team created a Halo-related soaring vehicle for a Red Bull contest - and now they need people to vote for them, to secure the final slot in the 31-contestant field. Swing by the Red Bull Flugtag site - and give 'em some love! (Louis Wu 14:08:18 UTC) (permalink)

Audio Line Contest
Johnrap let us know that Games in Action has extended their One Liner Contest - contestants must record one of the finalists of that contest for the new Audio Line Contest, prize is a copy of the Halo 2 Original Soundtrack Volume 2. Go read the details at the GiA site. (Louis Wu 14:04:01 UTC) (permalink)

Follow the Fleet
Edgeworks has posted Episode 6 of the Heretic - some amazing CG work on the space scenes, and a powerful storyline twist. Top-notch machinima - go watch! Thanks to clippit for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 13:59:15 UTC) (permalink)

Mister Cupcake, revealed
Jared Rea points out that his girlfriend photo-blogged the making of the Mister Chief cupcakes shown in last night's Weekly Update - yum! (Louis Wu 13:58:47 UTC) (permalink)

Always gotta be careful with fanatics.
Heh - look what darthbob found on bungie.net. ;) (We've grabbed local copies, in case they mysteriously vanish again...) (Louis Wu 13:44:11 UTC) (permalink)

Go to the Airport
Over at Red vs Blue, Burnie released Director's Commentary for Episode 96 - it's almost more of a podcast than actual commentary on the piece, but there IS some cool stuff about how various shots were put together. (They're definitely getting fancier in their machinima techniques as the series winds down to a close...) Enjoyable, even though the RvB stuff is minimal. (Louis Wu 13:22:52 UTC) (permalink)

H2V and Dedicated Servers
The Hired Gun crew has put up a new blog entry, this time discussing dedicated servers for Halo 2 Vista. (The DS doesn't need Vista - only Windows Server 2003. This should help tremendously in finding a host that can handle one.) There's lots of other good info in there - so give it a read! (Louis Wu 12:41:40 UTC) (permalink)

Crazy Secrets Week
As usual, Friday night brought a Bungie Weekly Update last night - but I went to see Spiderman 3 instead. (Decent movie, but a bit too sappy in places. I guess that's what you get when you're trying to wrap up a storyline. Amazing effects, no matter WHAT else was going on.) The weekly update ALSO talks about effects - the first third waxes poetic about the quality of the ingame cinematics, and let me tell you, I'm dying to see one now. There's also good info about the status of the Blastacular Map Pack (it should be available to almost everyone, finally, and they're going to be fixing the geometry errors posthaste), a bunch of cool dev tidbits, some positive news about the Friends and Family program (which now has an official start date), and a welcome to Luke Smith. And some funky Mister Chief stuff. Go see what's there! (Or read it here, in our Weekly Update Archive... (Louis Wu 12:30:17 UTC) (permalink)

News May 4 2007

Halo 3 Press Event - you might be able to go
Last week, we mentioned a 'press event' happening on May 11 - very few details. Yesterday, Gamerscoreblog released their latest podcast - and in it they've made a pretty amazing offer:

"...one in New York, and one in San Francisco, for Halo 3. They're both press events, but we are going to try and open the door a little bit for some community to attend. If some of you live in the New York or San Francisco area, and maybe you have a blog, or a fansite, and you're interested in checking it out, send an email to gsblog at microsoft.com and we'll see if we can get you in."

I'm not saying go out and start a blog today... I'm just saying if you fit their criteria, this might be something you want to go to. Thanks to RevDotNed for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 17:30:29 UTC) (permalink)

Time To Bail?
Some people have been expressing unhappiness about spoilers from leaks of Halo 3 gameplay. Stuntmutt thinks he might have a solution, in today's One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:32:07 UTC) (permalink)

H2V on the cheap (if you're Canadian)
If you live in Canada, boesman found a deal for you - $20 off the cover price of Halo 2 Vista, at Futureshop. (Louis Wu 14:27:29 UTC) (permalink)

Podtacular 111
Big Goalie Dan pointed out that Podtacular 111 has been released - 60 mb, 90 minutes, focuses on leaked Halo 3 video stuff. That's about as close as we're gonna get to the leaks, ourselves... (Louis Wu 14:26:18 UTC) (permalink)

New Shin Guards for Mjolnir Outfit
James Falcon sent us a few pictures of the Shin Guards that go with his Mjolnir Armor outfit - you can find them on his Rifle/Armor page. Gettin' there! (Louis Wu 14:23:33 UTC) (permalink)

Lithium 1v1 Montage
Z pointed out Lithium's 1v1 montage over at Halo3forum.com - 8.5 minutes, 155 mb, nice editing, and some sick sticks and snipes. The use of fusion cores as placement engines is great - haven't seen much of that before. Check it out! (Louis Wu 13:56:54 UTC) (permalink)

Friday's Fan Fiction
Fan Fiction offerings this week are slim - only 4 pieces. Shouldn't take you long to read! (Louis Wu 13:49:25 UTC) (permalink)

District and Uplift tours at Game Videos
Nelson, Game Videos, wrote to let us know that they've put up 'tours' of the two new Halo 2 Vista maps, District and Uplift. They're pretty bizarre vids; it looks like they're just the first time someone jumped onto these maps. There's no real attempt to point out the goodies and intricacies, it's just someone running (or driving) around... but you DO get a good look at what's there. (You also get a chance to watch someone try multiple times to drive a ghost through a doorway far too narrow for it...) (Louis Wu 01:40:40 UTC) (permalink)

News May 3 2007

The Origins of Shadowrun
Whoa. rapture pointed out an entry in EnragedGnome's Shadowrun blog that references some comments by Derek Carroll, Game Designer for FASA (the guys behind Shadowrun) - looks like that game started life as a Halo mod. (Okay, not really - but when they were prototyping the game, they used a 'borrowed' engine for the proof-of-concept stuff... and guess which engine that was.) Fun stuff! (Louis Wu 23:50:06 UTC) (permalink)

Longswords on Escort Duty
Mid7night posted a link to some cool pics of his X-Plane conversion of the Marathon-class cruiser - being escorted by a pair of Longswords. Nice! (Louis Wu 23:36:29 UTC) (permalink)

For Mature Audiences Only
Darksage let us know that over at his new site, Nation of Gamers, you'll find a contest with Halo-related prizes. Tell 'em why you're a mature gamer, win cool stuff including a redvsblue sponsorship (the Halo part) and a 360 Elite. You've got a month! (Louis Wu 23:18:40 UTC) (permalink)

Halo3.com content un-Flash-ized
If you're not a fan of Flash-based content (it's harder to search, it can be annoying to navigate if you're going over the same route multiple times), Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, has transcribed the content from halo3.com into a standard html format. Go give it a read! (Louis Wu 12:10:04 UTC) (permalink)

Downloadable Maps now Downloadable (for all)
A couple of weeks ago, Bungie released the Blastacular Map Pack - Tombstone and Desolation - for the Xbox and Xbox 360. A lot of people had trouble downloading it. According to this news post on B.net, those problems should be over; go ahead and give it another try if you were one of the folks who couldn't get it to work before. (Sounds like the Matchmaking update will be coming pretty soon, too...) (Louis Wu 11:48:53 UTC) (permalink)

CA.net opens
Our good friends over at High Impact Halo have branched out with a new endeavor - the very first fansite devoted to Certain Affinity is now open for business. Pretty stuff - and according to CA themselves, you should be finding some exclusive content there soonish. Check it out! (Louis Wu 11:44:41 UTC) (permalink)

Minds First, Hearts Will Follow
Heh - Joystiq's Jared Rea stopped by to point out a subtle campaign by Marvel to keep Halo in the minds of their readers until this summer's release of the Halo comic... clever. (Louis Wu 11:41:38 UTC) (permalink)

News May 2 2007

H2V Trailer Released
TheGhost sent us more news - Microsoft has just released a trailer for Halo 2 Vista, showing off the map editor, and the new maps (as well as some nicely crisp single-player footage). Check it out! (WMP9 Professional format, streaming - might be hard to see on a stock Mac.) (Louis Wu 21:48:32 UTC) (permalink)

H2V Delayed?
According to H2Vista.net, quite a number of game resellers are changing their listing of the availability of Halo 2 Vista from May 8 to May 23. Now, normally we don't put a lot of stock in release dates as supplied by game resellers... but May 8 is less than 6 days from now, If they're making changes at this point, it's likely due to solid info from the supplier. There's no official word on this subject yet - but as soon as there is (one way or the other), we'll post it. Thanks, TheGhost. (Louis Wu 20:57:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Science 101
Over at Gamasutra, you can read 'Halo Science 101', one of the pieces compiled in the recently-released book, 'Halo Effect'. It's a fascinating study of the science behind Halo - what Bungie got right, what they got wrong, what you can actually pull from the game - written by a geophysicist. Thanks, Roger Wilco. (Louis Wu 19:09:37 UTC) (permalink)

B.net Emblem Contest
Frankie pointed out a new story at Bungie.net - they're currently accepting submissions for a new emblem to be used in Halo 3. Go read the rules - and get designing! (Louis Wu 18:56:13 UTC) (permalink)

Meh-chinema.
Today's One One Se7en has our favorite Halo schmuck getting his hands on the Halo beta a bit early... (Louis Wu 18:16:39 UTC) (permalink)

Order your Kubrick Figures Now
Yesterday, we mentioned the Halo 3 figures coming from Gentle Giant - today, they're preorderable, for $18 for the set. Thanks to Carsten for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 18:07:20 UTC) (permalink)

Fantasy Halo Part Three
In late march, we mentioned Parts One and Two of 'Fantasy Halo', a machinima project that turns Halo 2 into a turn-based RPG. Yesterday, Deep Reaver stopped by to let us know that Part Three had been released - and I have to agree with RVideo on our forum... this is the best of the bunch. It's 24 minutes long, and an amazing 88 mb small for the WMP9 (for a video that long, that's an incredible compression rate - and it looks pretty good, too). We've added a local mirror for this, and added a QuickTime version for those who can't handle WMP9. (The QuickTime is even smaller (77mb), due to the vagaries of Squeeze, and the quality is not as good; I simply didn't want to take the time to try a second time (it was about a 2-hour runthrough), so if you CAN use the WMP9, you should. The QuickTime is watchable, though - and you SHOULD watch one of them.) Funny stuff - and really, really well choreographed. (Louis Wu 18:03:47 UTC) (permalink)

Told ya.
Heh - Yahoo has put up a feature called 'Games are Good for You', which points out some positive benefits that games have had (with specific examples). Halo gets mentioned as a tool to help students "understand the complexities of Homeric epics" (check out the original article at the University of Connecticut). Thanks, || Sgt Scope ||. (Louis Wu 16:44:36 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Painting
Nick Paton pointed out a large (4' x 5') Halo canvas painting for sale right now on eBay; if you're looking for a gigantic acrylic, this might help! No bids yet, but there's still almost a week left. (Louis Wu 16:27:22 UTC) (permalink)

Another Halo Poster
In the spirit of yesterday's wall poster, Zerowind117 put up pics of his own wall hanging... Halo is gracing walls everywhere! (Louis Wu 16:23:54 UTC) (permalink)

Plantronics lets you game in style
Master Kim stopped by our forum yesterday to point out a new Halo 2 headset, made by Plantronics, for your PC - presumably in conjunction with the release of Halo 2 Vista. Looks good! (Thanks to rapture, who pointed out that MK also posted this at the H2Vista website.) (Louis Wu 10:49:19 UTC) (permalink)

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
A couple of weeks ago, it became known that Luke Smith was leaving 1Up, and soon after that, he announced he was being hired by Bungie. Yesterday, Kotaku posted a an article explaining how it all happened. Sounds like Luke will soon be helping to bring Bungie's vision to the rest of us - and for the next few months, that's gonna be pretty Halo-infused. Welcome to our side of the thin green line, Luke! Thanks to 3Suns, who noticed this yesterday afternoon. (Louis Wu 10:35:35 UTC) (permalink)

News May 1 2007

Smacktalkin'.
New top story at Bungie.net - it's an interview with the crew from Shadowrun. Wait, you say - how is this Halo-related? Well, see, it's Bungie doing the interviewing - so half the questions tie back to Halo in some way or other. And oh, yeah, the Lead Designer for Shadowrun also happened to be the Lead Designer for Halo. Good stuff. (Louis Wu 17:37:55 UTC) (permalink)

Gentle Giant Figures Revealed
Littlebigman noticed that Toy News International has posted some early pictures of the new figures coming from Gentle Giant this fall - there's a set of Halo Kubrick figures (they're so cute!), and a Master Chief mini-bust which is for the moment listed as 'coming soon'. (Hint: if you do some brightening of the image in Photoshop (or any other image manipulation program), you'll get a pretty decent look at the actual image.) Droolworthy! (Louis Wu 17:28:38 UTC) (permalink)

Pistol Confusion
Okay, just to clear up a small misunderstanding that might come back to bite Bungie (unfairly) in the future... yesterday, we mentioned that halo3.com had been updated with new content about the game, its characters, weapons, story, and so on. One thing that was immediately noticed by many was the description of the pistol (screenshotted, because it will likely change soon) - it was labeled as the M6D (the designation of the Halo 1 pistol) and described as having a 2x scope. Halo3.com is run by Microsoft, not Bungie - and while most of the content is accurate, some is... not so much. Frankie visited online forums yesterday to clarify some of this stuff, but I figure a front-page post might reach a few more people, and maybe keep down expectations and false hopes. The pistol is actually the M6G, not the original M6D, and it has no scope. (Louis Wu 16:56:58 UTC) (permalink)

Spectacular 360 for Auction
Wow, cool. Xbox Australia and Bungie have gotten together to make some money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation - there's a charity auction for a custom-painted, signed-by-Bungie Xbox 360 on eBay.au right now. Auction runs for another week and a half, bid is already up over AU$2000. (My first reaction was 'whoa, awesome, that's about $3 US, right?' - but I'd forgotten how far the US dollar had fallen; AU$2120 is more than US$1750.) If you've got deep pockets, the cause rocks, and the item itself is a one-of-a-kind... you can't go wrong! Thanks to JeBr0nie for the heads-up (he saw it at PlanetXbox360, among other places). (Louis Wu 16:37:44 UTC) (permalink)

A dull wall just got prettier
Beorn printed out Bungie's latest graphical offering on a nice large-format printer... wow, that looks nice. (Louis Wu 16:21:28 UTC) (permalink)

Jolly Green Giants with Guns
Another Tuesday, another Tied the Leader update. Dweezle hits on another gamer chick - this time it's Becky 'Aktrez' Young, part of far too many websites to list here - and XerxdeeJ waxes poetic about Halo - again. (Great graphic, too.) Go read! (Louis Wu 16:17:17 UTC) (permalink)

Negative Emotion
Mister Froggy pointed out that Halo, Articulated #36 is available - remember, kids, when it's time for your closeup, floss first. (Louis Wu 15:48:12 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Contest Mania
SEspider stopped by our forum to point out 5 new Halo-related contests sponsored by 360style.net - visit his post (or their site) for more details! (Louis Wu 15:41:48 UTC) (permalink)

The Riot 46
Sigafoos let us know about The Riot 46 - 35 minutes/14.5 megs worth of clan news, challenges, and poetry. And of course peanut butter. (Louis Wu 15:33:07 UTC) (permalink)

Halomega Updates
Halomega sent us word of updates on their site - there's a Q&A with one of their members, a new montage, a Stick of the Week contest, and a sponsored tournament - and look around for more! (Louis Wu 15:25:04 UTC) (permalink)

H2V Ad Scan
Jman sent us a nice scan of the Halo 2 Vista ad appearing in many magazines this month; if you haven't seen it, check this out (166K). (Louis Wu 15:21:28 UTC) (permalink)

MLGPro News Bonanza
3Suns sent along a TON of MLG links - let's see if I can get 'em all: Coach Profile: Apoc (FBI Are You Ready), Sound Arguments 12 (breakdown of Charlotte), Charlotte by the Numbers (fun stats), Halo Standings Update (summary on last page for the impatient), photo additions in the MLG Gallery, Bootcamping (a practice technique), Sublimation of the Ego (playing for the team), and a 'Game Room' (user-uploaded video content). Dayum. That's a lot of new stuff. And that's just since this weekend! (Louis Wu 13:48:36 UTC) (permalink)

GD impressed again
Another small Halo 2 Vista impressions article at GameDaily - once again, they like it. (Louis Wu 13:40:48 UTC) (permalink)

Visual Comparison - Halo 2 on 3 platforms
Gamespot has a video comparison of some of the improvements in graphical quality to Halo 2 - clips from the Xbox, Xbox360, and Windows Vista are all shown. Does a nice job (at least in the HD version of the vid) of really showing how much better the Vista version looks. (Louis Wu 13:38:44 UTC) (permalink)

SIU looks at H2V
The Daily Egyptian (student newspaper of Southern Illinois University Carbondale) has a look at Halo 2 Vista - see what the college students think. (Louis Wu 13:32:18 UTC) (permalink)

I don't like flying poo, myself.
GameDaily wrote up an article entitled 'Halo 2 for Vista: Why You Should Give a Sh*t' - some of them are pretty lame, but the article's worth a look. (Louis Wu 13:29:00 UTC) (permalink)

High Resolution Halo Opens its Doors
Matt6908 sent us a note about High Resolution Halo, a new site he's kicked off. We don't normally mention new sites, but this one is chock-full of cool assets like medals, matchmaking ranks, emblems, cutouts, HUD pieces... a cornucopia of resources if you're making Halo-related graphics. Check it out! (Louis Wu 12:52:45 UTC) (permalink)

Halo the Movie (Heroes Version)
Okay - I went through all mail to us in the past week, and plucked out some stuff that didn't get mentioned, but maybe should have. It's in (mostly) chronological order... sort of. First up: NuclearPinguin and Lt tuma put together a trailer for Halo the Movie, using clips from OTHER movies; it's an interesting piece of work. You can watch it at YouTube. (Louis Wu 12:49:58 UTC) (permalink)

May 2007

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