Old news but still good news!

Death and Rebirth
Khen Rigzin announced a new Halo vid he's created - you can find a complete walkthrough of the video, as well as a download link, on this page. It's 58 mb zipped, 5:22 long, in .mpg format. (Louis Wu 13:13:41 UTC)

What? MORE mirror news?
Boatloads of new mirrors for the Halo 2 Trailer - lots in Europe, more Hotline servers, and even though the main site for customsex's new mpeg2 version died (from overdemand), a kind hotline server picked up the slack (and we're adding a second hotline server as I write this). More mirrors for that large, popular version would be eagerly accepted - just drop us a line. For everything else, visit the Halo 2 Mirror List, or the Mirror List Mirror! From now on, when new mirrors come in, we'll simply add them to the mirror list, without using valuable front page space to announce them. If you need a copy of this trailer, in ANY format, visit the mirror list. (Louis Wu 01:15:36 UTC)

Wha... US only?
This is bizarre - Gamesurf.de, a German gaming site, has put up a note on their Halo trailer announcement page stating that someone from Microsoft phoned them and told them they couldn't mirror the trailer, because the content is not for foreign markets. What's up with that? (Louis Wu 12:14:58 UTC)

European Xbox Price Drop
Seems the Xbox has dropped in price AGAIN in Europe - this time to €250/£160. Timing of the announcement was within an hour of Sony's announcement that the PS2 would drop, as well (to the same price point). A decent time to pick up a console in Europe! (Thanks to Manitou for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 21:29:40 UTC)

What - another one?
Guh. On the heels of yesterday's announcement of the Forerunner's network opening, we've received mail from Jack Smith that he's trying to build a 'coming soon bungie fan network' - and needs maintainers for the following subsections: Oni, Myth, Marathon, PiD, Minotaur, and Abuse. (He's got Halo covered, it seems.) This is an all-volunteer effort, of course - no pay - but applicants should contact him at Clearoffjack@aol.com. Is this the newest trend? (Louis Wu 13:50:33 UTC)

Peter Tamte on Mac Halo
Inside Mac Games posted an interview with Destineer's Peter Tamte today, in which Tamte discusses Halo for Mac. Here's a small quote:

Mike Phillips: After Halo's announcement, the Mac gaming community let out a collective "w00t!" of joy. Can you give us a progress update on Halo and will it be a simultaneous Mac/PC release?

Peter Tamte: Everyone who is involved in the project is committed to a simultaneous Windows/Mac release for Halo. The progress on Halo is meeting all the internal schedules so far.

For the rest of the interview (concerning Halo and Destineer's other projects) head over to IMG. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 17:37:04 UTC)

Wanna work for Bungie?
Interesting. If you visit the Jobs page at Bungie, you'll find 5 listings at the moment:

However, Michael Hughes just pointed out that there's a different one listed at Gamasutra: Studio Manager. Have they just not gotten around to posting it on their jobs page? Or have they decided that Gamasutra might be a better audience than their jobs page? The listing's been up since August 2, almost a week before the announcement of Halo 2. (Louis Wu 19:22:51 UTC)

Desktop secrets, revealed
I said I'd do it - so I'm doing it. Too much mail about this - too many forum posts. Last Thursday, Halo 2 was announced - and at 6:15 am PDT, Bungie released a set of desktop images. One of them ('The Mark VI') contained some very-hard-to-read text spread around the image. About an hour later, lexicus began to decipher it - the final tidbits were posted an hour after that. The full transcription can be found in THIS post - put up after one-too-many threads on the subject. They're still coming (as is the email), though.. hence this news post. Bottom line: The text is known, please don't send us any more modified images showing it to us. Thanks! (Louis Wu 17:49:26 UTC)

Mahdrigalo
And the Fan Music collection grows... SilverBrin has submitted a new piece for your listening pleasure. He writes:

I just uploaded a file called "Mahdrigalo.mp3". It's a piece I wrote the day I heard Halo 2 was announced.Ê It is also in honor of Marty O'Donnell's timeless music.Ê It is exciting to think he is now working on new stuff for the new game!

Anyway, I twist around the Halo and The Siege of Madrigal themes into my own interpretation and then combine them at the end.Ê It is entirely Midi and does not use any audio from Marty's music.Ê Everything was rendered using cheap midi software (hence the poor quality). I still think the dramatic interpretation may entertain...but you guys can be the judges.Ê

Just as Halo wallpaper starts with Bungie-created artwork and presents the submitter's vision, this piece starts with Marty's Halo theme and 'Siege of Madrigal' piece, and presents SilverBrin's vision. We've upped it to Mythica.org - it's 5.3 mb. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 17:24:18 UTC)

Chaos, Revisited
Last night, we announced Chaos on the Ring II, a new movie from ZiDigi Online. Response has been positive... except for some material at the beginning and end of the movie. In response to critics, the team has released a second version - it's identical to the first, except it's missing the first 30 seconds, and the last minute. Formats are identical (720x480 and 360x240, QT5), and the new versions weigh in at 39 and 20 mb, respectively. You can find BOTH versions listed on their downloads page - if you don't mind fluff, get the first version, if you'd rather have a more focused film, get V2. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 21:56:00 UTC)

News of the Month
You knew it was coming, right? Halo 2 has been announced. Swing by Bungie.net, and read all about it... new screens, new desktops... and a new movie, coming soon. This is gonna Rock Your World. (Louis Wu 13:16:47 UTC)

Halo 2 rumblings
GamerWeb Xbox claims to have 'inside information' that Halo 2 will be announced later this week, in New York. (Why New York? It's not the home of Microsoft, or Bungie, or much of anything else related to Halo - well, okay, it's the home of Freewill, Bungie's number 1 fan - hmm...) Thanks to PCDestroyer for the heads-up - but please, take it with a grain of salt. It ain't so till Bungie SAYS it's so. (Louis Wu 16:30:17 UTC)

How big is your hard drive?
In our Movies database, there are over 100 films listed. Almost 70 of them are fan-created... but only a handful of those truly stand out as groundbreakers; BungieLove, Warthog Jump, A**hole, a few others. Well, welcome the next entrant to that elite class: The Matrix (Halo Remix). Bill Paetzke has meticulously recreated the opening scene from the movie 'The Matrix'... and he's done it with s7yle. There are three versions:

a HUGE 120 mb version shows you the action at 720x480 - but at present there are only a pair of mirrors for it. (There will hopefully be a few more showing up today - but as of right now, this is it.)

A midrange, 42 mb version; it's 360x240, but pretty high quality. The only source for this is Bill's server at the moment.

A budget, 20 mb version, also 360x240. This is quite watchable... and at the moment has several mirrors (with more coming). For those not sitting on a very large pipe, this is the recommended version.

All of these (and any new mirrors people want to tell us about) can be found on the Matrix Mirror page. And if that wasn't enough for one day's movie quota... Dan Chosich has announced that his sixth Halo vid, Reminisance, is up for grabs for today only. It's in .WMV format, and it's 86 megs large... and I hope that as soon as the bandwidth crunch caused by The Matrix dies down, we can put a copy up at mythica.org (because it's a masterpiece of editing). Feast or famine, folks! (Louis Wu 17:07:01 UTC)

More MS Musing
GameSpot interviewed David Hufford, Xbox product manager, and one question stood out with regard to the Halo community:

GS: There was some confusion regarding the "Halo online" announcement made at E3 2002. Is Bungie developing an Xbox Live version of Halo, or did the announcement pertain to an entirely new product?

DH: An entirely new product. The Halo guys are at work on the next version of Halo right now, and they'll be talking about it in the near future. It's a "ground up" approach. When we acquired Bungie a few years ago, they were very clear with us that their original vision for Halo was to bring it online, and now what they're going to do is take that initial vision but apply it to the next version of Halo, so it will be the product that they always wanted to deliver.

So this would suggest that the 'online' version of Halo some folks have been talking about, doesn't exist. Whether Hufford's product is the same thing as John O'Rourke was talking about has yet to be confirmed... but it would seem so. Will Halo 2 ship before Halo for PC/Mac? Only time will tell... (First heads-up goes to AOPaul, via email, though Team Overkill was a close second.) (Louis Wu 09:22:52 UTC)

The Son of the Man
It's better to change the Man's diapers, than to be the Man... or something. The founder of Bungie Studios, Alex Seropian, has announced that he's leaving Bungie at the end of August to concentrate on... well, life. You can read the details at Bungie.net... but I'd like to say right here and now that we're gonna miss him. (Louis Wu 19:24:38 UTC)

Tips queue cleared out
Whew! The Gameplay Tips queue has finally been emptied - almost 30 tips added. (Some quite good, even.) Now we just need a reasonable way to sort them... For those myriad fans still waiting patiently (or maybe not so patiently any more - dang, Bungie got their PC Halo announcement out before we finished this), the Gameplay Tricks queue has been organized - there are currently almost 30 tricks in it, and I'm going to make getting them up a priority in the coming days. (It doesn't help that I'll be camping for most of next week... but we'll see what we can do.) In the meantime, go learn the best Flag defense on Sidewinder! (And lots of other stuff...) (Louis Wu 01:57:24 UTC)

New Captions shots posted
Overshadowed just a little bit by the official MS PR announcement about PC Halo was an update to the Screenshot Captions section of Bungie's Tru7h and Reconciliation site. There are 4 new photos... and some of 'em just make you want to break in to Bungie Headquarters and steal that dev kit. First heads-up props to MasterOmok, who sent us email about it. (Louis Wu 10:56:12 UTC)

Apologies from the various trolls and MS-haters may be provided at their convenience.
OK folks, this is the big one: Real details on the computer version of Halo. Zaruthustran first broke the story on the forum, and then the press release hit Blue's News.

The important parts:

PC version: Gearbox Software (Half-Life: Opposing Forces).

Macintosh version: Westlake Interactive (Mac ports of Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, and more).

Publisher: Destineer

Release date: "Summer 2003" for the PC, just "2003" for the Mac.

There's one more critical line in there: "Additional information regarding game content, features and enhancements will be announced at a later date".

Well, there you have it. Not much more I can say here (except maybe, to some people, "We told you so"). (Count Zero 17:42:25 UTC)

Northwest Carnage
BIGwooly popped into our forum to announce that the final date for the upcoming Northwest Regional Halo Tournament in Boise, ID has been set - carnage will occur on June 29, 2002. If you're interested in joining in, check out HALOID's 7th Column Chapter page. (Louis Wu 17:27:36 UTC)

Halo ideas?
Ross Mills has started up a site called 'Halo Ideas' - and as he says on our forum, he's looking for content to fill it. If you have any speculations about either Halo 2 or Halo Online (neither of which have actually been announced, of course, and nothing says they won't end up being the same game), drop him a line! (Louis Wu 17:24:09 UTC)

Halo 2 - announced by a UK gameseller
lol - Why You Should Never Believe Game Sellers, Part 77: Greg noticed that GamePlay is willing to sell you Halo 2 right now, as a pre-order. The funny part?

Please note that as this title was just officially announced at this years E3, the pricing has not been set and as such the price here is higher than expexcted.

For those who put their scorecards down for a bathroom break, Halo 2 was not officially announced anywhere—E3 or elsewhere. It's a good bet that it'll get made—Bungie would be foolish to pass up on the chance to make a sequel for the fastest million-seller in next-gen console history—but it sure as heck don't exist, "officially", yet. Just something to keep in mind, the next time you're talking to a salesperson in Babbages... (Louis Wu 14:04:57 UTC)

Keyes' Corner opens for business
It took much, much longer to put together than any of us expected... but I'm proud to announce the opening of a new section here at HBO - Keyes' Corner. This will be a place where complicated aspects of Halo are examined in-depth; we won't just look at a single piece, we'll tear the puppy apart, see what makes it tick. We'll show you how you can use it during gameplay, and look at some of the ramifications, when relevant. Installment One covers the Unlimited Ammo/Unlimited Camo glitch - what it is, where to find it, how to activate it, what you can do with it. The article is replete with maps and movies of the areas you need to visit and the tasks you need to accomplish in order to activate the glitch. Many thanks to Stormsinger, xbill, and Frogblast for their invaluable help in putting this together! (Louis Wu 13:49:35 UTC)

I spent about an hour looking for ANYONE from Bungie yesterday, but didn't see a soul. I was at E3 all day, and...nothing. Anyways, I asked the Microsoft people and they said Bungie isn't presenting anything at all, and don't have any setups, but they could be found at Developer Row in booth 5113 on the Concourse (long hallway between South and West halls). So I find the booth (finally) and lo and behold, the people there tell me that the Bungie guys were never there, and that all they're here for is to wander the show floor aimlessly.

No announcements? No Phoenix, no Halo (PC/2/Online)? I'm gonna cry... (Louis Wu 22:56:44 UTC)

Disturbing lack of news
Hmm... here it is, 10:30 in the morning (Pacific Time) on the second day of E3... and not a peep from ANY Bungie fan or employee about what's coming from Bungie! What's up with that? (We even have some b.org personnel at the expo... but not the smallest report from them!) Could it be that Bungie has nothing to announce this week? If that were true, why is a huge chunk of the Bungie staff in LA at all? (Well, yes, there's a Fanfest coming up on Friday... but that doesn't explain the folks that deanero saw yesterday...) I'll be in LA tomorrow, and may find out for myself what's going on, but in the meantime, I'm a little confused. (Louis Wu 17:39:00 UTC)

GameCube now $150
For anyone keeping tabs on the Console War, Nintendo finally announced its price drop (effective today) for the GameCube - it's down to $150. Hehe - $550 will now buy you one of each of the three major consoles! (What does this have to do with Halo? Nothing. Why is it being posted here? Because experience tells me that if I DON'T post it, we'll get a dozen emails from people telling us to post it. Dollars to donuts, we'll STILL get that mail...) (Louis Wu 09:09:18 UTC)

Search results for announce

Another Search