Month: October 2004

A couple of Halo community regulars have pulled screenshots out of the hi-res 60-second commercial – you can find rapture’s faves over at cookedgamers.net and BOLL’s picks on 7708.net. Speculation will have to be amongst friends, or on other forums – ours is still offline, for another week and a half. Sorry!

Bah. You might have noticed that there’s been an absurd amount of news recently – and sometimes, things fall through the cracks. Yesterday’s One One Seven is one of those things. It’s posted now… sorry. (Hmm… upon reflection… maybe you’d have been better off spared that particular pun…)

Tina Leyk dropped by last night with another incredible piece of artwork – this one’s called ‘Close Call’ – she says it started out as a random doodle (unrelated to Halo), ended up as that. You can find it on her art collection page here (last picture). All I can say is… wow.

Two new IGN articles for you today – a VERY high score in a Japanese Xbox magazine for Halo 2, and a ridiculously high-end version of a Halo 2 readiness guide (this one might be Insider-only, I’m not sure). $640,195 – plus tax. Plus the game. Wonga.

We finally got an official announcement from Aspyr about Wideload’s new Halo-engine-based game, Stubbs the Zombie. The press release can be found here, and you should visit the game’s official website for more info.

Gruntkilla found a new Halo 2 writeup over at Canada.com – sounds like they had fun playing it. (He also mentions a contest being run by their Montreal broadcast station – if you live in Quebec, you can enter to win a free Xbox with a copy of Halo 2 by sending your mailing address,…

Adam Daniel extracted the new screenshot snippets from the nilerogers.com Listening Station interface (we mentioned them yesterday – you can see them here, here, here, and here. He also composited them into one image, if you’d rather grab that. Thanks, Adam!

Owm points out that Halo2.com has been updated again – the previously off-limits sections (password-protected) are now open. You can find screensavers (mac and pc), a short (15-second) new promo movie (wmp9 format), and more. Go look! (Scroll around the middle ring until you see the prophets – they’re behind that.)

For folks who want direct downloads of the large QuickTime version of the featurette we posted last night, community members have come to your rescue. Nick has posted a copy on HaloDev (though you’ll ONLY be able to access it through that link – pasting that anywhere else will lead to a redirect), and Coylter…

Small update on the Halo for Charity drive… I think some care needs to be taken here. We got mail from KilaOne (the person who started the idea on the Bungie.net forums) saying that talks were underway with ESA, but that a little time would be needed to straighten things out – and then we…

A little off-topic, but… Spideroptics sent us another example of journalists cutting a few corners to make a point. His local paper, the UK Guardian, put up a couple of articles recently about GTA: San Andreas (here and here), mirroring content in the print edition. What amused him was the picture (150K) that was published…

There’s plenty more news, but it’s gonna have to wait until morning – I’ve got stuff to do. In the meantime – I have a Hi-res version of the Multiplayer Featurette for you, in QuickTime format. It’s a bit washed out when compared to the original – but I was in a hurry. 😉 We’re…

Man… take the kids to a couple of Halloween events, the mailbox just FILLS. Many, many people wrote about the two newest pieces over at nilerogers.com – Ghosts of Reach and The Last Spartan. Again, the Listening Station is wonderful… if you’re on a fast connection – otherwise, the snippets are here and here.

Today’s Weekly Bungie Update is over at Red vs Blue, in honor of the RvB team visiting Bungie this weekend. Unfortunately, that means that a significant chunk of Halo fans can’t actually see it – because viewing posts on the forum requires that you be registered on their site… and being registered requires an email…

New video, straight from Bungie – the new trailer (both long and short versions), in English, French, German, and Italian… last summer’s movie teaser… and the bonus of bonuses, a multiplayer featurette yanked off the Making of Halo DVD (high and low res, 88 or 44 mb, WMP9 format). Go watch the fantastic fllmmaking of…

According to the Digital Bulletin, Microsoft has paid FHM.com a quarter of a million dollars for a partnership, with promotion on the site the payoff. Loading times are pretty horrible right now, so I can’t actually see the Halo 2 minisite… but much of FHM’s content seems to be not safe for work. Interesting choice…

The BBC looks at Killzone… and decides it’s not really a Halo-killer. Surprise, surprise. (Remember, they’re available on completely different consoles.) Thanks again, demonelite.

Eep – I keep forgetting this one. In Great Britain, there’s a Big Screen Battle tourney coming up on the 4th of December, in 5 Vue Cinemas around GB. Check the page for details. demonelite gets the first heads-up for this one, yesterday sometime.

If you live in Canada, the Xbox Limited Edition Crystal Pack is (or soon will be) available. Crystal Xbox, matching Controller S, a couple of games, and a two-month trial subscription to Live comes with it, for $250CDN (about $200 US). Play Halo 2 clearly! Thanks, Brian.