My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

Month: June 2003

  • New Storyboards at T and R

    Nice eyes – Iceman1330 noticed three new storyboards over at Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site. (They’re not currently mentioned on any of b.net’s news pages.) You get a good look at the ODST’s weapons, and the Pelican cannon. Check ’em out! Update: These got posted on Friday, and I managed to miss ’em in the…

  • Yes, frequently asked.

    GameFAQs has posted a new poll: Which FPS sequel are you looking forward to? I think we all know the answer to that.

  • A monster, indeed.

    Forgot to mention this yesterday… but Target4Hire nailed the audio challenge we mentioned in Saturday’s news. Thanks to Marty and Jay for the followup explanations.

  • Clan Battles

    Clan [WSD] has posted a 30 mb movie showing a clan match between themselves and {SDA} last week. It’s all CTF footage (almost 7 minutes worth), filmed from the perspective of one of the {SDA} members. (The final clip shows why, if you’re playing [WSD], you might want to think twice about giving them raw…

  • Demo Trailer update

    The full Demo Trailer Mirrors list has been updated with a number of new mirrors; even the newer QuickTime5 hi-res movie has a mirror (thanks, Halo Orbit!). Check out the list for the full details. (There are now links at the top of the page for each flavor.)

  • Target price drop is ON.

    Benjamin Coles points out that the price drop Ding mentioned a few days ago (and then speculated might not actually happen) has actually happened – Target is selling Halo for $27.88 this week, according to XboxAddict. If you need another copy, you can’t beat this price!

  • How thick IS the ring?

    Its accuracy depends on Evil Otto having created his artwork to scale… but Shnfara has estimated the thickness of the Halo at almost 120 km by using a side-on picture of the ring and some pixel math. You’ll find the result in our Miscellaneous Art section. Update: My bad – that value (the thickness of…

  • Desktops out of hiding

    Six new desktops (8, if you count variations) have built up since we dropped everything for the demo trailer… you can now find them in our Wallpaper section. Update: one of the pieces has been yanked because it used artwork without getting permission from the creator of that artwork. This seems to be happening more…

  • MPEG alternate for the demo

    A new version of the trailer, encoded in MPEG1 format, is now available. It’s 87 mb, and has a screen resolution of 436×320. It’s a bit darker than it should be, maybe (I can’t tell for sure; it looks good on 3 of the four machines I checked it on), but if you can’t watch…

  • Alternate… number 2.

    Okay, here’s the deal. If you own a relatively new, fast PC, there’s absolutely no question which trailer you should download: get the WMP9 hi-res version. It’s simply gorgeous, running on decent hardware. And if your sound system supports it, it has Dolby 5.1 surround sound. It’s as close as you’re gonna get to having…

  • Dialogue Transcript Revisited

    Thursday night, I took the opportunity to fix minor problems with the dialogue transcript for the demo trailer we posted a couple of weeks ago. Thanks to Ross Mills for reminding me to actually POST these fixes.

  • Read, Read, and Read Some More

    While some of us were frantic about the demo trailer, the Fan Fiction crowd was pretty busy – check out the latest 14 entries: Its Just One of Those Days: Intro, by Elfster Covenant Invasion! Part One, by Hunter_Killer A Broken Covenant, by TheRambler Sacrifice, by Gruntkiller All Roads Lead To Sol…Unless Stated Otherwise: Chapter…

  • More low-bandwidth alternatives

    That Weasel has been busy; there are several new flavors of the trailer (and one official flavor) at That Weasel Television; these are (for the most part) very low-bandwidth items. (These have been added to the full mirrors list.) Apologies for the delay in the HIGH-bandwidth re-encodes from me; first versions had screwed-up gamma. If…

  • A Musical Challenge

    Jay Weinland, otherwise known as Jay the Younger (in deference to the hard-of-hearing Marty O’Donnell), has put forth a challenge to the fans: can you tell what meter(s) the “outro” music for the trailer is written in? (Check the thread for more details, and as of now, one guess.)

  • Non-US competition play

    Couple of notes about European Halo play; the big one is in France. Swing by Halo-Game’s site for full details, but here’s the quick rundown: competition is the last weekend in August in Clermont Ferrant (central France). Entrance fee is €20, top prize is €4000 in merchandise. Sign up if you’re gonna be in France…

  • Lores avi version of demo available

    Nukedude has converted the WMP9 version of the demo trailer to a 320×216, 20.3 mb DivX-encoded .avi. If you’re tight on bandwidth, you might want to grab this. It’s not nearly as majestic as the original… but it’s light-years ahead of the shakeycam versions floating around. I have no way to get this to mirror…

  • Revisited: Halo on sale at Target

    Target’s current sale of Halo for $37.88 might be the only actual sale of the game… next week’s purported drop to $27.88 might not happen, according to some insider tips I received. If you wish, you can hedge your bets: buy the game now, and if it does drop down another $10, you can take…

  • Anyone Got A Match?

    In the insanity that was yesterday, the Friday edition of One One Se7en was overlooked. After WATCHING the flaming ninja material, however, you’re more equipped to appreciate this episode…

  • Timberland Warthogs

    Don’t they ever stop? Bungie has put up yet another desktop for you – this time, it’s a pretty straightforward screenshot adaptation, using material from Halo PC. Check it out on the Halo PC Wallpapers page at Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation. Thanks to nukedude for the heads-up. (This was actually announced, along with the Ghost…

  • More mirrors, and more formats

    The mirror list for the E3 Demo Trailer continues to grow… more links were added overnight. We’ll also be beginning to add alternate formats. Any alternate formats added will be created from existing files, so there is absolutely no need to download them if you’ve already got a copy that you can watch; these are…