Author: halo@bungie.org

Dustbunny27 continues to work on Halo vehicles in Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts – take a look at his output!(Louis Wu 17:09:22 UTC)

Doc Shaftoe has been creating Halo-related pixel art avatars for Gaia Online users, and decided to show ’em off to a different audience. Nice work!(Louis Wu 17:08:57 UTC)

Looks like McFarlane is getting into the ‘cute’ market with their Halo toys – check out this announcement for Halo OddPods. (Farther down the page, there’s also a gallery of winning entries to their ‘show off your Halo helmets’ contest – cool shots!) Thanks, InnerRayg.(Louis Wu 17:08:18 UTC)

Firestorm12 let us know that the Halopen Pencast 07 is up – in honor of its Bungie-relevant number, it focuses on Halo exclusively. You can listen (or grab a copy) at podbean. (Louis Wu 17:07:22 UTC)

John Hopson, an engineer with Microsoft Game Studios’ Games User Research Group, talked at the Game Developers Conference about the testing that helped shape some of the gameplay in Halo 3. Thirty five separate lab tests, with a thousand game testers, were used to fine-tune how some of the gameplay was presented to consumers. Interesting…

Tyrant, heartened by the success of his Floodgate Mythic Challenge, has reissued the challenge with a new map – Halo. Swing by Bungie.net to read all the details – but the short version says that the fastest Mythic run of that level submitted on March 28 gets a Mythic Map pack code. (Really – read…

Marc Allie wrote an article for ‘This Week in Co-op’ (a column at Co-Optimus.com) called ‘A Boy and his Halo’. It’s all about getting maximum enjoyment from Halo titles (from Halo 3 to Halo Wars) with his 7-year-old son. Fun pics!(Louis Wu 19:00:31 UTC)

urk highlighted a pretty slick montage from Impact – the credits start just over halfway through, but there’s plenty of decent gameplay after that point, so it’s not too unreasonable. Most of the gameplay is from the MLG playlist… and the BRs are fast and furious.(Louis Wu 18:48:16 UTC)

Nearly forgot – it’s Thursday! That means it’s time for another Double XP Weekend to kick off – this week, it’s Rocket Race. Get your game on!(Louis Wu 18:36:42 UTC)

Retarb1ter built a map called ‘Vertigo’ which, when used in conjunction with the game type ‘Brute Jumper’, provides a Halo player with a fun obstacle course that takes you through all three levels of Sandbox. You can see Retarb1ter running through it in this YouTube vid. All hail the Bungie Blog!(Louis Wu 17:40:08 UTC)

Halo as a vocabulary tool? Apparently!(Louis Wu 17:27:02 UTC)

Jamie98s is back with another episode of The Unlucky Elite – all he needs now is a Wile E. Coyote mask, and it would be perfect. Absolutely worth watching – fun music, great filming. LOVED the ending. Thanks, urk.(Louis Wu 17:19:45 UTC)

Domino Theory is back, with another Legendary giveaway. Same deal as last time: throw your name into the hat, we’ll pick one at random, and that person will be able to buy the Legendary maps (and maybe a bit more). You’ve got until Sunday night – but don’t enter twice!(Louis Wu 15:13:23 UTC)

One final outtake from Murray’s talk can be found over at Kotaku – it’s a summary of seven principles that BUngie has adopted towards production, post-Halo, and if you like what you read… they’re hiring.(Louis Wu 13:05:52 UTC)

Another interesting tidbit from Allen Murray’s talk at GDC… Murray said “Halo 3 took two and a half years to make, and we’re still working on it,” Murray said. “We’ll probably be working on it for two more years.”Most of us had assumed that Bungie was moving on from Halo after ODST was released… but…

IGN posted an interesting article recapping some of the stuff Allen Murray discussed at the Game Developers Conference yesterday. Seems Guardian was originally part of a campaign level that was cut for time constraints. Go read the rest of the article for more juicy details. (There’s a sizeable thread discussing this article on our forum,…

Hawty McBloggy sat down to talk to Pete Cooper, the face of the Operation Chastity live action film/Warthog project. Great read! (Louis Wu 13:01:28 UTC)

According to this message at FileFront, the long-time hosting site will be suspending operations on March 30, 2009. If there are some files that you’ve been meaning to download… now’s the time, they’re gone in 4 days. Thanks to Ryan Stone for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 13:00:44 UTC)

Over at Bungie.net, Sk1ll4xEd points out a clip from 1995’s ‘Ace Ventura 2’ which might trigger some familiarity in Halo fans. (Before you start feverishly typing that this sounds NOTHING like the Halo theme… take a deep breath, realize that for most people a Gregorian chant is a Gregorian chant, and smile along with the…

A new Top 10 series has kicked off – this one’s known as ‘Death From Above’ and it highlights kills made from flying vehicles. No voiceover. Thanks, urk. (Louis Wu 12:59:18 UTC)