Author: narcogen

Probably not possible. posted by Narcogen at Mon, 03 Sep 2007 04:00:00

Yes, everybody has to get into the act. Even Radio Shack is offering pre-orders of Halo 3. If you can get over the terrible description of the game noticed by Avateur in the HBO forum (thanks for the heads-up to Ibeechu in #hbo), you’ll notice a collection that seems to include some new screenshots; shortly…

I know the last post was too long, so here’s a summary. Bottom line, users can now: Search and sort images Send and receive private messages Submit site content (news, blogs, images, polls, and FAQs) Have fun!

I’m now starting to make some of the functional changes on the site enabled by the last Drupal software upgrade. The first change is probably the most basic. The old image gallery used to display a listing of all galleries, with a sample image, and an image count, which was very nice. However, when you…

MR2NoShoes writes a long post in the HBO forum about how he was a Mac-using Marathon fan who drifted out of the Bungie community after the MS buyout, only to find himself roped back in by winning an Xbox. His return was solidified by attendance at a hush-hush backroom Bungie party at PAX. Check out…

Xbox.com’s weekly newsletter points out an interview with Frankie about Halo 3. He says the focus in Halo 3 is playing it your way: I hope that the main thing players take away is how much Halo 3 is their game. That is to say, it’s a game that lets them play it the way…

Reverend Anthony at Destructoid wonders out loud how it’s possible to have a satisfying ending to a game narrative that isn’t just a boss battle without taking the sense of control and identification away from the player. He’s got a good point. The article mentions a wide variety of games, but the Halo series does…

There’s been an awful lot of community discussion around the first version of Microsoft’s recently released Game Content Usage Rules. Most likely a result of Halo 3’s upcoming Saved Films feature, Microsoft is the first game publisher to openly publish such rules, instead of simply remaining silent over copyright violations that do benefit them insofar…

Tex did a calculation over at Queen of the Hill to find out exactly how much her Halo obsession costs. The grand total? $2098 and change. Yowza.

Over the last 24 hours I’ve updated Rampancy.net from Drupal 4.7 to the latest 5.2. To the best of my knowledge, no features have been lost– drop me a line if something seems broken. If you look at the top of the page, you’ll see the new spoiler system. For years we’ve tagged items as…

Major Nelson posts a note that the Halo Wars “First Look” trailer, clocking in at a tad under 500 Mb in High Definition trim, is now available on Xbox Live Marketplace: Based on the Halo universe, Halo Wars introduces a new landmark in the strategy genre. Halo Wars places the player in command of human…

According to Xbox.com, Halo 3 has gone gold, or been “released to manufacturing” according to the article. Looks like RT mentioned it first in the HBO forum, and of course it’s been picked up by HBO itself, Major Nelson, Xbox 360 Fanboy, GameSpot and the horse’s mouth: Bungie.net. In a short but sweet news post,…

HBO is running another Seven on the Seventh contest; the prize this time is Marathon: Durandal, the XBLA conversion of the Bungie classic by Freeverse. To enter the contest, draw a picture of the Master Chief having “wacky adventures” in older Bungie games. See HBO for the complete rules.

It’s hard to escape the concept of repetition in entertainment, especially in gaming. While the word “repetetive” itself is often used as a criticism (hello Halo 1’s interiors) games are designed to be played repeatedly, and incorporate repetetive elements into their designs. It’s understandable. As an object lesson in entertainment economics, look at the DVD…

Combination Halo fansite and gaming group The Hushed Casket is celebrating its fifth anniversary; head on over and check out Midnight’s recap of the past year, as well as their more exhaustive site history.

Australia’s PALGN has posted a review of Freeverse’s XBLA port of Marathon: Durandal. Their verdict: Marathon: Durandal is one of the best value games on the XBLA. You could spend more time playing through this than Halo, and at a fraction of the cost. There are aspects of the game that are archaic and it’s…

Kotaku has a video it calls a “guided walk” through the gameplay of Halo Wars. No word yet on whether this is the same content as the rumored XBLM video “demo” due out. UPDATE: Ensemble Studios has put up a ten minute video on their own site; this is what they showed at E3 this…

Over at 1Up, Jeremy Parish is Revisiting Halo, going over the Cortana Letters and pre-buyout screenshots; they promise even a look at the Marathon trilogy will be on tap.

The most recent Preferred Player column over at Xbox.com, penned by KP, is on Freeverse’s XBLA port of Marathon: Durandal; specifically, an XBL cooperative game of Marathon the author played with yours truly and other notable Bungiefen Geary11 and Zu…

Earlier this week I experienced something that, up until now, I thought only other people had to go through. Xbox hardware failure. I plugged it in, and instead of the familiar sights and sounds of console startup, I got a loud pop and a puff of smok…