Author: narcogen

I’m going to start with a really, really tiny detail and try to use it to come to a sweeping statement about what makes a game fun. The detail we’ll start with is weapon spawns in the Halo games: why timers are fair, but not fun, and why slightly rand…

Okay, so not everybody is in love with Halo 3. Over at the Hushed Casket, Midnight calls it “fun” and details the changes. Rapture calls it a bigger, prettier Halo 2, and it’s most decidedly not a compliment. Of course you can’t please everybody, and …

Bungie has swapped out the Team Training list for a Big Team Training playlist. This features Banshees when played on Valhalla.

More articles about the Halo 3 Beta around the web: GamingExcellence likes what they see but think Bungie has taken a “safe approach” to changes in Halo 3. Hushed Casket has impressions of Halo 3 by Midnight and rapture; they’re not nearly as impresse…

More ramblings on the Internet over the past few days about the Halo 3 beta. Cinema Blend Games got a chance to try team gameplay and liked what they saw. Urban Reflex talks about the problems people had with their beta codes, as well as what some pe…

Haven’t played Wideload Games’ debut effort, Stubbs the Zombie? Maybe you’ve never seen it in stores. Well, that’s no longer an excuse; for $19.95 you can get a digital delivery of Stubbs via Steam.

SketchFactor writes at Bungie.net that if you get this status code from your Xbox: “Status Code: Z: 8015 – 190D” Congratulations! You’ve been banned for modifying your Xbox. This doesn’t affect your XBL account, but does prevent that console from c…

Chad “Shishka” Armstrong, formerly Lorraine “Mehve” McLees’ assistant at Bungie, has opened up a 1Up blog. His first significant post tells the story of how he got hired at Bungie and how that led to his current position at Certain Affinity

Sorahn’s directory of Public Beta medals has been updated; it seems Bungie caved on Cheneymania, renaming it Open Season; also several missing medals, including Hail to the King, have been added.

GamePro interviews Bungie’s Lars Bakken about the Halo 3 Beta. PALGN has an article up giving their impressions of the Halo 3 Beta, by Alistair Macleod.

If you’ve been playing in the Beta since the 11th, you’ll have to install an update today to keep playing. If you don’t, you might get a message that says the H3 Beta is “unavailable or expired”. You should be prompted to download an update. If it do…

Bungie.net has an extensive guide to the Halo 3 Beta; if you’re participating, check it out. It covers matchmaking, controls, networking, customization, and a whole range of other topics. If you’re not playing, check it out anyway– it’s a good bet th…

The day before the Halo 3 Multiplayer Public Beta throws open its doors to the masses, Bungie pulled out the heavy guns. Mark this date on your calendars, folks: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 Because that is the day that Halo 3 will be released. Th…

The Saved Film feature of Halo 3, as implemented in the beta, looks more like a framework than a finished piece of work, but even as such there are some quirks worth noting. Currently you can “share” up to six of your saved films; essentially, Xbox Li…

XerxdeeJ writes that Tied The Leader has a live audio report from the Halo 3 press event in New York. Check the blog for photos and other pre-beta coverage.

Sorahn put up a page of all the H3 beta medals he’s found so far; we also put up a special H3 Beta Medals page where you can search and sort them. Work is underway on better quality images and a more complete collection, word is there are still a fe…

Kudos to Stuntmutt via HBO for pointing out that Gabe and Tycho now like Halo. Are you a dirty little jeep? Yeah… I thought so. Other news: Halo 2 for Vista sucks, says CVG. Even the music. And the gameplay. And the enemies. And the pacing. This is…

Halo 1 came out nearly six years ago. Halo 2 came out nearly three years ago, and until the release of bright, shiny, next-gen Gears of War, ruled the roost at Xbox Live. Halo 2 just logged it’s five millionth unique player, and will no doubt continue…

Urban Reflex’s Halo 3 blog, Ordained Insight, has several entries detailing his experience with the public beta in the past three days: weapons, equipment, interface, features, the lot.

This writeup of the Halo 3 press event by Damien “Angry Gamer” Sarcuni is more about cocktails and skirt-chasing than Bungie and Halo, so I’m at a loss at how to describe it. Here it is.