It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where Shadowrun started out. EnragedGnome reported that FASA posted a blog about prototyping Shadowrun. Looks like H1 played a big role in the development of Shadowrun. Check out those images. Pretty cool stuff.
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rapzilla blog | Shadowrun | HALO 2 Vista | cooked Gamers

BlankCANVAS and JBurton90 bring us an interview with another member of the Podtacular community this week. Hear all about how he got into Halo, his upcoming machinima, and what makes him such an anime nut. More talk in the forums

BlankCANVAS and JBurton90 bring us an interview with another member of the Podtacular community this week. Hear all about how he got into Halo, his upcoming machinima, and what makes him such an anime nut. More talk in the forums.

Catan is the only board game I own and it’s really fun. If you’ve played the board game, the Xbox Live Arcade equivalent is even better IMHO. The idea is you’re a settler on an island and you’re trying to become the dominant clan on the island first. You need to trade resources with your opponents to make it happen, so there’s an interesting degree of competitive cooperation in the game. There’s also a good amount of twists that can really turn the tides. Stay tuned to the podtacular podcast for the usual quick review of this game. In the mean time, I highly recommend buying it and look forward to playing Catan with some of you soon!

Catan is the only board game I own and it’s really fun. If you’ve played the board game, the Xbox Live Arcade equivalent is even better IMHO. The idea is you’re a settler on an island and you’re trying to become the dominant clan on the island first. You need to trade resources with your opponents to make it happen, so there’s an interesting degree of competitive cooperation in the game. There’s also a good amount of twists that can really turn the tides. Stay tuned to the podtacular podcast for the usual quick review of this game. In the mean time, I highly recommend buying it and look forward to playing Catan with some of you soon!

Alexander “The Man” Seropian, cofounder of Bungie and later Wideload Games, currently working on Hail to the Chimp to be published by Gamecock next year, gave an interview to Armchair Empire this week. Sounds like the interviewer was expecting to hear a lament about how E3 was crucial for new, small developers like Wideload, but instead, Seropian heaves a sigh of relief:

As a developer, E3 brought its share of excitement. There’s a lot of attention put on the industry and if you’ve got something that’s debuting or being shown, it’s very exciting. But more often than not, it ends up being a huge drain on resources to focus and to prepare for an event that really, from a developer’s perspective, did not seem to serve any purpose whatsoever. It was really a big strokefest for the publishers to see who could make the most noise.

What Seropian does say means a lot for small independent developers is original intellectual property. For the details, read the entire interview; plenty of interesting things there, although the only thing about HttC is a promise for more information soonish.

Frankie at Bungie says if you make a cool enough emblem design, it’ll be included in Halo 3. Check the post at Bungie.net about the Bnet reader design contest for details.

Kevin R. Grazier, a Ph.D in geophysics and a huge fan of Halo, has contributed to a book called Halo Effect that looks at the Halo phenomenon; his piece, Halo Science 101, is about the science of the Halo universe. Halo Science 101 is up now at Gamasutra. Thanks for the heads-up to Roger Wilco, via Louis Wu at HBO.

Very interesting read, despite some of the absolutely ancient screenshots used for illustrations.

Ducain wrote to alert me of an update at Certain Affinity’s site, and it’s good news all around.

First off, they’re passing around the news that Frankie at Bungie.net says the map downloading problems have been fixed.

Secondly, the first Certain Affinity fansite, CertainAffinity.net, is now open for business, although you may still smell sawdust from fresh construction.

EnragedGnome posted over on SR.thx.com that the Shadowrun achievements have been revealed. You can look at Fall360’s gamercard to see them. Note that there are at least 6 secret achievements.

Which ones are going to be hard for me to achieve?

Block ten sniper shots with Wired Reflexes. (I haven’t used WR in more than a few games. I don’t think I’ve ever blocked shots with WR.)
Kill one hundred enemies with your Minions. (I’ve only casted a few Minions. I’ve only been killed by one Minion. I’ve probably killed 40 or 50. I hear Minions are more useful/deadly in the retail.)
Gust 5 enemies to their deaths. (I rarely use Gust, although I need to learn to do it.)
Kill one hundred enemies with SmartLink active. (I’ve used SL in about 2 or 3 games. Another tech/magic that I will use more in retail.)
Kill one hundred enemies with the Katana. (It costs $2500 so I never buy it. I’d rather fight with other weapons. I will pick one up on occasion, though.)
Get a 5:1 damage-to-kill ratio. (I usually get near a 1:1 damage-to-kill ratio. I’ll probably have to rig this one.)

In all, I think they are pretty clever achievements. They will definitely encourage gamers to explore the magic, tech, and races.

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rapzilla blog | Shadowrun | HALO 2 Vista | cooked Gamers

Download | Shownotes

This show turned out really good. We talk all about the leaked Halo 3 video and learn a bit about what to expect from Halo 3. We also have this past week’s Xbox Live Arcade Reviews from Rist Peblo and the winner of the Crackdown contest! Guest this week is George from the frickin’ sweet gaming blog aeropause.com. It’s an hour and a half of Podtacular goodness.