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Halo 2 Playlist Changes Live
The Halo 2 playlist changes we mentioned in the past Weekly Update have gone live and you should now be able to choose Team SWAT from your Optimatch screen yet again. Rejoice!
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Fiery Blowback
Paul Maestri points out Halo Heads 49, in which one of the newest described features of Halo 3 is examined more closely. Maybe TOO closely.(Louis Wu 18:12:23 UTC)
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Halo 3 Beta Phase Two now closed
Microsoft has begun sending out emails to everyone registered back in December for a shot at the Halo 3 beta; these notes basically say that all 13,333 invites have been distributed, and if you haven’t gotten one yet, you’re not going to. (It also suggests that you can still get into the proram by buying Crackdown.) To those who made it – congratulations. To those who didn’t – not ALL non-Crackdown slots have been filled yet, though if you absolutely positively don’t want to miss the beta, it’s certainly your best bet. Update: Heh.(Louis Wu 17:38:15 UTC)
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Fan Music – En Masse
We got email from Erik “P3PP3RM4N” Fikkert yesterday – he had a bunch of fan music he’d created, wanted to know how to get it out to our audience. Well, that’s easy, right? We just post it, and tell you to go listen! Some of these pieces are really slick – I’d suggest starting up a forum thread if you’re interested in working with Erik on a machinima project; Halo vids are always better with original music!(Louis Wu 16:29:47 UTC)
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All Tied Up.
XerxdeeJ stopped by with this week’s Tied the Leader Tuesday Update – there’s a 22 Questions interview with Sean Gailey, of J!NX apparel, and a Community Profile (née Clan Profile) of O7AH. Go read! (Louis Wu 16:20:38 UTC)
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More Elite Poses
A few days ago, we mentioned a pretty cool thread at Bungie.net, containing a bunch of elite renders. Mike Jensen, the modeler, stopped by our forum last night with some new stuff – check it out!(Louis Wu 13:28:19 UTC)
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The Crazy Method
Over at halowiki.net, there’s an article from XyonsWrath about ‘The Crazy Method‘ – it’s a description of a strategy that has a good chance of working against your average Matchmaking opponents. As someone who ‘acts crazy’ a lot, I can see where this is useful! Thanks, PEZ.(Louis Wu 13:24:25 UTC)
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Bungie’s Matchmaking Should be Shared
Interesting article at 1Up.com – Luke Smith reports that according to Phil Spenser, Head of Game Development for Microsoft Game Studios, Microsoft would like to spread Bungie’s matchmaking code around to most (all?) first-party 360 games; the reason it didn’t make it into Gears of War was a timing issue, not a code protection one. Heh – so right about the time that other games are catching up to where Bungie was in late 2004, we’ll be seeing the NEXT evolution of their user interface in Halo 3. Sounds about right…(Louis Wu 13:10:53 UTC)
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Halomega Weekly Update
F1rsTxLas7, from Halomega, sent us a massive email – site updates, new movies (montage | 1v1 | montage trailer | 1v1 gameplay), plus sponsored videos, Sig of the Week contest, Snipe of the Month… go check ’em out.(Louis Wu 13:05:42 UTC)
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Hanging by a Thread
Mister Froggy let us know that Halo, Articulated #13 is now available. In it, the Master Chief is having trouble suspending his disbelief.(Louis Wu 12:23:10 UTC)
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Submit stuff for Episode 101: Girls in Gaming!
Wow, we’ve been news posting maniacs around here! Well we got another show coming up real soon, and as usual we would love it if you’d participate. How? Glad you asked.
Cleanin’ up Xbox Live one chauvinist piglet at a time
I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a Halo game with a girl in it, but you can imagine the potential. You know what Halo players are like. It’s kind of like walking on a bunch of snap caps in a room full of plastic explosive: It doesn’t take much to set it off. So here’s the plan: Let’s ask them three questions: What’s it like? What do you do to combat the idiots? How can we help? We’ve got a really good lineup so far of prominent girls from the Halo community to respond to what you say. The floor’s pretty much open here folks, send in any questions or comments you have for them. If it’s good and respectful, we’ll pass it along. Just click submit news and tips on the right side and send it in with your gamertag. Oh and we’re going to try to keep it related to Halo 2 as much as we can on this one too, since we are the Halo universe podcast.
Deadline is Thursday night
but as usual the earlier you send it in, the more likely it will be on the show. Hurry up!
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Podtacular, Planet Xbox360, Uncle Gamer, and Gamertag Radio sound off on Crackdown
Recently JVB, Vicious696, Godfree, and Nelson got together to do an audio review of Crackdown, the game that comes free when you buy the Halo 3 beta. Wanna hear from them whether it’s worth the cash? Check it out on Gamertag Radio or on Uncle Gamer. I heard it’s on Planet Xbox360 too but I couldn’t find it there. Check out these podcasts guys, they’re really good. On a related note, we’ve got a pretty sweet announcement about the Podtacular podcast coming up on the next show (Thursday night). Stay tuned!
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Icy Hot Stuntaz
I’m way too uncool to even know what that means, but that’s how Frankie described Halo 3 in an interview with Eurogamer.
On a more intelligible note, he also said:
Well, we haven’t lost a single [new] weapon thus far, but we’ve improved a few. Our test process is simple. Play it, play it some more, take notes, make changes, play it more.
The question was about the process for coming up with new weapons; so I assume it means that none of the new weapons envisioned for Halo 3 have yet been eliminated, although some may interpret it to mean that all the old standbys are also back.
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Wideload Announces Hail To The Chimp For PS3, Xbox 360
Hail to the Chimp has now been officially announced as a humorous beat ’em up to be released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 spring next year; more information is available from the game’s official site (flash required). It will be published by new outfit Gamecock, founded by alumni from Take Two– the same publisher that owned 19.9% of Bungie at one time and received the Oni and Myth franchises as compensation in the Microsoft buyout.
From the official release:
Hail to the Chimp is a party game where players battle one another to become the new leader of the Animal Kingdom. Players use the game’s unique team-up mechanic, balancing cooperation with competition, to claw their way to victory. The game supports up to four players on one console or online, bringing Wideload’s trademark blend of action and comedy to gamers of all ages.
More coverage available on these sites; most articles were rundowns of all five titles announced today by Gamecock:
UPDATE: I’ve also opened up a new Hail to the Chimps subarea inside the Wideload Games section of the site, as well as a Hail to the Chimp image gallery. As usual, articles relating to wideload can be accessed at http://rampancy.net/wideload and items specific to Hail to the Chimp can be accessed at http://rampancy.net/game/hail_to_the_chimp.
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Weekly Porridge #49: Killing Time
Quality Jeverage returns with another Weekly Porridge, this time to just clown around with some community members at podtacular.com. Can’t wait to see what #50 has for us! More talk in the forums.
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Podtacular Radio Episode 9
Download
Painkilla05 makes his triumphant return with another episode of songs to frag by: Podtacular Radio. This one focuses specifically on 8-bit songs: music that uses the audio palette of a NES. Check it out! It should be up on iTunes by now as well.
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Real Life Assault Rifle
link4044 posted a whole passel of pictures of an assault rifle he’s building over at Halo Planet. It looks AMAZING. If the bandwidth dries up, we’ll put up local copies – you gotta see this. Thanks, KP.(Louis Wu 21:50:19 UTC)
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Hail to the Chimp
Wideload Games, founded by Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian and with a staff that includes a couple of former Bungie employees, has announced its next game: Hail to the Chimp. You can get more information on the title from the game’s newly launched site.
The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft
