My theory is that, just like television and movies, mediocrity pleases the gaming masses more than true inventiveness.
Ouch… harsh, man. (Louis Wu 11:24:49 UTC)
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It’s just kind of there.
A guy who used to review video games for a living, but now works for ExtremeTech, takes a look at the current crop of games he’s got around. Halo 3 (well, the whole Halo series) takes a whupping.
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Safetyless Shotgun, Revisited
Rooster Teeth’s Burnie Burns shares my unhappiness with the quality level of YouTube videos – so he grabbed the fileshare’d version of the ‘rogue shotgun’ video we mentioned yesterday, and whipped up a nice little downloadable version. Nice camera work, too. You can snag it in WMP9 or Quicktime formats from us – about 6 mb, either way. For those folks suggesting this is lag… look again.(Louis Wu 11:20:55 UTC)
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PLAY! coming to Seattle
According to a news item at Music 4 Games, The PLAY! concert, a video game music show, will be coming to Seattle in late January – and Marty O’Donnell will be there, doing Halo stuff. Tickets are onsale now.(Louis Wu 11:17:12 UTC)
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Bungie Weekly Update – last for a bit
Last night, Luke posted the Bungie Weekly Update at B.net – a bunch of SF 49ers showed up at Bungie’s offices to playtest the upcoming new maps, they’ve tracked a few campaign/achievement stats about the Halo 3 population, there are more playlist changes coming to Xbox Live, and there’s some big news coming Monday. As usual, you can also read it in our Weekly Update Archive. (Louis Wu 11:14:20 UTC)
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Bored of the Ringworld
Vincent stopped by yesterday with a whole passel of sprite comics he’s created over the past year or more. In general, we stay away from sprite comics these days… but these are quite good. I’ve left his .png links alone, but also added a local .gif mirror for each comic; same visual, considerably smaller filesize.(Louis Wu 11:10:59 UTC)
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Stubbs Pursuing An Old-School Chicago Vendetta
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Time Out Chicago has an article on the state of the videogame industry in the Windy City. It’s mostly about the development of Stranglehold and the closure of EA Chicago, but Bungie and Wideload do rate a mention:
In fact, work on the Halo series, one of gaming’s biggest success stories, kicked off in Chicago by a ragtag crew of twentysomethings known as Bungie. Microsoft acquired the group and moved it to Seattle, but cofounder Alex Seropian came back to Chicago to start Wideload.
“Chicagoans have a genuine personality that reflects itself in the character of our games,” he says. “I think that gives our creative direction soul.” Wideload’s first game, Stubbs the Zombie, lets players control the title character’s one-man war against the developers of a quaint retro-futuristic town after they disturb his grave.
Wideload is still working on Hail to the Chimp for release next year.
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Bungie Weekly Update: 11/16/07
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The penultimate in Downloadable Content teases, a visit from giants and Optimatch/playlist information.
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Halo 3… for Free
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Still on the fence about purchasing an Xbox 360 and Halo 3? Check out this latest promotional offer from Microsoft – buy a console, hook up to LIVE and get a free copy of Halo 3.
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THX Amazon store deal: Limited Edition Halo 3 Spartan Controller. $35.
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Our Amazon store is offering the Halo 3 Spartan Controller for $35 with free shipping. That’s $25 off the regular price. I’m in for one.
Amazon.com: $35 Halo 3 Spartan Controller for XBOX 360
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Halo draining manpower from the PC camp
QJ.net has some statistics from the online PC gaming companion XFire that would suggest that something happened in late September/early October that caused a lot of PC gamers to stop playing PC games… XFire’s senior director of marketing suggests it might be Halo 3. Heh.(Louis Wu 18:18:28 UTC)
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Hat Trick.
Bungie has taken to awarding the Recon Helmet to people who make them happy. This has led to people doing all sorts of silly things to try and make Bungie happy. (This will never work; they’ve said, very clearly, that the easiest way NOT to get the helmet is to ask for it.) Stuntmutt looks at this bizarre phenomenon in today’s One One Se7en.(Louis Wu 16:35:49 UTC)
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Friday’s Fan Fiction
Fourteen new pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section – busy week!(Louis Wu 15:52:47 UTC)
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‘Casting The Highway
It’s time for more Anger, Sadness and Envy – Episode 3 of Rampancy.net’s podcast is now available. Trindacut and Narcogen look at Tsavo Highway. 48 minutes, 22 mb – go listen!(Louis Wu 13:21:09 UTC)
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Fame Humping
Bungie used yesterday’s Game With Fame as fodder for this week’s Humpday Challenge (a bit off the hump). The writeup’s a little… disjointed (in a couple of places sentences just go off in weird directions; looks like it wasn’t ever proofed), but the end result is solid – three wins for Bungie, out of three games in the Social hoppers. They’re taking next week off, for Thanksgiving, so the next chance anyone has to beat them at this game will be November 28.(Louis Wu 13:17:57 UTC)
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Custom MC on eBay
Hawty McBloggy found a Custom Halo Master Chief figure on eBay – made from a GI Joe base. Interesting-looking!(Louis Wu 13:08:12 UTC)
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Advantages
TTL Demag0gue continues the exposition in Chapter One, Part Nine of Reclaimer – Ferial explains why he’s bothering. Sounds like things will shake up a bit next week…(Louis Wu 12:59:56 UTC)
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Another TV Halo Ref
Angela, a character on The Office, heads to Wired Magazine’s offices… and plays Halo 3. Oddness. Thanks, NickLee808.(Louis Wu 12:57:09 UTC)
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Halo 3 still selling well
Halo 3 sold 3.3 million copies in the last 5 days of September – and according to Kotaku, another 434,000 in October. It was the biggest single-platform console game of the month, beating Guitar Hero III’s 383,000 Xbox 360 copies. (If you count the Wii and PS2 sales of GH3, though, it climbs to 1.4 million for the month.) Will the numbers climb again in November, as people buy the game as a Christmas gift? Only time will tell!(Louis Wu 12:54:40 UTC)