My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Fan Interaction – A Powerful Secret

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Gamasutra has an article about how the movie industry could learn from the gaming industry in leveraging fan communities – and Bungie is held up as a shining example. (There is a slightly odd focus on Luke Smith as the driving force behind Bungie’s success in this field – I’m pretty sure even Luke will tell you that he’s continuing a tradition started long before he arrived – but the basic gist, that Bungie has successfully tapped into the enthusiasm fans have for the game, and for their company, in their attempts to increase awareness and excitement, is solid.) Interesting read – thanks, Anton P. Nym.(Louis Wu 17:33:39 UTC)

  • Griefers

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Davidgojr has a little trouble with some of the people he runs into on Xbox Live. Let him tell you about them at 1P Start. (Language warning.)(Louis Wu 16:41:41 UTC)

  • Halo 3 Map Walkthroughs – The Pit

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    halo@bungie.org
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    LaurenOboe, who’s been a part of the RvB community for quite some time and appears here periodically for her machinima and musical offerings, has started a series of multiplayer map walkthroughs – first up is The Pit. She covers what’s available, weaopns/equipment-wise, in the stock version, and discusses layout and basic strategy. If you find this sort of thing useful, let us know on the forum – she’ll make more. (I, for one, love to have this sort of resource available.) Grab it in WMP9 format (69.5 mb) or QuickTime format (66.7 mb) – both are 720×480, and run just over 5 minutes.(Louis Wu 15:10:08 UTC)

  • Halo 3 Views, from an old-timer

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    halo@bungie.org
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    rockslider has been a long-time Halo 1 advocate, and a staunch Halo 2 hater; he let us know about his feelings for Halo 3 this morning. Overall verdict – still doesn’t live up to the original, but he’s not returning it. (Louis Wu 14:57:25 UTC)

  • Mister Chief Cake!

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    halo@bungie.org
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    ElephantDropBomb put up a pic of his brother’s birthday cake – Frankie would be proud.(Louis Wu 14:32:35 UTC)

  • Easter Eggs. Literally.

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Fadefury pointed out an article at Xbox360Fanboy which details a series of egg-shaped objects hidden high in Sandtrap, covered with a multicolored texture. The texture has been seen elsewhere; it’s a standard test texture that shows off a huge range of colors, and so is useful for debugging purposes. I’d be very, very surprised if the ‘code’ visible on the outside of these ‘eggs’ actually translated to anything – I think they’re ‘Easter Eggs’ in the purest sense of the word. Funny, cool, but they don’t mean anything past what you see. (They’ve been found before – there’ve been a number of discussions over at High Impact Halo, for example (here’s one), and one or two have been mailed to us – but it’s an egg morning, so…)(Louis Wu 14:12:02 UTC)

  • Unharmonious monks and tiring death screams

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    halo@bungie.org
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    For the most part, we’ve stopped reporting new Halo 3 reviews; there are so many of them that if you really want a summary of what’s out there, you’re better off looking at a place like Metacritic or Gamerankings. I read one this morning, though, that had me scratching my head… it seemed to be complaining about very odd things. (Don’t get me wrong – there are lots of things that people complain about in Halo 3; I’m not saying that it’s a game you can’t criticize. It’s just the CHOICE of things they chose to whinge about that threw me…) Read and decide for yourself.(Louis Wu 13:24:03 UTC)

  • CBR interviews RvB

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Alacaboose let us know about a pair of episodes of Cockbite Radio (a podcast with a focus on Red vs Blue) you might be interested in – Episode 18 has an interview with Kathleen Zuelch, who plays Tex (there’s some insider info at the end), and Episode 16 has an interview with Gavino, who interned for the group this past summer. You can find download links for both on the Talkshoe Profile page for the podcast.(Louis Wu 13:06:24 UTC)

  • Halo Signage

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    Hawty “I shop better than you do” McBloggy let us know about a couple of Halo-related street signs you can buy right now on eBay – they’ll certainly set a mood in your gameroom!(Louis Wu 12:46:59 UTC)

  • An egglet, I guess.

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Heh – darthbob found a small egg on The Storm; one of the buildings is labeled ‘Section K-434’. This is almost certainly a nod to Bungie’s Kirkland offices, at 434 Kirkland Way. Oh, the little things…(Louis Wu 12:44:00 UTC)

  • Heavy Metal Forging

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Heh – yesterday we mentioned a blog post that suggested that you could make pictures in Forge – we received this image from AfRo SaUcE. He and his buddy Shadow300 made a copy of the Deathbat logo of the band Avenged Sevenfold – took ’em a couple of hours. Nice work!(Louis Wu 12:25:53 UTC)

  • Shraptain

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    halo@bungie.org
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    This weekend, I noticed a new film announced at High Impact Halo – ‘Shraptain’, a jumping vid from jagg3d Shrapn3l and CaptainCrunch41. (That link contains a high-res WMP9 download and a YouTube link.) Last night, nomis78 pointed out an MLG Gameroom link for the vid, as well. These jumps are often useable in tactical situations – they can get you to places that will give you an advantage in net play in a reasonable timeframe – and so might be worth learning for average players. (The ability to climb back up the chutes in Guardian is pretty nice…)(Louis Wu 11:49:08 UTC)

  • Internet/Halo bundle in Canada

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    Juxtapose let us know that over at Arbiter’s Judgement, there’s word of a deal from Sympatico, an internet provider in Canada; if you sign up for a 3-year deal at $60/month, they’ll give you their ‘Total Internet’ package (normally priced at $45/month in a bundle), an Xbox 360 Elite, a copy of Halo 3, and a 12-month Xbox Live subscription. If you bought all these separately (3 years of bundled internet plus the 360, Halo, and the 1-year Live subscription), your cost would be $2240. The bundle will work out to $2160, an $80 discount (over 3 years). If you’re looking for an easy way to finance the purchase of a 360, this might be the deal for you.(Louis Wu 11:41:13 UTC)

  • RvB: 2007 Machinima Fest Europe Vid

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    halo@bungie.org
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    I missed this a couple of days ago, but Rooster Teeth posted the video they created for the European Machinima Festival for their sponsors; I would assume (though I have no evidence for this) that it will be available for everyone soon. It looks at what Red vs Blue would have looked like had it been filmed in other countries. It made me laugh out loud. (It’s in the Halo 2 engine.)(Louis Wu 21:33:07 UTC)

  • Game Invasion to broadcast Essentials Disc One

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Looks like a significant chunk of the Essentials Disc One (the extra disc that comes with both the Limited and Legendary editions of Halo 3) will be available online, via Comcast’s Game Invasion, starting Thursday (the one-month anniversary of the relase of the game). The entire ‘Anatomy of a Game’ documentary, plus the 24-hours-in-the-life-of-Bungie piece ‘Git Ta Werk’, will be available to watch. Thanks, MasterChief2829.(Louis Wu 20:45:30 UTC)

  • Everyday is exactly the same

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    Lucko let us know that his ‘Everyday is exactly the same’ has been announced on Halo Front – it’s a Halo 3 music vid set to NIN music. 82 mb, WMP9 format.(Louis Wu 20:44:17 UTC)

  • Send in stuff for this week’s show: Multiplayer Tips & Map of the Month

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    foomojive

    It’s time to wrap up the first lap around the Halo 3 show rotation with the return of the tips show: helping you level up and stay there!

    Here’s a tip: don’t hold your gun backwards

    Got some general Multiplayer tips for us? Some of us need all the help we can get. Teach us how to use the sniper effectively, when not to use the man cannon, how to drive the warthog without getting killed, what to do with the elephant, etc. At this stage in the game we’re looking for tips for almost all levels of gameplay, so send stuff in even if you think it’s pretty basic.

    You were killed by Guardian

    Guardian is our inaugural Halo 3 map of the month. That means we want you to send in your gamplay tips on how to kick arse on this map. We break it down by game type when possible, so try sending in tips on any or all of the whole spread of game types:

    • CTF, Assault
    • Slayer, Team Slayer
    • Oddball, King, Territories
    • VIP, Juggernaut, Infection

    Deadline is Tuesday Night at about 6pm EST. Just click the big green button on the right side and send in whatcha got with your gamertag so we can give you credit.

  • From Ars, Answers

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Anton P. Nym noticed a post by ferrex over at ars technica, explaining that the mysteriously vague warning in last Friday’s Bungie Weekly Update was simply a notification that the Banhammer is about to be implemented. (Louis Wu 19:13:49 UTC)

  • McFarlane Figure Update

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    halo@bungie.org
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    On Saturday, Littlebigman pointed out the newly posted 2008 release schedule update for McFarlane Halo 3 toys; I hadn’t gotten around to posting this, but we’ve received a few emails about it, as well, so clearly there’s considerable interest out there. So check it out. (It’s also available on Spawn.com – search for ‘Halo 3’.)(Louis Wu 19:01:15 UTC)

  • 3D Screens

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    halo@bungie.org
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    kapowaz found a guy who’s making stereoscopic pseudo-3D images out of Halo 3 screenshots. Nice!(Louis Wu 18:39:50 UTC)