My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Feast Or Famine

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    narcogen

    Nthro Sraom submitted a nice how-to for finding the Famine Skull in Halo 3. Since Rampancy’s collection of skull pages isn’t complete, we’re asking readers to submit entries on their own favorite skull: how and where to find it, what it does, your preferred method of reaching it, and how it changes your experience of the game. Not just the location; lots of sites have lists of skulls with locations. This isn’t about getting credit for finding a skull, or just compiling a walkthrough to finding all the skulls, but also some information on how each skull changes your experience of playing the game.

    When submitted it’ll be added to the list of Halo 3 Skulls, a subsection of the Halo 3 Tricks page.

  • Halo 3 Implements Realtime Waves Processing

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    narcogen

    Texas TV station KIITV has a story on the implementation of realtime signal processing by audio firm Waves in Halo 3, as mentioned by Bungie audio director Marty O’Donnell in his interview on Major Nelson‘s podcast last week.

  • Bungie, NBA Player Cheat At Halo

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    narcogen

    Once again more news has transpired in 24 hours than I’m able to handle with the individual loving care that each unique-as-in-snowflake bit of news fully deserves to be treated. So sue me.

    Here’s what happened:

    Bungie cheated HBO out of a Humpday win. Makes you wish there was some large company comprised of adults watching over these boys Luke Smith while at play.

    Speaking of cheating, NBA player Gilbert Arenas apparently sets up dummy matches of doubles in social slayer and gets the dummy to quit out, leaving him with the victory and the experience points. MC187 sniffed out the method looking at statistics, and the Washington Post got Arenas to admit to it, who arrogantly asserted it wasn’t cheating. Bungie, instead of banning him, pointed to Arenas’ apparently legitimately high matchmaking skill ranking as proof of the player’s ability and ignored the fact that he’s manipulating the experience system. So that’s it, it’s OK to set up fake social games to get free experience points. If you’re a famous NBA player who is friends with top MLG teams. Otherwise, don’t. You might get banned.

    Speaking of HBO, Bungie AI engineer Max Dyckhoff gave an excellent and wide-ranging interview to HBO about exactly how the Saved Films feature works (it is simultaneously both more and less complex than you’d think) as well as how driving AI works (or doesn’t).

    Frankie pointed out Halolcats, the content of which is pleasantly predictable.

    Shacknews interviewed Wideload’s Alex Seropian about being an independent game studio.

  • Humpday Challenge: Vs. HBO

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    Bungie.net’s Recent News
    The kindly folks at Halo.bungie.org bring fierce justice to Bungie and by fierce justice we mean they had host advantage.

  • RT: Product Testing

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    Rooster Teeth News
    …

  • Halo 3’s Saved Films/AI Behavior – an Interview

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Saved Films functionality is a HUGE part of the wonder that is Halo 3; it lets you relive spectacular moments, it let’s you figure out exactly HOW you died (and which walls that bullet ricocheted off before it went through your skull), it lets you create gorgeous machinima with a minimum of setup. In order for it to work, though, Bungie’s gameplay has to be incredibly predictable… and if it’s incredibly predictable, how can it be fun? The answer to this question, and questions like it, require an understanding of how the Saved Film system works – and how Bungie’s AI works. So we went to Max Dyckhoff, one of Bungie’s AI engineers, to get the skinny. This ain’t an interview for people who just want to play the game – this is for people who want to understand how it WORKS. Go read what he told us.(Louis Wu 00:26:00 UTC)

  • Screenshot Screensaver

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Brad, from Soundproof.com, let us know that he’s created a screensaver that “scrapes the user submitted screen shots from bungie.net and shows them as a slide show.” It’s a Windows-only app, and there are two versions – one that just shows you the pics, the other that “takes your gamertag and uses that to gather all kinds of stats”, plus newsfeeds from a variety of Halo sites. This one costs $2.(Louis Wu 00:15:31 UTC)

  • How to be a better Halo 3 player

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Larry Larson (of Microsoft’s Channel Ten) recently blogged about a bunch of tips that went out over an internal Xbox distribution list, which might help you become a better Halo 3 player. It also answers some basic questions that might have you puzzled. Give it a read!(Louis Wu 00:09:52 UTC)

  • Hi-res Halo Brushes

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Weird – this site has created a bunch of “Halo 3 high resolution Photoshop brushes” – I guess for more quickly whipping up that cool wallpaper you’re working on. Check it out! (Louis Wu 00:09:34 UTC)

  • Jack’s Back

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Jack Thompson got himself on a TV morning show, decrying the church-using-Halo-to-recruit issue; Kotaku decided to break his claims down and look at how accurate they are. Not surprisingly, Jack’s made a few untenable declarations. You could have knocked me over with a feather – I never would have guessed it. Thanks, GryphonOsiris.(Louis Wu 22:39:55 UTC)

  • Halolcats

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    Bungie.net’s Recent News
    Halolcats is one of those cat-meme sites, only this time, all the “catptions” are about Halo and related themes. We realize this site is a little olde, but decided to see if we could crush their bandwidth by sending you to LOL, or HaLOL as the kids say over there.

  • Combat Part 2 – now downloadable in HD

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Laird points out that Combat Part 2 (Neil Blomkamp’s 3rd short) is finally downloadable in HD – head over to GameTrailers.(Louis Wu 22:02:51 UTC)

  • Dear Halo Haters

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Heh – G4’s Adam Sessler has some choice words for Halo haters out there… they’re not polite, but they’re choice. Thanks, PHANTOMFIRE X.(Louis Wu 21:58:07 UTC)

  • NBA star cheating for experience. Phooey.

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Wow, amazing. Over on Bungie.net, MC187 noticed that one of Gilbert Arenas’ gamertags was climbing funny in experience points. (Read the post for the details on the scam; they’re pretty unimportant to the story.) Arenas is a pro NBA player, and the sponsor of pro MLG team Final Boss; he’s high-profile, and big in the pro Halo community, as well, so if he’s cheating, it’s sort of a big deal. Dan Steinberg, who writes a blog for the Washington Post, decided to ask Arenas if this was true – apparently, it is. He doesn’t see it as cheating, because he doesn’t see ‘Experience Points’ as anything really relevant. Seems a little disappointing to me… thanks, evildoctorwill, for bringing this to our forum.(Louis Wu 21:38:51 UTC)

  • Podcastin’ the day away

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    halo@bungie.org
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    The latest Bungie podcast has been posted – in it, Jonty Barnes talks about what it’s like being a producer at Bungie. This was recorded well before the split announcement, so don’t be looking for juicy details about that here. About an hour long, 73 mb.(Louis Wu 21:18:31 UTC)

  • EA wants a Halo

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Interesting – over at 24/7 Wall St., there’s an article about Electronic Arts buying BioWare and Pandemic – the article interprets this move as “EA wants its own Halo”. In contrast to what happened to Microsoft’s stock recently (it rose when Halo 3 was released, and rose again when Bungie split away), EA’s stock has actually dropped, significantly (nearly 5% if you include after-hours trading). I guess the market’s not as friendly towards buying the next big hit? Thanks, Jon Ogg.(Louis Wu 21:12:23 UTC)

  • Bungie Studios Podcast: Yes, We’re Here

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    Bungie.net’s Recent News
    Bungie’s Executive Producer and taskmaster-ing expert Jonty Barnes is in the warm seat this week.

  • Ready-to-Wear Suit on eBay

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    halo@bungie.org
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    Hawty McBloggy found a pretty nice Master Chief costume on eBay – ready to wear! Opening bid is $900, Buy it Now price is $2000 – if you’re in the market, you’ve got a week!(Louis Wu 17:57:32 UTC)

  • What else is out there?

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    halo@bungie.org
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    ScrewAttack posted a video showing the 10 best games available this holiday – that aren’t Halo 3. (Halo 3: so overmarketed, you can even use it to sell OTHER stuff.) Thanks, Linkmaxwell.(Louis Wu 17:29:56 UTC)

  • What’s next for Master Chief?

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    halo@bungie.org
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    GameDaily has a photo montage of a bunch of ways Master Chief can enjoy his retirement, now that the current Halo arc is finished. Thanks, John McGovern.(Louis Wu 17:26:05 UTC)