My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • First Impressions Of Halo 3

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    by

    narcogen

    It’s tired cliché that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

    Despite rampant accusations of having a story that’s derivative pulp, the first half of Halo 3 is not a tired cliché, nor does it need a second chance to make a first impression.

    Hearing from a number of reviewers and community members who played through the game in a single sitting under Bungie’s purview, I’ve decided to play no more than two campaign levels a day in order to savor the experience. To get my Halo 3 fix the rest of the day, I watch films of those levels, hunt for skulls, or play around in Forge. I understand why those people wanted to get through the game right away, and why Bungie wanted reviewers to play the whole game. Community members knew they wouldn’t be able to go on much longer without someone spoiling the ending for them. Bungie knew it would be best for reviewers to have a complete experience– at least, the most complete experience you can get from 8-15 hours of a game that probably has as much if not more replayability value as Halo 1 and 2 combined. However, I refuse to be rushed.

     Click here for the complete text.

  • Halo on the Nintendo DS – again

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Wow, weirdness. Back in January, Matt Casamassina, editor of IGNCube, discussed a port of Halo for the Nintendo DS. Nobody ever confirmed it, and the rumors eventually died away. Today, it seems he’s posted some videos of the game being played, to PROVE it’s real (and, he says, to convince someone to start development up again). The videos have very odd dates on them (two years ago today – I’m guessing that’s just a typo)… but they sure LOOK real. Thanks, Laird.(Louis Wu 20:45:07 UTC)

  • RT: The Desire To Win

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    Rooster Teeth News
    Everybody has their own methods of trying to win when things are at their worst. I’m not saying Jason’s is right or wrong, it’s just his way (and apparently it works). You go with what you know. Kind of on that subject, I want to send out a message to all…

  • Display your H3 screenshots on THX.com

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    by

    rapture

    One neat feature of the current version of the Hushed Casket website is the automatically rotating headers at the top of the page. There is some sweet magic happening on the backend of the site to make that happen. I want you guys to be a part of it.

    I want the community to recommend screenshots for inclusion in the header. This is how it will work:

    1). Post in this thread your Bungie.net profile URL and the name of the screenshot you want added

    Example:
    URL – http://www.bungie.net/stats/halo3/screenshots.aspx?page=0&gamertag=EA
    Screenshots – “OMG headshot” and “Warthog blast”

    2). Shortly thereafter, one of the badmins will navigate to your B.net profile, resize the screenshot, and add it to the website if we like it.

    Be creative. Use the Theater to make some really cool shots of your gameplay. Don’t forget to detach the camera to fly in for the perfect shot.

    Important: note that all images in the THX.com header are 1920 x 250. That’s a very odd aspect ratio. The image is only 250 pixels high. Please take this into consideration when you make your screenshot. A 4:3 screenshot may not look as awesome as a 1920:250 image.

  • Display your H3 screenshots on THX.com

    —

    by

    rapture

    One neat feature of the current version of the Hushed Casket website is the automatically rotating headers at the top of the page. There is some sweet magic happening on the backend of the site to make that happen. I want you guys to be a part of it.

    I want the community to recommend screenshots for inclusion in the header. This is how it will work:

    1). Post in this thread your Bungie.net profile URL and the name of the screenshot you want added

    Example:
    URL – http://www.bungie.net/stats/halo3/screenshots.aspx?page=0&gamertag=EA
    Screenshots – “OMG headshot” and “Warthog blast”

    2). Shortly thereafter, one of the badmins will navigate to your B.net profile, resize the screenshot, and add it to the website if we like it.

    Be creative. Use the Theater to make some really cool shots of your gameplay. Don’t forget to detach the camera to fly in for the perfect shot.

  • Another Custom Made Action Figure

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    So there’s clearly a market for custom-made action figures; we mentioned a sculpted one last week that still has 2 days to go – current bid is nearly at $2000. BARBARIC RAGE found ANOTHER one – this one (which is male) just went up, and still has nearly a week – but it’s a pretty impressive piece of work, and I’m guessing it’ll end up going for a LOT. Go see!(Louis Wu 17:48:38 UTC)

  • The Spartan Effect Episode 6

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Eddie, from Rookie Rabbit Productions, let us know that Episode 6 of the Spartan Effect has been posted on their site. We’ve put up local mirrors of the WMP9 and QuickTime hi-res versions, because they’re worried about Filefront links, and because this is a decent series. This will be the last episode built in Halo 2.(Louis Wu 17:47:11 UTC)

  • Wait, an empty box?

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    SarcasticGamer wrote a summary of the Halo 3 pieces they put up in the past week – there are some funny ones in there! (Louis Wu 17:41:42 UTC)

  • Hawty does eBay – she does it well.

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Hawty McBloggy had a nice writeup of some cool Halo faceplates for sale on eBay – check ’em out, you still have a couple of days to bid! (Do you remember the toilet seat she found a few days ago? Turns out, that guy also created an Elite engraved toilet seat, and Hawty was the only bidder. She’s an eBay queen!)(Louis Wu 17:34:40 UTC)

  • Massive Sales in the UK

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Numbers are out for the first four days of sales in the UK – Halo 3 sold nearly half a million copies (in a country with 1.4 million 360s). It’s not the biggest seller ever in the UK (GTA San Andreas sold nearly 700,000 copies in 2 days), but it’s prety impressive! This information is on a lot of sites; Eurogamer wrote it up nicely.(Louis Wu 17:27:14 UTC)

  • Master Chief Takes Manhattan

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    GameDaily has a series of pictures of someone wearing a cardboard Master Chief face (I couldn’t see any eyeholes, so I can’t call it a mask), wandering around New York. Oddness! Thanks, Empress Cortana.(Louis Wu 17:20:22 UTC)

  • Remembering his Father

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    A 61-year-old Halo fan created some music inspired by the game literally minutes before he entered the hospital, and died. His son posted the music on a blog. Thanks to GamesBond007 for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 17:15:06 UTC)

  • Pod TV: Halo 3 Overview

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    by

    CapnKrunk
    Download this video

    Cryptoflix and the Pod TV army is back for Halo 3 with a tour de force video giving an overview of what’s available in Halo 3. They cover vehicles, a forge tutorial, how to record and play back saved films, character customization, and more! Lots of people involved in the making of this including Anjo banjo, jigsaw, chronicjester and II M0L3RS II. Enjoy it!

  • T-shirt article? who knows.

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Bootsman pointed out the picture that’s associated with this news post on a Finnish site – I don’t know really what the point of the article is (online Finnish translation tools are… weak), but the shirt she’s wearing is pretty fun. (Louis Wu 17:10:32 UTC)

  • More Lock-In/Launch writeups

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Dweezle let us know that his writeup of the Halo 3 Community Lock-In, and the Launch Event that followed it, is now up at Tied The Leader. Great pics! There are also a few writeups that haven’t been linked here at the bottom – we pointed out a bunch last Friday, but there are new ones: Uncle Gamer Radio | Evil Avatar | Ace Attorney’s Pictures. Check ’em all out!(Louis Wu 17:06:03 UTC)

  • Halo Wars Update

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Halo Wars has had another update, on their forum – it’s a discussion, for the most part, of AI, and what you should expect from it – but there’s also a very cool wallpaper of the Spirit of Fire. Thanks, Mike Smith.(Louis Wu 16:45:31 UTC)

  • The Play’s the Thing

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Interesting Op-Ed piece at the New York Times (with an almost disturbing drawing) – Daniel Radosh posits that Halo 3 is not art because it doesn’t try to be. The debate of ‘videogames as art’ is one he considers valid… he just doesn’t think Halo 3 is in the running. Thanks, Ragnarok.(Louis Wu 16:43:09 UTC)

  • Halo 3 a top rental

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Gamasutra posted last week’s Gamefly rental charts – Halo 3’s on top, which isn’t a huge surprise, but this paragraph was notable:

    For the third straight week, the top five all-platform requests are identical to the top five Xbox 360 requests, reflecting the same movement and demonstrating a telling dominance for the console in the rental market.

    Someone with more time than I have could probably speculate on what that means in the broader context of the console wars…(Louis Wu 16:31:25 UTC)

  • User Friendly Halo 3

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Kyle Vibert found a Gamespot feature called ‘User Friendly Halo 3‘, summarizing the newest features and how to use ’em. (Louis Wu 16:28:39 UTC)

  • Reviews

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Review Roundup for Tuesday:

    • Australian IT says it starts slow, but is awesome once it picks up – 9/10

    • Pariah’s Guild put up the second part of their review, this one focusing on the Campaign – it gets a 4/5. (They felt it was “seriously shorter than Halo 2’s”, and that the ending was disappointing.)

    • Ars Technica (who gave Halo 3’s campaign a 7/10) rated the Multiplayer at a 10/10, and a final overall score for the game came in at 9/10 (thanks, Rota Jota). They called it “one of the best online experiences on any system in recent memory.”

    • PopMatters gave Halo 3 4 stars, and said it “speaks eloquently”.

    • Hexus.gaming says it’s a Good Value and an Editor’s Choice, but liked Gears of War better. 8/10 for campaign, 9.5/10 for everything else.

    • Silicon Gaming says it’s so addictive it should come with a public health warning.

    • Ace Gamez gave it a 10/10; the writeup was loved by Rockslider.

    Yeah, there are still plenty. (No, we still haven’t found time to write one here – we’re too busy writing THIS stuff.)(Louis Wu 16:17:12 UTC)