My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Pod TV: Envy Skull

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    by

    foomojive

    Google Video version

    Pod TV returns with a blast from the past: a detailed walkthrough on how to get the envy skull in Halo 2! This one’s my fault for the extreme delay. Cryptoflix and the Pod TV crew have some more cool videos in the queue coming soon, so stay tuned!

  • GamingTV.org 1 year Anniversary

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    by

    trigger119

    The only thing I am sad about is how it took the domain expiring for us to realize this. We are back, however. Sorry for the inconvenience.

    It barely feels like a year ago me, Twilkey, Hitman, Haphazardly, and several other imporant staff members started this website. It sucks it had to be found because the domain expired, but whatever. It’s back.

    I’d like to thank THX for its support, and for some of the members stopping by our corner of the intarwebs.

    Some interesting stats:
    292 members.
    Over 2 million hits.
    Around 2.5 terabytes of data transferred the year we have been open.

    It feels somewhat strange, but oh well. Time flies, I guess. Thanks to all who use our services and bandwidth. Hopefully the years to come will bring more great changes and more bandwidth usage.
    __________________________

    ‹ Thx Pics! trigger119 :: Halo 3 Beta minitage ›

  • ARG Discussion Continues Apace

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    The game begun last week with the introduction of Adjutant Reflex is in full swing; our ARG forum is buzzing. (There are now almost 500 people signed up there – pretty amazing, for a site that didn’t exist 4 days ago). Again, we’d like to point out a decent timeline of events so far (it’s missing stuff that’s happened over the weekend, but it can certainly bring you up to speed on the most important stuff) – and oriol asked us to point out a recap of events so far over at Grunts”R”Us. Read up, figure out what’s going on, and jump in!

  • The Rumor Mill Commences

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    wii60 has a collection of rumors about E3 ‘O7, purportedly from an E3 Floor Manager – among the tidbits was this: “Bungie working on new title/series not related to anything in the Halo/Marathon Universe.” I guess we’ll see when E3 rolls around. Thanks, Red Breast.(Louis Wu 17:58:16 UTC)

  • Bendis talks about Uprising

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Comic Book Resources was present at a presentation at Wizard World Philly, where Brian Bendis (author of the upcoming ‘Halo: Uprising’ comic from Marvel this summer) talked a little about what folks could expect. Don’t read it if you don’t want ANY info.(Louis Wu 17:55:11 UTC)

  • The Riot 52

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Sigafoos let us know about The Riot 52 – just before taking off for a huge clan gathering/LAN. 25 minutes, 10 mb, lots of mockery. Go listen!(Louis Wu 17:47:10 UTC)

  • Fan Montages

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    A couple of montage offerings mentioned on our forum recently – Nick Burgos pointed out a collaboration between a number of fans, and trigger119 put together his own footage. Take a look.(Louis Wu 17:40:08 UTC)

  • Halo on a DS – again

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Bizarre – the rumor that wouldn’t die. IGN is bringing back discussion of Halo on the DS. (This last came up back in January.) Thanks, The Lamonster.(Louis Wu 17:37:05 UTC)

  • Sometimes, The Internet Makes Me Sad.

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    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Wow… I’m pretty discouraged today. We have a lot of company this weekend (a half-dozen people from two separate branches of the family), so I haven’t been near a computer for a while… but when I checked this afternoon, I found several dozen emails casting aspersions on every single entry in the Montage section of our Zune giveaway. Videos that had been displayed elsewhere before the contest, videos that included clips from existing films, one person even claimed that 3 of the 7 videos contained footage from his public fileshare space during the beta (this, of course, is totally unverifiable at this point). More people seem to be looking for ways to disqualify entries than seem to be interested in the contest itself. I’m not sure how to handle this; I have no doubt whatsoever that if we disqualified every entry, and put up 7 NEW films, we’d get the same collection of emails. I have no doubt that some of these accusations are true. I have no doubt that some are NOT true. And I know that we’re halfway through the voting on this phase. I feel as though the whole montage section has been tainted; I don’t know how to fix this. I’m going to let the voting continue on the 7 entries we have right now, and then I’m going to disqualify any films I can PROVE have violated our rules – and the prize will go to the remaining entry with the highest score. This is not ideal, but I can’t think of a better way to handle this without scrapping the section entirely. Here’s hoping the parody and machinima sections go better.(Louis Wu 17:30:40 UTC)

  • Countdown ends on Summer Solstice. SOTA rallies in San Fran, Chicago, Vancouver, more.

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    by

    rapture

    SOTA Chicago
    SOTA at a Cubs game

    Some minor ARG developments yesterday. Things are definitely slower now than they were. I think this is because we discovered the Circuit City ad too early – which opened the door to finding other websites.

    The Society of the Ancients were busy yesterday rallying in other cities. They were spotted at a Chicago Cubs game, in San Francisco, and Vancouver B.C. There are unconfirmed reports that they were rallying in Boston (believable) and Mobile, Alabama (not so believable). Check below for YouTube footage of rallies in San Fran and Vancouver.

    San Francisco Street Performer backed by SOTA protesters:

     

    Vancouver, CAN posted by Avery Fane on YouTube

    This last video was posted by Avery Fane. This is the guy with the mysterious MySpace profile and blog entries. He’s actually got a blog entry dated before we discovered the Society of the Ancients website. However, blog posts on MySpace can be back dated. Still, he offers up cryptic information that seems legit. Then again, he has posted a MySpace blog stating "I am not your messaih [sic]". As of right now, there’s no way to tell if he is a legit player or not. Since he posted that "messiah" blog and since he has said that he is not official in comments, I don’t think we should consider him a character in the ARG – regardless of the Iris, wings, and Occam’s Razor references. But, you may recall that an I Love Bees character used Blogspot to update us on her life.

    Next, it was confirmed that the countdown time will reach "zero" on the Summer Solstice. This year the Solstice will take place at 18:06 on June 21. It should be noted that there are usually celebrations held at Stonehenge on the day of the Solstice. The Society of the Ancients have a portion of their website dedicated to Stonehenge.

    So what happens with the countdown reaches "zero"? Will SOTA hava presence at Stonehenge. Will we see them rallying at other places? Will SOTA begin accepting applications via email?

    By the way , the Circuity City ad that reveals the link to the HALO 3 comic is landing on doorsteps around the U.S.

    __________________________

    currently playing: Shadowrun
    on the back burner: Catan, HALO 3 beta, Guitar Hero II, HALO 2 (PC)
    rest in peace: GoW, CoD3,
    Shadowrun rocks!

  • SOTA caught on tape in NYC (and elsewhere!)

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    by

    CapnKrunk

    On Friday, a MTV camera crew managed to catch a “protest” by the Society of the Ancients in Times Square, NYC. Apparently, there were several people on the street carrying signs, handing out flyers and getting their message out to the people.

    screenAnd today, the Circuit City/Best Buy ad that really started the ball rolling (and was discovered early) is now a reality. The ad is primarily encouraging pre-orders of Halo 3, but the URL for the comic is shown with the message:

    In the heart of Africa,
    at the dawn of time,
    They built it.
    Learn the truth…

    Currently, these are the latest solid developments that I’ve found. There’s plenty of speculation and investigation going on regarding SOTA, but for now, expect more this coming week, especially on the 21st. And don’t forget to join the Adjutant Reflex group to add to the discussion here at Podtacular.com!

    UPDATE: New video found of SOTA rally in Vancouver and San Francisco after the jump…

    Vancouver:

    San Francisco:

  • SOTA caught on tape in NYC (and elsewhere!)

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    by

    CapnKrunk

    On Friday, a MTV camera crew managed to catch a “protest” by the Society of the Ancients in Times Square, NYC. Apparently, there were several people on the street carrying signs, handing out flyers and getting their message out to the people.

    screenAnd today, the Circuit City/Best Buy ad that really started the ball rolling (and was discovered early) is now a reality. The ad is primarily encouraging pre-orders of Halo 3, but the URL for the comic is shown with the message:

    In the heart of Africa,
    at the dawn of time,
    They built it.
    Learn the truth…

    Currently, these are the latest solid developments that I’ve found. There’s plenty of speculation and investigation going on regarding SOTA, but for now, expect more this coming week, especially on the 21st. And don’t forget to join the Adjutant Reflex group to add to the discussion here at Podtacular.com!

    UPDATE: New video found of SOTA rally in Vancouver and San Francisco after the jump…

    Vancouver:

    San Francisco:

  • SOTA caught on tape in NYC

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    by

    CapnKrunk

    On Friday, a MTV camera crew managed to catch a “protest” by the Society of the Ancients in Times Square, NYC. Apparently, there were several people on the street carrying signs, handing out flyers and getting their message out to the people.

    screenAnd today, the Circuit City/Best Buy ad that really started the ball rolling (and was discovered early) is now a reality. The ad is primarily encouraging pre-orders of Halo 3, but the URL for the comic is shown with the message:

    In the heart of Africa,
    at the dawn of time,
    They built it.
    Learn the truth…

    Currently, these are the latest solid developments that I’ve found. There’s plenty of speculation and investigation going on regarding SOTA, but for now, expect more this coming week, especially on the 21st. And don’t forget to join the Adjutant Reflex group to add to the discussion here at Podtacular.com!

  • Halo Montage Video Voting

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    Bungie.net’s Recent News
    The next phase of voting for the halo.bungie.org Halo 3 Zune giveaway contest is now underway. Head over there now to vote for best Halo montage video!

  • RT: Question for the ages

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    by

    Rooster Teeth News
    Today’s comic is all about how Burnie is jealous, and also ugly. Also, if you missed it, Episode 2 of 1-800-Magic is below. sigless

  • Society of the Ancients in London

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    by

    rapture

    The following images were sent from “Keeper of Flame” to rapture via my person website this morning. It simply had a link to a Flickr account.

    The body of the email was:

    Quote:

    From:
    To: (my email address)
    Date: Jun 16, 2007 1:27 AM
    Subject: sota

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/8956757@N07/?saved=1

    The Society of the Ancients have a presence in London. We know that they’ve hit Times Square in New York. MTV has new coverage here. I wonder if we’ll see them in other cities?
    __________________________
    currently playing: Shadowrun
    on the back burner: Catan, HALO 3 beta, Guitar Hero II, HALO 2 (PC)
    rest in peace: GoW, CoD3,
    Shadowrun rocks!

  • Fan-made Spike Grenade

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Major Silva built a Spike Grenade, and wrote up directions so you could do the same. Take a look.(Louis Wu 13:10:17 UTC)

  • Zune Giveaway – Montage Voting Open!

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Nearly 2000 of you cast votes for the best original song, as submitted to our Zune Giveaway – we’ll be announcing that winner, along with the winners of the other 3 categories, on June 25. For now, we’re asking you to revisit the Voting page – the top seven montages are now posted. You’ve got until Tuesday night to pick your favorite – so get to watching! (Total download size for all 7 is about 170 mb, and total watching time is about 22 minutes.)(Louis Wu 12:11:49 UTC)

  • Society of the Ancients in Times Square. How it was supposed to go down. Update 3.

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    by

    rapture

    It seems that HALO fans and ARG fans are ahead of the game. Literally. We discovered the totally cool HALO 3 comic via someone that got glimpse of a Circuit City ad that is supposed to run this weekend. That ad leads us to the comic that leads us to some numbers that lead us to an IP address: http://206.16.223.65/.

    That IP address is owned by Microsoft. Actually, there’s a whole block of IP addresses owned by Microsoft. For instance http://206.16.223.11/ is for the game Conker. http://206.16.223.26 is for Games for Windows. http://206.16.223.45/ is for HALO 3.

    So, it would make sense that there could be one or more sites related to the ARG in that IP range.

    http://206.16.223.63 is in the range and is mysterious. It’s the homepage for the Society of the Ancients (SOTA). You can tell that it is related to the ARG if you go to the “evidence” page and see the “sign”. The sign is a glyph that we’ve now seen in several places.

    But discovering another page by brute force is kind of lame. We weren’t supposed to know that site as an IP address.

    It appears that we were supposed to learn of SOTA today via Flyers handed out in Times Square by people wearing yellow shirts. Below is a copy of the flyer posted by a user on the Neogaf forums.

    It’s the URL “societyoftheancients.com” that we were supposed to discover. Not the IP address.

    SOTA today. HALO3.com/comic/ tomorrow. And we are already ahead of the game.

    What’s next?

    It seems that the countdown timer on http://206.16.223.65/ will end sometime on June 21st (thanks for breaking the code, Nathan). Perhaps something will happen then. As for Adjutant Reflex. That user has not posted since yesterday. We aren’t used to going this long without a post.

    However, Adjutant Reflex did join a Seventh Column Chapter at Bungie.net. The chapter is called “Brute Ghostbusters” and was founded by new Bungie employee Luke Smith. Membership is by application only at this point in time. The motto of the group is:

    "Daily(ish) notes from Bungie's Luke Smith about what's going on: at Bungie; with Halo; and other nefarious, mildly- interesting nonsense. Also, there will be shenanigans."

    Have we found too much too soon? Does MSBungie have enough in store to keep us busy between now and the 21st? I’m betting that they do. This ARG is getting complex. Just look at the HALO3.com/comic. The artwork is deep. The story is deep. The animations are deep. A lot of time when into that. A lot of time has gone into hidding the “glyphs” on different websites. I bet we’ll be busy this weekend looking for more “glyphs”.

    If you think about it, we might can look at this ARG from the perspective of us (the fans) being inside the HALO story. Forget about what we know about HALO and its future. If we were a part of the HALO story (being just ordinary humans on Earth), we might find mysterious artifacts and think of them as “alien” or “unknown”. I think that MSBungie wants us to believe that they were “Forerunner” or “Covenant” technology and that we are in the HALO timeline right now.
    __________________________
    currently playing: Shadowrun
    on the back burner: Catan, HALO 3 beta, Guitar Hero II, HALO 2 (PC)
    rest in peace: GoW, CoD3,
    Shadowrun rocks!

  • Getting Tunged? Ew.

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    by

    halo@bungie.org
    in
    Been a long night – but Bungie put up its standard Weekly Update a few hours ago – it’s a pretty interesting read. Lots of juicy tidbits about music, a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at bug-squashing, and good old-fashioned fanboyishness. No Mister Chief… which makes me cry. Or maybe not. (Not a word about the ARG stuff, either… hmm.) You can, as usual, read a local copy in our Weekly Update Archive, as well.(Louis Wu 04:08:10 UTC)