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Pod TV Ep 9
Kiaffex dropped in to point out Podtacular’s ‘Pod TV Episode 9: Superjumps and Glitching‘; I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to actually DEMONSTRATE how to do something that Bungie’s identified as cheating… but as long as you’re not doing it in MatchMaking, I guess we’re fine. Available in iPod-compatible .mp4 and YouTube versions.(Louis Wu 15:52:42 UTC)
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Layin’ it down
XerxdeeJ stopped by a bit after midnight – the standard Tuesday Tied the Leader update was a bit earlier than usual. Along with the now-regular 22 Questions interview (Robert Summa, the Executive Editor of Destructoid – terse, but telling), you’ll also find a TTL Salute to the Ghostbuster (I can just hear this being read by Pete Stacker and Dave Bickler), and an article entitled ‘Guardians of THE BETA‘ – what you should (and shouldn’t) expect from the upcoming Halo 3 event. As always, worth reading.(Louis Wu 14:49:45 UTC)
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That name… that name…
BitMaP stopped by our forum last night with a new Strouperman comic – not so much Halo-related, as RedvsBlue related, but hey…(Louis Wu 14:39:53 UTC)
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Poor Education
Mister Froggy pointed out Halo, Articulated #28 – I must say, it doesn’t paint the Master Chief in a very flattering light…(Louis Wu 14:37:54 UTC)
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New One One Se7en Strip Hurts Children
One One Se7en does it again. A groan-inducing nightmare of a comic strip whose only saving grace is that it is mercifully short. Cruel? Read the pun and decide for yourself. Special Ed Ition
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Replace your trashed Halo 2 disc
Wow, very cool. Microsoft has announced a Disc Replacement Program – if you have a damaged Xbox 360 disc that they publish, and you own a 360, they’ll send you a new one, at a reduced rate. Halo 2 falls into this category – so if you’ve got a 360, and a non-functional Halo 2 disc… have ’em replace it! (Restrictions, of course, apply. Still a cool deal.) Thanks, 3Suns.(Louis Wu 22:20:13 UTC)
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A Real Nobody.
Today’s One One Se7en was submitted last week – but it’s funnier than a similar joke posted yesterday at TeamXbox.(Louis Wu 18:01:51 UTC)
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How to set up a LANfest
Zerowind117 put together a short documentary about setting up a LANfest – specifically a Halo 2 LANfest. Video is hosted at Google. Take a look.(Louis Wu 18:00:08 UTC)
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Rock Band
New game form harmonix, that lets you not only pretend to play guitar, but also includes drums, bass, and vocals. This sounds like an interesting and possibly fun game.
Gamespot coverage http://www.gamespot.com/news/6168388.html?tag=latestnews;title;0
Nobody has rocked the game industry quite like Harmonix Music Systems. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based game company is focused squarely on music and rhythm games, and churned out Guitar Hero, one of the most popular new franchises of any genre, with the aid of publisher RedOctane.
The band broke up somewhat abruptly at E3 2006 when RedOctane, which owned the rights to the Guitar Hero name, was purchased by Activision for $100 million. A few months later, Harmonix was bought outright by MTV Networks, and at GDC 2007 EA announced that it would be distributing the next Harmonix-made game through its EA Partners program.
While it was known that the Guitar Hero franchise would live on through Activision-owned Neversoft, Harmonix has kept the volume down on its next project…until now.
Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos explains Rock Band in his own words.
Harmonix, MTV Networks, and Electronic Arts today officially announced Rock Band. The music-based game will do Guitar Hero two better by featuring guitar, drum, and microphone peripherals, proving rock and roll requires more than just someone who can handle the axe. Rock Band is scheduled to be available for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 this holiday season.Like Guitar Hero, Rock Band will feature licensed music. Thanks largely in part to its new relationship with MTV, Harmonix was able to wrangle multi-track master recordings from the catalogs of some of the biggest record labels in the business. On board to offer access to their portfolios are EMI Music Publishing, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Hollywood Records, and Warner Chappell Music. It is currently unknown how much from each music publisher will be available to Harmonix, but the emphasis going forward will be to work with the artists themselves.
Little is known about the gameplay at this time, but online interaction will be vital to the experience. Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos told GameSpot, “In addition to the music that ships with the game, we have very big plans for building out a huge library of online expansion content.” Rigopulos also said that some content will “very likely” be free.
Cowbell players need not apply.
As for the controllers, the guitar peripheral will control the bass and lead guitar portions, a microphone will be used for vocals, and a drum peripheral will provide the beats. Rigopulos says the drum is “a really impressive piece of hardware. I’m a drummer myself, so we weren’t going to settle for anything less than something that felt like a real instrument.” Harmonix is still working out the details of how the peripherals will ship.When asked if wannabe rock stars would be able to go online and seek out other musicians to play with, Rigopulos excitedly said, “Absolutely. The whole experience is actually about reaching out to other people and forming a band together and that collaborative experience…to form a band and rise from obscurity to fame.”
The team behind Rock Band also sees the project as more than just a simple game; they see it as a new platform for experiencing music. “We’re at the very front of what will be a major transformation in music entertainment,” said Rigopulos. “I really believe that four or five years from now, this kind of active participation in music making is going to be how people expect to experience the music that they love. Rock Band is a huge first step in that direction, but the sky’s the limit in terms of the span of genres we eventually intend to reach with this.”
For more on Rock Band, read GameSpot’s Q&A with Rigopulos and EA Partners vice president David DeMartini.
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Foolish Fansites
It seems that every year, people have trouble figuring out which April Fools stories are true, and which are not. (We don’t help very much; we intersperse regular Halo news bits with April Fools stories as they come in, and rarely draw attention to the fact that they may or may not be real.) For anyone still scratching their head, here’s the word on yesterday’s news stories, from first to last (start at the bottom and work your way up): true, true, true, true, false, false, true, true, false, false, false, false, true, true. And that’s all I have to say about that.(Louis Wu 10:50:11 UTC)
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Halo at Video Games Live concert
The evening of March 31, 2007, Louis Wu and I (and my son, Rafi) met at Yale’s Woosley Hall in New Haven, CT for the phenomenon that is Video Games Live. The premise is video game music played by a symphony/choir. We had a great time! It definitely ran the gamut of games – starting with Pong and moving onwards. Did we get to hear Halo theme music in all it’s symphonic glory? Does a grunt crap in its hermetically-sealed, methane-filled pants? Below the fold there by more commentary, and actual VIDEO!…
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They’ll Dance On Your Grave On Either Console
Surprise, surprise– the new Halo 2 maps by Certain Affinity apparently won’t be only for the Xbox 360, but will also run on the original console. Hang ’em High and Derelict are coming to the new engine as Tombstone and Desolation.
Apparently this means that Xbox Marketplace can’t be used, since it doesn’t support original Xbox games. That’s a shame, since for some odd reason, I can use Marketplace perfectly well on my 360, but the in-game downloader for Halo 2 maps doesn’t work at all, which has cut me out of Halo matchmaking. Anybody had this problem and found a way around it?
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Halo at Video Games Live concert
The evening of March 31, 2007, Louis Wu and I (and my son, Rafi) met at Yale’s Woosley Hall in New Haven, CT for the phenomenon that is Video Games Live. The premise is video game music played by a symphony/choir. We had a great time! It definitely ran the gamut of games – starting with Pong and moving onwards. Did we get to hear Halo theme music in all it’s symphonic glory? Does a grunt crap in its hermetically-sealed, methane-filled pants?
Below the fold there be more commentary, and actual VIDEO!
There was audience participation (in random picked audience members playing a game on the large screen with a chance to win prizes) and Jack Wall, the conductor and veteran composer of video game music was not acting like a stereotypical conductor. He was jumping, bopping, etc., to the music. Tommy Tallarico, another video game music veteran, is the host and he also brought his inner video-game geek to the event. My 11 year old son, though unfamiliar with some of the older video game music, still enjoyed himself. I would recommend anyone that hasn’t had a chance to catch this tour to do so if it passes by. Check out their schedule here.
Below is the youtube link of the entire Halo portion of the concert I filmed off my digital camera. I’m actually impressed I got as good a vid as I did. They played the full Halo theme, and as a cool bonus they ended it with the Halo 3 trailer music: “Finish The Fight” If I had to criticize, the video in the background was basically just a pastiche of cutscenes, with not terribly strong links to the music as it played. Don’t get me wrong… where there was a flourish – or any kind of emotional tug, the video followed suit, but in general, if you were an avid Halo player, the scenes did not really match the music. Too bad they couldn’t have generated some custom vid that did a better job. I would have even preferred a medley of different Halo tunes with scenes of the levels the music was used in. Still, it’s a minor quibble, and when they got to Halo 3, since the music was meant to follow the trailer, there was no issue there. Well, except for Tommy himself showing up with a Steinberger guitar strapped on. It would’ve been nice if we actually heard the guitar, but it really didn’t sound all that good. Whoever was running the board didn’t get a clean enough sound. Anyway, near the end you can hear me laugh when “Bungie” flashes across the screen, mainly because it was at that moment that I realize that in a twisted fashion, the concert is one giant ‘attract’ event for the forthcoming Halo 3. No other video/music composition in the concert ended with the developer logo and upcoming release date teaser. It was quite funny.
I don’t mean to speak ill of Tommy and actually wish to give him major props for specifically giving all attendees permission to take pics and video and spread the wealth! He’s eager for everyone to get a taste of the concert. Thanks Tommy for understanding the power of internet pic/video sharing. Many other symphonic pieces were played – Warcraft, Medal of Honor (with a very visceral *real life* montage of the horror that was WWII), Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Advent Rising (a game that came and went, but the music, composed by Tommy himself, easily surpassed the game’s own failings), and we were even treated to the incredible Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist that’s all over youtube. His skill is unmatched, and to think he did it all with no sheet music!
My thanks to Mr. Louis Wu for his assistance in navigating around Yale and letting us bum some nice seats up on the balcony! And of course he’s offering the video over at HBO at the best resolution possible.
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Halo at Video Games Live concert
The evening of March 31, 2007, Louis Wu and I (and my son, Rafi) met at Yale’s Woosley Hall in New Haven, CT for the phenomenon that is Video Games Live. The premise is video game music played by a symphony/choir. We had a great time! It definitely ran the gamut of games – starting with Pong and moving onwards. Did we get to hear Halo theme music in all it’s symphonic glory? Does a grunt crap in its hermetically-sealed, methane-filled pants?
Below the fold there be more commentary, and actual VIDEO!
There was audience participation (in random picked audience members playing a game on the large screen with a chance to win prizes) and Jack Wall, the conductor and veteran composer of video game music was not acting like a stereotypical conductor. He was jumping, bopping, etc., to the music. Tommy Tallarico, another video game music veteran, is the host and he also brought his inner video-game geek to the event. My 11 year old son, though unfamiliar with some of the older video game music, still enjoyed himself. I would recommend anyone that hasn’t had a chance to catch this tour to do so if it passes by. Check out their schedule here.
Below is the youtube link of the entire Halo portion of the concert I filmed off my digital camera. I’m actually impressed I got as good a vid as I did. They played the full Halo theme, and as a cool bonus they ended it with the Halo 3 trailer music: “Finish The Fight” If I had to criticize, the video in the background was basically just a pastiche of cutscenes, with not terribly strong links to the music as it played. Don’t get me wrong… where there was a flourish – or any kind of emotional tug, the video followed suit, but in general, if you were an avid Halo player, the scenes did not really match the music. Too bad they couldn’t have generated some custom vid that did a better job. I would have even preferred a medley of different Halo tunes with scenes of the levels the music was used in. Still, it’s a minor quibble, and when they got to Halo 3, since the music was meant to follow the trailer, there was no issue there. Well, except for Tommy himself showing up with a Steinberger guitar strapped on. It would’ve been nice if we actually heard the guitar, but it really didn’t sound all that good. Whoever was running the board didn’t get a clean enough sound. Anyway, near the end you can hear me laugh when “Bungie” flashes across the screen, mainly because it was at that moment that I realize that in a twisted fashion, the concert is one giant ‘attract’ event for the forthcoming Halo 3. No other video/music composition in the concert ended with the developer logo and upcoming release date teaser. It was quite funny.
I don’t mean to speak ill of Tommy and actually wish to give him major props for specifically giving all attendees permission to take pics and video and spread the wealth! He’s eager for everyone to get a taste of the concert. Thanks Tommy for understanding the power of internet pic/video sharing. Many other symphonic pieces were played – Warcraft, Medal of Honor (with a very visceral *real life* montage of the horror that was WWII), Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Advent Rising (a game that came and went, but the music, composed by Tommy himself, easily surpassed the game’s own failings), and we were even treated to the incredible Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist that’s all over youtube. His skill is unmatched, and to think he did it all with no sheet music!
My thanks to Mr. Louis Wu for his assistance in navigating around Yale and letting us bum some nice seats up on the balcony! And of course he’s offering the video over at HBO at the best resolution possible.
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VGL – in Connecticut
Last night, I was lucky enough to find myself at the Video Games Live concert that was performed at Yale University’s Woolsey Hall. Great music, for a couple of hours… and then the piece de resistance – the standard Halo theme, followed immediately by the Halo 3 ‘Finish The Fight’ piece. Miguel Chavez was able to get these two pieces on film – well, on his digital camera. Quality is limited, of course (what can you expect from a digital camera?) but it still is worth watching. Almost 8 minutes, 22 mb in QuickTime or WMP9 formats. (He also put up a copy at YouTube.) (DHalo, from our forum, was there too – he wrote up his account, as well.) Check it out!(Louis Wu 22:21:38 UTC)
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The Riot 42
Sigafoos points out The Riot 42, with coverage of the community, the new maps, and some silly soap opera stuff. And more, of course. 31 minutes, 12.5 mb.(Louis Wu 20:59:36 UTC)
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Halo Movie Details Emerge
Filmspot has info about the resurrection of the Halo movie – new details include Lions Gate as the new studio, Steve Downes confirmed as the Master Chief. More in the article. Thanks, BlueNinja.(Louis Wu 19:21:07 UTC)
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Number One with a Hook
Bungie.net has posted an apology for an industry leak of the upcoming Pimps at Sea movie – apparently, a distributor leaked a poster that was NOT supposed to be public. I guess this has the potential of hurting the upcoming ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ finale… it’s not Halo-related, but it IS Bungie-related, and if anybody sues, it COULD affect future Bungie projects. Here’s hoping we stay in calm waters. Frankie was first with the news, trying to get out in front of the tidal wave of bad press.(Louis Wu 19:03:02 UTC)
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Movie Project Leaked
After a couple of leaks, Bungie is forced to make a statement regarding its current movie project. Statement inside.
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Xbox 360 Brute Edition
Hardly Halo-related, except for the names… but TeamXbox has a story about the new Xbox 360 Brute Edition (a step up from the Elite Edition). 1TB drive, Super Multi Blue drive (reads both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD), motion-sensitive controller. List price of $599. Thanks, MasterChief2829.(Louis Wu 16:49:53 UTC)
The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft
