My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Podtacular Pro clans are evolving

    This is only for the pro clans. If you are in a rec clan or you’re not in a Podtacular clan, everything stays the same.

    The pro clans are a good idea, no doubt. But they weren’t working in most cases because some small teams just didn’t gel together. So some teams just never played and therefore never had a chance. After thinking this over, we have found a solution.

    Halo 2, Planetside Style

    The idea is that we have 2 big teams but smaller teams within those that get to compete within tournaments. So like “platoons” or whatever of 4-person teams representing their bigger team (PodtacularPro A or PodtacularPro B ) so that while one platoon will win a tournament, it comes down to adding up the points to see which bigger team wins. Get it? We’ll work out the tournament details soon, but for now here’s the breakdown of where each team consolidates to:

    PodtacularPro A PodtacularPro B
    Pro D Pro C
    Pro E Pro F
    Pro H Pro G
    Pro I

    There are now 2 overlords per pro clan and the current overlords should be moved over as staff for the mega-clans. If you’re in a pro clan you’ll be getting an invite to either A or B depending on the table above. You can still play with your team of course, and even compete with them in tournaments. Post in the comments if you have any questions.


  • Podtacular Pro clans are evolving

    This is only for the pro clans. If you are in a rec clan or you’re not in a Podtacular clan, everything stays the same.

    The pro clans are a good idea, no doubt. But they weren’t working in most cases because some small teams just didn’t gel together. So some teams just never played and therefore never had a chance. After thinking this over, we have found a solution.

    Halo 2, Planetside Style

    The idea is that we have 2 big teams but smaller teams within those that get to compete within tournaments. So like “platoons” or whatever of 4-person teams representing their bigger team (PodtacularPro A or PodtacularPro B ) so that while one platoon will win a tournament, it comes down to adding up the points to see which bigger team wins. Get it? We’ll work out the tournament details soon, but for now here’s the breakdown of where each team consolidates to:

    PodtacularPro A PodtacularPro B
    Pro D Pro C
    Pro E Pro F
    Pro H Pro G
    Pro I

    There are now 2 overlords per pro clan and the current overlords should be moved over as staff for the mega-clans. If you’re in a pro clan you’ll be getting an invite to either A or B depending on the table above. You can still play with your team of course, and even compete with them in tournaments. Post in the comments if you have any questions.


  • Lego Zanzibar

    Kooberz has been building a model of Zanzibar out of Legos for quite some time – but he’s run out of money. He sent along a bunch of pics of the project as it stands… pretty cool stuff! Take a look.

  • Zany troupe, indeed.

    Heh – the Rooster Teeth crew will be doing a film and Q&A session at the upcoming San Francisco Film Festival, in April and May. The title of the film? ‘Cock Byte: Masters of Machinima’ – you should definitely get tickets if you’re in the area. (They go on sale to the general public next week, April 4.) Thanks, Cornballer.

  • Podtacular’s new audio editor: Ciclonic!

    Big congratulations to Ciclonic (aka ll Jurassic ll) for winning the audio editing contest and being the new audio editor at Podtacular. It was a really tough decision as we had some good entries.

    Also I’d like to give an honorable mention to the others who tried out: Quality Jeverage, GMan, Fuzy Bunny Feet, and TollBoothWilley. Like I said it was a tough call, and thanks for being willing to help, guys!


  • Podtacular’s new audio editor: Ciclonic!

    Big congratulations to Ciclonic (aka ll Jurassic ll) for winning the audio editing contest and being the new audio editor at Podtacular. It was a really tough decision as we had some good entries.

    Also I’d like to give an honorable mention to the others who tried out: Quality Jeverage, GMan, Fuzy Bunny Feet, and TollBoothWilley. Like I said it was a tough call, and thanks for being willing to help, guys!


  • Submit Stuff for Episode 57: Halo 3 and Other Favorites!

    UPDATE: After 3 attempts because of audio problems, the curse of episode 57 has been lifted and it has been recorded! Ciclonic’s working on the editing and it should be out soon.

    —–

    As usual, Episode 56 has been recorded and is being edited. Which reminds me again, this will probably be the last show Freak in a Box edits. We have a contest going and we’ll let you know who gets to be the new Podtacular editor shortly.

    If Bungie announced their next project tomorrow, what would it consist of?

    There are some really cool games out right now. But the fact is that the juggernaut to stomp all juggernauts is looming on the horizon. Halo 3 is inevitable. We’ll talk about all the signs of the coming age, but what will we see when the golden age arrives? What new and innovative features will be in Halo 3? You should be able to find lots of ideas with recent FPS games out there to get your imagination going. Send in your ideas for Halo 3 with the Submit News and Tips link. Just be sure to enter your gamertag so we can give you credit!

    Open your eyes Foo Mo, there are other games in the world these days

    Oh yes, there have been some freakin’ awesome games come out in the last month of so. You know what they are and I know you’ve been playing them. Why not send us a mini-review or tell us why you’ve been playing them so much? Why would other Halo fans like these games? Let us know!


  • Submit Stuff for Episode 57: Halo 3 and Other Favorites!

    UPDATE: After 3 attempts because of audio problems, the curse of episode 57 has been lifted and it has been recorded! Ciclonic’s working on the editing and it should be out soon.

    —–

    As usual, Episode 56 has been recorded and is being edited. Which reminds me again, this will probably be the last show Freak in a Box edits. We have a contest going and we’ll let you know who gets to be the new Podtacular editor shortly.

    If Bungie announced their next project tomorrow, what would it consist of?

    There are some really cool games out right now. But the fact is that the juggernaut to stomp all juggernauts is looming on the horizon. Halo 3 is inevitable. We’ll talk about all the signs of the coming age, but what will we see when the golden age arrives? What new and innovative features will be in Halo 3? You should be able to find lots of ideas with recent FPS games out there to get your imagination going. Send in your ideas for Halo 3 with the Submit News and Tips link. Just be sure to enter your gamertag so we can give you credit!

    Open your eyes Foo Mo, there are other games in the world these days

    Oh yes, there have been some freakin’ awesome games come out in the last month of so. You know what they are and I know you’ve been playing them. Why not send us a mini-review or tell us why you’ve been playing them so much? Why would other Halo fans like these games? Let us know!


  • Living In Oblivion.

    Halo’s always been at the top of the XBL game list – but multiplayer isn’t all you can do with your 360. Stuntmutt looks at what happens when good stuff comes out that isn’t really for Live in today’s One One Se7en.

  • Intellectualizing Halo at UF

    Justin Laufer pointed out an academic conference on video games coming up next weekend at the University of Florida in Gainesville – he’s giving a talk entitled ‘New Cyborg Philosophy: Techno-Religious Hybridization in Marathon and Halo’. Feel the Bungie Love!

  • The Halo-Related Art of Paul Davies

    One piece of artwork that was submitted in January but didn’t get posted in the Misc Art update yesterday was a new work by Paul Davies – and the reason I didn’t post it is because we were in the process of setting up a new Gallery Page for Paul. His work has shown up in the Misc Art section for a couple of years now – but it deserves a more brightly-lit location, because it stands out so strongly. Go visit to see if there’s anything you’ve missed – and be sure to check out The Drop, which should be new to everyone. I’ve also added some visual navigation to the top of the HBO Galleries page, because we’re up to eight featured artists at this point, and it seems like it might be easy to miss one or two.

  • Utfoo lives – again

    Amaroq and Ducain put their heads together, and after rubbing the resultant lumps, they managed to create a 100% complete mirror of Frogblast’s website; the seminal trickster had documented most of his work, but the site was up and down, and finally down permanently. Rather than let this work be lost to the bitbucket, HIH has revived it, and made a permanent copy – and for that, we say Thankya big big!

  • UESC/UNSC Fabric Patch

    Blayne Scott, a hardcore Marathon fan who maintains a couple of pieces of the bungie.org family of sites and who’s created a number of traditional-media items inspired by Marathon in the past, has whipped up a pretty cool Marathon Fabric Patch. (It’s simlar to the one seen on Captain Keyes’ uniform in the first game, and it matches the box sticker on the original Marathon release.) They’re currently for sale on eBay; he needed to make 50 of them to get a reasonable price from the patch company, so he’s selling the extras. The auction is up for another 4 days. Go look! (And check out the Hall of Fame, showing pics of older products he created, along with community members wearing them… there’s great old shot of our very own Finn in there!)

  • Sheet music – now for schools

    Wow, very very cool. We get email regularly from high school students or teachers looking for sheet music for Halo pieces; we generally send them to Rampancy.net, which has (I think) the largest collection of Halo sheet music on the net. However, most of this is fan-transcribed, and ranges in quality from very, very good to… um, not so good. Konrad noticed an article over at Siliconera which says Video Games Live has teamed up with Alfred Publishing to bring a number of video game pieces to schools. The arrangements seem to be done by teachers… but I’m guessing there’s SOME sort of quality control, right? (I can’t point you directly to the VGL announcement at Alfred, because it’s in a frameset – but it’s about halfway down their front page at the moment. Currently, it lists The Halo Theme (for both Orchestra and Marching Band) and Halo (for Concert Band), all ranging from $50-$60, with more pieces coming.)

  • Misc Art Update, Part 2

    I’m STILL not done… but there’s another large batch of stuff in the Miscellaneous Art section today; I’m getting CLOSER to cleaning out the queue. There’s some amazing stuff in this round; I hate to draw attention to specific pics (because I worry that folks will look ONLY at those), but don’t miss Khan’s Forerunner, or Sabarika’s furry Chief. There’s also a pretty cool background you can turn into a custom Halo clock, from Bry-guy12. And there are a couple of dozen OTHER pics – all of them are worth your time. Go look!

  • Captain Planet 2.0

    imSuck and the HollywoodHalo crew submitted another vid to the MPRRS yesterday; it’s a spoof of the early 90’s Captain Planet cartoon. It’s a pretty funny piece, and (as is true of all of imSuck’s work) beautifully filmed. (To the whole HH crew – you guys need to move your mouths away from the mics when you talk – or record dialogue after the movie. Otherwise – great work!) Grab a copy in WMP9 format (45.2 mb) or QuickTime format (45.8 mb).

  • The Valley of the Forerunners, Part 5

    Valley of the Forerunners, Part 5 has been posted on the Halo CE Chronicles website. The marine contingent doesn’t understand what they’ve gotten themselves into – Sargeant Roberts learns the hard way what happens if he stops trusting Harrington. Great integration of stock Halo footage, combined with lots of new stuff. 8:40 long, available in WMP9, QuickTime, and streaming Flash.

  • Hitman: Redone

    Incogneto submitted ‘Hitman: Redone’ to the MPRRS recently, and they liked it. So we’re serving it to you. It’s a movie about a guy who works for the mob, and one of his deals goes sour. Some nice effects here! Grab it in WMP9 format (41.5 mb) or QuickTime format (41.2 mb).

  • Prometheus: Still Going

    The Prometheus Team (the folks working on an all-inclusive Halo editor) has posted Update #6 on their website; it’s really long, and basically says ‘we’re doing a lot of stuff, but we still can’t show you most of it.’ (Well, it says a LITTLE more than that.) If you’re wondering what had happened to these guys, go read.

  • South Florida Halo Tourney April 1

    r2 writes to point out a Halo 2 tourney coming up in West Palm Beach this weekend; $40 per team registration, 2v2 TS 2006 MLG rules, up to $300 cash for first prize. More details (including contact info and directions) are available at their website.