My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Get the Stuff on the Stiff

    —

    by

    mnemesis
    in

    Once again it’s time to drag our old friend Stubbs the Zombie out from behind the curtain to see how he’s decomposing. Not only have we got a Q&A with Alex Seropian on Wideload’s upcoming game, but three tasty, delicious, new screenshots for you as well. Dig in!

    ——-

    What?s the plot of the game?

    The game follows the exploits of Stubbs, a Zombie, as he embarks on a quest for true love and brutal revenge in Punchbowl, Pennsylvania, a city of the future built in the 1950s.

    How did you come up with this idea?

    It was a collaborative effort by our small internal prototyping team. We started with a bunch of ideas and spent some time developing the most promising ones. Ultimately the team picked Stubbs the Zombie as the game that would become Wideload’s first project.

    How many prototypes did you create before deciding this was the game you were going to make?

    We created a couple dozen prototypes. We chose Stubbs the Zombie because of the gameplay potential and the depth of Stubbs as the main character. It helped that we had an opportunity to use the Halo engine and a lot of good ideas for building the game with that technology.

    We also liked it because it allowed us to do something new with a somewhat moribund genre. Zombies are popular adversaries because they’re easy to make as long as you adhere to the mythology: they’re slow, they’re dumb, they only attack by biting, etc. We kept the basic idea of a brain-eating dead guy but chose to not limit ourselves to what had been done before. That made it a lot more interesting.

    Why did you decide on a retro 50?s theme?

    It?s not just retro ? it?s Retro-Futurist! Punchbowl exists in the 1950s, but it’s designed to be a model city ? an example of the miracles that await humanity in the year 2000. Some elements of retro-futurism, like flying cars and personal robots, are now seen as amusingly naive; others are surprisingly accurate. Punchbowl incorporates all of these things ? it’s connected to the familiar, but it gives our designers a tremendous amount of creative freedom.

    Why make the main character a zombie?

    When dead men crawl out of their graves and start gobbling the flesh of the living, you have to consider the possibility that everything you thought you knew is worthless. Nothing says “total breakdown of natural law” like zombies, and that sort of imminent chaos is an attractive starting point for a game. Besides, zombies have been painted as the enemy for far too long. We’re giving equal time to their side of the story.

    What makes the Stubbs character compelling to players?

    Stubbs has a lot of really cool abilities that evolve into interesting gameplay dynamics. Stubbs can tear off his own hand and send it into areas he can’t reach himself. The hand can also possess other characters, giving you access to their weapons and abilities. It really opens a lot of doors gameplay-wise. Personality-wise, he’s a good man who was wronged all his life; only in death does he gain the ability to turn his losing streak around. He’s the ultimate underdog, and everyone likes an underdog.

    What has been the most challenging part of developing this game?

    When you tread new ground, you often have to make up your own rules and hope they work out. We got lucky in that sense that our early design decisions held up quite well as we moved into production.

    How does this game take advantage of the Halo engine?

    We utilize all the technical majesty of the rendering engine, AI and core game systems, and then we crank them all to eleven.

    How are you finding working on the Halo engine for your game?

    The Halo engine is phenomenal, and the tools allow us to do some really cool things. The underlying technology is robust enough to power a game that is very different from Halo, and Wideload programmers have added their own special sauce where appropriate (to the graphics and AI systems, for example).

    How are you improving upon or changing the Halo engine for the game?

    AI is the most labor-intensive work. Getting a horde of zombies to go about their brain-eating business in a rewarding and enjoyable way is a tough task.

    What do you think players will most enjoy about the game?

    The combination of chaotic action, stealth gameplay, strategic use of Zombie hordes and a healthy dose of dark humor.

    What?s the game?s release date?

    Summer 2005

    ——-

    Thanks Alex, and all the fine folks at Wideload. We look forward to an exhilarating summer of hot, decaying flesh and cool, refreshing brains. While the rest of us wait for the release date, eyes twitching and mouth watering, we can at least satiate ourselves with the following:

  • Get the Stuff on the Stiff

    —

    by

    Bungie Sightings
    in
    Once again it’s time to drag our old friend Stubbs the Zombie out from behind the curtain to see how he’s decomposing. Not only have we got a Q&A with Alex Seropian on Wideload’s upcoming game, but three tasty, delicious, new screenshots for you as well. Dig in!…

  • Fear of Matt Soell

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Two bits over at Halo Babies this morning… there’s your standard Friday strip, ‘Fear of Change‘ – which takes a light-hearted shot at fans and their need for instant gratification – and a great interview with Matt Soell, former Community Guy at Bungie and now working at Wideload Games. Matt’s always had a way with words; I’m glad to see it hasn’t left him. (“In the meantime, our own web plan percolates slowly to the surface, like a dinosaur fart in a tar pit.”) If you weren’t part of the community when Matt was around, go read this; the community is as dedicated as it is because people like Matt were there to feed it.

  • Mommy, it’s starting again…

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Front-page this morning on Variety.com (login required, check the last entry at bugmenot.com) is a story called ‘Halo, Hollywood’… Looks like Microsoft has hired screenwriter Alex Garland to adapt the games into a movie – they’ve signed a ‘million-dollar-deal’ with him. Apparently, the buzz is that Microsoft (and Bungie) won’t be involved beyond the script development stage… hmm. The article also complains about ‘spare’ characterization for the protagonist – ‘Little is known about “Master Chief.”‘ (This has ALWAYS been one of the major stumbling blocks in the road to convert a video game (where the main character has to be empty enough to fit anyone playing him) to a movie (where we NEED to know a little something about the character in order to enjoy the work).) If you don’t feel like jumping through the hoops to read this on Variety, there are summaries on IGN’s FilmForce (thanks, Brian Linder) and Sci Fi WIre (thanks, rolly poly). There were some who said this day would never come…

  • Jump Tactics opens its doors

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Jump Tactics, the clan behind a pretty cool movie we mentioned recently, has launched its website. You can read the PR stuff on our forum, or just go visit the site. Downloads require registration (free) – they’ve got a couple of new movies up. Go check out the jumping action!

  • Nice Going, Bullitt.

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Chester gets his butt kicked a lot. Enough that he decided to make a movie about it. The original version is a 23 mb .AVI that doesn’t show up at all on a mac. (Work in Windows Media Player on a PC, though.) The Se7enth Prophet whipped him up a WMP9 version – half the size, but a significant quality drop. (Link is in this forum post.) There’s no guarantee that the bandwidth for any of those will hold out – but I can’t justify hosting a version that is simply unreadable on Macs, so I created a QuickTime version. It’s about 16 mb, and roughly the quality of the original. Grab whichever one makes the most sense to you. (The machine that last is hosted on is having network problems; they’ll be working on it overnight. If you can’t get in, wait a bit and try again. You don’t need to send me mail telling me it’s down – if it’s down, it’s because they pulled the network card out of it, and it’ll be back up again soon.)

  • Heh.

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Speaks for itself. Thanks, Mr.Cynical.

  • Blame Ryan

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Holy crud. Bungie got tired of getting whupped in their Halo Humpday Challenges… so they picked on a team of non-computer geeks. The Discovery Channel crew accepted the challenge… and whupped their butts. (Well, okay, the games were close. But Discovery Channel took all three.) OUCH! (They even had a pair of Clan PMS filling in – but it wasn’t enough.)

  • (More) MLG News

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Dolbex, in an attempt to coopt our front page, sends along the THIRD piece of MLG news for the day; The MLG Houston tournament dates have changed (it will now take place on March 11-13, with registration opening soon), and the MLG San Francisco event (February 26th and 27th) has opened its doors for registration. Go read!

  • An Abandoned Plea, Revisited

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Whoa. A month ago ZexGX posted a bunch of sounds collected on Outskirts; public service announcements, playing on loudspeakers in Swahili. He was asking for translation help. (He wasn’t the first to find these – but as far as I know, this was the first time they were made available as recordings.) Nobody was able to help, and the thread died. Today, Frankie dropped into that thread with a suggestion that translating might be worth our while… so does anyone know any Swahili?

  • Follow Tab

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    The Se7enth Prophet found a tab for Incubus’ Follow on powertabs.net, and transcribed it on our forum. (The original is a Power Tab Editor file.) If you’re a guitar player, give this a shot! Update: He’s added the Halo and Halo 2 themes, and Blow Me Away from Breaking Benjamin.

  • Dialogue, Dialogue, and more Dialogue

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Yesterday, Captain Spark released 44 new dialogue snippets on his website; it’s a 2 mb zip download to get them all. A day before that, we got mail from KaworuNagisa, containing 19 new snippets of his own – most of them from the Prophet Regret (including his sermon, in pieces). Some really good stuff here; both groups are full of interesting things. You can peruse the entire new batch in our Dialogue Databank, or just look at KaworuNagisa’s stuff, or just look at Captain Spark’s stuff. Oh, the choices you have!

  • Zanzibar Tips

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Jumping vids seem to be all the rage these days. Synide’s put together a nice one for MLGPro.com; if you’re a Video On Demand subscriber, you can watch a direct stream of this, and if you’re not, just connect to MLG-TV and wait for it to come around in the rotation. (It’s not ALL jumping; it’s a general Zanzibar Tips vid, with suggestions to improve your gameplay. Check out the death-by-coconuts bit at the end!)

  • When given the choice…

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Today’s Calvin and Halo takes a look at the more mature gamer… and what might happen occasionally on XBL.

  • Jump Session 6

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Thanks to Cody Cress, who pointed out that there is a new jump session at http://www.jukesbox.com/. This one focuses on slide jumping… wow. 9.5 mb, WMP9 format. Go watch. And come back to this news post later today.

  • Power – at your fingertips

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    The stats analysis options continue to improve – Tom Mathews has upgraded his Halo 2 Statistics Browser (screenshots show how powerful this is – here and here).

  • Cheaper goodies at the Bungie Store

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Black Six pointed out that the Bungie Store is having a closeout sale on a number of items – visit if you want stuff at reduced prices. (The Titanium Eclipse Tumbler is under $10 now. Not bad!)

  • My Little pwny.

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    GRAH! I’m an idiot. Yesterday’s One One Se7en followed Tuesday’s Outskirts on Legendary Walkthrough release SO beautifully… but I forgot to post it on time. Wow – it’s been a while since i screwed THAT up. Go read it now, though. It’s funny.

  • News Roundup

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    There’s a bunch of Halo 2 news that popped up last night, too… again, I doubt this is a comprehensive list, but it should lighten the mailbox just a little.

    • MLG posted a writeup of the DC event that took place last weekend; thanks to Dyslexia for the text, and Dolbex for the heads-up. This contains a very nice counter-argument to the folks who yell that Halo 2 is for noobs… and lots and lots of great pics. Full bracket standings are also there.
    • G4TechTV has posted a ‘Halo 2 Tips, Tricks, and Strategies‘ article, a somewhat random collection of stuff. Fun read.
    • TalkXbox has posted Week Twelve of their Strategy series – Burial Grounds Team Slayer. (Thanks, TricKy.)
    • Another bit over at MLGPro.com – Grudge Matches Begin. This is sort of like Bungie’s Halo Humpday Challenges… except it’s 1v1, and the COMMUNITY decides who fights, not the players. Go read about it.
    • Arizona State University’s school paper has a story about how it’s not a contradiction for a church group to organize a gathering around Halo 2. (This one turned up on Google, but ICDedPpl found the same thing at a different link.)

    Again, there’s probably plenty more out there today… but this makes a dent.

  • More Movie Stuff

    —

    by

    Louis Wu
    in
    Man… you can’t take a night off around here, things just move too fast. Okay, while I was sleeping (and other stuff), we heard:

    • Ripp0n’s Montage got another pair of direct download mirrors; a bunch of you have gotten it via BitTorrent, but for those who can’t, HALOChat has put it up via HTTP, and there’s another copy at That Weasel Television. Check yesterday’s news if you don’t know what this is about.
    • Sharkface217 created a Halo PC Tribute Video, and released it at the Gamers Alliance. I’m not sure I get it, completely… but there it is. 31.5 mb, WMP9 format. (For me, personally… if I were a new HaloPC player and this was the first thing I saw… I’d probably pick a different game.)
    • Devin Olsen released his own Halo 2 Montage vid – just under 19 mb, WMP9 format. Lots of Killtaculars and above. (Some good footage showing the potency of the plasma pistol/magnum combination… I love the Colossus ‘attack while in the air, kill before you land’ kill.) Update: this one, too, is having trouble – Devin asks for mirrors. If you can help him out, drop him a line! Update 2: Yayap to the rescue!
    • Craven47 posted a short (43 second) ‘Dance Movie‘ (3 Spartans jumping around on Lockout) on Putfile. Just over 5 mb, WMP9 format.
    • That Weasel, always around to help, has mirrored a whole bunch of OTHER recent movies, besides Ripp0n’s – The Codex Trailer, Vehicular Pwnage, and the Sleeping player are all there now.

    I’m sure there are/will be more over the course of the day – but I’ll make a new post later. And the bandwidth just keeps going up, up, up, up… (none of this is ours, though.)