My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Morning Web Roundup

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Article roundup – again. I’m leaving out the huge number of stories about how Halo grossed $125M its first day, because, heck, we put up the press release already.

    Reviews

    Articles

    Overall summary: Halo 2 is pretty popular!

  • Gamers – a demographic to be reckoned with

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    Louis Wu
    in
    We got a note from William Vitka – who’s started a new column about gaming at CBSNews.com. His choice for topic for his first column? Guess. Feel the love. Gamers are on the move! [Note – CBSNews.com seems to have moved this article – the original URL points to a piece on LEGO Star Wars. You can find the original Halo piece here. -lwu]

  • Wanna talk about bees?

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    Louis Wu
    in
    ARGN.com (the website that hosts Unfiction, the forum where most of the interesting discussion about the ILoveBees phenomenon took place) has an article about a phone-in chat with the ILoveBees actors this coming Saturday, at noon pacific time. The access number is 1-404-920-6610, the code you need to punch in to join the conference is 516230#. (Don’t call now – do this Saturday morning.) Thanks to David Byrd for the heads-up.

  • Bungie vs. The World

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Whoa. New article at Bungie.net – the Halo Humpday Challenge. Simply put, Bungie is taking on one group per week in a 3-game, knockdown, dragout fight, winner walks away with bragging rights. First on the chopping block – IGN.com. They… well, go read. Who’s it gonna be next week? You’ll have to wait and see!

  • Where\’s my bonus check?

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Yesterday, Peter Moore blithely predicted that Halo 2 would have a $100 million day. He was wrong. They sold 2.4 million units in 24 hours, racking up $125 million. Moore is now estimating that it was the biggest launch of any entertainment product in retail history. You can read the official press release for more details. (Fluff, yes… but pretty danged impressive fluff.)

  • I gotchyer JNAM right here…

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    Louis Wu
    in
    mnemesis has resurrected the Acronym issue, now that Halo 2 has been released. If you don’t know what this means, read his article at our sister site Bungie Sightings. If you DO know what this means, read it as well… and add your comments. We need brains! (Mmmm… brains… oh, wait, that’s Wideload. Never mind.)

  • Thunderdome

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    Louis Wu
    in
    In the downtime yesterday, Red vs Blue released Episode 42 (30-50 mb or so), which was odd… and today, they’ve released Episode 43, which is HUGE (90-100 mb, depending on flavor, for more than 10 minutes of video), which incorporates both the Halo 2 engine… and the product of mind-altering drugs. (I’m not sure what ELSE would explain it.) It’s pretty funny… but man, it’s weird. (The ending is brilliant, though.) Go grab ’em both.

  • Schwagtacular!

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    mnemesis
    in
    The Bungie Store has even more new stuff for you to covet. Now, the hotly-anticipated Art of Halo Coffee Table Book has been added, along with a few notepads. Go! Buy! Read! Write! Update: fullbore points out that anybody interested in getting an autographed/personalized copy of this book can buy one through Olympic Cards and Comics, which is owned and operated by Eric Trautmann’s wife (Eric, of course, being the author of the book). fullbore said that she’s happy to hook up any fans with a copy of the book if they can’t make it in to the in-store tourney/book signing happening this Saturday. (He’s just a satisfied customer, and has nothing to gain from this info.) This is just an option – you’re free to buy anywhere you want (as long as you buy SOMEWHERE, of course.)

  • The inside of the offices

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    Louis Wu
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    Robert Valdes, who recently interviewed Pete Parsons for the website How Stuff Works, has written up his experience in the Bungie offices. Nice read. Thanks, Rip-Saw.

  • LAME! and Not Lame.

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Couple of new articles for you – a nice writeup in the Washington Post (it had five paragraphs on the front page of the paper, plus an entire page in the middle section – web version requires (free) registration) – except for labeling Joe Staten as the ‘leader of Bungie Studios’ (I’m not sure Joe would agree with that, though you never know), it does a nice job of describing the shift in perceptions towards video games in recent years, and the role Halo 2 will play in that shift. (Thanks, Wintermute.) And the winner of the ‘lamest bentllama quote evar!’ (bentllama’s very own evaluation) goes to the last line of this CBC News article. Well, you can’t be cool all the time.

  • 343 Guilt O\’ Lantern Winners

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    Louis Wu
    in
    On September 30, we announced the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern contest, looking for the best Halo-carved pumpkin of 2004. Entries flooded in – 86 of them – and on November 2, we posted the entire collection, and asked the Halo community to vote for their favorites. Over 4000 of you did, casting more than 18,000 votes – and we have our winners! The Results page contains scores for all pumpkins, as well as the names of each pumpkin’s creator – for all pumpkins that received more than 100 votes. (One thing I found rather interesting – the quality of your pumpkin photography made a REALLY big difference. There are some nearly identical pumpkins that got wildly different scores… and the cause seems clear; if your photo did a lousy job of showing off your pumpkin’s detail, folks didn’t vote for it, even if it was a great carving job. Something to remember for the next time…) Winners will be notified by email about their prizes – but congrats to EVERYONE who entered, and thanks to the thousands who helped us pick the winners!

  • Putting The c0ld In Vengeance

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Stuntmutt exploits a fellow Brit in today’s One One Se7en. Just a few more hours…

  • Eggs, Tricks, and Spoilers (oh my!)

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    Louis Wu
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    We’ve already received more than half-a-dozen egg reports, or Halo 2 tricks – here’s the policy on those. I haven’t figured out how we’re going to handle Halo 2 tricks yet – but we WILL start posting news about them beginning on Friday. (This way, the European contingent won’t be TEMPTED to look before they at least have a chance to buy Halo 2.) Spoiler-laden material will not be posted before Friday, either; yes, there’s a new spoiler system in place to block it if you don’t want to see it… but sometimes the simple presence is enough for folks to give in. Speaking of the spoiler system – there seems to be an issue with machines that use Windows XP with SP2 installed – something in this configuration is blocking the acceptance of the cookies. I don’t have an SP2-equipped machine here, so I can’t test it (the cookie system works fine on my XP/SP1 box), so if anyone has any suggestions about WHY SP2 might be keeping the system from working, I’m all ears. Thanks!

  • More on the Battle Guide

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    Louis Wu
    in
    A few weeks ago, Ross Mills found a ‘Halo 2 Battle Guide’ on Amazon UK. There was almost no information. There’s now a cover photo and a synopsis – apparently, it will teach you not just to get through the room, but to be a better gamer. Still no word on when it will actually be released (‘December’ is as specific as it gets).

  • Halo 2 Widescreen problems?

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    Louis Wu
    in
    A large number of threads over at the Bungie.net and TeamXbox forums have sprung up in complaint at the way Widescreen mode works in Halo 2. Apparently, multiplayer, vertical-splitscreen mode is great… but in regular campaign mode, many parts of the HUD are offscreen to some degree. I don’t have time to check all the threads, but if you’re interested in this subject, you can find them here, here, here, here, here, here, and here (thanks, Joseph Bat). If we get any official word on this, we’ll be sure to pass it along.

  • Shunji talks death

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    Louis Wu
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    Interesting article (and interesting comments) over at Mat Noguchi’s blog; a look at why some gamers might not appreciate the checkpoint system. Thanks, Ross.

  • Halo Tribute vid

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    Louis Wu
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    Btcc22, of TouringNet.co.uk, wrote to tell us that a Halo Tribute Video is online at his site. 61 mb, WMP9 format. 1:30 of screenshots, followed by 10+ minutes of single and multiplay footage.

  • Truth to Mercy

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Several people have sent in translations of the coded message in the ‘Conversations with the Universe’ booklet that comes with the Limited Edition of Halo 2. I’ve chosen KOPD’s version because it comes with a handy-dandy translator, and it’s already on the web… but thanks, too, to HeroicDarby and Ben Artes for sending in copies. If you’re still without a copy of LE, and you’re expecting one, hold off on this until yours comes; it’s fun to try and translate it yourself.

  • A taste of the strategy guide

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Piggyback Interactive has put up a 12-page sampler of the Halo 2 Strategy Guide for download (3.8 mb, free registration required). There’s enough there to 1) spoil early levels for you, and 2) give you a decent sense of the quality of the guide. Some very nice work there! Thanks, Benn.

  • Halo press around the net

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    Louis Wu
    in
    First off, let me get some of the press out of the way. There’s a LOT of it. (Surprise, surprise.) I’ve broken things into categories; I’m sure there’s stuff I missed, and I’m also sure that some things are duplicated (many articles are syndicated, and picked up by other sites; occasionally, they’re not properly marked, and I miss a dupe… live with it). There are hundreds of articles I DIDN’T include – I’m not sure how many more of these I’m willing to do, so the day might come when we just have to say ‘everyone’s writing about this’ and be done with it. Also, the order is somewhat random – it’s the order things came in to me. This SHOULD help make the list more palatable, actually – you won’t be reading the same thing over and over again. Anyway, on to the articles:

    Writeups of launch events

    Reviews

    • Gamereactor (Norway, this time – 10/10, contains spoilers; thanks, Victor)
    • Lawrence.com – 90% (This score was heavily weighted towards campaign – mp would have received a 100%)

    Articles

    Big sites

    Comics:

    If this isn’t enough for you, there’s a ton more over at HaloPlanet (thanks, Rams).