My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Halo backstory leaked

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    Louis Wu
    in
    Major screwup in the Microsoft Marketing division: If you visit the official Halo site, you’ll find a section labeled ‘Timeline’. At the end of the text, it says

    For more in-depth information on the historical events leading up to this current predicament, simply click on any of the highlighted years below. Please be sure to check back often for the latest back story installment.

    Down below, there’s a single entry – ‘Early Conflicts’. This section (indeed, the whole site) pulls its information an XML data file – this is convenient, in terms of development, because you can build the Flash framework, and add content later. Someone, it seems, decided it would be easier to simply put all of the content in at the start… and simply comment out the parts they didn’t want showing at first. (Most people aren’t that familiar with XML files yet, and you can’t exactly read the ‘source’ of the Flash animation… so it seemed safe.) Unfortunately for MS, a diligent Bungie fan was poking around in his browser cache this evening, and FOUND the XML file. (You can grab it for yourself here – but my guess is, it’ll be changed PDQ, so you might not find anything useful. Update: as of 11 pm EST, the new info is gone – only the ‘Early Conflicts’ entry remains.) Chlazza posted the contents of this file to the Marathon’s Story page forum this evening… and for better or for worse, the Halo backstory is now far better known than it was yesterday. First reading says that tying this into the Marathon storyline is going to be nearly impossible – in Halo’s universe, FTL travel was developed (by humans) in 2291… and none of the Marathon datapoints show up at all. Discussion should commence immediately on our forum.

  • 15,500 unique pieces of audio

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    Louis Wu
    in
    This week’s Halo Update just came in from Matt Soell… the tone is pretty upbeat; seems clear that development is going well. Things are nearly finished – bug squashing and multiplayer ‘testing’ are the orders of the day. And it warms our hearts to hear of the camaraderie between team members like Marty and Joseph… read the whole shebang for yourself.

  • Xbox US release delayed

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    Louis Wu
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    Ouch – looks like Microsoft is delaying the US release of the Xbox by a week, according to this Associated Press story. That’s gonna cost something, PR-wise… Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.

  • Poll smash at Gamespot

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    Louis Wu
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    Thanks to Xero, who noticed a new poll over at Gamespot: “Which of these Xbox launch game [sic] will you buy first?” Halo is currently in the lead…

  • How many Xboxes?

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    Louis Wu
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    Interesting. This Reuters story, gotten to us via Gamers.com through Dorram, suggests that Microsoft might have trouble meeting their projected targets for the number of Xboxes available on the day of launch. Rather than 600,000 to 800,000 units, there might be as few as 300,000. (However, most parties believe that even if they miss the initial target, they’re still on track for their year-end target of 1 to 1.5 million machines.) What does this mean to you? Well, maybe it means that you won’t get an Xbox on November 8, if you were planning to walk in and buy it. Maybe it doesn’t mean that, of course – until peak production has been reached in the Mexico plant, they won’t know for sure how many units will be available, and even when they DO know that number, they won’t know demand until it actually goes on sale. Just something to think about…

  • Marathon in Halo – we know

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    Louis Wu
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    The first time we got a note on this subject, recently, I smiled. The second time, the smile faltered. Now, I’m disturbed. There seems to be a whole raft of newcomers to the Halo scene, who have just discovered that in the center of the Halo logo is buried the Marathon logo. They send us pictures, pointing it out… they send us notes, they get excited. Folks – this was noticed first on July 21, 1999… the day Halo was unveiled at MacWorld NY. It’s been discussed to death on our forum and to some degree at the Marathon’s Story page. It’s considered common knowledge, and it’s the cause for some confusion now that there’s a timeline at Microsoft’s official Halo site that sets Halo up roughly 100 years before the Marathon ever leaves Mars. It’s no longer news.

  • Fan Fiction Frenzy

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    Louis Wu
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    And the god of the machines thundered across the beach, hefting his weapon expertly, and his bullets bore the wings of avenging angels, hungry for the vindication of Reach.

    Ape Man sends in his latest short story, ‘The Desperation of Dreams‘. A harsh look at the insides of a man of steel. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section.

  • PlanetXbox looks at Halo

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    Louis Wu
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    Mike Weber, Site Director of PlanetXbox, sent word that they’ve put up a first look at Halo. There’s not a whole lot new (although this line I don’t remember seeing in print before:

    The game’s engine also sports body model reactions, which means if you plug a creature in the chest, the chest area will reel from the impact.

    This functionality has been guessed at, but not previously confirmed, I don’t think), but it’s a good read – check it out!

  • TeamXbox Trailer mirror update

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    Louis Wu
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    TeamXbox trailer mirror update: The files (both the .asf and the .mpg) seem to have disappeared from thecorpse.com… but The Junkyard moves in to fill the void. Ryan ‘Mhaddy’ Matthews writes to say that the .mpg version is now available on the Junkyard’s Downloads page. Thanks, Mhaddy! Update: Silly person that I am, I mistyped the URL to thecorpse.com’s mirror page – it’s up and running, and has been all day. My mistake – there are more sources than ever for these movies!

  • The masses vote Halo

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    Louis Wu
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    WereTiger writes to clarify some details about the Game Ranking poll at OXMOnline that we mentioned yesterday: The order of games is arbitrary – or at least, was set by the OXM staff, not the fans that voted. If you check the individual polls, you’ll see a different story – right now, 335 of 977 voters rated DOA3 a 1 (best) out of 10… whereas 600 of 1013 gave that same rating to Halo. No other game even comes close. The people have spoken!

  • (lack of) Launch party details

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    Louis Wu
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    Still wondering about that Halo Launch Party? Matt visited our forum today to explain the delay in the announcement – read it for yourself. Details as we learn them…

  • me want scorpion

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    Louis Wu
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    *Ar-Isildur of *WP* has created another MasterCard ‘Priceless’ parody – you’ll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. Nice shot!

  • Another mpeg mirror

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    Louis Wu
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    If you haven’t been able to get the mpeg version of TeamXbox’s movie from either TeamXbox’s site or from FunkyJ’s Hotline server, the good folks at thecorpse.com have added a mirror of it on the page we mentioned this morning. We’ll be putting up full mirror lists for this, and the interview movie, sometime today.

  • Top 10 Xbox games?

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    Louis Wu
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    The official Xbox Magazine website relaunched recently… and one of their features is a Top 10 Game Ranker. Currently Halo is second, behind DOA3. Hmm…

  • A pair of fast-paced stories

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    Louis Wu
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    A pair of new Fan Fictions arrived in quick succession today – Mr Bill Jr V’s ‘The Marine‘ takes its flavor from recent released footage, while Vector40’s ‘The Sixty Minute War‘ is a tribute to last week’s horrible events. (It’s not finished yet.) Check ’em both out in our Fan Fiction section!

  • clanLein comes online

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    Louis Wu
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    We got a note that an early Halo clan, Societas Signi, has been reborn as clanLein. We had a bit of trouble with the website – looks best (what’s there of it) in Explorer.

  • Mirrors for the TeamXbox footage

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    Louis Wu
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    A couple of mirrors have popped up for the .asf version of the TeamXbox video:

    Both versions are 8 meg zipped files. Additionally, FunkyJ has mirrored the 19.4 meg MPEG version on his Hotline server (details in this post)… the original, astoundingly, is still on TeamXbox’s site, as well. This one (in either format) is DEFINITELY worth the download, folks.

  • Work starts on first Halo ad

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    Louis Wu
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    jonki, Halo’s product planner, dropped into our forum to clarify that the first Halo ad is just now getting into production. October was the last date we heard…

  • Screen caps from TeamXbox footage

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    Louis Wu
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    We’ve put together a page of screen captures from the newest halo footage over at TeamXbox – you can see 21 shots showing some of the fun stuff in this movie.

  • Halo mentioned at Penny-Arcade

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    Louis Wu
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    Matt Liebhold writes to say that Penny Arcade mentions Halo today in their news post…

    Since I don’t remember (and it keeps changing) whether or not Halo will be available for the PC ever, I’m going to get my Halo on the only way I know how. Who knows? It’s got full co-op (Thank HEAVENS), maybe Bungie will be the ones to bring me around to split-screen gaming. They single-handedly showed me what an idiot I was for buying in to the whole “Mac/PC” debate, everything I play from them renews my appetite for gaming in general.

    (It’s NEVER changed… but that’s a totally separate can-o-worms.) Nice to see the mention! (They also (finally) mention Mac Hall, a great comic drawn by frequent HBO contributor Ian McConville (and written by bungie.org staffer Matt Boyd). Check it out!