My Halo News.com

The latest news about the Halo series of games from Microsoft

  • Halo SETI Marines 7 day stats posted

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    Louis Wu
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    Dink!… Dink!… The Halo SETI Marines fall two notches in the Battle of the Teams this week. YOU’RE SLACKING, MARINES! Tharkhaad takes La Crunch Honneur, despite a 15% reduction in crunching… WereTiger continues to leapfrog teammates to take the Frogblast award again… but as a team, you’re slipping. Time to step up the crunching! Those aliens are coming for YOU! Full details can be found on the 7 day stats page.

  • Rampancy.net to shift focus

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    Louis Wu
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    Wonga. Buried deep in a thread about various data-delivery systems, Noctavis, of Rampancy.net, delivers his clearest (to date) description of the (near) future of Rampancy.net. This site, which has been around since the very beginning of the Halo fan scene, looks to be shifting to a community discussion area, without the news section they have now. A good place to hang and talk… but not one, specifically, for Halo fans. We’re gonna miss you guys!

  • Only the Shadow knows…

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    Louis Wu
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    This week’s Halo Update mentions that ‘the Shadow is back in the game.’ This line instigated a sizeable amount of discussion, both on our forum and at Rampancy.net, from folks who weren’t sure what the Shadow is. (It’s a Covenant vehicle.) Ian McConville, our resident Mad Artist, has posted another of his entertaining speculations on our forum – you might not be any closer to knowing what the Shadow is, but you should at least have a smile on your face.

  • Edge loves Halo

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    Louis Wu
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    fAt1, of MPZ Halo, sent in such a nicely written description of the Edge article mentioned a few days ago on our forum that we’re just gonna post it.

    Edge, the most respected videogaming journal in the UK, had their E3 feature in the latest issue (99), and it had a lot of Halo in it… and they were highly impressed looking relatively at what they said about other games:

    “Bungie’s Halo Project Manager, Joe Staten, follows and showcases XBox’s other potential killer app. Unoptimised framerates aside (Which Edge is later informed is due to an autosave feature not fully implemented), this retains massive potential. Time restraints cut short an immersive looking demo, even if Statens foolish fireless attack on a gun-toting Covenant alien sees him get killed quickly. At least the crowd gets to see the intelligent autosave feature in action.”

    Also, in a later Halo preview they add that “Also adding to the overall atmosphere is the way the game has been designed so that it plays continuously – there are no loading screens once the action begins”

    They also note the framerates in split-screen “suffered massively”, and that the XBox controller feels like a “chunky quaterpounder” but Halo’s control system makes this less of a problem.

    This is a glowing report from the likes of Edge who are made up of games designers turned journalists. This mag is more of a journal for the videogame industry more than a games magazine so I think Halo did well to impress them as much as it did.

    Thanks, fAt1!

  • Xbox vs. PS2

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    Louis Wu
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    Neil Grattan points out a short article he’s written on the relative merits of the Xbox vs the PS2. His conclusion – the Xbox is gonna wipe the floor with the PS2. Check out his points.

  • Jjaro Boxers to the rescue!

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    Louis Wu
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    Apologies for the slacking yesterday – I was out of town, and the rest of these clowns? Who knows… anyway, time for some catch-up. In a recent thread on our forum, it was pointed out that the underwear the player’s character wears can be of utmost importance – Ian McConville’s graphic depiction says it best. One can only hope that Bungie is listening.

  • See? Paul Bertone IS working on Halo.

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    Louis Wu
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    Matt, in a blaze of speed (or maybe just an effort to get out of the office early), kicks out this week’s Halo Update in record time. The content, however, wasn’t skimped on. Lots of little stuff this week – working on the fine details. (Remember where God is…) And what’s this… the Shadow’s back? Who is the Shadow? Read the entire update for yourself (or go crazy and search the database, already updated with this entry).

  • Yet more wallpaper upped

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    Louis Wu
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    ‘Tis the season to make wallpaper, it seem… Xboxman has sent in a new image to prettify your desktop. You’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

  • Movies… they make your world go round

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    Louis Wu
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    An upcoming Halo movie? Matt’s not talking… but he still says stuff. Hmm…

  • News page gets an upgrade

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    Louis Wu
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    Thanks to CarthagTuek, who suggested a nifty little enhancement for the news page – the headlines section for older days on a page now contains links to the full days referenced; today, for example, whil you can still get to the individual posts in Wednesday’s news, if you want to read ALL of them, just hit the “Wednesday’s” link. Hope this makes catching up on older news easier, and thanks to CarthagTuek for the suggestion!

  • New Wallpaper added

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    Louis Wu
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    A couple of days ago, a new desktop image was uploaded to our ftp space. Due to an unfortunate accident, the logs were lost – we have no idea who sent this. If it was you, let us know! (You can see the image in our Wallpaper section.) Update: The image has been claimed by @ctive-Desktop. Thanks!

  • Will Halo Measure Up?

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    Louis Wu
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    Thanks to Ph.D., who pointed out an interesting article on The Elements of Gameplay, over at Gamasutra. It’s a good read, and hopefully gives the Halo dev team a few things to think about!

  • How come I don’t get a slave?

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    Louis Wu
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    Jay Weinland, audio engineer on the Halo team, dropped into our forum to clarify his job description. The Elderly One will probably be thrilled to hear that Jay describes his job as

    Sound Designer, Audio Engineer, and all-around Marty slave

    (That means he gets to carry around that huge horn that Marty holds up to his ear so that he can hear what’s going on.) Welcome, Jay!

  • Bob’s Big Date

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    Louis Wu
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    It was all over in a moment. The sharp pain he felt in his chest and neck turned to dull warmth as it tore him to the ground, ripping limb from limb, guzzling his intestines and other organs.

    Poor Bob. This guy needs a smiley-face sticker, don’t you think? Go read Chapter 3 of Hermes Trismegistus, over in our Fan Fiction section.

  • Ambient life: soon, maybe

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    Louis Wu
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    Apparently, the ambient life seen in the E3 trailer is not currently in Halo. Matt Soell stopped into our forum to pass along this note in answer to the question about whether ambient life would be present in Halo:

    Ambient life is still on the To-Do list, and it’s not that far down either.

    I can’t guarantee it will be in the game (not yet anyway) for all the usual reasons. But I can say we still plan on doing it.

    Sounds positive, but noncommittal… sort of like my first girlfriend. I hope Matt doesn’t turn out to be as psychotic as she was…

  • Beautiful morning, my eye.

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    Louis Wu
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    Sometimes, people just lose it.

  • Halo Dev Team, delineated

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    Louis Wu
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    Ph.D. has taken it upon himself to put together a full list of Halo Development Team members, along with their job descriptions, where available. Pieces of this have been floating around the net for a couple of years now… but nobody’s ever put it all together in one place before. Once finalized, this information will probably be added to our FAQ, for posterity – if you have any further insights, be sure to post them to this thread! (It’s a rather long thread – the most recent full list can be found here.)

  • Halo SETI Team 21 day stats posted

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    Louis Wu
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    As several people noted last week, the SETI servers finally started crunching stats again, so we’ve gotten to the Halo SETI Marines 7-day stats (this time out, 21 days) again as well. Looks like crunching went on as before – numbers are roughly three times the normal weekly output. (This is good – it means we didn’t lose anyone, or any crunching, during the downtime.) Tharkhaad takes La Crunch honneur, with 244 units over the past 3 weeks, and WereTiger leaps over 105 opponents to snag the Frogblast award. Nice going, guys! Full details are on the 21 day stats page.

  • Microsoft Tasta Mo Lika Bungie Spice

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    Louis Wu
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    Last week’s update has been added to the Halo Update Database – and man, it’s getting big. Sounds like this week most stuff is unmentionable… but one thing has changed – the Mighty Chris Butcher is Mighty no more. The end of a 4-month era…

  • Telling BoB where to go

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    Louis Wu
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    Over at Rampancy.net, there’s a very interesting post from Chris Butcher, currently working on AI in Halo, about the direction this field is going. Definitely worth a read.