HBO and Mythica are hosting, via BitTorrent and Two Degrees, a new version of a great behind-the-scenes vid released during E3 in 2002 but just recently put out in high resolution on CD by PC Gamer in the UK.
It's got commentary from Marty O'Donnell, Shikai Wang, Rob McLees and Paul Russell. HBO has a list of mirrors. We don't have a version to host over here yet, but we hope we will soon.
Is this a test? Well, almost.
Big-Ern over at Battleground: Halo got the man himself (no, not The Man, he left Bungie awhile ago) to interview him about his involvement in the Bungie community, what it takes to keep HBO purring along like the sleek white blue-eyed albino kitten it clearly is, and some other stuff about goats that we won't mention. Oops.
...and we're talking about the band, so get your head out of the gutter.
Frankie has posted at Bungie.net that the Bare Naked Ladies are showing never-before-seen Red vs Blue clips during their concerts. Check his post and the tour schedule for details.
The Inquirer is reporting that the SDK for Microsoft's next generation Xbox is being released to developers. And it's running on a Mac.
Several years after being purchased by Microsoft and becoming a studio that developed games for MS' largely PC and Windows-based technology underpinning the Xbox, could Bungie be coming full circle, soon to be working primarily on Macs while they develop games for the PowerPC-based Xbox 2?
Only the Shadow knows.
About the Fake Weekly Update
Some Halo fan put up a reasonably convincing fake update this morning on a forum and caused a minor tizzy– needless to say, it wasn't us. Basically, if you're suspicious, just check out www.bungie.net – if we don't link to it from there, it's probably fake. Here's this week's short and sweet update.
Working on the lightmap farm.
[image:6997 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]After a short detour caused by a fake update, the real one went up in the TeamXbox forum. Some of the more interesting bits:
When I first heard about Halo 2 (well over a year ago), they said to expect a late 2003 release. Then they thought it might be out in time for Christmas. Then I believe they said early 2004. Then they told me April. Now it's pushed back all the way to "Late 2004" and with the tease date of September 15th. Since E3 last May, the only thing released that shed any light on Halo 2 was Eric Nylund's book, First Strike, but we really haven't seen a whole lot of new info. I think we should kill ourselves one by one in Bungie's parking lot until they let us watch some new stuff or something.
Ross Mills of Subnova recently won a quiz contest on Eric Trautmann's blog. Trautmann is the guy at Microsoft who coordinates with the authors of the Halo novels, Eric Nylund and William Dietz.
Today his impressive prize package arrived; check out his forum thread at HBO for the skinny on what loot he made off with.
The latest giveaway, according to Steve at Cortana.org is a Cortana figure, part of Wave 1 and very rare. Check Cortana.org for details.
Let's show the gaming world that Marathon fans still know how to smash a poll like in the old days. A GameSpy Title Fight match is on now between two old school 2.5D shooters: Id Software's Doom and Bungie's Marathon. Right now Doom is way ahead, so Bungie needs your help to keep its reputation for being next in line for world domination.
[image:3572 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Back in the day Craig Mullins was responsible for a lot of the absolutely kick-ass art associated with Bungie Software's products, most notably their series of SF 3D shooters (sounding familiar?) for the Mac; yes, Marathon.