Peter Tamte of Destineer Studios commented in an interview with IMG that the goal for Halo on the Mac platform is simultaneous release, and that the project so far is on schedule.
The boys at Electric Playground got their eyeballs on the Halo 2 trailer, and boy, they seem to have enjoyed it. They wrote up a summary, here, and commented on the progress that game's made from the original. A worthy read.
Thanks to the Junkyard for catching this. Not HBO. Ho ho ho.
It's possible that the Halo50k competition, so named because they plan to give out $50,000 in prizes, may drop the $400 entry fee they were going to charge. It seems they may be on the verge of getting corporate sponsorship for the tournament. To accommodate these arrangements, the tournament has been postponed from November 2002 to February 2003. Registration is temporarily suspended, and if the new schedule doesn't work out for teams that already registered, their money will be refunded.
Thanks for the heads-up to Louis Wu at HBO.
Goodness. Remember Battleground: Halo, the once-proud but in recent times mostly dead Halo fansite? Whodathunkit, they've gotten a visual revamp and started posting news again. Go check 'em out.
BG:H updated today with the news on Halo 2; looks like they might (also) be getting more active. Also, in the process of cruising the BG:H forum threads, amidst the arguments about whether or not Halo 1.5 does or will exist (silly rabbit, Halo tricks are for Louis) we came across DarkHelmet.org, which has some interesting Halo content, and had heretofore escaped inclusion in our links page. This has been rectified. And no, that's not a dirty word.
Michael Johnson of Monsters At Play has written a review of Halo's Original Soundtrack. It was one of the elements of the game he enjoyed the most. He felt it deserved a review of its own; and quite a positive review it is:
As fans undoubtedly already know, Marty O'Donnell and Mike Salvatori are the audio gurus responsible for the fabulous music in Halo. They've created a unique and complex score that blends orchestral arrangements and ambient synthesizers with pseudo-Gregorian chants. This style captures the tone of the game much better than the teeny-bopper pop fluff or looping cheese-rock riffs you'd find in many B-grade sci-fi games, an observation which becomes increasingly evident throughout the game. There is a wide range of musical diversity present in the 26 tracks, so the listening experience remains quite fresh for the duration. From the pseudo-spiritual chanting on Under Cover of Night , to the digital blip-bleeps on Alien Corridors , to the screaming guitars on Rock Anthem For Saving The World , the Halo soundtrack is chock full of high-quality compositions that always heighten the emotional impact of key moments in the game.
In fact, Johnson's only complaint is that listening to the soundtrack CD in stereo doesn't offer quite the same impact as playing the game in 5.1 Dolby surround. Here's the solution, though, Mike: play more Halo.
Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for pointing this one out.
Bungie.net has posted information on a new Halo tournament in Florida. This one is special because it has a lower age limit than the Halo National Tournament; it's for players between the ages of 10 and 17. The rules are similar to those of the HNC but without an elimination round. You can get more information about the tournament at CyberMax Internet Cafe's site.
Elan Sleazbagano posted a silly trick in the HBO forum. Done on the level Halo, you can make the passenger and gunner in the Warthog scream like they're falling despite the fact that they are just driving around. Brian Josselyn was quick to get a video of the glitch.
We couldn't find the GameSpot poll mentioned at HBO-- perhaps it already closed with Halo named the undisputed victor before we got there.
However, we did find virtually the same poll running at Gaming Age. Currently Halo 2 is trailing The Legend of Zelda 371 to 231, but leading GTA: Vice City (159) and Doom III (81).
You know what to do.
The winners of the regional HNC competitions have been posted at Bungie.net. The finals will be played next week in Los Angeles. If the winners are unable to play, there is an alternate from each center. Thanks for the post from Louis Wu at HBO.
OZHalo.com has also apparently gone offline, and bears the same for sale notice as Creationgames.
There have been a few recent threads in the HBO forum about a remark that musicmeister Marty The Elder O'Donnell made at the E3 fanfest regarding Covenant Elite taunts . Basically, he said they were in the POA level but would be near impossible to find.
Surreptitious thinks he may have found them, and recorded a number of Elite vocalizations in the POA level.
Marty has since confirmed that Surreptitious did, indeed, find one of the taunts-- c'mon, tough guy but also said that there are others.
All I ever remember hearing (aside from the standard, backwards-Sarge dialog) was lousy piece of crap , which was the only thing I ever heard them say in English. And no, I don't have it recorded. But I know I heard it.
Louis Wu, of course, posted this at HBO.
The countdown banner at Xbox.com disappeared briefly this week, but has apparently returned. BOLL first noted it was missing, and Louis Wu posted it at HBO.
Given that the countdown is an image, I'm guessing the countdown outage was a result of a manual update rather than anything nefarious.
Our countdown, being automatic, is unlikely to disappear, although it does remain unofficial.
After a long period of processing and development, HBO has finally put up their Miscellanous section, where, as one might guess, everything goes that does not belong somewhere else. Odd thing is, I think it has immediately become the largest content area on the site. It includes stuff ranging from Matt's Halo Updates, to OS X Halo Icons to Halo-inspired Starcraft Maps and Jason Jones' eloquent thoughts on Body Count (deathmatch). There's stuff in there we didn't even remember existed.
Louis Wu credited Phil Saulnier and vector40 for help in creating the section.
This struck me as slightly ridiculous but pretty cool... chigiri posted to the HBO forum about a recent Halo endeavour of his... he's created a WAP-enabled Halo information site. No real content yet, but it's on the way. Hmm...