Patroclus' homage to Mystery Science Theatre, complete with appropriate Bungie references is now here at R.net in 2Mb and 10Mb sizes. Thanks for the heads-up to Louis Wu at HBO.
The theme song from Mystery Science Theater 3000, set to video from Halo 1, by Patroclus.
Jason Loonyboi Bergman from Shacknews recently interviewed Chris DiCesar, Microsoft Games' group PR manager, about the status of the PC/Mac ports of Halo. In terms of when it will happen, DiCesar said it's still up in the air . He also indicates that no actual work has even begun on the port:
Jason: So itТs not on the board at all at this point?
Chris: No. Well I would say itТs on the board as planned to do, but in terms of actual development of it, it is not.
There's little concrete to point to from Matt or anyone at Bungie that directly contradicts this, although it certainly is disheartening to hear that at this point no actual work has been done, more than six months after the release of Halo on the Xbox.
Sometime in the future, we may all have our hands on the game that Bungie originally intended to make when they began work on Halo.
And no, we're not talking about the Mac/PC version (which, by the way, will still happen, as far as everyone knows).
No, we're talking about a version of Halo featuring online multiplayer for MS' Xbox Live gaming service that is slated to begin beta testing later this year.
Louis Wu at HBO pointed out an MS press release (posted at TeamXbox) and a GameSpot article that both mention this Halo Online project.
The release says:
As for 'Halo™' and the work the Bungie Studios team is doing, gamers can rest assured: The fate of humanity is in good hands... and online.
The GameSpot piece goes into more detail, indicating that we might finally get some of the things from the original Halo press release from 1999 at MacWorld: team-based cooperative play, for instance. GameSpot quoted Jason Jones as saying that it was now feasible to build the part of Halo that Bungie wanted to do.
There are no direct quotes, so what follows in that article may be speculation, but it certainly is tempting to hope it will become reality:
After Microsoft acquired Bungie in 2000, the game's development turned to focus on the single-player experience. However, back when the game was slated as a PC first-person shooter, Bungie had ambitious plans to develop cooperative team-based multiplayer for Halo. At this early stage, Halo's multiplayer was to feature combat between terran and Covenant forces on a massive scale, and players would be rewarded for taking specialized roles such as driving and flying vehicles for teammates. The Halo world itself was envisioned as an enormous world that would allow seamless transitions between environments.
Yeroen at Bungie.net, Louis Wu at HBO and dr. britney spears at RHL all let us know that the Halo Soundtrack's release date has been set: June 11, 2002.
The complete story is at music4games.net. Preorders are being taken in the Bungie Store.
Just kind of a non-update update, since news is slow.
Matt popped onto the HBO forum recently to respond to continuing questions about the PC and Macintosh versions of Halo and said:
We have nothing to say about PC/Mac Halo...yet. But cool stuff is happening, and the time when we can discuss it is not that far away. Trust me: you will dig it.
Prepare to dig.
David Candyman Candland of Bungie.net is reporting that Official Xbox Magazine subscribers received the Halo demo with their edition this month. It includes a Normal difficulty version of Silent Cartographer... apparently with a different ending...
Well, since there's no official word-- in fact, there are official denials going back quite awhile-- take this note with a few heaping tablespoons of salt.
But Bella Online's Lisa Shea isn't backing down off her insinuation that Halo will be broadband enabled:
It should be out in another month or two, as the main core of the XBox broadband rollout. I am VERY eagerly waiting for that.
Pressed to confirm, she stated:
I'll ask them again to see if they've changed their tune recently ...
Whether it's delusion or inside information I can't say yet, but she certainly thinks she knows this is happening. How it is achievable, I don't know. We've been told more than once that Halo can't be patched in any way; but perhaps the Xbox's software itself can be patched in such a way that is transparent to Halo?
We've mirrored two new Halo movies here at Rampancy: the first is the third Halo Movie trailer from Blackstar Productions. It's available here, at the Blackstar Productions website, and from Mythica.org.
The second is a co-op film of players Bluespam, Tarrsk and OXS2000 completing the Pillar of Autumn level without any weapons at all (not sure at what difficulty). It's also available at Mythica.org.
Both have now been added to our movies page.
Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the tip.
Does Lisa Shea know something about Halo we don't?
That's what you might conclude, based on the review of Halo she wrote for Bella Online (thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up).
What was most interesting about the article was the conclusion:
And, even better, you can multiplay in a way which is REALLY fun! With two players you still get a lot of screen space, and you can easily work as a team - flanking an enemy, coordinating attacks. Your marines will see this and help out. If one person jumps into the driver seat of a vehicle, the other can hop in back and man the machine gun. There is a rainbow of colors for your suit, too. When they get Broadband set up for this next summer, a whole new addiction will be spawned.
The emphasis is ours. Since we've seen the Halo 1.5 rumor soundly debunked, and there have been no solid statements about a sequel-- what broadband Halo addiction is she referring to? Does she know something we don't?
We now have a local copy of the Breaking The Rules video (18Mb) by Team Overkill in our movies area. Enjoy!