Those who've complained that Rampancy hasn't updated in quite some time are quite correct. While I've no excuse, I do have a reason, and the reason is that the flow of information about Halo 3 has recently slowed to a trickle, and that trickle has now been over-analyzed, much as two boys with twigs might poke and prod at a rivulet of sudsy water running through a patch of sand without ever deducing the existence of a car wash.

While the various fan forums contain far too much rampant speculation to digest, let alone refute, the Halo Story Page provides a convenient place to separate the wheat from the chaff before setting it, too, aflame.

To wit, today's contributions regarding the Prophet of Mercy, Master Chief and the Flood, and Cortana.

Click "read more" from the front page for the complete article.

Gravemind is not an easy character to figure out.

From his initial appearance on the scene, as the rumored "big plant thingy" players who downloaded the leaked French copies of Halo 2 reported seeing, to his cliffhanger-inducing interrogation of Cortana, not much was revealed about him.

Some fans can even be forgiven for questioning whether Gravemind is, in fact, related to the Flood at all. Halo 2's cutscenes only strongly suggest this, without actually stating it. The Art of Halo here rescues us, referring to Gravemind as the "Flood hive mind".

What exactly does that imply? What does Gravemind want? Given that all these events have apparently played out in the past, with the result that the Halo system was used and all life eradicated, but with the Flood preserved dormant for the cycle to start all over again thousands of years later, what other outcome can be hoped for?

Click "read more" below from the front page for the entire article.

[image:10245 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Bungie gave the community a gift of a seven minute documentary about the making of a two minute trailer for Halo 3, and the repayment they get? Gawkers looking over their shoulders, pointing at the screens being worked on by Bungie employees and proclaiming one or more "new species".

Keep in mind, this is the same Bungie that wouldn't even admit the game existed until a few weeks ago, even though it'd been under development for months. This is the same Bungie that kept the existence of the Flood a secret until the launch of Halo. This is the same Bungie that revealed nothing about the Flood being in Halo 2 until a French version of the game leaked, even though everybody already knew the Flood were probably in the game. The same Bungie that said everything was done but the cardboard boxes while they frantically re-tweaked Marathon levels. The same Bungie where Frankie did the majority of a studio tour of Bungie from the adjacent alley rather than have to check and make sure that the camera didn't accidentally give away the identity of the project Bungie was working on-- Halo 3-- even though the vast majority of the civilized world that even cared what Bungie was working on already thought it was Halo 3 anyway.

And people now think that not a mere glance, but a leisurely look over the screen of a Bungie employee showing characters on the screen is some kind of a magnificent revelation.

For the complete article click "read more" below.

San Jose Mercury News columnist Dean Takahashi has written a second book about Microsoft's foray into the console gaming business. Released as an eBook, The Xbox 360 Uncloaked: The Real Story Behind Microsoft's Next-Generation Video Game Console also offers some interesting perspectives on the development of Bungie's Halo franchise.

That the fate of the new console should be tied to Bungie's flagship game is certainly no shock; since 2001 Bungie's series of shooters have been system-sellers for the Xbox, and Halo 2 has had a stranglehold on the top spot in Microsoft' Xbox Live online gaming service since it was released in late 2004.

Takahashi's book claims that Bungie became caught in a struggle between the hardware and software sides of the Microsoft Games Division over how to best promote both the platform as a whole and individual games, and that eventually Hamilton Chu, Pete Parsons, as well as other Bungie staffers, and Ed Fries, who spearheaded the buyout of Bungie by Microsoft, were all casualties of it in one way or another.

The below text is a sort of "executive summary" of the book, including many the points where the stories of Bungie and Halo intersect with the business of Microsoft Games Studio and the division of Microsoft that makes the Xbox and the Xbox 360. Excerpts from Takahashi's book are reproduced here with permission of the author. All quotations and paraphrases of statements by personnel currently or formerly of Microsoft or Bungie, whether identified by name or not, are taken from the book; no one contacted for this article wished to comment for the record at the time of its publication.

Click "read more" from the front page for the entire article.