Logged by Konrad in #hbo on irc.bungie.org after the commercial aired.
Konrad: Frankie, is the so-called Shield Grenade a game element?
Frankie: Nothing in the trailer was placed there by the agency - that is to say, every object and action was put in there with Bungie's consent and usually assets.
Frankie: Which you have t assume we wouldn't do without good reason, riht?
Although it is only sixty seconds in length, there's actually quite a bit of content to pore over in the CG animated Halo 3 TV commercial. It starts slow, moves quickly, and ends suddenly, so pay attention.
There's also a transcript of the events in the advertisement pointing out various items, but without any commentary on what they might mean.
Two children, a boy and a girl, are lying in a clearing amongst blades of grass, staring up at the night sky.
Boy: You ever wonder what's up there?
Girl: Like what?
Boy: Maybe someone up there is wondering what it's like here.
Girl: I guess. Do you think we'll ever meet them?
Boy: I hope so. Don't you?
We see the Master Chief's helmet now in same clearing where the two children were a moment before. Screams, noises of combat and what sounds like incoming artillery fire can be heard.
If you missed the Halo 3 CG trailer today then view it here at http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?link=halo3ad
The fan community switched into high gear this evening as the Halo 3 CG TV Commercial aired, and digitized versions began popping up immediately.
One of the first is a very small, relatively low quality WMV version kindly provided by HYB.
Next, Xbox.com had its own streamed version, but as it doesn't play on Macs I couldn't really check it out. The last version of WMP on the Mac won't play it, the WMV player plugin for QuickTime won't play it. VLC played it, but only the audio, and MPlayer didn't even manage that.
Retsamolah put up a high quality QuickTime version at Moosiah Films, while Plasmafire put up a large MPEG.
Lord Gideon provided a higher quality WMV version as well, clocking in at a tad under 10Mb on the PraetoriaGuard site.
Funkmon linked to a version preconverted for use on portable devices at HaloPortable.com.
Mirrored here at Rampancy:
Moosiah Films also has a page with a list of mirrors including other versions as well.
TeamXbox has a Halo 3 Commercial Page that links to 640 x 360 standard definition and 1280 x 720 high definition versions, both WMV.
[image:43093 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Halo fans will be reaching for their remote controls this evening as they get ready to watch the first television advertisement for Halo 3 tonight during Monday Night Football in the U.S.
The commercial was created by Digital Domain using some of Bungie's models for Halo 3, but unlike most promotional materials for the Halo series to date, is not actually rendered in the game's engine and is not intended to be representative of gameplay.
A frame from the upcoming CG television ad for Halo 3, due to be broadcast the evening of December 4.
Also at the Escapist today, a Microsoft "perception engineer" confirms something about Halo I've long been terribly annoyed by: the tendency of enemies that are far away and do not see you to luckily dodge just as you are about to shoot.
1Up.com obviously didn't get enough Bungie in their "three weeks of Halo 3" coverage, because now the company is getting a mention again-- this time for Marathon.
Unfortunately, it's not a flattering mention. Marathon 2 is featured in their Best Worst Ads 3 feature, on page six, which shows their ad from 1996 that compares video games to a skinner box.
The Escapist has a nice piece on how Microsoft has gone from being a puppy to a big dog in the computer and console game space, and how often that has been achieved through acquisitions. To do so, they spoke with Bruce Shelley of Ensemble Studios, best-known for their Age of Empires series of RTS games on the PC, but now working on the Halo Wars RTS for the Xbox 360; and Jordan Weisman of FASA Interactive, makers of the MechWarrior franchise, and often used as an object lesson for how to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Of most interest to Halo and Bungie fans is the advice Weisman gave Microsoft on the Bungie acquisition:
When we were involved in the Bungie acquisition. ... It was kind of eye-opening. We spent a bunch of time talking about how, if indeed we were going to go through with this acquisition, the best case was to leave them in Chicago. If that fails, we have to create an isolated situation: They're not a part of Microsoft HR; they're not in the way of that part of the org chart; they're in a totally separate, isolated room. There's that locked box that you leave them in. Because otherwise the same thing will happen to their team that happened to mine.
With the Halo franchise almost standing alone as the system-seller for the Xbox, and Halo 3 poised to do the same for the 360 next year, it seems like the same thing didn't happen to Bungie that happened to FASA.
More music transcribed by Halo fans on www.vgmusic.com.
It is only midi's so there is no sheet music but they do have some really impressive stuff. For those of you who wanted to hear what siege of madrigal sounds like they have that there too.
Anyways click on the music menu (the thing on the bottom right side of the video game music archive picture) and scroll down to xbox. Then click G-R or classic style and scroll down to Halo. The first music you should see is A Walk In The Woods.
[image:42911 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] A selection of the screenshots of Halo 3 multiplayer that have been featured in gaming magazines and embargo-breaking European websites for the past week or so are now up at Bungie.net in pretty high resolutions. Inside the main Halo 3 image gallery, Rampancy now has a Halo 3 Multiplayer screenshot gallery for them. Enjoy!