Head To Head, With A Side Of Lag
For those cursed with lag-- or those looking to create havok with the rankings, annoy their fellow players, and risk the ire of Bungie by performing the standby cheat-- the Head to Head playlist is for you.
Death by intelligence.
get on top of the terminal map
alright me and two of my friends discovered a glitch on the new map terminal.now i want to share this with the public =-). ok here is what you wil need to do this glitch. three people, but the more the better, just make sure you don't have people that kill you becAUSE THAT GETS FRUSTRATING. now you will need a warthog, and of course the terminal map, and friend whho have the terminal map. alright to get started. find where the warthog responds. then in the room it is in, drive your wart hog to the top floor of that same room, but go up in reverseon the stair case.
My Frankie's Back And You're Gonna Be In Trouble
Frankie is back at Bungie now with a brand-new Weekly What's Update. This one covers the teleporter glitch on Relic (it's "being taken care of"), demos for Halo and Halo 2, and what Sketch would look like if he ate all the pies.
Five More Halo 2 Maps Now Downloadable
Xbox Live users in #hbo have begun reporting that the second set of Halo 2 downloadable maps, Terminal, Backwash, Elongation, Relic, and Gemini, are now available for download for $11.99. Thanks Tex.
Hello, I'm An Internet Addict
An Associated Press story from Beijing describes the country's first "officially licensed clinic for Internet addiction". The story's headline at Yahoo News misleadingly refers to "addicted video game players"; while the story mentions that much of the time the heaviest Internet users spend at their computers is playing games, the clinic itself does not appear to be specific to games but rather to Internet use in general.
Patients ranging from early teens to early 20s pay $48 per day for 10-15 days of treatment, which consists of therapy, acupuncture, and sports. Some receive unspecified intravenous drugs to "adjust the unbalanced status of brain secretions" and each day apparently begins with sessions on "a machine that stimulates nerve impulses with 30-volt charges to pressure points".
(Anybody find this regime of treatment scarier than being unable to disconnect from the Internet for hours on end?--Ed.)
HaloMods Forums, File Downloads Closed Until Auto Update
More New Map Information Released
A lot of goings-on in the Halo 2 Map world recently. Of course, the Killtacular Pack which was released as a split between two free maps and two premium maps is now available in its entirety for free from Xbox Live; Containment, Warlock, Turf and Sanctuary.
The next set of five maps is due out soon; Red vs Blue has video previews of Elongation and Backwash, and SketchFactor has returned from gallivanting long enough to put up Bungie's preview of Relic, following up on last week's preview of Terminal. And if you missed them earlier, before that Bungie.net previewed Backwash and Elongation themselves as well.
Relic is an island map set on Delta Halo, with its original design origins reaching back to Halo's ancient history as a PC/Macintosh game prior to Microsoft's buyout of Bungie Software.
Halo 2 Set To Reach Terminal Velocity
With both SketchFactor and Frankie off gallivanting (no doubt accelerating at 32 feet per second per second, naturally) Shishka was left alone at the switch this week, and submitted three QuickTime 3d screenshots of Terminal in lieu of the What's What Update for last week.
Geezer Gamers Film Matchmaking Cheaters
Torlough of the Geezer Gamers has put up a story and a video on cheating in Containment; XBL players with modded Xboxes are apparently modifying the downloaded map files to produce various effects such as flying Warthogs and an incredibly fast Master Chief, and using them to cheat in matchmaking. Thanks HBO. (Here's hoping that Microsoft's boasts about being able to detect modified Xboxes on Xbox Live is true and that the players on the cheating team are banned--Ed.) Thanks HBO.
Halo 2 To Reach Terminal Velocity
The latest featured article at Bungie.net is all about the upcoming expansion map, Terminal. The map is based on the New Mombassa area from the campaign and features a runaway maglev train designed to complicate matters on a regular basis. But hey, at least the trains run on time. The story has many new screenshots, and others have been added to the Halo 2 screenshot gallery, as well as shots of other upcoming maps, like Elongation and Backwash.
Girl Gamers Harassed, Insulted On Xbox Live
J. Paradise confesses that being a "girl gamer" means being harassed and insulted. But isn't that the treatment everybody is getting these days on Xbox Live? Should the experience of being a "girl gamer" be any different? Is it important or meaningful to know the gender of your opponents while playing-- or to make sure they know yours? The latest Narc's Retort responds to Paradise's column and asks, Is XBL A Breeding Ground For Sexism?
Is XBL A Breeding Ground For Sexism?
J. Paradise recently began a series over at DailyGame called Confessions of a Girl Gamer, cataloguing some of the less-fun aspects of multiplayer gaming on Xbox Live. As a female gamer, she noted some of the less pleasant behaviors of the majority of the other gamers on the system, who presumably are male, if common sense and all known statistics can be trusted.
While most of her complaints are entirely valid and each of the behaviors she describes is undoubtedly annoying, I thought there were one or two points which deserved to be responded to, given the criticism the gaming industry receives almost daily in the current political climate for promoting sex and violence. Before this and other articles get referred to in an attempt to heap the charge of promoting sexism among America's youth gets piled onto the heap, it might be worth thinking a little further on some of the topics J. Paradise raises.
Female Gamers Courted By Industry, Abused By Male Gamers
Kotaku today asks if female gamers are going to generate the extra revenue needed for the industry to grow, based on a story at MarketWatch (free registration required).
At the same time, Daily Game is carrying part one of Confessions of a Girl Gamer, which amounts to, among other things, complaints from J. Paradise about being constantly asked if she is really a girl, followed by being called a "bitch", "slut", "whore" and being told to get back in the kitchen.
This article I think warrants a longer response, and I hope I'll have a chance to give it soon.
Xbox Live Friends For OS X Updates
Mindquirk Software has released version 2.02 of Xbox Live Friends for Mac OS X. This version fixes a problem with auto sign-in that appeared as a result of changes at Xbox.com
News Roundup For June 16, 2005
For various reasons it's been hard for me to keep up with news posting lately; many thanks to trav himself (formerly Sistimatic) for picking up the slack. Here are some recent items of note:
- Film Force carries supposed confirmation of the Fox-Universal Halo movie deal. Meanwhile, IGN posts some comments from their staff and Halo fans on what should be in the Halo movie. (The list makes Baby Jesus cry--Ed.)
- BDGamer says the Xbox 360 launches this December in Japan; earlier reports have cited 20 games at launch in that market, which will be key for Microsoft this time around, as it was quite weak for the Xbox compared to Europe and North America.
- Xbox365 says Microsoft's Robbie Bach is being brought on board the Windows Media Player 11 team to take on Apple' iPod/iTunes dominance in the online music arena. (No, this is not a joke. Or maybe it is--Ed.)
- Wil Wheaton's blog talks about what game voice talent sought from their recent lobbying, but didn't quite get.
- Major Nelson points out a How Does Bungie.net Work case study at MSDN.
- Kotaku suggests that Blizzard's World of Warcraft MMORPG might be ported to Xbox 360. (A welcome addition to fill the gap left when True Fantasy was cancelled--Ed.)