Wha- Why? Why would an Elite, after helping a couple humans (who he attacked before) stop Halo, have any reason to want to fight Master Chief? I mean- it makes no sense.
If there HAD to be any kind of boss battle, it would be with either truth or gravemind (i dont know if he's good or evil, but in halo 2 it was obvious that there wasnt really much of a choice in him helping the humans and elites).
Since some HBO forumgoers were kind enough to hold open the thread for me, I'm now morally obligated to deliver the goods on the Brute documentary. Given that it is longer and more up-front with its new content than the TV ad, I think a frame by frame analysis, in most places, is unwarranted, so instead I thought I would cherry-pick a few notable quotations or bits of information, and add my own commentary.
For the complete text, click "read more" from the front page.
HaloDev has put up the first of in a series of "Feature Focus" articles. This one, by Talin, is accompanied by a very complex render done by Talin and Veegie and covers the technique of normal mapping to add the appearance of detail to textured polygons. Veegie also produced another, more sedate image of an ODST perched high over a Covenant-invaded cityscape.
Xbox Live is telling you to walk away from the television set and spend time with your friends and family in the real world this holiday season. At least, that's the message one might infer from the fact that for several hours now, subscribers can connect to the services to browse the Marketplace or use voice chat, but not play games. Apparently even the single-player features of certain Live-aware games, like Gears of War, are being affected, with users suggested to remove the ethernet cable or wireless adapter from their Xboxes and Xbox 360 consoles to fix it.
Major Nelson's blog acknowledges the problem and that the Xbox Live team is working on it.
UPDATE: Some users reported that they can get on XBL now, and Major Nelson's blog has the following update:
I just heard from the Ops team...and we are all set now. They are debriefing now...so I'll see if I can get anything out of e to share on my show this week.
"e" is a member of the XBL team and a sometimes-guest on Nelson's weekly podcast.
Trakan, a moderator at the Cheap Ass Gamer forum, has posted scans of an ad for the upcoming Xbox 360 game, Crackdown, in Gamepro magazine.
According to the scan, "specially marked boxes" of Crackdown will include an invitation to the Halo 3 multiplayer beta. This seems to be the first sighting in North America of a sure-fire way to get into the beta test. In Europe, a limited number of guaranteed spots were available, whereas in North America, fans were allowed to register freely for a "chance" for a slot, with selections to be made at a later date.
Spartan182 discusses in his blog the possibility of plasma energy swords being dual-wieldable in Halo 3, based on suggestions in the Brute video documentary.
One might think this would make such characters a bit too powerful, although I'm not really sure how carrying two instant-kill weapons really makes a difference unless you can lunge in two directions, but perhaps I just lack imagination. He points out that being able to hold a sword and another weapon simultaneously-- that might be very useful indeed.
Max "Yeroen" Hoberman, Bungie alum and founder of Texas-based Certain Affinity, now working on new Halo 2 multiplayer maps for release next year, gave an interview to Firing Squad.
However, that's not all they're working on, apparently:
FiringSquad: You are also working on a new game. What can you tell us about this game at this stage?
Max Hoberman: Sorry, I can't really say much. We've been in development since November 1st, and we're excited about where it's going, but it's way too early to discuss!
Thanks to 3Suns for the heads-up in the HBO forum.
So the Brute documentary is out. I'm going to stop using Bungie's VIDOC or Video Documentary term, because I really couldn't think of any other kind of documentary except perhaps for film, and since George Lucas says film is dead and HD Video is the way to go, I suppose it's redundant.
Certain pockets of the fan community, while they enjoyed the very slick and polished Halo 3 Announcement Trailer, have been bothered by the stream of apologia that accompanied first the non-real-time, non-Halo-engine CG television commercial, and now the pre-pre-alpha, not-yet-finished visuals of the Brute documentary.
I'd like to praise Bungie for its candor, however. The documentary on the Halo 2 Limited Edition was quite frank about some of Halo 2's shortcomings, as well as some of the reasons for them. This latest documentary is no different: first and foremost Bungie is admitting that Brutes in Halo 2 were a late addition to the game. They were tough only because they could take a lot of damage; there was no differentiation between different Brute individuals except for Tartarus himself and a few honor guard headdresses, and fighting Brutes was more like fighting Super Flood than fighting Elites or other Covenant units.
Click "read more" below from the front page for the complete text.
HALO 3 Co-Op speculation:
wrote this about 4 weeks ago elsewhere.
[quote]I've deduced that there MUST be Co-Op in HALO3...there has to be. Of course there is Co-Op in HALO2 off-line.
This hasn't been confirmed yet but it has to be there...with a 4 player team is what I'm envisioning.
Ooh the things I've read, studied, played, plus imagined sparks my so-called soul with the best and the worst possibilities to come in HALO3. (story line game play)
I was just looking at some of the old tips and tricks back then and they discussed the same thing over and over, I mean they had to make an archive for THE GOLDEN WARTHOG that everyone keeps fussing about. Well if you havent figured it out yet theres no such thing in the game. I can tell you how to get an invincible warthog but not a golden one. Anyway I dont know if you knew this already or not but to go in to ease down position just press down on the directional pad. To get out of it press down again, melee, or shoot. Anybody else know a trick that hasnt been mentioned before???
Max "Yeroen" Hoberman, one of the longest-serving Bungie employees, is founding a new games development company, Certain Affinity. The CA team of developers in Austin, Texas, including other Bungie alumni such as David Bowman and Chad "Shishka" Armstrong are already hard at work on new maps for Halo 2. Bungie.net has the lowdown in an interview with Frankie. The CA site has the official press release, as well as a note that they're looking for an environment artist.
Here are some Halo 3 transcriptions to the halo 3 variation on the trailer:
Similar to mine exept for the fact that I hold the "E" notes, and his timing is just a bit off. This is the Halo 3 piano solo transcribed by The Garbage Man and many other songs on halo as well. Note he only has sheet music for siege of madrigal and the fanfare. The rest are recordings that you can hear on a quicktime player.
In addition to the text-only transcript of the dialogue and events in the CGTV ad from yesterday, and a preliminary commentary piece (which has already gone through several revisions) offering interpretations of the content in the ad, I've posted a frame-by-frame analysis with screen captures, taken from the QuickTime HD version posted by Louis Wu at HBO from the original file at TeamXbox.
[image:43168 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Establishing shot of two children lying face-up in a clearing in a grassy field. The area is quite verdant, indicating that either this setting is not the same as that in the latter half of the ad, or that considerable change has occurred in the region to change its appearance. More on that later.
The two children appear to be dressed alike, in simplistic black outfits, possibly singlets. They are barefoot.