Ah, aspect ratios and high definition televisions. Just as fans bitched and moaned last month about the fact that both Xbox 360 and PC versions of Bioshock locked displays to a single horizontal FOV setting, whether the user had a 4:3 or a 16:9 screen, now Joystiq is on about how splitscreen works in Halo 3, apparently using two 2.7:1 frames stacked on each other instead of two 1.77:1 frames.

What's the issue, exactly? Unused pixels:

We're too far into the HDTV transition for games to be wasting screen space or having other perspective issues. We understand that designers want total control over the gaming experience. But we players want to use every pixel for which we paid.

Check Joystiq for the complete story.

Of course, we've heard this before.

After Halo 2 was released in 2004, there were rumblings and vague remarks about Bungie wanting to do something else, non-Halo-related, for a change.

Which is entirely understandable.

Now, Pro-G is quoting Bungie's Joe Tung as saying Bungie wants to work on something else for a change, and is not working on Halo 4.

When quizzed on the subject last night, Joe Tung, multiplayer producer at Bungie Studios, said that the team was "figuring out right now what we're working on next".

He added: "We really don't know what that is yet but as soon as we know, everyone else will know. Halo 4 is not in development."

I, for one, am hoping this is true. Halo is great, and between Ensemble's Halo Wars and Wingnut Interactive's Halo Chronicles, it seems there will be plenty of Halo content for the foreseeable future. However, Bungie's strong suit has been original (as in, not licensed rather than non-derivative) intellectual property, and it'll be nice to see something from them that's not a sequel.

Also worth a note: Halo is the first trilogy out of Bungie where all three episodes were done in house; Marathon Infinity was done by spinoff Double Aught, and Myth 3 was done by Mumbo Jumbo after Myth was sold to Take Two in the Microsoft buyout.

Major Nelson points out an auction to benefit charity that includes some pretty one-of-a-kind items, including an Xbox 360 autographed by Bill Gates, a Zune autographed by J Allard, and a pretty complete collection of Halo games and bonus content.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about Bungie AI programmer Damian Isla:

Animal emotions such as surprise, interest or disappointment can be useful parts of an AI creature. "They can have an impact in the game," he says. "Our characters have an incomplete knowledge model - they depend on line of sight. If you sneak up on them from behind they get surprised just like you or I do, because you are violating its expectations about where you are. It pays off in game play, because the character has a huge surprise animation and gives a yelp."

There's a particularly interesting bit on page two about the tug-of-war between AI programmers trying to make smarter opponents, and designers trying to make more fun opponents. A worthwhile read.

An article in Wired talks about Bungie's attention to detail when doing multiplayer and campaign level design:

Some of the details in Halo 3 verge on the obsessive. While creating several environments based on the area of Africa surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro, Bungie designers used a satellite map of the region to make sure the geography would remain consistent from scene to scene -- and that as the "day" inside the single-player story wore on, the sun would set at a realistic pace. (Even the road signs in the game are "mostly close to real life," a designer told me: When you see a ruined highway sign saying "New Mombasa: 47 miles," that's roughly the distance to Mombasa, Kenya.)

I hope Bungie doesn't get in trouble for admitting that the multiplayer level Epitaph is based on a French cathedral; games that depict shootings inside religious buildings have been taking a few knocks lately. Hopefully the sci-fi renovation will prevent that.

Major Nelson has posted up some pictures of the Master Chief and the Bungie crew in New York at the Halo 3 launch.

HBO posted the box acronyms for the regular (SLMCWMYOW) and Legendary editions (WWYANOFAWD) of Halo 3.