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April 2, 2004 Originally at Battleground: Halo

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Sat, 04/03/2004 - 21:13 by narcogen

Tomfoolery

Yesterday's April fool's shenanigans were met with a mixture of delight, mild amusement and abject fury. One reader, posting, perhaps ironically, on the fake website he was mad about, was incensed that we were cavorting and gamboling through the fields of whimsy, when we should have been taking screenshots and movies of Halo 2. Even though he went on to say that all of our screens so far are faked. He also described me as the "unfunniest person on Earth" so while he's wrong about screenshot fakery, he's clearly no idiot. That said, screenshots have been a big deal for us this week.

And I know this week's update is teeny. So don't hassle me, man. I'll make it up to you next week.

Screenshottery

Brian, Zoe, Stephen and Lorraine have been fiddling around with some cool new tools that make taking screens a bit easier. That and the fact that the recent builds of the game look better and better, means that future screenshots are going to look even more glorious than they did before. The combination of our new lightmapping and dynamic lighting gives stills an unearthly, painted-looking quality, yet still weirdly photorealistic. I love that aspect of the game's look — reminds me of how video games used to carry their own distinctive "look," like Capcom SNES titles, or the PC version of Doom.

The new Jackal model looks fantastic. His plume is actually composed of individual strands of vaguely insectoid barbs. Zoom in close enough (use your sniper rifle) and you can see that the plumes even have "joints." You'll also get to see how ugly and bump-mapped he is. They really do look manic and ferocious.

And not to dwell too much on Mr. Jackal, but since they invariably carry shields, you might be pleased to know that the shields are more detailed and transparent, so you should be able to hit that little shield notch more easily to take out the ugly cretins.

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