Today, November 15, 2004, marks the third anniversary of the release of Halo for the Xbox. Happy birthday Halo!
Speedy put up a trick page on how to get up to the rooftops of Old Mombassa in the Outskirts level. We've made it the first entry in our brand-spanking new Halo 2 Tricks Database. If you have more, send them to us at narcogen@rampancy.net. There are movies with this trick, they'll be coming up soon.
And yes, we know, this isn't that much of a trick.. but it is the first :) There are no story spoilers in this trick, but if you just don't want to see anything before you play it yourself... don't click the link.
As promised, we've opened up a thread for discussion of Halo 2 spoilers, for those who already have the game already and those who just can't wait until they do and have to know everything right now.
[image:8472 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]A new set of 12 screenshots have shown up in the Celebrities section of MSN, spotted by M3XGhost39 who alerted Louis Wu at HBO. Some are old, some are new, some aren't supposed to be out yet, apparently, and some might be spoilers if you knew what you were looking at.
About five of the twelve are multiplayer (one, two, three, four, five) it seems the rest are single player (six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve) although in many cases they are cropped so tightly you can't see much of the level they are in.
We've added them to our Halo 2 Gallery.
Several sites, including current one-Wu-wonder HBO, pointed out an article on Halo 2 in Entertainment Weekly. Some of those sites also pointed out some things which, while not outright inaccuracies, certainly seem to skew their perception of the game through a film industry lens.
For instance, from reading this article you'd think Halo 2 was entirely Joe Staten's project-- there's no mention of any other staffer, and Staten is referred to as the "philosophical ringleader of Bungie Studios" (Editor's Note: We thought that was Jones' gig. So sue us. Without diminishing Staten's contribution to the project one bit, we do suspect other people were involved.)
However, there are still several revealing bits of information here.
But the biggest step forward is that Staten's story about an invasion of Earth is now told from the perspective of both the humans and the Covenant aliens.
We're not quite sure what that means, although it might be the reason why some new Covenant species, like Prophets, speak English-- so that parts of the game showing events from the Covenant perspective will be intelligible without resorting to subtitles.
Staten also admits to political, as well as religious, themes in the story:
"You could look at [the story] as a damning condemnation of the Bush administration's adventure in the Middle East."
In fact, the story also cites that Microsoft's legal team forced a change in one alien name due to "Muslim overtones".
The article also tries to place Halo within the context of religious beliefs, something hinted at in Halo 1, but never fully explained:
Since Master Chief was already well established, Staten and his father, a professor of theology, developed a set of religious beliefs that could explain the Covenant's actions in the sequel. They zeroed in on the idea of the Halos — 10,000-kilometer-wide ring worlds — as utopias, safe havens in a universe filled with terror.
Which makes one wonder exactly what it is about being crawling with hostile adaptive lifeforms like the Flood makes a piece of cosmic real estate into a Utopia. I guess there's no accounting for taste.
To top it all off, we get a hint of what might be next from Bungie:
To that end, he's busy at work on several projects, including the possible resurrection of Phoenix, a non-sci-fi project that Bungie spent two years on before putting it aside to finish Halo 2.
Quite a lot of revealing information, even if it is from a source that doesn't usually follow games; so take it with a few grains of salt.
Joshua Rennart has pulled out a few frames from the recent spoiler footage of what is assumed to be a new theatrical trailer, and tried to figure out what's hitting what. he's pretty sure one part is a Brute, but the other... he's not so sure about. Some have said it's a hunter, which he doesn't consider. Warning: spoilers!
David Candyman Candland has put up the eighth part of Truth and Reconciliation's Halo Legendary Walkthrough. This one's for the level Two Betrayals, and features many new screenshots.
Bungie has posted No7orius's walkthrough of Pillar Of Autumn on Legendary difficulty at Truth & Reconciliation. No7orius has beaten the level in under eighteen minutes, which is not too shabby by any means, and has written the instructions (complete with pictures) so you can, too.
One of the things cited as refreshing, if not actually innovative, about Halo is the fact that it doesn't depend on the usual key-door-boss sequence that has plagued the shooter genre since Doom. It seems not everyone feels the same:
Despite the exciting multiplayer modes, Halo does have a clink within its shiny coat of armor, the lack of a final boss. Even with its nerve-racking race-to- the-finish dash to your ship at the end of the game, Halo still should have had a final confrontation with a boss. Half-Life had one, so did Doom. Defeating the last boss in any game is its own reward. It would have been frosting on an already sweet mountain of a cake, but perhaps Bungie wanted to break away from the norm by straying away from that gaming cliche? Only they know for sure, and they ain't talking!One thing is for sure; Halo is a cinematic pleasure rollercoaster without the guardrail. Armed with an engaging plot, hours of intense legendary battles, and an arsenal of intergalactic weapons, this aria of a space opera helps to define the next generation of first person shooters for years to come-- or until Halo 2.
The 'Lost Hours' column at Coming Attractions gave Halo a 9 out of 10, but did note that the Spartan cyborg looks a lot like the Doom marine, at least in terms of color.
Koga has created an image of three models from Myth III. What's inside may be considered spoiler material, so enter with caution.
Koga and others are discussing ways to access the hidden level of Myth III in the MWA forum. Since what is said within could be considered spoiler material, I won't give any details here other than it sounds very humorous.
HBO's Louis Wu has posted two news items about Halo-related bits at GameFAQs. The first is a reader review section. As of right now, there are 18 reviews, mostly 9 or 10 points out of time, with only three bad reviews, ranking 4, 5, and 6 out of 10 respectively. Some of these are also inaccurate, claiming (yet again) that PC Halo is cancelled.
The other item is a walkthrough, which is a work in progress. Caution... it contains spoilers, obviously.
Louis Wu pointed out at HBO that the IGN Halo Strategy Guide has added a new level. We won't mention the name, since it's potentially a spoiler, so needless to say don't click the link unless you really want to.
