Bungie's own Community Guy, Matt Soell, has been interviewed on VoodooExtreme on how it feels now that Halo is finally finished. They cover lots of topics, from the visuals to the fans' expectations, not to mention the challenges of making an FPS game's controls feel natural on a console:
XboxAddict has put up a page summarizing what's in issue #2 of OXM, due out in January. And although it's got a Halo trailer, it doesn't have a demo or any mention of the rumored add-on that Matt Soell recently denied existed. So this rumor was vapor from day one, apparently.
The Halo Strategy Guide at IGN has had the last three chapters added. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO, who points out that the easter egg in the game for finishing on Legendary difficulty is not included in the walkthrough.
Xbox.com, the official Xbox site, has posted a short Meet Bungie Studios feature as well as an Overview of the Mjolnir Armor from Halo.
Louis Wu at HBO sifted through Blue's News and found a couple of reviews that escaped attention earlier:
Game Revolution gave Halo an A grade in their review; about the only thing they didn't like was the lack of bots.
Jim Ripclaw Broach at Gamer's Pulse has written a review of Halo, and his was as enthusiastic as any. In fact, he concludes by saying:
Well, Louis Wu and the concept of time zones have conspired again to beat us to the punch, this time with regard to the impressions of Halo at Xperience posted by fAt1 at MPZ.The content is largely the usual: the game sounds great, the AI is very good, the controls are OK if not a keyboard and mouse, and, of course, the graphics are phenomenal:
HBO's Louis Wu has posted two news items about Halo-related bits at GameFAQs. The first is a reader review section.
Someone named TheDuke1213 posted in the HBO forum that he'd heard a rumor there would be a huge add-on product for Xbox Halo coming out next year, including new multiplayer levels. He went on that it would supposedly be confirmed in the next edition of OXM. Matt shut that down pretty quickly:
XboxWeb has reviewed Halo and gave it some serious props. Similarly to the Electric Playground review, they also loved the controls. They went insofar as to suggest that Microsoft [could have] specifically designed the controller to suit first person shooters such as Halo.
XboxWeb didn't stop there - not when they felt the audio needed tremendous commendation:
Jason MacIsaac has written a Halo review for the electric playground, and it's glowingly positive. In fact, they even liked the controls:
Will White at Cloudchaser Microsoft has reviewed Halo, and while they admitted that the graphics were gorgeous, they found the story less than innovative, the controls sometimes frustrating, and the water effects unrealistic. In addition:
CoreMagazine's Brendan Sinclair has written a review of Halo. As many others have, he compared it favorably to Half Life, lamented the lack of bots, and thought the audio was even better than the visuals. Overall he gave the game an 'A' grade:
HBO's own Louis Wu posted a note that Adrenaline Vault has finally put up their own Halo review; and shock of shocks, they thought it was great, giving it 5/5 overall.
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.
