Content by Games

This is a transcription done by myself concerning Unforgotten from Halo 2. There are 3 horns, full string orchestra, and a piano. I do not have a MIDI or MP3 of this file as of yet. Shouldn't need one anyway. Just listen to the Halo 2 CD. Anyway, hope you like this one.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun thinks that a Halo MMO might be coming. Writer Jim Rossignol comes up with a laundry list of reasons why, some of which I don't find entirely convincing.

I'd probably play it if they made it, though. I originally thought Halo-- the first game-- would be something like PlanetSide. It'd be nice to finally see a game like that in a universe as compelling as Halo's.

So a couple days ago I wrote a bit on how Bungie got the rug pulled out from under them at E3.

As near as the Intertubes can piece it together, a few days before E3, Microsoft let Bungie know they wouldn't be included in the press conference. Bungie then enacted contingency plans for their own announcement, which is what precipitated the countdown on Bungie.net.

On Tuesday Microsoft told Bungie they wouldn't be allowed to do that, either, and since Microsoft is Bungie's publisher for Halo games, and Microsoft owns the Halo intellectual property, and the announcement concerned Halo, Bungie had to do what Microsoft says, prompting Bungie president Harold Ryan's apology to the fans, which can also be interpreted as a nice polite way of flipping the bird to the publisher.

 Click here for the complete text.

Sheet music for the beautiful music in Dust And Echoes. It's very easy to play and sounds great on the keyboard(strings).
(I can't upload any .midi or .mp3 file at the moment but I'll fix it soon.)

LVL: 1|(2)-(3)|4|5 Between 2 and 3.

Please comment!

If you don't see the link below is it maybe because you're not registed! If you are try to refresh the site or go to http://rampancy.net/blog/narcogen/01/02/2008/How_Download_Sheet_Music_Files

Now, I'm not saying the whole Keep It Clean debacle doesn't deserve a couple thousand more words (which it surely will get) but I felt I couldn't let E3 week go by without comment on one of the announcements that Microsoft did feel was important enough to show-- namely, the impending renovation of the Xbox 360's dashboard interface in the fall of this year. Besides, I took a straw poll in HBO's irc server and this is the topic that won.

Then words begin to fail me and I long instead to wax poetic about publishing deals and PR tactics.

What to say, what to say...

I wrote a review of the Aeon Flux theatrical film a few years back on my own personal blog, and as a fan of Peter Chung's original cartoons, I was extremely disappointed. I wrote at the time that:

It is as if Paramount took a group of writers, locked them in a dark room with copies of the animated series, but gave them enough time to view only a small portion of them all, and then required them to write their notes about the series in crayon on the back of index cards. These index cards, out of order, were then handed to a completely different group of people, who then went on to make this film.

I can't help feeling that Microsoft has taken a team of interface designers, a Wii, and an Apple TV and done the same thing here. From the cartoony avatars you can see they're aware of the Wii. From the clean, white, sliding 3D interface you can tell they've seen an Apple TV, or at least Apple's Front Row program. Somehow, however, they either didn't quite grasp how or why those things worked and what was good about them, and managed to come up with something that bears only a passing resemblance to those two products, and are in the process of abandoning an interface that-- in classic Microsoft fashion-- after seven years has finally reached a "good enough" level of functionality.

If I'm lucky enough to have anyone at Microsoft involved in this project reading at this moment, let me emphatically state: please do not do this. As a last resort, I'd exhort you to make this interface optional. I know this to be a fruitless request since making things options rarely solves anything. All I can say, though, is that if this is the interface the 360 will be using in the future then I can see myself using it a lot less, and at least putting my console back to booting from disc on startup and bypassing the dashboard as much as possible.

If you haven't seen this thing yet, drop on over to GameTrailers, they have HD and SD versions of the walkthrough. Go ahead. I'll wait.

 Click here for the complete text.

July 26, 07, , Old news by now, but a couple of weeks ago, Marathon: Durandal was announced for the Xbox 360! Read more about it here . (posted 6:23 by D-M.A.)

July 9, 07, , Sorry for missing this on the 7th, but I'm enjoying my summer semester, so I have very limited internet access: 7 long years since its inception, Marathon:Resurrection is now downloadable in all its glory for Unreal Tournament! resurrection.bungie.org (posted 8:48 by D-M.A.)

July 7, 07, , Forrest reports that the last beta version of Eternal has been released! Find out more about the release here . (posted 3:59 by D-M.A.)

May 28, 07, , Aleph One 0.18.0 has been released. Read more about it at the Open Source page . (posted 8:25 by D-M.A.)

May 22, 07, , Scenario News reports that Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge 3.0, a hugely improved version of the popular EMR scenario, has been released! (posted 16:15 by D-M.A.)

August 11, 07, Somewhere in the heavens..., This came in last week... but things got out of hand. RuGGeR (yeah, that RuGGeR - one of the founding members of bungie.org) put together a Marathon-based makeover for your iPhone . 3.1 mb, chock-full of goodies: ringtones, system sounds, carrier logo replacement, desktop images and links. Grab it - and Marathonize your phone!(posted 9:15 by Claude)

August 9, 07, , Scenario News reports that a new scenario, "Los Disney", has been released! (posted 14:29 by D-M.A.)

In a Story forum post Forrest Cameranesi <forrest@bungie.org>makes an interesting discovery. Could this be the source of the Headless sounds? Here's the full post: Source of Headless Sounds Posted By: Forrest of B.org <forrest@bungie.org> Date: 8/29/05 10:51 p.m. I'm sure Bungie probably got the Headless screeches off of some stock sound CD as they did so many Marathon sounds, but I recently discovered entirely by chance what those sounds actually are. Bird calls. There's a type of sea bird in my area called the Snowy Plover, that's apparently an endangered species, but you can still go walking on the beach near their nesting grounds. The only other birds around there are brows pelicans and western gulls, and their calls are uninteresting and can be heard all over. But walking down along that beach the past couple of days, I kept hearing Headless screeches (the kind of sound they make when you shoot them). I traced the source of them to see if maybe someone was playing PiD on the beach, but no such luck... it's just bird calls! And since the only non-gull, non-pelican around there are the Snowy Plovers, it's gotta be them. Being endangered would explain why I've never heard them before I moved here. I think that the Headless screeches may have received a bit of post-processing on top of the regular Plover calls, but they're so damned similar, the same exact pitch-shift for *both* of the headless screeches, that I'm sure the Headless sounds were taken from these Plovers.

Section 8 <kevinma@em-os.com> makes an interesting post on the Story forum regarding the similarity between the glass vial containing the essence of an imprisoned demon in Pathways Into Darkness and a Jack Kirby (Marvel Comics) creation from the 1970's. Here's the full post: Comic-Booky related Evil-Force-In-A-Vial Thing Posted By: Section 8 <kevinma@em-os.com> Date: 5/12/05 12:19 a.m. Seriously doubt this is the source, but, heck, maybe someone read Marvel comics? (Or someone at Marvel played PiD?) The whole vial and pyramid thing rings a bell. "Encyclopaedia Olympianna: The Dreaming Celestial" http://www.geocities.com/brenni_au/D.html#Dreamer "Formerly named Tiamut, this Celestial's true name has been removed from all records. He has been rumored by some to have created the Deviant Tantalus. He was once golden in color, until he committed some crime, which resulted in the other members of the 2nd Host turning "the Weapon" upon him, destroying him. This act was witnessed by Valkin and Sigmar of the Polar Eternals, and the Celestials allowed them to take possession of a vial, containing Tiamut's essence. Valkin constructed the Pyramid of the Winds to contain both the Vial, and "the Weapon, and crafted a security program that would notify his nephew Ikaris, should the Pyramid ever be breached. Tiamt's body, now colored black, was placed beneath the mountains of California, unable to move, only able to dream. He became known as both "the Black Celestial" and "the Dreaming Celestial". The Deviants came to believe that the Celestial's crime was creating them, and the priesthood developed an entire system of belief around him. Ghaur hoped to challenge the might of the Celestials by obtaining the essence from the Vial, but instead, the Dreamer took over Ghaur's actions, and tried to force him into freeing him from his vault, but the Eternals and Avengers stopped him, and the essence was re-sealed into the Vial. He recently began a war with Ashema for control of Counter-Earth, and was defeated by Dr. Doom and Mr. Fantastic. In an alternate future, the Dreamer awakened, and overloaded Galactus' powers so that he would devour the universe, but the Fantastic Four tricked him into being devoured by Galactus himself. -Eternals (v.1)#18, What If (v.1)#23, Eternals (v.2)#11-12, Silver Surfer Annual#2, Amazing Spider-Man Annual#23, Fantastic Four#339-340, Heroes Reborn: Ashema, Fantastic Four (v.3)#25 Coincidence or... ?

The Muller mystery continues...

Muller time! ... why talking to Muller can be dangerous to your health! And on the Story forum the Nazis, the occult and the Thule Society and why did Jason Jones say that? The tru7 h... is out there!

Muller's Mission ... uncovering the tru7 h... one lie at a time.

Lovecraft's "The Nameless City" and Pathways Into Darkness. Check also Brent Thompson's submission back in May 20, 1999 about Lovecraft's "The Temple".

OK following repeated email threats and a large cash pay off we (The Committee) have finally activated the Muller's Mission link. We can't put it all up today due to copyright restrictions but check back... soon(TM).

The Muller's misson thread on the Story forum has raised some interesting speculation about the origin of the pyramid itself. Who built it? Is it a manifestation of the sleeping god's dream or was it built by the local natives? Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com> in a forum post offers this possibility: Re: Muller's Mission? Posted By: Vid Boi <sippan@macnytt.com> Date: 4/24/05 6:45 p.m. In Response To: Re: Muller's Mission? (Anger) : Right so they built the teleporters too? The pyramid also goes two miles : deep! The whole place reeks of alien conspiracy Maybe the underground parts were there, created by the Dreaming God, and then humans built a pyramid on top of that. The interesting thing about this theory is that all the levels above ground have wooden (man made) ladders. But once you are below ground the ladders are at first crystal, then vine, and finally they become teleporters.

Well after some 12 years people are finally beginning to ask the question... what was Muller's mission? Nick hoad <nhoad@sunbeach.net> on the Story forum outlines some of the facts we know about Muller's misson to the pyramid. And why has the PID page been so silent on this issue? The last great conspiracy...

Thanks to DcBob for pointing out that you can download the full version of Pathways Into Darkness (v2.0) from the Macintosh Garden . You can find it listed here . It's a 2MB download. According to the maintainer of the Macintosh Garden Pathways Into Darkness is is 'Abandonware' that is "commercial software that has been discontinued by the publisher and are not sold or supported anymore" . Not sure how legal this is but they do say "If you are the publisher of a certain game on this site, and wish that it is removed, please email me and I will remove the game." Version 2 is the PowerPC version and the copy protection is disabled. The download comes with the manual.

Added the rare Inside Mac Games article The Making Of: Pathways Into Darkness from December 1993. Learn about the PID editor, the art of Colin Brent, and the events leading up to the Boston Macworld Expo in August 1993. Hey that's nearly 12 years ago!

Added the transcript of the AOL chat with Alex Seropian held on 27 August 1993. Pathways Into Darkness had just been released earlier that month and the chat offered an opportunity for those on AOL to ask questions about the game. In the transcript Alex is 'BungieSoft' and he doesn't give much away. Just a few tips, including mention of the Easter Egg . One or two of the more interesting questions he doesn't answer concern the PID editor and the origin of the company name. In the chat you'll come across a remark by Willie 44. Remember this is August 1993.

Added the Inside Mac Games interview with Jason Jones from October 1993. In this you will find information on Minotaur 3D, rejected plot lines for Pathways Into Darkness, the difficulty issue, the speed issue, Pathways II, the upcoming Mosaic and a game in development called... Marathon. Go relive the nostalgia!

"I'm enjoying your exciting game and it puzzles my brains" and "Evil, wicked, addictive, nasty game from Hell. Do it again." Just a few of the comments from the Pathways into Darkness Registration card comments .

Added Inside Mac Games Review of Pathways Into Darkness from September 1993. More nostalgia.

Added Inside Mac Games Sneak Peak of Pathways Into Darkness from June 1993. A little nostalgia. More to come. Including some details on the PID editor!

Because PID-related things seem to be disappearing off the internet at an accelerated rate I've updated the The Archive section over in the Inventory window (on your far right) to include the Pathway Into Darkness demos, Alain Roy's Pathways Into Cheating v1.0.1 and Richard Drysdall's ACE! 1.8.2. What happened to Alain Roy's Pathways Into Cheating v1.0 and why was it removed off the internet so quickly? Well that's a story for another day.

Well most of the off-site links are now dead. Most notably David Coufal's Pathways Into Darkness Home Page . This was the oldest PID page around. All gone now. I've deleted all the off-site links in the Inventory window and will add the files locally.

Back in November 2004 Lt Devon <devon@forerunners.org> posted news about a Pathways into Darkness inspired mod for Doom 3. Entitled Pathways Redux the mod was released on 26 Nov 2004. Doom 3, which is set in the ruins of an ancient Martian civilization, is expected to be released for the Macintosh in mid-March.

Mentioned in a Story forum post ... this little humoress tidbit. The Red Velvet Bag Posted By: Nova <aingeal_na_gealai@hotmail.com> Date: 7/29/05 6:49 a.m. My brother and I have always wondered that, surprisingly, nobody has ever mentioned how the Red Velvet Bag, being: - red - able to hold infinite amounts of stuff - able to make weightless anything put inside Resembles "suspiciously" to Santa's bag... Check the full thread for some way out theories. Was Santa really at the pyramid.

Ok in a bit of a dilima here...

The superlatives in Oni

Damage

Who is the most toughest opponent for you?

Oni's Scariest Moment

Can anyone...

Oni Advice

An Oni FAQ!

Blacking possible?

Daodan Speculation

IRC Channel?

Oni Icon Pack

Request on I think is offical artwork.

Is this a bug?