Nothing to do with Bungie directly, but I did write a couple of blog posts about the recent discussion on the interwebz in general (and at Penny Arcade in specific) about the used game market, spurred by comments made by THQ's Cory Ledesma earlier this week.

Bungie AI programmer Max Dyckhoff last month mentioned a long-standing bug in Halo's driving code he'd found and eliminated. He was later kind enough to go into a bit more detail about how Halo's AI figures out how to handle driving and riding in vehicles.

Q: You're one of several active community members who went on to actually work at Bungie. How many Halo games have you worked on now, and what were your primary contributions to each?

A: I started at Bungie at the beginning of production on Halo 3, where I worked with Damian Isla on the AI systems. I spent some time adding a few AI features for ODST as well, such as Firefight, before moving on to Reach, where I have again been working on the AI team. For Reach I've added a bunch of great things like new flying behaviors, better vehicle driving, Elite combat, and so on. The AI team is typically very small, just 2-3 for most of Reach, but we get a lot done.

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Blackstar and Narcogen take a look at the two recently released Reach videos; the RvB reveal of Blood Gulch remake, Hemorrhage, and Bungie's own ViDoc about Forge World and Reach's new map editing features.
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Narcogen and Blackstar, together with Miguel Chavez, take a look at the inclusion of ODST's Firefight mode in Halo: Reach. This is an extended audio version of Episode 17's video episode, in MP3 format.

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Well here is my attempt at writing out Unyielding. I know that its not 100% correct but please do appreciate it.

According to Stosh Sketch (via HBO and NeoGAF) Bungie had to "outsource" its Bungie Day gift for this year... not sure what that means, but in a few hours I suppose we'll find out.

UPDATE: Stosh Sketch goes on in that NeoGAF thread to say that this year's Bungie Day surprise is not a dashboard theme, a downloadable map, or the Halo Reach beta reactivated, but will be announced on the web today and will hit the marketplace the day after.

UPDATE: The Bungie Day surprise was outsourced to Rooster Teeth.

Dust and Bones from the track Delta Halo Suite in Halo 2 Volume 2. It is very similar to Heavy Price Paid.

Blackstar, Miguel Chavez and Narcogen take a look at the new information about Halo Reach released at E3 2010, including the addition of space combat and changes to ODST's Firefight mode.

- Right Click on Links to Download -

ASE 17 Widescreen 360 SD size - Download

ASE 17 Widescreen 720 HD size - Download

Here's a score I arranged for musicians. Its from the cutscene when your dropping from your pod in the initial cutscene. "We are dropping in hell troopers! Time to grow a pair!"

Farthest Outpost for piano. Not difficult to play.

I'll provide with a .zip file later.

Halo: Reach music from E3 2009. They showed a teaser with this music playing in the background. Sounds great on a keyboard string sound.

I just want everyone to know that the title I put on the sheet music is not the actual title. I just wanted a good sounding title than E3 09, you know...

Btw, I changed my username from "The Halo-Dragon" to theawesome1.

*** The tremolos are meant to be cymbal scrapes. Don't judge by the MIDI!!! ***

I have now completely revised this song. It is still in 4/4 time but, it seems to be more acurate still. Tell me if I've improved.

This is the complete 2nd movement of the song, Follow Our Brothers. This movement of the song sounds very similar to "Brothers in Arms" from Halo 1. I included a lot of dynamics to make sure it would sound as acurate as possible. Feel free to change that if you want. I did not put any of my own additions to the song I purely made it like it is on the soundtrack. Feel free to tell me of any mistakes and I will change them as soon as I can. If you are going to one-star it, please don't do that and not tell me why.

More pdfs coming soon.

Blackstar, Miguel Chavez and Cody Miller take a look at the Halo: Reach Multiplayer Beta in this video installment of Anger, Sadness & Envy.

- Right Click on Links to Download -

ASE 16 Widescreen 360 SD size - Download

ASE 16 Widescreen 720 HD size - Download

Just a quick note; the podcast pages have been slightly reorganized to clear up some things that were confusing.

We've always uploaded an enhanced AAC file in an M4A container first; ASE is authored in GarageBand, and this format, readable by iTunes, supports features like embedded links, chapters and chapter images. If you use iTunes, the best way to get this version of the podcast is through iTMS or you can manually add the feed in iTunes' advanced menu.

If you're not using iTunes then you may want to download individual episodes or just use the embedded flash player on the site. For this, you want the MP3 version. Many times in the past these versions were uploaded much later, and the only way to find them was to find the AAC version first and then find a cross-link. No more. The podcast block on the front page, as well as the podcast's own page, will now prioritize the MP3 versions, which should mean no more problems with the Flash player not working (it can't handle the AAC files) or wonky downloads (Safari seems to add an extraneous .mp3 extension onto the .m4a files when downloading those versions directly.)

Narcogen and Blackstar, together with Miguel Chavez, look forward to the Halo Reach Beta coming May 3, 2010; wrap up some final thoughts on Halo 3: ODST, and reminisce about the retirement of Halo 2 multiplayer on Xbox Live.

Show Highlights:

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