First of all, many kudos to Cody Miller who did the production and editing on this episode, rescuing it from my hard drive where it had lurked, untouched, since late last year.

Miller, Blackstar and myself pick up where the discussion of Halo Anniversary ended in episode 23.

This is Action Figure Hands from Halo Wars OST.

The .rar file contains a .midi and a .pdf.

Arranged by Mortenkul at yourube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLrh9NUFeD4

He improvised in the video, but the imrpovised chords are not in the sheets.

If you have problems opening the .rar file, just post a comment.

Difficulty for the average pianist is 3/10

Since no one has transcribed any song for Halo: CEA, I have decided to transcribe a piece. This is a transcription of the piece Installation 04. For more information, read the README file in the download.

This is Say the Words.

Difficulty for the average pianist is 2/10

Credits to Genesis Bacani for arrangement.

The .rar file contains a .pdf file and MIDI file.

MIDI file has the right hand and left hand separated for playing on Synthesia.

This song can be heard at the end of the track The Package.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

I consider Genesis didnt figure out well the tempo and he is missing some keys, and also he may be some keys off.

This is the song "Machines and Might" from the Halo: Legends Original Soundtrack.

Like many other songs that I make sheet music for, this is done by ear! The chords, though, were something that I have already been provided with, as seen when I did the "Sacred Icon Suite 2."
The sheet music may seem a little strange, and it may very well be off. But I tried my best to get it as accurate to the actual song, while still being able to play with two hands.
Also, to make the song easier, you can play most of the 16th notes as 8th notes instead (except the arpeggios in measures 13 through 20).

Anyway, I have provided the midi, the pdf, and the MuseScore (.mscz) file. Enjoy!

MR

Editor's Note: To open the score, use the free MuseScore reader.

This is my transcription of Ghosts and Glass from Halo: Reach OST.

It was arranged by Genesis Bacani (gbacani on youtube). I made some changes to his version according to a piano only .mp3 file at B.net.

But take in count that this is my first transcription ever, so it may not be perfect, feel free to revise it.

This ZIP file contains a PDF and a MIDI.

EDIT:

I just checked again the piano only mp3 at B.net, it is very different to this one in some parts, Genesis used the string sounds as the chords, but in the piano only is not like that. If i get time, i will revise the sheet music.

EDIT 2:

There is now an updated version of the sheets and the MIDI.

A week ago i was checking these sheets and i noticed some abomination i caused while transcribing the song... So there you go the new updated sheets.

BTW, the MIDI file has now the right hand and left hand parts separated, this means that if you have Synthesia you can choose which hand you want to play, and they have different colors for distinction.

Enjoy!

Not to go unnoticed in the glow of Bungie's 20th anniversary ViDoc, the MariusNet community-run Myth multiplayer server is celebrating its tenth anniversary on August 6th.

A screenshot from near the end of the O Brave New World ViDoc, featuring what many are now presuming is imagery from Bungie's next intellectual property, and is referred to internally either as "Destiny" or "Tiger"-- it's possible that both words refer to the same project or different parts of the same project, or different projects. The emptiness of the landscape, as well as other shots that seem to show authoring tools, could perhaps indicate a Forge-like function, either as part of gameplay or alongside it.

Take a look at Rampancy's gallery of screenshots from the ViDoc that showcase possible information about Destiny.

Bungie has posted its 20th anniversary ViDoc, O Brave New World.

The free, iOS version of Marathon that Bungie mentioned last week is now available in the App Store. The base application itself is free, but there are in-game purchases that improve the experience (better textures) or provide cheats ("Master Chief" mode).

I've not played a lot of games on the iPad, but due to its origins, this may be one of the more difficult ones to control. There's an on-screen joystick for handling movement forwards and backwards as well as strafing side-to-side. Aiming and turning are controlled just by pressing on the screen where you want to aim. Primary fire has an on-screen button, but there's an option to do it by tapping the screen. There's another on-screen button for secondary fire, and one for the use key, and hitting the motion tracker switches to the map screen. There are also two more buttons to scroll forward and back through the available weapons. And a pause button. Marathon's movement speed is a lot faster than Halo's, so moving around the game's labyrinthine levels proficiently with the touch controls takes a bit of work.

It's hard for me to see this as much more than a novelty-- hey, look, I've got Marathon on my iPad! Playing seems less enjoyable than other old game ports to the platform, like the Monkey Island adventure games, and just like those games, there are a lot of options-- Aleph One, which served as the basis for this conversion, runs all the Marathon games on all modern operating systems, plus Marathon 2 was ported to XBLA, so if this game is serving people who have no other way to play Marathon, it's because they don't have a Mac, a PC, or an Xbox. Perhaps the target audience is PlayStation owners who don't have a computer, but own an iPad? I'm not sure.

I'm guessing the main game is free in order to maintain compliance with Aleph One's license, although if history is any lesson, it might only take one developer who has contributed to Aleph One and alleges that Apple's App Store license is incompatible with the GPL to get the app removed. Of course, it's also undoubtedly true that this project took a considerable amount of effort, for which the seller would like to be compensated; hence the in-game purchases of high definition upgrades and cheat codes. I find it hard to imagine how many people will want or need those-- the game looks plenty good to me in its current form, and I haven't seen screenshots of the paid upgrade. I can see people having enough difficulty with the game to want the cheat code, but there's already a wide range of difficulty levels, and myself I wouldn't really feel good about buying a cheat code-- perhaps others won't have that problem.

The iPad conversion seems to score over the other recent port of the Marathon franchise in one important area: unlike Marathon 2 on XBLA (and the more recent port of American McGee's Alice) it doesn't give me motion sickness.

This is the song "Sacred Icon Suite 2" from the Halo: Legends Original Soundtrack.

I did this entire song BY EAR. There are many parts to which I am doubtful, but these are mostly the chords. The sheet music, though, sounds pretty decent. There are parts in which I wanted to put dynamic markings, but the program that I used, MuseScore, would have messed it up a little (like at measure 21, the top hand should be piano, and the bottom hand should still be forte).
Nonetheless, I here is the sheet music, as well as a midi and the MuseScore (.mscz) file to "Sacred Icon Suite 2" from the Halo: Legends Original Soundtrack. Enjoy!

MR

The reality behind the mysterious Bungie Aerospace and its logo are now revealed on Bungie.net-- it's a new venture to "help independent developers create brilliant mobile and social games."

First up will be a project with Harebrained Schemes, headed by Jordan Weisman of I Love Bees fame, and will be called Crimson (not to be confused with Certain Affinity's upcoming XBLA hack-and-slash, Crimson Alliance). Crimson is due out this summer for iOS and Android. The phrases "briny waves" and "salty taste" used in association with Crimson, as well as the skull in the logo, might indicate a pirate theme, or at least a marine one. Pimps at Sea, anyone?

UPDATE: More articles about Bungie Aerospace at IGN, Kotaku, and Gamasutra.

Narcogen, Blackstar and Cody Miller take a break from looking at the levels of Halo: Reach to discuss 343 Industries' recent announcement of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, a high definition re-issue of the first Halo game, scheduled for release in November of 2011 in time for the ten year anniversary of the first game's release.

The first salvos in Bungie's anniversary news assault have been fired, and one round has a decidedly Pfhorlike flavor.

Bungie is announcing that Daniel Blezek has ported Marathon 1 to iOS; efforts started in 2010 and apparently the app is ready now-- I don't see it in the iOS App Store just yet, but I'm going to keep looking.

UPDATE: MacRumors, MacCentral and TouchArcade (earlier this year) also have stories on Marathon coming to the iPad, as well as screenshots and more details. Unlike the XBLA port of Marathon 2 made previously, the iPad version of Marathon apparently is based on the code open sourced and developed by the community as the Aleph One project, and reportedly will be a free release.

Between June 23 and Bungie Day 2011 on July 7, Bungie will be bidding a fond farewell to Halo, celebrating their 20th anniversary and-- wait for it-- revealing Bungie Aerospace:

Because we're going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what Bungie Aerospace is all about.

Lots of other celebratory stuff going on, so be sure to check out Urk's post for all the details.