announcement

Just moments ago the countdown on Bungie.net, which had about 12 hours left to go until some cryptic announcement, changed to an apology from studio president Harold Ryan that reads:

For the last several months, we've been building towards a reveal of something exciting that Bungie's working on. We were looking forward to sharing that with our fan community during the week of E3. However, those plans were just changed by our publisher.

We realize that many of our fans are disappointed by this turn of events; members of the Bungie team share that disappointment.

When the right time comes, we look forward to sharing this exciting announcement with you. Until then, we appreciate your continued support and patience.

The word on the street (or at least in the Bungie.net update this week) is that Cold Storage, the remake of the classic Halo 1 multiplayer map Chill Out, will be released this July 7, Bungie Day, for free.

Monsters and Critics is reporting that Wideload Games' sophomore effort (at least, its second full-length offering) is now shipping: Hail to the Chimp is available for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation Network may have its work cut for it catching up to the onlin gaming experience offered by Xbox Live, but Crackers the chimp is lending a hand with the demo of Hail to the Chimp, the party game from Wideload, now available on the service.

Nebula nominee Tobias Buckell has been tapped to pen the next Halo novel, Halo: The Cole Protocol, due out in Fall of this year. Buckell published his first science fiction novel, Crystal Rain, in 2006, and followed it up with Ragamuffin in 2007.

Our friends at Freeverse released a content pack (available 6/18/08) coming to the Xbox Live Arcade port of Marathon: Durandal. Includes netmaps, the jjaro textures from Marathon Infinity, and two new achievements!

If u would like 2 join clan eagle strike send me a message and i will let u know later after i get 2 talk 2 u if u can join the clan.Thank You

Just found out via Kotaku: Major Nelson has announced that Stubbs the Zombie is an Xbox Original as of May 19th. Those who haven't nibbled their ways through Punchbowl, PA can download that zombie-controlling goodness direct to their hard drives for 1200 Microsoft points (~$15 USD). Cheap at twice the price!

Don't be a Commie pantywaist; get Stubbs any way you can!

-- Steve

ShackNews is reporting that Wideload Games' Hail to the Chimp, originally announced for a May release, is slightly delayed until June 24 so that some final finishing touches can be put on the game. Chimp is to be released on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and is priced at an affordable $40.

Looks like the dread intrusion of 'real life' may have finally claimed Stuntmutt, the author of One One Se7en, which after nearly five years and 777 strips, is being put into c0ld storage.

Say it isn't so, Stunt!

Twelve years in the making, the full version of Eternal, a 'near full conversion' for the open source version of the Marathon 2 engine, Aleph One, has been released:

Picking up from the end of the Marathon trilogy, you find yourself suddenly ninety-four years in the future, in the year 2905. You are on the S'pht moon K'lia, hanging in orbit over a desolate and ruined Earth.

Aleph One is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Eternal comes in two editions; a Full edition (227Mb) and a "Lite" edition, more suitable for older computers.

Anybody, please help me on finding this sheet music. My email is drozdden@yahoo.com

PrimeNewswire has a press release up that says that attendees at next week's Game Developers Conference Expo will be among the first to see Wideload's first casual game, Cyclomite:

2:00 Cyclomite: Alex Seropian and his team at Wideload Shorts team present Cyclomite. This is the first ever showing of this innovative multiplayer party game. Don't miss your chance to play it. If you miss this one, it's repeated on Thursday at 11:30 am.

That's on Wednesday, February 20 at GDC in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Moscone North #5438.

Hardy Lebel, the multiplayer designer of Halo 1 who also worked on Halo 2 and Oni, has set up a new games development studio in Seattle called Tyrant with Anders Hejdenberg, who worked on Battlefield 2 as its lead designer.

The seven-man studio currently has listed as its only project something identified only as "ESP".

John Olin at Xbox Evolved interviewed Wideload Games' Matt Soell about how he came to Wideload, about Hail to the Chimp, and also about Stubbs the Zombie. Stubbs, it seems, may be getting a sequel:

Stubbs is near and dear to all of us, and we’ve heard from lots of people who would like to see more of him. I can’t say anything specific right now, but it’s safe to say he’ll be back. They say you can’t keep a good man down, and that goes double for the ones with an insatiable hunger for brains.

For more info on Hail to the Chimp, be sure to check back regularly at the animal news station, GRRNews.