WARNING: This article contains spoilers not only for the Halo games but also the Half-Life games, so beware!

I'm not writing about Halo 3 this week.

Really, I'm not. Instead, I'm taking a side-by-side look at two of the biggest FPS games today: Halo and Half-Life.

Before anyone had ever heard of Halo, I was already cursing the luck that put all the games I wanted to play onto hardware I didn't own: namely, the PC of a good friend, where I got to see the original Half-Life and play a bit of it. I was immediately reminded of the first Unreal game as well as Marathon. It seemed to be a game that, while it was a first-person shooter, was unlike most of the games in that genre that were popular at the time: twitch games where character and story took a back seat to action and colored lighting.

We're emulating one of HBO's more apropos mottos this week: beating dead horses. Really.

An offhand remark in the HBO forum about the lack of information in the Weekly Updates prompted a reasonably long thread, not just about the updates, but about the lack of information about what Bungie is working on, and branching out into the general parameters of Bungie's relationship with its fans, through those Weekly Updates and other methods.

Shishka, a former fan now working with Bungie on that project they aren't ready to talk about, had an interesting comment that I think addressed a key idea, but in a way that set me off down a completely different path, the results of which you are about to see laid before you, for good or ill.

Shishka wrote:

I think when a lot of people came into the community after discovering Halo, they learned of Bungie's connection with the community, but misinterpreted it. People have become so used to media extravaganzas, information blowouts, and gigantic hype engines that Bungie's relative silence at the beginning of development on a new title is a completely foreign concept to them. It's really not new, though.

That got me to thinking. Has Halo really spoiled the Bunige fanbase? Are we now so used to media blitzes that we aren't satisfied just to know Bungie is diligently working on what will doubtless be a fantastic game? Even before that, did the Halo and Halo 2 Updates make us so used to getting relatively substantive information so constantly that the sound of a few months of silence is deafening?

While Bungie fans are perhaps understandably curious and impatient, however, I do not think they have grown unreasonable. Nor do I think they've been spoiled, or become less patient. In fact, since Halo was announced, lengthening release cycles have required Bungie fans to be even more patient.

To substantiate that, I dug around for some dates and other information and created the Bungie Timeline; a list of important events in Bungie's history from 1993 to present. It is by no means complete; but major milestones in releases and developments, including Minotaur, Pathways Into Darkness, the Marathon trilogy, the Myth series, and Halo and Halo 2 are included, along with the acquisition of Bungie by Microsoft. I'm still collecting more information, but if you know about a date I've overlooked but should include, or if you've caught me making a mistake, drop me a line at narcogen@rampancy.net.

Recently a poster in the HBO forum retorted that he wasn't even bothering to read the latest Bungie Weekly Update because it only contained generalizations and secrets; nothing concrete.

Whether one is itching for Bungie to say something about what it's working on or not, I felt that going to the effort to say that one wasn't going to the effort of reading the Update oneself to determine if there was new information in it or not was a bit silly.

This sparked debate about a number of related issues, into which the idea was injected that Bungie isn't saying anything because they have nothing they want to say.

I won't summarize the entire exchange in any more detail; the thread in the HBO forum is still there, so those who have not yet taken a look may do so.

I think it's assumed that Bungie has nothing they want to say right now. The question for months now has been why there isn't anything Bungie wants to talk about. Especially when Frankie is writing that things are going so well and there are so many cool things and that he wants to talk about them but he can't.

That creates the impression that not only does Microsoft want to talk about some new project that may or may not be "Halo 3" but can't (or rather does, but then recants) because Bungie hasn't announced it, but that individual employees also want to talk about this new project, while others say that there isn't anything they want to talk about.

There either is, or is not, a pink elephant in the room. I think many of us would just like it acknowledged whether or not it's really there, even if we don't get any details whatsoever on what kind of pink elephant it is or when it is going to be released in stores. If it's there, we can reassure ourselves that we're not seeing things. If it's not, we can all go back to our twelve-step programs and try to put our lives back together.

Same Flood-time, same Flood-channel, Flood-fans.

Oh, you aren't a Flood fan?

Oh.

If you're not really into the idea of dark, smoky environments where you can't see where you're going or what's attacking you, if the idea of shambling, moaning, drooling Flood zombies doesn't really do it for you, if the flashlight isn't your favorite button, then arguably this level isn't going to be among your favorites.

Sadly, despite significant changes, Halo 2's Flood aren't that much more fun to fight against than they were in Halo 1. Unlike Arbiter and Oracle, which were fairly well-lit until the very end, High Charity is dark-- darker even than the darker portions of Quarantine Zone, another area where I was tempted to change my monitor settings to gain an advantage.

Here is level two. I mean to get these done quicker, but school is hectic, as well it should be. I know I am getting my moneys worth. These end up taking me quite a while, because I finish the level every time I play through the whole level, but only get a percentage of the walkthrough finished. Then on the next few rounds through I have to play through the start of the level again. The problem is that I can't just rush though the level, especially not the Sod-O-Mobile bit. There is always something that catches my intrest, and keeps me playing for a while, most often seeing how high I can jump up a wall does it. This one includes links to commentaries. Thanks to Wideload Games dot Org and the guy that captured them (Quicksilver I think).