Major Nelson has posted a list of the top ten High Definition video downloads on Xbox Live during E3.
The winner?
Do you have to ask?
Top spot went to the Halo 3 game trailer. Check Major Nelson's blog for the entire list.
Two separate articles on the port of Halo 2 to Windows Vista today. Kevin Unangst (no jokes please) talks to GamePro. Word is that Halo 2 for Vista will come out a bit after the OS' release, currently slated for early in 2007, and that the game most likely will not be cross-platform compatible with Halo 2 on the Xbox, as it would require changes on the Xbox version to work.
MGS General Manager Shane Kim talks to Engadget, and pretty much confirms the same thing: no cross-compatibility for Halo 2.
First posted by Louis Wu at HBO, who is up awful damn early. Again.
From the second sequence of distorted Cortana images, as she voices "I am your shield, I am your sword."
[image:10167 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] IGN's Halo 3 Announcement Trailer gallery had four images in it not published by Bungie. We've now added them to the gallery here. We've now subdivided the Halo 3 Images page into separate galleries: one for storyboards, and one for screen captures from the trailer itself. As other images are released we'll create separate galleries for them.
Rampancy.net Halo 3 FAQ
Q: What is Halo 3?
A: Bungie.net's About Halo 3 page says this:
Halo 3 is the third game in the Halo Trilogy and will provide the thrilling conclusion to the events begun in Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo 3 was first revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles on May 6th, 2006. Halo 3 will be available for Xbox 360 in 2007.
CVG has a recap of some of Microsoft's E3 goings-on, focusing primarily on the advantage that Shane Kim believes Xbox Live gives to the 360, as compared to Sony's upcoming PlayStation 3.
Of course, some recently announced games also got mentioned:
"Hopefully we've put to bed any concerns or confusion about what Bungie is doing with the Halo universe. They're very focused on Halo 3 and they're going to make it bigger and better and everything everyone expects."
Of course, Kim doesn't say there won't be Halo spinoffs, just that they aren't what Bungie is working on right now.
Louis Wu at HBO has put up a summary of links to interesting forum threads; many of them touch on issues I mentioned in the Annotated FAQ, which also included a short analysis of the Announcement Trailer. And before everybody goes nuts, I had to go ahead and do that without checking any of the forums first because I was already behind by 12 hours, so no, I didn't steal anyone else's speculations or screenshots. It's just a predictable coincidence that simultaneously a few hundred people focused on the same few things: pilotless Banshees, hidden scrambled images in Cortana's transmissions, Gravemind's voice, and the modified Assault Rifle.
Finn at the Halo Story Page has also pulled out some items of note, focusing on the structure in the trailer, the Master Chief's posh new gloves, and the weather in New Mombassa.
Rampancy.net will have its own Halo 3 FAQ of course, but in the meantime, we've taken the Bungie.net FAQ and read between the lines a little bit, just to whet everyone's appetite.
To see Bungie's questions and answers interspersed with my own commentary and additional questions, click "read more" from the front page.
The game was revealed to the world at the Microsoft press conference at Grauman's Chinese Theater, in Hollywood, CA. By the time you read this, the announcement trailer should be available for download on bungie.net and directly to your Xbox 360, in full HD glory from Xbox Live Marketplace. Read no further if you want to avoid spoilers.
Nobody saw it coming. Halo 3! Who knew? For the last year or two, people have speculated about what our next project was and surprisingly, in all that time, not a single person guessed that it would be Halo 3. Not one.
As everyone else living in a normal timezone already knows, Bungie announced that Halo 3 is in development for the Xbox 360 and is expected to be released in 2007. The announcement says in no uncertain terms that this is the final game in the Halo series, confirming what others have suspected: that about nine years is enough to make even the most interesting scenario boring to developers that aren't SquareSoft.
However, that doesn't mean that it won't hold just as much interest for fans of Bungie and the Halo series, yours truly included, who is just as happy as Frankie or anyone else to have it admitted: that there has been a pink elephant in the living room for months now. Everybody say hi to Halo 3.
Welcome to level 3: The Slammer. Unfortunately, I don't really like this level. It is pretty short, and not too interesting. The parts that are meant to be great fights end up being a little too easy, and retracing steps is always a no no in a game (except for Resident Evil and Tomb Raider... I still don't know why anyone likes them). Here is how to beat level 3, although there is less strategy needed than there is shooting accuracy.
Also, if you notice a lack of lovely 800x600 captured content, my apologies. My capture card is fubar, and to the extent that it likes to drag my whole computer down with it. So for now, no more nice pictures, but if I ever get the chance, I will go back and old ones.
A side note to the rest of you: I hope you read this guide incorectly, and that in doing so, you have trouble beating the level.
The Slammer
Kill all of the prisoners! Once you leave the lineup room, there will be three detectives. I usually just fart, because it is embarrassing to die this early on in the level. Right out of the lineup room, go right twice (into the room for viewing the lineup). Just to the right of the door is the first of what seems to be very few hippos in this level (Commentary 1). Push your zombie army (should be about 6) into the next couple of rooms to help clear out the cops.
Click "read more" from the front page to read the entire article.
After I completed my last Banshee piece (the narrated video), I felt that I was done with this series. I’d said most of what I had to say, and moreover, it was coming up to the point that I was ready to quit Halo PC in general. I had never wanted to “overstay my welcome” and linger past my prime, growing steadily less effective as a wave of new players continually reminded me of what I no longer could do.
I did in fact make an official “retirement” from the game. However, more than a year later, I found myself still picking the game up from time to time, and recently I’ve been playing regularly again. No matter how poor this game may be, I cannot help but love the Banshee. So here I am, with one final article, on a few last points regarding what I have always called the most critical skills of the capable Banshee pilot: positioning, angles, and fundamentals.
[image:10099 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] I'm so thoroughly convinced now that Halo 3 is actually being made that I've had the Halo 3 logo tattooed on my own baby-soft flesh, an experience I can assure you is not entirely unlike enduring plasma weapons fire.
Can someone send me sheet music for On A Pale Horse for Piano and Peril for Piano at doctaknocka@hotmail.com? thanks.
Rockslider has put up another piece on Halo 1; this one covers how to lure Banshees into areas they don't normally belong, and the strange behavior they exhibit once they get there. This piece covers level 2, "Halo".
Quite what the explanation for the weird behaviour is, I don't know. I find the grenade chasing business especially baffling. What on earth is there in the game programming that makes them so interested in grenades in these areas, yet not in the valley? Is it actually some sort of 'Easter egg' somebody sneaked in? Seems doubtful; I'm guessing it's some unintended consequence of the Banshee being in an environment that wasn't planned for. If anyone reading this can shed some light on these behaviours or has a theory, I'd be happy to hear about it!
Having just played the first few levels of the original game this weekend, I also noticed some of the same Banshee behavior, as well as some other, related non-Banshee behavior.
I have a feeling that the scripting for Banshee pilots (or perhaps any AI unit using a vehicle like a Banshee, Wraith, or Shade turret) is "overlaid" on top of that unit's basic AI routines. So the normal Banshee behaviors we're used to seeing, such as the dive-bombing and so on, only exists in environmental areas where Bungie expected Banshees to be, and often times wrote specific scripts for specific areas.
Click 'read more' from the front page for the entire article.