Halo Winter Season Rules Posted
Team Overkill, via Louis Wu at HBO, has pointed out that the Halo Winter Season rules are now posted at iGames.
Death by intelligence.
Winter Season Regional Matches Posted
The Halo Winter Games, whose first qualifying match is this Saturday, has had its gametypes posted at the iGames site. Good to know if you're planning on competing.
They Could Tell Us, But Then...
Only a few weeks after the announcement, already the clamor is beginning for more information on Halo 2.
Matt dropped into the HBO forum to explain the need for secrecy and hint at a bit more...
And if that wasn't enough, it looks like the Halo Updates may make a return soon...
Don't Mess Around With Frogblast
Frogblast is meaner than a junkyard dog. We swear. I mean, look-- Matt said so!
Seriously, though, this story by Matt in the HBO forum is definitely worth the read, I almost died laughing.
Canadian Confirms: No Halo For GBA
As if anyone thought otherwise, Xbox Canada's marketing manager Ryan Mugford has revealed an an interview with Game Nation that Halo will not be coming to the GameBoy Advance:
Mugford (still laughing) - Yeah, well unless you're getting different information than me, Halo is not coming out for the Game Boy Advance.Abel - No, I know, I was teasing you.
However, the real info here is just how popular Halo and the Xbox are in Canada compared to other countries. I tell you, there's a hidden team of Halo playing moose up there somewhere...
Even bigger than that is this tidbit about Halo 2 (all usual warnings about news from non-Bungie personnel apply:
Mugford - I'm not going to give you any specific release dates for Halo 2.....but I will tell you that Halo 2 is solidly in development....and I can tell you that it is an online title, it will be Xbox Live enabled...and it's coming probably a lot sooner than you think.
Well, since we all think Christmas 2003 or so, I wonder what he means by that.
Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi as well as Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.
Could Halo be patched to work with Xbox Live?
Again, nope.
Matt Soell again on the Bungie Rumor Control page at Bungie.net wrote:
There is no Halo 1.5 project. The Xbox version of Halo does not have the necessary hooks to look for a patch or upgrade, so even if we made new content or features for the game there would be no way to add them.
Why is Halo 1 not being updated or patched for Xbox Live?
Matt Soell of Bungie wrote in the HBO forum that Bungie decided they would rather write a whole new game with XBL support than revamp an old one:
Xbox Live and Halo
Will Halo 1 be playable on Xbox Live?
The short answer is no. Look below for longer answers.
When will Phoenix be released?
As Phoenix is as yet not officially announced, no release date has been set.
Rumor has it Phoenix will be released before Halo 2.
UPDATE: Since Phoenix has been cancelled, obviously it won't ever be released, and no release date was ever officially announced or even hinted at. The same is true of the as-yet unnamed replacement project that the Phoenix team is working on as of this writing.
These developments also discredit the source of the rumors that indicated Phoenix (or, indeed, any project from that team) would be released before Halo 2.
Does Phoenix use the Halo engine?
It is unknown at this time whether Phoenix uses the Halo engine, a modified Halo engine, or something entirely different. It is widely believed that it is either the Halo engine or something based on it.
Update:
After the cancellation of Phoenix, Matt Soell at Bungie was asked whether Phoenix used the Halo engine.
He replied:
The original basis was the Halo engine, but like Halo (which began as an evolution of the Myth engine) there were significant differences between Phoenix's engine and the original code.
Phoenix FAQ Updated
In the interests of posterity, we've added news of Phoenix's cancellation to our Phoenix FAQ.
How did we find out Phoenix was cancelled?
Rumors circulated in various forums, and an individual claimed to have been told by an anonymous Bungie employee via AIM instant message that Phoenix had been cancelled and an announcement would shortly be made.
Matt Soell responded both to email inquiries from Rampancy as well as with this forum post at HBO:
Will we ever find out anything else about Phoenix?
Probably not. Matt Soell posted in response to a similar question in HBO's forum and replied:
If it never got to a point where we felt comfortable announcing it, the chances are slim that I would want to discuss it in any depth now.
Halo Fan Looks At Timesplitters 2
There was a rather ugly little row on the HBO forum prompted by some trash-talking against Halo and in favor of the newly released Timesplitters 2 for the Xbox. However, one good thing did come out of it: Scalrag posted a rather even-handed comparison of the two games, and what he likes/dislikes about each:
The single-player story is a joke. The evil Timesplitters hide the powerful Time Crystals in various points throughout history...and then leave them there. They don't bother hanging around to make sure the crystals aren't found, they just assume that they'll be safe and move on. Good villains are hard to come by, but these guys are borderline incompetent. [...] TS2 was designed to be a multiplayer experience, with a single-player game tacked on for additional interest. Halo works the other way around. Both games are very good at what they do best.
Don't bother with the rest of the thread, but take a look at that post if you like Halo and think you might want Timesplitters 2.
Bungie Posts Tournament Strategy Guide
Achronos has posted Bungie's Team Tournament Strategy Guide at Bungie.net in preparation for the Halo Winter Season at iGames. Go check it out.