HaloDev has put up the first of in a series of "Feature Focus" articles. This one, by Talin, is accompanied by a very complex render done by Talin and Veegie and covers the technique of normal mapping to add the appearance of detail to textured polygons.
Xbox Live is telling you to walk away from the television set and spend time with your friends and family in the real world this holiday season. At least, that's the message one might infer from the fact that for several hours now, subscribers can connect to the services to browse the Marketplace or use voice chat, but not play games.
Trakan, a moderator at the Cheap Ass Gamer forum, has posted scans of an ad for the upcoming Xbox 360 game, Crackdown, in Gamepro magazine.
Spartan182 discusses in his blog the possibility of plasma energy swords being dual-wieldable in Halo 3, based on suggestions in the Brute video documentary.
Max "Yeroen" Hoberman, Bungie alum and founder of Texas-based Certain Affinity, now working on new Halo 2 multiplayer maps for release next year, gave an interview to Firing Squad.
However, that's not all they're working on, apparently:
FiringSquad: You are also working on a new game. What can you tell us about this game at this stage?
So the Brute documentary is out. I'm going to stop using Bungie's VIDOC or Video Documentary term, because I really couldn't think of any other kind of documentary except perhaps for film, and since George Lucas says film is dead and HD Video is the way to go, I suppose it's redundant.
Certain pockets of the fan community, while they enjoyed the very slick and polished Halo 3 Announcement Trailer, have been bothered by the stream of apologia that accompanied first the non-real-time, non-Halo-engine CG television commercial, and now the pre-pre-alpha, not-yet-finished visuals of the Brute documentary.
I'd like to praise Bungie for its candor, however. The documentary on the Halo 2 Limited Edition was quite frank about some of Halo 2's shortcomings, as well as some of the reasons for them. This latest documentary is no different: first and foremost Bungie is admitting that Brutes in Halo 2 were a late addition to the game. They were tough only because they could take a lot of damage; there was no differentiation between different Brute individuals except for Tartarus himself and a few honor guard headdresses, and fighting Brutes was more like fighting Super Flood than fighting Elites or other Covenant units.
Click "read more" below from the front page for the complete text.
HALO 3 Co-Op speculation:
wrote this about 4 weeks ago elsewhere.
[quote]I've deduced that there MUST be Co-Op in HALO3...there has to be. Of course there is Co-Op in HALO2 off-line.
This hasn't been confirmed yet but it has to be there...with a 4 player team is what I'm envisioning.
Ooh the things I've read, studied, played, plus imagined sparks my so-called soul with the best and the worst possibilities to come in HALO3. (story line game play)
I was just looking at some of the old tips and tricks back then and they discussed the same thing over and over, I mean they had to make an archive for THE GOLDEN WARTHOG that everyone keeps fussing about. Well if you havent figured it out yet theres no such thing in the game. I can tell you how to get an invincible warthog but not a golden one. Anyway I dont know if you knew this already or not but to go in to ease down position just press down on the directional pad. To get out of it press down again, melee, or shoot. Anybody else know a trick that hasnt been mentioned before???
Max "Yeroen" Hoberman, one of the longest-serving Bungie employees, is founding a new games development company, Certain Affinity. The CA team of developers in Austin, Texas, including other Bungie alumni such as David Bowman and Chad "Shishka" Armstrong are already hard at work on new maps for Halo 2. Bungie.net has the lowdown in an interview with Frankie.
Here are some Halo 3 transcriptions to the halo 3 variation on the trailer:
Similar to mine exept for the fact that I hold the "E" notes, and his timing is just a bit off. This is the Halo 3 piano solo transcribed by The Garbage Man and many other songs on halo as well. Note he only has sheet music for siege of madrigal and the fanfare. The rest are recordings that you can hear on a quicktime player.
In addition to the text-only transcript of the dialogue and events in the CGTV ad from yesterday, and a preliminary commentary piece (which has already gone through several revisions) offering interpretations of the content in the ad, I've posted a frame-by-frame analysis with
[image:43168 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Establishing shot of two children lying face-up in a clearing in a grassy field. The area is quite verdant, indicating that either this setting is not the same as that in the latter half of the ad, or that considerable change has occurred in the region to change its appearance. More on that later.
The two children appear to be dressed alike, in simplistic black outfits, possibly singlets. They are barefoot.
i like halo. I am a level 32 in team slayer. If you want to play with me or 1v1 thats cool send a fr to Xx D34THBr1NG3R. i am also a 25 on my other account BreAkd0wn396. note that is a zero not an O. Thanks.