Bungie's Humpday Challenge is back after a long hiatus. The boys from Kirkland took on some random misfortunates in the new Team Snipers playlist and took two games out of three. The story is accompanied by the best animated GIF ever.
According to scans from Game Informer provided by Xbox365, the "mystery character" from the Haloverse set to appear in Team Ninja's DOA4 game for the Xbox 360 isn't the Master Chief-- but it is a Spartan; female Spartan-458, despite heavy (perhaps too heavy) hints that a curvaceous Cortana would get the nod.
A double dose of Weekly What's Update this week. SketchFactor got himself all primed to fill in for an ailing Frankie, and then Frankie used his dying breath to provide the real update. What a trooper. For all the verbiage, most of it is rehash of the week's events-- a Halo character to appear in DOA4 and the announcement of, in Frankie's words, Peter Freaking Jackson as the Executive Producer of the Halo film.
Frankie posted a very no-nonsense denial of the purported script for Halo 3 that we mentioned yesterday, calling it "either fake, or the fanfic of a dedicated Halo fan being passed off as real."
Sometimes the rumor mill gets it right-- or at least nearly so. Previous rumors about Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the upcoming King Kong, taking the helm of the Halo film have turned out to be almost correct. He is on board, as Joe Staten's post at Bungie.net now confirms, but as Executive Producer rather than director.
Bungie.net is now confirming the Game Informer story that GhaleonEB pointed out earlier in the HBO forum; that a character from the Halo universe will make an appearance in DOA4. Neither developer is stating which one, as of yet, although the Bungie.net story has an impressive display of Cortana's own unnatural formations, which is either a blatant hint or a huge red herring.
The Weekly What's Update at Bungie.net this week, courtesy of Frankie, talks about the upcoming Team Hardcore playlist for serious, competetive players, including 10 maps and 10-11 gametypes. Check the update for a more complete list. Frankie also says that yes, Bungie knows that people still cheat, and they are still working on it.
As for surprise announcements:
This week's Update by Frankie at Bungie.net has a nice panorama of the new Kirkland office, where all the TVs are HD, the projectors are Godzilla, the subwoofers are behemoth, and Don Parsons thinks the elevator is a sauna. (Let's hope he doesn't decide to bring sushi with him--Ed.)
Frankie's second report from the Tokyo Game Show has Kameo and cosplayers, Koei and yaoi (sort of), Chrome Hounds and Dynasty Warriors, five Resident Evils and Ninety-Nine Nights. Not to mention a list of things you can't put in a locker in Japan, which makes me wonder what Frankie is doing over there in his free time.
Halo gets mentioned once, sort of.
Bungie's Frankie has created his own Bungie.net Group, the Legion of Jerks, for "evil-smelling ruffians" who like "Pie and Margaritas". (Not sure who Pie is, but hopefully they'll have some nice-looking Margaritas--Ed.)
Hopefully at some point there will be some information there, like, how to join, or a Halo 3 announcement, or something.
Frankie filed the Weekly What's Update this week from the floor of the Tokyo Game Show, after getting blitzed on martinis. Wait, that's not right.
Frankie was there just to catch up on other Microsoft games and stuff he likes-- he mentions Phantagram's Ninety Nine Nights (as a lot of people are doing this week)
In Bungie-related news, the move to Kirkland is complete and Bungie held their Summer Pentathlon-- those events will get written up (hopefully) in next week's Update.
This week's Weekly What's Update points out that Bungie's "Fight the Flood" T-shirts have raised over $120,000 to help the American Red Cross' relief efforts following the devestation of Hurricane Katrina. There are also a few movie tidbits ("ages away") word on Bungie's new digs (ready, moving next week) and a visit from Claude "Louis Wu" Errera of Bungie.org, whom we've been promised is not going to find out anything about the "secret" new project.
Bungie is asking the community to pitch in and help the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, Bungie-style; the Bungie Store has a new $19.99 t-shirt for sale, and of that price $15 will go to the American Red Cross for hurricane relief efforts.
Having recently returned to the Rampancy cave after a short stretch on the steppe, I've collected a few news nibblets of note:
As noted by Major Nelson and many, many others, the five maps in Bungie's second, or "maptacular" pack of new maps for Halo 2, comprising Gemini, Relic, Elongation, Terminal, and Backwash, are now available for free to all Xbox Live subscribers.