March 12, 2004 Originally at Halo Babies

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Short and sweet this week, just the way you like it.

Nightmare Armor Guys!

Two of the guys from Nightmare Armor, Justin and Sid popped in to show us their latest build of the Master Chief Halo armor. They nearly caused a mass conniption. First we gave them a hermetically sealed tour of the office – where they get to see our microwave oven, Laffy Taffy stash and no Halo 2 whatsoever - and then Sid (who's pretty intimidating in the flesh) suited up and went on patrol.

With his giant Frankenstein shoes and vast hulking mass, Sid really looked the part. The suit was almost perfect, and we couldn't have been more pleased with how it looked in real life. The overall effect was awesome. Bungie old-timers giggled like sissies as he stomped around the office, posing for photos like some lethal Mickey Mouse. Sid was a great sport too, stopping to corpse-hump a fallen BentLlama.

We then took him into the Microsoft Game Studios Cafeteria, where he nearly caused a riot. People actually cheered when a seven foot Master Chief ringer unexpectedly popped in for a Pesto Wrap and a smoothie. Sid, sweating it up a storm inside the (un-air conditioned) helmet, continued to be patient as Justin begrudgingly adjusted a dangling crotch strap. The gun he's carrying is a one-off 3D model of the battle rifle we conveniently had laying around.

Seeing the detail and lovingly crafted accuracy up close, was kind of mind-blowing, right down to the brilliant blue LEDs glowing in the leg parts. Makes us wonder how they got that through airport security.

Magazines!

We've been preparing for two separate visits from two big gaming magazines. Each will run a story some time in the near future on different aspects of the game. We've got a lot of work to do preparing assets and taking screenshots (yes, it's laborious and sloooow) and as the game progresses, the people who can help us are getting busier and busier. The upside of that is that Brian, Zoe and I are able to get our hands on versions of the game with everything turned on.

Evolution of Halo

A great behind-the-scenes vid released during E3 in 2002.

It's got commentary from Marty O'Donnell, Shikai Wang, Rob McLees and Paul Russell. It shows the progression of Halo from an engine for an RTS game to the first-person shooter the game became.

Combat Evolves In Higher Resolution

HBO and Mythica are hosting, via BitTorrent and Two Degrees, a new version of a great behind-the-scenes vid released during E3 in 2002 but just recently put out in high resolution on CD by PC Gamer in the UK.

It's got commentary from Marty O'Donnell, Shikai Wang, Rob McLees and Paul Russell. HBO has a list of mirrors. We don't have a version to host over here yet, but we hope we will soon.

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