Rampancy

IGN has a nice five-page piece about the interplay between science fiction and fantasy literature and video games. Halo gets a couple of mentions, not surprisingly, most of which fall on page five:

Bungie's Halo series has become one of the most broadly known sci-fi games across the globe, but it's a significantly different take on the first-person genre than the Half-Life series. It draws from different sources as well. Halo's influences have been exhaustedly discussed, and Bungie has done little, until recently, to quell the debates. Halo's literary influences abound, ranging from Larry Niven's "Ringworld" and Ian M. Banks' "The Culture," both of which may have influenced the ring-like worlds called Halos. The drones in Halo are similar to the Buggers in Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game," as is Halo's SPARTAN program, reflective of the super soldiers from the same book. Even Halo's viral Flood species rings familiar to similarly destructive creatures from "Ender's Game." It's also been suggested that Master Chief, aka "John 117," was formed from ideas found in Christopher Rowley's Starhammer, which featured a genetically altered man by the name of Jon 6725416.

The entire article, though, is well worth a read.

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.

Couple of new items of Bungie schwag today-- go check them out at Bungie.net.