Rampancy

Part Five of the series on realism in Halo is up over at The Junkyard. In this one, Captain Roy Luthan (still not his real name) covers one of my favorite levels, Assault on the Control Room. Thanks Ryan "Mhaddy" Matthews for the heads-up.

Xbox.com has posted a page it calls the Halo 2 Readiness Guide. Most of it, of course, is there to urge you to buy Halo 2, or, more specifically, to pre-order the special edition (as if anyone needed to be told).

However, it also has a more detailed list of things you'll want to go with that, such as a router to plug in your Xbox to your broadband Internet connection so you can use Xbox Live, an Xbox Live subscription, and a day off from work. It also reminds you link your gamertag to Xbox.com and Bungie.net, and to turn on "information sharing" under Billing in the dashboard for "Miscrosoft and partners". This is apparently to get in on tournaments and other events, including the XBL Backstage Pass contest. (Editor's Note: I'm guessing there's some advertising coming in your email from this, too, but you didn't hear it from me.)

The San Diego Union-Tribune is carrying a story quoting notable directors Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis as saying they expect that like music videos and television before, video games will have an increasing influence on Hollywood films. They key, as Jason Jones has said himself, is that playing a game is about telling a story:

"It's important to emphasize story and emotion and character. This is one of the things that games don't do," Spielberg said. "Currently, what games do is they give you the entire story in the run-up to the actual game play from level to level. You get to see a movie, and you're supposed to remember what the stakes are for the characters. But there's no reminder, nothing refreshes who these characters are.

"The next big emotional breakthrough in gaming is being able to tell a story that is consistent throughout the narrative."

[...]

"I think the real indicator will be when somebody confesses that they cried at level 17," Spielberg said.

Did you cry when you found out about poor Sgt. Jenkins in 343 Guilty Spark? Hmm... perhaps a future poll idea. Heads-up from Voodoo Extreme.

The Bungie Store is back according to Bungie.net; not everything shown is available yet; Frankie calls the selection "compact and bijou", which we'll assume he's doing to prove he knows French. One thing they do have, though: flaming ninja t-shirts.