Why'd It Have To Be Snakes
The Junkyard has put up a spotlight on Matt "Viper" Anderson from Battleground: Halo. Thanks Ryan "Mhaddy" Matthews.
Halo, as first released on the Xbox gaming console.
Death by intelligence.
She's At It Again... Sort Of
People just can't seem to resist tricking Cortana into talking dirty. Captain Spark passed on to HBO what you could call Porntana Strikes Back, a sequel to the original Porntana clip. Apologies to Jen Taylor (if she's offended, that is). Thanks Louis Wu.
Full Screen Anti What?
Several IMG reader reviews, as well as the IMG review itself, have listed as a con that FSAA (full screen anti-aliasing) is broken in Mac Halo. However, a quick turn around the forums at Gearbox that ported Halo from the Xbox to the PC will turn up the fact that Halo does not support FSAA.
IMG: Mac Halo A Nine Point Two Five
Jean-Luc Dinsdale from InsideMacGames has (predictably, if also accurately) gushed about Halo on the Mac, calling it "the most advanced, the best produced, the most amazing first-person shooter to have ever graced [the] Mac". (All you Half-Life fans, make sure you read that last part carefully.The four-page review is quite thorough, but overall they give the game a 9.25 out of ten (what are they using, the Richter scale?) The review also ends with an important note for those who haven't yet gotten over the Microsoft buyout:
The Cananimator Cup: Bat Vs Stick... Plus Maya
According to SketchFactor, there's another edition of Ask The Cananimators up at Bungie.net; I think this is the third installment. It's about bacon again. And hockey.
When It Left It Was But A Learner, Now It Is The Master
Halo for the MacOS platform (MacOS X only) has now shipped in North America; news has spread around the Web from MacCentral, Blue's News, Break Point Halo, and, of course, HBO.
Updating The Update
SketchFactor has posted at Bungie.net that in response to some "issues", the Halo PC 1.03 patch is itself... going to be patched. The patch will cause users to lose saved checkpoints within levels.
Would you buy a Grunt plush toy?
Yeah, sure!
51% (98 votes)
Only if it talks.
33% (63 votes)
What for?
16% (30 votes)
Total votes: 191
That's How It's Done
HBO has followed up on their September story about a video showing the Halo50K Tournament finals featuring TDT vs DM playing CTF on Battle Creek. (Who says the military has a monopoly on alphabet soup?) Video CD Productions had a streaming version back then, but now there are QuickTime and Windows Media versions, hosted at Mythica and files.bungie.org.
Halo50K Finals, 2003
Halo50K Finals, 2003
Finals of the Halo50K competitition in 2003.
- Read more about Halo50K Finals, 2003
- You can't post comments
Is That A High Res Screenshot In Your Pocket?
SketchFactor sauntered into the HBO forum and laid down links to three high res screenshots suitable for wallpaper-making. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.
Battleground Halo: Ramming Speed
Is There A Halo Community?
Rams bemoans the lack of real "Halo news" and blames that for the infrequency of his column. I can relate. It seems like there was more news (or at least more newsmongering) before Halo actually came out (for any platform). There was anticipation, rampant speculation, and a lot of fun. HBO and Rampancy were among the first, but quickly many sites, including BG:H, started up as the Halo and Bungie community exploded, first in anticipation of Bungie's latest game and later, Microsoft's new console and the buyout debate that followed.
Rampancy, like many sites I suppose, was sideswiped by the buyout. It caused many problems in the fanbase and the fansite base for several reasons.
There was a disproportionate number of Mac users among site administrators and highly active forum members in the early days. I'm a Mac user. The guy who started Rampancy (then called The Core, Tyson "Ferrex" Green, now of Bungie) was and still is a Mac user. (Hope I'm not getting you in trouble, Rex.) Noctavis, who was going to start HaloNews.com and later joined the Core, was a recent Macintosh convert at the time (for which I will take a fair amount of the credit). Regardless of how silly or impractical it is, a lot of Mac users didn't really like Microsoft, and the idea of Bungie, a longtime developer of Mac games (even though Myth was a crossplatform release) being purchased to make games for MS new console stung a bit. Some protested vociferously. Others simply drifted away.
However, that was a bigger problem for some fans than it was for most site admins. Anybody willing to devote the time and money to contribute to a fansite wasn't going to be put off by an extra couple hundred dollars to buy a console. I bought an Xbox just to play Halo, but I'm actually pretty happy that I did. It's a decent system. I have other games for it, and I play those, too. I read a lot of the console flamewars with some amusement, because they are a lot like the computing platform debates I used to get into myself... except a lot more puerile, with the words "suck" and "faggot" used far more often. (Although these days, I'm seeing more occurrences of phrases like "towel head" and "camel f***er", to which I can only say... grow the hell up, guys.
Halo: One Heck Of An Awesome Game
A site called IceTeks (Technology Made Cool, for those who aren't advanced students of sloganology) has reviewed PC Halo and concluded it to be one heck of an awesome game. Put the accolades on the pile over there, boys, and the bar is around the corner. Welcome to the party. Thanks Blue's News.