Computer and Video Games managed to nab studio head Pete Parsons at Bungie to interrogate him about Halo 2.

[image:4044 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Bungie's own SketchFactor is looking for your questions to prepare one final, massive, be-all, end-all PC Halo Update. There's a forum thread over in the HBO forum where you can submit your question.

[image:4040 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]The Adrenaline Vault has interviewed Gearbox's Randy Pitchford (do they let this guy do anything but interview anymore?) on PC Halo. He highlighted the work done on multiplayer, as well as on options for customization:

[image:4252 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]OK, you've probably already seen this-- but if you haven't, head right on over to HBO and read the interview of Destineer's president, Peter Tamte. Destineer is publishing the port of Halo for the Mac that Westlake Interactive is coding, and Tamte himself is an alumnus of both Bungie and Apple.

[image:4208 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]In an interview with Macteens (a site for teen mac users) the President of Westlake Interactive, Phil Sulak, gave a few details about the upcoming release of Halo for the Mac. Among them:

[image:4040 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Gearbox's Randy Pitchford is on the interview circuit again, this time giving the skinny on his career moves to Belgian Webgaming Forever. (Maybe he and SketchFactor can set up a junket to Brussels and sample some of the local beverages.)

Most of it is about his work with 3D Realms and Rebel Boat Rocker, before Gearbox was founded:

The game we were making at Rebel Boat Rocker, called "Prax War", was very ambitious in every respect. Making comparisons to Halo is very accurate - it was science fiction, it offered vehicle combat, physics, interesting characters and story and next-gen graphics. I think a good way to think of Prax War is sort of Halo meets Command and Conquer - Praxium was like Tiberium and it was a GDI vs. NOD kind of war that was going on in the game's universe.

Pitchford also notes that Prax War did eventually get some exposure, of sorts: it appeared as an arcade machine in the intro for Half Life: Blue Shift.

Randy Pitchford of Gearbox, the man who provided most of the information about PC Halo during the recent Fanstock event, has been interviewed by Computer and Video Games. Highlights include the fact that playing as the Covenant-- originally a central idea in Halo's design, pre-buyout-- was discussed and rejected. And while bots will not be in the game as shipped, the possibility exists for something in the future:

One is that the network architecture was re-written, so if we were to do bots, we'd start it now, which means the product would take even longer. This may still happen - I mean BotMan, the guy who created the foundations for all of the Half-Life and Counter-Strike bots, he works at Gearbox! He sits in that office right over there [points]. We'd like to expose this stuff to mod authors to see what they come up with.

SketchFactor over at Bungie.net has posted the results of the "Ask the Cananimators" feature interview, with answers by anim8rjb and bentlama. While the majority of the answers were with tongue placed firmly in cheek, and related to the genesis of Canadian Bacon, the relative coolness factor of the OHL and the CFL, and the prospects for the Toronto Maple Leafs, some Halo info did creep in there from time to time:

NW: We actually use IK for most of our animation. IK on the arms and legs, feet and other areas. For the most part we are really used to animating with IK. We use FK for the spine, neck, head and wrists and toes. Our animation rig is a mix of a lot of things, and through the power of MEL, it is simple to use and quick to animate with...those are the most important features of any animation rig. Thanks for asking, and please keep posting more questions like this.

Be sure to give it a read. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO as usual.

Bungie's own Matt Soell will be interviewed on MacRadio's gaming program, The Gamesome Mac, from 9 to 11 p.m. Eastern time today, November 4. During the broadcast Soell will participate in a Q&A session with listeners and the show's hosts, Sean Smith and Omaha Sternberg. The broadcasts require QuickTime 5 or 6 and a minimum 28kbps Internet connection.

As if anyone thought otherwise, Xbox Canada's marketing manager Ryan Mugford has revealed an an interview with Game Nation that Halo will not be coming to the GameBoy Advance:

Mugford (still laughing) - Yeah, well unless you're getting different information than me, Halo is not coming out for the Game Boy Advance.

Abel - No, I know, I was teasing you.