First off, a quick apology for the lack of updates around here. Mrs. Narcogen and I have been moving all our worldly possessions crosstown in cardboard boxes, suitcases and backpacks over the past two weeks, and the job now is nearly done. For me, that makes... eleven apartments in thirteen years. The new place once again has a separate room for all the gadgetry, so that's where the New Rampancy Towers is located.

Iris Reaches Out And Touches... The Wrong Person

The Hushed Casket has quickly become, along with the CompundIntelligence group at Bungie.net and the ARG forum at Bungie.org, one of the best places to keep up with the alternate reality game promoting Halo 3, which is apparently called "Iris". There's still no hint of whether or not Forty Two is involved in this game, although it does seem that Bungie is a bit more involved this time around, and things are more clearly focused on the game. The Halo 3 comic, for instance, is a far more straightforward bit of storytelling with a direct connection to the game, as compared to the I Love Bees audio drama. This has led to a predictable criticism-- that if the game only attracts fans of Halo, as opposed to fans of ARGS, what's the point, since Halo fans are going to buy Halo anyway? I've wondered that myself more than once. Clearly the sales benefits of ARGs are indirect at best.

Those benefits are likely no comfort at all to college student Michael VanderZand, whose mobile phone number was concluded to be related to the game because of its resemblance to a number in an Xbox Live profile. For the full story, read rapture's piece at THX.

As for the game itself, the friendly (if a bit terse) AI called "Adjutant Reflex", mistaken by many as a monitor despite his lack of a numerical designation, has apparently been taken over by a more powerful and less friendly entity-- perhaps that is a monitor?

We're In For Some Chop

Yesterday I read at HBO that Louis Wu was linking to a purported list of Halo 3 achievements, but was a bit suspicious at first. Then, the authenticity of the list was seemingly confirmed when it was also located at a very official source-- xbox.com itself.

Imagine my disappointment, since I had just finished writing a long piece on how the achievements couldn't possibly be the real thing, but were just a hoax perpetrated by a fan with too much time on his hands. I posted the thing and deleted it within five minutes.

Even now, looking at the list, I hold on to a desperate hope that it's a red herring or perhaps a placeholder of some sort. If it's real, it's a spoiler, so click "read more" below for my look at the list.

Only a year ago, Bungie finally admitted they were, in fact, working on Halo 3, and had been for over a year.

Now, with the release of that game still, in all likelihood, more than half a year away, rumors of sequels, "true sequels", expansion packs and secret features are circulating through the labyrinthine tubes of the Internet.

PlayThree is citing unconfirmed, unidentified "sources close to Bungie" that state the following:

RUMOR: Halo 3 will run at 1080p, 60fps. MS apparently wants this to one-up ths PS3's claim to being the only "true 1080p" console. Bungie is supposedly testing this internally now.

UPDATE: Frankie, aka Stinkles, has smacked this report down hard in the NeoGAF forum. His response? BS. Confidently written BS, but still BS. Thanks KP at HBO for the notice.

REACTION: One can see why Microsoft would want this, but the record for past Halo games is that they will lock at 30fps and walk the line where textures and effects are more important than resolution or high framerates. That the rumor specifies that the Beta won't be 1080p is just a hedge, meaning this rumor gets to survive past that point, whereas otherwise people might assume that if the beta isn't 1080p, the game won't be. After all, Halo 3 has had a lot of work done to it so far: geometry, textures, effects. If it wasn't all done with 1080p in mind from the start, can this be changed so late in the process? And if so, why doesn't it apply to the beta?

RUMOR: Bungie is striving to make Halo 3 compatible with Xbox 360 Cores, but may have to drop to 30fps in some cases.

REACTION: That makes little sense. A hard drive is of use for caching content, reducing load times. How it affects framerate is difficult to see. Why Microsoft would want to make part of their installed base feel like they are getting a crippled version of a flagship title just for the "1080p 60fps" on the back of the box is beyond me. People who want Halo 3 will buy it regardless of those numbers.

RUMOR: Halo 4 will be a launch title for the next next-generation Xbox in 2011.

REACTION: Doesn't Bungie want to do something else for a change? Isn't the whole idea in letting Ensemble and Wingnut work in the Halo universe to give Bungie a break, so they can move on from Halo?

Ahh, the luxury of being an independent developer and publisher. The luxury to redesign every level in your game at the last minute, while you tell fans you're just "printing boxes" because you wanted to make the game... well, fun, instead of just done.

Those days are over for Bungie Studios, and have been since their 2000 buyout by Microsoft. The company that doesn't give release dates has become the one that has them dictated to them.