Awhile back, WETA created a real-life working Warthog modeled after the ones found in Halo. Well it looks like the Covenant-stomping vehicle made an appearance in New Zealand for a convention called “Armageddon,” which allowed NZGamer to snap some more close-up pictures of it. From the looks of things, WETA really went even more all out than originally thought. Even the inside of the vehicle looks authentic, and the whole thing is painted to look more battle-worn (at least I think that’s paint). Now if they could jsut make that thing street legal…
They said it would never happen, but Microsoft defied the naysayers once again as they announced this week that its Entertainment and Devices Division posted an operating profit of $89 million for the third fiscal quarter, which ended on March 31, 2008. Through its first three fiscal quarters, the division has seen an operating profit of $614 million, compared with a loss of $746 million during the same period in the previous year.
Microsoft attributed much of the success to the Xbox 360, which saw sales of $1.58 billion, which is an increase of 68%. The first three quarters saw an increase of 34% to $6.57 billion, shipping 7.5 million Xbox 360 systems, 1.3 million of which were in the third quarter.
“During the three months ended March 31, 2008, Xbox platform and PC game revenue increased $418 million or 85% primarily as a result of increased Xbox 360 console sales, Xbox 360 video game sales, and Xbox Live revenue,” the company said. “Xbox platform and PC game revenue increased $1.4 billion or 42% during the nine months ended March 31, 2008, as a result of increased Xbox 360 console sales, video game sales led by Halo 3, Xbox Live revenue, and Xbox 360 accessory sales.”
With GTA IV set to launch well in time to have the figures reflected in Microsoft’s fourth fiscal quarter, it’s likely that the Xbox division will once again have a successful quarter. But we’ll be judging that success compared with how the 360 fares against the PlayStation 3 in the Grand Theft Auto war.
Not one to be proven wrong all that often, Electronic Gaming Month’s Quartermann has some hot rumors he’s reporting on in the upcoming June issue of EGM, which should be arriving in subscribers’ mailboxes soon.
The biggest rumor is that one of the titles Bungie purportedly agreed to make for Microsoft as a way of securing its independence is a third-person action/adventure spinoff of Halo. The game would take place before the first Halo and would focus on ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers; gosh, get with the times, will ya?) encounters with the Covenant. It’s unclear if this is the Peter Jackson project, but Jackson’ WETA studio will be involved either way. Details are expected to surface around the same time that Gears of War 2 makes its way to retail later this year.
Of course, that’s not the only juicy rumor — Rockstar is also working on both Max Payne 3 and Red Dead Revolver 2, both for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, in addition to the PS3 exclusive L.A. Noire. Oh, and one other little game from Rockstar is in early development: a massively multiplayer Grand Theft Auto is apparently in the works.
And while Guitar Hero might be working on adding instruments to its currently guitar-only experience, Rock Band 2 (slated for this fall) won’t be adding to its current load of instruments. Hopefully that means current Rock Band owners won’t need to buy anything more than a copy of the game to get the full experience.
As for the rest, you’ll have to check out the June issue of EGM to get all the details. It’s the one with Splatterhouse on the cover.
STOP! Have you already paid for the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack? If not, you might be interested to know that Circuit City is currently running a promotion that could net you the pack for free. Right now, if you pre-order Ninja Gaiden II through them, they’ll e-mail you a code to download the map pack at no charge. Granted, it’ll take up to a week for them to get the code to you, but, hey, free is free. So you pretty much guarantee yourself a copy of a game that already looks great, and you get some new maps for Halo 3. Or I guess you could just wait three months for the maps to become free. You can click the link below if you want to put in your pre-order.
Now, I don’t want to go jumping to any dramatic conclusions based upon a single quote from Halo.fr’s interview with Ensemble Studios’ Graeme Devine. But Devine did once again suggest that the average multiplayer match in Halo Wars would last somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 minutes long. (A previous update on the Halo Wars website pegged the number as being between 15 and 30 minutes.) That leads me to think that Ensemble is really taking a different approach with Halo Wars that will work better as a console experience than simply porting a PC RTS game.
As for the control scheme, which is generally thought of as the major hurdle in making RTS games work on consoles, Devine believes Halo Wars controller setup is actually superior to a keyboard and mouse.
“We spent the first six months of the project looking at the controller and it could work with an RTS game. I think our control scheme actually works better than the keyboard/mouse combo and that we have really gotten past that barrier. I can’t wait for everyone to pick up the controller and try the game, I don’t think it will be possible to convince some people until after they try it.”
Devine didn’t sound particularly optimistic about there being a public beta, saying, “We’ve been focusing on our daily internal playtests and using that feedback loop and that allows us extremely fast iteration and testing of features. At this point that kind of internal turnaround and feedback is still very useful to us so we’ve not looked beyond that.”
An RTS game that has multiplayer matches lasting 20 minutes and works better on a controller than on a keyboard/mouse? I can’t say I blame anyone for feeling skeptical, but I’m still optimistic. Maybe that’s just my Halo fanboyism seeping through, but I can’t help it.
Good news for all Halo 3 fans, the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack is now available for your downloading pleasure via XBL. Want all the gory details? The read on my fellow Spartans! Thanks to MajorNelson for the reminder.
Content: Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack
Price: 800 Microsoft Points
Availability: All Xbox LIVE Regions
Size: 411.34 MB
Dash Text:[ESRB: M (Mature) BLOOD AND GORE,MILD LANGUAGE,VIOLENCE] The Legendary Map Pack blends old and new. Ghost Town’s asymmetrical mix of confined spaces and long lines of fire makes for frenetic games. Avalanche re-imagines the original Halo classic, Sidewinder, with new features, tweaked vehicles and massive outdoor spaces. Significant changes bring big improvements to the map, yet its contours and cliffs should provide a welcome sense of familiarity. Blackout, on the other hand, is the purest remake to date – all time favorite Lockout gets a graphical overhaul, but retains its challenging mix of ramps, platforms, tunnels and hallways.
Plus: Content: Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack Dash Theme
Price: Free
Availability: All Xbox LIVE regions
Dash Text: Time to spruce up your Xbox Live Dashboard theme with this brand new, Legendary Map Pack-inspired theme, featuring images, moments and atmosphere from the latest batch of Halo 3 DLC. The Human industrial grit of Blackout, the wintry vastness of Avalanche and the gloomy ruin of Ghost Town will be a welcome aesthetic boost for fans of Dashboard themes.
And if you’re in Canada or the U.S.:
Content: Halo 3 Legendary Registration Gamer Picture
Price: Free
Availability: Canada and United States
Dash Text: Downloading this gamer picture enters US and Canadian residents in the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack promotion. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open only to legal residents of the 50 United States and Canada 18+. Game closes April 27, 2008. Skill testing question required for Canadian winners. By downloading this item you are allowing Microsoft to contact you from time to time about this promotion. For full contest rules and details click here.
The art of Guild Wars is featured as part of Sarah Brightman’s new album and website. Her latest endeavor “Symphony” features both concept art as well as Guild Wars compositions done specifically for the CD and promotional video. You can view the pictures and video on the Sarah Brightman website.
Think you’ve never heard of Sarah Brightman or any of her music . You have if you’re a Zero Punctuation fan. “Yahtzee” used her disco hit, Starship Trooper, to end his diatribe review of Halo 3.
We’ll all be getting our hands on Halo 3’s new map pack in a few days (assuming you fork over the 800 Microsoft Points, or $10, for them), but Dan Hsu got an early look at all three maps and walked away very impressed. Just from the trailers and screens we’ve seen, I thought this would be the case, but it’s nice to know that these maps are actually as good as they look.
Shoe offers up his thoughts and suggestions for game types on each map, in addition to notable weapons, things to pay attention to, and what Bungie has to say. According to him, the $10 doesn’t seem like too much anymore. “[I]t could just be because we’re having so much fun with the latest three maps: a perfect port of a fan-fave Halo 2 stage, a ‘Yay, this is much better’ re-imagining of a Halo: Combat Evolved classic, and a wholly new original. While playing the Legendary Map Pack, its price tag never even entered our minds.”
This week’s 1UP Show features David Ellis sounding off on two of his favorite franchises, Mario Kart for the Wii and the Legendary map pack for Halo 3.
You can also look forward to checking out Square’s newest RPG, The World Ends With You alongside Jeremy Parish and Michael Donahoe.
The 1UP Show got to spend some quality time with Bungie this week, as mentioned above. How good was it? I think Matt Chandronait said it best in his blog this week:
A very big thanks to Bungie this week! Both to Writing Lead Frank O’Connor for his brilliant performance and to Multiplayer Design Lead Lars Bakken for both the candid interview and for being understanding (I hope) about me forgetting to put him in the “special thanks” section of the credits! Hey, it was my first solo gig! One should just be glad the 1UP offices are still standing and there were only scattered reports of mutiny :p
As always, FileFront is hosting the 1UP Show for your downloading pleasure. You can grab your weekly fix at any of the links below.
Since the release of the new Legendary Map Pack for Halo 3 is less than a week away, Bungie is pretty much giving away all the details about the three new maps now. But probably the best way to find out what you can expect from the new locales is from this video from the maps’ designers. Here, three of the “mapmakers” get together inside the new maps to almost give you a guided tour of the places — and occasionally try to kill each other. They also spend some time just generally messing around with some of the different aspects of the map, highlighting some key strategy points, and showing off some new surprises, like enhanced Forge options. Think of this as the review before the big test on April 15th.
The Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack is coming out next week (April15th) and to get you all pumped up for it, Bungie has released some new screen shots over on their site. Here is the rundown for each map:
Ghost Town: A medium-sized map designed for one-sided games ideal player counts range from 4 to 10 players. Ghost Town is the battle-scarred remnant of a war-ravaged hydroelectric plant in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
*Best Gametypes: Team Slayer, One Flag CTF, Multi-Flag CTF, One Bomb
Avalanche: A reimagingation of Halo: Combat Evolved fan favorite, “Sidewinder”, “Avalanche’s” size makes it ideal for big ol’ games of Halo 3. “Avalanche” is a Forerunner power station set on a glacial shelf on an under-construction replacement for Installation 04.
*Best Gametypes: Multi-Flag CTF, One Flag CTF, One Bomb, Team King, Team Slayer
Blackout: It’s not a reimagination, it’s a remake of one of Halo 2’s most beloved maps. “Blackout” very nearly speaks the same language that its predecessor, “Lockout”, spoke to Halo 2 players. Its long lines of sight and interconnected platforms preserved, but in a new location: a frigid UNSC research station beneath the low lights of the aurora borealis.
*Best Gametypes: Team Slayer, One Flag CTF, One Bomb
For gamers in the New Jersey area who want to be the first people to try out the new map “Blackout”, Bungie will be previewing it this weekend at the Meadowlands Expo Center.
I never knew this until a few moments ago, but apparently there is a burgeoning group out there dedicated to crafting unique sculptures using My Little Ponies as a medium. With that in mind, I guess it was only a matter of time before the “make something into Master Chief” craze worked its way in that direction. Right now on eBay, there’s an auction going on for this custom My Little Pony that has been outfitted to resemble every Xbox gamer’s favorite Spartan. I’ll just let the seller’s description do the talking.
This is a OOAK Master cheif [sic] in His MJOLNIR IV armor as seen in HALO 3.
He is fully sculpted with Apoxie sculpt. The armor has been weathered, to give it an authentic battle look.
He also won second place in the Kentucky anime/gaming/comic custom pony contest.
Just remember: you need that battle-worn armor if you want to win a pony show.
As Part of its Birthday celebration, Rooster Teeth has revealed a new Red vs. Blue series; Reconstruction. The first taste of this new series is up on the official website as a video.
The video is not what I expected to see at all. Rather than the goofy antics of the guys, girl and robot we’ve come to know over the years, the footage is dark and serious. The scene is a mutual slaughter of both teams, a cryptic message carved into the wall and a mysterious ship. I kept waiting for the punch line.
I’m sure the Rooster Teeth can pull off a serious storyline. However I’m not sure Red vs. Blue fans would appreciate a more serious take on a well established and wildly popular comedy.
You can catch the video for red vs. Blue reconstruction at the Rooster Teeth site.
I was already pretty excited for the new Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack – I mean, the spiritual successors to both Sidewinder and Lockout? In one DLC pack? I’m still the same hardcore Halo freak at heart, so while I was able to wait for the first Halo 3 DLC to become free, I don’t think I’ll be able to do the same a second time.
The trailer above is a bit different than what you would expect, and only serves as more of a teaser trailer than an in depth look at the maps. Still, it’s got me very excited and I’m ready to plunk down 800 Microsoft Points on April 15 for some new maps.
We all know by now that Halo 2’s development cycle was far from ideal; Bungie has suggested as much previously, but that didn’t stop cinematics director CJ Cowan from talking about the hellacious period it was.
“On Halo 2 we had no idea what our schedule was like or if we were on schedule or how far behind schedule we were. It wasn’t a very efficiently developed game and we wasted a lot of time up front,” he told Next Gen.
“Up until Halo 3’s pre-production we were still in the mindset of guys in a basement trying to make games even though we’d ballooned to like 60 or 70 dudes. We still had that idea that ‘hey we can make this work’, but it just wasn’t realistic anymore.
“Halo 3 had a really defined pre-production stage so the whole team had a confident, shared vision of what the game was going to be before the real work even started. It sounds like common sense but Bungie didn’t used to work that way. We used to be ‘seat of your pants just make it happen’.
“Halo 3 was a much easier game to make in terms of the stress level and crunch. The team still worked their ass off but it wasn’t that eighteen months of dread and ‘oh my god, are we ever going to get this game done’. I just don’t think we ever hit that stage.”
The difference? Producers.
“Our production staff is something that we’ve really grown tremendously even within the Halo 3 pipeline. On Halo 2 we literally had one real producer and then one executive producer who was also running the entire business. Now I think we have 14 full time producers.
“I cannot say enough good things about having a great producer on your team. It makes a world of difference. If I ever had anything on my computer monitor that was not creative and directing cinematics, my producer would tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘you shouldn’t be working on that, give it to me’. And I would. I would say, ‘yeah you’re right’. I would hand it off, I would not think about it again, and so I was really free to concentrate on the creative. That happened across the board in all disciplines.”
He explained situations like that to be tremendously helpful, and I can certainly understand his position. That rebellious feeling inside might be screaming, “I’ll do whatever I want!” but ultimately, the payoff of having focused and getting to see your work – along with the work of everyone else – coming together would more than make up for it.
Assuming, y’know, the game you designed isn’t crappy.
Rooster Teeth, the guys responsible for popular machinima featuring Halo, Shadowrun and The Sims 2, are celebrating another birthday. The idea that became “Red vs. Blue” in April 2003 is now a very popular series spanning five seasons.
To celebrate this momentous occasion Rooster Teeth is offering fans a 6 DVD box set of “Red vs. Blue” including all five seasons of “The Blood Gulch Chronicles”. The sixth DVD features never before released videos, behind the scenes footage, Rooster Teeth’s BareNaked Ladies concert videos, the XBL mini-series RECOVERY ONE and contributions from the RvB community. If you’ve already got all five seasons like I do, you can purchase the bonus DVD and box.
The team is also relaunching the Rooster Teeth Website with an updated look. There’s a walkthrough video of things to come up on the current web page.
Apparently, people who go online to play Halo 3 today are noticing something strange about the little world map showing where the game’s players are located. Is that…? Yep, that looks like Master Chief’s face emblazoned across half of Europe and Africa. Seems Bungie decided to pull a prank of their own on the game’s online community for April Fools Day. Sounds like something Chairface Chippendale would pull in real life though (kudos if you get that reference).
You might think that Microsoft’s lawyers are moving quickly to rob every penny from the individual responsible for creating the Master Chief character model in Unreal Tournament 3, but you’d be wrong. As it turns out, what serves as an homage to the Halo series is being treated just as that – not as an act of copyright infringement.
A Microsoft attorney that goes by the alias “DonkeyXote” writes on his Windows Live blog:
Many people are talking about the Master Chief mod for Unreal Tournament 3, that allows you to play in the character of the Master Chief on the PS3. Many people are surprised Microsoft is “allowing” this.
Actually it’s nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them. The developers aren’t selling the mod, they’re not monetizing Microsoft’s IP, they’re just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform. It’s a great thing for us and a great thing for the gaming community. And much though I love my friends at Epic, Unreal Tournament isn’t Halo. This will also remind people of just how great the Halo games are and remind them that if they’re done with the user-created faux-Halo experience, the real Halo is available only on the Xbox 360. And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?) and putting them on our platform…
Aside from the annoyingly anti-Sony, Halo-is-the-best-thing-ever sentiment that he has, I’m glad to see Microsoft isn’t seeking to put a stop to this. One has t wonder what Microsoft would do if Halo levels were replicated in UT3, which seems like more of a “when” rather than an “if.” Writing that, I feel as if I’m about to be barraged with links to different Halo-inspired UT3 maps.
I posted recently about a so called “Co-Op Bill of Rights,” which was a concept inspired by Penny-Arcade and then run with by Microsoft employee Ozymandias on his blog. He threw together a list of features that co-op games must have, and then ones that would be ideal but aren’t necessary due to the time/effort/technical requirements they require. It’s nothing official of course, and it’s likely never going to be something that impacts how developers spend their time. More recently, he posted up a more finalized version with the help of various comments from around the ‘net that his initial article called for.
This got me thinking about features that all games simply must have. It irritates me to no end to go pick up a new game, assume something about the game and then come to find out that a blatantly obvious feature or option is nowhere to be seen. I asked for feedback from readers and friends, and I’ve come up with my own Bill of Rights. It’s not necessarily focused on features that have to be included, but more often functionality and design choices in games. Some of it will overlap with Ozymandias’ list, but that’s only because these are things games absolutely must do.
I’m looking for feedback, so if you think I omitted something or something made the list that shouldn’t have, share in the comments. This is by no means intended to be a finished piece, but more of a building block. And, as long as I’m admitting my faults, this doesn’t apply only to games, but game-related things, as well.
And just to make sure things are clear, I’ll give out examples of games that did it either well – guised as a Dick Vitale “That’s awesome, baby!” – or poorly – a Charles Barley “That’s turrible.”
Bungie has now revealed the third map that will appear in the upcoming Legendary Map Pack for Halo 3. The new map, dubbed “Blackout,” is set on a UNSC weather station in an Arctic environment, which looks a lot like an off-shore oil drilling site. The developers are saying it’s like the human version of the previous ”Lockout” map. The Legendary Map Pack is set to hit Xbox Live on April 15th for 800 MS points (though odds are if you wait three months, it’ll become free like the Heroic Map Pack just did).
They said it would never happen, but Microsoft defied the naysayers once again as they announced this week that its Entertainment and Devices Division posted an operating profit of $89 million for the third fiscal quarter, which ended on March 31, 2008. Through its first three fiscal quarters, the division has seen an operating profit of $614 million, compared with a loss of $746 million during the same period in the previous year.
Not one to be proven wrong all that often, Electronic Gaming Month’s Quartermann has some hot rumors he’s reporting on in the upcoming June issue of EGM, which should be arriving in subscribers’ mailboxes soon.
STOP! Have you already paid for the Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack? If not, you might be interested to know that Circuit City is currently running a promotion that could net you the pack for free. Right now, if you pre-order Ninja Gaiden II through them, they’ll e-mail you a code to download the map pack at no charge. Granted, it’ll take up to a week for them to get the code to you, but, hey, free is free. So you pretty much guarantee yourself a copy of a game that already looks great, and you get some new maps for Halo 3. Or I guess you could just wait three months for the maps to become free. You can click the link below if you want to put in your pre-order.
This week’s 1UP Show features David Ellis sounding off on two of his favorite franchises, Mario Kart for the Wii and the Legendary map pack for Halo 3.
I never knew this until a few moments ago, but apparently there is a burgeoning group out there dedicated to crafting unique sculptures using My Little Ponies as a medium. With that in mind, I guess it was only a matter of time before the “make something into Master Chief” craze worked its way in that direction. Right now on eBay, there’s an auction going on for this custom My Little Pony that has been outfitted to resemble every Xbox gamer’s favorite Spartan. I’ll just let the seller’s description do the talking.
