John-117

In the final Halo documentary by Bungie, some interesting opinions come to light from some members of the developer regarding Halo 2's campaign. One even called it a "disastrous flaming turd of failure". Part of the reason for this was that the campaign was cut short to make it's release date, as senior engineering lead Chris Butcher described the project as a "three act tragedy". According to Butcher, "The first act was when we were all optimistic and fun, we were saying "this game is going to be 70 times more fun than Halo 1, because we've got all these great vehicles and environments and we're just going to jam in as much stuff as we can," He went on to say that their enthusiasm "lead us into some very, very scary places, with a graphics engine that was "totally unsuited" to Xbox and levels that "didn't make sense in a shooter". Bungie COO Pete Parsons stated, "We had to throw out a lot of stuff that we'd wanted to do", and blamed some of the issues from the absence of studio founders Alex Seropian and Jason Jones, which made them develop Halo 2 "by committee". "Before Halo 2, we could fail in silence and in misery but no-one really knew we were failing," writer Joseph Staten added. "But with something like Halo 2, everyone knew we'd cut missions at the end, that we'd lopped off our third act - we failed spectacularly in public as far as the story was concerned." However, one thing all agree on is that players rushed through the single player campaign and delved into the revolutionary multiplayer, whose matchmaking and clap support made Xbox Live finally explode and become the popular service it is now.

Bungie's final vidoc has been released. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtG6--4r_qk&feature=player_detailpage Jason Jones, the secretive co-founder of Bellevue game studio Bungie, emerged for a video the company produced to commemorate its 20th anniversary. It's on YouTube, but it's more than a brief clip. It's a 55-minute documentary that provides an overview of the company's history from its start in Chicago through its acquisition by Microsoft and phenomenal success of its "Halo" franchise. The video comes a few weeks before Microsoft begins promoting its new, post-Bungie Halo game at the PAX conference in Seattle, and reiterates Bungie's role in creating the franchise. It also drops a few hints about the new "universe" game that Bungie's developing for Activision. There's even a screenshot (below) of a new realm that appears, just after Bungie's Marty O'Donnell says the new game will be "scary." It looks like the upcoming game has renewable energy and some local flavor: Place your Bungie Remembrance comments below.

Weekly Update August 03, 2011: To start thing off with our first of many updates, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Trey Partin other known as John-117 or Super John. I have been playing Halo since the launch of it in 2001. Many of you should remember me from the “Halo News Bulletin Board.” Since then I have been promoted to news group and will now do a weekly update every week for this site! So without further ado I now present the first weekly update! Frank O’ Connor talks about Halo Anniversary: Recently posted on the web, G4 had an exclusive interview with Frank O’ Connor. They talked about many things, weather it was how far they are in development or the infamous title update. We finally have some info! Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary sure is pretty. That's the first thing you'll notice when you sit down to play. The updated visuals and new 16:9 aspect ratio look great. You can switch between the old and new versions instantaneously by pressing the Back button, but most will probably replay Master Chief's inaugural adventure soaking in the high-def scenery. The technological feat of quick-swapping between the two graphics modes without a break in play can be credited to the two engines tasked with powering the experience. "There are two engines running simultaneously," 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor told G4 at a recent Microsoft holiday preview event in New York City. Read on to see what else he had to tell us about the updated HD love sonnet to the original Halo, and you can catch his video where he sheds more light on the game with us as well. "The original Halo engine... and a second engine running in symmetry, but independently, on top of that which is handling all of the new graphics. That's the reason we're able to switch [graphics modes] so quickly." The new engine is custom-designed to play nice with the original Halo, though O'Connor confirmed that "it uses a bunch of existing technologies." He said that the framework used to build Halo: Reach just wouldn't work with Combat Evolved, and Anniversary is designed to replicate that original experience as closely as possible. http://www.g4tv.com/videos/54526/halo-combat-evolved-anniversary-preview-with-frank-oconnor/ "We're guaranteeing that this plays exactly the same, but one thing that we can't guarantee is that you won't see any differences," O'Connor continued. "This is the first time that the console game has been available in 16:9 aspect ratio, it was only ever made in 4:3, so there may be some slight differences." The differences being referred to here are of the deep-dive variety, specialized tactics developed by players that depend on certain pixel counts. O'Connor painted an object example: "Kids are saying, 'Can i do this one grenade jump that i used to do?' The fact is you probably can, but we've stopped guaranteeing it ever since we switched to 16:9. We could've had it running in 4:3, but ultimately people are buying this so they can have it on their HDTV." Another example of a possible change that might come to Combat Evolved Anniversary is the fan-favorite pistol. While the overpowered little beauty will still be the same beast it always was in campaign mode, the multiplayer version might -- emphasis on might -- be changed a little bit. "People really want it in multiplayer," O'Connor said. "The multiplayer component [in Anniversary] all runs in the Reach engine. We didn't want to cannibalize the existing player base for Reach in the middle of its lifespan, so what we did was we picked a group of multiplayer maps that would work well with that Reach stuff." More importantly," he added, "we're working on a title update for Reach and obviously for this that'll allow us to add some of the classic functionality and game play from the original multiplayer component [in Combat Evolved]. In some ways taken backwards, taken back to the sort of simpler... more elegant Halo experience." "We haven't revealed what all of those pieces are that we're putting in the title update because, frankly, we're testing a lot of them right now. I don't want to say we'll have the original pistol back in multiplayer if some unperceived circumstance could come up during testing and it doesn't work. But right now we're pretty confident that everything we're shooting for is going to make it into the title update. We'll give that list out and sort of talk through it at Halo Fest on August 26." O'Connor confirmed that Anniversary will include seven multiplayer maps in all, one of which is dedicated entirely to Firefight mode. "Some of them are from Halo, maybe one is from Halo 2 and people have already spotted the Timberland map from Halo PC in there." "The choice of maps was all based on, obviously people's favorites, but also things that haven't been remade on the 360 because it would be redundant," he added. "Blood Gulch is the obvious number one go-to, but it's available in Reach and in Halo 3. There are still some surprises to announce that I think people will be pretty happy with." O'Connor teased one of those surprises specifically, an innovation relating to the game's lone Firefight map, which is set on Halo. "We've actually been able to-- because of the stuff we've been playing with in terms of the base code, there's something that we've been able to add to Firefight." He wouldn't go into specifics since the element is still being tested -- "We're pretty confident it's going to make it in," O'Connor said -- but it is something "that hasn't been seen before." He teased, "It's something that hasn't been in Firefight to date, and it should make it a pretty compelling experience." Skulls will be back, as we already know, starting with the previously announced Grunt Funeral. O'Connor confirmed that all of the skulls will be new to the series, though "some of them will do familiar things." He also talked a little bit about the terminals in Anniversary, which you may have caught a trailer for at the tail end of last week. Terminals actually date all the way back to Marathon, and Bungie revived them as fonts of textual information about the Halo universe in Halo 3. http://www.g4tv.com/videos/54468/halo-anniversary-terminals-teaser/ The newly added terminals will be easier to find, and they'll feature animations and voice acting, as you saw in the trailer. Fans can even expect to see some hints of what's to come pop up in Anniversary, by way of the terminals. "They'll definitely feed into Greg Bear's novels and there'll be some links to Halo 4 as well," O'Connor added. "I would caution people: you don't need to read the terminals to play Halo 4. You don't need to buy a book to understand Halo 1. We try to make these things self-contained as well as connected." And hey, look at that: Forge is back too! Since the multiplayer side of Anniversary runs on the Reach engine, including Forge was an easy choice. It will, of course, be new and improved as well, at least as far as integrating content from Combat Evolved goes. "We're putting new Forge build pieces in the maps," O'Connor said. "A good example is Beaver Creek. You want to make that map a little bit bigger, so we've added some tunnels and stuff. In the classic mode it'll be blocked off, but you can take that out in Forge. With the Forge, all the stuff that works in Reach multiplayer with work in the multiplayer component of this." It's fitting that 343 Industries' first crack at overseeing a Halo title is this Anniversary re-releases. Bungie created a fantastic platform for the studio to launch from in the original trilogy, but now the continuing story of Master Chief is in the hands of a new group of Halo fans. "One of the luxuries we had in taking over the franchise was, we had time to actually stop and reset and say, 'What is this arc going to look like? What is the next trilogy going to look like? How can we better connect the external franchise fiction [like the novels]?'" O'Connor said. "We're actually in a really good place with the story. We know where the first story we ever told is and we know where the last story we're going to tell is, and we can build into that framework really efficiently." If Halo doesn’t survive, then the Xbox can’t survive: The fate of the Xbox 360 runs parallel to that of the Halo franchise, so says Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer. Spencer told OXM that its own key franchises and Halo in particular, are key drivers in dictating how the console evolves over time. "I think it's important that our AAA first party titles do help craft and shape how the platform evolves," he explained. "Halo just by its sheer nature of size, of user base - as well as how important the FPS is in today's gaming world - has to play that role. "If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox, because Halo and the importance of games like Call of Duty and other shooters, that state of the art needs to continue to move forward, and our team at 343 needs to move forward with that. That's always going to be one of our success criteria." Spencer went on to offer a little assurance that 343 is firmly on the right track with the recently unveiled Halo 4. "The good thing about 343 is that they've had the time, through the development of Reach, working on getting the map packs out, and getting to know the infrastructure and the build systems and everything about Halo. "They've also brought in their own talent and their own view so that they can put their own stamp on the franchise," he continued, adding that the studio is "in a position to take over the franchise without missing a beat." Halo with Kinect will enhance not change the experience: When Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was announced at E3 in June it was revealed that the game would feature support for Microsoft Kinect. But the exact details of how Kinect would function with Halo Anniversary were not elaborated on at the time. In typical nerd fashion, we all prepared for the worst. Over the last few months we’ve seen quite a few screenshots and videos highlighting the multiplayer and graphical slip-shine the game is receiving, but we’re still in the dark about how the Kinect will be integrated into the experience. There’s apparently a reason for that, as 343 Industries’ Frankie O’ Connor told OXM that the Kinect functionality in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is really not a big deal. It’s a “cool” feature, but players shouldn’t get “hyper-excited” over it. “I don’t think it’s going to be something that people need to be hyper-excited about,” said O’Connor. “It’ll be cool, but it’s not something you’d put on the front of the box. I don’t want to downplay it, but I think of it like this – I use voice on Netflix and it’s awesome, and that’s what this’ll be. Something that enhances you overall experience.” Honestly, this sounds like good news for Halo fans. It’s great to hear that Microsoft isn’t forcing Kinect down the throats of those interested in revisiting (or playing for the first time) the original Halo with this new remastering. It seems like O’Connor is insinuating that Halo Anniversary’s Kinect integration will be something similar to how BioWare is handling it in Mass Effect 3 -- solely voice commands. Halo Fall of Reach: Boot Camp 2nd Edition: Marvel Comics has revealed the date that the second edition of the popular Halo – Fall of Reach: Boot Camp graphic novel will be published. Collecting issues #1 – #4 of the Halo – Fall of Reach: Boot Camp comic book series, Halo – Fall of Reach: Boot Camp is an adaptation of the best-selling novel Halo: Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund. Halo – Fall of Reach: Boot Camp depicts the rise of the most famous videogame science-fiction hero of the past decade: this is where it all began. Before he was Master Chief, he was John a boy stolen from his parents and conscripted into the Spartan Ii program on the fortress world of Reach. These are desperate times in the human colonies, with galactic civil war just a heartbeat away, and only Dr. Catherine Halsey understands the terrible price humanity must pay to keep from destroying itself. Brian Reed (Amazing Spider-Man Presents: American Son), and Felix Ruiz (Marvel Boy: The Uranian) collaborated on Halo – Fall of Reach: Boot Camp, and now Marvel Comics bring you second edition graphic novel featuring a revised cover and set to be available in greater quantities than the first edition. Halo: CEA may feature Halo 4 beta: 343 Industries cannot make it through their Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary without rumors or speculation. All Halo Anniversary wants is a little attention, but a picture has turned up that suggests 343 Industries may be taking part in some extracurricular gaming on the side, and gamers may be able to join in with them soon. The picture of the Halo Anniversary menu screen reveals an “Extras” option, which many believe to hold access to the Halo 4 beta. Couple this with the announcement of a “surprise” at Halofest and 343 Industries is not doing a great job of covering their tracks. Coming home with plasma on their shirt collar is not going to make Halo Anniversary happy, but putting the Halo 4 beta in the game may be a great marketing ploy. We’ll see what develops as we approach Halofest and PAX. SDCC 2011 Halo Waypoint Video: <a href="http://halo.xbox.com/en-us/intel/featured/video/halo-at-sdcc-2011/a29519c0-2717-4c34-ae04-8f831e949aa1">Halo Waypoint SDCC As you can see, Comic-con was a blast this year and some people have access to some special Halo 4 info! Halo the Essential Visual Guide Interview: Halo as a franchise has grown over the past ten years. From a single video game released almost a decade ago, we now have a wealth of trans-media mediums available to indulge and enjoy the series. The Halo Encyclopedia has been the unifying tome bringing the fiction together in one place and now we finally have a companion book, Halo: The Essential Visual Guide. The Guide, as the name suggests, takes a more aesthetically pleasing approach to presenting Halo lore to the fans but still manages to pack in a surprising amount of detail in between the beautifully laid out art. Although a collaborative effort involving many talented people, the Visual Guide is headed by Jeremy Patenaude. Former Ascendant Justice author and now one of the writers at 343 Industries, Jeremy works on a variety of projects including both Halo Waypoint and many of the group’s officially licensed products. He’s a busy man and very tricky to pin down given his responsibilities and schedule but we’ve managed to convince Jeremy to take a quick break to talk with us about the Visual Guide. How did the Illustrated Guide come about? Any particular inspirations? The Visual Guide is yet another super solid product to come out of 343 Industries’ Consumer Products group, the folks who have been in charge of all of our official, licensed merchandise for several years now. They do a really great job of working with partners to determine what Halo fans want outside of the games and then they do everything they can to bring those wishes to the market. The Visual Guide was a great way to get new people caught up on the different facets of the universe, but it also had enough of the nitty gritty detailed content to be worthy of hardcore fans. How does the book complement the Halo video games and extended universe? At its core, the Visual Guide is a fact book for things players could find in any of the Halo games, essentially a condensed encyclopedia with the most up-to-date info we could compile. We did our best to fill in gaps and answer questions that the games left people asking, as well as to tie in the extended universe where it made the most sense. And ultimately, it is a Visual Guide so we definitely wanted to focus on providing great visual representations of everything. There are a lot of pretty pictures in there. What kind of challenges did you have to overcome to produce the book? Time, mainly – or lack thereof. Jokes aside, there were plenty of challenges on this project. Up front, there was a ton of information collecting from numerous sources. Some days that included collecting and analyzing models from the game’s code to get the most up-to-date, real world size for, say, a rifle. Others it included rereading a description of a battle a dozen times so that no detail was taken in without careful consideration. The biggest challenge was reviewing the material once it was in the book, which was extremely time consuming and difficult because it involved (on top of making sure it was actually readable) double-checking every single fact on every page, and if you’ve read the book, you’ll know that there are more than a few facts in there. DK was extremely gracious in the amount of changes/tweaks/adjustments we were making until the very day they pushed the print button. How does the Guide engage the hardcore Halo fan base? The Visual Guide was originally designed as a “Top 200 cool things in Halo” book, which is why you see multiplayer maps sitting side-by-side with the Prophet of Truth and the M12 FAV. For the average fan, this setup works well because it’s chock full of all sorts of detailed info. Some of the hardcore fiction folks out there obviously want story to be the primary focus, so in those areas, we really tried to push the envelope in getting as much deep fiction as possible into the book, meeting somewhere in the middle at the end of the day. It’s a good overall blend of content with a significant amount of detail. Does the Illustrated Guide contain any new lore or fiction not found in other sources? The Visual Guide contains a ton of new information about existing topics and some pretty clever details on things which have never been disclosed before. Whether it’s a previously hidden service number, the birth name of a specific character, or the length of a vehicle no one’s measured before – this is the kind of territory the Visual Guide happily treads. What kind of research went into making the Illustrated Guide? A ton of research from everywhere in the universe went into this book. I definitely need to give a proper nod to Mr. Stephen Loftus, who has been a vital fixture in the Halo community for years now and helped out a great deal with content in this book. When we looked at the nature of this book and its extreme focus on details like size, scale, and composition, it seemed completely reasonable to get someone like Stephen to help us with reviewing the content and making sure everyone would be happy with the end result. Stephen was awesome in this regard and the book is enormously better for it. In terms of actual research, everything was used and nothing was left out when we began filling it with content: the story bible, scale charts, fact sheets, game scripts, novels, in-game models, and ancillary web articles – all of this was checked, cross-checked, and used to generate the content for the book. With every new release, the Halo fanbase continues to grow and expand. How will the Illustrated Guide help these newer fans? The Visual Guide’s format and size make it easily digestible for new fans, helping them get up to speed on the different facets of the universe they might not be entirely familiar with without having to deep dive into a novel or play through every game. One page is dedicated to each entry, so people can flip it open without worrying about whether or not they’ll get lost in it. Hopefully, it’ll encourage some new folks to turn over stones in the Halo Universe that they might not have even noticed before. Is there anything you wanted to include in the book but couldn’t? The Bumblebee lifeboat to name one. There were actually a great many things we’d like to have included but there simply wasn’t room for it, especially given the initial scope of the book. That doesn’t mean that these things won’t ever appear in future books just that we had to draw the line somewhere for the Visual Guide. Will we see more introspective Halo publications (like this book and the Halo Encyclopedia) in future? Absolutely. Halo Reach Matchmaking status update: 343 industries realize that the matchmaking is currently messing up but, they have stated they are working closely with Bungie to fix this!

When Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary was announced at E3 in June it was revealed that the game would feature support for Microsoft Kinect. But the exact details of how Kinect would function with Halo Anniversary were not elaborated on at the time. In typical nerd fashion, we all prepared for the worst. Over the last few months we’ve seen quite a few screenshots and videos highlighting the multiplayer and graphical slip-shine the game is receiving, but we’re still in the dark about how the Kinect will be integrated into the experience. There’s apparently a reason for that, as 343 Industries’ Frankie O’ Connor told Official Xbox Magazine that the Kinect functionality in Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary is really not a big deal. It’s a “cool” feature, but players shouldn’t get “hyper-excited” over it. “I don’t think it’s going to be something that people need to be hyper-excited about,” said O’Connor. “It’ll be cool, but it’s not something you’d put on the front of the box. I don’t want to downplay it, but I think of it like this – I use voice on Netflix and it’s awesome, and that’s what this’ll be. Something that enhances you overall experience.” Honestly, this sounds like good news for Halo fans. It’s great to hear that Microsoft isn’t forcing Kinect down the throats of those interested in revisiting (or playing for the first time) the original Halo with this new remastering. It seems like O’Connor is insinuating that Halo Anniversary’s Kinect integration will be something similar to how BioWare is handling it in Mass Effect 3 -- solely voice commands. Unfortunately, O’Connor wasn’t able to peg an official announcement day for the Kinect functionality in Halo Anniversary. Microsoft and 343 Industries are still trying to figure out when is the best time to make the announcement. But they better do it before the game launches on November 15, 2011.