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Is this possibly what happened to Bungee when Microsoft bought them out? The making of Halo could have very well put them in the same position Yamauchi talks of in making such grapically advanced software. This would put companies like Microsoft in the drivers seat. They definitely could afford to put out these games and reap the benifits afterwards. Don't know how much I like that Idea.

Discover the true story behind the Microsoft takeover, thanks to the Bungie Webmaster.

...

"So," I began, "not to display a sudden collapse of faith in your business acumen or anything, but is there any particular reason we've hopped in bed with a company that might as well use "Squeal like a pig" as their corporate motto?"

"I figured you would be skeptical," said The Man, "and I have prepared a short educational video which explains what we hope to achieve with this decision." He pushed a button on his desk and the office lights dimmed while a projection screen descended from the ceiling.

We watched the video. It was both entertaining and spiritually fulfilling. Afterwards I had only one question.

"So are we represented by the Alien, or by John Hurt?"

"Oh, we're definitely the Alien."

"Good."


Microsoft haven't assimilated Bungie - Bungie have assimilated Microsoft. Just remember that... ;-)

Ford Prefect

The tru7h behind Bungie's real plans was revealed last year - on a t-shirt...

Bungie's 7-Step World Domination Plan

[X] Start independent gaming company.

[X] Dominate Mac platform; launch assault on Windows platform.

[X] Announce killer gaming title.

[X] Acquire strangely addictive Chinese food company.

[X] Recover Ling-ling's head.

[ ] Stage bloody coup of new parent company.

[ ] Take over world, shoot enemies into the sun with giant slingshot.

Ford Prefect

The tru7h behind Bungie's real plans was revealed last year - on a t-shirt...

Bungie's 7-Step World Domination Plan

[X] Start independent gaming company.

[X] Dominate Mac platform; launch assault on Windows platform.

[X] Announce killer gaming title.

[X] Acquire strangely addictive Chinese food company.

[X] Recover Ling-ling's head.

[ ] Stage bloody coup of new parent company.

[ ] Take over world, shoot enemies into the sun with giant slingshot.

Ford Prefect

If it wasn't for HALO and Oni I'd probably be running Linux right now.

Which brings us to the point that Microsoft is also trying to hijack the gaming industry with the X-Box (which runs an ME Kernel). I bet the X-Box OS will be pirated onto PCs before we're done cracking Microsoft "Subscription OS" [MS: SOS].

What about Halo? I've been waiting for Halo since I saw it 2 years ago (that seems so long ago!) at MacWorld Expo. Even their website (halo.bungie.com) hasn't had any new screenshots added in months (years it seems). There's been the purchase by Microsoft, and I can accept that as a delay in site updates. But they didn't update it for months before their acquisition by Microsoft.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Halo is one of the most anticipated games of all time... and here it is 2 years later and nothing!

After all, they bought out my ex-favorite video game company, Bungie. Those Bastards!!!!

Of course, Bungie can't be much better for selling out to M$... How could anyone possibly be any more of a whore?

As long as I can get HALO :-)

1. Halo
2. Nikon Coolpix 990
3. Po rsc he Carrera GT - Screw that wimpy 911 Turbo that came out, THIS is the real deal.

Microsoft meddling in the affairs of one of its vassal companies? This came as no surprise to me either.

But I bet it came as a surprise to Bungie, judging by their letter to their fans. To quote:

What drove us then drives us now: to make the games we want to make, on our own terms, and in our own way.

Holding true to this vision allowed us to create the Marathon and Myth series, and has now led us to Redmond to work closely with the Xbox development team.

Here's how I figure the deal went down:

1. Bungie develops game for several platforms and makes a name for themselves. (I think the history here speaks for itself.)

2. Bungie would like to develop for the Xbox as well, and tries to get the SDKs for it. (It fits their pattern; if they have the patience to develop for Mac, PC, AND PS2, why not a fourth one?)

3. Microsoft offers to not just send over SDKs, but buy out Bungie. Part of this was probably the assurance that Bungie staff would have an opportunity to influence the design of the Xbox. (Bungie's Acquisition FAQ bears this out -- see "Why is this happening")

4. Bungie sells out to Microsoft in a fit of naivete and/or stupidity. If you haven't called up that FAQ already, do so -- read the Q&As starting with "Why do you believe Microsoft will leave you alone when there are so many documented examples of Microsoft doing shady things?" and try to hold down the bile.

What it looks like to me is that Microsoft drew Bungie into its blob-like folds on the promise of listening to them and benefitting from their talent, and proceeded to ream them.

Like this laughable line:

The existing bungie.net servers will continue to exist for the indefinite future. We are bringing the current head of the bungie.net admins along to ensure that bungie.net is maintained to our standards, and he will act as a full member of an online community team to ensure that future iterations of bungie.net are designed with the players in mind.

They probably seriously believed that when they signed over their good name. Pity them. And pity the forseeable future, which ended even before the ink was dry. And as for other promises, well, another thing they said in their FAQ was:

Will Microsoft control the content or direction of Bungie games?

No. The plan is that they'll leave us more or less alone to do what we do, and trust that the results will be worth it. They will be involved on some level at every step of the process, including conceptualization, but they will not shape the development of the games or censor content. Their interactions with us will mostly be on a business level.

In the current light, make of that what you will. To me, it looked like a cloudy day way back when they signed the contract, and now it looks like it's going to hail.

Microsoft meddling in the affairs of one of its vassal companies? This came as no surprise to me either.

But I bet it came as a surprise to Bungie, judging by their letter to their fans. To quote:

What drove us then drives us now: to make the games we want to make, on our own terms, and in our own way.

Holding true to this vision allowed us to create the Marathon and Myth series, and has now led us to Redmond to work closely with the Xbox development team.

Here's how I figure the deal went down:

1. Bungie develops game for several platforms and makes a name for themselves. (I think the history here speaks for itself.)

2. Bungie would like to develop for the Xbox as well, and tries to get the SDKs for it. (It fits their pattern; if they have the patience to develop for Mac, PC, AND PS2, why not a fourth one?)

3. Microsoft offers to not just send over SDKs, but buy out Bungie. Part of this was probably the assurance that Bungie staff would have an opportunity to influence the design of the Xbox. (Bungie's Acquisition FAQ bears this out -- see "Why is this happening")

4. Bungie sells out to Microsoft in a fit of naivete and/or stupidity. If you haven't called up that FAQ already, do so -- read the Q&As starting with "Why do you believe Microsoft will leave you alone when there are so many documented examples of Microsoft doing shady things?" and try to hold down the bile.

What it looks like to me is that Microsoft drew Bungie into its blob-like folds on the promise of listening to them and benefitting from their talent, and proceeded to ream them.

Like this laughable line:

The existing bungie.net servers will continue to exist for the indefinite future. We are bringing the current head of the bungie.net admins along to ensure that bungie.net is maintained to our standards, and he will act as a full member of an online community team to ensure that future iterations of bungie.net are designed with the players in mind.

They probably seriously believed that when they signed over their good name. Pity them. And pity the forseeable future, which ended even before the ink was dry. And as for other promises, well, another thing they said in their FAQ was:

Will Microsoft control the content or direction of Bungie games?

No. The plan is that they'll leave us more or less alone to do what we do, and trust that the results will be worth it. They will be involved on some level at every step of the process, including conceptualization, but they will not shape the development of the games or censor content. Their interactions with us will mostly be on a business level.

In the current light, make of that what you will. To me, it looked like a cloudy day way back when they signed the contract, and now it looks like it's going to hail.

Microsoft meddling in the affairs of one of its vassal companies? This came as no surprise to me either.

But I bet it came as a surprise to Bungie, judging by their letter to their fans. To quote:

What drove us then drives us now: to make the games we want to make, on our own terms, and in our own way.

Holding true to this vision allowed us to create the Marathon and Myth series, and has now led us to Redmond to work closely with the Xbox development team.

Here's how I figure the deal went down:

1. Bungie develops game for several platforms and makes a name for themselves. (I think the history here speaks for itself.)

2. Bungie would like to develop for the Xbox as well, and tries to get the SDKs for it. (It fits their pattern; if they have the patience to develop for Mac, PC, AND PS2, why not a fourth one?)

3. Microsoft offers to not just send over SDKs, but buy out Bungie. Part of this was probably the assurance that Bungie staff would have an opportunity to influence the design of the Xbox. (Bungie's Acquisition FAQ bears this out -- see "Why is this happening")

4. Bungie sells out to Microsoft in a fit of naivete and/or stupidity. If you haven't called up that FAQ already, do so -- read the Q&As starting with "Why do you believe Microsoft will leave you alone when there are so many documented examples of Microsoft doing shady things?" and try to hold down the bile.

What it looks like to me is that Microsoft drew Bungie into its blob-like folds on the promise of listening to them and benefitting from their talent, and proceeded to ream them.

Like this laughable line:

The existing bungie.net servers will continue to exist for the indefinite future. We are bringing the current head of the bungie.net admins along to ensure that bungie.net is maintained to our standards, and he will act as a full member of an online community team to ensure that future iterations of bungie.net are designed with the players in mind.

They probably seriously believed that when they signed over their good name. Pity them. And pity the forseeable future, which ended even before the ink was dry. And as for other promises, well, another thing they said in their FAQ was:

Will Microsoft control the content or direction of Bungie games?

No. The plan is that they'll leave us more or less alone to do what we do, and trust that the results will be worth it. They will be involved on some level at every step of the process, including conceptualization, but they will not shape the development of the games or censor content. Their interactions with us will mostly be on a business level.

In the current light, make of that what you will. To me, it looked like a cloudy day way back when they signed the contract, and now it looks like it's going to hail.

As far as I can tell, Bungie was a privately held company, with 20% held by TakeTwo. MS bought TakeTwo's ownership, TakeTwo got ownership of programs, including Myth & Oni, as well access to current and future technologies.

So blame Oni's absence on TakeTwo.

If I'm correct, and Bungie is a private company, then they weren't bought unless they (the owners) wanted to be bought. By all accounts, this was not a corporate raid, or hostile takeover. MS made an offer that Bungie liked, and they went with it.

So blame Bungie if Bungie is screwed by MS. If they made a pact with the devil, it's their own doing.

Another perspective comes from their CEO. They saw the writing on the wall (and to infer), didn't want to go the way of Looking Glass Studios. So they got a big company with deep pockets to give them access to what they would need to stay in business for a good while longer.

Here's the full quote:
Why is this happening?

For two reasons:

A. Microsoft is offering us the opportunity to lead the way on a next-generation console system. We will not only be one of the premier developers for the platform, but we'll be working directly with the Xbox team, helping to optimize the hardware and software for each other. We'll influence the design of the system; we'll help to ensure that the Xbox is the best platform to code for, and the most impressive console on the block. Such an opportunity does not come often. Bungie has always tried to keep abreast of the industry, if not ahead of it, and next-gen consoles seem like the place to be if you develop games. This deal allows us to get into that market in a big way.

B. The business of publishing entertainment software independently has changed enormously since Bungie started. Bungie was not in immediate danger of going under, but we realized that within a few years we'd need a strong partner if we wanted to keep making games the way we always have. We opted to make what we saw as an inevitable move while we were still in a position of strength, rather than wait for circumstances to force our hand. The ultimate goal is to ensure Bungie continues to exist and continues to produce the high-caliber games for which it is known.

Here are locations of info:

MacCentral report on acquisition
Bungie Corporate Info
NDB.com
Bungie Acquisition FAQ

-----
D. Fischer

As far as I can tell, Bungie was a privately held company, with 20% held by TakeTwo. MS bought TakeTwo's ownership, TakeTwo got ownership of programs, including Myth & Oni, as well access to current and future technologies.

So blame Oni's absence on TakeTwo.

If I'm correct, and Bungie is a private company, then they weren't bought unless they (the owners) wanted to be bought. By all accounts, this was not a corporate raid, or hostile takeover. MS made an offer that Bungie liked, and they went with it.

So blame Bungie if Bungie is screwed by MS. If they made a pact with the devil, it's their own doing.

Another perspective comes from their CEO. They saw the writing on the wall (and to infer), didn't want to go the way of Looking Glass Studios. So they got a big company with deep pockets to give them access to what they would need to stay in business for a good while longer.

Here's the full quote:
Why is this happening?

For two reasons:

A. Microsoft is offering us the opportunity to lead the way on a next-generation console system. We will not only be one of the premier developers for the platform, but we'll be working directly with the Xbox team, helping to optimize the hardware and software for each other. We'll influence the design of the system; we'll help to ensure that the Xbox is the best platform to code for, and the most impressive console on the block. Such an opportunity does not come often. Bungie has always tried to keep abreast of the industry, if not ahead of it, and next-gen consoles seem like the place to be if you develop games. This deal allows us to get into that market in a big way.

B. The business of publishing entertainment software independently has changed enormously since Bungie started. Bungie was not in immediate danger of going under, but we realized that within a few years we'd need a strong partner if we wanted to keep making games the way we always have. We opted to make what we saw as an inevitable move while we were still in a position of strength, rather than wait for circumstances to force our hand. The ultimate goal is to ensure Bungie continues to exist and continues to produce the high-caliber games for which it is known.

Here are locations of info:

MacCentral report on acquisition
Bungie Corporate Info
NDB.com
Bungie Acquisition FAQ

-----
D. Fischer

...but Bungie's Website says that Halo will be released for the Mac, the PC & the X-Box...

If I recall correctly, Bungie no longer owns the rights to the Myth Series. When Microsoft bought out Bungie, Take Two owned like 20% of Bungie, and as part of the deal, Take Two gets to own all rights to the Myth series, so it should be a null point which OS the Myth servers run on. Check Section II

Jeezus...You really worship Bill, don't ya?

But anyway. Bill's right. It's ok to rape the consumer, steal other people's ideas, buy or destroy the competitor...Just as long as you don't copy *Bill's* software.
The fuckin' amerikan way, right? Money rules, fuckin' sue em' if they don't like it.

You stupid fucks really don't 'get it', do you? Despite what the Rev. Bill may have preached to you, money isn't everything.

Richard Fuckin' Gere
Hey! Check it out! You're a karma whore and I'm a troll!
----

if computers weren't in our classrooms I wouldn't have become the incredible Marathon player that I am today. Nor would I have become the great strategist playing Myth. So there is definitely a plus to having computers in the classroom.

if computers weren't in our classrooms I wouldn't have become the incredible Marathon player that I am today. Nor would I have become the great strategist playing Myth. So there is definitely a plus to having computers in the classroom.

I submitted a story about a petition to have Halo ported to the PC/Mac. Since the take over of Bungie by Microsoft, it has been an X-Box only title. Would this story have intersted people?

On the story submission page I wouldn't mind seeing who rejected my story, and maybe a reason for its rejection.

Bungie has posted a FAQ at their site. Although most of it could be considered PR and can't be trusted, it is an interesting read. It also raises an interesting point that, if the staff doesn't like M$ they can always walk away.

See the bottom of the page at http://halo.bungie.com/press/It STILL says "Coming soon for Windows and Mac OS" IS this just a Bungie oversight? Or is there arrival at Redmond more likely to be something like Durandal's seizure by the pfhor?

On bungie's Microsoft Acquisition FAQ, the claim to have the freedom to choose what platforms they develop titles for, except:

Does this freedom to choose the platforms you will develop for mean we can expect Bungie titles on (for example) PlayStation2, Dreamcast, or Dolphin?

No more than you can expect to see Final Fantasy X on the Dreamcast or Sonic the Hedgehog on the PS2.

Why is this happening?

For two reasons:

A. Microsoft is offering us the opportunity to lead the way on a next-generation console system. We will not only be one of the premier developers for the platform, but we'll be working directly with the Xbox team, helping to optimize the hardware and software for each other. We'll influence the design of the system; we'll help to ensure that the Xbox is the best platform to code for, and the most impressive console on the block. Such an opportunity does not come often. Bungie has always tried to keep abreast of the industry, if not ahead of it, and next-gen consoles seem like the place to be if you develop games. This deal allows us to get into that market in a big way.

B. The business of publishing entertainment software independently has changed enormously since Bungie started. Bungie was not in immediate danger of going under, but we realized that within a few years we'd need a strong partner if we wanted to keep making games the way we always have. We opted to make what we saw as an inevitable move while we were still in a position of strength, rather than wait for circumstances to force our hand. The ultimate goal is to ensure Bungie continues to exist and continues to produce the high-caliber games for which it is known.

Why Bungie why?!

Yes, The Soul, was but a simple creature who couldn't answer simple questions like "When will Oni be released?" and "What's the sound of a million Bobs screaming?", but it never whined about its lowly station in life as your tech support. Why send it to a far worse place, like Microsoft tech support?

George Lee

Bungie's Letter to Fans

"Halo is a funny game. The "no gameplay" trailers have gotten fanboys drooling, but the reasons why are elusive. Halo isn't particularly high poly--a barren landscape with no landmarks--and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot to shout about, except a distinctive art style (reflective black soliders running"
=/=\=/=\=/=\=
If you look at Bungie's Job Page you will see they are still hiring people primarily for the Oni and Halo projects. I would think if you are at a point where you are still recruiting team members, then you are far, far, from completing the project. I wonder how Bungie can keep a straight face while posting vaporous release dates AND job postings for the same projects at the same time.

This may be rhetorical; I'm sure the Bungie boys are being leaned on heavily by the MS brass to keep their mouths shut. However, in this interview on Blue's News, Doug Zartman says this about PC and Mac versions of HALO:

The decision about what platforms Halo and future Bungie games will be developed for remains in the hands of Bungie Studios, in the hands of the teams developing them. In Halo's case the decision has not been made yet.

Why, then, does the HALO page at http://halo.bungie.com still say "Coming soon for Windows and Mac OS"?

Doesn't Zartman really mean "We were planning to do Mac and Windows versions of HALO, but that decision is now being revisited"?

. . .last weekend when my brother and I went out to Best Buy. I saw it sitting there on the shelves for US$40.00, but I remembered all the hell that the demo gave me--it ran slower then molasses going uphill in winter on my PII 450--and I opted for System Shock II instead for just US$19.00. Needless to say, I be a happy camper. I hope that Romero and company manage to turn their little company around, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll be waiting for Oni and especially Halo from Bungie instead. Those two look to have real promise as far as gameplay and sheer fun are concerned.

. . .last weekend when my brother and I went out to Best Buy. I saw it sitting there on the shelves for US$40.00, but I remembered all the hell that the demo gave me--it ran slower then molasses going uphill in winter on my PII 450--and I opted for System Shock II instead for just US$19.00. Needless to say, I be a happy camper. I hope that Romero and company manage to turn their little company around, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll be waiting for Oni and especially Halo from Bungie instead. Those two look to have real promise as far as gameplay and sheer fun are concerned.

. . .last weekend when my brother and I went out to Best Buy. I saw it sitting there on the shelves for US$40.00, but I remembered all the hell that the demo gave me--it ran slower then molasses going uphill in winter on my PII 450--and I opted for System Shock II instead for just US$19.00. Needless to say, I be a happy camper. I hope that Romero and company manage to turn their little company around, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll be waiting for Oni and especially Halo from Bungie instead. Those two look to have real promise as far as gameplay and sheer fun are concerned.

Sad news indeed. I just hope some other company will take over producing entertaining games for those of us who actually appreciate a storyline

Take a look at Bungie Software's offerings - Bungie actually bother crafting something approaching a plot for almost all of their games (as evidenced by the ongoing discussion of the Marathon story years after it was released). Better still, Loki ported Bungie's Myth II to Linux, so there is hope that we might see Oni and Halo at some point. Plot/story/whatever make a huge impact on the longeivity and repeat playability of a game, and it's sad to see a company like Looking Glass shut it's doors, regardless of the rest of the industry.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Sad news indeed. I just hope some other company will take over producing entertaining games for those of us who actually appreciate a storyline

Take a look at Bungie Software's offerings - Bungie actually bother crafting something approaching a plot for almost all of their games (as evidenced by the ongoing discussion of the Marathon story years after it was released). Better still, Loki ported Bungie's Myth II to Linux, so there is hope that we might see Oni and Halo at some point. Plot/story/whatever make a huge impact on the longeivity and repeat playability of a game, and it's sad to see a company like Looking Glass shut it's doors, regardless of the rest of the industry.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I have a number of friends who feel this way, and I've never understood it. I've tried to make programming part of my reality. I've always felt like I've been behind everybody else. I see all these people who aren't much older than I, kernel hacking, and I want to understand what they understand (it doesn't help that I go to a techie-school). At this point, I'm still pretty overwhelmed looking at my kernel's source. When I pick up a language, I try to learn as much as I can about all the ins and outs. As a result I'm limited to Perl, C++, and Java, but reasonably proficiently in all of them.

When I get out of school, I'd like to get into game development. For this my views have changed drastically over the last few years. At the beginning, it was for the purpose of making interesting and realistic graphics. That's still there, but at this point I'm more interested in 3D engines. I'd like to work for a company like Bungie that tests the limits of a language.

In any case, as much as I enjoy it, programming has never been euphoric in the same way it is for you.

--The Mighty Willtor

Security and stability are closely linked, and the game industry has often been criticised for not focusing enough on either. With the unique challenges that a game running under Linux faces (multi-user environment, ability to snoop on what a process is doing, ease of writing network proxies or bots), what does Loki do to address these issues? What should game companies in general be doing? Have you got any anecdotes about security to relate? (I know there are some from Myth II!)

--
Chris Butcher
Code Monkey
Bungie Software

Perhaps the thing that would help the Linux game community the most is an ohh-ahh game of their own. All the people who are hardcore gamers aren't going to want a "port" just so that they can play under Linux (especially since according to other posts performance is weak). If a game was developed for Linux that captured the envy of the non-*nix community, then it can be ported to Windows. It is unfortunate that such a project would be difficult to find funding for - but it is almost guaranteed that all the Linux gamers would buy a product MADE for their platform. Perhaps a great example of this strategy is Bungie. They made their first hit with Marathon - a crummy Doomish clone for MacOS. In reality, that game had impressive depth and graphics for its time even for an Intel machine. Now look at Bungie - they are soon to release their new hit Halo which frankly looks awesome (and is for Win98 AND MacOS). If a company took those ideas and applied them to a Linux/Win crossover instead of Mac I can see them making it big in a 5 year span or less. Majorachre ---------------------- Gnu - Thank god for those Wildlife Treasury Cards

halo

I agree with bs, Halo looks incredible, and should be ported to linux. Also Tribes 2 is going to rock, and I'd love to play it on my linux box. Finally HalfLife is huge, w/ like 10,000 people playing it online at peak afternoon/evening times (CS ROCKS!), this should DEFINITELY be ported.

Halo.

'Nuff said.

(though Oni would be welcome, too)

Halo.

'Nuff said.

(though Oni would be welcome, too)

The game engine is a direct 3d game engine. They are going to have a hard time. Since they are probably going to port it to openGL they can probably also get an openGL version for windows.

Myth II, ported by Loki Software from the original by Bungie Software, ran under Direct3D in the Windows version (I have no idea what it ran on the Mac version), so this sort of problem has already been solved at some level. I note that Lithtech already have ports to platforms other than Windows anyway (Apple Mac and Amiga) due to a deal made with Hyperion Software in April 1999, so there must be a reasonably clean level of separation between the graphic rendering side and the underlying engine.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

I'll second that! Quake...had it, played it, got bored. Same w QuakeII. QIII...well it's pretty, but still not in the same class with Marathon. Marathon, OTOH, is the only FPS I really ever liked! Like others have said, it's more than just blowing stuff up, although that's plenty of fun too. ;-) Here's a link to Bungie's Marathon2 page. The screenshots they have up there really don't do much justice to the game though. They probably put some low rez stuff up there for faster downloading's sake.

This is also a favorite past-time in team fortress, a quake I mod.

My windows freinds who were Quake heads who came and watched (and joined) us playing were blown away.

I just downloaded the demo, I'll install it tonight (see, you made me look :-)

I personally know three people who bought a power PC for the sole purpose of playing Marathon.

I know of people who buy Macs simply because they have the colour of fruit. I have never been impressed with the amount of thought people put into buying a Mac.

I didn't mean to turn this into a whole "bash doom and quake" thing,

It is amazing that it came to that at all, with your remark that "At the time, all my PC friends were playing doom2 (YAWN!) then quake came out. Still looked like crap next to M2". It's a crazy world I guess....

I've never heard of Marathon2, but judging by the responses here, I can see the most probably reason why. This was "initially" a MAC game. I've never had a MAC, and only used a MAC when I was 13 in school (Macintosh IIe, if memory serves me correctly.)

Looking at Bungie's site, I see Marathon2 was released for Win95 in late 1996. This explains why I've never heard of it. I was too busy playing Quake and Command & Conquer at that time.

If you're looking for innovation in gaming, you might try Bungie. They're the guys who wrote Myth and Myth II, which basically did something nobody's done before. Ditto for their upcoming projects, Oni and Halo. Cool things there, you might want to check them out and see if they fit your profile of a "new" game.

If you're looking for innovation in gaming, you might try Bungie. They're the guys who wrote Myth and Myth II, which basically did something nobody's done before. Ditto for their upcoming projects, Oni and Halo. Cool things there, you might want to check them out and see if they fit your profile of a "new" game.

If you're looking for innovation in gaming, you might try Bungie. They're the guys who wrote Myth and Myth II, which basically did something nobody's done before. Ditto for their upcoming projects, Oni and Halo. Cool things there, you might want to check them out and see if they fit your profile of a "new" game.

One error I noticed in the story...Brazil had previously banned the car racing game "Carmaggedon" which the article refers to as "Armageddon"

One final note...I think this too shall pass. Does anyone besides me remember about 9 or 10 years ago, when Dungeons & Dragons was all over the news because some kids had used a sword to kill one of their neighbors and they played D&D all the time? This same type of hysteria and irrational attacks that focus on video games now focused on D&D then. Quite a few schools banned it from being played. Guess what? D&D is still here. 10 years from now, violent video games will still be here, and the level of detail will be incredible. Check here if you want to see what level of realism video games will be attaining next summer.

This hysteria shall pass, and shall come again some other time. Kinda like Halley's comet, only more frequent and quite a bit more annoying.

As a note, the Rev 2 G4's (supposedly due sometime in April/May) will have 4x AGP... I'm still building a fantasy system based on the nVidia simply because Halo by Bungie is supposed to be a supporter - but we'll see... 2 GB of VRAM certainly sounds impressive !

For all the moaning about windows 9x, I bet there's a lot of people with more than one boot option in LILO :)

IMHO the games to watch this and next year:

Homeworld

and

Halo

Since Loki worked with Bungie already by porting Myth 2 (my favorite game) to Linux, I can only hope they do the same with Halo (another bungie title).

My only concern is will Xfree continue to support nVidia's newest cards (haven't seen the newest release of xfree, so I don't know whether or not it has drivers for GeForce yet...), but the glaring lack of support for 3dfx cards in the version of xfree that shipped with my Red Hat 6.0 is a bit disconcerting....

Then, there's the fact that Linux remains rather rudimentary. At least compared to a highly polished GUI like Mac OS 9.0. Then there's the shortage of aps...

I have used UNIX for close to 2 decades so I know what a real OS is, but there is something to be said for ease of use over a command line driven OS...

Even the graphical assistants in Gnome are confusing, I clicked on /dev the other day and nothing even remotely resembling a drive appeared (dev1a?) anyhow. Linux has a LONG LONG LONG LONG way to go before it can compete with Mac OS. *Especially* with OS X shipping with BSD UNIX next year. Hard to beat that combo.

I, however, want to be a beliver, so I'll have to dress up my Linux Box with a pretty LCD, and state of the art hardware, much the same way one would drap silk and pearls over a homely wife -- if only she'd lose just_a_bit_more_weight.

-R