Slashdot Mirror

Jeremy Parish writes "Bungie has finally announced that Halo 2 will ship this Fall for Xbox, as relayed via 1UP. But to make up for this semi-distant release date, they've released the first Halo 2 multiplayer screen!" Over at Halo.bungie.org, they point out a Bungie development update noting the new screenshot is "...entirely representative of the lighting, polygon counts, bump-mapping and particle effects", and also refer to the original Bungie.net announcement, clarifying: "A number of people have been confused by the title of this news item. The game is NOT named 'Halo 2: In Reach of Fall'. This is just a reference to the title of novel The Fall of Reach.)"

Thanks to Bungie.net for their interview with the creators of a painstakingly-crafted real-life reproduction of Master Chief's Mjolnir armor, as originally seen in Bungie's noted FPS Halo. The interview comes with exclusive pictures, and the official Nightmare Armor site also has pictures from their previous armor reproduction project, the Deepeyes armor from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The armor creators discuss the "good amount of time and devotion [it takes] to complete an entire armor costume", but the guys at Bungie conclude the article with a bang: "After seeing the kind of passion and dedication that the guys at Nightmare Armor had put into the Halo armor project, we were too embarrassed to tell them that in Halo 2, Master Chief's costume will be made of dyed mink fur."

jnguy writes "According to Reuters, Ed Fries, Microsoft's game studio head, has resigned. The last major person to leave Microsoft in this fashion was Seamus Blackley. I wonder if this has any other meaning - I've seen Fries at many of Microsoft's parties and launch events, and consider him one of the biggest figures in Xbox history." CNN Money has further information on Fries' departure, noting that "he plans to remain in the gaming industry", and commenting that he was "actively involved in the development and launch of the Xbox gaming system and oversaw the acquisition of several major game developers, including Bungie Software... and Rare." They also have comments from Fries himself, as he muses on his future: "I'm looking for a situation where I have a lot of freedom around the development of our products and the way those products come to market. I've had some of that to date, but not as much as I would like."

Thanks to Bungie.net for their feature commemorating the second anniversary of Halo's Xbox debut. The piece starts: "What started life as a pseudo real-time-strategy game for the Apple Mac has turned into the number-one-selling Xbox game of all time and a driving force behind much of the console's overall success", and goes on to elicit Ed Fries of Microsoft's remembrances of the scary moments ("Our first E3 press event went REALLY bad. The Xbox didn't even power up. Halo was the grand finale and we had some serious framerate issues and hiccups"), and the Bungie developers, fans and media's favorite anecdotes ("Halo rage is a beautiful thing. My plaster walls are free from damage now, but the amount of controllers I go through is atrocious.")

Thanks to Halo.bungie.org for their story collating download sources for a new Halo 2 movie from Microsoft's X03 exhibition in France, unfortunately filmed shakycam-style, but showing 7 minutes of a previously unseen Halo 2 'making-of' piece, including lots of interviews and new footage. Xboxyde.com has captured some screenshots from the approx. 50mb movie, showing off the due-in-2004 Xbox killer app.

Scorpion_1169 writes "According to Bungie.org, Microsoft/Gearbox's long-awaited version of Halo for the PC has gone gold, and is scheduled to hit store shelves on September 30th." There's also an interview with Bungie producer Michel Bastien over at Bungie.net, answering questions such as who might have leaked a Beta version of Halo online ("Nah, we don't know who it was. It really sucks because this build was not the most glorious build we've put together"), and the existence of easter eggs ("Like the Xbox game, you want to play through 'The Maw' on Legendary. We've got a couple of well-kept surprises, which, hopefully, we can roll out in the future...")

CobaltNova writes "Several weeks ago we announced the 2003 Rockets on Prisoner awards, recognizing cinematic excellence in Halo movie making. Seeking to distinguish the most creative of Halo fans, the awards have now come to a conclusion, and it is time to announce the winners. We're also pleased to announce another Halo fan-film aficionado and sponsor: Bungie themselves, who are donating a prize pack to the winners."

An anonymous reader writes "With the ever-increasing popularity of Halo videogame fan-videos and machinima, Cobaltnova.com has launched the first ever Rockets on Prisoner awards: 'Cobaltnova is proud to present the first annual Rockets on Prisoner awards that recognize outstanding achievement for Halo related movies. And you get to pick the winners!'. With the nomination process already complete, the online voting will continue until midnight (PST) on August 9th, before a certified public accountant will announce the winners. Those expected to do well include Randy Glass, maker of the famous Warthog Jump, the increasingly popular FTC collective, who have 6 incredibly funny and fresh videos, and, of course, the well known fan favorites Red vs Blue. Most of the videos can be found for judging by flipping through the six nomination categories, or numerous mirror sites."

jaywhy writes "Bungie have just unleashed a high resolution, Dolby 5.1 video of actual gameplay in Halo 2. This isn't the shaky cam-filmed version you saw at E3 - all I have to say is 'wow'! O1 Communications also has BitTorrent links to the videos." Apparently, this may be similar to the earlier leaked in-game footage, but officially approved and at a much higher quality.

Thanks to several people for pointing out that the official Halo PC FAQ at Bungie.net has been updated. This relatively new FAQ includes info on a playable demo ("shortly after the game is released") and Mac version ("..in the capable hands of our friends at MacSoft and Westlake Interactive.. scheduled for a near simultaneous release with the PC version"), as well as previously-released info such as PC multiplayer-exclusive Fuel Rod Guns and Rocket Launcher Warthogs. In related news, Shacknews put out an interview with Gearbox president Randy Pitchford a couple of days back, offering a bunch of extra information on the PC debut of this originally-for-PC title.

Thanks to several readers for pointing out Take Two's financial results for Q2 2003, as the owner of the Rockstar, Gotham Games, and Gathering labels had a 58 percent increase in profit, largely due to Rockstar's massive Grand Theft Auto franchise and the new Midnight Club 2. The accompanying earnings conference call had a question about Duke Nukem Forever coming out in 2003, which the CEO answered: "for this holiday season.. no.. we're just hopeful that the team in Dallas will finish it." Also trailed was "a significant Xbox game" from Rockstar to release in Q1 2004 (GTA, anyone?), and that one of Gathering's (PC?) titles is using the Halo engine. Finally, there was another mention of Rockstar North's mysterious Manhunt - an even darker, more twisted game from the GTA developers?

smelialichu writes "According to this news article, Halo is finally on its way to the PC and Mac. Gearbox is handling the PC version, and Westlak Interactive is working on the Mac version, but it won't be released untill next summer. The official announcement says "Halo for PC is expected to be available in summer 2003. The Macintosh version is also expected to be available in 2003. Additional information regarding game content, features and enhancements will be announced at a later date." We can only assume they have some cool new features up their sleeves, maybe we'll be seeing Halo with even better graphics, optimized for the new Radeon? Anyway, this is certainly a huge relief to many gamers who thought they may never see Halo on their home PC's."

iMacGuy writes: "As announced on Bungie.net, the Myth 2 Internet Server will be shutting down on February 15. However, they have released the source code. It runs on Linux currently, and can be ported to Windows, *BSD, and Mac OS X."

iMacGuy writes: "As announced on Bungie.net, the Myth 2 Internet Server will be shutting down on February 15. However, they have released the source code. It runs on Linux currently, and can be ported to Windows, *BSD, and Mac OS X."