FinishTheFight
Latest
Halo 3 ran (so far away)
Bungie's Weekly Update this past Friday was all about atmosphere and flocks of seagulls. Frankie dished the dirt on how the environments in Halo 3 apply the real world physics behind what makes the sky blue, Rayleigh and Mie Scattering, which in turn gives distant objects that realistically faded tint. Following that, he continues his obsession with the water effects, going into extensive detail of a waterfall and the dynamic changes in the flow of H2O from the start to finish. Next up, he described the use of "flocking" behavior in air battles taking place in the far distance. That being said, when you're in aerial combat, the enemy AI will be in full force. Even so, apparently if you fire a rocket and get lucky, you can even hit some of the distant crafts. Also on the subject of "flocking", the artists have been putting some time into adding birds into the game, primarily seagulls and a form of cockatoo. They currently fly in packs of about 50 or so, and can be individually shot, if you want a closer look at the model. Well, that's enough blabbing on our part, if you want to hear more of what Frankie had to say about Halo 3's progress, click the "Read" link to go to the article.
Halo 3 meets Battlezone in Bungie's update
Bungie's Weekly Update brought forth many details about Halo 3's progress, especially on the graphical front. From glass shaders, to foliage reacting convincingly to its environment, to realistic water effects, things are definitely looking good for our flagship franchise. A cool tool they've been toying around with is the ability to toggle a vector outline view of the game, pictured above. On the audio side of things, Marty has been busy in LA recording dialog from various voice actors. In terms of gameplay audio, they go into detail about how gunfire, for example, has two samples, based on proximity, and how the fade from one to the other depending how far you are from the firefight. There are a bunch of cool details available for you to digest, so click the "Read" link and get yourself stoked.
Bungie owns up to Halo 2's flaws
Edge Online posted an interview with Bungie, where various team members discuss Halo 3, the development process and other aspects of the team's infrastructure. One thing has seemingly stood out from the article, though, and that is their view on Halo 2. The comments from Technical Lead Chris Butcher seem to be generating the most buzz. He feels that the team miscalculated on Halo 2 and that the multiplayer should have been exponentially better than what was released on the disc. He even goes so far as to say that he can't even play Halo 2, and uses that as a springboard to illustrate that Halo 3 will not fall into the same trap. Bungie has been known to be hyper critical of their own work in the past. While their opinions may be a little on the extreme side, if it motivates them to make Halo 3 the best it can be, then everybody wins. So, what do you think? Was Halo 2 really that bad? It still set the standard of how party matchmaking should be done, right? To have a look at the rest of the interview, which touches on many things other than what was wrong with Halo 2, click the "Read" link.[Thanks, KilgoreTrout]
Halo 3 Beta invites sent by Friday [update 1]
Tipster Jonah sent a bombshell to Fanboy Towers: Bungie has announced when the first wave of Halo 3 Beta invites will be sent to lucky fans. According to the official site, participants can expect to receive the key in the mail between today, January 22nd and Friday, January 26th. The beauty of this time frame is that it takes place a week before the 3 hour killtacular option comes into play, and those interested will know ahead of time if they need to re-enlist at 3:01 AM EST on February 1st on the 5th. The site also confirms that those who registered in "Phase 1" and are not emailed by Friday are able to give it another shot for "Phase 2", which will have invites sent out by the end of February.If you're lucky number 13,334 or above, you still have Crackdown as a final attempt to get into the coveted beta test. So, if any of you fellow fanboys get an email this week, let us know. If not, then give your gamertags so we can make a party out of the morning of Feb 1st.[Thanks, Jonah Falcon] Update: Apparently, according to halo3.com, the actual registering for "Phase 2" opens on February 5th. This gives you all three days to amass three hours of actual play time, should lobby time etc. not count towards your tally. It also allows gamers to get proper sleep, rather than playing through the night in an effort to be within the first 13,333 registrants that same morning.
Halo 3 tune finishes the fight on iTunes, not Zune
Bungie has announced that Marty O'Donell's score from the Halo 3 E3 trailer (not the "starry night" commercial ... or its remixes) titled "Finish the Fight" is now available on Apple's iTunes Music Store for the going rate of $0.99 (with free DRM!). What's interesting is that there's no mention -- and no sign -- of the song's availability on Microsoft's recently launched (and much ballyhooed) Zune Music Store Marketplace (you can use your Microsoft points in there). We normally wouldn't mention it if dogfooding wasn't such an important part of Microsoft's corporate culture. Quick, somebody tell Bungie.[Via X360F]Read -- Bungie news postingListen -- iTunes Music Store link
