Animatronic Halo Elite Costume Will Have You Screaming “Wart, Wart, Wart!”

courtesy of devicemag
We’ve seen home made costumes from many videogame series. Most use cardboard boxes and paint, the guys at PeteMander GFX went above and beyond to make this suit as realistic as possible.

Standing at least 7 feet tall, this mountainous suit would make any Master Chief wannabe wet his own pants.

And here is a brief making of video …

Canceled Halo MMORPG?!?

courtesy of incgamers.com

Monk revealed to IncGamers that, from 2004 to 2007, he spent all of his time working on a project codenamed Titan, which you might know better as the cancelled MMO set in the Halo universe.

"It was going to be the Halo MMO, and it was absolutely going to compete against WoW," reminisced Monk.

"You have to remember that Ensemble came from a standpoint of being really good at competing against Blizzard Entertainment," he noted, drawing comparisons between the success of the Warcraft series and the success of the Age of Empires series. "We had a pretty good history of knowing the types of stuff that Blizzard put into their games to make them really successful, and the kinds of things we'd need to put into an MMO to compete against Blizzard."

"Just to give you a couple of examples," Monk elaborated, "we were using a heroic stylised artform. This heroic stylised artform is exactly the artform that you see being used in Star Wars: The Old Republic right now. It's timeless. It doesn't age itself like a game that's built with a strictly realistic artform does."

"We were developing a cover system. This cover system is in Star Wars: The Old Republic. We had the idea of quests - and like I said, this was between 2004 and 2007, before Warhamer Online had been released - but we had this idea of quests where you could participate and pull them together without having to be on the same team. This would be a public quest that everyone in a particular area could work on. That idea went into Warhammer Online."

Monk also notes that, since Ensemble's closure, a number of Ensemble staffers have since moved to Blizzard - not least of all Greg Street, known to World of Warcraft fans as Ghostcrawler.

"We had all this incredible talent, we had the right people, the right passion, we had a phenomenally successful IP - the Halo IP. We were going back in time for the Halo franchise to broaden the story a little bit, in the exact same way that Star Wars has gone back in time so they can tell a more broad story, and we had a company that had our back when we started and the funding to put together that type of project."

So what happened to the Halo MMO? "There was a bit of a changing of the guard at Microsoft at this time," explains Monk. "Microsoft, from its gaming division, was really changing directions. They were looking really hard at the Nintendo Wii and they were really excited by the numbers that the Wii was turning. This was about the time that Microsoft decided that its Xbox platform and XBLA really needed to go more in the direction of appealing to a more casual, broader audience."

"So part of this changing of the guard at Microsoft came along with the changing of the attitude to this very expensive, very long and very protacted $90 million USD project we were working on, which was Titan. To cut a long story short, Titan was closed down."

Today, though, Monk is still optimistic about the chances the MMO would've had.

"Even though a lot of people talk about how you just can't build a WoW killer, I absolutely believe that we could have built an MMO, if Microsoft had maintained their commitment, that if it hadn't been a WoW killer it certainly would've competed."

Stay tuned for our full interview with Dusty Monk later this week, with plenty of discussion about gaming, MMOs, Ensemble, and - of course - Monk's own Windstorm Studios.

Halo 3 Jumps

PAX '09 (Part 1)

So far, PAX '09 is freakin AWESOME! There are so many games to play and free swag that a person could almost spend the entire three days in the Exhibit Hall. Which is only part of 1 of 6 floors of gaming goodness! Here are some pics that I took during my first day. We playtested Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Starcraft II. Both were great! It's only the first day, so there will be plenty more to come.

PAX '09 Badges

Waiting for doors to open on Day 1

WTF!?!?!?

Master Chief!!!

Crimson Viper from 'Street Fighter IV'

Diablo 3!!!

Free online FPS 'Combat Arts'

'Army of Men'

'Upper Deck Entertainment' Booth

'Battlefield: Bad Company 2'

Entrance to 'Battlefield: Bad Company 2' play area

Screenshot of 'Battlefield: Bad Company 2'

'Starcraft II' play area

Moose surprises everyone by choosing Protoss for 'Starcraft II' demo (sarcasm)

"I don't care what you do. Just don't bother Daddy while he's playing 'Starcraft II'. Now get lost!"

'Divinity II' booth

Master Chief... again!

Katamari - sucks!

N8 & Moose chillin in rest area

Cos play... everywhere

Best Buy is having a Great Sale on Xbox Games, PS3 Next Week

courtesy of Ben Kuchera of arstechnica.com

In the mood to spend some money? Best Buy is running a rather insane deal, where you get 50 percent off certain Xbox 360 titles by purchasing the first game at the full price, and the list of games that qualify for the deal is rather stunning. Some of the titles aren't even out yet, so if you were planning on picking up both Halo 3: ODST and Modern Warfare 2, you can save $30 on the deal by getting them together through Best Buy.

A partial list of games and prices is included after the jump, and I'm guessing you'll be able to find at least two games you've been meaning to pick up.

$60 Games:

• Halo 3: ODST (pre-order) $60
• Fallout 3 $60
• Resident Evil 5 $60
• Madden NFL 10 $60
• Batman: Arkham Asylum $60
• Call Of Duty: World at War $60
• Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 (pre-order) $60
• UFC 2009 Undisputed $60
• Many More

$40 Games

• Halo 3 $40
• Fable II $40
• Halo Wars $40
• Gears Of War 2 $40
• Grand Theft Auto IV $40
• Many More

$30 Games

• Far Cry 2 $30
• Bioshock $30
• Dead Space $30
• Tom Clancy's EndWar $30
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed $30
• Many More

$20 Games

• Madden NFL 2008 $20
• The Orange Box $20
• Mirror's Edge $20
• Battlefield: Bad Company $20
• Tony Hawk's Proving Ground $20
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames $20
• Many More

'Halo 3: ODST' will give Halo 3 Players 3 New Multiplayer Maps

Wondering what the new Halo 3 maps that come with Halo 3: ODST would be like. Well, wonder no more. Lars Bakken Senior Designer at Bungie Studios talks to Gamespot.com about what the new Halo 3 maps will offer players. *video below*



Don't forget... buying Halo: ODST automatically get you an invite into the beta of Halo: Reach!

Halo Figures made out of Clay

courtesy of kotaku

Guy called Antithesis has blended a childhood pastime with an adult interest and come up with this impressive - no, adorable - range of Halo figures, each sculpted from stringy bits of clay.

You can check out these, as well as keep up to date on promised future models, by visiting his website below.

[Primordial Industries]

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Halo Anime?

Microsoft has announced plans to create a series of anime short films based on the Halo universe. Halo Legends will be produced by Microsoft's 343 Industries and is expected to feature "creative direction" from anime pioneer Shinji Aramaki of Appleseed EX Machina fame and Mamoru Oshii, director of the Ghost in the Shell movies.

Read more here and here.

Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack due April 9, Gears 2 Maps due March 30

Halo 3 owners will be happy come April 9 when the new Mythic map pack becomes available. The Mythic map pack, (800 ms points or $9.99 US) will contain Assembly, an open area, circular map located in a Covenant Scarab factory similar to the Halo 2 multiplayer map Midship; Orbital, a map set on a UNSC ship in space; and Sandbox, a crossover between the desert landscape of Sandtrap and the forging flexability of Foundry. Sandbox has 3 different levels that are all connected to one another. A skybubble, ground level, and crypt.

Gears of War 2 owners will also have the Snowblind map pack available (800 ms points or $9.99 US) a few days before Halo 3 owners on March 30. Epic has stated that Snowblind will contain 3 new maps: Grindyard, Courtyard, and Under Hill.

Additional Fee required to play Resident Evil 5 Versus mode

In a move that can only be considered ludicrous, Capcom is making its customers PAY for a multiplayer "versus" mode in it's new release Resident Evil 5. I've personally never heard of a game company charging a fee for a feature that most people consider standard on current generation games, but I guess Capcom has decided to be a rebel on this one.

Resident Evil 5 is the first in the Resident Evil Series that will allow the campaign to be played co-op, which Capcom deserves praise for, but it is the "deathmatch/survival" versus mode that Capcom thinks is worth an additional $5 on Xbox Live Marketplace or PlayStation Network. The higher-ups at Capcom must have been twisting their mustache a many nights to come up with this one. I had to check the date a couple times to make sure it wasn't April Fool's Day.

The bottom line... is that Capcom is on the wrong track with this one. Unless the game was truely intended for multiplayer, multiplayer modes are put into games for lagniappe (French for 'shits and giggles'). Sure people (I have no idea who) will pay for the versus mode, but is that really what Capcom wants to be known for? Releasing a shell of a game. I know... I know... Resident Evil 5 is great! The graphics are wonderful and the co-op campaign... blah, blah, blah, BUT this is just the first step into the realm of pure evil. Evil in the sense that gaming companies will want to start squeezing every single dime they can out of us videogame fanatics. Some argue they are already doing it. If you bought Resident Evil 5 and are reading this, then DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP!!! It's kind of like banging that great looking girl sporting a fever blister without a condom, you'll regret it in the long run.

It's worthy to note that the Resident Evil franchise was never really intended to compete with Halo 3, Killzone 2, and such. As mentioned before, the versus mode in Resident Evil 5 probably falls into the just-put-some-crappy-mulitplayer-mode-together category, people may not be so disheartened, but could you imagine if you had to pay for Halo 3 multiplayer. I'm not even sure if the single player game is worth $60. All of a sudden, the longevity and value of the game you bought goes way down. Either way, epic fail Capcom... epic fail.

Halo Wars sells 1 million units

Most people by now know that Ensemble Studios went the way of the dodo bird, but their final game has proven to be a success. According to Microsoft, over one million units of Halo Wars have been sold and over 2.6 million multiplayer matches played on Xbox Live. Seems as though Ensemble Studio's swan song has been well-recieved by the gaming masses despite the comments from gamers at message boards and forums stating how "average" the gameplay is and how RTS doesn't work on a console. The numbers don't lie.

Halo Wars IS an average RTS when compared to a PC RTS, but if you think like that - then, Halo 3 is also "average" due to the fact that the game is played using a game controller instead of a keyboard and mouse.

The bottom line... is even though Halo Wars is not the most advanced, next-generation RTS game, it is still enjoyable and lets you experience the Halo universe from a different perspective. I personally enjoy the game. It refreshing, and the online co-op is a blast. Plus, everyone is hindered by the awkward controls, so no one is at a disadvantage. Just relax and play the game, or relax and don't. Stop the hate.

Halo 3 user created content (Forge)

When Halo 3 came out, a little known feature called forge was available within the game. Forge is a gameplay mode that allows for both playing and designing multiplayer maps within the preset Halo 3 maps. Options include changing and resetting respawn points, weapon spawn points, weapon timers, vehicle spawns and timers, and adding existing geometry to the map’s existing structure in the form of crates, boxes, fusion coils, gravity lifts, telelporters, turrets, etc. Being kind of basic, it wasn't exactly the most popular feature of Halo 3. I personally viewed it more as a gimmick than an actual feature.

Then the Heroic map pack came out on Dec 11, 2007, and there was a "blank canvas" map type called Foundry that allowed players to basically create levels. Of course, a group of gamers gathered to make the most of the tools that Bungie provided them and some really good maps came out. But... glitches began to leak and the options for map building exponentially increased.

This is the first video in a series of videos that teach how to do some of the forge glitches.

It is possible (with glitches) to have many more options available to map builders. The above picture is from a Lockdown map called "8 emerald legs" that has been forged. Players may marvel at the giant spider above the oil rig, but what is not immediately apparent is that the giant spider is playable. Meaning, you can run on top of, inside of, and around... of... ?!? the spider. It is a display of extraordinary ingenuity. Though not obvious, it IS very playable.

Racing around a halo map is not the first thing that comes to mind when you pop in a Halo 3 disc, but because of forge there are now some interesting race maps created. One of the best is "Quasar". It is fun because not only do you race, but you can also carry a passenger and have then shoot at the other riders. Careful though, they are shooting at you too!

The bottom line... is that despite the primitive tools available in forge, some very crafty, fun-to-play maps can be created. There are many more options available than appear at first glance. And if you are paranoid that Bungie considers this hacking or cracking the game... don't be. They have been on record saying that they love the ingenuity of the forgers out there and that they had no idea it would be as successful as it was. So enjoy.

Forging 101 (Beginner's guide to forging)

Best of Forge Spring/Summer '08
Best of Forge Fall/Winter '08