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Woots! Good catch, MM. Games could've used this too, as DB reminds me.

(Btw, when I got my 360 back, for some reason I was never able to acept your clan invite and it ran out. Maybe I need to complete a campaign game with the [MA] Bat profile or sumfin'... )

I bet. Meat life has ramped up again and I have not the moneys for Crackdown, so I won't be playing much of anything except probably H2V when it ships, and Campaign mostly at that. Anyway now H3 itself isn't too far off.

Meanwhile I'll try to find a way to accept the invite. I did figure out the way to tour the MP maps by starting my own games and just touring...

...too bad I'm two years late. It's what I got XBL for, back when.

I'm guessing around...

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...two days after the autumnal equinox. Thank goodsness I already have my 360ess... ness-itu- ahh, you know by now.

And stuff.

I remember one of the Halo 2 dates being in september and then october. Plus Microsoft has a long track record of pushing back release dates. Vista anyone? How about Halo 3 Beta?

Off topic: I get to play the beta tonight. w00t!

Bat wrote:

Zander wrote:

I remember one of the Halo 2 dates being in september and then october.

I don't... linkies? (Anyway.. you remember one date being in two different months?! )

Plus Microsoft has a long track record of pushing back release dates. Vista anyone?

More important than MS', world's biggest software peddler's, overall record is the state of H3. Almost everything I've seen, read and can infer leads me to think that the game's in pretty good shape. It needs polishing, but tho buggy, is content-complete enough for Frankie to be touring Yerp now, getting prelim age ratings.

Off topic: I get to play the beta tonight. w00t!

Lucky http://homepage.mac.com/oatmeal/MAF/maxes/shakefist.gif... I mean, good for you. Really. I've gotta wait.

Correction: then another in November. I don't have links it was just the pre order dates I saw on Wal Mart.com and Amazon.

You make a good point. Hopefully H3 goes off without a hitch.

The beta was great. I loved the new weapons and special items. The portable gravity lift is by far my favorite special edition to "weaponry." The man cannon was also a lot of fun. I was playing around on the level and all of a sudden a warthog tore up the ramp. The two guys manning it drove it into the cannon and shot themselves across the map. I later did it myself. I did a perfect front flip and then landed on a hill. It was glorious.

Zander wrote:

Correction: then another in November. I don't have links it was just the pre order dates I saw on Wal Mart.com and Amazon.

Well, you know you can't trust them, or you'd've finished Duke 4ever years ago.

You make a good point. Hopefully H3 goes off without a hitch.

I'm sure they'd like still more time, but the first two games were majorly rushed. This one feels only... well, they put it like this, Frankie and Exec Producer Jonty Barnes:

Q: Previously, making games at Bungie has been described as “trying to assemble a cathedral in a hurricane,” does this metaphor apply to Halo 3’s process? Give us your own, appropriately British and erudite metaphor to describe Halo 3’s development cycle this time?

A: Hmm… it’s more like a swarm of ants devouring a food mountain at a picnic with rain clouds heading towards us.

This time around the team is bigger and more coordinated, the goals are known but the scope is greater than we’re used to, and irrespective of being far more organized it’s not without chaotic elements looming… not least September 25th.

Q: In terms of snack foods, how crunchy is a Bungie Crunch?

A: Like a meteor hitting a sea of Doritos.

Sounds like crunch time for 3 will be less crunchy than the first two, anyway. Another bit of interest supporting that (at least some of this will probably get into Games sooner or later...):

...Now for confession time: In Halo 2, we simply didn’t have the time or resources to make the cinematics the way we wanted them to be. They were compromised by deadlines and resources and while the results were heroic and herculean achievements of hard work and talent, they simply weren’t as polished or pretty as we wanted them to be. This time, no hurdles got in our way. Cinematics has had all the lovin’ it needs.

For starters, there’s a bigger team, a team that has had the final cinematic script for much longer, and now has access to vastly more tools, resources and technology than ever before. These range from new tools for rigging facial animation, to better lighting and camera controls. Most of the improvements are a solid blend of technology and manpower this time around, and we hope the fruits of that labor end up as succulent as they look now.

Seeing Sergeant Johnson’s face in the Halo 3 cinematics (there are differences in detail and post-processing effects) is a revelation. Using tools on site, our cinematics guys are able to achieve not only proper lip-syncing, but easily rig facial expressions too. In Halo 2, some of that was actually handled by programmers, including Sgt. Johnson’s, and I quote, “Amorous” permutation in the tank delivery scene in Halo 2. Now, there’s a running gag in game development called, “Programmer Art” where a programmer puts in some placeholder art until an artist can get to it. Bur programmer emotion? Surely that’s pushing some sort of envelope?

Well this time the emotions and lighting are being handled by a team of 35 animators and cinematics guys only. And they’re not scrubs. We have folks who’ve worked on movies like Shrek, King Kong, Gollum from LOTR and more. So, no compromises. It will still look like game engine (with the aforementioned enhancements, like depth of field and higher levels of detail) but it’s just going to be better.

Dialog is all recorded and implemented, but seeing the properly modeled and animated characters speaking it is a breath of fresh air. Recent builds have had low-res, unlit heads with broken necks speaking the lines, or worse, the line being automatically recited by a robot speech synthesizer. It’s actually pretty sophisticated until it tries to parse the word, “Mmmmhmm.”

(But that's practically Sarge's favorite word! )

Perhaps more enticingly, I watched storyboard and cinematics cheery, chirpy, cockney -blam!-parrow, Lee Wilson lighting a familiar character who never, ever looked so good. Too good in fact. “Yeah, guv’nor,” says Lee in his jarring Pygmalionesque pidgin, “She ort to ‘ave ‘er shaders fixed, or she don’t arf look nude. I don’t mind the raspberry ripples meself, but Mrs. Wilson would ‘ave a roight fit.”

And right behind him, Dorje, one of our amazingly talented artists, was putting the finishing touches to the skybox to end all skyboxes. Let’s just say it might have something to do with the amazing space battle Kurt Nellis (a genius who we swiped from ILM) is working on. Everything is starting to look polished and pretty.

That probably goes for the story too, but we would say that. I think the way our cinematics close this chapter of the trilogy will be one of the more memorable aspects of Halo 3, and put the bookends on a Campaign game that’s becoming something special.

====

The beta was great. I loved the new weapons and special items. The portable gravity lift is by far my favorite special edition to "weaponry." The man cannon was also a lot of fun. I was playing around on the level and all of a sudden a warthog tore up the ramp. The two guys manning it drove it into the cannon and shot themselves across the map. I later did it myself. I did a perfect front flip and then landed on a hill. It was glorious.

Many folks getting sniped, lasered or otherwise shot out of the sky?

elpato84 wrote:

I like the beta. That one snow level (can't remember the name right now) is by far my favorite.

IIRC, Snowbound, Valhalla and High Ground. I <heart> the Forerunner look of Valhalla, but that'll be a stronger thing in Campaign.

http://www.bungie.net/projects/halo3/as … amp;item=1 (click for full res)

http://www.bungie.net/projects/halo3/as … amp;item=2

Don't forget the FAQ, now:

Hostile conditions did not prevent the Covenant from seeking salvage on this buried Forerunner construct. Snowy wastes are a dangerous place to be caught in the open, but the chilly underground vaults, grafted to a buried Forerunner structure, are no safer.

Snowbound is a flexible space, but best suited to Slayer and Skirmish games, although it is big enough for vehicles to pick up speed – as long as they’re careful not to head past its automated perimeter defenses. Doing so on foot is suicidal – the turret guns, if you stray too far, will make short work of you. Try not to let yourself get backed out there.

Snowbound Yeah, looks pretty sweet too.

I have yet to be miraculously sniped by anyone when I didn't think I could be sniped, so all is well.

Z's aimbot on the Fritz? Tracks not playing?

Oh, and

Scary Cortana
Another cool little egg on High Ground - this one has been mentioned before, but it took Foxcross and Ibeechu to get a film out to you guys. That same computer console that plays Morse Code also has some video footage... and if you don't blink, you get a nice look at a pretty scary Cortana. Hmm... (Louis Wu 14:08:11 UTC)

Hmm indeed!

http://halo.bungie.org/news.html?item=18673