4.29.000

Some days it's so good to be alive.

New Halo preview at gamecenter.com with glorious new screenshots.

Coincidentally, if you followed the thread about gore in the HBO forums I always took it for granted that it would have a gore level akin to Myth. Ala bodies blown to pieces, blood trails, intensely violent battles. Now I'm not so sure. It would be kind of a bitch to have the nicest 3d card with the fastest box on earth and not see human and alien tissue ripped into a carion black mess. I personally feel it brings a real dimension to any "violent" video game to have that level of authenticity. (it's one of the reasons I prefer Quake 3 to Unreal Tourn...and if you haven't seen the shots for the mish pack click here. Bliss)

2 more weeks till E3. Halo better friggin' not be behind closed doors.

4.24.000

More info has surfaced on the new Iain M Banks Culture book Look to Windward. This is from Amazon.co.uk It's worth noting that the hardcover edition's release date has been pushed up to June 1!!!!

It was one of the less glorious incidents of the Idiran wars that led to the destruction of two suns and the billions of lives they supported. Now, 800 years later, the light from the first of those deaths has reached the Culture's Masaq' Orbital. A Chelgrian emissary is dispatched to the Culture.

Sounds like a typically amazing Banks book is on the way ^_^ Actually this could pass for an interesting aside from Marathon. hmmm the plot thickens again +_+

4.07.000

Well by now everyone has hopefully seen those new Gamestar Halo movies... Pretty neat although I'll still be interested to sit down and try it. Over at the halo.bungie.org forums there was talk of nightly Halo net games and that the story was still in development.

Some Halo unrelated news yet very cool nonethe less is that DARPA has begun work on an actual Soldier Exoskelleton project. Although nothing is done this is rather interesting that DARPA may actually think this is conceivable. My thoughts were that this was always not a practical solution for anything other than zero or low grav enviros but if I'm wrong.... sweet. God I love ARPA/DARPA ^_^ (Oh I spotted this via the Steve Jackson games home page, whom if you remember, is potentially working on some new "secret" Bungie GURPs projects. GURPs in itself is my fav pen/paper game of all time.)

The Paducah lawsuit was dropped. Micosoft headed for the mighty lathe of anti-trust. It's been a pretty good week ^_^

3.29.000

Another month closer to Halo. ^_^

That elusive purveyor of disinformation and rumor Matt Soell has "clarified" a recent leak about Halo changing directions on the halo.bungie.org forums. The good news is combat seems to be implemented and will be at E3.

E3 this year looks to be a pretty good one. Titles I'm hopeful for include:

• Halo
• Deus Ex(for Mac...it was mentioned by Warren Spector that he's seen it up and running and is being ported by Westlake.)
• Phantasy Star Online (Yuji Naka's revolutionary new RPG for Dreamcast)
• Jet Set Radio (fastest game on the planet with any luck)
• Sonic Adventure 2
• Gun Griffon Blaze (The great Saturn game defects to Sony)
• Any new Treasure games that find their way to US shores ^_^

3.15.000

I've added a some more possible Iain M Banks ties to Halo. These were spawned from a thread I was in on the halo.bungie.org message boards. You can read the thread here. I also added a page on the sniper rifle.

Playstation 2 is out in Japan. Too bad there's no games I want for it yet :(

Oni seems to be lingering somewhere on the edge of oblivion. It'll come out one day I suppose. In the mean time I have been orienting myself with the frustrations of Windoze life. Making maps for Quake3 using a PC is such an excercise in frustration... Quake 3 Radiant has got to be one of the slowest, buggiest pieces o' crap editors I've ever used. The results are nice but it takes longer than it should to get what you want. Here's to hoping the Halo editor demolishes it. Anvil and Forge in retrospect were some of the best map development tools I ever used.

Oddly enough I was thinking about which game developers are worth a damn to me anymore... it was a short list. Warren Spector's Deus Ex is definitely the game I want to play more than anything other than Halo. Shiny is also really good. I'm looking forward to the Dreamcast version of Messiah intensely ^_^ and that is really it from the USA. There's a few ass kicking shops like Treasure, Game Arts, Sega, Sonic Team and few other promising new shops like Deep Space but that's it. Either I've gotten more cynical and jaded or I'm just gettin' old :)- We'll see what E3 has to offer...

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