Tag: halo (Page 3 of 6)

Halo content planned for the next six years

October 9, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

I forgot to mention this very large and intrusive piece of information from the USA Today article comparing Halo to Star Wars. According to Frank O’Connor, the former Bungie guy who now heads up 343 Industries, the Halo division at Microsoft, the adventures of Master Chief have been planned six years into the future.

“Eventually, it will become very apparent that there is a plan for the way the canon all ties together and the way the comic books and the novels all tie together,” O’Connor said. I’m kinda curious what that means. Is there some nefarious plan lurking behind a story line that could have been really epic if it weren’t so poorly handled? Have I overlooked some love connection between Master Chief and the Gravemind? Tell me your secrets, Frankie!

At the very least we can all rest assured that Microsoft can still spot the gigantic glowing cash cow sitting right in front of it. The very minute you get tired of the latest Halo there’s sure to be another, even if it is a glorified expansion, flying off shelves at $60 a pop.

PC, Previews, Xbox 360

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Is Halo really the new Star Wars?

October 8, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

There’s an odd little article on USA Today this week that suggests Halo is trying to mimic Star Wars in its spin-offs and merchandising. If you want to see some numbers for the franchise it’s a good read, but the article is missing a crucial link: how comic books + action figures + books + sequels + movies = Star Wars.

To be fair, I understand the correlation. Few story worlds have captured public imagination quite like Halo has, but there have been enough of those things lately to realize that Star Wars was no unique phenomenon. Bear with me people. If you take a look at what I’ll call popular story worlds today, they have all been marketed in similar fashion across various media. Harry Potter has spinoff books, figures, video games, children’s toys, and on and on. Lord of the Rings has a similar brand identity. Twilight has completely changed the town in which the story takes place, taking it from a small town to a major tourist location.

What we might be able to say more accurately is that Star Wars is the first of these popular-story-worlds-turned-moneymaking-machines that has survived into the modern age. Comic book heroes took their sweet time getting here, and Lord of the Rings was so long in the making, the movies that is, that many thought it would never happen. But George Lucas did a great job turning Star Wars into more than just a great movie trilogy.

As long as people can find a way to monetize a story, we’ll be hearing this argument. Is it the next Harry Potter? The next Twilight? The next Lord of the Rings? It’s not any of those things, just the next enchanting narrative that got exploited for mass consumption.

Games in Media

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Ex-Bungie vets form Moonshot Games

October 7, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

As Halo nears the end of its Bungie-led storyline, it looks like the team behind the series is looking toward their own futures. Three of those guys decided to jump ship prior to the release of Halo: Reach and form their own studio, Moonshot Games.

The company is brand new – they haven’t even tweeted yet! – so all they’ve got is an impressive resume and a reasonable mission statement. “Led by a small team of experienced industry veterans, Moonshot is pledged to the exploration and development of high-quality downloadable games.” Lofty ideals indeed. Whatever the firm’s first project, I think it’s safe to guess it won’t involve space marines, alien zealots, or ancient-ring-like-planet-destroying-weapons. Yeah, none of those.

News

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Microsoft Adds Another 250GB Bundle

September 17, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

Microsoft has announced another 250GB bundle for the Xbox 360. This one includes Forza 3 though without a customized console like we found in the Modern Warfare 2 bundle. Unfortunately for you US types, the bundle will only be available in the UK and South Africa.

This is the third in a pretty sweet lineup of 360 bundles over the past few days, obviously designed to compete with the 250GB PS3 bundles Sony has been showing. The bundles have some strange differences, though, and not just with regard to region.

The Halo bundle, for instance, forgoes the 250GB hard drive, something that would be great for all those Bungie Pro users looking to save additional game content locally, for a copy of Halo 3. The Modern Warfare 2 bundle seems to be the only one with a customized console, but it doesn’t include customized controllers. And of course there is the region issue. Why some and not others? Why not standardize these things across the board? And for god’s sake, why won’t they sell the 250GB unit as a separate periph?

As the holidays loom closer I’ll be interested to see what else comes out of Redmond. More bundles, or just more tweaks to the existing SKUs?

Previews, Xbox 360

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Reading Material: Josh Olson On Script Reading

September 13, 2009 / Jeff Morgan

This isn’t exactly news, but it drubbed up an old dream that I might see a Halo movie before 2010. I found this article through a post on TechCrunch by the illustrious Michael Arrington. The article is written by Josh Olson, who you may remember as a potential writer for the Halo script. He was also nominated for a whole slew of awards for his 2006 screenplay, A History of Violence.

The article is a good read, but it makes it all the more depressing to think that a guy like Olson was actually going to pen the script for the Halo movie. I think any movie set in the Halo universe has incredible potential. It’s soul-crushing to see all of the talent involved in the project, and then think it might not get off the ground.

Speaking of involved talent, you should see District 9 if you haven’t. Great flick, and it was written by Neil Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson. Sigh.