Halo 3 Message Board

The Xbox Live "Games with Gold" program, which has been dropping a new free game every first and fifteenth of the month, will stick around longer than originally intended. Announced as a "limited-time program," the program will remain an "ongoing benefit" for Xbox Live Gold members on Xbox 360.

Halo 3 is the latest game available for gratis through the program. Download it now and finish the fight from 2007.

Halo 3 is available now on Xbox Live Games with Gold, meaning Gold members can download the game for free until the end of the month. If you've yet to finish the fight (really?), or you just want to finish it all over again, now's the time, Chief.

Xbox Live Gold members will receive free access to a downloadable version of Bungie's Halo 3 in October, months after it was initially revealed as part of Microsoft's Games with Gold program.

Similar to Sony's PlayStation Plus initiative, the Games with Gold promotion gives subscribers two free Xbox 360 games monthly. Capybara Games' Xbox Live Arcade puzzler Might & Magic Heroes joins Halo 3 as part of October's announced lineup.

Previous Games with Gold inductees include Dead Rising 2, Crackdown, and Assassin's Creed 2.

A listing for something called "Bootcamp" has surfaced over on the Korean ratings board GRB. Its description specifically calls out Halo 3 and classifies "Bootcamp" as a PC/Online game.

In a comment to GameFront, Microsoft dismissed any association with Xbox One, which would suggest the new TV series in the works is ruled out. Microsoft also denied any connection with the Reclaimer saga started with Halo 4 in the same statement.

Speculation is this could be a PC port of Halo 3, though Microsoft doesn't seem to be addressing that question either. We've reached out for comment.

Even though Neill Blomkamp already put five months of work into the stalled Halo film project, he's not bitter. In fact, he's still down to work on the film - that is, if he's in control.

"I still really love the world and the universe and the mythology of Halo. If I was given control, I would really like to do that film," Blomkamp told IGN. "But that's the problem. When something pre-exists, there's this idea of my own interpretation versus 150 other people involved with the film's interpretation of the same intellectual property. Then the entire filmgoing audience has their interpretation. You can really live up to or fail in their eyes. That part isn't appealing to me, but the original pieces are appealing."

Blomkamp went on record back in 2009 to say that he wouldn't do the Halo film, even if it was offered to him. Blomkamp drew attention for his trio of Halo 3 short films, eventually all collected in Halo 3: Landfall. The Halo movie was officially postponed in late 2006 after Fox and Universal both pulled out of the project.

Even though Neill Blomkamp already put five months of work into the stalled Halo film project, he's not bitter. In fact, he's still down to work on the film - that is, if he's in control.

"I still really love the world and the universe and the mythology of Halo. If I was given control, I would really like to do that film," Blomkamp told IGN. "But that's the problem. When something pre-exists, there's this idea of my own interpretation versus 150 other people involved with the film's interpretation of the same intellectual property. Then the entire filmgoing audience has their interpretation. You can really live up to or fail in their eyes. That part isn't appealing to me, but the original pieces are appealing."

Blomkamp went on record back in 2009 to say that he wouldn't do the Halo film, even if it was offered to him. Blomkamp drew attention for his trio of Halo 3 short films, eventually all collected in Halo 3: Landfall. The Halo movie was officially postponed in late 2006 after Fox and Universal both pulled out of the project.

We close things out with some multiplayer and a little smokey saxophone.

With a third man on our squad, we crank through Halo 3 into the early morning hours.

Video game livestreaming veteran Pascual joins our squad to help us finish the fight.

#watchthis More »

During a news segment on the United Nations' involvement in the Syrian conflict, the BBC aired an image of the UNSC - the fictitious United Nations Space Command from Halo.

The image, shown in the background of the clip above, even gets a special spotlight as the camera zooms in on the anchor as she discusses the very serious, very real issues plaguing Syria over the past year.

The BBC has since acknowledged and apologized for airing the Halo logo, telling Eurogamer, "BBC News makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all images broadcast, however very occasionally mistakes do happen. Unfortunately an incorrect logo was used during a segment on last week's News at One bulletin and we apologise to viewers for the mistake.

"The image was not broadcast in our later bulletins."

Even if the BBC has stopped airing the USNC logo, the error has of course popped up on YouTube. The most obvious logic behind the mistake is that BBC editors searched Google Images for "United Nations Security Council symbol" and snagged the Halo UNSC logo that popped up in the results, but we like to think it was a subtle message to focus more efforts on quickly appeasing the situation in Syria - more efforts involving Master Chief.

Microsoft didn't mess up when it hired a fleet of actors in Spartan armor to deliver the Halo script to potential movie studios, and the deal didn't stall when each production house had a fixed amount of time to read and bid on the screenplay. In the end Microsoft wanted too much, and it didn't know how to ask for it - it only knew how to demand. The industry differences between Microsoft and the film's two production studios, Fox and Universal, eventually led to the project's implosion, Jamie Russell explains in his book, Generation Xbox: How Video Games Invaded Hollywood.

Microsoft's terms included $10 million against 15 percent of the box office gross, a budget of at least $75 million and fast-tracked production, as well as creative approval over the director, regular flights from Seattle to L.A. to review post-production footage and 60 first-class plane tickets for Microsoft personnel and guests to attend the premiere, all at the expense of whichever studio picked up the script. Not even Harry Potter was getting this level of concessions, Larry Shapiro of Hollywood talent agency CAA says.

You know, the younger crowd has more ways than ever to pay homage to their favorite games. Back in our day, the only "machinima" we could produce were crude sketches of Chrono and the Battletoads in our Trapper Keeper. Now kids can produce short films about their favorite game using their favorite game!

And that's pretty much what Halo: Eye of the Storm is. Created under Microsoft's Game Content Usage Rules in Halo 3, this 22 minute epic re-imagines the events of The Storm, the game's fifth campaign mission. In his submission email to Joystiq, creator Philip Kang told us it took over two years to create Eye of the Storm. He had to play through the same mission over 100 times trying to get the AI to do specific things necessary for each shot. Actors, right?

In the end, it was all worth it: Kang's created a video masterpiece, now featured on a website our friend's uncle once called "a website."

#halo Science fiction author Neal Stephenson plays Halo on its hardest difficulty setting, Legendary, while using an elliptical exercise machine, the writer of Snow Crash told an audience in Austin today. More »

#halo Action figures normally aren't funny, but McFarlane's Halo Anniversary piece is good for a chuckle. Better still, it'll also be sold as part of a three-pack, each figure depicting Master Chief as he's appeared in the three main Halo games. More »

#halo This is veteran actor Jeff Steitzer. He's done Broadway. Law & Order. Oh, and if you've ever played Halo, chances are you've heard his voice more than Master Chief's, Sgt. Johnson's and Cortana's combined. More »

#xbox360 Gaming has characters with memorable personalities. But Master Chief, the protagonist of the Halo series, is a total void. And there's a reason for that. More »

Speaking to IndustryGamers, Bungie's Joseph Staten shared some insight on the studio's character choices for Halo's enigmatic Master Chief. According to Staten, it was a conscious design choice to keep players in the dark about specific details from the Chief's life. It helped immerse players in the role, said Staten, adding, "The less players knew about the Chief, we believed, the more they would feel like the Chief."

Staten shared a few other details, notably that Cortana began solely as a "functional design requirement," namely a guide for the player; however, as she evolved, said Staten, she grew to highlight the Chief's humanity. Check out the full article for more on Bungie's design choices, including how the team introduced themes of loneliness and abandonment in order to help players "feel the weight of the Chief's heavy responsibilities" throughout the series.

#clips Nothing says serious business like a slow pan through a minutely detailed diorama set to moody music. More »

Tor Books has announced that a new series of Halo novels are on the way. Not to be confused with the upcoming trilogy by Greg Bear, these will be penned by Karen Traviss, author of the Gears of War novels as well as the short story "Human Weakness" from the 2009 Halo Evolutions collection.

The first new novel to be penned by Traviss will serve as a sequel to Ghosts of Onyx, and will reveal the fate of its team of Spartans. The series promises to "explore the Halo Universe in the wake of the final events of Halo 3." Presumably, the novels will also contain a heavy does of alien murder. We've contacted Tor in hopes of pinning down a release window for the new novels. Meanwhile, Bear's trilogy is set to debut this year.

Find the press release after the break.

#microsoft The public relations war we sometimes call E3 has begun a few days early, it seems, with Microsoft's Aaron Greenberg taking to Twitter to fire a shot across Sony's bow in the leadup to the big trade show. More »

Halo 3's amazing "Believe" campaign and the less well-known PlayStation "Mountain" ad have found a place on AdFreak's list of "The 25 most epic ads that aren't [Apple's] '1984.'" The Halo 3 campaign made it all the way to the eighth spot, while "Mountain," with its 1,500 extras, climbed to 17th place. The PS2 spot just barely beat out the incredibly memorable US Marine Corp "Chess" ad -- yeah, the one with the wizards and knights.

Halo 3's ad campaign was certainly an achievement, with atmosphere that eclipsed anything the game eventually provided. "Believe" had all those memorable elements: the diorama (wow, that diorama), the old men reminiscing, the History Channel feel of it all. It was the type of pretentious that works -- which is more than we can say for Halo: Reach's Nair boy and his Gatorade injections. Check out the "Believe" campaign and "Mountain" ad after the break.

With all of that space travel going on, there's got to be plenty of downtime for the last Spartan in existence. Sure, Master Chief can just hop into a cryo-chamber and saw some wood between Halo games -- but every now and then, when nobody's around, MC likes to exercise the old pipes. You would not believe how dynamic his range is, clearly exhibited in the video past the break from IGN.

Oh, and before you watch the video (and inevitably call that number to order your own set), know that we think we've finally figured out John 117's identity: Michael McDonald.

[Via LazyGamer]

Microsoft confirms players could be waiting just a bit longer.

#xbox360 A day after making Halo 3 available to Xbox 360 owners as a downloadable game, Microsoft let Kotaku know that while loading times may be impacted in this version, gameplay should run as well as it always did. More »

Halo 3 was recently added to Xbox 360's Games on Demand service, but Microsoft has not confirmed that the longer-than-normal load times present on a hard drive installation were fixed for the digital release. Developer Bungie had previously been quite clear that Halo 3's design functioned best when not installed on the Xbox 360's HDD. Bungie Community Director Brian Jarrard told Kotaku yesterday that to the developer's knowledge there was no additional work "done on the code to optimize the game for HDD installation."

We've patiently been awaiting a response from Microsoft on this issue and will update as soon as we receive one. In the meantime, we'd steer those Halo 3 latecomers toward a brick-and-mortar retailer.

#clips Video games aren't just about the games, the story or the graphics. Oh, no. Music is so incredibly important. And often, long after you have finished playing, it sticks around, lingers in the back of your brain. More »

We'd explain that Halo influenced gaming in that it influenced many to play it, but that's hardly a secret. It's a cash juggernaut; an epic tale of dudes in space suits that cost more than it does for us to go to space right now. And, of course, bags of tea.

But GamePro offers its own, more poignant analysis of Microsoft's biggest franchise. There are the obvious effects of Bungie's success -- such as regenerative shields and the popular control scheme mimicked by many of Halo's successors -- but one of the biggest is the emergence of online multiplayer in the console FPS. The series has helped pave the way for some of console gamers' favorites.

We can't help but point out that GamePro is neglecting one crucial item: Theater mode. Before Halo 3, just about everyone's crazy stories of conquest or humiliation were suspect and impossible to prove. Now every console player on the message boards can see how awesome you are, and you can't really put a price on that now, can you?

We'd explain that Halo influenced gaming in that it influenced many to play it, but that's hardly a secret. It's a cash juggernaut; an epic tale of dudes in space suits that cost more than it does for us to go to space right now and the alien species those billion-dollar men and women are at war with. And, of course, bags of tea.

But GamePro offers its own more poignant analysis of Microsoft's biggest franchise. There are the obvious effects of Bungie's success -- such as regenerative shields and the popular control scheme mimicked by many of Halo's predecessors -- but one of the biggest is the emergence of online multiplayer in the console FPS. The series has helped pave the way for some of console gamers' favorites.

We can't help but point out that GamePro is neglecting one crucial item: Theater mode. Before Halo 3, just about everyone's crazy stories of conquest or humiliation were suspect and impossible to prove. Now everyone on the message boards can see how awesome you are, and you can't really put a price on that now, can you?