tain.totalcodex.net

Saw this on IMDB today:

Director Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings, King Kong) is teaming up with Microsoft's Bungie Studios to create what is presumed to be the next version of its Halo video game. However, details of the project, disclosed at an industry event in Barcelona, were sketchy. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer quoted Microsoft exec Jeff Bell as describing the project as "interactive entertainment" and adding, "It is not the movie. It is not [the video game] 'Halo 3.' ... It is all new content that is going to be developed by Peter Jackson as co-writer, co-producer, along with the team at Bungie, to continue to expand upon the 'Halo' franchise and intellectual property."

Wow. And I haven't even been able to play Halo 2 yet (no Xbox, and will probably never get one, cuz I hate game control pads).

I was under the impression that Halo 3 was going to be the last Halo game, but I guess not. I looked on Bungie.net, and it confirmed that Wingnut Interactive will be making "another chapter in the Halo universe." Sounds cool.

There is also a halo RTS coming out. I'm too lazy to find a link.

Orlando the Axe wrote:There is also a halo RTS coming out. I'm too lazy to find a link.

um.. that is what he was talking about(the one peter jackson is making)
its called "halo wars" I play allot of halo so I know allot about the halo stuff. I just play around with myth loathing and fear, for fun.

No, Peter Jackson is working with Wingnut to create whatever he's creating.

Ensemble is making Halo Wars.

Honestly, I wish they would've ended with Halo 3.

I'm just glad Bungie isn't making these two new games. That means the franchise can go burn itself out while Bungie move onto better things after Halo 3. If the other games suck, then okay, they suck. At least they're not wasting Bungie's time.

-TGP-

:) Da Cid (: McCl wrote:I'm just glad Bungie isn't making these two new games. That means the franchise can go burn itself out while Bungie move onto better things after Halo 3. If the other games suck, then okay, they suck. At least they're not wasting Bungie's time.

-TGP-

A few years back I would have agreed with your sentiment, but at this point I don't feel like there's enough of the original Bungie left to really be anything more than a brand-name. Seriously, they are outsourcing the development of a Halo RTS? WTH? That tells me either there is NO ONE there left from the Myth days (my top bet for 'most likely') or they aren't really a functioning application development organization and have had their tech/programming core gutted by MS so they are just a marketing division assigned the task of coming up with product ideas to make money off of their brand/product "Bungie/Halo". If the latter is anywhere near accurate, it's probably better that Bungie sold off Myth when they did - before we started getting "Sesamyth Street" beanie baby toys in our Mcdonald's happy meals.

wikipedia says the stories about this are wrong - he's exec producer and that's it.

WHO NOW DO I TRUST

A few years back I would have agreed with your sentiment, but at this point I don't feel like there's enough of the original Bungie left to really be anything more than a brand-name. Seriously, they are outsourcing the development of a Halo RTS? WTH? That tells me either there is NO ONE there left from the Myth days (my top bet for 'most likely') or they aren't really a functioning application development organization and have had their tech/programming core gutted by MS so they are just a marketing division assigned the task of coming up with product ideas to make money off of their brand/product "Bungie/Halo". If the latter is anywhere near accurate, it's probably better that Bungie sold off Myth when they did - before we started getting "Sesamyth Street" beanie baby toys in our Mcdonald's happy meals.

Yeah i agree with you. Theres only 2 or 3 people left from the myth era i think, and theres now hundreds of people working for bungie. Its not the same company now. Full stop.
A litle while ago i would have been upset but this, their lack of loyalty not just to computers let along macs, but to their game fans by outsourcing the development of a halo game. But i realise now they're just not the same company, theyve gone from a small dedicated company that made top notch games, to the microsoft of the gaming industry. They're just taking advantage of the halo series now, if they were the company they once were they would let go the 'Halo' name and do something new and different. But no, its more halo games, and a halo movie, and halo figurines etc..

Im disappointed in them, but the bungie now is not the bungie that made myth and marathon, and to me those games are much more fun to play than their new ones. Theyre like reading a good book, while the new games are like a goo hollywood movie - its got a good storyline but its still fancy effects and cinematics. A good movie is never as deep and loved as a good book.

Don't get me wrong, halo series isnt bad, its just a level down. And I can see peter jackson making some really good, deep games, hes talanted, but it just pisses my off how microsoft is so god damn monopolising and is having everything exclusively made for xbox - i hate consoles i just want the games on the good old computer.

Also peter jackson comes from the same city as me. Its a bummer, cause wingnuts is being based in my home town, and i tell you there are no jobs in the gaming industry here. If this were to happen 2-3 years in the future when i was coming out of my degree itd be great, hes gonna be sourcing a lot of local people, but well... im not, and i dont support xbox games much either, bit o a bumma.

I can confirm 3 people who forked on Myth II are still in Bungie - or were about a year ago at least. No idea which of them were involved in TFL.

i hate consoles i just want the games on the good old computer.

Amen to that.

Khadrelt wrote:

i hate consoles i just want the games on the good old computer.

Amen to that.

console is all I play, well some times I get on here to play myth but thats it.

to me console is something that could be ok if you wat to sit around with some mates and muck around and have some fun. But its not for serious gaming in the same way computers are, and the games for it reflect that, as does bungies direction to an extent.
Games with the depth of myth etc will never be on xbox, the consoles dont have the attention to detail that allows for that, let alone to target audience just isn't right

HAH.

This smells like death to me. I honestly can't be frigged wasting my attention on any game, with a teaser cutscene that ends (with bad vocal talent):

"If they want war, we'll give 'em war".

How about this, you overpaid shmucks?

"If they want a dodgy game that will be a graphically-revised version of AoE '97... we'll give 'em a dodgy game that will be a graphically-revised version of AoE '97!".

You just watch.

I haven't trusted Bungie in a long time I have to say. I was cool with them selling Myth - they'd had a run of bad luck, they needed the dough. And with Halo CE, I thought 'holy crap, they can still make something entertaining even though they've got Bill Gates' finger up their backside'.

It went sour for me with Halo 2; the pseuo-ending with Master Chief saying 'to be continued' - err... I mean 'kaching!' - oh DAMN. I mean 'finishing this fight'.

It was truncated like the wreck of the Titanic. Where the rest of the ship should be, it just falls off into ending credits. Halo 2 could've been a lot better, if the Arbiter level design wasn't so boring (ya know.... who the hell wants to fight Flood? That's why we have Half Life).
And if the game had a proper ending.

I'll admit though, the Halo 3 teaser was pretty nifty, I'm confident Halo 3 should be spiffy.

But the way these spiffy things are emerging is too much like marketing for me, and a lot less like art - like back in the day when they just had a handful of dudes around a beige Mac, or an SGI, being baffled by their own Unexpected Error codes. That's the BUNGiE I admired.

So when Cid pointed out the Halo Wars trailer to me, I was guffawing and groaning all the way through it. The money shot at the end killed it for me - I honestly feel a little wary of anything Halo-related from here on in.

Unfortunately, a lot of games have the same problem a lot of movies do—the people who make them keep cranking out sequels just because they know people will buy them. (Disney, anyone?)

Sure, if you can make a sequel better than the original, or at least just as good, go for it! But if you make a sequel just for the sake of the sellability of the name, it starts to suck. Sequels can be dangerous (Neverending Story comes to mind), but if they're well-done they can be awesome. The real problem is that since they aren't trying to sell something new, but are simply building on an already popular name, they don't have to put as much attention to detail as they did with the original. People will buy it just because of the name. It all depends on whether or not they get lazy.