More news from Tokyo Game Show: Microsoft announced the recently teased new Halo 3 expansion, now titled Halo 3: Recon.  The game’s campaign will be a prequel to the story of Halo 3 and will not feature the Master Chief.  Instead, you play as an ODST grunt (well, slightly better than the cannon-fodder “allies” that got in the way in Halo 3, but not quite a Spartan either) and will apparently “require you to employ more elements of stealth and cunning than ever before.” Read on for full details. Read more…

Bungie have confirmed that the line “Maddie, where are you?” – which we spotted in the new Halo 3 campaign trailer released yesterday – is not related to missing British toddler Madeleine McCann. Read more…

Following a 12-hour countdown, Bungie has posted a 60 second teaser trailer for their new Halo game - “a new Halo 3 campaign experience”. Read more…

After receiving the Edge Award for Interactive Innovation, Halo 3 creators Bungie have thanked the publication via a highly entertaining video.  In it there are hints towards a new Halo development, but not a new game as many have been suggesting. Read more…

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Bungie’s lead AI programmer Damian Isla praises Activision and Infinity Ward’s hugely successful FPS, Call of Duty 4. Even going as far as saying that Halo could learn a few things from Call of Duty.

“We have a lot to learn from their success too, they did some very innovative things to keep people going and their experience-rewards system was something that we paid a lot of attention to,” Isla explained.

“I think it’s a great game and single player obviously is fantastic… they did a hell of a job with their set pieces, of scripting certain moments that they were really sure the player was going to actually see and experience first hand. The way that they use those moments to craft the player experience…Halo has a lot to learn from.”

While both games are extremely outstanding and have a strong fan base, the battle for the most-played game on Xbox Live continues between Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4.

It’s good to hear that Bungie is willing to learn from other successful games so they can make their titles better. Because we all know improvements can always be made to make any game better.

Source: gamesindustry.biz

In a recent interview, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President of Interactive Entertainment, Don Mattrick, responded to Bungie’s public disagreement with the company’s decision to put off their E3 Halo announcement. Mattrick was quoted saying:

“One of the things that we decided, when you have the number one game in the world as we have in Halo, it’s a safe prediction that if we do a separate event for Halo, that it’ll be well-attended, well covered …”

As a member of the press who was in attendance for the Microsoft’s press conference, I find their reasoning absurd. The attendance numbers were announced well in advance of the event, and yet they waited until the last moment before pulling the rug out from underneath Bungie.

Many (including myself) expected a response from Microsoft that cited something along the lines of production issues. However, the company instead decided to come out pointing its finger at E3’s size and significance.

True or not, the comments made by Mattrick add salt to E3’s already gaping wounds. The event of old is rolling in it’s grave right now.

Source: Eurogamer

Update on the previous Bungie cock-block snafu:  Microsoft, as the publishing giant apparently behind Bungie’s latest game, rescinded their green light just hours shy of Bungie’s official announcement.  Bungie was about to make us all climax, but Microsoft stepped in with its shotgun and forced them to stop. This does not make us happy, Microsoft… not happy at all. Read more…

For those that may not know, Bungie has had a countdown going for about a little over a day now, but at exactly exactly 00:12:00:00 the countdown stopped.  The above information was posted.

The basic gist of it is that Bungie was forced by their publishing partner to not reveal said product at the planned time. The quote in full along with more information after the break. Read more…

Bungie and Microsoft have announced and detailed quite a bit about the upcoming Halo 3 multiplayer DLC; dubbed the Legendary Map Pack. Read more…

This is my copy of Halo 3. There are many like it but this one is mine.

Maybe Jack Thompson isn’t as crazy as we all know he is, and the Department of Defense actually is training an army of super soldiers through video games. Or maybe he is crazy and the Army is just jumping on the Halo 3 bandwagon.

Read more…

As if the recent Xbox Live issues hadn’t caused enough problems, it now appears that you can actually lose an unlocked achievement as well. I’ve had a recent run-in with this disturbing occurrence, and as always, 1-800-4my-xbox’s Max was there to help me out — and of course by help me out, I mean annoy me while I try to connect to a real person. Read more…

It’s not every day that you’re mentioned by name on the official news blog of a deep-in the-hundreds cable channel, but G4TV’s The Feed should probably check their facts a little more carefully before assigning folksy, Bush-like nicknames. Read more…

In the future, wars will be fought not with plasma cannons and energy swords, but with tiny spaceships made out of paper and glue. So what if humankind ultimately loses the war? Our cute paper armadas will charm every alien life form in the galaxy. Read more…

They see the Chief and they buy the console — works like a charm

Broken links on both Xbox.com and Bungie.com? What’s the deal here? It appears that Microsoft has “updated” the details to the promotion which originally stated that those who bought an Xbox 360 between November 21st and December 21st would receive a free copy of Halo 3. Read more…

Weapons have been a source of pain and suffering throughout human history. Since the first caveman bashed in his buddy’s head with a rock for eying his woman, weapons have played an important role in the decay of society. Alfred Nobel invented the Nobel Peace Prize to counter the moniker of “Merchant of Death” – bestowed unto the genius for his most famous invention, dynamite. Read more…

Oh no, I’ve been Flamed!

Earlier this week on Fox’s The Morning Show, psychologist Susan Bartell spoke out on video game violence. In particular about how playing Halo affects a different part of your brain than when your playing a non violent game. Yet her credibility was seriously called into question as GamePolitics.com interviewed her today. Read more…

Halo 3 is still the topic of controversy weeks after its release, and this time it has nothing to do with the Bungie and Microsoft split.

According to the numbers published on rottentomatoes.com, Octobers ticket sales are at one of the lowest points in recent box office history. What does that mean? Well, according to a short list of film executives and researchers, it means that the general movie going audience is staying home playing Halo 3 instead of spending $24.50 for popcorn, soda, and a glimpse at Mr. Woodcock, Ben’s half hearted attempt at finding true love, or Dwayne’s game plan.

Mike Hickey, analyst at Janco Partners, a Denver based research firm states “The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you’d see in cinemas,” he goes on to state that “this could last for several weeks.”

This is an absolutely ridiculous assumption, as every gamer knows Ben Stiller hasn’t made a decent movie in years, and the Rock — sorry, “Dwayne Johnson” is better off sticking to action movies, as long as they aren’t video game related (see DOOM). On a positive note though, maybe this will finally convince a studio to get the wheels rolling on a Halo movie.

Source: Advertising Age, Rotten Tomatoes

“That’s it, I quit. This is so not worth sixty bucks.”

Ok, so we came across this little bit of heaven while browsing reddit.com and just had to share the find with our readers. Granted, not everyone here at ripten was completely in love with Bungie’s latest Halo release in terms of the campaign mode, but the multiplayer aspect of Halo 3 can hardly be called a disappointment.

That said, below are a few highlights from an “open letter to Bungie” we discovered which was posted anonymously on craigslist.org. In it the writer discusses their dislike for the latest release in the Halo series as well as some ideas and suggestions for Bungie in the future. Read more…

Still from latest Halo live action short. Watch it after the jump.

In 2005, Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox announced that they would be working with Microsoft to release a Halo film based on the success of the video game series. They named Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh as the executive producers, who both worked together on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

A year later, both Universal and Fox pull out of the project – leaving many fans wondering if they will ever get to see a live action movie. Read more…

Halo 3’s multiplayer mode, along with Microsoft’s entire strategy for domination in the console wars, can be summed up in two beautiful words: Endless replayability.

This is a desert island game–assuming you had an HDTV and Internet connection on the island, and didn’t use team chat to send out an SOS. It’s a game that you could easily spend weeks, months, and years perfecting without getting bored. The online matchmaking system ramps up the challenge so smoothly that after you learn the ropes “powning noobs” you’ll be experiencing a much greater difficulty playing against Halo experts. Read more…