[Chuckit]

A Halo RTS? From the creators of Myth? Oh, hells yes.

[itai195]

Yeah but RTS on a console, I'm not sure about that! Or is this a PC game? Myth was great.

[Chuckit]

Xbox has keyboard and mouse peripherals, doesn't it?

[itai195]

Hmm that's a thought. I know it supports keyboards at least.

[ort888]

From Bungie's website...

Pic = http://download.microsoft.com/downlo..._800x600_1.jpg

As if the Peter Jackson partnership wasn't cool enough for Halo fans, there's more to be excited about in the form of the just announced Halo RTS game being developed by Ensemble Studios. "Halo Wars" is a brand new saga in the Halo Universe that explores the time of first contact between the UNSC and Covenant Forces. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to control dozens of Warthogs and Scorpion tanks instead of just a single vehicle, your time has finally come.

Ensemble Studios has a rich heritage and expertise in the real-time-strategy genre through their extremely successful Age of Empires franchises on the PC. This latest endeavor has been designed from the ground up as an Xbox 360 title, with controls and interface specifically tuned for the needs of a console. The folks at Ensemble are the only team we trusted to make a Halo RTS and from what we've already seen (and played), it's going to be awesome. And yes, the controls do work great on a 360 pad.

Bungie has been working with Ensemble primarily in the area of the game's fiction to help inspire the story and ensure continuity with the existing Halo Universe. Aside from that, Ensemble is applying their skills to deliver a great Halo experience in a whole new genre, which is ironically where Halo began in the first place. If you've seen some of the very early Halo videos out there, you might recall that before it ever became an FPS, it was in fact designed as an RTS (building off of Bungie's experience with the Myth franchise). Now, many years later, Ensemble is able to take the franchise full circle and bring it back to the place where it all began.

Ensemble brought their prototype to Bungie quite a while back, to show the guys that an RTS could not only work on the 360, but kick ass too. Frankly, Ensemble is one of very few folks on Earth that we would trust with our baby, and that trust is doubled thanks to the excellence of the Age of Empires franchise.

Ensemble’s own Chris Rippy said, “The Halo Wars team is made up of a bunch of guys that are all very passionate Halo fans. When we sat down to start thinking about our next project, we thought bringing the Halo universe into the RTS world would be a perfect a fit, and would make an amazing game. We couldn't be more excited about Halo Wars, and can't wait for everyone to try it out!”

Naturally you've got a million questions and unfortunately, as is usually the case with anything Halo-related, we don't really have many answers just yet. As we continue to see early builds and get hands on time with the game we'll pass our impressions on to you through our weekly updates but for the most part you should head over to the Ensemble site - Halo Wars - Home - for the latest news and updates on Halo Wars. In addition to a FAQ and forum, you'll be able to check out various game assets inclduing the CG announcement trailer that was shown to the press at X06. A web version should be up on their site soon in addition to an HD version hitting Xbox Live Marketplace.

With Halo 3 approaching steadily and a ton of cool stuff on the horizon, it's a great time to be a Halo fan and we can't wait to share in all the fun and excitement the future entails. Stay tuned for more details on both announcements and even some surprises for the next Bungie Podcast.

Is it too much Halo? No. Believe us when we tell you that these projects will be spaced out sensibly and in fact, we’re sure you’ll be -blam!-ing soon enough that there’s too large a gap between them, but more importantly, we here at Bungie, our friends at Ensemble and our new partners Wingnut Interactive are doing everything in our care to ensure that Halo 3, Halo Wars and the unnamed Halo project live up to the promise and heritage of the universe we all love so much. It’s going to be incredible. We promise.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by itai195

Yeah but RTS on a console, I'm not sure about that! Or is this a PC game? Myth was great.

Q: Other RTS games that have transitioned to console have had issues with controls, how will “Halo Wars” improve on the formula?

A: “Halo Wars” was created for the Xbox 360 from the ground up, which meant we didn't have to make compromises or shoe-horn in artifacts from a Windows PC game. We were able to take all the best aspects of RTS games, make them work perfectly on the Xbox 360, and exclude the rest.

[itai195]

Sounds good, hope they pull it off.

[Dark Helmet]

I hate those types of games.


Anywho best news ever.. new Banjo-Kazooie game coming!

PGR4, Banjo-Kazooie, and Marvel Universe coming to Xbox 360 - Joystiq

[Adam Betts]

360 is going to completely own US and Europe with several new exclusives such as GTA4 epidsoes, Bioshock, Soccer games, Splinter Cell, Halo Wars, Halo game from Peter Jackson (LOTR director.)

That plus with HD-DVD leading the market (for now), HD-DVD drive and King Kong free HD-DVD are very appealing to customers.

Microsoft did a really nice job so far.

[Adam Betts]

Banjo-Kazooie 3 for XBOX 360 looks horrible


XBOX360

vs


Original Banjo-Kazooie

Definitely not Rare quality we know and love.

[Gamoe]

Since I made a guest appearance all the way back on page 5, I thought I'd comment that the Wii is looking better and better to me, even though I wasn't seriously considering any console before.

PS3 = too expensive
XBox= Wouldn't even consider supporting M$ in any way.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Adam Betts

Banjo-Kazooie 3 for XBOX 360 looks horrible


XBOX360

Holy crap that looks AWESOME! That gaudy bright colours are way to 90's.

[Chuckit]

At first I thought Kazooie's tail was supposed to be her head and it freaked me the **** out.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Chuckit

At first I thought Kazooie's tail was supposed to be her head and it freaked me the **** out.

Actually at first I thought it was a guy in a suite and not even a game.

[ort888]

Something about the Banjo Kazooie franchise just rubs me the wrong way. I don't even know what it is exactly... probably the overall art style.

Still, it will be nice to have a solid platformer on the 360, and since it's by Rare, we should be enjoying it holiday 2010.

[starman]

Seriously. How long did Kameo take? I mean, I love the game to death, but it took FOREVER for it to come out.

[ort888]

It started life as an N64 game.

[itai195]

I've never cared much for Banjo Kazooie, or most stuff Rare makes to be honest. I guess I hope it turns out alright...

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by starman

Seriously. How long did Kameo take? I mean, I love the game to death, but it took FOREVER for it to come out.

True but that wasn't their fault. It was N64 title, then it was going to be the big game for the cube, then MS bought them.

Same thing with Dinosaur planet, it was for N64 then got rebranded to Starfox dinosaur planet for the cube.

[Peter]

got my Xbox 360 recently... Table Tennis, Fight Night and Dead Rising are all ****ing amazing! seriously amazing, blown away

[pyrite]

Originally Posted by Peter

got my Xbox 360 recently... Table Tennis, Fight Night and Dead Rising are all ****ing amazing! seriously amazing, blown away

damn straight. i don't know why anybody's 'waiting' for next gen when xbox 360's already here. i'm excited about sony and nintendo's new machines, but in many ways i think 360 will be the killer console for quite a while (in terms of next gen ability). many developers have already stated that it's much easier to write multi-threaded games for Xbox360 than PS3, and are getting better results in terms of framerate and AI / physics because of it. anyone who owns a HDTV and doesnt have one is missing out big time. Oblivion/GRAW/Burnout Revenge/Dead Rising/Call of Duty 2/Table Tennis/Dead or Alive 4... the list goes on, so many games rock already

[ajprice]

OK, so I have had my 360 for a week now -

System: Nice, louder than the PS2 with the fan noise, but its ok. Dashboard is great. iPod connection is slick.

Games:
PGR3 - Very nice looking and smooth, some cars damage more than others though.
Oblivion - Looks nice, haven't played that much of it yet to comment more, still trying to figure out the controls really.
Dead Rising - Loads of fun!! Great graphics, I hope he's able to run faster when he goes up a few levels though !

Live Arcade games are good too, I got the Unplugged Vol 1 anyway because it worked out cheaper and easier than spending it all on MS points, I've downloaded the trial of Doom and it worked pretty well, will probably unlock it to the full game.

Forza Motorsport is good too, the damage is great and after playing it for the first time I sat there wondering why I didn't have an Xbox before, compares very well to the Gran Turismo games, and it has car damage (really well done too!) Can't wait for Forza 2 !!

[ort888]

bit-tech.net | Game file sizes could soon be 70% smaller

Interesting development. Should make the 9 gig discs the 360 use go a lot farther.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by ort888

bit-tech.net | Game file sizes could soon be 70% smaller

Interesting development. Should make the 9 gig discs the 360 use go a lot farther.

The only one this could work for is the 360 as the wii doesn't have high def textures and the PS3 has 50 gigs of space.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

The only one this could work for is the 360 as the wii doesn't have high def textures and the PS3 has 50 gigs of space.

Why not do it on all systems? It would allow you to fit more textures on a disc for the Wii and PS3 too, in addition to reducing burn time in production.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by goMac

Why not do it on all systems? It would allow you to fit more textures on a disc for the Wii and PS3 too, in addition to reducing burn time in production.

Well like I said the PS3 has 50 gigs and so far games are about 25gigs max for the PS3. I can't imagine how a wii game will use more than 9 gigs with no 5.1 audio or high def textures.

I don't think disks PRESSING is faster if the disk is smaller but even so it would probably be less then paying licensing for this technology.

[ort888]

The main use will be for downloadable games. an upcoming Xbox Live arcade game used it to get under 50 megs (the limit set by M$) and still use the unreal 3 engine.

It could be great for PC games and forthcoming generations which will probably be abandoning physical media.

[Dark Helmet]

On average how much space on a game is textures?

This technology can take 1 gig of textures down to 300 megs but if the rest of the game is still 20 gigs 700 megs saving isn't going to do much.

bit-tech.net | Game file sizes could soon be 70% smaller

[goMac]

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

On average how much space on a game is textures?

This technology can take 1 gig of textures down to 300 megs but if the rest of the game is still 20 gigs 700 megs saving isn't going to do much.

bit-tech.net | Game file sizes could soon be 70% smaller

The only other significant thing the contributes to game size is really audio. Compiled code and maps don't take much space.

[ort888]

Actually, I think textures are one of the biggest space hogs on most modern games.

[Dakar]

Originally Posted by ort888

Actually, I think textures are one of the biggest space hogs on most modern games.

That's fine with me, so long as they never look like they did in N64 games ever again.

[ort888]

|||| || | RoboBlitz |||| || |

This game was made using this new tech. It's a 50meg Xbox Live Arcade game using the Unreal 3 engine.

Click on the gallery to see some screen shots. Pretty crazy that it's under 50 megs.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by Dakar

That's fine with me, so long as they never look like they did in N64 games ever again.

I found the N64 fog was much worse.

[ort888]

Universal remotist finds fault with PS3, console lacks IR port - Joystiq

Since the PS3 lacks any IR support, you can't use any existing universal remotes to control the PS3. That sucks. I bought a $150 remote to control my home theater because I was so sick of juggling 4 remotes... and now if I add a PS3 to my mix, I would have to buy a sony branded remote to use with my Blu-Ray player, in addition to the expensive remote I already own. That's lame.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by ort888

Universal remotist finds fault with PS3, console lacks IR port - Joystiq

Since the PS3 lacks any IR support, you can't use any existing universal remotes to control the PS3. That sucks. I bought a $150 remote to control my home theater because I was so sick of juggling 4 remotes... and now if I add a PS3 to my mix, I would have to buy a sony branded remote to use with my Blu-Ray player, in addition to the expensive remote I already own. That's lame.

I have to agree on the large suck factor of that one also.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by ort888

Universal remotist finds fault with PS3, console lacks IR port - Joystiq

Since the PS3 lacks any IR support, you can't use any existing universal remotes to control the PS3. That sucks. I bought a $150 remote to control my home theater because I was so sick of juggling 4 remotes... and now if I add a PS3 to my mix, I would have to buy a sony branded remote to use with my Blu-Ray player, in addition to the expensive remote I already own. That's lame.

!!!
I bought a $15 remote to control my entire home theater...TV, receiver, DVD player, etc. With a little time I could control my iBook too.

[Rumor]

My $15 univeral remote doesn't control my tv. But it does control the neighbors.

[ort888]

Let's hope they make some sort of add-on solution. A little USB IR port would do the trick.

I have a feeling one will surface soon. Unless Sony decides to be dicks about it.

[Gossamer]

Originally Posted by Rumor

My $15 univeral remote doesn't control my tv. But it does control the neighbors.

Really? Ouch. My universal remote didn't come with codes for my brand of TV, but it has a way to cycle through possible codes to get it to work.

[Dakar²]

Rather than start a whole new thread for it, I thought I'd put this nice little tidbit in here.

In short, Jack Thompson lost his court case against Bully. How do you like 'dem apples, ho-bag!

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by Dakar²

Rather than start a whole new thread for it, I thought I'd put this nice little tidbit in here.

In short, Jack Thompson lost his court case against Bully. How do you like 'dem apples, ho-bag!

Who is the Jake douche-bag anyway and why is he in the video game news every week?

[Dakar²]

I suspect because he wants to be.

[ort888]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

Who is the Jake douche-bag anyway and why is he in the video game news every week?

He's one of those sleezebag ambulance chasing lawyers, who decided to become famous by becoming the spokesperson for the anti-video game movement.

He is constantly suing game-makers for various ridiculous things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney)

[Eug]

PowerPC 'desktop' computing lives!

Yellow Dog Linux for PS3

LOVELAND, Colorado - 17 October 2006 - Terra Soft is proud to announce Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 for PLAYSTATION�3 from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI).

Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft's next generation Linux operating system for Power will support PLAYSTATION 3, providing an end-user experience far surpassing previous versions. Through an aggressive, rapid co-development project conducted by Carsten Haitzler and the Enlightenment development team, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, built upon Fedora Core 5, now integrates the next generation "E17" desktop in order to provide an unprecedented level of function and interface aesthetic. Designed for users of all ages and all levels of experience, Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 is Terra Soft's most advanced distribution to date.

Under basic agreement with SCEI, Terra Soft was granted a unique opportunity to develop and bring to market a complete Linux OS for PLAYSTATION 3. In development of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft integrated and enhanced code from Barcelona Supercomputing Center, SCEI , and Fedora in order to offer the following:
- kernel 2.6.16
- gcc 4.1.1 and glibc 2.4
- Cell SDK 1.1
- OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
- FireFox 1.5.0 and Thunderbird 1.5.0
- Nautilus 2.14
... and a suite of Personal Accessories, Development Tools; Sound & Video, Internet, and Networking applications.

[goMac]

Apparently the PS3 reviews are not so good:

http://www.nextechnews.com/PermaLink...69f03e8da.aspx

"(Generally speaking) When you see the 360 version and you see the PS3 version right next to it the 360 is by and large looking better." - Matt C

"(Marvel Alliance) is running in 1080P on the PS3 which is cool but it was also running much slower, the framerate was not nearly as nice." - Matt C

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

"Good news for those worried about the slow start-up times with current next generation optical disc players. The PS3 loads up a Blu-ray movie fast. Impress sampled the US version of Fifth Element (Japan won't take shipment of its first commercial Blu-ray movies until early November) and found that the PS3 took less than 10 seconds to start up the disc after it had been selected from the video section of the Cross Media Bar."

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum...006/10/19/5675

[TETENAL]

I have never noticed a delay when playing DVDs in the PS2, so I'm not impressed by a 10 seconds delay.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Sony unveils net service for PS3

Online play will be free. I still think I will get one as soon as it falls under 200 €.

[ort888]

Sony claims Xbox 360 requires HD DVD, etc., thus costs $700 - Engadget

Sony is skewing the truth again.

Ted Price's Blog - Resistance: Fall of Man update! More of your questions answered!

Resistance won't be in 1080p.

[Dark Helmet]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

I have never noticed a delay when playing DVDs in the PS2, so I'm not impressed by a 10 seconds delay.

That is because you misunderstood the comment.

It is a 10 second delay to play Blu-Ray movies not DVD. That is very good as current Blu-ray and HD-DVD stand alone players take 20-50 seconds to do the same.

[Dark Helmet]

PlayStation 3 shines in prelaunch test | CNET News.com