halo

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Halo’s Digsite Matters (Review; Spoiler-Free)

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Cresting the first hill on Spasm, Halo comes full circle. “If you can at all help it, don’t be a launch title.” – Jaimie Griesemer, GDC 2002 One wonders if Bungie felt a twinge of regret as they compiled Halo’s gold master in Fall 2001. Maybe they were too exhausted to feel much of anything. Nonetheless, the game had shipped, and its ten month crunch had finally come to an end. As businessmen, they’d go on to triumph: Halo carried Microsoft’s Xbox, smashing all of its sales targets within the year and surpassing the coveted million mark by April of… [Continue Reading]

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Blowing Up Halo 2’s “Tutorial” – Vidmaster Forever

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Get Creative. First Recon Vidmaster may have been conceived in concert with Marathon, but it hasn’t been home in over twenty-five years. I doubt anyone could expect the series would get a reboot in 2023. From UESC to UNSC and back again, the eponymous Vids have been on ice for quite some time– But I doubt the spirit of Vidmaster went anywhere as Bungie shot into superstardom with Halo back in 2001. In fact, Bungie’s shift to Xbox in an era before widespread broadband internet access leaves Halo’s campaigns more replayable than Marathon ever was. Long before matchmaking, single player… [Continue Reading]

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Featured The Competitive Corner 

Making Halo 2’s Hardest Encounter Even Harder – Vidmaster Forever

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The only thing worse than Jackals. First Recon Among First Person Shooters, it doesn’t get much more difficult than Halo 2 Legendary. Twenty years later and the game still finds ways to surprise and infuriate its players. Halo’s Legendary Difficulty has always been a little mean. Halo 2, however, is interactive malice. Most Legendary playthroughs end in Cairo Station’s first Pelican Hangar, but an equally nasty surprise lies in wait on Halo 2’s second mission, Outskirts. Perched on New Mombasa’s rooftops, Jackal Snipers are bastards, and are easily the most polarizing portion of Legendary Halo 2. Legendary Jackal Snipers have… [Continue Reading]

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Perfect Pistol
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Halo’s Perfect Pistol

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“And I looked, and behold a pale horse– And his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him…” Reunion Tour The most surprising thing to come out of the Magnum’s development is how none of its engineers lost an arm wielding one. Adorned in chrome finish, the UNSC’s M6D Pistol is a sledgehammer with night sights. Demanding as it is destructive, the Magnum gives what it gets. Master it, and nothing will stand in your way. Despite firing an Elephant stopping cartridge, Halo’s pistol is laser accurate– And can instantly kill any unshielded opponent. Shot placement… [Continue Reading]

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Halo’s Assault Rifle is Magnificent

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To err is human. To “get some” is divine. Flawless Cowboy If God is real, he’d probably wield an MA5B. This gas-operated, magazine-fed, 900 RPM slugthrower is the backbone of any fireteam in the United Nations Space Command. Anyone dumb enough to get caught on the wrong end of this weapon is doomed to become more lead than man. Even shielded opponents can’t endure the weapon’s torrent of fire for very long. In close quarters, a sixty-round sustained spray can be devastating. Go the distance, however, and operators should temper their trigger finger– And their expectations. Initially designed for Earth’s… [Continue Reading]

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Halo 2
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Halo 2 Broke My Heart

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Creating art can be the sum of all suffering. Priority Shift Welcome to February, 2004. Game developer Bungie has ten months to ship their most anticipated sequel of all time, Halo 2. The game is in shambles. Microsoft, Bungie’s publisher, expects the game in November. Staff morale is in the gutter, and some employees have stopped going home. To make the deadline, Bungie wasn’t just cutting, they were cleaving. “Rapidly approaching launch… The team had no engine, environments that couldn’t possibly work in any engine, features that were only half-implemented, a sprawling story that would eventually require two full-sized games… [Continue Reading]

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Halo 3
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Halo 3: ODST is the best in the series

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Game Developer Bungie has never been the type to take a victory lap, and had they the choice- Halo would’ve ended with 3. The last two Bungie Halo titles, ODST and Reach, probably weren’t games many people at the company wanted to make. Old guard at the studio certainly said as much. Back then, Destiny (Codenamed Tiger) was taking shape internally, and the largest portion of Bungie’s employees were working on Halo Reach. Halo 3: ODST was pitched small, and to this day it boasts one of the fastest turnarounds in Bungie development history: From concept to mastering, ODST took fourteen… [Continue Reading]

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Another Halo Infinite Postmortem

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A year ago, I put my thoughts on Halo: Infinite’s surprise launch to paper. Today, I pull the trigger. When I drafted my initial impressions on Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer, fans had just jumped in. Hopes were high, as they always are– And conditions could hardly be more ideal for a revival. A year later, and we’ve begun to piece together just how much of a disaster development had been. While Halo games typically go from concept to shelves in three years, Infinite was in development for six. High staff turnover, conflicting visions, and the shift to remote work did the… [Continue Reading]

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