The Halo thread

Yes, siree. This is all about Halo and... you know, that sequel with all the 'hilarious' nicknames.
Everything about the games, novels, music and movie, mind you, not just about the game.
And seeing as one should include some neat info in the start of a thread, I hereby present to you:

The Halo Graphic Novel!
This is a copy/paste from Bungie.net, about what's it's all about:

Quote:

OK, so we often literally don't have any news to update you with. That's just the harsh reality of working on a game, and to the same extent, a "secret project." But today, we actually have something sort of useful.

Presenting the Halo Graphic Novel, which from now on shall be known as the HGN. If you're a Halo fiction fan AND a comic book fan, then this might just be the mother lode. Before we get into the how and the why, let's give you a breakdown of the what.

The HGN is a 128 page, full color, high quality hardcover graphic novel, featuring an anthology of original stories, including one big story, and three shorter tales. Side stories, if you will. It should be available in July, 2006.

Now this thing was a Bungie-produced, conceived and nurtured book, but we don't make comic books, we make games. So it only made sense that we went after our favorite comic book artists and writers. And we're not kidding when we tell you that we basically secured, exactly, our first choice picks to paint, draw, letter and write this incredible book. These are our story artists and writers, in no particular order.

Andrew Robinson
Ed Lee
Jay Faerber
Lee Hammock
Jean "Moebius" Giraud
Phil Hale
Simon Bisley
Tsutomo Nihei
And those are just the folks who worked on the stories. We also have another treat in the HGN. A collection of original gallery pieces created by more of our comic book and art heroes, as well as some of Bungie's own artists. Picture if you will, some of your favorite Halo creatures, moments, vehicles ad characters, re-imagined by some of the most talented people on Earth (and also by me, one of the least talented people on Earth).

Those artists include:

Doug Alexander
Rick Berry
Geof Darrow
Scott Fischer
Sterling Hundley
Craig Mullins
Tsutomu Nihei
George Pratt
Juan Ramirez
George Staples
Justin Sweet
John Van Fleet
Kent Williams

And from Bungie…

Christopher Barrett
Frank Capezutto
Tom Doyle
Isaac Hannaford
Lorraine McLees
Robert McLees
Frank O'Connor
Paul Russel
Eddie Smith



The project actually started about a year and a half ago. Bungie artist Lorraine McLees' passion for the graphic novel medium, and her contacts from the industry led to us getting a budget together, sourcing the writers and artists and creating the initial premises for the stories. Once we'd done that, we set off an inexorable chain reaction of talent, and the treatments, samples and eventually, the finished panels started rolling in.

Oddly enough, we got more than three quarters of the way through the project before we secured the coolest publisher in the business. Marvel. (‘Nuff said.) This isn't the normal mode of production, but the folks at Marvel shared our excitement for both the Halo universe, and the brilliant team of creative types we'd already assembled. A deal was signed and we're basically handing off the completed book as a faits accomplis, but using Marvel's guidance and expertise to take it from the (literal) drawing board to the bookstore shelves.

This would also be a fine moment to give special thanks to Alicia in our IP department for getting the deal done with the home of Stan Lee. In the end, my theory that Namor: The Sub-Mariner could take Aquaman in a fight had nothing to do with anything. You'd be amazed how many of my awesome ideas get ignored.

Only a few pages remain to be completed at this time, and there are lots of little odds and ends that take time – final lettering, color corrections, occasional visual edits, but sitting in front of us right now is a 95% complete version of the book. And it's a doozie. Titles of the stories may change, but pretty much everything is in place.

Just about every staff member has a favorite artist who shows up in this HGN. My own personal hero in here, is Simon Bisley, whose Slaine artwork from 2000ad comic pretty much inspired my whole life. It's the main reason I wear a loincloth and a hero-harness, so to have this legendary artist working on our stories, our universe, was a rare honor. And as I mentioned before, each artist in the collection inspired that kind of fanboyism, from Moebius to Darrow, from Hale to Fischer. Each artist, somebody's childhood (or contemporary) hero.

And uh, not to toot my own horn, but there's a Mister Chief hidden in this book somewhere too. Some say, the greatest Mister Chief ever conceived. Others say, every bit as crap as every other Mister Chief. Oh, and I also tricked some of our community members into "sending" letters to the HGN before it was even announced.

Robt McLees, who did much of the planning, editing and structuring of the stories, pointed out that Nihei is possibly his favorite, a) Because he signed Robt's Nihei artbook AND bought some stuff he was auctioning for charity for $1000!

Lorraine, recovering on maternity leave, probably wants to point out that I'm her favorite artist because my brushstrokes so eloquently capture the morass of modern existence and delicately phrase the anguished wails of a gentle soul, trapped in the maelstrom of trite consumerism. Probably that's what she's thinking. Unless she's thinking about legendary comic book pioneer Moebius. I guess that's possible...

So here, without further ado, is a sneak peek at what to expect from the Halo Graphic Novel.

_________________________________

Halo Graphic Novel Cover

The cover is by mega-crayon-meister Phil Hale. This is a preliminary treatment and the final cover may vary. Phil Hale's elegant, dramatic pose of the Master Chief shows him leaping backwards through the air, while taking out an unseen opponent. An understated mixture of tension and movement.

___________________________

The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor
Art by Simon Bisley
Story by Lee Hammock

When communications from a Covenant agricultural support ship are mysteriously terminated, an Elite Commander and his squad of Special Forces are sent to investigate. What they find is a peril more deadly and terrifying than any Human threat.

- The brilliant, almost gaudy palette of Simon Bisley makes the perfect setting for an Elite incursion into a Flood infested agricultural ship.

___________________________

Armor Testing
Pencils by Andrew Robinson
Colors by Ed Lee
Story by Jay Faerber

The only way to test Spartan armor, is to send a Spartan. The question is what's really being tested? The power of the Mjolnir Mark VI battle armor, or the mettle of the ODSTs trying to find its weaknesses?

- Ed Lee's dynamic, anime-inspired iteration of the Spartan armor makes for a refreshing take on the hardcases and hardware of the Halo universe.

___________________________

Breaking Quarantine
Art and story by Tsutomu Nihei

One of the untold tales from Halo is Sergeant Johnson's escape from the clutches of the Flood menace. Now's the time to reveal how the UNSC's toughest marine got out of an inescapable trap.

- Tstutomo Nihei's vision of Sgt Johnson is visceral, rich with tone and color and perfectly captures the brooding menace of the Flood.

____________________________

Second Sunrise Over New Mombasa
Art by Jean "Moebius" Giraud
Story by Brett Lewis

Fighting a war isn't just shipping men and machines to distant worlds. There are subtler, more dangerous fights taking place on the streets of New Mombasa, and in the hearts and minds of men.

- Legendary artist Moebius takes an intriguing look at the bright lights and big city of a pre-invasion New Mombasa and does so with typical Moebius flair and imagination.

____________________________

So that's all we can tell you about the HGN right now. Make sure you click on the sample shots to see them in better detail, and we're sure we'll reveal a couple more pages before the HGN ships.



You will all be pleased to know that our new AI engineer Max, who we interviewed last week, was accosted by the Visual Studio team and shown how to make his development environment even better. Some ingenious developer has managed to integrate vim with Visual Studio, giving Max the best of both worlds! Basically, it's all a series of bleeps and whistles to me, but Max is psyched.

You will also be pleased to hear that we will (finally) have a release date for the Halo 2 Soundtrack, Vol. 2, next week. That's when we announce the release date. And I'm told it's not too far away. And remember, like anything bad in the world, famine, poverty, Katherine Harris' smile etc., it's all Marty's fault.

I actually still think Halo 2 is fun, but whatever

So there you are. And next week we'll have info about the second soundtrack CD thing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I'm surprised that they are going to release the second volume of the Halo 2 OST after about, hmm, fifteen months? It's nothing to get excited about, but it's going to be worth a download.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I do admit that while I'm not a fan of the storyline, I do appreciate the multiplayer and the audio of Halo, hence why I'm looking forward to this second OST which they promised months ago.

As for the anime. I think a movie of it is far enough. Let's not give them any more oppertunities to butcher the game. Then again, if it gains from a movie incarnation what DOOM did with it's movie release, perhaps some substance will be introduced into this linear and predictable storyline. Sorry to say that, but it's true. At the end of Halo 2 though, just when the story was FINALLY taking an original turn they cut it off.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Halo? An anime? Uh. And they Sony milks their games. C'mon. Halo is great. As a game! A movie will be good but nothing more.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Just think, this is still tired to Halo 2. God only knows how much they might do in coorelation to Halo 3.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Have you heard? Halo 3 isn't called Halo 3. It's something else.

Originally Posted by GameSpot droolers

Now that you're sitting down and have hopefully recovered from shock, here's the good news: It is indeed a Halo game. The "well connected" source claims the project is called "Forerunner,"...

On the other hand, it could merely be a code name that could be changed to Halo 3, Halo 3: Forerunner, Halo: Forerunner, or even Peter Jackson's Halo: Forerunner, the Official Game of the Movie (let's hope not) when the game is officially announced. For now, only time will tell if Master Chief and company are going Forerunning.

-source

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The chances of them calling the third Halo game by anything that doesn't begin with Halo is probably so miniscule that for all practical purposes we can call it zero. Fable was called Project Ego for a while before they made the switch to calling it Fable, and it wasn't even a sequel to one of the most popular games in a console generation. From a purely marketing perspective, calling Halo 3 something that does not include the word Halo, to make its tie to a hugely popular franchise as obvious as possible, is something only an amateur would do. If you make a sequel to a game that was not well received or a high seller, you change the title in an effort to distance yourself from the previous game. Example being when Shadow Hearts was released. It is a fairly direct sequel to a PSX game {Koudelka} that did not sell very well, so instead of calling it Koudelka 2, or something else that would make its ties to a previous game in the series, they chose to call it Shadow Hearts. This is, of course, purely speculation on my part.

How ya doing, buddy?

I definitely agrew ith you Russ. It was a sarcastic remark but GameSpot's "reporting".

Hopefully Microsoft/Bungie doesn't get too hopped up on names, etc. and they deliver the best ENDING this franchise could use.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Slayer X

perhaps some substance will be introduced into this linear and predictable storyline. Sorry to say that, but it's true. At the end of Halo 2 though, just when the story was FINALLY taking an original turn they cut it off.

I will never understand this mind set. What is exactly is linear or predicatble about playing half the game through your enemy's eyes? That alone is worth the price of admission.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Some news concerning the novels:

March 19, 2006 Link to this post

Quote:

Next Halo Novel Details Surface
Wow, awesome find. And1balla2829 noticed that there's a new Halo novel listed at both ISBNdb.com, and Amazon.com. (Amazon also lists an 18-copy lot, for bulk orders, I guess.) The book is being published by TOR Books - whose website is woefully out of date, so there's no info to be had there... so at this point, the sum total of the info we have about this book comes from these sparse entries:

Author is Eric Nylund
Title is "Ghosts of Coral"
Publication date is October 31,2006
Length is 384 pages
As we learn more, we'll be sure to pass it along!

William C. Dietz sucked anyway

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Well I don't really think you play part of it through your enemie's eyes as you never actually fight or kill the humans, Arbiter does not even kill Johnson or Miranda when he has the chance. I personally don't find the storyline that predictable and linear especially compared with that of other games that came out around it's release. Oh, and a Gamespot update that was sent to my e-mail tells me that supposedly insider info posted on the Xbox.com reveals that Halo will have up to 4 player co-op now and free-roaming gameplay. I guess we can cross our fingers and hope.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I think I've read that it was bogus, that Halo: Forerunner game with the roaming gameplay and such...

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

*Pheonix Down*

Yes, I'm reviving this thread, because there's new info. This time about the movie.

Neill Blomkamp has, apperently, been chosen to direct the Halo movie, and Ain't It Cool News has an interview with the dude.

Read, digest, discuss, post

Most amazing jew boots

*IMDBs to find out who Neill Blomkamp is*

A 3D animator, huh. Hey, anything could happen- I'm not going to trash someone who hasn't had a chance to prove themselves yet.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

He's the dude behind the Citroën C4 ad (the one with the Transformer-y form dancing) and he's made a short movie called Alive in Joburg. He's also been nominated for an Emmy for his work on James Cameron's Dark Angel.

FELIPE NO

Reading the interview, he says all the right things but then, people often do. I think it was a great idea to get someone with a background in computer modelling in to do it as most of the film we be cgi anyway. If he writes in any love scenes though, I ain't going to watch it...

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

"Chief! My memory banks are steaming with love."
"Easy, Cortana. Tell me about this when I've worked up a grunty lust... FOR you!"

Yes, we can do without any cheap Miranda/John-117 story or whatelse. There's a reason the Spartans got those hormone injections which made them somewhat oblivious to sexual drive. The possible Captain Keyes - Dr. Halsey connection is enough.

Jam it back in, in the dark.