04.29.06

For Halo fans, the time has finally come.

Posted in Halo at 2:10 pm by UNSCleric

Ever since the earth-shattering cliffhanger of Halo 2, Halo fans have stood waiting for the sequel, wanting anything, from a confirmation to Halo 3, to explanations about why Halo 2 ended like it did. I don’t believe Halo 2 ended abruptly for any other reason other than, in 2003, Bungie realized the Xbox would not be able to handle what they wanted to do, and then decided to do Halo 2 as sort of an interlude to the real Earth battle that they have envisioned from the start. We got a little tease of it in the beginning of Halo 2, but it is not what the Halo 2 posters show, and I would know, I have several. The Halo 2 posters show an orange tinted Earth sky, and hundreds of Covenant cruisers overheard. That is what I believe we will see in Halo 3 finally, after all these years.

On May 9th, it’ll be exactly one year, six months since November 9th, 2004, and ironically, Microsoft’s pre-E3 Press Conference is May 9th. Bungie Studios (the developers of Halo) do not have a booth at E3, and if the rumors right now are true (and every credible source is saying they are, including this very site) Microsoft will show off a 2 minute trailer of Halo 3 during their Press Conference. I expect Microsoft will put that trailer on Xbox.com & the Xbox Live Marketplace, and I’m sure Bungie will have it over at their site too. My guess would be Microsoft won’t say a word about Halo 3 for the rest of E3, and let it’s more soon to be released games have the spotlight on the show floor, but everyone will know what happened during the Press Conference, and will know, that Halo 3 is finally confirmed, and is coming.

The Halo 2 - Volume 2 Soundtrack finally came out just under a week ago, a soundtrack Halo music fans have been waiting for, also since November 9th. Along with that is the Halo Graphic Novel which is set to release this summer. There is no better time than now to announce and confirm Halo 3’s development than now, if not only to hype those two products, but to also help Microsoft in the hype war against Sony’s PS3.

I don’t think Halo 3 will be out this year though, I believe the earliest will be March 2007, but Halo 3 could come out anytime between November 2006-2007, no one knows how much Bungie has done, but according to the Weekly Updates Bungie has been giving out, they have a lot of stuff done and working, so a release date is very up in the air right now, I think the Halo movie could have a bit of an affect on it as well, as I’ve always believed they will use the movie and Halo 3 to hype each other up, and make 2007 the “Year of Halo“.

This is the time Halo fans have waited for since the moment those credits started rolling at the end of Halo 2, and in just over a week, we will see what we have waited so long for. I never thought it would be 18 months before we had a confirmation of Halo 3, but it has been, and now it’s time.

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04.28.06

More Rumors of Halo 3 At E3.

Posted in E306, Halo at 4:07 am by UNSCleric

April 28, 2006 - With Microsoft, the rumors are always true. The next iteration in Bungie Studios’ Halo series will appear at E3 2006 in video form at its Tuesday, May 9 news conference, IGN learned today from independent sources who recently spoke with Microsoft executives.

The video is allegedly two minutes long, although its contents weren’t divulged. We’re guessing a wild breathtaking battle on Earth. Knowing Microsoft, the publisher will want to show all real, in-game engine footage to counter Sony’s fantastical CG videos from E3 2005. When Microsoft was contacted, the company issued its standard reply, “We don’t comment on speculation and rumors.”

-IGN.

Makes sense it would happen there. Bungie has no booth at E3, and also, there will be nothing playable at E3 when it comes to E3. So on May 9th, I’d expect a Halo 3 trailer to get the Xbox Live Matketplace.

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Xbox 360’s Headstart + Peter Moore talks about Live/E3.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 3:57 am by UNSCleric

Microsoft had previously expressed a goal to ship 4.5 to 5.5 million Xbox 360’s by the end of their financial year, June 30. However during a conference call after the third quarter results were announced, this was increased to between 5 to 5.5 million units shipped - a small increase to a minimum of 5 million.

Microsoft further said that its earlier manufacturing problems were over, with VP Peter Moore saying, “Our supply challenges are behind us operationally”. This has allowed them to ship 3.2 million Xbox 360s so far, including 1.8 million in North America alone. They also announced that over 4 million Xbox Live Arcade games had been downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Looks like it’s going to very possible for Microsoft to hit the 10 million mark before PS3 will even hit 2 million (probably sometime around December 06-January 07). Historically, the system that hits 10 million first has always come out on top sales wise.

As I talked about earlier, Microsoft is really stepping up the Live service during the E3 week. Not only will the entire week allow Silver members to have access like a Gold member, but they will also be throwing up high definition videos right from the floor of E3, and also demos of some games. Peter Moore talked about the these issues, and the fact that some people worry about the “strain” on the Xbox Live servers.

Microsoft VP Peter Moore recently had an interview posted on Xbox.com where he said,

“It is our goal to bring E3 home to Xbox Live members as best we can, all the videos and the news as quickly as possible. We will give you the flavor of what’s going on, on the show floor and some of the stuff that we are showing and debuting here.”

The strain on the Live servers will also be increased by the recent announcement of another Verizon sponsored free Xbox Live Gold week, so in addition to having thousands or millions of people downloading E3 content, there will also be many new gamers playing over Live. Moore was confident though, saying,

“If we can get through Halo® 2, which we did, then I think we can get through anything.”

SEGA Driving Studio is set the revive an old classic series with their first game, as we will see a new SEGA Rally game on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC in 2007.

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04.27.06

Free Xbox Live Gold Week Coming.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 2:56 pm by UNSCleric

I forgot to mention earlier, Verizon is once again sponsoring another Silver Goes Gold time period, and this time, it’ll be the entire week of E3!  This is perfect, since Microsoft is planning on having tons of coverage on E3 over at Xbox.com, and also LIVE on the Xbox Live Marketplace, where demos and trailers will be popping up as they happen on the floor.  One of the main demos announced so far is Capcom’s “Lost Planet” which will have a demo released on May 9th, the day before the expo opens to the public.

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Nintendo….What are they thinking?

Posted in Wii Related at 11:55 am by UNSCleric

Just a few minutes ago, Nintendo announced the real name of their “Revolution” console, which I thought was a good name for what will be a pretty poor attempt at a console. Anyways, Nintendo just dropped the Revolution name, and the system is now known as, “Wii”

Not much to say on that issue, other than Nintendo seems to be trying to completely alienate themselves from the mainstream, but they will make a cheap console, and sell it for a bit of a profit, and will make a good bit of money, which is what they care about.

In other news, Valve has committed to making Xbox 360 games, and that is awesome in my opinion. They are working a customized version of the Source engine to take advantage of the Xbox 360 technology, and I’m hoping that sometime within a year, we see a pack of Source games come out, and then sometime after that, see a Counter-Strike: Source 2, as well as other sequels if they want. All I care about is Counter-Strike though, as that is the only game I miss playing on the PC. Valve has announced no games yet though.

Full Auto 2 has begun development.

Bethesda has shot down all rumors of them porting over the Xbox 360 console exclusive, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to the PS3 and/or PSP. They have no plans to make a port, and I would not count on them doing it anytime in the future.

Prey is almost done, and will be released on July 10th, 2006. Prey is another Xbox 360 console exclusive.

Once again….what is Nintendo thinking? Wii?

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04.26.06

Halo 3: Why is this a surprise?

Posted in Halo at 12:00 pm by UNSCleric

UNSCleric.com’s front page has been updated, but this time I won’t be just copy and pasting what I posted on there onto here, which I usually have done. As you may have noticed, I usually post more news on this page than on the front page, and a lot more often. That’s because this setup is a lot more faster and easier than dealing with how I have the front page setup, so I’m thinking about making the front page more like a menu to other parts of the site, instead of some kind of tag along news page with this one. It’s not really a good system to try and report the same news on two different areas for the same site..just doesn’t make sense.

So basically, this will be the place to get your news (UNSCleric.com/news) and once I finally get working on some content for the site, I’ll let you know, but first, go read the couple paragraphs on the front page, where I talk a bit about E3. I like reporting news and doing the occasional article/commentary every now and then, so I’m not sure if I’ll ever get much into the previews/reviews thing.

Forza 2 and Halo 3 are being rumored to be shown off in some way at this year’s E3 in 2 weeks, and although Forza is likely, I don’t get why Halo 3 at E3 would even be a newsworthy thing to talk about right now. I am of the belief that Halo 3 will be the best game of all-time, but I don’t understand the “Holy **** it’s coming!?” attitude I’ve been seeing lately. Since X05 last year, when there was no little hint of Halo 3 (I figured they would maybe just show the logo to tell people, “Yes, it’s coming, buy the Xbox 360 and get ready”, but they didn’t.) Since then, I’ve always said E3, or the surrounding days is when we would see either a Halo 3 announcement trailer, or maybe even the start of another Alternate-Reality Game from Bungie/4orty2wo, like we saw with ilovebees.com.
Supposedly Peter Moore hinted at Halo 3 earlier today (which has now been proven as false, his pre-E3 interview on Xbox.com says nothing of it, and he said it nowhere else.) The weekly Bungie.net updates however have been saying they have a lot of stuff done and looking good. I believe Halo 3 (or what is now considered Halo 3) has been worked on since 2003. I think fragments of Halo 3 might have even been worked on before Halo 2’s production even started. I think Bungie went with what they wanted to do, and realized the Xbox just couldn’t handle where they wanted to take the story. Joseph Staten then (this is what he said) locked himself in a hotel room and wrote the story for 3 days straight I believe it was. They reviewed it, and it’s what they went iwth. I think the last minute story writing and hyperness that surrounded Halo 2’s creation is the fact that they had to scrap their inital plan, and go with a plan similar to The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions (extremely cliffhangered ending).

That is also why Bungie said about a year ago that “Halo 3 is not our next project”. Halo 3 was already thier CURRENT project, which they had worked on along with Halo 2, not to mention the fact they’ve also been working on the Halo 2 PC version, so I would take that quote by Frankie (Bungie’s news writer) with a bit of doubt. It’s exactly like Frankie and Bungie to say something like that, throw people off with a technicality of meaning.

Halo was shown at E3 2000, and came out in November. 2001. Halo 2 was announced at E3 2003, came out in November 2004. Halo 3 will now be announced at E3 2006 and come out sometime in 2007 (anytime between March and November). I think what you can expect at E3 will be a 3-7 minute trailer for Halo 3, most likely giving people a bit of what direction the story is going with in Halo 3. This will probably be the only video we ever see of Halo 3’s single player, just like with Halo 2. They never showed more than the first level of Halo 2’s campaign in any commercial they showed on TV, and all we ever saw from expos was multiplayer, which is a very smart move.
You should be extremely excited for Halo 3 at E3, but don’t be shocked by it, as this is Microsoft’s biggest weapon agsinst the PS3 hype train, besides Xbox Live.

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04.17.06

FEAR Confirmed for Xbox 360 + Moto GP 2006 Demo Coming.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 1:48 pm by UNSCleric

First off, a Moto GP 2006 demo will be coming ~May 15th.

Secondly, for an entire year, I have argued that FEAR would make it’s way to the Xbox 360.  I, as well as some others, were told that, “it would never happen” or that it, “would never work on a controller”.  Well, it looks like those guys were wrong, as usual, as FEAR is coming the Xbox 360 sometime later this year most likely, just as I have reported here and there on my site since last May.  The following is a scan of an upcoming Official Xbox Magazine, and it confirms all you need to know.

Also, some downloadable cars for Burnout Revenge came out late last week, there’s about 6 of them, and they are all free on the Xbox Live Marketplace under the Burnout Revenge list.

As you may have noticed, I didn’t report any news for the past week or so, and I apologize for that, had a lot going on, but fortunately, the only thing making news last week was just more and more content going up on the Xbox Live Marketplace.  E3 is in 3 weeks, which is when Halo 3 will be debuted in some way, whether it be the start of some viral campaign, an announcement trailer, etc.  No matter what, Microsoft needs to drive the nail into Sony at E3.  Sony is having trouble right now with their Blu-Ray manufacturing, and Microsoft is doubling their orders of Xbox 360 chips, so if Microsoft could go into E3 with huge announcements like the new upcoming features of Xbox Live, HD-DVD add-on, Gears of War, Halo 3, all the RPGs they have coming, etc. they will win this generation I believe.

Microsoft needs to show off every single thing they have at E3, or else the Sony hype train will once again win this generation, defective PS3s or not.  Microsoft needs to cut off the people who are saving for a PS3 (and unless your rich, you’re going to have to for the $600+ pricetag) and get them to buy an Xbox 360 instead this summer or fall.

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04.05.06

PS3 Pricing Leaked

Posted in PS3 Related at 9:36 am by UNSCleric

The president of Sony France and VP of Sony Europe let some PS3 pricing details slip yesterday: the PlayStation 3 will cost between €499 and €599. That’s equivalent to between US$613 to US$736. This does not come as a shock, as Blu-Ray stand-alone players will cost around $1000, so that + all the over the top technology (Cell) and unneccessary ports (2 HDMI ports) in the PS3 will take the PS3 to an ridiculous price.

It’s possible that the price he gave could even be for the “core” version of the PS3 that’s been rumored, which would mean it wouldn’t come with some of the stuff you would probably need. I wonder if Sony will be firing anybody because of this, most of you probably remember the Sony graphical artist who had worked on many top-notch Sony games who was fired for writing a blog about the PS3.

If this is true, then it’s very good, because the casual fan in America, which is now the biggest gaming market, will not pay that price, and will either cause Sony to lose this next-gen race, or make the race that much closer. If Sony, who I have nick-named the cancer of gaming, was to finally fall off it’s throne, it’d be a great day for the gaming industry, and gamers worldwide.

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04.04.06

New Marketplace Content + New Xbox 360 Game Announced.

Posted in Xbox 360 News at 4:24 pm by UNSCleric

Eidos announced yesterday that Hitman: Blood Money will be coming to the Xbox 360 later this year.

There’s also a new trailer for both Tomb Raider: Legend and Battlefield 2: Modern Combat on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

An audio patch to the newest backwards compatible update was released yesterday also, which fixed some audio glitches in PAL versions of a couple games.

A Horse Armor Pack for the new Oblivion is also available on Xbox Live for the cost of 200 points.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a new Xbox Live Arcade game either today or tomorrow.

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