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Get Your Free Halo 3: O.D.S.T. Premium Theme
Your Xbox 360 looks fine while playing Halo 3: O.D.S.T., but what about when you stop playing and return to the dashboard? Microsoft has you covered with a mostly free premium theme. It’s a new Halo game, and to celebrate, there’s a new Halo theme, featuring the sights of O.D.S.T.’s New Mombasa. It’s yours free…
By Mike Fahey -
Halo Composer Wrote Jingles for Flintstones Vitamins, Tidy Cats
A profile by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, calling Marty O’Donnell the John Williams of the Halo series, turns up this tidbit: He wrote the Flintstones Vitamins jingle (which you now have stuck in your head) and his kids sang the chorus. That’s not news to hardcore fans (it’s all over the Halo wikis), but O’Donnell’s past…
By Owen Good -
Get Cash Back On Your Xbox 360 Elite
Microsoft sweetens the deal on the newly $299 Xbox 360, offering a $50 rebate on all Elite consoles purchased between now and October 5th. It’s 14 days of savings! Simply purchase an Xbox 360 Elite at the regular price, visit http://www.xbox.com/eliterebate (once it goes live), jump through whatever hoops they require you to jump through…
By Mike Fahey -
Microsoft Confirms 802.11n Wi-Fi Adapter
An FCC listing last week showed it had reviewed an official 802.11n wireless adapter Microsoft’s developing for the 360. A flier in an Italian Gears of War 2 pointed to the same thing. The company has formally confirmed its existence. Microsoft gave the statement to Joystiq earlier today but did not divulge a release date…
By Owen Good -
One Web Series’ Success on XBL Doesn’t Mean Others Will Follow
“The Guild” might be a hit on Xbox Live, but don’t look for it to inspire many imitators. A senior Microsoft executive says the sponsorship deal it was able to wangle was rare, and such deals are hard to swing. Ross Honey the general manager of global content acquisition and strategy in Microsoft’s media and…
By Owen Good -
Frankenreview: Halo 3: O.D.S.T.
Halo Wars showed us that a Halo game in a different genre can do moderately well without Master Chief, but a first-person shooter? Can O.D.S.T. pull that off? Master Chief is such an iconic gaming figure that it almost seems wrong to have an FPS with the Halo name on it without him. It’s like…
By Mike Fahey -
Rare: “We’re Long Past the Stage” where Goldeneye Deal is Feasible
The long, sad tale of bringing the groundbreaking shooter Goldeneye to Nintendo’s Virtual Console, or Xbox Live Arcade, appears to have ended long ago, with a whimper. Addressing a reader question about Goldeneye ever getting an agreement between Nintendo and Microsoft, releasing it to current generation consoles, Rare said, alas, no. That was some time…
By Owen Good -
Scrapped Halo MMO’s title: ‘Halo Universe’?
Dylan Cole, an artist formerly with Ensemble Studios, has on his personal Web site some concept pieces for a canceled Halo project that may or may not have been called “Halo Universe.” Ensemble of course was the muscle behind a Halo MMO that was greenlighted and then scrapped sometime last year. Cole’s pictures (two are…
By Owen Good -
‘All You Need Is Love’ Needs Only Two Days to Set Rock Band Record
The combination of an iconic tune representing both a band and an era, sold to support a charity, helped the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love’ become the fastest-selling downloadable song in Rock Band history, two days after its release. However, in the statement Microsoft released to announce the chart-topping feat, neither the specific number…
By Owen Good -
Halo ODST: Breaking The Mold
Explore Halo 3: ODST‘s journey from DLC to full game, or in the words of cinematics director CJ Cowan, "Here’s an engine, here’s a story, you got a year. Go." Cowan’s quick and dirty summary of the project might be accurate, but it downplays the sheer amount of work that Bungie has put into Halo…
By Mike Fahey -
XNA Studio Adds Zune HD Dev Support
To coincide with the retail launch of the shiny new Zune HD, Microsoft has released extensions for XNA Game Studio 3.1 to aid indie developers in creating games for the mobile media player. It won’t be long now before the Zune HD is swamped with indie game titles, thanks to these new extensions freely available…
By Mike Fahey