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If you've waited this long to grab Halo 3's "Legendary Map Pack," you're probably waiting for a deal. Thankfully, one has come in the form of the Xbox LIVE Marketplace Holiday Deal of the Week.
Fans of the music of Bungie's Halo series are in for a real treat tomorrow, as Sumthing Else releases a 5-disc soundtrack set spanning the series' history, complete with a Halo Wars preview.
Sure, Halo 3 was so 2007, but there's always ways to pick up an extra penny or two the year after. When the heat's died down. Here's one: the complete Halo soundtrack. It's the soundtracks to Halo 1, Halo 2 and Halo 3, all in the one box, all for $US30. Could be the perfect stocking-stuffer for that special Halo fan in your life. Provided they didn't buy the soundtrack to Halo 2, hear Incubus and hurl it out the nearest window, that is.
New Halo game on the horizon? Better get McFarlane on the case, get some small, plastic action figures churned out. Oh, what's that? McFarlane's already on the case? How unexpected. These figures may have been announced in September, but today, here's your first good look at them. They're coming smaller (at 2.5") than the standard Halo figures, and in packs of three, and all colour-coded, because Halo Wars is an RTS, get it? Expect them in March 2009.
Halo set Microsoft up in this business. It sold a ton of Xbox games, and more importantly, it sold a ton of Xbox consoles. Halo 2 did the same thing, Halo 3 did the same thing again, except this time for the 360. Everybody knows that. And if everybody knows that, you can bet Bungie know it, and community lead Brian Jarrard isn't shy about asking "Could you imagine the Xbox or Xbox 360 without Bungie's Halo?":
It may not be as mindblowingly impressive as the amazing StarCraft recreation done in Spore, and the shine of Spore creature creations may have started to dull to the more jaded of us, but this collection of Halo universe heroes, beasts and vehicles, built in Maxis' sim-everything game is still pretty darn neat.
Jenga Donkey Kong Special Edition wasn't the only game to show up on my doorstep during my stint to Japan. I also received a box containing the Halo Interactive Strategy Game. The board game comes with an interactive DVD for "enhanced gameplay and battles", 15 sculpted character pieces and a 3D modular board.
I haven't had a chance yet to take the rather complex looking game for a spin yet, but I did break it open to snap a bunch of photos of the goodies included with each game. My favourites? The littlest Master Chief and the Flood Your Are Dead cards. Don't I know it. Don't I know it.
Gallery on the jump.
If you're ready to phone in this year's Halloween costume, Costumes Inc. and Rubie's Costume Company got your back. This Master Chief "Collector's Costume" will be the talk of whatever shindig you find yourself at over the next week. "You paid how much for this thing?" they'll ask. "It was marked down from $US850!" you'll proudly announce, all the while sweating profusely, your speech muffled to near indecipherable levels.
For as long as most of you will remember, Bungie and Microsoft were like *this*. Bungie made Halo, Microsoft published it. But these days, Bungie fly solo, and while they've got a deal in place with Microsoft for the short-term, in the longer term, their options are open. Bungie's Brian Jarrard:
For all their attempts at space opera 101, the real pull for a lot of Halo fans wasn't the struggle between humanity and a vast alien empire. It was multiplayer. Sweet, balanced, near-perfect multiplayer. But did you know that one of the series' most important legacies almost never made the cut? Hardy LeBel - who aside from having a fantastic name also worked on the first Halo's MP (he's now with Ubisoft working on Far Cry 2) - explains:
When we got bought by Microsoft, Alex Seropian and Jason Jones, who were the two principals of Bungie, came to me and [former Bungie engineer and animator] Michael Evans, and said, "Multiplayer is cut from Halo because we're trying to make it really work on the console and we just don't have the resources."
