'nuff said.

Bungie's official word:
http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=thesoundofsack&wa=wsignin1.0

Luke Smith's confirmation:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=7249107#post7249107
IGN:
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/809/809569p1.html
Joystiq:
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/31/its-official-halo-3-has-four-player-online-co-op/
Some other site:
http://n4g.com/xbox360/News-55843.aspx

So the last concert I posted about never materialized like I was told, but don't fret because this one is inked. Three really good bands are set to rock it out at Crossroads 8/28/07. Check out Pollstar for the proof;)

19+ for entry

Bands:
Evans Blue
Submersed
Framing Hanley

Keep a watch out on Crossroad's site for more information about ticket prices and times.

Anyone up for an impromptu gathering in the Huntsville area this Thursday? We could use it as an opportunity for everyone to reclaim LAN equipment that was taken home by others this weekend. I'm fairly indifferent as to location and activity. Restaurants, bowling alleys, and bars have both worked out well so far. Throw out some suggestions. Traditional time has been 7 PM. Does that still work?

The press has recently attended preview sessions at Bungie HQ.  They've gotten to play parts of the campaign and magazines have been given renderings and screenshots to publish.  HALO 3 looks mature, spectacular, and deeper than HALO 2.  See what I mean:

Scans of Famitsu H3 images from Neogaf.com
Scans of Joypad H3 images at JeuxFrance.com
Summary of Interview with Jamie Griesemer from MSN.ca:

The Scarab conflict is part of The Storm, the fourth mission of the single-player campaign component of "Halo 3," and just one portion of the mission, has more enemies and allies than the entire first mission of "Halo 1."

The size really ramps up as you go through."But in 'Halo 3,' The Scarab is an AI (artificial intelligence). He'll chase you around, he'll acquire targets. If he can't find you, he'll search for you. He's the biggest character we've every done, essentially. And there are dozens of ways to kill him."

"All equipment in multiplayer shows up in single-player and the AI will use it on you," said Griesemer."The main way you're going to get equipment in the single-player game is by killing guys before they can use their own (on you)."

On the multiplayer front, a nifty feature called The Forge allows the gamer to redesign maps by changing the placement of weapons and vehicles, as well as changing the rules of engagement.

The game becomes more complicated via hidden skulls. Scattered through the game, these change the rules - for example, one skull calls for both players to die and be sent back to their last checkpoint if just one player is killed.

The ultimate task will be to finish every mission on legendary difficulty, with all skulls turned on, in a certain time limit with style.

It's looking like HALO 3 will not disappoint on the campaign front.  We are going to get more vehicles, more enemies, better vehicles and better enemies.  We are going to get rich environments and complex engagements that are sure to add dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of replay value to the campaign.

http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2007/jul07/07-26ComicConXboxHDDVDPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases

The Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive is being cut from $199 to $179 and being offered with five free HD-DVDs during the months of August and September. See the text of the press release below.

Long story short, I like it.

A good way to describe this game would be to compare it to previous versions, namely Nascar '06 for the original Xbox. So far I would recommend sticking with the oval/tri-oval courses (which are, by far, the majority here), otherwise you might as well go buy Forza 2. If your up for some evenly matched, very tense racing though, this game is definitely the way to go.

Likes:

• Good graphics and special effects
• Improved sound effects and vocals
• Improved framerates and sense of speed (it feels faster)
• Great soundtrack. Appropriate, modern rock + country
• Superb user interface for the menus (very well done)
• XBL Functionality. Use of the EA servers feels integrated, not separate like past games.
• Attention to detail functionality wise i.e. my camera view preferences are saved even after turning off the console.
• Improved view from the rear view mirror
• Turn the camera left/right with the right joystick
• Bump drafting doesn't spin out your teammates as easily
• Lots of options setup wise, as well as HUD and control
• Great looking crash damage
• Share car setups over XBL
• "Stats view" by pressing the blue X button during gameplay
• The fully customizable ESPN sports ticker at the bottom of the screen, I know this is in other games, but it's still pretty damn cool.
• Full replays, that way arguments can be settled as to who spun out who in those wrecks.. trust me you'll need it.
  

Dislikes:

• When people are talking during an online race, some text displays the name of who is speaking. This text is directly in the center of my view of the track and it makes me nearly wreck every time it pops up (I use roof view). Move this text please. I would like to personally stick a boot to the ass of the person who thought of this feature.
• No party system on Xbox live.
• Caution flags need to be tweaked. During a wreck, every now and then the caution flag will be thrown before the wreck has a chance to play itself out and cause the really cool crashes.
• Network jitter is less prevalent, however when there is some, sometimes the cars will jump around the track back and forth and dent the heck out of my car, slowing me down for the rest of the race. This also happens at times during cautions when the computer is in charge of your car. On occasion, during a caution where I didn't even wreck, my car will be banged all to hell. This could be fixed by disabling damage during cautions.
• Network problems still persist. I was disconnected from a few games. I'm not sure if this has a correlation with the amount of people in one game or not. Further testing is required.
  

Conclusion (click 'read more' for the conclusion):

I recently decided to give The Darkness a rent, and I'm very happy I did. Overall, I'm liking the game a lot. However, if you are looking for a dedicated shooter then this isn't it. To me The Darkness is an RPG. Yes, you do your fair share of shooting, but just as often you're exploring the New York subway system, talking to people, and playing with telephones and unlockable content. Similar to how Oblivion is an open world RPG that has fighting elements, I think The Darkness leans that way as a very linear RPG with heavy shooting elements. Click "read more" for the rest of the scoop.

Yesterday leaked screenshots from the next edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly hit the web. What were people up in arms about? The revelation by Bungie in a June interview that 4-person co-op over XBOX Live will not ship with the final game. It has widely been speculated that 4-person co-op over XBOX Live would in-deed be a killer feature for HALO 3. After all, zealous fans poured through thousands of lines of code after the release of the HALO 3 beta on XBOX Live. Fans saw references that suggested HALO 3 would have 4-person co-op over XBOX Live.

HALO 3 is supposed to the greatest XBOX 360 test to date. At least, that's what we've come to expect from Bungie. Every release of HALO has been just that - the best selling XBOX title to date. Each game ships with features that are not only unique, but influence the first-person shooter genre on other platforms including PC gaming. HALO dominates interactive entertainment. It dominates and innovates.

Many people are pitting HALO 3 up against Gears of War (the best selling XBOX 360 title to date). Gears of War brought a new graphics standard to the table. The styling of Gears of War is something that isn't seen in many games. Besides that, Gears used bump and texture maps to great gorgeous imagery.

Gears of War also featured online cooperative play during the gripping campaign. The ability to play co-op online was revolutionary for a Microsoft title. It was done so well that it added many hours of replay to the game as friends were able to play together through the campaign on four different difficulty levels.

HALO fans noticed. They noticed the outstanding graphics (recall that it has been reported that Microsoft doubled the amount of RAM in the XBOX 360 just to be able to render the graphics in Gears of War) and the online coop.

With the revelation that multiplayer co-op may not ship with HALO 3, many fans are asking "WHY!?!?!?".

Four-person co-op over XBOX Live has got to be an expensive feature. It's vastly more technical than "teleporting the player who's lagging behind to the lead player's position". That's what XBOX 360 Fanboy suggested.

I claim it's not that simple. Besides, the "teleport-to-the-current-location-of-the-leader" feature was always a local solution. It was never done online.

In Gears of War, the environments weren't as interactive as HALO 3's. In fact, HALO 2's environments were more interactive than Gears. In Gears, most objects in the map never moved or changed. The environments didn't destruction. Boxes and pieces of the urban scenery couldn't be moved. Almost entirely, the only objects that could move were the players and they ammunition they fired.

In HALO 3 online co-op netcode would have to transmit the position data for all movable objects in the game. The projectiles coming from the weapons, the boxes, crates, destructible environments, vehicles, the other players, the grenades, and, oh, the scores of enemies that you'll be fighting, their weapons, their projectiles, and their influence on the environments.

And how about throwing in a mix of deployable technology. They'd have to account for not only the Bubble Shields, but the states of the Bubble Shields. And shouldn't we assume that the enemies will also have access to this technology? Maybe that's a stretch?

And it doesn't end there. HALO 3 will have other secondary elements that will take up pressure network bandwidth. Simple things like Jackal shields, stationary shields, plasma blasts, door states, ramp states, and so on.

Example, in HALO PC, we saw that even objects in multiplayer matches got out of sync. In the map "Danger Canyon", stationary shields (like the one's the Jackals use) were spread in the middle of the map. Those shields would disappear if they took enough damage. Over time, the shields should get out of sync between all of the players in the game. On some people's computers, the shields would be powered. On other machines they would be destroyed.

Heck, we even experienced a little bit of this in a recent HALO title, HALO 2. Recall the stationary turrets and how destroying them didn't necessarily mean they were destroyed? Ah - the days of the invisible stationary turret.

My point? In HALO 3, low priority objects would easily get out of sync without the development of revolutionary netcode and bandwidth prioritization.

Bungie has said that online co-op is a huge technical feature. It is! Why do you think other game don't offer online co-op? Look at all of the other developers that have made shooters with campaigns. How many have included online co-op in such an interactive game? I'm waiting...

Many people are bitter about this news. But can you really be disappointed about a feature that we never officially announced? Many people were disappointed in the graphics of the HALO 3 beta. Will they now be disappointed with the lack of online multiplayer?

I have full faith that Bungie’s innovation in HALO 3 will more than make up for any feature that doesn’t make it into the final build.

Wow. All this over leaked images from a yet-to-be-released gaming magazine containing a reference to an interview conducted earlier in the summer. Sheesh.

Competitive video gaming is getting some major exposure on 60 Minutes.  "Fatal1ty" and "lil Poison" are two gamers that are highlighted in the episode. 

In the world of competitive video gaming, Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendell could be considered Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan. He's traveled the globe, won several world championships, and made more money than most twenty-somethings will see in a lifetime. Steve Kroft meets Fatal1ty and gets a sense of what it's like being America's most famous "cyber-athlete." - 60 Minutes

Follow this link to see segments from the show:  http://60minutes.yahoo.com/segment/82/fatal1ty/

In addition to the existing movie trailers, today gamer pics, themes, and a trailer for Transformers: The Game hit Xbox Live. Themes are 150 points, pics are 200 points, and the trailers are free. Oh, and yes, there is an "old school" Transformers gamer picture pack. Enjoy.

Filmed|Edited by me, GTVtrigger.

Download/Streaming Links

Video embed from brightcove.com: Click here

MLG GameRoom Streaming: Click here

GamingTV Download: Quicktime | WMV download coming soon

The Microsoft fanboy in me may never forgive me for posting this video. But as a gamer and a lover of immersive first person shooters, I must post this video.

First off, do yourself a favor and what it in uber high resolution. Stream the video from here: http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21637.html

Else, stay here and watch this lower resolution blurry POS:

I don't own a PlayStation 3. But trailers like this make me want to own one. All of a sudden, HALO 3 looks a lot different to me.

In a move that makes total sense, Microsoft is bringing Gears of War to the PC during the holiday season of 2007.  This is going to be a great move for PC gamers.  Gears is a high profile game and it was only released for the XBOX 360 in late 2006. This game is still fresh.

It is going to wear the "Games for Windows" badge and come with a host of exclusive features not available on the XBOX 360 version of this game.  The game will support five new campaign chapters.  Campaign was the "killer" feature for Gears of War.  Adding five new chapters is going to sell a lot of copies.  Gamers were not only into the story that Gears presented, they were into the characters that we played and assisted us throughout the campaign.  That's when you know you've built a good campaign - when fans bond with the characters. 

Another feature that PC gamers will be excited about is the game editor that will allow users to can create and publish new multiplayer content.  They will be using the Unreal Editor - one of the most popular editors available.  Players can now import custom artwork into the engine, create particle systems, scripted encounters, cinematics, and more.  While I've never been a fan of games that did this, it's still a great option to include that will add to replayability. 

Gears PC will also ship with new multiplayer maps, one new multiplayer game mode and new achievements.

The game supports the Games for Windows - Live online service.  Many people have read my takes on the shortcomings for Games for Windows - Live.  In short, it needs a lot of help and could be more crippled than the XBOX Live beta from 2002.  A high profile game like Gears of War will surely bring some changes to the GfWL service.  While HALO 2 was a high profile game (understatement?), it was released in 2004 and launched the GfWL service.  HALO 2 (PC) game got mediocre reviews and had a quite launch with crippling online connection errors.  Gears should change that.  Gears PC will be in your face and heavily marketed.  Here's hoping that MORE users on the GfWL will give Micrsoft the data and feedback it needs to make the service better.  If for nothing else, a hugely popular title like Gears PC will at least assure us that support forums and message boards will fill up with requests and threads for support.  More feedback, even about technical issues, will eventually lead to a better service.

Gears of War PC will also run on DirectX 10.  This is going to help usher in the DX10 era.  Unfortunately, DX10 hardware hasn't penetrated the market yet.  Still, more and more gamers are updating their rigs to the latest cards from ATi and nVidia.  DirectX10 will ensure that this game looks better than the XBOX 360 version while playing at higher resolutions.  However, it will come at a price.  Since DirectX10 is new, most PC gamers will have to buy new hardware.

This game will most likely NOT support cross-platform play allowing PC gamers and XBOX 360 gamers to play together in the same game. While it works well with Shadowrun, there's no sign of that happening in Gears.

There's also no mention of dedicated servers being released for Gears. Being able to play Gears on a super highspeed network connection would have ensured lagless games and possibly more than 8 players in a game.

Gears PC will be the biggest Games for Windows title to date.  It's going to drive the community and technology which will lead to even better games later in 2008.

One reason why Uno had a lot of replay value was because it had XBOX Live Vision support.  Getting into a game of Uno on XBOX Live Arcade was first like being in a video chat room and second like playing a simple card game.Texas Hold 'Em FINALLY has added Vision Camera support to the popular game.  By the nature of the game, Texas Hold 'Em is a social experience.  The game is mostly played off of the table.  Adding Vision support is feature that has been missed for many many months. 

Our friends at Joystiq got a better look at the Halo 3 Edition Xbox 360 announced at E3 and are reporting that it features an HDMI port and a 20GB hard drive. Whaaaa??? It appears to be a mutation of both the premium and elite systems: made from parts of both but stronger than either.

The main question on my mind is "How much can we expect to pay for a 360 with this unique set of features?" From a cost of production standpoint, I think Microsoft can definitely afford to produce this version for less than the elite, and possibly only marginally more than the premium. Click "read more" to find out why.

Disney movies are now available for download (err...rental really) in high definition via Xbox Live. Why is this significant? Disney supports the Blu-Ray format and not HD-DVD. Apparently that didn't stop Microsoft from securing the rights to distribute Disney's "huge classic library" (quote from the E3 press briefing) via Xbox Live. Microsoft went on to say, "...all the biggest hits in theaters today from Disney will be coming to the Xbox Live marketplace." gg. Click "read more" for a list of what's available today as of the first offering.

A ton of news smacked us in the face last night as Microsoft held their E3 presentation.  They are hyping this holiday season as the "greatest holiday lineup in video game history."  It's hard to quantify "greatest" so I'm sure they'll achieve that goal.

So what makes this holiday season so big?

Gears of Wars is headed to the PC and will run DirectX 10 and support Games for Windows - Live.  I have a feeling my 8800 GTX is going to get a workout.  GoW PC ships with five new campaign chapters, a new multiplayer gametype, new maps, new achievements, and a new game editor. 

A new HALO-themed XBOX 360 with HDMI output and themed accessories is going to roll out later this year.  It includes an exclusive HALO 3 dashboard theme and gamer pics.  The console is "Spartan green" colored with shiney gold accents (kind of like Master Chief's armor) and will ship in September.

Speaking of HALO, a ton of HALO media has been released.  My favorite:  a live action short film.  Bungie.net has a ton of new videos and screenshots.

Unreal Engine 3 will utilize Games for Windows - Live.  This should encourage more developers to make games with GfWL functionality (we've ONLY got TWO GfWL titles right now).

Marathon: Durandal his XBOX Live Arcade.  This will be Bungie's first IP on the Arcade.  Sonic the Hedgehog is NOW available as an XBOX Live Arcade download. 

Major franchise titles will be launched this year including:  Call of Duty 4, Grand Theft Auto IV, Guitar Hero III, HALO 3, Madden NFL 08, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Splinter Cell Conviction.  But other first title games will be launched as well including Assassin's Creed, BioShock, and Mass Effect. 

Click "read more" for a complete listing of the games rolling out this holiday season for Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade, and Games for Windows Live:

A ton of game trailers that we've been waiting for from E3 2007 are now available for download on Xbox Live, according to Major Nelson. No, Halo 3 and Halo Wars aren't on the list.

Mass Effect (HD)
Too Human (HD)
Viva Pinata Party Animals (HD)
Lost Odyssey (HD)
Xbox LIVE Marketplace Montage (HD)
PGR4 (HD)
Games For Windows Montage (HD)
Civilization Revolution (HD)
Xbox 360 Games Montage (HD)
Xbox Live Arcade (HD)
Naruto: Rise of a Ninja (HD)

I'm a Nascar fan, but if your like a lot of people, you probably wonder why in the world anyone would like a racing event where the drivers do nothing but drive in circles for hours at a time. Much less, why would you want to play a video game where all you do is turn left.. drive straight.. turn left. Well it's hard to explain, but I guess the sport really comes alive when you put your full "fanship" behind a particular driver or couple of drivers. Lots of people inherit their drivers from their parents, sortof the same way football team loyalty is passed down through the generations.

My parents were never big racing fans, but strangely I've always been a fan of sorts. I watched Indy Car racing throughout high school and went to a few go-cart and midget races around town here. In the past few years, my wife has inherited Nascar's Tony Stewart as "her" driver. We got tickets to Talledega last year, and the rest is history. Seeing a race in real life is a great experience that I'd recommend to anybody. Once you start to get to know some of the drivers' personalities, you begin to get interested in who's winning, who's crashing, and how the races play out.

Tony Stewart is widely known as a hot-head. He races just about anything with four wheels on a weekly basis (Nextel Cup, Busch Series, Open wheel racing, Dirt tracks) even if he's got the money to just stick with Nascar-only events. Stewart's post race media sessions have been known to get lively if he feels

Link

This recent release from 2k Games is getting good reviews (~8.5/10) and being praised for having a great story-line, albeit a little linear. Gamespot thinks that multiplayer feels a little tacked on, but said the game looks great and delivers an original and interesting campaign. Great deal from Amazon if you're interested.

The PS3 has a new price effective today: $499 for the 60GB model. A new 80GB model is set for release in August that will come bundled with MotorStorm for the beloved price of $599. With that cat out of the bag, is a price cut on Xbox 360 imminent?

An analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities thinks so, and issued a note to investors today that said Microsoft will announce an Xbox 360 price cut tomorrow at the start of the revamped E3 Media & Business Summit, which takes place all week.

Is it true? Next-gen.boz contacted Microsoft for comment who replied "Microsoft has not made any announcements regarding a price cut on Xbox 360." No-fluffy-joke. That's not what they said. They said you'll announce it tomorrow.

The analyst went on to state that the $299 Core pack will drop to $249; the $399 Premium pack will drop to $349; and the recently released $479 Elite model will drop to $399.

Is the prediction true? Only time will tell. Would a new lower price entice those of you who have been holding out? What about those thinking about an Elite upgrade?

The fourth and final episode of the Red vs Blue makers' mini-series called 1-800-MAGIC has come to an end. Below are the four videos in order of release. All videos were shot inside the Shadowrun engine:

1-800-MAGIC. Now I get it.

It looks like Microsoft has moved the HALO 3 viral marketing campaign to online auction sites.  Is this the next move by Microsoft?  A listing by "Flood Containment Control" is selling its used survey tools on various websites across the web.  Listed with the ad is a an image of the "glyph" that we've seen scattered around the web in other places.  The ads were placed on July 5th.  One ad on Craigslist reads:

Flood Containment Control, an independent environmental clear-up company, is selling its used survey tools.
For sale:
Echolocations
Handheld GPS receivers
Total stations.
All the gear has been used onsite in flood reclamation projects and
urban clean up due to natural phenomenon. The gear has been cleaned and
recalibrated but is being sold due to an upgrade in standard field
kits.
If interested please call the Flood Containment Control home office at
(888) 778-5672

Calling that number leads you a mysterious recording.  The folks at Unfiction have an .mp3 file of the recording.
Links to ads:

• uk.expo.live.com
• Yahoo! Classifieds
• Craiglist.org sites
• Gumtree.com

Additionaly, 100 lucky (or persistent) ARG fans have received a mailing from Bungie.  100 people got the chance to enter in a special code on the website that unlocked the first server on HALO3.com.  They received Iris-related swag (like a t-shirt, exclusive Iris gamerpic redemption code, and a Society of the Ancients flyer). 
Next week E3 hits and Microsoft will have a presence.  Surely MSBungie will take advantage of this exposure and reveal more Iris-related clues at E3.
What do you guys make of the recording at 888-778-5672?  Do you think the whole classifieds listings are a frustrated ARG fan posting fake messages? After all, things have been kind of dry lately.

Today is 7/7/7.  Bungie is offering new Gamerpics and a Dashboard theme for free today only.  Bungie is also releasing some new media via their website.  Go there and look for a slick new HALO 3 wallpaper and some 3D screenshots.

"You've spoken, and we’ve heard you. Good service and a good customer experience are areas of the business that we care deeply about. And frankly, we've not been doing a good enough job." - Peter Moore, Microsoft VP Entertainment in an open letter to the gaming community

Holy crap!?!  Did you just hear that? 

Respect.

During the last week, we've seen more and more stories circulating about failure rates of the XBOX 360 console.  According to some retailers, near 30% of XBOX 360 consoles were failing.  "We had 35 Xbox 360s at launch I know more than half of them broke within the first six months (red lights or making circles under the game discs). Two of them were dead on arrival" said an EB Game employee.  Microsoft has always maintained that the failure rate was under 5%.  That's a major difference.

Oh.  And then there was the story of the guy who is on his 11th (eleventh!) console.  Talk about bad luck (or bad quality assurance?).

Hmm.  The report that some XBOX 360 consoles are being sent back to owners with additional heat sinks installed in the case also made the rounds recently.

And finally, there's the story about Forza developers deleting forum posts of fans who have reported that Forza 2 causes the "red ring of death" to occur on some consoles.  Over 900 posts were moved or deleted.  Was it a cover up?

Microsoft has taken a beating of late.

Here at the Hushed Casket we've seen our share of broken XBOX 360s.  Yours truly is on his second console.  I can count over 10 people close to me that have had to send XBOX 360s in for repair.  If I think a little harder (or perhaps pay more attention to our forums), I bet I can increase that number to 20.  I've always felt that the failure rate was a lot higher than 5%.

Today, Peter Moore sends out an open letter to the gaming community.  While they don't admit that their estimated failure rate is higher than 5%, they are dishing out 3-yr warranties to all XBOX 360 consoles.  "As of today, all Xbox 360 consoles are covered by an enhanced warranty program to address specifically the general hardware failures indicated by the three flashing red lights on the console. This applies to new and previously-sold consoles...Microsoft will repair the console free of charge—including shipping—for three years from the console’s purchase date. We will also retroactively reimburse any of you who paid for repairs related to problems indicated by this error message in the past. In doing so, Microsoft stands behind its products and takes responsibility to ensure that every Xbox 360 console owner continues to have a fantastic gaming experience."

I'm satisfied.  While I think Microsoft is a little shady with the failure rate, I'm very excited to see such a sincere letter to the community that delivers good news for 360 owners. 

Now, where's my apology for the Zune, Windows Media Center, Windows ME, and Games for Windows - Live?