Podtacular 419: Pax East 2014

Posted on April 23, 2014 by Dust Storm

Gaming conventions have already kicked off for the year and Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX is no exception. While there wasn’t a Halo presence at PAX East this year, as a gamer on the east coast, it’s a hard event to pass up. For us, the big games of interest were Titanfall and the announcement of the Borderlands Pre-sequel. Our PAX experience this time, however was filled with what most people would get out of a PAX experience: waiting in lines, walking the show floor over and over, and attending various panels instead of our normal shenanigans of handing around what Halo presence or booth there has been in the past since we’ve been going. My good friend Vanirfreyja was there along the journey for the PAX East weekend and joins us as we take a look back at the highlights of the expo.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:56:22 — 118.6MB)

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Podtacular 418: Stillness in the Ivory Tower

Posted on April 19, 2014 by Dust Storm

Over the course of a studio’s lifetime, the fans get to know some of the people behind the games they play and they earn our love and support as they continue working on future projects. The future of one such iconic personality, Marty O’Donnell was changed forever as his employment with Bungie was terminated last week. In this special episode, we team up with Guardian Radio, one of our sister podcasts over on the Podkast Network to talk about the influence Marty has had on the Halo and Bungie communities and the futures that are yet to come for Bungie and Marty himself. This is not the end of Marty’s career nor a stumbling block for the success of Destiny that is sure to come, but it has a left a lot of people with saddened spirits about the news, but warm-felt expressions of enthusiasm and support for wherever Marty’s journey may take him. Mark Turcotte and Derrick Smith from Guardian Radio and Layne Thomas join us this week to discuss this unfortunate news and what it means for us as Marty fans.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:43:32 — 73.4MB)

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Marty O’Donnell Fired by Bungie’s Guardians

Posted on April 16, 2014 by Dust Storm

For years we’ve been graced with truly epic and memorable music in the Halo franchise, but in a late night tweet, Martin O’Donnell announced that Bungie fired him on April 11th without any reasons given. His unique, artistic style has given games like Myth, Oni and Halo truly immersive soundtracks and produced perhaps one of the most iconic theme songs in the gaming industry. There are few details on why Bungie’s Board of Directors decided to let Marty go with all of his previous successes and with only one Destiny game currently on the production line. Halo and Bungie fans alike share a certain sympathy for Marty today as the beloved audio director and composer for Bungie over the last two decades is released from his Ivory Tower. Where his journey make take him we’ll have to wait and see, but if 343 is looking to bring some old time Halo feels back to the franchise, there may be someone out there looking for a job now.

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Podtacular 417: Spring Cleaning

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Dust Storm

This podcast is a little late, due to some IRL things going on with the hosts, but we had a truck load of information roll on down last week. Ridley Scott will be working on a Halo Digital Feature that is separate from the Halo TV show, but to which many are speculating about the possibility of a Halo movie. Cortana, Microsoft’s answer to Siri and Google Now will be coming to Windows Phone 8.1. The multiplayer service that offered the server browser for Halo: PC will be shutting down May 31, 2014. Finally, all your matchmaking updates are in this week’s Halo Bulletin.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:18:13 — 57.0MB)

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Next Halo Experience Being Developed for the Original Xbox

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Dust Storm


343 Industries has announced that the next Halo multiplayer experience is going to be revolutionary for the Halo franchise and promises to deliver the best experience it can. 343’s community manager told us, “We are really looking forward to what the Halo franchise has in store for our fans and we have taken community feedback to heart with crafting your next Halo journey.”

When we asked them about the kind of feedback they have received about the multiplayer experience, they said, “We’re always looking for ideas from the community. One of the biggest requests we’ve heard from across the community is to bring back more classic Halo experiences. So we’ve decided to go back to Halo’s roots and develop Halo 5 for the original Xbox.” This is sure to bring some fond memories of lugging your TV and Xbox over to a friends house to play on LAN and over Xbox Live with up to 100 of your most distant friends.

– Happy April Fools everyone

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Podtacular 416: Steamed Halo

Posted on March 30, 2014 by Dust Storm

Microsoft breaks out of their shell and has decided to put Halo on a platform other than the Microsoft Store or the Xbox Marketplace. On Wednesday, Waypoint announced that Spartan Assault will be coming to the Steam platform making the game available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 along with its Xbox and Windows 8 counterparts. Murmurs have started to come up regarding other Halo titles possibly coming to the Steam platform after last year’s findings by the community of having Halo: CE, Halo 2 and Halo 3 entries on the platform. Phil Spencer facilitates speculative talks about a Halo 2 Anniversary in that if it was being developed, it would have to be “fantastic”. The next few months of rotational matchmaking playlists has cropped up in this week’s Halo Bulletin. From podcasts long passed, we also dive into our mailbag and read out some of your thoughts.

Shownotes

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Podtacular 415: Orbital Drop Shock Titan

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Dust Storm

Titanfall was one of 2014’s most anticipated games and it definitely lived up to the community driven hype it deserved. It kinda reminds you of another game that used to have that kind of appeal. This episode, we take a look at some of the things Halo can take away from the success of Titanfall and apply it to the future of the franchise. We’re not talking about copying gameplay mechanics, but rather ideals and development processes behind the game. aPolishKorean and Justin Bryce from the Drunken Halo Podcast join us in our two hour discussion about Titanfall and Halo. As usual, we cover the latest in Waypoint news, which deserves some special recognition this week. The lovely Jessica Shea has moved up in her Spartan training to become the Studio Operations Program Manager, leaving Andy Dudynsky to take the position of Community Manager. We congratulate both on their accomplishments and wish them the best in their new positions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 3:07:08 — 128.7MB)

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