Bungie

Well it looks like Bungie fell a little shy of their previous predictions for the server load in the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta. In a press release issued earlier today they put forward the final tally. 2.7 million people “made history” with a “record-shattering” show of support for the title. Their original guesstimate was that there would be over 3 million people playing the game during the games run on Xbox Live. Though I do have to give them props for estimating so very close to the mark.

It was a rather large week for the cast of QuarterSave this week, and the episode does run a little bit long. There were plenty of new things for us to play around with this week, with the release of the Split/Second demo, new Just Cause 2 DLC, and new Iron Man 2 game for the iPhone.  Add to that the fact that Bright Falls released and that we were at Vancouver’s midnight showing of Nightmare on Elm Street, and then hopefully you’ll see why we had so much to say! 

Unless you've been visiting the moon the last couple of days, you know that the heavily anticipated Beta for Bungie's Halo: Reach was released to the public today.

All you need is a copy of Halo 3: ODST, a Gold subscription to Xbox Live and about 1.2 GB of free hard drive space to get into the mix.

In what could end up being the biggest surprise of the year, Activision has announced they’ve signed Bungie to a ten-year publishing deal. Yes, the makers of Halo have signed a deal with the devil, oops I mean Activision.  Details concerning the deal are still coming in but a few details have surfaced.  According to the deal, Activision will have the exclusive worldwide publishing and distribution rights to Bungie’s new IP.

As with the tradition of Halo 3: ODST, Microsoft and Bungie releases the first live action trailer for Halo: Reach Beta called "Birth of a Spartan"

The trailer which you can view below is the short version and the extended version is expected to air this Thursday, April 29th. So make sure to check back then for an update on the extended Birth of a Spartan trailer here.

Extended trailer now available in lieu of short version.

On May 3rd, Halo fans who own a copy of Halo 3: ODST will be the first to immerse themselves in the latest saga of the Halo gaming universe.

Today those fans can rejoice even further as multiple new Halo: Reach media is release today revealing all the goodness about the upcoming beta and what eager Halo fanatics can expect.

The first video from Inside Xbox discusses what beta participants will have access to such as a solo campaign, four multiplayer maps, player stats and much more.

Seems like yesterday's leaked Best Buy ad was only a day premature. This morning Microsoft issued an official press release, complete with images, announcing the three flavours of Halo: Reach that will be available to games at game’s launch. Now confirmed are the Halo: Reach Standard, Limited and Legendary editions, complete with expanded and detailed information about what is include.

According to a leaked Best Buy circular ad, Microsoft intends to offer Halo fans three different opportunities to pre-order Halo: Reach starting this Sunday.

Naturally you can expect the standard retail version for $60 which will just come with the game itself and maybe some cool Microsoft merchandise propaganda inserts as well.

While we’re still a good two months away from going hands-on with the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta, Bungie was kind enough to drop us a video early this morning showcasing some of the wide-variety of changes they’ve been making to their flagship franchise. It looks like they really weren’t kidding when they said they would be making changes and taking risks with this one.

Yesterday marked the return of Microsoft’s Xbox Press Event “X” with this year’s “X10.” The show has been on hiatus since 2006, so with this being their first year back, a flood of information pertaining to the Xbox 360 was expected, and provided. New information, screenshots, box art, and videos were provided on a bunch of the star series for Xbox in the upcoming year. It seems like a great opportunity for us to sift through the piles, and piles of information to find the best of the new news and provide that to you in a series of spotlights on each of the featured games.

If you're interested in the latest breaking details of Halo: Reach or wish Ken Burns did a signature photo sliding documentary on the covenant war, you're in much luck. Bungie just released 7 minutes in heaven (6:45 technically) with creative director Marcus Lehto on the upcoming killer Xbox 360 app.

It seems as though street dates aren’t all that EB Games is breaking these days. Just today they became the first place online to grab some screenshots of the upcoming Halo: Reach title. 

If you happened to pick up the latest issue of Game Informer, then you might have already seen some of these screens. But thankfully EB was nice enough to upload the screen captures to their site on the game information page. So, if you were looking forward to the first images of the next instalment of the Halo franchise then you needn’t wait any longer. 

Halo fans are easily some of the most dedicated fans in the world of gaming. And by dedicated I mean they’re usually such hardcore fans that they will buy anything with the word Halo on it and their hype level goes over 9,000 when details on a new Halo game are announced or hinted that.

I predict all Halo fans especially those looking forward to Halo Reach will be frothing at the mouth after they read the comments Geoff Keighley made about the game.

It’s not unusual for images or video to leak of a game in beta but when it does happen it doesn’t happen like this.  A user on the MLG forums (that’s Major League Gaming for those not in the know) has posted several images from Halo Reach which shows off a few of the new weapons and more importantly the environments fans can expect to see from the latest installment of the Halo franchise. (UPDATE NOTE: MLG user stole the pics as he wasn't the original leak)

Diifii is back in his latest instalment of Big Smile Reviews. Find out what Diifii has to say about the latest Halo game from Bungie and Microsoft, Halo 3 ODST.