halo

Bungie's composer Marty O'Donnell, who wrote Halo's iconic theme and had been working on the upcoming Destiny, has been fired from Bungie "without cause".

Bungie posted this on Bungie.net:

For more than a decade, Marty O'Donnell filled our worlds with unforgettable sounds and soundtracks, and left an indelible mark on our fans. Today, as friends, we say goodbye. We know that wherever his journey takes him, he will always have a bright and hopeful future.

We wish him luck in all his future endeavors.

Halo Forge mastermind xXHugabearXx forged a custom Grifball level and game mode to mirror the infamous Harry Potter game Quidditch. Though, in this case players use jetpacks instead of broomsticks, but the rules of the Halo 5 Quidditch game are very similar to the original.

-Players are allotted three points for throwing the ball through one of the rival team's hoops, and one point for killing a player on the opposing team with a gravity hammer.

-The first team to hit 15 points is victorious.

Unfortunately, there's no version of the Golden Snitch in this game; and there's no assigned positions, but a team could definitely assign positions on their own. Players eager to try out this game mode in Halo 5: Guardians simply need search for the new level "Quidditch Arena' and the game mode "Quidditch."

Get Over Here and Play a Video Game

From the video description:

Join a global celebration on October 26th as we kick off the highly anticipated launch of Halo 5: Guardians with Halo 5: LIVE, a 6-hour live broadcast streaming exclusively on YouTube. The broadcast is jam-packed with exclusive gameplay reveals, celebrity appearances, live interviews with 343 Industries, special tune-ins from around the world, and much more. Halo 5: LIVE begins at 6PM EDT on Oct. 26 and culminates at midnight when Halo 5: Guardians goes on sale in North America (show time is 3PM - 9PM PDT)

So, if whatever store you're waiting in line at has free wifi, maybe you can watch this on your phone instead of talking to your neighbor. 

Microsoft seems ready to commit to its past as it continued reviving old franchises during Gamescom 2015 Aug. 4.

After presenters gave plenty of space to a new Forza game, a new Rainbow Six game and a new Crackdown game at the Xbox One press conference, Xbox head Phil Spencer gave a 'one more thing' to the audience in the form of announcing a sequel to 2009's Halo Wars.

If you don't remember Halo Wars, we'll forgive you. It was an odd duck of a real-time strategy game, a la StarCraft or Age of Empires. In fact, the original game was developed by Ensemble Studios, creator of the Age of Empires series.

The original Halo Wars was a cult fan favorite and remains highly regarded in certain circles, though it never reached the sales numbers of traditional FPS Halo games.

Ensemble will not develop this sequel, instead it's being handled by 343 Industries, who took over the Halo franchise after creator studio Bungie ended their exclusivity deal with Microsoft, and British game devleloper Creative Assembly, responsible for the very many Total War games.

When old-school arcade games invade, it's up to today's characters to stop them.

Wow. This clearly had a budget. And a stunt guy.

[clipnation]

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Now we've just gotta keep our fingers crossed that this game doesn't meet its untimely demise with one of those damned 'cease and desist' orders. Although, at this point no such thing has been passed along from Microsoft. We're rooting for you Installation 01!

Er, Spartan Strike, same thing. Spartan Strike is a touch based, top-down shooter for Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Steam. Check out its announcement trailer above.