In New York, approaching zero Halo hour. Plus: Master Chief interview!
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The debut hour approaches nearer for the final installment of the Xbox 360 trilogy, as Microsoft throws a star-studded bash.
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The new 'tween toy from Hasbro looks and works like a cell phone. Also: Rumors fly of a Verizon bid for MCI&hellip;.  Google sits down to chat with Wall Street&hellip;. and more.
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Watch video of some the brighter ideas to stream through the DemoFall conference in San Diego. Also: HP in the hot seat.
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Gabe:  We had our annual Enforcer wrap party on Monday night over at Gameworks. It's a chance for all the Enforcers to get together and relax after the show. It's also a chance for Tycho and I to thank them for all their help. We played a lot of games and heard a ton of great stories. There's so much of the show that Tycho and I miss but the Enforcers see it all and this year they saw some crazy shit.   For example I had no idea that e for all had hired guerrilla marketers to wander the streets in front of PAX with T.V's in their shirts. They were passing out glow sticks and postcards with the e for all logo on them. PAX Enforcers and attendees started a game that involved masking tape and replacing the "for all" with other things the e might stand for.   That's certainly funny but it's not the best story about other exhibitions invading PAX. At one point during the evening a table full of Enforcers told me a tale that was so awesome I just had to pass it along.Late Friday night Amber was called down to the lobby of the convention center to deal with a drunk and belligerent member of the media who was apparently yelling at a couple of our Enforcers. Amber arrived to find the man obviously hammered and harassing our security. She approached him and explained that the show was over (which it wasn't) and that he should just go home and sleep. Upon seeing Amber his behavior changed quite drastically. He stopped arguing with the Enforcers and instead stared hitting on her. He bragged that he'd been out all night drinking with Incubus. Then he suggested the two of them go see a movie, get some drinks and "see where it goes." I think we all know where it goes. Sloppy drunks twice her age really aren't Amber's type so she politely declined the offer while still trying to move him towards the door. He leaned in at this point and said "this Penny Arcade shit is weak!" and then asked her if she wanted to know a secret. He said it would "impress her" and with that he produced his business card.  He pointed at it and slurred "this is where it's at baby."Now we'd seen this guy all weekend taking photos of our game rooms and exhibition hall. Since he was pretending to be media he also interviewed all our Enforcers about how the show was organized and managed. A few of our Exhibitors even complained that he was in the exhibition hall trying to sell them on his convention. Amber took the card and asked him to find her the next day after he had sobered up. She had every right to pull his badge right then but was a little worried about how he might react. The next morning she happened to meet up with him on the escalators in the main hall. "Hey I remember you" he said, "but I don't remember your name." "I'm Amber the event coordinator for PAX and I need you to give me your badge." she replied.He looked around at the group of colleagues around him and laughed. I guess he thought she was joking. Security arrived and she pressed him again for his badge. He tried to apologize for hitting on her but she informed him that while that was certainly inappropriate it was the drunken tirade that we didn't appreciate at PAX. He reluctantly handed over his badge and was escorted out by a group of Enforcers. I was told this story by a dozen or so other Enforcers who witnessed or took part in the event. When they gave me Ed's business card as physical proof of their encounter I couldn't believe it. I was already laughing when I turned the card over and noticed the back.   -Gabe out
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Obeying the courts, Windows will no longer have a Media Player in Europe. Also:  Monsanto buys another seed maker & hellip;.  Robot soldiers ready for Iraq & hellip;. and more.
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There&#39;s a new media king, only he isn&#39;t on the radio or in the movies. His name? Master Chief. His role: Interstellar soldier and star of &quot;Halo 2,&quot; one of the most anticipated video games ever.
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Tycho:  We put Monday's strip up early, so you might have seen it already - but you might not be familiar with the EGM interview it is based on, an excerpt of which appears here.  I sometimes worry about appearing partisan in these communiques, but it is not my job to be fair.  I'm not a journalist, I'm a consumer.  I don't buy one product from each company in the interests of some karmic ideal, and I don't need to purge my posts of wrongthink because I haven't produced something suitable for use as a press release.  Sony is grinding down their goodwill with every smug, psychotic interview, and someone needs to tell them so in clear terms.
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CES 2005 Quality content coming to new format. Van Helsing too
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There's a new media king, only he isn't on the radio or in the movies. His name? Master Chief. His role: Interstellar soldier and star of "Halo 2," one of the most anticipated video games ever.
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Plus: Microsoft to release three versions of Xbox 2. [News.com Extra]
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Gabe: Well tomorrow is the 25th and many of you will probably start celebrating tonight. I'd like to believe the midnight parties and festivities are related to my Birthday tomorrow but it's more likely your all excited about Halo 3. I had the chance to play through the entire single player campaign with Tycho and Robert and I can say you probably will not be disappointed. I never really got into the Halo story. I thought it was because there just wasn't much story there to get into. I got this link last week though and I realised that there's actually a really cool story, the problem is the games do a terrible job of telling it. I recommend reading this thread before you tackle Halo 3. It lays out the history of the Halo universe really well. Like any sequel it helps to have played the previous games but in this case I don't even think that's enough. The story in Halo 3 simply doesn't make a lick of fucking sense on it's own and they make zero effort to help players that might be new to the series. I don't mean there isn't a movie at the beginning that's like "previously on teh Haloz!" I mean they just assume you know everything in that thread forwards and back. Honestly though it's Halo. You can play through the thing, shoot a bunch of guys skip all the cut scenes and have a damn good time. It's just sort of sad that there's such a rich universe there that the games aren't conveying.I've got some stuff to say about the Halo 3 advertising as well but I don't want to spoil anything. We can talk about it later this week once you've all had a chance to play it.I wrapped up our eight page Assassin's Creed comic last week. Those of you who purchase the Limited Edition of the game will get a bunch of cool stuff including a copy of our comic. It's a little prequel story that provides some background info on the main character. I think it turned out pretty good and I'm excited for you guys to see it. The game ships in November but I'll go ahead and post the cover now so you can see my take on Altair.  -Gabe out
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Halo 3, undoubtedly the most anticipated title for the Xbox 360 -- and perhaps of all time -- will be finally available tonight. More than 10,000 stores will be opening their doors at midnight to sell the game, which is expected to break all sales records and become the biggest interactive entertainment launch in history.
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Tycho:  We grabbed a couple demos yesterday afternoon to see if we were missing anything, specifically Tenchu Z and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and came away with the expected comic materials.  I think Tenchu Z may get explored in a more robust fashion in Monday's strip, but after the loading is complete the demo flashes up one of those screens that is completely grown over with control instructions.  It wasn't even an especially bad one, and there are very, very bad ones, like the one in the demo for StarFire Saga V: Laserion.  It was merely an assault on the mind, paralyzing in its way.
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Tycho: But if you haven't seen it yet, you should - Street View in Google Maps. Holy F-ing S.(CW)TB
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If we could get the Chief's MA5K carbine too... CES If you've already got the Xbox 360 special edition console and Lego-like Msster Chief figures, but you still feel like you hadn't quite satisfied your Halo habit, you need a Covenant plasma pistol, rifle... or energy sword.â¦
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Tycho: Gabe had to watch the other Gabe today, so we made the comic a day in advance. It's about the guy who wrote that ridiculous Mass Effect article. We decided to put it up a day early because, just as we predicted in the strip, he's taken a swipe at gamers. The young man quoted in his piece did not represent our community well, but locking horns with a professional liar would bring out the worst in anyone. (CW)TB
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Tycho: You might have heard that NASA was trying to gin up an MMO. We just received a mail from a human being involved in the project, someone who wants to make sure they collect the best ideas from the best people. Naturally, she thought of the readership here. Her mail follows:I know how incredibly unpleasant this could end up being if we don'thave the right minds behind it, and would just like the chance to get itin front of as many potentially talented people as possible. Would youguys consider posting a sentence on this in the news section soon?"The purpose of this RFI is to solicit information from organizationswith proven immersive synthetic environments expertise who areinterested in potentially forming a MMO platform development partnershipwith NASA. We are currently targeting releasing a Request for Proposalin March 2008."Here's a couple of run-downs in English from people outside NASA:http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/nasa-seeks-inpu.htmlhttp://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/would-you-play.html#previouspostAnd the NASA sites:http://procurement.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=128415http://ipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/mmo/submit.htmlNASA gets surprisingly tiny amounts of money (about $17B/yr) to go tofreakin' space and do a whole lot of discovering of varioushumanity-impacting things. And a lot of people just don't know theamount of awesomeness we do for that. We're working on many things totry and communicate to people better about what we do (that's part ofour forming mandates, actually), and this is one initiative.And I think it would be cool if it wasn't a big mess, or even just an"eh" thing. I'd like to see it be *good*.For the space program, guys?Oh, but darling: you had us at immersive synthetic environments.(CW)TB