halo

Next Bungie game to be MMO first-person shooter?

Famed Halo developer Bungie is working on a new title that could be quite different from what it has offered in the past.

Bungie is working on a massively multiplayer online (MMO) first-person shooter, currently named "Destiny," gaming blog Kotaku is reporting, citing an unnamed source. The source told Kotaku that the title is built on a new graphics engine that Bungie has developed, and will live completely online. The person told the gaming blog that the title is basically a "World of Warcraft in space."

This isn't the first time that rumors have cropped … Read more

Study finds perks of gaming for girls--if parent joins

When researchers at Brigham Young University's School of Family Life decided to investigate the role parents play in gaming with their adolescent kids, they discovered a statistically significant gender divide.

For boys, gaming with a parent did not have much of an effect on positive behavior, aggression, family connection, and mental health. But for girls, gaming with a parent resulted in as much as a 20 percent variation on those outcomes--specifically, improving positive behavior, mental health, and family connections.

The team studied 287 families with adolescents ages 11 to 16; the boys played Call of Duty, Wii Sports, and … Read more

Play Halo all night with Lexus, win MS Points

Lexus is partnering with online gaming service Xbox Live to promote its new 2011 Lexus CT 200h hybrid hatchback by giving away Microsoft Points to lucky gamers. To be eligible to win, users must log on to the Xbox Live service, download the free Lexus All-Nighter Gamer Picture, and then just play Halo: Reach on the night of Saturday, December 18. According to Lexus, the longer you play, the better your odds of winning will be. Of course, that means that people who play all night long will have the best chance of snagging a prize.

Every hour between 6 … Read more

After 5 years, Xbox 360 still a big winner

If there's one thing that I recall more than any other from "Zero Hour," the 30-hour Xbox 360 launch event on November 20 and 21, 2005, it was the sight of dozens of gamers literally passed out on beanbags, their controllers still in their hands.

Despite absolutely frigid conditions, more than 2,000 gamers showed up in Palmdale, an aerospace town about an hour northeast of Los Angeles, for the chance to be among the first ever to play and buy an Xbox 360.

And after those 30 hours, their patience was rewarded: a fleet of Best … Read more

Amazingly, the Xbox 360 is 5 years old

And just like that, the Xbox 360 is five years old.

Five years ago yesterday I was one of about 2,000 people who spent 30 very cold hours inside a giant hangar in the Southern California desert celebrating the launch of this brand new video game console. The so-called "Zero Hour" event was the start of something that has helped change the industry forever.

It's hard to believe that five years has gone by so fast, but sure enough, the Xbox 360 has officially reached the age at which previous generations of video game consoles would be retired in favor of the next round. But the new Xbox was the first to hit the playing field of what quickly became known as the "next-gen" consoles: the Xbox, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii, the latter two of which would be released in November 2006.

Amazingly, on that frigid Nov. 21, 2005, Sony's flagship console was still the PlayStation 2, and no one had yet even heard the name "Wii."

Along the way, the Xbox 360 has become a major part of Microsoft's stable of products, and has helped spawn (or enhance) some of the biggest and most important exclusive titles and accessories in video game history: the Halo, Gears of War, and Fable franchises, among many others; the Kinect motion-sensitive controller; and of course, the massively popular Xbox Live service.

But the Xbox has also had issues, most notably the infamous Red Ring of Death failures, and the resulting $1 billion warranty program Microsoft instituted to handle the resulting thousands of dead Xboxes. Many gamers also scoffed at its original behemoth power supply. … Read more

5 car video game crossovers we want to see

In light of the Jeep Wrangler making an appearance in the new Call of Duty: Black Ops, and the associated Wrangler Black Ops edition offered by Jeep, we came up with five other video game car crossovers we would like to see. We looked at the top games either available now or coming soon on GameSpot, and picked five likely candidates for a crossover deal.

 Game  Car Fallout: New Vegas Ford Shelby GT500 If we're roaming the post-apocalyptic wastelands around New Vegas, we want to do it Mad Max-style. The Shelby GT500 has the mean looks and … Read more

A car that's also a boat, airplane, and helicopter

Pushing the envelope of automotive creativity, British concept designer Philip Pauley has penned a vehicle that wears a lot of hats, so to speak, and uses attachments to become a boat, plane, or helicopter.

The Halo Intersceptor is a 311-mph four-seater sports car around which the boat, plane, and helicopter are designed. To transform from a supercar to another mode of transport, the vehicle snaps into a structural attachments to power the new boat/plane/helicopter. It may sound far fetched, but Pauly says his concept is a road map that auto manufacturers should follow and design as the current … Read more

September another rough month for game industry

The video game industry is still having a tough time shaking off the recession, NPD revealed in its September industry report.

According to the market researcher, overall U.S. game-related sales for the month reached $1.22 billion, representing an 8 percent decline compared with the $1.32 billion the industry generated in September 2009.

Hardware sales were down a whopping 19 percent from $427 million in September 2009 to $383 million last month. Physical game sales dropped by 6 percent from $649 million in September 2009 to $614 million last month.

NPD found that game accessories was the only … Read more

Crave giveaway: Halo Reach Legendary Edition

The other day the folks at Microsoft sent over a rather large, heavy box. Lo and behold, inside we found the Halo Reach Legendary Edition for the Xbox 360. And guess what? We're giving it away to one lucky person.

Microsoft says that this ultimate collector's item is "packed with content" from the Halo universe and features a 10-inch-tall commemorative statue of Noble Team created by the expert artisans at McFarlane Toys. How cool is that?

Normally, Halo Reach Legendary Edition would cost you a whopping $150, but we're giving one away gratis. So, how … Read more