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☞Halo 4: Movie or Game??? Also Xbox 720 Update, Also Is the next Halo game “darker, grittier,” tactical and without Master Chief?
The following Bungie developer interview notes are a summary of everything Halo 4 the company talked about or what was hinted at. We dubbed it “The Secret Files” that puts one and one together. Every Halo fan obviously knows the (original) Halo trilogy is over (Halo 3 was left with an open ending). But with Ensemble Studios working on the Halo Wars RTS prequel and an episodic Halo: Chronicles cinematic-game trilogy series still in the works by Peter Jackson, would a Halo 4 FPS really be that far fetched? Time to line up the facts…

July 14th 2006:
Bungie audio director, Marty O’Donnell, said at the UK Game Developers Conference that “We all want Halo to be the great ending to an epic trilogy. We look at what Peter Jackson did with the Lord of the Rings films – which each film bettering the previous one and that is what we are aiming for.”

September 25th 2007:
At the launch of Halo 3 the cinematic designer, Lee Wilson, said “There’s a lot of people who have been working on Halo much longer than us two have and they’re really interested in exploring new games, new stories, and whatever comes out of those conversations is what we’re going to pursue. We’re still going to make games for us.” And Joe Tung, multiplayer producer, said that the team was “figuring out right now what we’re working on next. We really don’t know what that is yet but as soon as we know, everyone else will know. Halo 4 is not in development.”

October 8th 2007:
Halo movie director, Neill Blomkamp, confirmed that the Halo “film is entirely dead,” but consoled fans of the series by mentioning that “Well, we are already at work on another Halo game — I wouldn’t call it ‘Halo 4′, but it is based in the Halo Universe and represents a collaboration between Bungie and Peter Jackson. Halo 3 was definitely not the last Bungie Halo game.”

November 9th 2007:
Bungie studio manager, Harold Ryan, mentioned that “Obviously Microsoft wanted us to make more Halo games. Both I and some of the more senior guys from the original Halo game have deep piles of game designs for the Halo universe that we are excited to build at some point. If the stars align and motivations are good and the platforms are right we’ll do them.”
Now in March 2008: Bungie are still supporting the Xbox 360-exclusive Halo 3 with new map packs, as well as the above mentioned two Halo game spin-offs that are set for tentative Q4 2008 releases. It does look like they want to take a break from the series, which might be part of the reason why Bungie became independent from Microsoft. But since money makes the world ago around, and of course fans do want more, it’s doubtful Microsoft or Bungie will want to give up on the Halo series that as of October 4th, 2007, combined sold over 20 million copies worldwide. Perhaps by the time the Xbox 720 launches in 2011-2012 we’ll hear about Master Chief’s comeback in Halo 4.
Microsoft’s Vice President of Xbox 360, Games for Windows and Live services, Don Mattrick, confirmed that Bungie is working on “a new Halo game” of some sort for Xbox 360. The initial announcement for this Bungie-developed title was first cancelled at E3. Especially after Bungie recently showed a Halo Interactive Strategy Board Game, which showed they themselves are branching out Halo from the FPS genre too, like Microsoft Game Studios’ already announced RTS and movie-experience Halo projects. Eventually Bungie.net announced this new Halo 3: Keep It Clean campaign expansion pack on September 25th, 2008, the one-year anniversary of Halo 3.

Updated for September 2008:
New word on the street suggests that Gearbox Software (of Brothers in Arms series fame) and Microsoft Game Studios (the owner of the Halo IP) are hiring new staff for a possible Halo 4 due for the Xbox 720. Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford exclaimed the project was “look-at-our-line-up-and-imagine-something-even-bigger kind of big”. Later Corrinne Yu, Director of Technology of Gearbox Software, left the company to join Microsoft as the Principle (Lead) Engine Architect of Halo Franchise Team in order to “lead the team to build the engines and games for future Halo’s on Xbox’es and PC’s at Microsoft.” At the same time Microsoft put out this job description: “Microsoft’s new Halo Studio team is looking for a technical and highly talented program manager to work an engineering team to help define the next generation of gaming software technology. As part of the next generation team, you’ll be instrumental in helping to lead the development of the engine that will power future experiences for the next generation of gaming platforms. You will work closely with the software architect and the senior development team behind this critical new effort.”

Darker, Grittier, Tatical and without Master Chief:

An “insider source” with knowledge of the next Halo game has said that sometime this year Bungie will announce a “darker, grittier” Halo title without Master Chief in it.
According to the Gamespot source, the new Halo game will be a spin-off that resembles “a cross between Ghost Recon and Gears of War.” As in a tactical shooter. It will supposedly tell a “less cartoony” and “more bloody, violent, and grim” tale of a battle between UNSC forces and the Covenant. The game’s atmosphere was also described as similar to that of the live-action Halo shorts.

☞Guitar Hero: Metallica
Development

Guitar Hero: Metallica was revealed to be in production when an analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities discovered mention of the game in Activition’s 2008 SEC filings, slated to be released in “fiscal 2009”, which ends on March 31, 2009 for Activision. Two posts made to Metallica’s website in June 2008 also referred to the “not so top secret GH thing”, and that Guitar Hero players could expect “a pile of ’Tallica songs”. Lars Ulrich, when asked about the game during an interview with MTV, stated that “the people at ‘Guitar Hero’ and Activision are rapidly becoming our best new friends in the world. You can put the rest of it together yourself.” Ulrich stated that the idea for the Metallica-themed Guitar Hero game came from the influence the original Guitar Hero games had on Ulrich and James Hetfield’s children, learning about music and older bands such as Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

The game was officially announced at the 2008 E3 conference during Microsoft’s presentation, along with the announcement that Metallica’s newest album, Death Magnetic, would be made as content for download for both Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Guitar Hero World Tour. A trailer for the game is included as an extra feature in Guitar Hero World Tour with “Master of Puppets” playing in the background and “Ride the Lightning” as the tagline.

As with Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, members of Metallica, including Kirk Hammett, Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield and Robert Trujillo performed six songs and band and audience chatter for motion capture for their in-game avatars; it is unknown whether an avatar of the late Cliff Burton will be part of the game. The game will include DVD-style content such as photos, videos, and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as Pop-up Video trivia played on certain tracks. The music creation mode from World Tour will also be presented, giving the player the option of using tones from Hetfields’ ESP Truckster guitar and Slayer’s Tom Araya’s ESP Bass in addition to Metallica drum sounds.¹⁰ Lars Ulrich in an interview with Game Informer noted that the band stood up for the inclusion of the band Slayer against Microsoft’s concerns on the explicit lyrical content of the group’s songs.

Gameplay

Members of Metallica performed motion capture for their in-game avatars in Guitar Hero: Metallica.See also: Common gameplay elements in the Guitar Hero series and Gameplay in Guitar Hero World Tour
Guitar Hero: Metallica will be based on the band approach presented in Guitar Hero World Tour, and will feature parts of lead and bass guitar, drums, and vocals. Lead developer Alan Flores has stated that the difficulty of the game is much harder than previous games and is designed to challenge the hard-core player. To meet the “ferocity” of Metallica’s songs, the game will feature an “Expert Plus” mode for drummers that allows them to add a second bass drum pedal, though results of this mode will not be tracked through online modes. Similar to Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, Metallica will present songs from Metallica’s history roughly in chronological order but the game is not focused on much on the band’s history and more on the group today. The game’s story will be based on a band that wants to follow in Metallica’s footsteps, and the group accepting them as leading acts for them on a tour; as such, they are better able to order the songs in difficulty comparable to other Guitar Hero games, as Metallica’s earlier works frustrate the player enough to “throw the controller against the wall and stop playing”. Real-life venues will be used for the game, including The Stone nightclub in San Francisco, the Hammersmith Odeon, Tushino Airfield, and The Forum in Los Angeles, and one final venue representing the pinnacle of Metallica’s success.

The Battle mode of the game, based on that from Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has been slightly altered to add Metallica influences; for example, a power-up named “Fade to Black” will completely black out the note tracks for the opposing player, “Trapped Under Ice,” which freezes the whammy bar, and an electrical attack called “Ride The Lightning” (based on the “Amp Overload” attack from Guitar Hero III) is added.

Soundtrack
Game Informer’s preview stated that the final game will have 45 songs, 28 being by Metallica, and the other 17 songs being bands that are “their personal favorites and influences from over the years”, includes those that appeared on their Garage Inc. album. While other downloadable content from Guitar Hero III or Guitar Hero World Tour will not be usable in Guitar Hero: Metallica, the game will detect and incorporate the songs from the Death Magnetic downloadable content into the game’s setlist.

Game Informer revealed a partial list of the songs:

Song title Artist
“Armed and Ready” Michael Schenker Group
“Black River” The Sword
“Blood and Thunder” Mastodon
“Demon Cleaner” Kyuss
“Enter Sandman” Metallica
“For Whom the Bell Tolls” Metallica
“Fuel” Metallica
“Hell Bent for Leather” Judas Priest
“Hit the Lights” Metallica
“King Nothing” Metallica
“Master of Puppets” Metallica
“Mother of Mercy” Samhain
“No Excuses” Alice in Chains
“No Leaf Clover” Metallica
“Nothing Else Matters” Metallica
“Sad but True” Metallica
“Tuesday’s Gone” Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Turn the Page” Bob Seger
“Unforgiven The Unforgiven” Metallica
“Wherever I May Roam” Metallica

In addition to the tracks above, the Foo Fighters, Slayer, Machine Head and Queen have also been said to have a track included in the game, as well.