Hi, my name is Jason Lynes.
“I don’t know why I picked up that gun. I suck at this.”the first words out of my mouth to my wife this morning in bed, about 4 hours after I turned off Halo 3 but also after 4 hours of continuing the fight in dreamland
“The essence of good design is knowing when not to add complexity, and Bungie nails that with this game.”Wired’s Clive Thompson, in Halo 3 Balances Hot New Guns, Old-School Cool, Wired’s review of Halo 3 (psst – it came out today)
Facinating article in Wired magazine called Halo 3: How Microsoft Labs Invented a New Science of Play. Wired takes a close look at Bungie Studios, the makers of the massively huge Halo video game series, and how the Microsoft-owned company utilizes state of the art usability labs to test their video games. It appears Bungie is following some principles of the agile software development methodology, with constant revision and tweaking in response to an extremely detailed look into how players move through the game. It’s obvious the games would be nothing if not tested this way. Pretty interesting look into how video games are designed and refined.
Attention gaming nerds (the only acceptable nerdery, if you ask me): go stock up on some Mountain Dew Game Fuel, a new concoction of orange and cherry Dew, and the official drink of Halo 3. Oh yes. The drink is only out for a few weeks leading up to the launch of Halo 3 on September 25. The game has presold over 1 million copies already, and this is but one of the dozens of products you’ll see it on. But sorry Wiiboys, you’ll soon be able to drink a Halo 3 slurpee but you won’t be playing it on that Nintendo.