[ed note: we posted this article at around 4 PM yesterday, but we've shifted it to today for those of you who missed it.] Fansite Halo.bungie.org has posted a midsize (32 MB) MPEG movie of Bungie's action game Halo which shipped with Gamestar magazine last month. The footage is of Bungie and Microsoft's Xbox demo of the game at E3; unfortunately, as you might expect, the download server is already jammed with traffic and there is no description of what the movie might contain. For Halo fans, the question of whether to download or not is likely a moot point. Keep checking Halo.bungie.org, as they might list new mirrors for the file; we'll be sure to add more mirrors to this story if they appear. [Update: Check Halo.bungie.org for seven mirrors of the movie, including Hotline servers]

In related news, the Canadian Mac site ehMac has conducted a short but interesting interview with Alex Seropian, one of the founding members of Bungie and the current CEO. Among the many issues discussed include the early history of Bungie, their new office space in Redmond and the future of Halo. It is an interesting read, although his quote about the Mac OS version of Halo is less than encouraging. Here is a sample:

ehMax: There has of course been a lot of talk about Microsoft's acquiring of
Bungie mid last year. When Microsoft took ownership of Bungie you explained
that one of the major things Microsoft was acquiring (besides assurance
you'd be making kick butt games for Xbox) was that they wanted to acquire
Bungie's culture and chemistry to influence the way they make and publish
games. Has Bungie been given the space and flexibility needed to keep that
chemistry alive?

Alex: Happily yes! We just completed construction of our new offices in
Jan. We have the only 'open pit' office layout that I know of at Microsoft
and it's working really well. We'd be totally screwed if all of our guys
were in their own offices. Our process is just too dynamic and it relies on
constant interaction between the programmers, the designers, and the
artists. I'm really happy that Ed Fries and Stuart Moulder understood all
that. They've given us a lot of freedom to do our thing the way we want.
That's motivated us too, we really want to prove to them and everyone that
we can do something really special with Halo. We still have bagel Fridays,
soccer on Thursdays, and mom jokes all the time...

Halo.bungie.org

List of Mirrors for GameStar Halo Footage

Alex Seropian Interview at ehMac

Microsoft (add to watch list)

Bungie Studios (add to watch list)

Halo: Combat Evolved (add to watch list)

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