THE FLASH (trailer)

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“I’m Batman.” (Yes, yes you are.)

“What’s next for HALO?”

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Excellent look at the tragi-comedy of errors that has been HALO: INFINITE and what the surge of layoffs at 343 spells for the franchise via Polygon:

"The truth is that, setting aside the striking iconography of Master Chief’s mirrored visor and the arcing ringworlds, Halo’s soul resided deep in Bungie’s code: the weight and recoil of the weapons, the whack of the melee, the floating jump, the elastic, looping combat encounters. Bungie took those secrets with it when it left. All those identifying marks can more readily be found in Destiny than in 343’s Halo games. Asking another team to re-create that magic is like tasking a developer outside of Nintendo HQ with making a Mario platformer — it’s never going to feel right. Forming a Bungie cover band was a thankless task, and the fault for Halo’s current parlous state lies more with Microsoft for this misconceived plan than with any of the individuals that have worked at 343."


To add my two cents: Microsoft and Bungie need to swallow their pride and work together again (not sure who needs to eat more crow, though my guess is that it starts with Micro and ends with soft). While 343 has done some great things - I love the single-player campaign of HALO: INFINITE - it’s more than clear that it’s time to move on.

HALO is now a 20-year-old convoluted continuity and mythology (the fault of both Bungie and 343): can’t think of a better time than now to go for a hard reset - the recent new HITMAN series is the first that springs to mind - that streamlines and brings out the best of all previous entries from both studios, makes the story less of an incomprehensible mess, and makes the series something special again. For my money, the only studio to return HALO to what made it the phenomenon that it was is Bungie.

Here endeth my two cents.

(more) adventures in big little antique malls

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Hadn’t been to the I-76 Antique Mall in years but I more than made up for lost time today:

The Dick Tracy Playing Card game (all cards present!) and Big Little Book date from 1934 and ‘35 (same as the Pop-Up book), respectively, and are in exquisite condition; The Shadow pulp (July 1944), has, on the other hand, clearly lived a life – but I’ve always wanted to own an original Shadow pulp. And, five bucks later, I did.

Bit of a theme with the last photo, but hey, I’m a sucker for secret agent stuff, particularly if they’re created by Ian Fleming and Dashiell Hammett (SECRET AGENT X-9 was not, unfortunately, written by Hammett - THAT would have been a find; G-MEN ON THE JOB was next to SECRET AGENT X-9 so I said what the hell).

Shelves… I need more… shelves…

links/2023w06.2

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