Say what you want about modern games, but they’ve gotten pretty good at rendering fauna. If Red Dead Redemption 2 wants to show you a goose, it’ll damn well show you a goose. Last month, a new Twitter account popped up to remind us that this is a fairly recent development, cataloguing the smart, strange, and downright cursed wildlife created in the name of saving a few dozen polygons.

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343 are finally getting weird with Halo: The Master Chief Collection, and that’s great. But they were never going to hold a candle against the game’s modders, who’ve lately decided what Halo 3 really needs is to turn everyone into a rat. That’s exactly the premise behind Rat Slayer, an upcoming mod that – daft as it is – never dared to consider whether John Halo isn’t already just two-dozen rodents wearing a man-shaped suit of power armour.

Now there’s a thought to keep you up at night.

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First up, I’m going to incept the Halo theme song into your brain: Oohwawawawahwahwawha…>

There, that should do it. Now we have the scene properly set, I’m excited to tell you that the Halo: The Master Chief Collection isn’t going to settle on just bringing the Halo series back to the PC. There are plans afoot that will let Xbox One and PC gamers fight together in multiplayer. Everything is connected, people.

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We’re back! This week, we’ve reverted to a more traditional gaming podcast format by spending the first five to ten minutes talking about 90s kids’ TV shows we watched. Did you miss us?? Remarkably, we do also talk about some video games, to whit: Halo 3 and Death Stranding, which are two big beasty release from this week that VidBud Matthew and Nate have been playing. Unfortunately I, Alice, haven’t been playing anything new, but am able to provide input – as well as sound effects! Yes, this week also sees the return of the much loved soundboard. Ooh la la!> (more…)

The PC remaster of Halo 3 is another beautiful, robust polish job that shows just how well Bungie’s bombastic shooter series has aged. I recommend it heartily. Yes, it’s marred with some baffling narrative choices, bungled ally AI, and a few instances of phoned-in level design, of course. But then, in the immortal words of that astronaut meme, “always has been”. And at this point, the whole Halo experience is so firmly bound up in nostalgia, at least for me, that its flaws have long since become endearing quirks.

But as much as this is a good moment to talk about Halo 3, what with it being out today and all, I’ve realised this post is just as much about the Master Chief Collection, the compilation/launcher… thing which now contains the whole of the classic Halo trilogy, plus Reach. I’d assumed the MCC was basically an electric version of a cardboard box with games in it. But now my four favourite Haloes are in it, the MCC seems to have reached a critical mass, and I’ve had something of a revelation.

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13 years after its Xbox 360 debut, Halo 3 is finally out on PC. While the first two games came over from Xbox, the conclusion to Bungie’s first-person shooter trilogy stayed home. After 13 years, you’ll finally be able to see what became of Master Ian Chief. Did he, as he vowed at the end of Halo 2, finish this fight? You’ll have to play it to find out.

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As history would prove, Halo 3 didn’t quite finish the fight. For better or worse, they sure did keep making Halo games long after the reigns were handed over to now-caretakers 343 Industries. But us lot on PC will soon be able to close out Bungie’s original trilogy, as the stellar closing act finally joins Halo: The Master Chief Collection on Steam and the Windows Store next Tuesday, July 14th.

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The year of Halo on PC is rolling right along. We’ve checked off several PC Halo releases already this year and by lore order Halo 3 is next up to bat. As with the others, 343 Industries are inviting registered members of the Halo Insider Program to what they call “flights,” basically a big beta test. Instead of continuing to pick select groups of players, 343 say that they’re shooting off an invite to the current Halo 3 test to all registered Insider members. The test is scheduled to end on June 26th.

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If you were an Xbox kid around my age, Halo 3 might be the first game you remember arriving with deafening levels of hype. The sole reason most folks picked up Crackdown. The Return Of The King in John Halo’s ring-smashing quest, in fellowship with a squid-mouthed Keith David and that cigar-chewing lad from Aliens. Now, developers 343 Industries are preparing the trilogy closer’s PC debut in Halo: The Master Chief Collection, with select testing set to take place within the next few weeks.

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The Halo: Master Chief Collection is rolling right along this year. It appears that 343 Industries are approaching the release for Halo 2 Anniversary. They’ve also shared first looks at Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST in the meantime. Their newest development update covers that and, as usual, much, much more.

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