Halo DS validity argued

by David Hinkle { Oct 3rd 2007 at 12:20PM }

It would appear that some aren't exactly believing Matt at IGN's Alpha of Halo DS, both in the comments of that post and the embedded video above. YouTube user SwiftShock thinks he has the answer to the whole debate and is of the mind that the game is nothing more than a modded version of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent.

[Via Go Nintendo]

Tags: bungie, fps, goldeneye, goldeneye-rogue-agent, goldeneyerogueagent, halo, halo-ds, halods, microsoft

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Eddie @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:11PM

wow, nice job. Unless it was a cheap EA mod, I have to say: Shame on you Matt!!!!!!

matthew @ Oct 3rd 2007 1:13PM

I agree its obviously a modded version of Bond, but that doesn't make it 'fake'. I think the whole scenario is pretty obvious.

1. Using the Bond game EA whipped up a demo of what Halo DS could be like, either unsolicited or because Bungie/Microsoft asked them to.

2. It ended up getting canceled, probably because MS wanted to much money from EA, or because Bungie didn't want to let the property out of their hands.

This was a proof of concept that was obviously not meant to be seen by anyone but EA and MS. If the project had gone further, I'm sure a lot of the similarities the guy mentions would have been altered.

snkngshps @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:14PM

So there are multiple possibilites:

A. Matt hired someone to make a halo mockup to prove his credibility and they did it by reskinning Goldeneye. This is possible, but that would be an incredibly huge task just for those 2 minute long videos. Plus, I'm sure it would have leaked onto the R4 community by now.

B. This was a proof of concept made by EA using the same engine and presented to Bungie/Microsoft. I also don't see this as likely, because why would they send proof of concepts out to the media? One possibility is that Matt knows someone at EA that sent him a copy for the fun of it.

C. Some say the gameplay was actually a video made on the computer. This is a possibility, but again a lot of trouble to go through to simply prove people wrong.

It's hard to say what the truth is. If he's had this all along, why did he wait so long to finally show us, after all of the doubters. It's hard to believe this has just been sitting around his office collecting dust. But then again, why go through the trouble of recoding and reskining a game just to prove people right?

Many people are asking him to release a ROM of it as proof. He's obviously never going to do that whether it was real or fake because then he couldn't be trusted with any promo materials sent by game companies. It's a tough call.

Zach S @ Oct 3rd 2007 3:05PM

No matter what, I saw the Halo DS video yesterday and I immediately saw that this was based on the Goldeneye:RA engine. The text, the beeping sound, the red direction marker, the crosshairs, the way the bullets looked when shot, etc. are RIGHT outta that game.

But whether or not it's a fan mod type of thing or something a developer cooked up, idk.

Michael C. Sherrin @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:12PM

Just because a rumor won't die doesn't meant it should. Please, stop getting our hopes up. I have Zelda now. That's all I need to keep me happy.

******

Michael C. Sherrin
http://www.prodigeek.com/

RamJaw @ Oct 3rd 2007 4:57PM

This guy is a moron. As others have commented, the Halo DS shown was a proof of concept--not a final game. EA could have very easily "modded" Rogue Agent to make it look like Halo, but no way in hell did Matt waste time and/or money to make thousands of internet nerds believe his claim. Come on. I will point out that the music on the Halo cartridge was very good for the DS, and Halo music is some of the best in the business today IMO.

Let him have his 5 minutes of fame, but man am I getting tired of cynics who have this cocky attitude like they are the best human alive "but I digress."

DomoBraden @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:03PM

Interesting. This is a bit of a long shot, but the day before Matt posted the Halo video on his blog, a guy on a game-making forum I frequent posted a topic request low-poly Halo models for a "super secret" game on for the DS.

http://www.zfgc.com/index.php?topic=20711.new#new

Crushed @ Oct 3rd 2007 5:37PM

Yeah, this is probably the DS game n-Space was working on using the RA engine.

It's a legit proof-of-concept demo. Anybody saying anything else is nuts.

iofthestorm @ Oct 3rd 2007 6:49PM

Well, the similarities to the Goldeneye game are probably because EA was making a mockup of it. Seriously, homebrew programmers haven't gotten good enough to just mod an existing game to look like a totally new game. If they had, there'd probably be a translated version of Tales of the Tempest or something. I don't think anyone besides EA would have the resources to mod a game like that. The CG video possibility does sound likely, but again the effort needed to make a video like that would be not worth the effort to continue a rumor like that, and I don't think any homebrew media players can do dual screen video playback. Besides, why would someone from a big-name website like IGN lie about this? This whole thing confuses me...

Austin @ Oct 3rd 2007 7:32PM

If it is the case that this was a proof of concept done by EA, why would Matt be so secretive about who the developer was, if it was so obvious that it was a rogue agent mod?

Crushed @ Oct 3rd 2007 9:19PM

http://blogs.ign.com/craig-ign/2007/10/03/68006/

Oh hay look guys.

It was a proof of concept. Matt was probably just being secretive, because he heard from Craig how protective these studios are of their proof-of-concept demos. Apparently there were a LOT of Halo DS/GBA demos being made by third-parties for a time.

duscrom @ Oct 4th 2007 3:02AM

I love how that one guy assumes it was MS asking for "Too Much Money".

Probably what happened is EA made up the proof of concept.. and.. You know... FPS game kinda Suck on the DS... GoldenEye is a good display. For a game that kinda MADE Console FPS game popular, due to tightened controls.. I'd say Bungie played this and said.. No, this game blows.. we don't want an inferior product representing our franchise.

Khamikazi @ Oct 4th 2007 5:16AM

Only thing I can think of is.....why did it take around 3 months from the last time we were 'supposed' to see it until him like "oh yeah, check the game out that noone believes me on". Seriously.....that alone makes it fishy in my opinion.

dunnypop @ Oct 4th 2007 1:10PM

Personally, I think it was just a cheap reskinning of Rogue Agent, and just trying to make a cheap buck using the Halo name.

Po0py @ Oct 4th 2007 1:57PM

They could have simply been using the goldeneye engine to create the halo game. They probably used the same assets in that game. As they ign dude says, it was an early build. And in many early build they often use stolen sound effects and what not untill they get round to doing their own. Why would you shell out money to pay for a sound artist when you don't even know if the game is going to be green lighted? Easier to borrow until a later date.