MS Game Studios head Shane Kim is calling Rare's Viva Pinata Microsoft's
"most
important game of 2006." Hmm...I only made it through one year of law school, but deductive
reasoning forces me to conclude that Halo 3, the Xbox 360's most anticipated and therefore most important
video game, has been pushed to 2007. So much for the Japanese salary men predicting Needle Guns at dawn on the morning
of the PS3's November launch. But wait, there's more! Pressed for information by the press, Kim responded by hinting at
a ringed world of possibilities:
"We'll be talking about
anything we're doing in the Halo universe - whether that's Halo 3 as I call it or anything else - at the right time.
That time will be soon."
Yeah, yeah so they'll reveal more at E3. I don't think there was anybody
who thought they weren't going to announce something at E3. But the term "Halo universe"
suggests this particular something is outside the continuity of the two games we all know and love.
Spinning
off new Halo games with different forms of gameplay makes creative (and business) sense given the depth of
series, but is there anyone who thought the next outing wouldn't be an FPS starring Master Chief?
Could Bungie be planning two Halo games,
one continuing the original Covenant blasting storyline and the other a related squad-based strategy game, RPG or
RTS? What if the "other" Halo game gets released first?
