Download the Halo Wars demo and win prizes! (US Only)
Have you downloaded the Halo Wars demo yet? You have? That’s great! I hope you are enjoying it. The good news is that you can now enter a competition to win some great goodies. Including Xbox 360 Elites, hard drives and Microsoft points. If your lucky enough you might win a Halo Wars themed Xbox 360 Elite!
To find out details visit : http://www.gamingbits.com/content/view/5194/2/ for more information.
Enjoying the Halo Wars music? Soundtrack is out soon!
Stephen Rippy was head of Ensemble Studios Sound and Music department and worked on the Halo Wars Soundtrack. If you have had a chance to play the Halo Wars demo you would have no doubt heard the excellent work Stephen has created with the soundtrack. Hats off to him. If you have enjoyed listening to the Halo Wars music you will be pleased to hear that you can own the Soundtrack from February 17th. Pre-orders are being taken on Amazon now!
Amazon.co.uk : http://www.amazon.co.uk/Halo-Wars-O-S-T-Various-Artists/dp/B001OB3R1I/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1233968056&sr=8-1
Halo Wars demo is now available
Coming straight from the Halo Wars community website at www.halowars.com I can report that the eagerly awaited Halo Wars demo is now available to download for Xbox Live Gold customers and silver customers a week later. I strongly recommend checking it out!
There’s also a new Halo Wars trailer which you can see here: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/viewer.aspx?productId=1898&assetTypeId=2&shotId=6
And also an instruction manual here: http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/31804095-7B32-4CE2-A17E-3CB54A3692EF/0/HaloWars_MNL_EN.PDF
In the words of Ensemble Studios “Have fun and good luck“
Your Halo Wars questions answered
Screenplay have secured an interview with someone from Ensemble Studios on the evening before the release of Halo Wars. The team at ScreenPlay invite readers to send in their questions for consideration!
So if you’ve got that burning question head over to ScreenPlay : http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenplay/archives/011474.html and fill out the form!
Restoring ES Blogs – Part 1
I have restored images for Bruce Shelley’s most recent set of Ensemble blogs. You can find them in the blog archive.
Over the coming days more images will be restored to older Ensemble blogs. I will be doing Bruce’s blogs first and then Ben Donges after.
Stay tuned!
Halo Wars vid doc 2
The 2nd Halo Wars video documentary is now available on Xbox Live but also on YouTube here:
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=QU7pYjVNm-w
Link courtesy of Peterport on HaloWars.com forums
EnsembleStudios.com goes offline – Remember-EnsembleStudios.com live
Today the official EnsembleStudios.com website has gone offline and now redirects to the Age of Empires community. Thankfully, I was warned this might be the case and took action to archive the final images of the Ensemble website along with copies of ES Blogs.
You will notice the formatting of the blogs isn’t all there yet and is missing images. This is something I hope to have rectified soon. However with EnsembleStudios.com dropping offline today it was a priority to get that text back on the web as soon as possible despite the formatting problems.
Sit tight and images and formatting will be restored to Bruce and Ben’s blogs soon.
Last tour of Ensemble Studios; cancelled game concepts revealed; half employees to follow Goodman to new studio
Today Gamasutra has published their last t our of Ensemble Studios at this link:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3919/ensemble_studios_the_last_tour.php
This is a must read for any Age, Halo Wars or Ensemble fan. I thought I would pick out some main points of the article:
Ensemble was working on a Halo MMO which was expected to be the full mission of the studio until its sudden cancellation by Microsoft
Other games prototyped included : a fantasy-adventure RPG called Sorcerer; Nova, a “Diablo in space” game; a pirate-themed take on Diablo; a game called Wrench; a Ratchet & Clank-style platformer called Bam (Read link above for details on these. Qouted from Gamasutra)
Half of Ensemble employees will join Tony Goodman in a new studio
The article contains many pictures of Ensemble Studios and prototype images which are well worth looking at.
Expect more press stories like these in the coming days along with announcements of Tony Goodman’s new studio.
It looked like Ensemble was an excellent place to work with employees shouting praises and willing to join Tony Goodman again for Ensemble round 2.
We’ll keep you up to date.
Halo Wars on YouTube, Good job Ensemble.
NextGenReport have uploaded a series of Halo Wars videos on YouTube showing the Halo Wars tutorial and campaigns available in the demo coming February 5th. Here is a link to the videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoP-adqg7P4
The game looks outstanding and I look forward to playing it soon. It really looks like Ensemble will achieve their goal of bringing an RTS to the console successfully. The interface and tutorial make the game look very easy to get to grips with. I also note the outstanding sound and music. Stephen Rippy has really done a good job here and I already seem comments complementing the music on YouTube. The music during game play and cut scenes really makes the game feel like an epic RTS. This is Ensemble’s last game and it looks like they are going to go out with a bang.
Hats off to them.
Two new companies to form out of Ensemble
Bruce Shelley confirmed in his blog that there will be two new companies forming out of Ensemble employees. One of those studios will be providing support for ESO (Ensemble Online) and Halo Wars and it is presumed that this studio will be run by Ensemble head Tony Goodman though this has not been confirmed. It is completely unknown as to who may be leading the other company. One might ask why Tony Goodman’s new studio is not employing all of Ensemble’s staff. This is because the new studio will not have enough resources and size to employ everyone unfortunately. However as both studios gain momentum there is nothing to stop a partnership in the future.
Strangely enough Microsoft have announced that they want to have a relationship with the “new” Ensemble and that there is very good possibility of games being created under the Microsoft Games Studio banner. There has been no news yet as to what projects the studio will be working on but AOE4 and Halo Wars 2 are possibilities.
Ensemble visionary Bruce Shelley will not be joining either company, sadly. Stay tuned for updates on these new companies.
Below are some links to recent news articles about Ensemble Studios:
Ensemble staff to form two new studios Former employees will continue work on popular titles through new entities – GamesIndustry.Biz
Ensemble involved in Halo Wars’ future
Microsoft Game Studios “very excited” about series potential – GamesIndustry.biz
Bruce Shelley Shares His Thoughts on Ensemble Studios Shutting Down – Softpedia
