Halo Wars is number 1 in Xbox 360 chart!
Halo Wars is number 1 in the Xbox 360 charts as tracked by ELSPA. The full Xbox 360 charts can be found below – congrats to Ensemble!
1. (-) Halo Wars (Microsoft)
2. (1) Street Fighter IV (Capcom)
3. (3) Sega Mega Drive Ultimate Collection (Sega)
4. (-) Silent Hill: Homecoming (Konami)
5. (4) Call Of Duty: World At War (Activision Blizzard)
6. (6) Grand Theft Auto IV (Take 2)
7. (2) Race Pro (Atari)
8. (7) FIFA 09 (Electronic Arts)
9. (14) Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision Blizzard)
10. (9) 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand (THQ)
Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C) 2008 ELSPA Ltd
UPDATED: Robot to support Age Community come March
Robot is poised to resume Age Community moderation in March following the transition period from Ensemble Studios into Robot Entertainment. It is expected a moderator from Robot will make a post to the community informing everyone what the plans are. Robot has reported that the support for Age will be no less than it was when under the Ensemble Studios moderation.
Good news for fans!
UPDATE:
Aloysius, community manager at Robot Entertainment has now confirmed that Robot is offcially taking over the Age of Empires 3 community and that support will be the same as that under Ensemble Studios. You can read the announcement below along with a direct link:
Hi everyone,
I’m Aloysius and I’m the Community Manager at Robot Entertainment.
We’ll be taking the baton from Ensemble Studios for Age3 community and customer support.
We’ll be providing the same level of support that Ensemble always has, so expect a bigger presence on the forums.
A couple questions that I know a lot of people are asking:
Q: Are you taking the ESO servers down?
A: There are no plans to, and in fact we have been doing hardware and software upgrades to the servers so that they are even more stable, so you guys can keep on playing.
Q: Can you make a fan-made patch official?
A: Unfortunately that cannot take place due to legal reasons. A Robot made patch may eventually come out, but there is no date set for that yet.
Source: http://forum.agecommunity.com/forums/thread/796060.aspx
The Dallas Observer talks to Stephen Rippy
The Dallas Observer has done an excellent article on Stephen Rippy discussing his past and how he came to work for Ensemble Studios where he wrote music for all the “Age of” and Halo Wars games. The article continues right up until present day where Stephen is currently working with Bonfire Studios lead by his brother David Rippy.
You can read the article here: http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-02-26/music/stephen-rippy-set-s-halo-wars-high-schore/2
Tony Goodman hands Bruce the AIAS Hall of Fame award
You can now watch Ensemble founder Tony Goodman hand the legendary Bruce Shelley the AIAS hall of fame award. Bruce joins 11 other members in the hall of fame.
IGN has the video coverage of Tony Goodman presenting the award here: You many need to skip to 39:25.
http://video.ign.com/streaming/dice-2009/index.html
You can also spot Tony Goodman wearing a Robot branded shirt as opposed to the sadly defunct Ensemble Studios. This may be the last we hear of Bruce Shelley for a while as he prepares to take a break and travel. Perhaps one day Bruce will return to work with his Ensemble colleagues in Bonfire and Robot but for now we wish him good luck and congratulations on his achievements and well deserved award.
Reviews for Halo Wars come pouring in. “Impressive”
Reviews for Ensemble’s last game Halo Wars are starting to come in. First up we have IGN who rated Halo Wars an “Impressive” 8.4/10. IGN’s UK arm rated the game 8.2 and in Australia 9.0! In each Halo Wars received an editor’s choice award! You can read the IGN reviews here: http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/955/955576p3.html
Current MetaCritic Score: 83
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/halowars
Great scores so far for a great game!
Bruce Shelley discussing the studios closure – LIVE Blog + Video
Brian Leahy is blogging LIVE from the DICE summit where Bruce Shelley is on stage right now discussing the Ensemble closure. You can read the blog here:
The blog brings to light more information as to why Microsoft could close down such a great studio. Some of these reasons being that the studio became too fragmented as there were more teams working on different ideas and that maybe they lost communication with Microsoft.
WATCH BRUCE:
IGN have video footage of Bruce’s DICE talk here: http://video.ign.com/streaming/dice-2009/index.html Unfortunately at the time of writing the player is down but hopefully it will be up soon. Remember to skip to 4pm as that was the time Mr Shelley was presenting.
GAMASUTRA:
Gamastura’s report of Bruce’s speech can be read here: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22402.
It would seem that Ensemble had problems diversifying and that it created separate teams too late in the process. Bruce Shelley believes that this lead to the studio being out of sync with Microsoft. A sad speech. Though, Bruce speaks positively of new Ensemble start up studios. Robot and Bonfire.
Halo Wars sets download record
Like all Ensemble games before it Halo Wars is set to break records and have smashing sales. Today Microsoft announced that Halo Wars by prized developer Ensemble Studios has passed 2 million downloads making it the most popular demo EVER!
This is great news for all the hard work Ensemble Studios put into the game whilst also raising a big question mark as to why Microsoft chose to close the studio.
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!
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.
