And here we are, now one full year after the launch of Halo 3, yet still, Bungie’s managed to rekindle the same fervor and excitement garnered in those months prior to the game’s release. The interesting fact which has emerged from yesterday’s reveal is that this same excitement is somehow still in support of the same exact game – Halo 3.

In the weeks leading up to this year’s E3, Bungie began dropping interesting viral quips from a clever face that we’ve come to know as “The Superintendent.” This character perused Bungie’s forum offering advice to random members, telling them to “keep it clean” or to “proceed with caution.” These short bursts of marketing pollination culminated in a countdown for a teaser reveal during the Electronic Entertainment Expo’s final day. As controversy would have it, the countdown plans were changed by Microsoft in an effort to balance their pool of announcements for that event.

Fast forward to September 25, 2008, where we’ve already had a pair of short, but illuminating Bungie.net updates releasing cryptic information about the Superintendent, who he is and what he does. With all of the earmarks of the Halo franchise, it didn’t take a much closer inspection to realize that this project, whatever it might be, was deeply involved with the Halo fiction.

Making amends for the events of E3, Bungie released the 60-second teaser yesterday, which, with the pieces of the lead-up communiques on Bungie.net, make a pretty compelling case for an interesting expansion to the story of Halo.

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Hindsight: Halo 3 continues its campaign breakdown with the seventh level of the game.  Warthogs speeding through lush alien forests, intense aerial battles, double Scarab action, and even the death of a Prophet – this one has it all. Click the link below to be taken to the Hindsight: Halo 3 page, where you’ll find the series’ eighth installment – The Covenant.

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The conclusion to a series covering the design methodology of encounters found in the Halo trilogy…

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Admittedly, this was not the first time I had visited the West Coast.

My previous trip to this side of the country took me to Los Angeles, helping write a low-budget film for a friend. But even with that reckless abandon of all responsibility, it was not preceded by anywhere near the anticipation and glee which accompanied my trip just this last weekend. So, after a pair of mechanical failures, two hours sitting in a hot airplane while watching the first half of the psychological horror/romantic comedy known as Fool’s Gold and finally six additional hours of travel, I arrived in downtown Seattle for PAX ’08.

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