Halo: The Cole Protocol

[Bungie.net]

Bungie has announced the next chapter in the Halo universe, a new novel entitled Halo: The Cole Protocol. The next Halo novel is to be penned by up and coming science fiction writer Tobias S. Buckell (Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin).

The only details we have right now are that the novel will center around the fate of Spartan Gray Team, once thought lost. For those of you who are legitimate hardcore fans of the Halo universe in its entirety (no, not just the games, but all of it) you will undoubtedly have your interest piqued at the mention of “Gray Team”. To refresh your memory, and to brief the uninitiated, of all the Spartan IIs trained alongside Master Chief, all but three are accounted for in some way (Missing in Action, retired due to injury suffered during training, or Killed in Action), with the exception of three that were designated “Gray Team”. These were the Spartans famously described in Eric Nylund’s Halo: Fall of Reach as being “in fields of battle too distant to be recalled” a phrase that seems built to setup something interesting.

While it is somewhat disappointing that Eric Nylund (author of Fall of Reach, Halo: First Strike, and Halo: Ghosts of Onyx) won’t be resuming his role as novelist of the Halo universe, it seems Buckell is a promising author with plenty of potential, and great opportunity to expand on some tantalizing content.

Click the link above to read more about the author on Bungie.net.

Playstation Network Possibly Seeing Some Updates

[Joystiq]

Joystiq is reporting on two leaked images supposedly showing a new feature to be added to the PS3 and Playstation Network in the highly anticipated 2.40 firmware update. The image to your right shows what appears to be different levels of trophies and a user avatar. The idea (in theory anyway) is to ascend to higher tiers through accumulation of “trophy points” gained by winning “trophies” presumably through in-game feats, mirroring the popular Achievements feature of Xbox Live. However, as you reach higher levels of trophy status, the number of points required to reach the next level will increase. So essentially, instead of bragging about your high Gamer Score (as one would on XBL), you would boast of your high trophy level.

Another tip later received by Joystiq claimed that players would now have a profile page, that resembles a “gamer card” of sorts (see below), that would display their trophies and level. Additionally, it would seem that these features will be accessible in-game through the use of a slightly updated PS button functionality. Pressing the PS button once will now apparently bring up the XMB menu in-game, allowing access to these new features (and presumably a lot more) while holding down the PS button will bring up the menu we’re all currently used to.

At this point, however, we should caution that this is merely rumor at the moment, and none of it has been confirmed officially by Sony or any concrete source. These advances in functionality seem logical enough to be true, but then good things don’t always happen.

The 2.40 firmware update for PS3s was originally dated for a June 10th release, but has since slipped into mid-June without making an appearance. Whenever we do see the new update from Sony, we’ll see if these new features make their way to PS3 owners or fall into the dusty closet of false rumors.