Oni has gone beta

This forum post, and a reply by Bungie's Max Hoberman (aka Yeroen) hinted at it. I contacted Max and yes, Oni has indeed gone beta. Only one thing to say to that:

Woo-Hoo!!!!

Congratulations to any Oni Central readers who are one of the lucky testers!

"New" Anime art

aneep made a post to the forum about Oni Anime art he found at Rockstar's homepage.

The Anime art is stuff we've seen, but interestingly enough some of them show things we haven't seen. Take this image, for example. Konoko is posing over two Strikers she just beat up. We have seen her in this pose before, but not with two dead Strikers below her.

Also, if you remember the "sexy" image of Konoko (holding two weapons with her arms crossed, ripped clothing), you might wonder what this image is all about. No ripped cloth, and her facial expression is different. She's also cleaner.

I'm not entirely sure, but perhaps the TIFF version of the anime images that came on last year's Oni press kit are different to those found on Bungie's Oni page.

(Thanks for the heads up, aneep!)

Concerning the "new" shots at Gamespot Australia

I've received numerous e-mails and seen gaming sites post news about apparant new screenshots of Oni at GameSpot Australia.

Sadly, these shots are far from new. They have been around since E3, proof for this are this preview by Daily Radar and this preview by ps2.ign.com, the images also being under "archived media" (these previews, among others, were noted on the E3 coverage page).

You can be sure Oni Central will let you know of any new shots which are new, not forgotten old ones. ;)

Oni in arcades?

When you think about it, Oni would make a nice arcade game. It would be solo player only, and multiplayerable games are dominating arcades, but it would still fit in nicely.

Today a new poll is up asking if a coin-op version of Oni would be nice to see in an arcade.

(Thanks to Kevin Goetz for suggesting this poll)

New original fanart

Getting fan art is great. It's always good to see stuff that people make, and this time I have posted a new piece of fan art which is an original illustration by Nathan "S'phtman" Williams. Go check out the art!

What we've seen is "old"

Kazafn made a post to the forum that Chris Butcher of Bungie West has supposedly told people on Hotline that "nothing we have seen from Oni is newer than 6 months old, and the game has gone through an amazing amount of improvement in that time."

This is very cool news, and we all hope to see something recent real soon now!

Oni pushed back to December?

ps2.ign.com has updated their PS2 launch titles list, and claim Oni has been scheduled for this December, rather than at the launch of the PlayStation2 in October.

If this is true, then PC and Mac users will also have to wait for Oni to be out in December, because Bungie wants the game out on all three systems all at once. This is, of course, speculation, and until we see the official launch title list from Sony or get an official release date from Bungie we can only hope that Oni is on track for a Fall release.

(Thanks to Dan Rudolph for pointing out the updated list on the forum)

Fan art of a different kind

I received another piece of fan art in the mail today, this time from Nathan Boever. But this time it isn't a desktop picture or some art, it's a skin for the popular MP3 player WinAmp.

Mac users who cannot use WinAmp because it's a PC application may feel left out, but if you own SoundJam MP, you can use the Skin Converter and make it a Sound Jam skin.

Anyone want to make an Oni skin for MacAst or Audion?

Consumer-level 3D Studio MAX is coming

Discreet, a division of Autodesk, Inc. will release a version of 3D Studio MAX that will be affordable and appealing to everyday consumers like you and me. This could mean third-party creations in Oni are more likely to happen. Read the press release here.

(Thanks, halo.bungie.org)

How do you think Oni will do?

A new poll is up asking what you think Oni's sales will be like. Thanks to Nathan for suggesting this poll.

Chris Butcher posts about AI

The forum here at Oni Central is lucky enough to have readers from Bungie and Bungie West, so we rather frequently get replies to certain things by Matt Soell and even Chris Butcher.

Chris took some time to talk about the AI in this post yesterday, and should be good for those who have doubts in Oni's AI.

"Where the hell is Oni?" asks 3dActionPlanet

That is the question the site asks in this "preview" of Oni. The article focuses on the delays and setbacks on Oni's release. It's a good article for those of you who are wondering why Oni isn't out yet.

(Thanks to *mixy for the heads up on the forum)

Scan of Oni in Tokyo Pop

Thanks to Bachus we now have a scan of the article on Oni in the magazine Tokyo Pop. There's a nice amount of info and some screenshots (which are sadly not new).

New fan art

I received some more fan art this month, three desktop pictures. You can find them in the fan art section of the Archives.

Matt Soell answers questions

Matt Soell is again making his presence known on the forum here at Oni Central. I would like to direct your attention to this particular post by him, which answers some very good questions made my MakeMineRed.

New Oni trailer forthcoming?

A forum thread started today on halo.bungie.org asks about a CG division at Bungie, and some interesting Oni tidbits in Matt's posts were in there:

Essentially, Joseph and Marty will be heading up a new team devoted to making cutscenes, trailers and the like for Bungie titles

This is cool because they get to work on them year-round as opposed to doing it all in the two weeks before E3. I'm expecting an increase in quality AND quantity.

What a team! Joe Staten did all the trailers for Oni and Halo which showed gameplay, and with Marty doing sound co-ordination the trailers/movies/etc. should be real winners!

Joseph and Marty are right next to me, and they're gearing up for a jaunt to San Jose to work on Oni stuff right now. You probably won't see any new Halo movies until sometime after Oni ships.

They're off to do cutscenes and the like for Oni, pointing towards a completion of the game very soon. October release date, anyone? We may expect a brand new trailer to be coming in the next three months. Sit tight, Oni Central will let you know details as they come in.

(Thanks, rampancy.net)