It was bound to happen eventually, but the players dubbed "The Halo 2 Twelve" have finally finished their labor of love. A Bungie forum thread describes the last few players left in Halo 2, as many of the larger original group have been slowly dropping over the last few weeks. The final two were Agent Windex and Apache N4SIR. At 4:21 p.m. Pacific time yesterday, Windex posted a message that read, "I just got kicked off guys. Good Job Apache, your the last one." Apache stuck around for a few hours afterwards, but was booted as well.

The group started out much larger, as those celebrating the final hours of support for original Xbox games found that even after the servers had been closed, games could still be started if the player was already in. The numbers slowly dwindled to 14, then a dozen, and so on. Despite Microsoft's encouragement, it had to end eventually. If nothing else it's a nice testament to the kind of passion that Halo inspired in players.

Sometimes telling a loved one goodbye for the last time is just too painful, especially after spending the better part of the last decade at one another's side. Such is the case for a handful Halo 2 fans who've refused to let go of their first-person shooter of choice, even after Microsoft pulled the plug on the original Xbox Live roughly two weeks ago.

It turns out these intrepid gamers have been able to remain connected to the old Live service as long as they don't shut down their consoles or lose their internet connection. As a result, there are still around 13 people still playing Halo 2 online. The initial group of holdouts started much, much larger, but -- as tends to happen when you leave your system on for weeks at a time -- many have dropped out due to their consoles overheating, random disconnects, and other issues.

A fellow going by the name of Joe Campbell decided to chronicle this stalwart bunch of Halo players in a thread on the official Bungie forums. You'll find his updated list of remaining Halo 2 users inside, as well as links to any livestreams that may still be running.

Five years ago, a mischevous young psychic ran away from home to sneak into the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp and hone his powers, meet his heroes, and avoid his dad for a while.

Razputin's astral adventures through the minds of schizophrenics, secret agents and aquatic creatures was documented in a videogame by a brand new studio called Double Fine Productions called Psychonauts, which was released on this day in 2005.

1UP posted its official review that day by former contributor Nich Maragos, who called the game "the best story-driven graphical adventure in years." Were the game released today, this might still hold true.

As previously reported, Microsoft plans to cut off the original Xbox Live service starting tomorrow, April 15. That makes today the swan song for the original service that popularized online infrastructure in game consoles. If you want to celebrate the good times by popping in your copy of Halo 2, you have until midnight tonight.

The decision was made for the "greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community." With the old infrastructure gone entirely, Microsoft can focus more on updating features. The most famous example is the 100-friend limit to the service, which Microsoft admitted was due to the old service. The company was reluctant to pull it due to Halo 2 support, but the time has finally come.

A substantially different version of Assassin's Creed was once under development at Ubisoft Montreal, according to the game's former art director.

Speaking to 1UP recently, Jonathan Jacques-Belletete (currently working on Deus Ex: Human Revolution at Eidos Montreal) reflected on the title, which was in development for both the PlayStation 2 and Xbox.

With Xbox Live support for original Xbox titles set to be discontinued on April 15, the online multiplayer of Bungie's beloved Halo 2 doesn't have much time left. On April 15, all original Xbox games will no longer be able to access Live (whether played on an original Xbox or an Xbox 360). The reasoning behind the decision is to allow Xbox Live to continue to evolve in ways that are currently restricted by the ongoing support of original Xbox games. But as a result, unless you pick up a copy of Halo 2 on PC, the last opportunity to play the game online will be on April 14 -- and Bungie is planning on having the game go out with a bang.

Details will be revealed in the upcoming weeks, but a post on Bungie.net tells fans to "mark your calendars now - on April 14th let's all rally to go online for one last hoorah." It'll be "[o]ne final farewell and one final opportunity for all of you to kick our asses at Halo 2."

Beyond Bungie staff joining in on the fun online, your guess is as good as any as to what else they have in store for Halo 2's last day online. Whatever it is, the game will have had a hell of a six-and-a-half year run.

After more than seven years, Xbox Live will cease to support the original Xbox beginning on April 15, 2010. Microsoft announced today their intentions to discontinue the service on their first game console, and by extension, any of its games that are playable on the Xbox 360 -- including Halo 2. The change comes as part of an effort to continue evolving the Xbox Live service for Xbox 360 gamers; the continued support of the original Xbox has hindered Microsoft's ability to do certain things with Live such as increasing the friends list cap of 100 people.

In a letter to Xbox Live members, Live general manager Marc Whitten explained why they're making the decision:

On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn't a decision we made lightly, but after careful consideration, it is clear this will provide the greatest benefit to the Xbox LIVE community.

Seven years ago we laid out our vision for the connected console when we launched Xbox LIVE. We believed then that the power of the Internet to connect people would revolutionize living room entertainment. It started with amazing multiplayer games, and we've since seen that bet pay off again and again with the launches of Xbox 360, Marketplace, Netflix and powerful social features like Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm. None of this would have been possible without the success of LIVE as a multiplayer gaming network.

Whitten acknowledged the "amazing run" that Halo 2 has had on Live, claiming the game's dedicated community has "fundamentally changed the way we play video games." But he made it clear that, to do more with Live, this was a necessary action. "[A]s we look down the road, we'll continue to evolve the service with features and experiences that harness the full power of Xbox 360," he explained. "To reach our aspiration, we need to make changes to the service that are incompatible with our original Xbox v1 games."

Large-scale game development might have a certain structure to it, but at the Game Developers Conference, you often hear stories about a game progressing along just fine until some jackass comes in towards the end and pushes for some neat feature to be put in, which steals everyone's focus. Peter Molyneux admits he's one of those people, and as the founder of Lionhead, that was a particularly big problem in their first game, Black & White. When a journalist was interviewing him about the game, Molyneux got the idea to put in a realistic weather system. He got it into the game, but the game itself wasn't being worked on during that time; everybody was pitching in trying to get the weather right.

So, to combat his bad habit, and prevent other possible derailments of game projects, Molyneux instituted an "experiments" program within the company, that would invite any and all of its employees to pitch ideas on game design elements, visual techniques, or anything else that would be good in a game. At his presentation at GDC, Molyneux went over the internal program, as well as showing off a few experiments from the past.