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April 2004

April 2004 Archived News

News April 30 2004

Halo Custom Edition
In tandem with the HEK announcement, Cysco, over at the Gearbox forums, has changed the HaloPC forums to Halo Custom Edition forums. What is Halo Custom Edition? Glad you asked - Cysco answers some basic questions in this thread. It's a completely unsupported version of Halo, available free to all HaloPC owners, that introduces lots of new features - including the ability to play user-created (think HEK) content. THIS is what we've been waiting for; THIS is why it wasn't as simple as 'dump that HEK out there'. There will be lots more info in the next few days about this stuff... but for now, you can discuss on our forum, on Gearbox's forum, or at Bungie.net - it's the topic of the moment. (Thanks to Reppyboyo and L337Mondo for the first notices.) (Louis Wu 21:13:57 UTC) (permalink)

Silent Cartographer... in a mini.
Stephen Cakebread, a programmer on the Project Gotham 2 team at Bizarre Creations, dropped a note in our forum about 'a mostly complete copy of the silent cartographer exported as a circuit which can be loaded in the gotham 2 engine'... a tribute to the level as a driving challenge! (Before anyone gets their hopes up, it's unlikely that he meant this construct would ever get released... though I think it would be really, really cool.) (Louis Wu 20:52:20 UTC) (permalink)

Holy Rescues from Oblivion, Batman!
SketchFactor has posted a very cheering (though vague, with respect to dates) note to Bungie.net about the Halo Editing Kit... it's coming, folks! And it's coming soon. W00T! (Thanks, KP, you're not fired... yet.) (Louis Wu 20:07:42 UTC) (permalink)

Halo + PGR2 = Fun
WhiteRaBbit pointed out a fun Halo/PGR 2 composite he found. Adam Daniel pointed to a different thread on Bungie.net - started by the image's creator himself. Nice work! (Special mention goes to blinkmetoys, in the Bungie thread, who noticed it might be photoshopped.) (Louis Wu 18:50:05 UTC) (permalink)

Bill Murray's coming by later to sing.
What's a birthday without presents? Some HBO regulars put together a small collection of presents for Stuntmutt to celebrate the One Year Anniversary of One One Se7en.

• The Story of an Artist, Fanfic by Jillybean
• Dual Weapons, Wallpaper by BOLL
• Mmmm..., cake by c0ld vengeance

Of course, there are plenty of others that feel like this might be the perfect time to hang up the pencil... but hey, never listen to the naysayers. They'll just say nay. (Louis Wu 18:12:10 UTC) (permalink)

Invite Only.
One One Se7en turns One Year Old today... and it looks like the cast is making a statement. Happy Birthday, Stuntmutt! (There were wellwishers on the forum, also.) (Louis Wu 11:59:07 UTC) (permalink)

Suspicion Builds
Halo: Resolution gets... odd. (Louis Wu 11:55:18 UTC) (permalink)

I'm never getting in the Warthog again.
Red vs Blue Episode 32, 'me, myself, and you', was posted a couple of hours ago - pretty early! (It's currently in the Season 2 Sponsors forum.) Very nice work - and props to Yomary for the funniest bit in the film. Thanks to pilotelite for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 11:18:47 UTC) (permalink)

Lossy, indeed.
Oops - another one. (Louis Wu 10:49:38 UTC) (permalink)

VCTF Timberland
Caskey discovered a Timberland conversion for Unreal Tournament 2k4 - and rapture points out that it's being hosted by cooked Gamers (along with other Halo conversions). Nice! (Louis Wu 10:37:10 UTC) (permalink)

Covenant Creature Catalog
Bungie.net has been updated with a new Top Story - A Covenant Primer: The Best of the Bestiary. There's some excellent background information about the Covenant itself (and how the Forerunners fit into the equation), along with individual descriptions of each client species. Absolutely worth a read for anyone interested in the backstory of Halo! I heard about this on the #hbo IRC channel this morning, but the earliest note I can find about it is from MC vince on our forum. Update: Gah, is right. Seems mnemesis actually posted this story when it first went live... I never checked the page. :( My bad! (Thanks, Dean.) (Louis Wu 10:21:15 UTC) (permalink)

Faulty Code
Halo Babies has a new strip up today - it takes a shot at Bungie's scripting. (mrsmiley also points out that today's the last day to donate to HaloBabies.net and get entered in their Spoiled Sponsor contest - he's choosing a winner tomorrow.) (Louis Wu 09:48:15 UTC) (permalink)

The Best Of The Bestiary
Hokey Smokes! Apparently, Frankie has gone insane and is actually providing official story information on the Covenant over on Bungie.Net. Godlike Forerunner! Engineers in trances! Jackal snipers! With needlers! Gah! Thanks to MC Vince, for noticing the story in the first place. (mnemesis 04:38:03 UTC) (permalink)

News April 29 2004

HUDless desktops
WaLKa came up with some very nice HUDless desktops, and posted 'em to our forum. KP put up a mirror, and so did we - I can't speak for anyone else, but as long as you can get to HBO, you can get to ours. :) Enjoy 'em! (Louis Wu 18:26:40 UTC) (permalink)

I smell a SA-type contest coming on...
Deanero asked a reasonable question on our forum, concerning the energy balance of Halo and its denizens. (Personally, I think Speedy's answer is the most likely, and not just because he took a totally gratuitous shot at KP in formulating it.) BOLL, however, went in a different direction... hrm. (Louis Wu 17:38:43 UTC) (permalink)

At least there are no tentacle searches
Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, has gone through the site's search logs and pulled out some of the commonest requests... and answered them. In the process, he's found a use for his Halo Pickup Lines database. (R.net takes no responsibility for any consequences of using these lines in real life.) (Louis Wu 17:21:37 UTC) (permalink)

Ross says Discuss.
So discuss already. (Louis Wu 13:29:36 UTC) (permalink)

Height isn't everything.
Calvin and Halo hint at a potential solution to E3 entrance for younger readers... (Louis Wu 13:26:36 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Invasion
Blake Noble sent us word of a Halo mod for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It's 1.57 mb and called 'Halo Invasion' - it's available from this page (it's about 3/4 of the way to the bottom). If you own Vice City, this might be fun to grab! (Louis Wu 12:50:46 UTC) (permalink)

Motor Gulch
Dominator has whipped up a Motorcycle mod for Halo PC; there are currently screenshots and a movie on the Halomods forums. (The actual model hasn't been released yet.) The movie is large (33.5 mb, .rar-compressed), and duplicates footage... but overall it looks pretty nice. First notice of this goes to The Guardians, 3 days ago. (Louis Wu 12:38:09 UTC) (permalink)

Bodies, and Temples, and Gin
The Red vs Blue team released a deleted scene from Episode 31 yesterday; it's on the Sponsors download page. It's up only in Quicktime (two resolutions). Thanks to Scott Hartel for the heads-up. (It's only 41 seconds long, and either 3.6 or 6.0 mb, depending on the version you grab.) (Louis Wu 12:25:13 UTC) (permalink)

And To All A Good Knee
(GT)Juggler has put together a nice vid of the recent Knee For All fanfest; It's 30 mb, QuickTime format, and does a good job of tying together the day. Check it out; we're hosting it on files.bungie.org (looks like all this hosting is gonna toast us this month...). (Louis Wu 01:32:56 UTC) (permalink)

News April 28 2004

Wednesday's Wordsmithing
14 pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section. Give 'em a read - there'll be more tomorrow! (Louis Wu 19:58:15 UTC) (permalink)

Late Update
Eep - forgot to archive the Weekly Update this week; it's now in our database. Remember... when you're looking for Paul Russel's contribution to Halo 2, this ain't a bad place to start... (Louis Wu 16:10:16 UTC) (permalink)

Rockslide Megabattle
See what spam can do? I almost missed the relevance of this thread, because of the enormous amount of spam in it. However, the initial post is actually quite interesting, and points to a simple but content-rich site devoted to one very specific mini-game you can play within Halo; a massive battle involving many more than the usual number of enemies. Check out the site, and add to the signal in the thread! (Stay away from the noise, though...) (Louis Wu 15:41:30 UTC) (permalink)

Jaime Would Be Proud.
One One Se7en gets ready for Halo 2... (Louis Wu 14:36:24 UTC) (permalink)

Hey, The Government Still Has To Make Money
The dangers of fighting a war... in today's Halo: Resolution. (Louis Wu 14:32:09 UTC) (permalink)

Hard transfer?
It continues... (Louis Wu 14:26:35 UTC) (permalink)

Spotcheck Speeds through PoA
The second of Spotcheck's releases, a 5:15 run through Pillar of Autumn on Heroic, is now up at files.bungie.org, in both WMP9 (15 mb) and QuickTime (15.8 mb) formats. The WMV was originally found at That Weasel Television - but folks were having real trouble getting hold of it, due to slow download speeds. The thread on our forum, again, is here. (Louis Wu 13:24:02 UTC) (permalink)

Details emerge about Wideload's Halo-engined product
cuc found a pair of new Wideload interviews - one at 1up, a second at Homeland Fed. The most interesting parts, to me, have to do with the game itself; it's an action game, using the Halo engine... but it's not a First Person Shooter. Having buried myself in the consumer end of the Halo engine for the past several years, I'm really intrigued to see what OTHER ways this engine can be used! (Louis Wu 12:29:41 UTC) (permalink)

If you're looking for inspiration...
Spotcheck continues to post speedruns of various levels, in preparation for Going Nowhere Fast - latest pair have been PoA (on Heroic), and the Maw (on Easy). These are run on HaloPC, and obviously the difficulty levels aren't up to snuff - but he's pointing out routes to take and tricks for shaving time off. I haven't been able to watch the PoA run yet (there is still more than half an hour remaining in the download), but the Maw run was quite impressive, and I've put a pair of copies (the original WMP9, 23 mb, and a re-encoded Quicktime, 26.9 mb) up on files.bungie.org. Grab one and watch this, because the Maw in 9:15 is astounding at ANY difficulty level. Update: Uriel has mirrored both of these on a server in Germany; if you're in Europe, these might be better for you. (Thanks, Uriel!) (Louis Wu 00:01:22 UTC) (permalink)

News April 27 2004

My retinas are rotting
Another one from rendar - Xbox.com put up another Lifestyle article, called 'Eye Candy' - and again, Halo is showcased. I think it's pretty much a given... you wanna show off the Xbox, grab Halo. (Louis Wu 22:29:41 UTC) (permalink)

Info blast
There's ANOTHER interview with Alex Seropian, with new details about Wideload, its staff (more hints about who's who from the old days) and some interesting pieces about the game itself and its development. All of this is over at Gamespot. Thanks, Jonah. (Louis Wu 20:15:17 UTC) (permalink)

Screenshot contest
Halo Zone is having a Screenshot contest - win a headset if you're good enough! Check out the details on their main page. (Louis Wu 19:37:09 UTC) (permalink)

Shoot THIS.
Xbox.com put up an article called 'Best Of: Xbox Shooters' - and surprise, surprise, Halo's on the list. Thanks, rendar. (Louis Wu 18:38:34 UTC) (permalink)

Double Your Pleasure
XLNC, unwilling to post YET ANOTHER batch of the same old HUDless shots, has posted a batch... of doublewides. Awesome 3200x1200 panoramas, they're perfect for dual monitor setups. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 16:41:49 UTC) (permalink)

Prologue
uran8er found a new page over at the Enkidu site. What does it mean? You got me. (Louis Wu 16:34:35 UTC) (permalink)

There's a time for everything... including paddles.
Today's Calvin and Halo reminds me that my kids are not evil. (Louis Wu 16:15:08 UTC) (permalink)

Free First Strike!
MereCatFish announces that Blamdink.co.uk is giving away a copy of Halo: First Strike; you MUST be a UK resident to enter. If you're interested, sign up before May 30! (Louis Wu 13:24:14 UTC) (permalink)

Best. Game. Ever.
Gamefaqs is running a poll called 'Best. Game. Ever.' - Division 128, round 1, open today only, is Halo vs Starcraft. At the moment, Halo is losing, by a little... see what you can do to fix that! First word on this seems to be from Bobby Curry, a couple of days ago. (Louis Wu 12:47:49 UTC) (permalink)

Insert Girth Pun Here
The Wideload press continues - IGN did an interview with Alex Seropian yesterday, as well. Some very interesting tidbits - check it out! Thanks to Bullseye, who pointed it out to Subnova. (Louis Wu 11:03:39 UTC) (permalink)

News April 26 2004

Will it be you?
Just a heads-up... Bungie will be picking its grand prize winner for the Launch Week Sweepstakes in about an hour; someone will win an all-expenses trip to Bungie Studios. It will be viewable, live, on the Webcams. (Thanks, Brad, for the reminder!) Update: Congrats to Steve 0, for winning the Grand Prize. (The originally listed winner has been yanked due to an invalid B.net account.) Congrats to the other 14 names on the list, too! (Louis Wu 20:33:07 UTC) (permalink)

Seropian Talks Business
There's been some buzz in the Bungie community this morning about the announcement of Wideload, Alex Seropian's new gaming company. We had a chance to chat with Alex this morning about where Wideload is, and where it might be going... if the idea of a new game based on the Halo engine, built by old-school Bungie folks, gets you excited, go check this out! Hearty thanks to both Alex and Miguel Chavez for their time (and Mig's great questions!). (Louis Wu 16:36:27 UTC) (permalink)

Cooking Up Something Flash
Stuntmutt uses One One Se7en to take a shot that I've been taking for months on the IRC channel... trust that guy to recycle EVERYTHING. (Louis Wu 14:22:57 UTC) (permalink)

A World Power At Last
I think Halo: Resolution is confused about this whole World Domination thing... (Louis Wu 14:04:52 UTC) (permalink)

Monday Morning Reading
Starting today, individual stories will not be listed in Fan Fiction updates; we don't do it for other sections, so it seems unreasonable to continue taking up such huge swaths of front-page real estate. That doesn't mean you should stop reading, though - there are 17 new pieces for you today. Go get 'em! (Louis Wu 14:02:30 UTC) (permalink)

Spin called us WHAT?
Interesting-sounding article in the current Spin magazine (May 2004) - first person shooters and the controversy surrounding them. We can't bring this to you in scanned format until it's off the shelves - but go see what you can find on your local newsstand! Thanks, daedalus. (Louis Wu 13:30:46 UTC) (permalink)

First Strike Weekly Update 8
Crispy Spartan points out the latest (Number 8! The Highest Numbered Update Yet!) weekly update for First Strike, the Halo mod based on the book. General info, new maps, weapons designs... and a page on the team itself. Go check 'em out! (Louis Wu 13:25:02 UTC) (permalink)

Is Zion under attack? Nope, just hackers.
Wow. Grendiac and KaptainKommie have been working on a new tool called Sentinel - and it has some pretty cool features. It's designed to help folks running modded maps on a server get the word out, so that people can play these maps. Another feature it has, however, will be of interest to many server admins outside the modding community; it can verify that a joining player has the same mapfile as the server, and keep out people who don't match. There's far more that it does - read the thread. Way to go, guys! (Thanks to Devin Olsen for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 13:10:35 UTC) (permalink)

AGP4 - in the history books
The Fourth AGP tournament took place in Washington, DC this weekend; there was more than $10,000 on the line. Thanks to rapture for the heads-up, and some summarized results. Congrats to Walshy and the Dream Team! (Louis Wu 12:59:01 UTC) (permalink)

Sudden catastrophic wha?? yecch!
Keen eyes among the hardcore Bungie fan community were aware that The Man, or I guess, the Ex-Man (heh), Alex Seropian was secretly planning to head up a new game company. He left Bungie back in 2002 and many of us wondered if he could really quit the gaming business after being in the thick of it for so many years. Well I guess not because his secret plans are no longer secret. You can read the press release regarding his new venture here. Most pertinent is that Wideload's first game will be based on the Halo engine! Stick around as we will have an exclusive interview with one of the founding fathers of Bungie later today. Update: another article has surfaced, this time on CNN's Money site; I find it fascinating that 7 of the current 11 team members at Wideload are ex-Bungie employees. Dun dun dun... (Thanks, Akilo) (Ding 07:46:12 UTC) (permalink)

Going Nowhere Fast
Recently, there's been a bunch of interest in speed runs through Halo - it's been the subject of two movies and a host of forum threads in the past week. Well, now you can actually GAIN something from your interest - Bungie.org and Mythica.org (along with the nonexistent Ninjas On Fire site) have teamed up to bring you 'Going Nowhere Fast', a contest to see who can get through Halo the fastest. Rules, prizes, history of the genre... it's all there on the info page. Go read it... and get planning! (We'd like to apologize in advance to all the people who will feel left out and abandoned by two of the rules; specifically, the 'No Co-op' rule and the 'Legendary only' rule. We realize this bars some of the most interested competitors... but we had to find a way to keep this from turning into 100 minicontests; this was the best we could do.) (Louis Wu 01:58:47 UTC) (permalink)

Enkidu?
I've spent much of the day outside, doing household chores... I returned this evening to find... well, a rather strange incursion on the bungie.org servers. I've left it alone for the time being, because (so far) it seems harmless... but it might pay to keep your eyes on it. If it's not one thing... (Louis Wu 00:10:40 UTC) (permalink)

News April 25 2004

What Goes Down, May Come Up
Lots of people have gotten to the bottom of the Security shaft in Silent Cartographer. (Okay, not lots. More than a few, though.) NOBODY, I think, has ever gotten back OUT - at least on an unmodded Xbox - until today. Nice job, Ducain! (Louis Wu 21:54:45 UTC) (permalink)

When Comics Go Flash
Subzero Rivalries has gone Flash. Check out the trailer for this newly-remade comic; more strips coming soon. Thanks, MarkHawk. (Louis Wu 18:36:39 UTC) (permalink)

Vortex now available
Quick update - the space map mod we mentioned yesterday is now available for download; thanks, Xhzjang. (Louis Wu 17:40:16 UTC) (permalink)

Miniature Halo - still on track
Richard 'SESpider' White has dropped into our forum with an explanation for the delay in new episodes of Miniature Halo. Swing by and give it a read if you've been wondering what happened! (Louis Wu 13:40:07 UTC) (permalink)

News April 24 2004

Dial back those imaginations...
Yesterday's Weekly Update contained a comment that has set several Halo forums atwitter:

[...] the way the Elites reload now is almost too much detail.

Lest too many people assume this means that in Halo 2, Covenant weapons (which, for the most part, are NOT reloaded by Covenant in Halo) will require reloading, Frankie stepped into our forum to clarify that he was talking about needlers (which reload in Halo, as well). Sorry, guys! (Louis Wu 20:19:46 UTC) (permalink)

New Multiplayer Mods available
A couple of new multiplayer maps for you guys, from the modding community: Reppyboyo points out a creation by Xhzjang which isn't actually released yet, but should be soon - it's a space map with a LOT of individual platforms. Also, DocOctavius points out his conversion of the Cryo Bay to a multiplayer map; there are pics in the forum post, or follow the link to download the map. The creativity continues! (Louis Wu 16:39:34 UTC) (permalink)

Stayin' Alive
NazdaH has sent along word of several movies in the past (here, here, and here) - but we didn't host any of them, and they're all offline now. This is too bad, because they show some pretty decent gameplay. Well, he's sent us a new one, and I thought the sniping was pretty fun to watch. The beginning is a little off... but it gets better. It's 3:24 long, 27 mb large, and available in both Windows Media Player 9 and QuickTime formats from files.bungie.org. Check it out! (At some point, we'll get the rest of his stuff back online, because it IS pretty good.) (Louis Wu 16:25:06 UTC) (permalink)

Speed Run, Revisited
A few days ago, Juggertrout posted a movie showing his speed run through AotCR in 7:19. His bandwidth has run out, however, and the movie was only available in WMP9 format in any case. We've tossed both the original WMP9 version (37.6 mb) as well as a Quicktime version (30.6 mb) up on Mythica.org (thanks, Brian!) so folks could grab it again. There are suggestions that a vid with a better time has been posted, but it's not yet available. There are also the beginnings of a full-blown speed competition shaping up. Once again, we suggest you be patient for a few days - holding on to your speed times might actually pay... I wish I could say more right now. (Louis Wu 14:33:00 UTC) (permalink)

Saturday Stories
16 stories for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• The Old Ways, by MT
• The Flood, by Keyes
• Casualties of War Part V, by Tom Murphy
• Chiefs Epic, by Andrew Hodgson
• Earth's Wrath: Chapter 1 - Ruins of Earth, by Steven Carson (aka Ninja Steve)
• Halo: A Comedy 2 Part 2, by Tom Murphy
• A Story of Betrayal, Part 1: The Return Home, by Anthony
• Easy Squadron: New Mombasa - Part One, by Nameless
• Evolution:Chapter 3- Dragons Suit-up, by Firestorm
• Attack of the n00bs (part 2), by Mr Revenge
• Marooned - Chapter 15, by Steve Ollett
• Birth of New Heroes: Chapter 1 , by Arinoth Koby
• Oleander's Stand, by Dark-NiTe
• Rebirth - Falling Stars , by KnightmareWolf, Shadow, Archangels_Blade, Spartan415
• Homeworlds XXVII, by Mainevent
• Halo 2: Operation Dream Knife (Chapter 1: Sensor Post), by System Failure

Go get 'em! (Louis Wu 13:35:25 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Tech Discussion
Two and a half years ago, a thread started up on the gdalgorithms mailing list about some technical aspects of Halo. The original post looks at some of the achievements of Halo, and speculates how they came about - it's really well-written, at least from this layman's perspective. Some of the responses are just as interesting. I've no idea how on-the-mark any of these people are... but it's a great discussion. Thanks to Doggone for digging this out for those of us who missed it the first time around to see! (Louis Wu 13:08:26 UTC) (permalink)

Mrs. Doublefire talks about modding
Battleground: Halo has interviewed Mrs. Doublefire, a prominent figure in the Halo modding community. It's an interesting glimpse into the life of someone addicted to modifying Halo. Give it a read! (Louis Wu 01:24:53 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: Ice Fields
MarkHawk has posted word that Ice Fields Episode 1, Part 1 has been posted. It's 6:12 long, and ranges from 19.1 to 28.1 mb, depending on the quality you download. It's got some truly awesome camera angles; they've done an incredible job of taking advantage of the HUDless interface. Go check this out! (There should be other flavors coming later this weekend, if DivX doesn't agree with you.) (Louis Wu 00:49:07 UTC) (permalink)

Curdled Sass makes Lickable Content
Frankie has posted this week's Bungie Update at Halo Center - and wow, they got a lot done this week. Animation info, some very cool tie-ins involving Lorraine, a HORRIBLE pun dragged out into an analogy, and some really cool censored info about... well, I'm not sure what. And oh, yeah, multiplayer coolness. Go read it! Update: Seems Halo Center is having some trouble with the load; their website was offline for a while, and is struggling at the moment. :( Bungie has given permission for this update to be mirrored; we'd rather you went to Halo Center first, but if they're down, we've put up a copy here. (Louis Wu 00:15:51 UTC) (permalink)

News April 23 2004

MLG Tourney ends in success
DOH! We got mail from Major League Gaming yesterday, reporting the results of its third major 2004 tourney, held last week in Dallas. I totally spaced on posting these. $15,000 was distributed amongst the winners, and the names, once again, are quite familiar...

Halo Free For All:

• 1st Place: KillerN (Nick Urso, TX)
• 2nd Place:Zyos (Matt Leto, TX)
• 3rd Place: Walshy (David Walsh, MI) & Gintron (Chris Collins, WV) - tie

Halo 3 vs. 3 Team Competition:

• 1st Place: Team StK: Ogre 1 (Danny Ryan, NJ), Ogre 2 (Tommy Ryan, NJ), Stragepurple (Doug Fabrizio, NJ)
• 2nd Place: Team AP: Anti (Josh Crahan, TX), KillerN (Nick Urso, TX), Boo (Chris Billington, Canada)
• 3-4th Place: Team MP: Clockwork (Kushik Dutta, WA), Deeter (Pat Danford, NC), Saiyan (Ryan Danford, NC)
• 3-4th Place: Team FJ: Gintron (Chris Ginner,FL), Killer (Ryan Hughes, FL), T2 (ThomasTaylor, FL)

Halo Lego stuff, Revised
Fury Three has done a nice job of summarizing the Halo-based Lego models available for viewing at the Brickshelf website; he even went to the trouble of formatting his list to fit our template. Nice! (Louis Wu 18:26:37 UTC) (permalink)

That box is there for a REASON.
Red vs Blue Episode 31 ('Room for Rent') is now available on the Season 2 Sponsors forum at RvB. It's gettin' weird, folks. (I, for one, never wanted to see the inside of... oh, never mind. Go watch it.) (Louis Wu 16:25:45 UTC) (permalink)

Wait 'Til You See Flood Warrior Form Ken
One One Se7en points out a common complaint among action figure collectors... Joyride, take heed. (Louis Wu 15:42:10 UTC) (permalink)

They Don't Have That In Regular Banshees...
Halo: Resolution comes up with what has to be the lamest reason ever to chase a bad guy. (Not that I'm sayin' that, you know, Bungie employees are bad guys, or anything...) (Louis Wu 15:38:13 UTC) (permalink)

Old art and new at Halobabies
Halo Babies has a couple of new items - there's another strip, of course, since it's Friday, and it's a direct tribute to Red vs Blue, but there's also a very cool desktop in a few sizes. (This has been in our artwork queue for a while now; apologies to Gruntsbane for taking so long to get it out. I'm glad there's another venue for its posting - it deserves to be seen.) Absolutely worth a look. (Louis Wu 14:52:03 UTC) (permalink)

Why, I Oughtta...
Bungie has put up an article about 'Dirty Halo Tricks' - things you can do to win in Halo that might be on the far side of ethical. I'm really surprised that out-of-map stunts didn't make anyone's list... taking a ghost across the top of Sidewinder and invading the enemy base from above is definitely on MY list of 'sleaziest moves in a game'. Most of the tricks, though, involve sneakiness, rather than exploitation of map glitches. (There's even one from me in there... though I'd argue with the 4-pile rating it got.) My favorite has to be Ryan Hylland's truly annoying way to eke out a few extra seconds on Oddball... check it out. And thanks to Deimos Fawkes for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 14:36:32 UTC) (permalink)

I don't mind my boy kicking alien butt
Adam Daniel dropped us a note in the forum that Halo garnered a special mention in today's New York Times. In an article (free registration required) about the burgeoning business of game lounges, Halo is so popular that parents let their kids play the game even though it rated M for mature. As a parent that has been letting his son play the game since he was 5, this doesn't surprise me. Update: We were actually told about this article on Monday, by Bucky - the only copy I had, though, was pretty beat-up, so I didn't post it. However, it has some nice photos that the online version doesn't have, so I've changed my mind. (Apologies for the wrinkles - and for the weird stitching in places; it's a huge article.) (Ding 14:20:16 UTC) (permalink)

Furry fun
W00T! New Fur-Lo artwork from Tina Leyk; there's another regular strip, called 'Mishaps With Grenades' (third from bottom row, if the anchor doesn't work well), which made me LAUGH (what an awesome Jackal!), and a great guest strip by Iatro, which captures the spirit of Fur-Lo quite nicely. Tina rawks. (Louis Wu 02:42:50 UTC) (permalink)

News April 22 2004

The Marines
Wolfy points out a new comic over at Sector 7 - The Marines. nice look! (Louis Wu 21:36:13 UTC) (permalink)

AotCR - in just over 7 minutes
Yesterday, Juggertrout posted a speed run through Assault on the Control Room - 7:19 from the time he got out of the pelican to the time he entered the final room. As far as I know, that's a record, at this point... but there are a number of places (using his route) where seconds could be shaved. Check this out! (The commentary included is pretty funny.) You may have a good reason to try and duplicate this soon... This movie is currently hosted by Juggertrout. It's 37 mb, in WMP9 format. We should have a local mirror for it in the not-too-distant future, as well as a QuickTime version. Updates when things happen. (Louis Wu 21:05:52 UTC) (permalink)

20 MORE Desktops? Ouch.
As promised, we have another batch of 20 desktops for you today; 23, if you want to count the BOLL variants. (Even more if you count the SIZE variants... but BOLL's are actually image variants.) Check 'em out in our Wallpaper section! There's still more in the queue, both wallpaper and miscellaneous art... coming soon! (Louis Wu 15:33:10 UTC) (permalink)

RvB up for a Webby
Wow... Red vs Blue has been nominated for a 2004 Webby Award in Humor - winners will be announced on May 12. This was pointed out on our forum, by iBob... but I didn't notice it until Narcogen posted it on Rampancy.net. Looks like I'm getting behind on my forum reading... (Louis Wu 14:24:50 UTC) (permalink)

And don't you put it in your mouth
Parents - they have ears in the back of their heads. Or the sides, or something. Somewhere. Stop reading this, go look at Calvin and Halo. Thank you. (Louis Wu 13:16:21 UTC) (permalink)

Stories
I guess people have been saving up... only one day since the last Fan Fiction update, and there are 26 submissions - AFTER the deletions I had to make.

• Sergeant Vick: Part 2, by Helljumper
• Halo Heaven: Chapters 3 & 4: The Story of the Surviving Spartan IIs, by Justin Harrison, Halo Heaven
• Halo Training: CTF on Reach, by Coolhand2
• When Worlds Collide {Part One}, by Void
• The Falen: Halo 2 Chapter 7, by Hikaru-119
• Final Death (Bonus Peice), by Hikaru-119
• Halo 2 Chapter 8 ; Part 1, by Mark Lieberg
• Spartan-147 Part 1, by ShadowSnipe
• Red Luck, by MT
• Prologue, by Keyes
• Halo 2: Unfortunate Events (Comedy): Chapter 1: I Think I Shit Myself, by Burny
• Unstable Territory: Prolouge, by FOrunnER
• The Mars Annihilations Part 5, by Janglurevil7
• Halo: Lost and Found pt:3, by Riley217
• Halo: Captured pt:1, by Riley217
• Mysteries Part 6, by Horror
• Hate, by Solidus Snake
• the battle for Alana 1, by mr lucky
• the battle for Alanna 2, by mr lucky
• the battle for Alanna 3, by mr lucky
• The Spartans on Reach continued, by SpartanFortyFour
• Attack of the n00bs(comedy), by Mr Revenge
• Deja Vu, by Mainevent
• The Georgetown (Part 1), by Halomaniac
• Not Your Ordinary Halo Fan-Fic (Comedy), by someone that you dont know
• Marooned - Chapter 14, by Steve Ollett

Go read - we get to do this again tomorrow. (Louis Wu 13:07:21 UTC) (permalink)

Fall From Above (You Can't Stop)
There's a new remix of the Halo title theme posted over at Overclocked Remix; it's 4:06 long, and 5.6 mb large. Worth a listen! Thanks to ARUCKSHA for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:28:24 UTC) (permalink)

Assorted Tricks
Ducain has put together a small movie - 3 minutes, 7.8 mb, WMP9 format - showing some fun glitches; a Banshee stuck in the walls in AotCR, some shade-bumping, more security shaft jumping, and a Turret ride. As Ducain says, another trick vid to burn away three minutes of your life! (Louis Wu 11:55:13 UTC) (permalink)

Xbox.com back up
Just a quick heads-up; if you missed the interviews with Brian Jarrard and Tom Gioconda over at Xbox.com yesterday (because I was an idiot and announced them moments before they went offline for the Tsunami update), Xbox.com is back up, and the interviews are readable again. (Louis Wu 11:46:59 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Community Gamertag Database
Psyrixx has put up a basic replacement to our HBO-XBL Gamertag database over at The Psyjnir Complex; it contains only your real name, your gamertag, and a handle - not HBO-specific, but any online handle you use, I suppose. (No listing of games, but then, it was the difficulty in maintaining that listing that put OUR list offline, so I don't blame him at all.) If you want people who only know you on web forums to be able to find you on XBL, add yourself to this list! (Louis Wu 08:49:33 UTC) (permalink)

Nerdstock 2004 - Halo for Chicagoans
SancheztheLlama writes to point out Nerdstock 2004, a Halo tournament taking place near Chicago on June 26th. Details, including cost and basic prize info, can be found on the web page. (Louis Wu 08:43:42 UTC) (permalink)

Action Figure Pics
Stuntmutt points out that there are pics of the Series 5 action figures over at ToyWiz.com - at least two are new to me. The Gold Elite has a new head design, and the Silver MC with a purple shotgun looks positively Barbie-like. (The red grunt is also mislabeled as orange - the orange grunt will be out in Wave 4.) Fun fun fun! (Louis Wu 08:38:55 UTC) (permalink)

News April 21 2004

Is it me you're looking for?
DrPeggs pointed out a collection of jokes told using Halo action figures - entertaining stuff. Take a look! (Louis Wu 19:41:57 UTC) (permalink)

Why Doesn't This Happen?
One One Se7en asks a question that's puzzled me since I first started playing Halo... (Louis Wu 16:24:31 UTC) (permalink)

Sorry For The Down Time
Man... it's getting worse and worse. Halo: Resolution points out some nasty injuries I seem to have sustained a couple of weeks ago. Sounds painful... (Louis Wu 16:03:50 UTC) (permalink)

RvB in the Toronto Star
Very cool - The Toronto Star has put Red vs Blue on their front page (following the lead of the Wall Street Journal, recently). It's also on their website, right now. It's a pretty nicely written article, even. (Would have been nice if they'd gotten Jason Saldana's last name right, but...) Give it a read! Thanks to Geemaan for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 15:56:01 UTC) (permalink)

Achronos, too.
broony points out that not only did SketchFactor talk to Xbox.com... Tom Gioconda, aka Achronos, did, too. He discusses the growth of the team, the advantages of the new site over the old, and talks a little about how the site will be used in the future. He can't get into details... but it's clear that Bungie is looking forward to taking advantage to their access to backend data:

For now, let's just say that Bungie.net will be an integral part of the Halo 2 Xbox Live experience and leave at that.

If you're a Bungie fan, and you don't yet have a B.net account... what are you waiting for? Update: Wouldn't you know it? My timing is impeccable. A couple of days ago, Frankie pointed out that Xbox.com would be down for a 24 hour period, beginning at 6 am PST today, to get new features for Xbox Live. That was... 38 minutes before this note was originally posted. (They were a bit late; it went down less than a minute after I posted.) Apologies - you'll have to wait until tomorrow to read this (and the interview with Sketch, as well). Thanks to Ross Mills for reminding me. (Louis Wu 13:28:40 UTC) (permalink)

SketchFactor talks to Xbox.com
Nice find by gd - Xbox.com has interviewed Brian Jarrard (aka SketchFactor) about the new Bungie.net. Brian discusses where he thinks the community is going, and how Bungie can help it get there. Give it a read! (Louis Wu 01:25:35 UTC) (permalink)

A major HBO mirror returns
Yippee - halosn.bungie.org is back online - many, many thanks to Deimos™ for making this happen! This machine takes a hefty load off HBO prime and halosm... but the most noticeable change is going to be that the Fan Fiction section is back up. In fact, there were 20 pieces waiting in the queue, submitted before the box died last week - here they are now:

• Earth under siege, by Chief17
• Halo 2 Part 2, Cornered, by BlueChief
• Operation: Stingray Ch. 3: --Survival of the Smartest--, by Nick Kang
• Stand Ye Ground!, by Burny
• The Other Threat, by Conrad Lauf
• Vengeance From The Sky, by Conrad Lauf
• Makin' It Real (Comedy) Part 2 of 2, by CoLd BlooDed
• Attack on some Human Ship (a comedy), by Nick Kang
• Halo: A Comedy 2, by Tom Murphy
• Project Egon - Chapter 1, by Richard Watson
• The Battle For Gu're'lah, by Conrad Lauf
• Casualties of War Part IV, by Tom Murphy
• Earth Reawakened Part I, by DeathSquadTrooper
• Halo:The Sacrifice, by gr8ness
• The Battle For Ka' Miah'Lin, by Conrad Lauf
• Lone Sniper, by someone that you dont know
• The Deadly Mist, by MadJackal
• The Trade Off, by Horror
• The Chronicle of Squad Omega: Chapter III, by Dark-NiTe
• Trapped Part Two : The Two Plans, by Daniel Rennerr

Enjoy! (Louis Wu 00:08:10 UTC) (permalink)

News April 20 2004

More artwork
The Wallpaper queue, as well, was way, way behind. I didn't do any sorting on this; right now, I'm posting the oldest 20 desktops that made our basic guidelines. (I tossed a couple that were simply too basic to warrant addition - sorry folks.) These 20 are now available in the Wallpaper section. Some are quite good. (The queue contains more than 40 remaining - we'll be doing updates like this every couple of days until they're all up.) (Louis Wu 18:53:31 UTC) (permalink)

Artwork - finally
I'd like to preface this post with a huge thank-you to the folks who have submitted content to us and have waited patiently for it to appear; the past couple of months have been pretty rough in that respect. Today marks the beginning of a turning point, I hope... I'm hoping to have the Miscellaneous Art and Wallpaper queues cleared by this time next week. (I can't release all the backlog at once; there's simply too much of it, we couldn't handle the load.) I was going through the Misc Art queue this morning, and I noticed that while there were dozens of pieces, a few stood out; they were more than modifications of existing screenshots or hastily drawn sketches, they were pieces that showed the care taken to create them, and the love of the game that inspired them. (This is NOT to say that the remaining pieces are a waste of time, or are shoddily done - it's just that with this big of a pool, I didn't want the outstanding pieces to be buried.) I'm therefore breaking with tradition and posting what I consider to be the 10 most impressive Miscellaneous Art pieces in the queue, rather than going in chronological order (as we usually do). From this point forward, we'll revert to our normal pattern... but right now, I wanted to show off these 10 pieces. Enjoy. (Louis Wu 17:29:35 UTC) (permalink)

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
Today's Calvin and Halo explains why mothers should never be allowed on the point team of an invasion force. You can't have them sending the soldiers to their rooms... (Louis Wu 15:14:00 UTC) (permalink)

Chew a bone long enough, the marrow comes out
So... way back in February, the Halo Story page mentioned a clue tossed out by Eric Trautmann about stuff he hid in Halo: First Strike. Periodically, over the past 2 and a half months, folks have offered up guesses about what he might have been talking about... and he has invariably answered 'Cold'. Until now. Exogenesis ran into him at a public gathering, and finagled a bit more information from him... and it was enough for Anton P. Nym to give the first guess that received a 'Warm' response from Eric. Way to go, guys! That should be enough for the more rabid fans out there to nail down what Eric was hinting at... (Louis Wu 03:36:46 UTC) (permalink)

Site improvements
Took a little while, because I'm learning PHP slowly... but the News By Day feature is back; hitting those arrows next to the date will once again let you view older news one day at a time. Apologies for the delay. Next up... Fan Fiction. (I hope.) (Louis Wu 00:29:12 UTC) (permalink)

News April 19 2004

Homefront and Gearbox Gathering, all at BGH
Couple of interesting, totally unrelated newsbits over at Battleground: Halo this weekend; I'm finally catching up. They've started a Weekly Update for Homefront, the Battlefield: Vietnam mod, and the first one is a doozy (lots of cool pictures). They also link to a couple of threads on the Gearbox Forums (this one and this one) containing writeups and pictures from this weekend's 5th Anniversary Gearbox party. (No real Halo content there, but interesting to put some faces to names...) (Louis Wu 16:29:26 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Giveth And Bungie Taketh Away.
One One Se7en asks a very good question today... I'm thinking, someone might have stumbled on the secret behind the Halo 2 delay! (Louis Wu 15:30:41 UTC) (permalink)

I Knew It Was Going Down Someday
Evilness is occuring on Halo: Resolution - I'd hope that this sort of thing never REALLY happens... (Louis Wu 15:27:23 UTC) (permalink)

Search Improvements
Okay, I'm not 100% positive it's bug-free... but it SEEMS to work. I've recoded the search function that accesses our news database for php; the biggest unknown is the cookie transfer between the main site (halo.bungie.org) and the machine that now handles the search function (nikon.bungie.org). It SHOULD work, in most cases, but it's quite possible there are exceptions. Nevertheless, it's orders of magnitude faster, and far more solid, as well; give it a whirl. (The News By Day function that's been down since Subnova went offline last week should be back up and running, using this new system, in the next day or two.) (Louis Wu 02:24:12 UTC) (permalink)

mcanime
MasterJoe points out a small (53k) Flash animation that's Halo-related. Artwork is decent, but the animation itself... is a bit confusing. Go soon, because it's a Geocities site; even at 50k, it won't take long before it's unviewable. (Louis Wu 00:46:09 UTC) (permalink)

Updates updated again
We've updated our Bungie Weekly Update database to include last Friday's update over at Bungie.net (including the picture which STILL isn't visible on the original post). This marks Frankie's second mention of 'diaper'... makes you wonder, doesn't it? (Louis Wu 00:34:54 UTC) (permalink)

And To All A Good Knee
Blackstar has written up a nice thank-you to KP and his family, and put a couple of image galleries online, of yesterday's Knee For All lanfest. I'm sure there'll be other writeups and pics coming - but this is a good start! (Louis Wu 00:18:08 UTC) (permalink)

News April 18 2004

Gamespot Readers agree - Halo rocks
On March 14, Gamespot listed Halo as one of the top ten first person shooters of all time. They allowed readers to vote, as well, and have now put up the Readers Choice version - and Halo made THIS list, too. Thanks to WhiteRaBbit for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 16:56:13 UTC) (permalink)

Hurru's cousin?
75 degrees outside, and it seems like the perfect day to get some older mail cleared up. I really want to apologize to folks who have submitted content in the past few weeks; I'm really, really, REALLY behind on processing it. In late March, Griever sent in a picture (68K) from Evangelion, a manga and anime; he wonders if the Jet Alone, an Eva (a giant, semi-organic robot used to fight Angels), might not have been to some degree an influence on the design of Halo's Hunter. I gotta say, it DOES look familiar... (Louis Wu 16:46:09 UTC) (permalink)

News April 17 2004

Knee for All Webcam... sort of
So KP's got a webcam, but the cord's not long enough to actually reach the room with the action... if there's overflow, you'll be able to see it on this page, but otherwise, we're out of touch. Gotta love preparation... (Louis Wu 18:06:17 UTC) (permalink)

Knee For All
Okay, that's it for updates today (at least from the east coast HBO staff contingent) - Miguel, Count Zero and I are joining a dozen others at KP's Knee For All lanfest, kicking off in about an hour. Ah, the beauty of Xbox carnage... (Louis Wu 14:13:31 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Definitely on at CPL's Extreme
Oops, missed it... two weeks ago, we posted a note about the possibility that Halo would be pulled from this summer's CPL Extreme World Championships for lack of attendance. Four days ago, rapture, of cooked Gamers, put up a message from Angel Munoz, president of the CPL, stating that the minimum 32 teams had been signed up, and that the competition was definitely on. (According to the message, registration closed yesterday.) Thanks to Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, for the heads-up on this. (Louis Wu 13:51:05 UTC) (permalink)

Nostalgia can be fun
Rampancy.net has used the recent Origins of Halo article on Bungie net to flesh out their Old Engine galleries, and they've dug the original Halo Announcement press release out of the Wayback Machine. Check out the details, and catch up on old history! (Louis Wu 11:37:50 UTC) (permalink)

Baking cakes for others to eat
3Suns pointed out an article at Gamespy that suggests that Halo might be responsible for opening the door in Japan to First Person Shooters (a genre that has traditionally done poorly there). Give it a read! (Louis Wu 10:53:39 UTC) (permalink)

Vultures with an attitude
Very nice find by Ben Swinbanks... there's a new screenshot over at Bungie.net. MC... vs a pair of brand-new jackals. I'm guessing that in motion, that plastic-seeming look will just seem... mean. (And mean they look. Not friendly in the slightest.) (Louis Wu 01:51:55 UTC) (permalink)

Diaper-Bulging Pant-Fillers!
The Bungie Weekly Update can be found over in Bungie's own Underground forum. The Ghost stuff sounds especially tasty. Go read! (Frankie's artwork is here, in case it's not yet fixed by the time you read this.) (mnemesis 00:05:20 UTC) (permalink)

News April 16 2004

Strike While the Iron is... First
The First Strike website has gone live - for real. There's a bunch of new content (or at least content I've never seen before) and a nice layout (that works best in IE, it seems). Go check it out! (Louis Wu 22:04:48 UTC) (permalink)

I Dream of Meanie
Wow. Episode 30 of Red vs Blue is out for sponsors... and it answers a lot of questions I've had for a while. (it also has one of Sarge's most memorable rambles...) Go grab it - or wait until Sunday and then grab it. Your call. (Louis Wu 17:07:10 UTC) (permalink)

Who Needs PPF Patches?
Not One One Se7en, clearly. Of course, I think Stuntmutt's been talking to Emily Litella again... (Louis Wu 16:44:59 UTC) (permalink)

The True Architects
Halo: Resolution gets a visit from some bigwigs today. (Louis Wu 16:40:39 UTC) (permalink)

Nothing New Under The Sun
Wow. Iron Forge, one of the early names in the Halo mod scene, has written a rather thought-provoking rant on the modding scene. It's amazing how the patterns never change; everything he describes as being wrong with the current Halo modding community - it was wrong with the Marathon modding community some years ago. (I'm sure it's happened in most communities; I just find the parallels between two communities I've participated in to be interesting.) Everything he describes as being 'right' about the early modders (it's mostly an attitude thing) - that was there in Marathon, too. Good games generate interest from talented people wishing to extend the experience - and those talented people tend to lower the bar on the price of entry to the point where casual modders can play. At some point, the expectations of the newcomers (that because tools exist, they (the newcomers) are ENTITLED to them) will cause the old guard to become disillusioned... and the community will fall into a rut. This cycle may even happen more than once for a given game. It's worth a read; those who don't understand history will, by necessity, relive it. Thanks to DrLime at Battleground: Halo for pointing out the article. (Louis Wu 16:18:29 UTC) (permalink)

Mawtastic
Ducain posted a new vid showing how to get to the balcony at the end of the Maw. 9.5 mb, WMP9 format. Looks like fun. :) (Louis Wu 15:06:19 UTC) (permalink)

IGN says Halo's best on Xbox
IGN put up a '10 Best Xbox Games' article... and surprise, surprise, Halo came away with the top spot. Thanks to Maxmidget for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 14:46:31 UTC) (permalink)

AotCR v.B and v.C
Another couple of single-to-multiplayer conversions over at Halomods; both are based on AotCR. You can find links and pics in this forum thread (it's an HBO thread). (Louis Wu 14:05:51 UTC) (permalink)

Gearing Up
New content at Halo Babies - there's a new strip (not surprising, it's Friday), and Gruntsbane has decided to release some background images he uses for his strips; you can make your own guest strips much more easily now. Check it out! (Louis Wu 12:52:49 UTC) (permalink)

You guys are SO gonna get audited.
Somehow, I managed to miss a new Sponsors-only movie at Red vs Blue - Tax Day Tips. The advice might be solid... but implementation might be... risky. (This is NOT this week's movie, which will be out later today for sponsors, and Sunday for the general public.) Check the Sponsors page for details. (Louis Wu 12:42:15 UTC) (permalink)

Pride and Prejudice
Jake 'Evergreen98' Billo has put up his second of 3 articles on Xbox Live over at the Junkyard, and once again has managed to fit enough Halo content in to garner a mention here. This one looks at why Microsoft really, really wants you to subscribe, and how it's using games like Halo 2 to ensure that you realize that life will be better on Live. (Louis Wu 12:27:41 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Online needs your help
We got mail from PalaNIN stating that Halo Online, a general Halo site, is in danger of going under for financial reasons; the webmaster, PTM, is asking for help. Read the news post for 4.15.2004 for full details. (Louis Wu 00:53:55 UTC) (permalink)

XBConnect looking for a new banner
SplitboXer writes to let us know about a design contest for a new website banner for the XBConnect site. Prize for the best entry will be a a USB 2.0 external NEC DVD burner (DVD-R/+R CD-R). Not too shabby! Details in this forum thread (registration required). (Louis Wu 00:20:20 UTC) (permalink)

Black Hats Have All The Fun
Apologies to Blackstar; anyone who visited the Calvin and Halo page on Thursday would have found that a new comic was posted... but the news post never got put up. So here it is now, better late than never, right? Calvin demonstrates the absolute joy that can be found in playing the bad guy... (Louis Wu 00:12:17 UTC) (permalink)

The Bungie.net Update Parade Continues
Once again, being out all day during the inaugural week of the new Bungie.net's unveiling means a bunch of news went unreported. Let's see... there's a new outtake from David Scully, voice of Sargeant Johnson, and man, it's just a little bit out there. Okay, a LOT out there. (Absolutely worth the 1.2 mb download.) There's a brand new batch of Letters to the Webmaster (lengthy, but missing the usual bite; he must be out of Jack Daniels again), and finally, there's a new Bungie Comic... except the link doesn't work and you can't see it. (I'm sure that'll be changed very soon, so if it works, you don't need to write to us.) Update: The comic works now. Of course. (Louis Wu 00:05:31 UTC) (permalink)

News April 15 2004

Halo Orbit looks at that screenie
DOH! Halo Orbit, A German Halo fansite, published their own analysis of the third multiplayer Halo 2 shot yesterday... and I never got back to it. :( Sorry about that! If you read German, check it out! (Louis Wu 13:35:07 UTC) (permalink)

Dogs Playing Video Game
A few days ago, WhatTheDilly-O mentioned a sighting of Halo in Mad Magazine. (There's your credit, bub.) Normally, we don't post scans from mags that are still on the stands - but Madda Cheeb found an online version put up by Mad themselves; who am I to argue? Check it out. (it's pretty funny...) (Louis Wu 13:25:09 UTC) (permalink)

Flaming Ninjas
SexyJosh released another Halo-related song, this one based on the concept of 'Flaming Ninjas'. At this point, it's a members-only download from his website... PG rating for language. (Louis Wu 13:13:02 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 in GI
CENOBITE points out that the new Game Informer (out to subscribers now, should be on store shelves soon) contains a 10-page article on Halo 2, filled with new info and screenshots. Keep your eyes peeled! (Louis Wu 09:48:08 UTC) (permalink)

And The Winners Are...
Nothing ever goes as planned - but we've finally (FINALLY) finished tallying up the results from the Win A Date With One One Seven contest. The five lucky winners of the Halo 2 Calendars are:

• Taylor Cartwright, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• Aaron Bayley, Sandbach, Cheshire, England
• Austin Drake, Maize, KS
• Ryan Luevanos, La Jolla, CA
• Jeffrey Howe, Lubbock, TX

It was tough picking through the more than 3,500 entries... huge thanks to Stuntmutt and BOLL for finding the time to make this happen. The winning strips - and 36 runners-up - can be seen in this section. Way to go, everyone! (Louis Wu 02:56:49 UTC) (permalink)

B.net content continues to pour in
Note to self: Don't ever take the afternoon off when Bungie.net is updating. My inbox is FLOODED - literally flooded - with news of a gorgeous new ODST render and a new 343GS-based Wallpaper over at the brand-spankin'-new Bungie.net. If you haven't already, go grab these. (The 1600x1200 version of the wallpaper is big enough to read the text easily... there are a few tweaks aimed at those Bungie fans who like to read small text. Nicely done, Zo.e!) (Louis Wu 02:40:33 UTC) (permalink)

News April 14 2004

Oddball
Holy moley - when was the last time that Halo: Resolution and One One Se7en covered the same topic on the same day (from different viewpoints, of course)? And what makes it even MORE bizarre... is that it wasn't planned. (Louis Wu 14:35:49 UTC) (permalink)

Rated M For Suggestive Holographic Themes
Halo: Resolution looks at a possible crossover title... nah. (Louis Wu 14:32:41 UTC) (permalink)

Server troubles - again
It's raining outside... and you know what they say; when it rains, it pours. Subnova's new server died last night; steps have been taken to rectify the problem, and we have every hope it'll be back up and running soon... but in the meantime, Fan Fiction is (once again) offline. Everything else should be running (albeit a bit slower than before) - and we'll do our best to make things more permanent soon. (Louis Wu 14:14:49 UTC) (permalink)

Of Gearbox, and Bungie, and Stuff
There's been an awful lot of grumbling in the Halo community about the release of the HEK (Halo Editing Kit - it's been made clear to me that not everyone actually keeps TRACK of these acronyms). Gearbox (through Randy Pitchford) said several weeks ago that they were done with it, it had been passed to Microsoft, and therefore folks should talk to MS if they wanted it released. (The post was subsequently deleted from the Gearbox forum - which suggests, at the very least, that upon reflection, it was decided that this was not the wording they wanted to use.) Since then lots of people have been yelling that MS/Bungie are holding the HEK back, others are yelling that it's Gearbox's fault, and the principal parties are keeping their mouths shut. A couple of days ago, Hellface, a Gearbox programmer, posted a vague but promising message on the Gearbox forum - it's hard to say if it means anything's coming soon,, but it DOES suggest that in the next week or two, there WILL be news coming. (Whether it's about the HEK specifically, I couldn't tell you.) The clearing of clouds? We can only hope. (Thanks to BGH for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 13:55:39 UTC) (permalink)

Sector 7 looks at the new screenie
Wolfy, from Sector 7, points out that they've posted the third in a continuing series; they've analyzed the latest Halo 2 Multiplayer screenshot. When you're done reading this, you can check out one of the many threads on our forum devoted to the same topic... (Louis Wu 10:50:58 UTC) (permalink)

PCMag says Halo is Choice
Eric Smith points out that Halo just received one of three Editors Choice awards from PC Magazine for best Action/Combat Game for 2004. Nice! (Louis Wu 10:48:13 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 3 mention clarified
Nice catch. A month ago, we posted a note about a mention of 'Halo 3' in a Steve Ballmer speech last fall; we warned that it had never been confirmed, but nevertheless, it was an interesting tidbit. Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, did a much more thorough reading of the 'History of Bungie' article put up at B.net (I'd actually set it aside for a slightly quieter time), and found a mention of the speech (and a refutation, more or less, of the Halo 3 comment) buried in the Halo 2 section. Nice to have this to point to down the road! (Louis Wu 10:41:14 UTC) (permalink)

Waiting
She does it again... Tina Leyk whipped up another Gold Elite pic - this time, it's the guy at the locked door on Silent Cartographer. I love the lighting! You can find this image on the Art of Tina Leyk page; it's currently the last image in the 'Fan Art' section. (Louis Wu 10:30:01 UTC) (permalink)

Mr. Smiley's Comics
mrsmiley writes about some comics (totally un-Halo-Babies-related) he's put up in Mr. Smiley's Xbox Lounge, his Seventh Column chapter. Take a look! (Louis Wu 09:53:38 UTC) (permalink)

News April 13 2004

Dual Wep Goodness
Whoa - missed it; thanks to Ape Man for the heads-up. There's a brand-new Halo 2 multiplayer shot over at Bungie.net... Wow. I'm lovin' it. Go look! (Louis Wu 18:08:34 UTC) (permalink)

And still MORE Bungie.net stuff
Bungie.net is going crazy with new content right now... There is a new music piece (it's been included on the bonus DVD that comes with the Halo Soundtrack, but has never been released officially on the internet before), and a HUGE contest starting up, with prizes ranging from a trip to Bungie Studios to a Halo-branded Xbox to Halo toys and collectibles. (So that you don't get your hopes up, this contest is open to US residents only.) At the moment, the actual entry form seems to be a little... off, but give it a few minutes; I'm sure they'll get it straightened out. (You have until the 25th to register.) (Louis Wu 17:37:40 UTC) (permalink)

When life gives you lemons...
Today's Calvin and Halo gives pointers on how to look on the bright side. I'd have trouble making a Pelican, too. (Hobbes' Elite rocks, though.) (Louis Wu 13:12:52 UTC) (permalink)

B.net interview at TXB
Brian Jarrard and Frank O'Connor took time out of their hectic schedules recently to talk to César Berardini, of TeamXbox about the development of the new Bungie.net. Buried amongst the quips and one-liners are some nice little tidbits, and enough Halo content to make this postable here. thanks to ghaleoneb for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:46:16 UTC) (permalink)

I think I want Clippy back
Hehe - seems some people have had trouble with the new bungie.net... Preston the Cyberdog discovered a hard-to-find secret feature of the new site, and took a screen (203K). Only from Microsoft... (Louis Wu 12:33:09 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Map Tools v3.5 released
MonoxideC (in what may be his last act as a member of the Halo modding community, sadly) has released Halo Map Tools 3.5, an update which provides easy Single-Player to Multiplayer conversion, model injection, and a detailed tutorial for both. it's a 1.3 mb download - get it now! (Louis Wu 09:33:52 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50k3 goes live!
Halo50k3, a new event from the organizers of the first two Halo50k events, has now been officially announced. (The press release can be found on their website. The highlights: A minimum of $10,000 will be presented to the winners, the tournament will take place in Atlanta on July 24th and 25th, and Major League Gaming has signed on as an official sponsor.) Browse around the site, check out the fun stuff to be found, and get ready for an awesome experience! (Louis Wu 09:28:16 UTC) (permalink)

The NEW Bungie.net
You've been waiting for it... the day has come. The new Bungie.net has launched... and it's beautiful. Totally new navigation... new content, new forums, and not one, but TWO new top stories: one details the new tidbits available on Bungie.net, the other takes a serious stroll down memory lane, looking at pre-Xbox Halo (with tons and tons and TONS of high-quality versions of older screenshots, and some NEW older screenshots). (This was originally written many hours ago... as many of you noticed, it's been up and down all afternoon; it seems, finally, to be solidly up. Explore! (Louis Wu 01:26:12 UTC) (permalink)

News April 12 2004

Thanks!
The submission window for the Win a Date with One One Se7en contest is officially closed. Thanks to everyone who participated... the judges will now take on the daunting task of winnowing down the 3500 entries to 5 winners. We should have results for you by Wednesday. (Louis Wu 17:25:24 UTC) (permalink)

Update Archive Updated
Last Friday's Weekly Bungie Update (over at Sector 7) has now been added to our Archive. Did you know that this update is the third time that Frankie's mentioned Alta? (Louis Wu 11:25:22 UTC) (permalink)

Lies and Reconciliation
One One Se7en admits the obvious... again. (Louis Wu 11:00:12 UTC) (permalink)

Those Artists Get Lazier Every Sprite
Halo: Resolution finds a... new toy. (Louis Wu 10:58:49 UTC) (permalink)

The Mods Continue
Halomods.com is back up (well done, Grenadiac!), and one of the more impressive new releases comes from BorgScooby; it's a reworking of the central underground area on AotCR, and it's called 'The Chasm'. A lot of thought went into this; you can get a decent sense for the level in the movie in this thread, and you can download the mod itself in this thread (both on the Halomods forum). Check it out! (Thanks to DrLime, over at Battleground: Halo, for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 10:55:37 UTC) (permalink)

Not a Grunt Helmet
Thanks to the lots and lots and lots of people who pointed out the mistake I made in yesterday's Nightmare Armor news post. That's not a Grunt mask, it's a Jin-Roh helmet (from the Japanese animated movie of the same name). My bad. First correction came from TigerHawk, on our forum. You can stop writing now... (Louis Wu 10:24:50 UTC) (permalink)

News April 11 2004

Sheila Speaks
Nice find by Ross Mills - Yomary Cruz, the voice actress for Sheila the Tank in Red vs Blue, has a website up, and on it is a movie containing all the Sheila lines in one place. Nice! (Louis Wu 19:22:44 UTC) (permalink)

Elite Battles
MasterNeoChief has created a mod called Halo Elite Battles; you play as an Elite, and your job is to wipe out the Human forces. (There's even a destructible Pelican mod.) A trailer can be found in this thread, the mod itself in this one (both at Halomods). If the links don't work, try again later; they seem to be up and down. Check it out... it looks pretty cool! (Louis Wu 19:14:42 UTC) (permalink)

Project Halo Wrapup
A month ago, Project Halo closed its doors as a Halo-related game. They didn't dissolve as a team, however; they're now working on a project called 'Supreme Conflict: The Enna Wars', and have recently put up a new forum for discussion. They're hoping to have a Halo-based mod of their game at some point, even. Comments can go into this forum thread. (Louis Wu 18:39:51 UTC) (permalink)

Nightmare Easter Update
Whoa - bunch of new stuff at Nightmare Armor... Easter Egg helmets (hehe), and some pics of NEW work; a Grunt helmet? I want, I want! (Also, a very nice pair of shots of the Rocket Launcher. Coming along!) Thanks to {SS}Zag1 for the heads-up. Update: AAAA, I'm jealous. Dolbex visited the Nightmare Armor guys this weekend, and just posted a writeup of that visit (complete with some awesome pics) on his Been Mawed site. Go read it - and check out some really unique images! (Louis Wu 17:40:01 UTC) (permalink)

Tina Leyk continues to create
Tina Leyk has been busy recently... we've got a bunch of new stuff from her. On the Fur-Lo comic page, you'll find a new pair of single-panel strips, 'FETCH!' and 'Mission Invisible'. On our general art page for her, you'll find two new doodles (I found them both quite funny), and a pretty awesome plushy she made (spoiler warning, if you're still watching for these). I want one! (The new stuff is all at the bottom of the page; just scroll down. Yes, a better search mechanism is STILL coming.) Nice stuff! (Louis Wu 14:31:13 UTC) (permalink)

Next, He'll Say Santa Doesn't Exist
Updates will be light today, due to the fact that it's Easter... but we've got a couple of things, at least. First off, Stuntmutt turns in a new Sunday One One Se7en strip (which also, nicely, works as a Holiday strip... not bad). Apologies to the poor MC, who found the WRONG person to rile up. (Louis Wu 13:57:55 UTC) (permalink)

News April 10 2004

Groovy Doings at Nightmare Armor
Webshift dropped into our forum to point out a couple of pretty cool things over at the Nightmare Armor site... first, there are photos of the blue armor, in all its glory, worn on a deck in the beautiful backwoods of Georgia - pretty snazzy! Second, there's a new raffle going on, this time for a helmet, fully painted and with F/X lighting and fans. Tickets are $10 each, but you'll get two for one if you buy $50 worth (or, put another way, buy 10 and they're $5 each). All the details, and mailing instructions, can be found on their front page right now, and will be on their Fan Appreciation page until the contest ends, on May 10. Go win yourself a smashing product! (Louis Wu 16:46:32 UTC) (permalink)

Calendar Mania
Looks like you can get your hands on one of those Halo 2 calendars without doing anything except filling in your name... Forerunners.org is giving away 5 of them, as well. The catch? Some browsers can see the page... others get an error; 500 has been seen, as has 1060. All I can suggest is that you try another browser - it's not that the site is down, because I can continue to load the page in one browser, while a second says 'it's broke'. Thanks to Battleground: Halo, where I found this tidbit. (And remember - you can still enter our Win a Date with One One Se7en for ANOTHER chance at one of five of these, right here at HBO. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!) (Louis Wu 15:32:25 UTC) (permalink)

The History of Red vs Blue
There's a pretty cool new page over at Red vs Blue - a history of the group, as written by the resident psycho, gFunk. It's a sad tale of loneliness and betrayal, but with an uplifting message at the end. Or maybe that's just the alcohol. Credit for the find goes to pilotelite, who seems far more interested in getting mentioned on this news page than actually bringing you the information... (Louis Wu 15:17:36 UTC) (permalink)

The Reactor Room - in MP
Devin Olsen and Gil27 have completed work on The Reactor Room - a multiplayer level based on the Maw's Reactor Room. It's downloadable at Halomods.com. Check it out! (Louis Wu 11:26:08 UTC) (permalink)

Another Warthog Launching Tutorial Vid
Gustav Larimore writes to say that Effervescing Blue Productions has a new movie posted, as well - a Warthog Jumping Tutorial. (You might remember that there's already one posted here at HBO... but more info is rarely a bad thing.) (Louis Wu 11:16:59 UTC) (permalink)

New mp movies available
Icetiger writes that he's posted 3 new Halo movies on his website, Icegames; they show footage recorded on the HBO-COERCE server. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 11:10:06 UTC) (permalink)

RvB article now grabbable
Yesterday, we mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal about the Red vs Blue team. We couldn't post the article itself, because we don't post print articles that are still for sale on the newsstand. (We did give you an online link that works for non-subscribers, so reading the content itself was doable.) It's gone today, though, so we've put up downloadable copies, for folks who like to archive stuff like this. Thanks to typ993 and Black Six for providing the content! (Louis Wu 11:03:59 UTC) (permalink)

We gotta do this more often.
It's been since Monday that a Fan Fiction update has been posted. My bad... now there are 28 stories to read. I'm sorry.

• Halo 2: Operation Dream Knife (Chapter 1: Hallway), by System Failure
• Chapter 4, Hell's Bells, by The Silver Spartan
• The Spartans On Reach: Part 1 , by SpartanFortyFour
• Fall of Rye: Chapter 5: Beginning of a Suicide Mission, by teemus
• Halo:The Critical Strike, by Scott H.
• Retaliation, by Blue Jaguar
• The Third World, by Michéal Douglas
• The Blood Gulch Gig - Part Two, by Jillybean
• Beckoning to Doom: Prologue, by Nick Kang
• Halo: Lost and Found pt:II , by Riley217
• Death of the Cheif, by MASTERC
• From Darkness, by MT
• Battle of New Lexington, by Noah610
• Defending America Chapter 1, by romac1991
• A Jackal named Bird (comedy), by someone that you dont know
• Mysteries Part 5, by Horror
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 7: Survivors), by CoLd BlooDed
• The Fury Of Earth's Children, by Conrad Lauf
• Halo 2: Chapter 7 ; Part 1, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 7 ; Part 2, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 7 ; Part 3, by Mark Lieberg
• Pirates: I Only Work for Prophet - A Parcel of Rogues, by Ross Becalick
• Operation: Stingray Ch. 3: --Desperation pt. 2--, by Nick Kang
• No Ither Alternative Part 3, by Watsaru
• Halo 2: Part 1, Taking Over, by BlueChief
• Homeworlds XXVI, by Mainevent
• Today and Tommorow, by Br Wells
• The Wrath Of Earth's Children, by Conrad Lauf

I'll do my best not to let them pile up like this again. (Louis Wu 10:55:02 UTC) (permalink)

Missed A Bit.
One One Se7en, as well, was passed over... and that's a sad thing, because it iMC is back. (Louis Wu 10:41:13 UTC) (permalink)

I Was Kind Of Hoping Warbow Would Come Back And Do It
DOH! Yesterday was busy enough that the standard comics didn't get posted... they're up now. Halo: Resolution gets to a punchline it's been working towards for a week. (Louis Wu 10:38:29 UTC) (permalink)

News April 9 2004

Frankie and the Snorers... ain't that a band?
This week's Bungie Update is over at Sector 7... and it's a tasty one. No screenshots... but some tantalizing info. Go read! (Louis Wu 23:19:10 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Fanfest 2004 - Information Posted
Information about the Bungie Fanfest at E3 2004 has been posted at Bungie.net - go now and see! There is room for only 50 signups, with slots assigned by lottery... so if you're planning on being there, go now to sign up! (There's no benefit to signing up more than once, but there IS a benefit to signing up sooner.) (Louis Wu 20:39:21 UTC) (permalink)

I don't like where this is going...
The latest Red vs Blue episode (29) is available for Sponsors (on the sponsor forum, not the standard page) - and it's the best in a while. First swearing I've heard all season, too... New logo, goes nicely with—nope, not ruining it. Go watch. (If you're not a sponsor, this will be up on Sunday. Nice Easter present.) (Louis Wu 14:36:16 UTC) (permalink)

RvB on WSJ Front Page
Whoa. Seems like big-time, to me... the Red vs Blue crew is on the front page of today's Wall Street Journal (print edition) - according to Gus Sorola,

"A reporter for the Wall Street Journal came down and watched us produce an episode recently (27 if I recall properly) and wrote a story about the site."

If anyone sends in a scan of the article, we'll post it (tomorrow). Thanks to Black Six for mentioning this on our forum! Update: very cool... Jon Keegan (who works at the WSJ) sent us a link that works for non-subscribers for the next 7 days... and typ993 made a pdf of the article (which we'll post tomorrow, once today's issue is off the shelves). Thanks, guys! (Louis Wu 12:58:31 UTC) (permalink)

The Call Comes In
Halo Babies continues with their new plot series this week... I must say, seeing a kid in an undershirt is bizarre. Check it out! (Louis Wu 11:42:13 UTC) (permalink)

Movies
Couple of movies for you, hosted outside... WaLKa point out a movie he made called 'Killing Spree' over at Halomods; 3:36, 13 mb, WMP9 format, it's mostly what it says (killing sprees he's had in HPC games). There are a few very funny sequences (the 'kill the entire enemy team with flag melee attacks as you're escaping' bit was hilarious). Also, Merecatfish pointed out 'Oochy Woochy', a sequel to his previous 'Fun, yet Useless' film. (I found the music to be mindnumbing by the time this 7:36, 26.1 mb WMP9 film was over... but maybe that's just me.) Lots and lots of random stuff. (Louis Wu 11:30:16 UTC) (permalink)

Tsunami: Great Expectations
Jake 'Evergreen98' Billo of the Junkyard has written the first of a 3-part series about the next iteration of Xbox Live, and it looks at how Halo 2 fits into the equation. Frankly, I'm confused by many of his conclusions... but maybe I'm just out of the loop on this stuff. Go check it out! (Louis Wu 11:09:32 UTC) (permalink)

News April 8 2004

Win a Date with One One Se7en
Short notice, I know... but sometimes, you just gotta grab the bull by the horns. We've got a new contest for you: come up with a brilliant one-liner using BOLL's Automagic 117 StripMaker, and win a cool prize! To help you along, BOLL has added 31 new panels to the collection; let your creativity go wild! All details can be found on the Win A Date With One One Se7en page - be sure to note the closing date of the contest. You've only got a few days! (Louis Wu 20:19:16 UTC) (permalink)

When the original was good...
Calvin and Halo is hardly Halo-related at all today; I don't think this is a trend (at least I hope it isn't), but it was a great strip when it was new, so go and check it out. (Louis Wu 13:17:47 UTC) (permalink)

Dancin' MC
Gutupio did some playing with green-screen effects; the end result is a movie he calls 'Halo 2: DDR Remix'. Not ever having played DDR, the joke is mostly lost on me... but reaction seems to be positive. Hosting has been handled by COERCE.net. The vid is 3:32 long, 14.1 mb big, and is a DivX-encoded AVI. Check it out! (A comment thread is here.) (Louis Wu 13:08:19 UTC) (permalink)

It's a mod, mod, mod world
Much general-interest modding info over at Halomods recently... there's a downloadable copy of Blood Gulch with Hunters, Elites, and human snipers (a movie showing the action can be found here, the mod itself is in this thread), the outside portion of Keyes is now available as a multiplayer map (with a movie in this thread), and Two Betrayals is now ALSO a multiplayer level (the movie, this time, is linked in the same thread). While the HEK would make all of this stuff more fun (you wouldn't need to substitute existing multiplayer maps out for these), it's still fantastic to see the modding community bringing new content to the Halo experience. (Louis Wu 09:50:30 UTC) (permalink)

I think Donut was robbed.
That Weasel, of That Weasel Television, writes to say that after running for 15 days, the TWTv Poll asking about your favorite RvB character has come up with Caboose as the top choice (266 votes) with Church (156 votes) and Sarge (107 votes) running a distant second and third. A new poll is up, asking about your favorite kind of Halo movie. Check it out! (Louis Wu 09:41:14 UTC) (permalink)

Get on the Grid
Once upon a time, HBO participated actively in the distributed search for extraterrestrial intelligence - and the Halo SETI Marines continue today, though at a much slower pace than when they were front-page news here every day. A year or so ago, Ross Mills started the HBO Researcher team at grid.org, aimed at using distributed computing to help find a cure for cancer. Today, P_71W has started a NEW team, this one ALSO at grid.org; they're called 'Team H.B.O.'. If you have extra CPU cycles going unused in your home or workplace, you can put them to use fighting cancer, or helping with smallpox research, or combating bioterrorism... and do so banded together with other HBO fans. Grab a client, and get crunching! (Louis Wu 09:20:07 UTC) (permalink)

News April 7 2004

...he couldn't go...
...they all would know, he'd lose all his street cred. This is getting totally out of hand. I blame Sep7imus for starting it... and Stuntmutt for making it much, much worse. (Louis Wu 21:03:31 UTC) (permalink)

Corn on the Halfshell
It's April 7, which means it's time for another update of the One One Se7en Archive... we've got 12 strips for you today. Things will be changing soon... but for now, enjoy! (Louis Wu 16:42:16 UTC) (permalink)

Military Intelligence - A Contradiction In Terms.
One One Se7en brings the venerable knock-knock joke to new lows. (Louis Wu 13:21:17 UTC) (permalink)

Smells Like ADD
Halo: Resolution gets back to a slightly damaged piece of machinery today. (Louis Wu 13:16:16 UTC) (permalink)

You win some, you lose some.
Halo Phenom, a website we mentioned once, has decided to hang it up. G'Night, guys... (Louis Wu 11:04:51 UTC) (permalink)

Just in time for the NEXT one...
Not sure why it takes me so long every week... but last week's Bungie Update has finally been added to the Bungie Updates archive. When you want to know whether Frankie has mentioned Zoe or Lorraine more... we're here for you. (Lorraine wins this one, hands down - 8 to 4.) (Louis Wu 10:45:59 UTC) (permalink)

haloTV - they like it.
The CAL Season 1 Championship aired as planned on haloTV last night - but most of the 500+ people who tuned in to watch had to be turned away. (They had no idea how popular it would be!) The haloTV crew capped the viewer list at 50, but a higher-res, edited version of the match will be available for download in a couple of days. Nice opener, guys! (Louis Wu 10:28:12 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 at E3
Halo7 (with some help from Owm109) points out a page on IGN's Playstation 2 site that contains a list of 'official titles being shown' at E3 this year... and Halo 2 is on it. No word about what SORT of 'show' we're talking about... (Louis Wu 10:21:26 UTC) (permalink)

Halo - it brings us together
You gotta love it when the editor of the largest Mac magazine decides to write an editorial about how fun it is to play Halo (and how you can join him next weekend!). Gives you that warm fuzzy feeling... (thanks again, Ghôlsbane) (Louis Wu 01:59:38 UTC) (permalink)

From Halo to Goldeneye 2
A couple of days ago, eddie m noticed a page at IGN that mentioned that a 'formerly integral member of Bungie's development team on Halo' is now at work on EA's Goldeneye II. He wondered if anyone knew who this was. According to this Gamespot article posted today (thanks, Ghôlsbane), that former Bungie employee is Dan Orzulak, a designer on the original Halo team. Isn't it nice to know we love the company so much that we stalk its former employees? (Louis Wu 01:40:00 UTC) (permalink)

News April 6 2004

Eat Needles!
The dialogue man himself, Captain Spark, turned in a huge collection of Stacker quotes a couple of weeks ago. Using HaloPC, turning off extra sounds, and carefully planning who was onscreen during the filming allowed him to get pretty amazingly clean recordings of almost 200 new quotes, including some really funny ones I've never heard before. Go check 'em all out in our Dialogue Databank! (There are still quite a number of queued sounds to be added; this isn't all there is.) (Louis Wu 17:04:09 UTC) (permalink)

I thought Spartans LIKED workouts
Today's Calvin and Halo focuses on some little-known Covenant species... (Louis Wu 12:14:40 UTC) (permalink)

The Angry Zen Master Speaks
I missed this, three days ago, when it went live, and I didn't even pick up on the references when shunji alluded to it on IRC yesterday... but Rampancy.net noticed it, so I got it on the rebound. Mat Noguchi, tools/sound programmer for Halo and Halo 2, has written a technical, but understandable-to-the-layman, explanation of why Sound is such a big deal in games, and why it will continue to be a thorny problem for a while yet. Go take a look! (It uses Halo as an example, which is what makes it relevant here.) (Louis Wu 12:11:51 UTC) (permalink)

haloTV - watch it
haloTV, in beta, goes live. A venture led by cookedGamers synide and rapture, haloTV will be broadcasting Halo movies in streaming format for those interested in a quick fix. You can watch existing movies, but the strength of the format will show in examples like today's CAL Season 1 Finals (8:30 pm CST, which is actually 2:30 am UTC tomorrow, with pregame show kicking in an hour earlier), broadcast live as they happen. Good luck, guys! (Public heads-up came from RIDIK, on our forum.) (Louis Wu 09:36:53 UTC) (permalink)

Team Sexy Goes Tournamenting
SexyJosh points out a couple of writeups (and a movie) of some local Halo tournaments his group participated in; you can find the writeups, and a link to the movie (13.8 mb, 5:44 long, QuickTime format) on their site. Toys-R-Us tourney + Halo freaks = potential for Barbie abuse... (Louis Wu 09:31:46 UTC) (permalink)

Modtacular!
(GT)Juggler continues with the modding vids; Modtacular (GT video 8) is now up for download in the media section of Halo GT. Format is QuickTime MP4 - you'll need the latest version of QuickTime to watch it. It contains clips of dozens of mods - everything from a Longsword on Blood Gulch to a maze-like map to, apparently, the ultimate mod for insecure folks; a gun that says 'Killtacular!' every time it fires. Check it out... there's some bizarre stuff in here! And before anyone asks - it was all done on an Xbox, no PC footage here. (Comments can go in this forum thread. But don't ask him about the format - he's tired of telling people to download a new version of QuickTime.) (Louis Wu 09:20:07 UTC) (permalink)

News April 5 2004

Halo PC Teams needed!
The Cyberathlete Professional League is unhappy with Halo PC registrations for the Extreme World Championships this summer; they've set a deadline. If there aren't 32 teams registered for the Halo PC Tournament by Monday, April 26, they will cut the cash prize in half, and teams that want to cancel their registrations will be offered a full refund. Don't let Halo go unrepresented this summer - sign up now! Thanks to synide, of cooked Gamers, for the heads-up on this. (Louis Wu 20:46:33 UTC) (permalink)

Crates? Pah!
Today's One One Se7en might have some... problems. Apologies. (Louis Wu 15:38:59 UTC) (permalink)

Magical? Glowing? Must Be Endangered
I'd tell you what Halo: Resolution was about today... but that would require that I understand it, first. (Louis Wu 14:57:52 UTC) (permalink)

List. LONG List. Shaken, not stirred.
Looks like a big collection of Fan Fiction, doesn't it? If Mark Lieberg actually compacted some of his work, it would only be 21. Something to think about...

• HALO 2 MINISERIES BOOK, by Delta Force
• Halo 2: Chapter 2 ; Part 1, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2 :Chapter 2 ; Part 2, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 3, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 4, by Mark Lieberg
• Death Valley (Part 1), by Justin Key
• Death Valley (Part 2), by Justin Key
• The Enemy Within-Chapter Seven: Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down, by Mind_Affecting_Parasite
• Battle for the Norah: Part Sixteen, by Sterfrye36
• Earth's Destruction Chapter 7: Left Behind to Die, by Sentinel
• Assauly Part 4: Stranded, by Joe Ehret
• The Second Chance, by Howard the Duck
• No Other Alternative Part 2, by Watsaru
• Downfall Part 1 Running For The Answers, by Apache119
• Retaliation: Chapter Four, by Blue Jaguar
• The Birth of New Heroes: Prologue , by Arinoth Koby
• Halo 2: The New Front (Chapter 5: Good Version), by System Failure
• The Huntress, by The Huntress
• Seargent Vick: Part 1, by Helljumper
• The Iron Hands of the Prophets (Finale): Two Betrayals, by MadJackal
• The Moral Redemption of Dr. Halsey (Part 3), by Ross Becalick
• Prodigal Son: Part 7, by Scott D
• Halo 2: Chapter 6 ; Part 1, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 6 ; Part 2, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 6 ; Part 3, by Mark Lieberg
• The Arisen Dark, by RabidChicken
• Meanwhile...., by Wraith

Now go read! (Louis Wu 14:54:20 UTC) (permalink)

Forerunners bigwigs interviewed at the Junkyard
Steve Campbell and Tony 'Octanus' Poitra are the latest Halo-related additions to the Junkyard's Spotlight collection. Steve brings his... interesting view of reality to his reminiscences of the early days in the Bungie community. Go read 'em both! Thanks to Mhaddy for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:48:04 UTC) (permalink)

Attack on the Control Room - in Multiplayer
Wow. MonoxideC has finished his Halo PC AotCR Multiplayer conversion - you can download it from Halomods (7 mb). It replaces Derelict in the map rotation. Thanks to James for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:32:18 UTC) (permalink)

Tricks Find a Home
Ducain has brought his own tricking site, High Impact Halo, online. A great place to go for nicely done movies! Check it out. (Comments can be put in this forum thread.) (Louis Wu 02:08:36 UTC) (permalink)

News April 4 2004

Upcoming Tourneys
Tournaments coming up soon: X Tournaments has a 3v3 tourney scheduled at 5 pm on Saturday, April 10; details can be found on the website. (There's also a movie of a 2v2 tourney a week or two ago, for registered users.) Also, CJ (from the Enna Wars team) posted recently about a tournament in the Chicago area in June; they need feedback to know whether it's worth doing. Apologies to tourney news I missed; some folks gave me less than 48 hour notice on posting, and sometimes, I just don't make it. :( (Louis Wu 20:23:54 UTC) (permalink)

A White Spring
Subzero Rivalries has put up another episode - Spring Break comes to Sidewinder. Thanks to MarkHawk for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 15:38:40 UTC) (permalink)

Blood Gulch for UT2k4 - finished
Strato has posted a download link (and new pictures) of the finished UT2k4 Blood Gulch map we mentioned a few days ago. (It wasn't finished then, and apparently shouldn't have been posted.) Go grab a copy; there are three servers online running this map! (Louis Wu 15:32:19 UTC) (permalink)

Andy Yuan returns to Halo
Alexander Valient found a new Halo-related comic by Andy Yuan. (We mentioned him last August, when an earlier comic was discovered at Elfwood.) Nice! (Louis Wu 14:51:09 UTC) (permalink)

Oh, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune...
Red vs Blue has posted a bizarre collection of Sarge outtakes for Sponsors - 2:29 of surreal reminiscences and pretzel dips. Thanks to Ross Mills for noticing. (Louis Wu 03:45:33 UTC) (permalink)

Now THAT was a long puzzle.
Back in mid-January, a puzzle was kicked off at Yahoo Groups by Skavenger, BOLL, c0ld vengeance, and MorningStar. We just received word from MorningStar that it's come to a close... and the winners are ModdedCyborg, Sgt. Bigglesworth, and Gutupio, in that order. Congrats, guys! (Louis Wu 03:40:34 UTC) (permalink)

News April 3 2004

Passions Enjoying Themselves
It's music day here at HBO. We got word from Marc at Halo Universe that they had a new piece of fan music, created by Ultrash, called 'Halo: The Resistance'. It's a gorgeous piece... techno-ish. It reminded us that there were a couple of pieces here, waiting in the queue... what better time to release than on Music Day? The first is a piece called 'Programmed for War', created by Rayagon, and originally posted 6 months ago on the Overclocked Remix forums (found and brought to our attention by Pepper4099); I contacted the author, and he had no problem with our making it available to the Halo community in general. He considers it a work-in-progress, but he's not sure he'll ever get around to another edit, so this is a fine time for release. In his words, "I was just feeling like channelling the Master Chief badassedness into some music one day, and the mix came out." It's got an interesting feel to it. The other piece we have here is a bit different; it's bits of dialogue, set to a Halo soundtrack, comprising what the author, Rob (Hippo) Palardy, considers "some of the finer parts of Halo, both gameplay and story." Between the three, you should find something you enjoy listening to!

• Halo: The Resistance (6.1 mb) (first item in 'Songs' section)
• Programmed for War (3.3 mb)
• The Best of Halo (3.4 mb)

Stuntmutt's Frankenstein - now with more bolts!
BOLL, never one to rest on his laurels, has added yet ANOTHER cool feature to his AutoMagic 117 Stripmaker - now you can choose the background color! Specify it via the sliders, if you want... or just type in the hex code you're looking for, if you know it. Changes happen in real time. (All of this requires Javascript; if you have it disabled, you'll still be able to generate strips, but the ONLY way to set the strip background color is by knowing the hex code. There are plenty of online references for colors, though, like this one at Webmonkey. Without javascript, you'll also have to count manually to find strip numbers...) In any case, if you leave either the strip value or the color value blank, they will be randomized, so you'll get a useable strip no matter what. Update: BOLL, the man who cannot leave well enough alone, has added another 20 panels to the collection you can use to make your funniez. Go to work! (Louis Wu 11:59:07 UTC) (permalink)

Still got the stuff
Travis Cossel sends in a Halo sighting in a relatively obscure magazine called 'Boards' (it's aimed at television advertising types). The current issue contains an interview with a creative talent for the ad agency OWN+P (they've been developing commercials for EA Games, among others), and the response to 'what is your favorite game?' was interesting:

"I've been playing Quake: Arena and I've been playing a ton of Halo. But I play so many. The flavor of the month is playing with 16 or 18 guys hooked up on Halo."

It's pretty cool to see someone calling Halo 'the flavor of the month' almost 30 months after its release... (Louis Wu 10:34:56 UTC) (permalink)

Getchyer Red-Hot Story Nuggets Here...
So, while I was out enjoying my family last night, mnemesis was updating the front page... but he didn't stop there; he went a little nuts with the Halo Story Page mailbag. For a while, Finn has been carrying the ball... but it looks like a lateral pass took place somewhere without anyone noticing. Go read! (Louis Wu 10:04:52 UTC) (permalink)

Dream Team
Recently, we'd mentioned that we'd mentioned the translucent green Xbox/copy of Halo/special-Halo-logo-S-controller deal. Well, Ross "I Suck" Mills has found a press release detailing the US availability of the boxes and has printed it out in our forum.

Of course, he didn't actually provide a link to the release, but luckily for you I found it at PR Newswire. Only $169.00 and only 200,000 available, so go check it out! (mnemesis 00:58:03 UTC) (permalink)

Dual-Wielding Flowers. WooHoo!
The Bungie Weekly Update is over at Battleground: Halo. Like they need another update. Kidding! Kidding! Jeeze, stop throwing stuff at me! Ow! (mnemesis 00:36:59 UTC) (permalink)

News April 2 2004

Now that the Xbox is down to $149...
In case you have a boatload of cash sitting around, and you're wondering how to make your Halo playing experience more gratifying... Frankie has written up a nice article over at Bungie.net called 'Halo Home Theater', running down some of the nicer toys you can buy for improving your audio-visual intake. Go read it! (Louis Wu 23:02:01 UTC) (permalink)

The Ultimate... something Warrior
There's a new .comic over at Subnova; Boxer[sn] looks at one of the more annoying practices on public HPC servers, and one nice way to take care of it. (Louis Wu 22:33:36 UTC) (permalink)

It was a decent run...
Halo made it to the Final 8 in Gamespy's Title Fight... but lost today to Half-Life, by almost 3000 votes. Not unexpected... but disappointing. Better luck next time, guys! (Louis Wu 20:24:57 UTC) (permalink)

A Day at the Beach
Halo Babies has a new comic up... and it's the start of an actual SERIES (with a plot, and everything). Go take a look! (Louis Wu 20:22:38 UTC) (permalink)

Stunning.
Never too late for One One Se7en - this one points out one of the coolest pages of artwork we have here at HBO. Go look. And get bubbles around your head. (Louis Wu 20:19:24 UTC) (permalink)

Friday Fiction
20 pieces of Fan Fiction today - sorry they didn't get out earlier.

• Halo: Lost and Found, by Riley217
• Civilian Assault, pt. Three- Unexpected Air Support, by ONI_operative_343
• Operation: Stingray Ch. 2: --Desperation--, by Nick Kang
• Assault Part 3: What no Pelican?!, by Joe Ehret
• Prodigal Son: Part 6 (beginning), by Scott D
• Battle of Earth(part one the battle starts), by Shadow
• Replacement-prolouge, by Spartan81388
• Earth's Destruction [6:3] All Alone...For Now, by Sentinel
• Halo 2: The New Front (Chapter 4), by System Failure
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 6: Nothing to Lose), by CoLd BlooDed
• No Other Alternative Part 1, by Watsaru
• Untitled, by JJiggssaw
• Prodigal Son: Part 6, by Scott D
• Scorpion Strike, by MT
• Makin' It Real (Comedy) Part 1 of 2, by CoLd BlooDed
• The Iron Hands of the Prophets (Part 7): The Second Siege, by MadJackal
• Halo 2: Chapter 5 ; Part 1 of 2, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 5 ; Part 2 of 2, by Mark Lieberg
• War Is Hell: Prologue: The Hard Way, by Burny
• Halo 2: The New Front (Chapter 5), by System Failure

Read. (Louis Wu 20:06:08 UTC) (permalink)

And You Were So Sure You WANTED Animals In Halo
Halo: Resolution begins to get... weird. (As a side note: Fuzzy would appreciate it if you email him if you notice his sprites being used on another website. Thanks!) (Louis Wu 19:45:51 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Special Edition Xbox - again
On March 12, we mentioned that the US version of the Special Edition Halo-branded Xbox would be available 'very soon'. Since it was the third news post about that Xbox in as many days, we said we were done talking about it... but yesterday, IGN posted a story about it - and until this morning, EB Games had a page where you could preorder. (They seem to have pulled it - rather strange...) These pages have induced a huge number of you to let us know that this product is coming - so we're mentioning it, once again. I suppose there'll be a FIFTH news post at some point, once the EB mystery clears up. (Louis Wu 18:15:07 UTC) (permalink)

3D models available
Roger Wilco found some 3dsmax models and meshes of Halo Vehicles and Characters and Guns over at Turbosquid; they're not textured, but if you want to work with the models, there they are. (Deeper down in the thread is an example of what you can do with these.) (Louis Wu 17:18:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo vs Half-Life... Redux
So if you were following the Gamespy Title Fight between Halo and Half-Life earlier, you probably noticed that Halo racked up over 20,000 votes in a couple of hours - twice the number of votes it had received in any other Title Fight during the entire 24 hour run. GameSpy noticed, too... and the rules have changed a bit. You now must have a GameSpy ID to register a vote. (This ID is free.) Because of the change, Halo is now TRAILING Half-Life, 1127 to 1693. If you have a GameSpy ID - go vote! If you don't... we urge you to create one, if only to show the Counter-Strike guys what you think of Halo. (Louis Wu 02:57:48 UTC) (permalink)

It's been fun.
Okay, the foolishness has ended... we're back to normal. It was fun, and there'll probably be a postmortem in the next few days, detailing the various pranks pulled over the course of this April Fools Day, 2004... but for now, rest easy, knowing that nothing major changed yesterday. (Louis Wu 02:29:32 UTC) (permalink)

News April 1 2004

Halo Babies static for now
Really bad news over at Halo Babies... psycho fans have taken Gruntsbane out of commission. No more strips until he's healed. Ouch! (Louis Wu 22:38:40 UTC) (permalink)

Free stuff from Forerunners
Forerunners.org has some fun stuff they're giving away for the month of April; A non-US version of Halo (the winner's choice of English, German, Russian, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and maybe others), and a large Halo poster. There are some bonuses, as well - check the giveaway page for details. Go sign up for free schwag! (Louis Wu 21:25:59 UTC) (permalink)

He had to pay US for this.
This one we didn't even WANT - but it was left on our doorstep, like a bedraggled kitten, and we simply didn't have the heart to turn it away. Ross Mills' Halo Ideas site is now a bungie.org subsidiary. We're going to use it for waste management. (Louis Wu 20:59:19 UTC) (permalink)

Halo vs Half-Life Grudge Match
Halo is out to an early lead over Half-Life in the latest Gamespy Title Match - but it's only been running for a few minutes, and there are almost 24 hours to go. Vote! (Louis Wu 20:14:19 UTC) (permalink)

HBO Sweden.
And the march continues. BOLL has turned halo.7708.net (home of HHHT, a powerful Halo hacking tool, and some sweet media), over to the HBO conglomerate. We are Halo of b.org - you will be assimilated. (Louis Wu 20:08:27 UTC) (permalink)

The Foundry - Ready to Release?
Shiska, sister of forum regular Shishka, has posted a link to a number of screenshots of a work in progress over at The Silent Cartographers - and she may have made a mistake. Let's see how long it takes them to notice (go quick!). (Louis Wu 19:16:35 UTC) (permalink)

And that makes it three.
Psyrixx has agreed, rather than shutting down the Psyjnir Complex altogether, to sell to HBO; we've now added it to the HBO stable of Halo sites. We hope to continue to bring you some of the best Halo coverage out there - in fact, the plan is to bring you the ONLY Halo coverage out there. Time to call the Red vs Blue boys... (Louis Wu 19:09:11 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie.net 2004 - SNEAK PEEK
We knew it was coming... here it is! Bungie.net has finally put up a sneak peek of the new site it's been slaving over for the past 9 months. Go read SketchFactor's explanation... and look at the new site! (Louis Wu 19:02:19 UTC) (permalink)

A kick in the... hard drive
It's a good thing that files.bungie.org came back online today... because as anyone who tried to download a movie from mythica.org has found, Brian Towne has given up. He'll be hosting files for the Infinium Labs' Phantom, an up-and-coming console, rather than Halo movies. And it all stems from bitterness over a long-promised, but undelivered, software addon... (Louis Wu 18:54:05 UTC) (permalink)

Say goodnight to the Old School
After years of trying to make a go of the full website, and failing, Psyrixx has finally admitted defeat; the Psyjnir Complex will heretofore be represented on the web only by its music subsite, music.psyjnir.org. (This site is managed by Jester, not Psyrixx, and so has a CHANCE of not being run into the ground.) The front page hasn't changed to reflect the new reality yet... but it will, soon. (Louis Wu 18:45:54 UTC) (permalink)

Nonsense, PinkyPants...
Red vs Blue has put up Episode 28.5 for sponsors - and I gotta say, this is the funniest episode of the season, so far. You'll find it in the Season 2 Sponsors forum (not the normal place). Go watch it. Now. Update: Oops - it's not just for sponsors... it's for EVERYONE. GO! (Louis Wu 18:22:26 UTC) (permalink)

The Week, Summarized
The HBO Weekly Review is revived... literally. I'd say there were 777 reasons to read this... but I think he miscounted; I get 776. (Louis Wu 18:14:38 UTC) (permalink)

Money - it's not just for breakfast anymore.
Bungie.net has posted a news item about the new lengths to which the product placement model is being taken in Halo 2; Keds, Arby's and Starbucks are all among the companies that will be showcased in-game. (Product placement in games is nothing new; the sports games franchises have been doing it for years. This marks a radical departure for Bungie, however, and may lead to more daring risks in game design; Bungie (and Microsoft) will have another source of income aside from game sales, and will be able to afford alienating some players.) Let's see how it turns out! (Louis Wu 17:18:13 UTC) (permalink)

The Buying Spree Continues.
We bought Subnova today, as well. Next on the chopping block... eBay. (Louis Wu 17:10:56 UTC) (permalink)

The yellow banshee provides a smoother ride.
Calvin and Halo makes a mess today. (Louis Wu 12:20:22 UTC) (permalink)

AutoMagic 117 Stripz
BOLL has created a new utility - it gives ANYONE the ability to create One One Se7en strips with Stuntmutt-quality artwork (mostly because it IS Stuntmutt's artwork). It's primary purpose, right now, is to provide our forumgoers with a way to communicate via pictures. A more complete explanation of how to use it (especially ON the forum itself) has been posted here, to save room on the front page. Give it a try! (Louis Wu 12:14:39 UTC) (permalink)

Jump
Ducain continues his pretty awesome experimentation with Warthog-assisted flying; the latest movie is just under 10 mb, 2:48 long, in WMP9 format. The forum post contains a pair of links to find it at. I'm amazed that there are STILL ways to blow things up that produce results I've never seen before... Update: Ducain added a small movie (2.3 mb) showing a pretty slick final cliff jump. It's similar to one done by Frogblast oh so long ago... except that 1) it's in single player, and 2) he STARTS at the top, so grenades are a bit... scarcer. Very nicely done! (Louis Wu 11:20:35 UTC) (permalink)

Flood Unto My Mind
SexyJosh points out that he's written a new Halo-related song for download; you have to register for access at the moment (registration is free). (Louis Wu 11:02:13 UTC) (permalink)

FBO - back up!
Files.bungie.org (no, there's nothing at THAT particular link) is now back open for business; this includes the FTC vids we host. Apologies for the 3-day downtime... we'll do our best to ensure this doesn't happen every month. (No guarantees, though.) (Louis Wu 10:17:27 UTC) (permalink)

All Your Website Belong To Us
In other news, we've bought Rampancy.net. (Louis Wu 09:59:44 UTC) (permalink)

Blood Gulch - elsewhere.
Wow - nice conversion of Blood Gulch for Unreal Tournament 2004... There's a download link in the thread (along with some pics), but unfortunately no attribution; I have no idea who created this. (The filename simply specifies that it's a Vehicle CTF map, and the site it's on has no real information.) Heads-up goes to Konrad on our forum, who found it from Strato. (Louis Wu 09:48:26 UTC) (permalink)

Halo refs in outside comics
Alexander Valient found a Halo-related strip from a comic called Alg. - Co. The full page can be found here. And a whole bunch of people mentioned the tiny Halo 2 reference in yesterday's Crtl+Alt+Del comic. Seems Halo is showing up in more and more places... (Louis Wu 09:46:38 UTC) (permalink)

April 2004

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