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May 2000

May 2000 Archived News

News May 31 2000

Doug says change the weather!
Serious modification, and weather... Vector, at Battleground: Halo, asked Doug Zartman anotherfew questions, and got a couple of useful answers about topics of high fan interest. Want to know the latest about game alteration, or environmental effects? Head on over and read Doug's answers! (Louis Wu 15:45:01 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour team stats posted
Blam!... another team bites the dust as the Halo SETI Marines climb to position 49. Woohoo! 48 coming soon... depending on when SETI decides to give back the units lost every day. (Over 200 units crunched today unaccounted for.) Check the 24 hour stats for details! (Louis Wu 15:09:24 UTC) (permalink)

"What do you think of Halo?" asks MeccaWorld
Thanks to Claude Errera for passing on this link to a Halo page at MeccaWorld. Nothing much new other than a small poll which asks "What do you think of Halo?" So far 22% think that "Halo bites, don't even bother!" Time to rock the poll! (Wirehead 06:35:45 UTC) (permalink)

May and June PCXL text up
For those not up to downloading the large image files of yesterday's PCXL scans, we've transcribed the text from both articles. "Tired of Playing WIth Yourself?" (from the May issue) focuses mainly on multiplayer, while "Mission: 'The Angels Sing'" concentrates on solo play. There were two new screenshots, which can be found in our Screenshots archives (on the Magazine page). (Louis Wu 05:46:16 UTC) (permalink)

News May 30 2000

Moviemakers rejoice!
Hugh Hancock points us to a post-E3 report with a different flavor than most... what impressed the folks at Machinima.com most about Halo was its potential for use as a movie-making tool. This has been a topic of interesting discussion on our forum, and others... here's a group that wouldn't normally be interested in Halo, finding the same excitement. While they may or may not have the details right, this comment piqued our curiosity:

...but the announcement of the show as far as I was concerned was that Bungie would be shipping the game with a fully-featured "demo editor". An editor they used to create the gameplay movie shown at E3 itself, no less.

This is news to us... noone else at E3 has reported this fact (although Doug Zartman said in an October chat at World Without Borders that Bungie planned to release tools... but plans can change). In any case, the Machinima.com article is quite a good read... go check it out! (Ding 18:09:43 UTC) (permalink)

PCXL scans available
Took us a while, but we're finally able to bring you the Halo articles in the May and June issues of PC Accelerator. Mike Salmon, Editor in Chief (okay, ex-EIC... PCXL has officially closed down), has given us permission to put these up for your viewing pleasure. Without further ado:

• May 2000: Page 1 (244K), Page 2 (315K), Page 3 (265K)
• June 2000: Page 1 (251K), Page 2 (280K)

Thanks, Mike! (Be sure to check out Mike at his new job over at Daily Radar.) (Louis Wu 17:31:25 UTC) (permalink)

No joy in usenetville
More info on the alt.games.halo newsgroup mentioned by Simon Brownlee... seems someone screwed up royally. There was no proposal posted to alt.config, which means that many newsservers will ignore the group as "unofficial". There's no valid "Approved" line in the newgroup control post (the post that actually starts the group), which means that MOST servers will ignore this group. (We've posted the newgroup control message, as it appeared on Simon's server.) And unfortunately, it means that a sanctioned Halo newsgroup will have to choose a different name than alt.games.halo... since that one is now taken. A great big rasberry to "Toolbox", who did such a wonderful (not!) job with this. On the upside... there's a link to HBO as the place to go for "more information about Halo". ;) (Louis Wu 15:22:05 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour team stats posted
30 units behind alt.comp.hardware.overclocking... will the Halo SETI Marines climb another notch tomorrow? Even though the SETI servers seem to be losing several hundred of their units every day, they still persevere... It's CRUNCH TIME! Jjaro Tech knows it... do you? A warm welcome to Forty-Two and Psyche911... and welcome back to WA2FAST! Check the 24 hour stats. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 14:16:07 UTC) (permalink)

alt.games.halo newsgroup started
A bit earlier than some expected... but an alt.games.halo newsgroup has been started.(It may or may not have propagated to your local server by now... be patient, if it hasn't.) Yet another place to discuss the nooks and crannies of the Halo universe! Thanks to Simon Brownlee for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:03:12 UTC) (permalink)

=NAV=Shadow looking for modellers
=NAV=Shadow writes to let us know that he hopes to put together a short 3D movie of Halo this summer... but he won't be able to manage it alone. He's looking for 3DS MAX modellers who might be willing to help out... contact him if you think that's you! (Louis Wu 00:40:07 UTC) (permalink)

News May 29 2000

Fan Fiction page updated
CUTS has submitted an interesting piece of fan fiction... who is the marine, really? Go read his thoughts on the Fan Fiction page! (Louis Wu 16:06:07 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour stats posted
The Halo SETI Marinesdig in at position #50 in the Battle of the Teams. Next on the hit list is "alt.comp.hardware.overclocking". Their CPUs are gonna melt trying to stay ahead of us! ;)Four new recruits join the Halo community effort. A big welcome to Redhook (252 units) and Malice (107 units). Gotta love those large unit additions! Jjaro tech and SkyHook grab the La Crunch and Frogblast awards. All this and more on the 24 hour stats page. (Wirehead 14:18:43 UTC) (permalink)

More E3 Halo scans... these are BIG!
Thanks to Beamish for posting scans of the E3 Halo movie flyer and the E3 Halo game flyer. Ok we've seen these before but the quality of the movie flyer is better than we've previously seen (you can easily read the text). E3 Halo game flyer is a biggie (1.9MBs). Grab them here:

E3 Halo movie flyer (cover) (303K)
E3 Halo movie flyer (inside) (529K)
E3 Halo game flyer (1964K)

Nice! (Ding 10:33:37 UTC) (permalink)

News May 28 2000

Look out behind you... it's HALO.
The German GameStar site has a Special E3 Report with a number of game developers. While Bungie aren't represented some of the pics of the developers's are taken withGameStar's Halo cover in the background. Nice one! :)GameStar do have a short E3 Halo report herethough. (Ding 14:25:18 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour team stats posted
Blam! The Halo SETI Marinestake out Brasil and enter the top 50 in the Battle of the Teams. Kudos all round on the great Halo community effort. Some big names next on the hit list. Team membership rises to 382 that's an increase of four since yesterday. Join up today! Check out the combined processing power of the Halo team on the 24 hour stats page. (Wirehead 14:16:58 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie booth babes... erm?
Marathon's Story has got a set of links to some great Bungie booth E3 pics at MacGamer's Ledge. Bungie like you've never seen them before. Who needs booth babes when you've got guys like this... erm. Go check the Story page for the full set of pic links or go direct to MacGamer's Ledge E3 Photo Gallery. Nice one! (Ding 13:03:47 UTC) (permalink)

New Halo screenshot on the Voodoo5 5500 AGP box?
New Halo screenshot on the Voodoo5 5500 AGP box? MAK thinks so on our forums and posts this URL to a Voodoo5 5500 AGP box pic. Thanks MAK. (Wirehead 12:11:28 UTC) (permalink)

Trailer Trailer at Soon
Soon^TM seems to have gotten their hands on a trailer for the E3 trailer. (Not the trailer itself... a trailer for it.) Or something. Go take a look. (Thanks to Sibrax, for posting this at the R.net forum. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 01:50:57 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper page (re)updated
Wow, that was quick. :) Vector has resubmitted his wallpaper to our Wallpaper page. Glad to have them back! Thanks to the whole BGH team for straightening all this out. (Louis Wu 01:01:32 UTC) (permalink)

Missing Wallpaper might come back
Seems we were misinformed. The policy at Battleground: Halo is NOT that its staffers can't post artwork at other sites... it's that they can't post artwork with BGH identifiers at other sites. It's unclear at this point whether vector will be resubmitting his wallpapers without the BGH URL on them... but we hope so. We liked 'em! Thanks to Protector for clearing up the misunderstanding. (Louis Wu 00:41:21 UTC) (permalink)

News May 27 2000

Halo SETI 24 hour team stats posted
Blam! The Halo SETI Marinesmove up one place to 51 in the Battle of the Teams. Lots of movement in the team rankings. Brasil are still ahead but only by 2 UNITS! Can the Halo team enter the top 50by tomorrow? Join the Halo community effort today! A big welcome to Admiral Darkk who joins up with 32 units, and to xmatrix, who joined up yesterday with 458 units (sorry we missed that!). Check out the team 24 hour stats. (Wirehead 14:19:30 UTC) (permalink)

Happy Anniversary to R.net
Happy anniversary to Rampancy.net! The Core went live one year ago yesterday... as did our blam.bungie.org forums. Talk about blasts from the past! Has it been a whole year? Wow. (Louis Wu 13:40:00 UTC) (permalink)

Poll Smash at QGL
Battleground: Halo mentions a poll at the Queensland Gamers League (northeastern Australia)... what game are you most looking forward to? Halo is currently neck and neck with Tribes 2... go see if you can swing that! (Louis Wu 13:24:11 UTC) (permalink)

Gamespot says Halo is Potent
Seen at R.net: Gamespot has added an Editors' Choice Best of E3 2000 section... and Halo is on the list for Most Potent Action Game. (Louis Wu 13:21:01 UTC) (permalink)

Battleground:Halo wallpaper removed
We had a number of nice wallpapers from vector, of Battleground: Halo, on our Wallpaper page. Apparently, the policy of Battleground: Halo is that artwork created by one of their staffers cannot be displayed on another Halo site... so we've been asked to pull them. (I would have thought that BG:H would have been happy to have their site advertised prominently in artwork served by another site - the wallpaper in question had the BG:H URL across the bottom of each image - but I would have been wrong.) For the record, we put them up originally at the request of Vector. Apologies for the inconvenience... you can probably find the images at Battleground: Halo. (Louis Wu 13:07:36 UTC) (permalink)

scifi.com looks at Halo
SciFi.com (the site of the Sci-Fi channel) has put up an e3 preview report... and Halo was included. They liked it. ;) (Thanks to Cpt. Squeky, who posted this to our forum.) Pax. (Crux Fidelis 10:43:46 UTC) (permalink)

Gamersyndicate Halo preview
Gamersyndicate.com has a Halo preview online. No new info (they start with the text from the E3 Halo movie brochure, and move on to some basics about the gaming environment), but the presentation is pretty nice. Worth a look. (Louis Wu 00:11:43 UTC) (permalink)

MonKeY MoD recruiting
The first Halo mod team? Hmm. DwK posts to our forum about MonKeY MoD... very little info in the post or on the MonKeY MoD website, but the pic looks familiar... oh, wait. That's my cousin. Never mind. (Louis Wu 00:01:30 UTC) (permalink)

News May 26 2000

Halo Needs Women!
Halo Needs Women! According to Matt Soell in a forum post the possibility of female characters in the game has not been ruled out. Equal opportunities please. :) (Ding 16:36:26 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour stats posted
The Halo SETI Marines are within 200 units of overtaking the Brasil team in the Club Rankings. Tomorrow? Banzif does his part, taking La Crunch Honneur, and Moomjean frogblasts over 11 competitors to be the fastest climber today. Are YOU doing your part? Check the 24 hour stats! (Louis Wu 14:04:56 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 1st person view mode undecided as yet
Halo 1st person view mode undecided as yet. The folks at Battleground Halo ask Doug Zartman the BIG QUESTION: "Will there be a 1st person view mode at all?" Doug replied:

We've been giving it serious thought but haven't decided on the matter yet. If we do, we'll do it right. We try very hard not to do things half assed. If we can't do it right then we won't do it at all.

Good ethics! (Wirehead 07:51:54 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper page updated
New wallpaper today from vector, who sent in "The Resistance has Formed" for our Wallpaper page. They DO look mean, don't they? (Louis Wu 03:10:12 UTC) (permalink)

Matt clarifies video api issue
Thanks go to Matt Soell, who shed a little light on the video card issue. Looks like they're keeping it general, which means time will be spent making it look good on everything, instead of insanely great on a couple of specific cards (and mediocre everywhere else). Read the details on our forum. (Louis Wu 00:29:29 UTC) (permalink)

More E3 Trailer Shenanigans
CONFIRMATION! Yes! Someone on our forum claims to be watching the E3 trailer right now on his powerbook! Call the cops!... oh, wait... Marty O'Donnell...oh, yeah.. never mind. Sorry to have bothered you. (Go here if you need more info.) (Louis Wu 00:15:11 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Bootleg Rumors
Rumors again... Vertakk claims on our forum to have spoken to someone who has watched a bootleg E3 trailer. (Cue 80's REO Speedwagon here... "Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who...") Maybe... but don't hurt yourself looking for it. (Louis Wu 00:08:46 UTC) (permalink)

New Featured Squad interview at HP
The boys of Haloplayers have put up another Featured Squad interview, this time with klown ofP.O.T.E.S. Swing on by and give it a read if you're interested in how one of the earlier groups got their start. (Louis Wu 00:03:04 UTC) (permalink)

News May 25 2000

Gamecritics.com restates their case
Yesterday, we mentioned an article at Gamecritics.com about Halo. Several readers took offense at a line in the introduction: "... Bungie, who made a name for themselves making killer games on the abysmal MAC platform." Dave Finlayson (among others) wrote to the article's author... and his post to our forum shows that it CAN be worth your time to take action. Thanks, Dave! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 18:39:55 UTC) (permalink)

PCG to distribute E3 trailer
Scooped by R.net with a post from our own forum! fAt1 of Total Halo posts that PC Gamer, a UK mag, will be the first UK source of the E3 trailer. It should be on their September CD, on sale at the end of July. (It'll be out before that in the US, exclusively in an as-yet-unnamed American mag.) Thanks, fAt1! (Louis Wu 18:14:12 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour stats posted
The SETI server continues to lose units... another 185 down the drain today. The Halo SETI Marines hold steady at position 52, with Brasil only 700 units ahead. Can they do it? See who's helping on the 24 hour stats page! (Louis Wu 14:25:07 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Speaks at Battleground: Halo
Bounty over at Battleground: Halo sent along a couple of questions to Doug Zartman and Max Hoberman, and while the answers weren't deeply enlightening (mostly "we don't know yet"), they ARE answers. Stop on by and read 'em for yourself! (Louis Wu 12:00:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo preview at Gamecritics.com
Gamecritics.com (no relation to Game Critics Awards) has put up an extensive preview of Halo, with commentary on 15 individual screenshots. It's a good read... swing by and take a look! (Louis Wu 00:00:45 UTC) (permalink)

News May 24 2000

Halo nominated at Game Critics Awards
The 2000 Game Critics Awards have announced their nominations for the best of E3. Awards will be announced June 12. Halo has been nominated for Best of Show, Best Original Game,Best Game, PC, and Best Action Game. Whew! (Thanks to Henrik Wittsten for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 21:52:12 UTC) (permalink)

Apologies to GIA
Apologies to Gaming Intelligence Agency. Earlier, we put up a news post chiding them for their total lack of mention of Halo in their E3 awards. Seems we didn't do our homework... they're devoted to console games only. And although there are rumors of Halo on the PS2 (and now, it seems, on Dreamcast... heh), they are not currently slated for any consoles. Our bad. (Louis Wu 21:37:51 UTC) (permalink)

New Wallpaper added
Thanks to XDC-ARMAGEDDON, who sent in a new wallpaper for our Wallpaper page. Size is a bit non-standard... but hey! ;) (Louis Wu 17:23:29 UTC) (permalink)

World Domination plans include Castro
Seen on the Marathon's Story page: Utterer.com has scooped us all! They have proof that Bungie used Elian Gonzalez (the cuban refugee) as the motion capture actor for the Halo marine! Is Bungie in bed with Castro? Pax. (Crux Fidelis 15:31:48 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team 24 hours stats posted
Can the Halo SETI Marinestake on the might of Brazil? Yes the country! They're just under 1000 units ahead in the SETI rankings. Let's get 'em! ;)A big welcome to TickleSpace#2 who joins the team with healthy 119 units. Check out who's crunchin' and who's munchin' on the 24 hours stats page. (Wirehead 14:20:26 UTC) (permalink)

News May 23 2000

Newsweek's Halo coverage
Halo scoop! The May 29 issue of Newsweek arrived... and here's the Halo review, in all its glory. Would you check out the tires on that baby? Just for the fun of it, here's a bigger version of the actual screenshot. Newsweek Online has most of that issue on their website... the only thing they're missing is the E3 article. :( Pax. (Crux Fidelis 18:52:51 UTC) (permalink)

Matt says more for us!
Don't think there's enough good stuff going to the online sites (HBO among them)? Disgruntled because all the juicy bits seem to get to the gaming mags first, and trickle down to the fansites afterwards? Read this post to our forum, and rejoice. (Louis Wu 15:42:54 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI 24 hour and 14-day stats posted
The Halo SETI Marines gain another couple of members (Welcome to Dogcow goes Moof and Robbie!), and continue to close the distance to the next team in the Club Rankings. Jjaro Tech edges Banzif for La Crunch Honneur (but averaged almost 4 fewer units per day for the past two weeks). VADER_AU takes the Frogblast award for the day... but Wizard climbed 51 positions over the past two weeks! See all the results on the 24 hour and 14-day stats pages. (Louis Wu 14:45:39 UTC) (permalink)

Oni E3 Flyer at Oni Central
Oni Central has put up the backside of the E3 flyer we brought you yesterday. No really new screens... but a beautiful layout! Go feast your eyes! (Louis Wu 13:18:41 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Presskit at R.net
Rampancy.net has scanned in the rest of the E3 Press kit. Before now, only the Halo-related pages have made it onto the net... but there is some pretty fun Bungie history stuff in there, as well. Go check it out! (Louis Wu 13:13:29 UTC) (permalink)

New Wallpaper added
Thanks to Vector, who sent in a pair of wallpapers for our Wallpaper page. Vector works at Battleground: Halo. (Louis Wu 11:40:47 UTC) (permalink)

Halo in Newsweek
Kudos to The Maz, who took a digital snap of a page of the latest Newsweek in which Halo was mentioned. The lips are "buzz factor" (out of a possible 5), and the drops of blood are "gore factor" (also out of 5). Listed for Dreamcast... interesting. :) (We'll work on getting a better pic, too.) (Louis Wu 00:01:51 UTC) (permalink)

Matt says E3 Movie in July
Looks like we're waiting until July for the E3 trailer. In a post on our forum, Matt Soell said that

The trailer will first appear on the cover CD of a major PC gaming magazine. It will be their August issue, which hits the streets mid-July.

It will be available for download shortly after that, at a size of (probably) about 100 MB. The DVD version? Yeah, if they can find a duplicator... Thanks for the info, Matt! (Louis Wu 00:01:36 UTC) (permalink)

News May 22 2000

Halo SETI team stats posted
The Halo SETI Marines get another large infusion of WUs today, this time from thulcandra, who brought in 609 units. The fight for the next position in the Club Rankings is going to be tough, though... Jjaro Tech takes La Crunch Honneur again, and Moomjean takes the Frogblast award, climbing 8 notches. Are you doing your part? Check the 24 hour stats to see! (Louis Wu 14:30:06 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie's E3 Halo flyer SCOOP!
Halo scoop! Thanks to a generous benefactor at Bungie and a well respected Bungie fan (we're not worthy, we're not worthy!) we bring you Bungie's E3 Halo flyer! Pretty outstanding. Check out that Marine's face. No mistaking that Marathon logo. (Wirehead 12:45:30 UTC) (permalink)

Halo is the yardstick to beat other games with!
Small Halo snippet in Jim's E3 Post-Op at Daily Raider. Halo is the game other developers are now trying to beat! Mark Rein (Unreal 2) was reported to have said:

But Rein simply hinted at the amazing things around the corner (vehicles, super-high poly character models), and we were desperate for any niblet on Unreal 2 for the PC or Xbox. He claimed that the next big thing coming from them was going to put Halo to shame.

Halo is the yardstick to beat other games with! ;) (Ding 07:31:17 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper, and Banners pages updated
Thanks to Allenthar, who has submitted a new wallpaper for our Wallpaper page, and a new banner for our Banners page. Tired of that old stuff? Grab some new stuff! (Louis Wu 03:25:56 UTC) (permalink)

News May 21 2000

Outpost D-34 looks at Halo
Kudos to HiddenTalon, who found yet another E3 wrapup at Outpost D-34. Here's the Halo article. They got a couple of things wrong (they described the test machines at e3 as "PIII's with GE Force 2's", while in reality they had TNT2 Ultra's in them), but the "Tribes on crack" comment is probably right on. :) (Louis Wu 22:43:42 UTC) (permalink)

All Games Network and Playboy on Halo
Couple of Halo sightings around the net, courtesy of Rampancy.net... first, All Games Network has a couple of Halo-related films (although none of them seem to be viewable on a mac, and only the First Impressions of Halo seem to be viewable on a Win98 box with the free version of RealPlayer installed), and Playboy had a small e3 section in which they describe Halo as having "the best-looking graphics ever seen in a PC game." I think you should all hit Noc up for the source of that tip... (Louis Wu 22:13:39 UTC) (permalink)

More presskit scans at Halo Network
Halo Network continues to scan in the E3 press kit... today's installment contains pages 14 and 15. These two contain frequently asked questions... nice to see official Bungie answers to some of these, even though we've gotten unofficial answers along the line. Check it out! (Thanks to the Marathon's Story page for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 14:38:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam!... The Halo SETI Marines bump another team in the Club Rankings. Top 50, here they come! Today's climb is thanks to Ashley Frost, who brought 1632 units with her when she joined. Welcome,Ashley! 139 other marines added units today... were you one of them? Check the 24 hour stats to find out! (Louis Wu 14:30:57 UTC) (permalink)

Halo on Heat
Thanks to HiddenTalon on our forumfor pointing us to an another E3 wrap-up piece this time at Heat. Here's what they had to say:

Halo - the graphics and physics engine of this game have already created quite a stir. Bungie still needs to get a full demo for users to truly appreciate it's qualities. We'll have more on this in the coming months - count on it!

Short and sweet. (Wirehead 13:28:24 UTC) (permalink)

Two new articles on Theories page
The theories page has seen a couple of new additions; Mostafa Sadraii posts a discussion of some observations he's made from the various films released to date, and Rony Sanchezspeculates on the Jjaro logo and its relevance to Halo. (Note: Many of the ideas presented here were first brought up on the Marathon's Story page (check What's New for February 8 and 9 of this year), and were summarized on this page.)Thanks, guys! (Louis Wu 00:12:29 UTC) (permalink)

Cinematic Construction for Gamers
Seen at Marathon's Story: Gamasutra has an interesting article, originally presented at the 2000Game Developer's Conference, on ways to use cinematic techniques, developed over the past 75years, in games that need cinematic sequences in order to drive the storyline. It's an interesting read, all by itself, and relevant here because Halo has positioned itself (or its fans have positioned it) as a game with a rich, complex backstory, and will most likely require some cinematic sequences to further the solo play. (And the E3 trailer has made it clear that Halo is quite capable of producing such sequences.) Go take a look! (Louis Wu 00:12:13 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie.net new poll
Bungie.net has a new poll up... "What platform do you use for gaming?" Interesting results so far... (Louis Wu 00:01:20 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie licensing their engines?
Is Bungie planning on licensing the Halo and Oni engines for installment games? So says Computer Games Magazine, as reported by Myndreach on our forum. Give it a read! (Louis Wu 00:00:34 UTC) (permalink)

News May 20 2000

More Halo press kit scans at Halo Network
Major kudos to Massa of the German Halo Network site for scanning in another part of Bungie's E3 press kit. This one has a pic of the marine and the backstory of Halo. Go take a look see. Nice scoop Massa. :) (Louis Wu 15:46:59 UTC) (permalink)

Apple says new Halo trailer... we say...
Apple's Quicktime Trailer page lists four Game Trailers. One of these is Halo with a big [NEW] following it. Unfortunately this is still the old MacWorld Expo movie from July 1999. So why is it called new? (Crux Fidelis 14:42:32 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI marines keep blasting away!
The Halo SETI Marinesare now only 2000 units behind the next team in the SETI rankings. Got to keep the pressure on. The last 24 hours sees Jjaro tech return to true form and DwK frogblasts nice marines? Find out if you got frogblasted last night on the 24 hours stats page. (Wirehead 14:17:03 UTC) (permalink)

Incite PC says new screenshots... we say...
In aSpecial post-E3 RoundupIncite PC offer what they claim to be new Halo screenshots. While we'd all like to see new Halo screenshots these are not new. Sorry guys. :( (Wirehead 07:27:36 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Halo preview at E3 FiringSquad
Thanks to Bagman for pointing us to a two page E3 Halo previewat FiringSquad. The preview offers a description of the Halo movie. There's also a piece on Oni. (Wirehead 06:22:41 UTC) (permalink)

YA Poll at Gamedesign.net
YA Poll... Gamedesign.net has ANOTHER "Best Game from E3?" poll. Halo is currently leading the pack... but there aren't many votes. Tired of polls yet? (Thanks to BoySinister, at R.net,for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 00:31:25 UTC) (permalink)

Peter Tamte and the Matrix
Interesting post over at Rampancy.net... SiliconDream has provided a transcript of one of the panel discussions from E3; the subject was "What makes a good license?" and one of the questions got an intriguing answer from Peter Tamte, Executive VP of Publishing for Bungie. Remember the rumors that Bungie was working on a game from The Matrix? Read this. (Louis Wu 00:25:42 UTC) (permalink)

News May 19 2000

Best Action Game, says GameSpy
GameSpy's Best and Worst of E3 Awards are up... and Halo takes Best Action Game! Nice job. (Louis Wu 21:48:03 UTC) (permalink)

Monster Marine Distracts Console Gamer
GameCritics.com posted a photo journal of E3 today. Halo caught the reviewers eye, even though he was focused on console games... nice shot! (Tip o' the hat to Blues News, who posted the journal link.) (Louis Wu 21:36:33 UTC) (permalink)

Poll to smash at The Mad Onion
Uh oh... The Mad Onion has a gaming poll going at the moment, and Halo is getting hammered! (Even Unreal 2 is ahead!) You know what to do... (Thanks to medic for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 20:17:29 UTC) (permalink)

HBO FAQ updated
Mark Levin has updated the HBO FAQ in the wake of the new E3 info. Swing on by and take a look! (Louis Wu 19:50:45 UTC) (permalink)

$634 billion dollars profit from sale of Halo DVD
Bungie to earn $634 billion dollars from sale of Halo DVD. According to Max on bungie.net 75% of voters in the DVD poll were willing to pay $5.95 or more for the Halo movie. While Bungie aren't promising a DVD things DO look optimistic. (Ding 17:38:46 UTC) (permalink)

CVG says Halo in March 2001
Thanks to Jienn, who writes to point out a short blurb at Computer and Video Games. Not a lot of info, but they DO casually mention a release date: March 2001. Seems the press is pushing that day back farther and farther... soon they'll be reporting 2005. (Remember, a release date is not a release date until Bungie says it is.) (Louis Wu 17:30:45 UTC) (permalink)

PC Gamer UK Halo preview online
Our good friend Jenkz over at HP came up trumps with a Halo preview in the online version of PC Gamer UK. It's from the June edition of the hardcopy version. They claim the minimum specs for Halo will be:

Minimum specs:PII 266, 64Mb RAM, 3D card.

Amazing! (Ding 17:10:34 UTC) (permalink)

QA Intern needed to test games
Kudos to Pericles, who spotted a job opening for a QA Intern at Bungie's Chicago offices. Job description includes

helping the QA manager and development team test computer games through play-testing and functionality and compatibility tests.

Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a Halo fanatic! (We'd apply, but then who'd bring you the news?) (Louis Wu 16:52:32 UTC) (permalink)

Banner page updated
Thanks go to r e c o i l, who sent us a new banner for our Banner page. Nice! (Louis Wu 15:33:54 UTC) (permalink)

3D Action Planet needs poll smashed
Edward Edelen reminds us of a poll over at3D Action Planet... Halo is trailing Tribes 2 by about 20 votes. Can you fix this? Pax. (Crux Fidelis 14:55:03 UTC) (permalink)

New Screenshot from GameStar
Man, this e3 stuff makes us nuts. Somehow, this never made it to our Screenshots page... but GameStar put up an e3 writeup last week that included an not-seen-before-on-the web shot. Very nice pic of the covenant plasma cannon in action. (This WAS published in their print magazine,but hasn't appeared on the web before, except in bootlegged scans.) We'll catch up soon, we promise! (Louis Wu 14:46:55 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
The Halo SETI Marines dug in today... a little closer to the next victim in the Battle of the Teams, but not striking distance yet. Jjaro Tech seems to have had some problems... Banzif handily takes La Crunch Honneur. The Frogblast Award goes to Moomjean today, who leapfrogged 11 positions to number 287. Details can be found on the 24 hour stats page. Are YOU crunching as hard as you can? Do it today - you could be on Reach tomorrow! (Louis Wu 14:34:56 UTC) (permalink)

Press page brought up to date
Updated our Press page with almost 30 links to E3 Halo previews and news items from around the world. Most of these were submitted to HBO over the hectic E3 period and reported daily on our news page. Thanks to everyone for your continued support of HBO. (Ding 13:48:27 UTC) (permalink)

Tribes 2 leading Alloy Gaming poll
medic writes to remind us to look in on the poll at Alloy Gaming (we mentioned it a couple of days ago)... Halo's getting soundly trounced by Tribes 2. (AG doesn't post total votes, so it's hard to tell what 'soundly trounced' really means...but in any case, some poll smashing is in order.) Show 'em what Halo fans can do! (Louis Wu 05:44:36 UTC) (permalink)

Bagel Fridays
Rampancy.net found a funny ad in Game Developer Magazine (April 2000 issue). Heck, I'd work for 'em. (Oh, wait...) (Louis Wu 03:18:12 UTC) (permalink)

IMG E3 analysis
Inside Mac Games has put up an interesting analysis piece of the E3 trailer (and general ruminations about Halo and the development process)... definitely worth a read. (Thanks to Michael Eilers for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 00:05:22 UTC) (permalink)

News May 18 2000

Why you shouldn't worry
Hmm... Matt S. expounds on possible uses for Halo local fauna in this forum post. I know we've been complaining about lack of details... but there's such a thing as too much information. This is a family forum, Matt. (Louis Wu 20:51:49 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Big crunching effort needed by the Halo SETI Marines to get past the next team in Alien Hot 100. A big welcome to Ahimsa (426 units) and SpudNYC (356 units) who join the team along with three others. Check out the team's 24 hours stats. Join the Halo community effort today... tomorrow you could be on Reach! (Wirehead 14:27:53 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Network puts up E3 info scan
Massa writes with the news that Halo Network has posted a scan of one of the fliers in the E3 Presskit. Nice piece of work! (Louis Wu 12:16:08 UTC) (permalink)

LA Life fakes it
Thanks to AtomicPlayboy who sends in this heads up:

I saw in the Daily News today, on the front page of LA Life, an E3 review with Everquest and Halo on the cover. Sadly enough, the article had nothing to do with either Everquest OR Halo. It mainly rambled on about the new consoles around the corner. At any rate, here is a scan of the cover.

(Wirehead 08:00:34 UTC) (permalink)

Louis Screws Up
OMG did our own Louis Wu screw up? Both noddy99 and Chris think so. They point out that this CD Mag screen is not a retouched version (according to Louis) of this shot since that comes from a Gamestar shot. There are also notable differences between the two jeep pics even if the general look appears the same. On behalf of the staff at HBO I humbly apologize to CD Mag, Bungie and HBO readers for this error. (Ding 07:12:58 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Halo preview from Game Revolution
Thanks to TOPGUNN123 for pointing out in a forum post that Game Revolution have an E3 Halo preview. Here's a snip:

The E3 demo that GR made sure to see was done on a Pentium 450 with a TNT2 card. Expect the minimum system requirements to be lower than that, but Halo just might be worth investing in anew computer or video card.

And a second life! ;) Pax. (Crux Fidelis 06:22:12 UTC) (permalink)

Best Action Game from Tech Extreme
Tech Extreme put up their Best of E3 awards today, as well... and Halo took Best Action Game. (Louis Wu 00:49:57 UTC) (permalink)

Fun with Photoshop
Thanks to Chris, who sent in a link to one of the CD Mag images... at first glance, it looks like a new screen, but upon closer examination, it appears that CD Mag just did a bit of background editing. (This is from the article that turned out earlier today to be recycled from last July.)Stay tuned, though... word from CD Mag was that they're working on some pretty good stuff, and put this up so there'd be something online. We'll keep you posted. (Louis Wu 00:35:34 UTC) (permalink)

Beyond 3D E3 wrapup
Beyond 3D did a stream-of-consciousness writeup of E3... and the reviewer made an interesting observation:

[talking about the trailer] Now I was extremely impressed with the quality, but I question if this was more a technology demo than what the actual game will look like. It seemed a lot more detailed than what I’d seen a few minutes before in the actual game, but I could be wrong.

Was the intro in-game playing around that happened before each showing less detailed than the movie? That's the first we've seen of that claim... (Louis Wu 00:28:17 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie review on SharkeyExtreme
Thanks to AX Man, who noticed a Bungie review on SharkeyExtreme. It's part of their E3 coverage, and covers both Halo and Oni (albeit briefly):

Well, we said we'd throw in a section devoted to a developer rather than a publisher if they deserved it and any one that thinks Bungie isn't one such developer should receive a frontal lobotomy pronto.

Suffice it to say, they liked what they saw. (Louis Wu 00:14:04 UTC) (permalink)

Best of E3 awards from IGN
IGN has put up their Best of E3 awards... Halo took runner-up in the overall Best PC Game category, as well as runner-up in Best PC Action Game. Not bad for a game without a playable demo! (Louis Wu 00:06:39 UTC) (permalink)

News May 17 2000

Interview with Marty O'Donnell at BG:H
Battleground: Halo got a chance to ask some questions of Marty O'Donnell, of Total Audio, about the E3 enhancements. Definitely worth a read! (Louis Wu 21:32:43 UTC) (permalink)

New Poll at Alloy Gaming
Cybrid writes to tell us that Alloy Gaming's got another poll up... Best Upcoming Game? Stop by and vote! (Louis Wu 19:22:10 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Fans Say Six
The masses have spoken, and "Cheap Movies" is what they're saying. The bungie.net poll, "what would you pay for a dvd of the E3 trailer?" has been answered by almost 3000 people... and over 40% are saying $5.95. We'll take 7! (Ding has three DVD players.) Pax. (Crux Fidelis 19:06:15 UTC) (permalink)

Halo preview at GameHQ
Seen at Haloworld, by way of r.net: GameHQ (german) has a Halo preview up. The automated translators out there provided some small entertainment, but made it clear there was no new info. Beware - the java applet on the top of the page hosed our copies of Netscape (mac). (IE handles it just fine.) (Louis Wu 18:54:31 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
The SETI servers seem to have some processing problems... they haven't processed any new units submitted for the team in the past 12 hours. Nevertheless, the Halo SETI Marines continue to crunch away; 737 units since yesterday, thanks in part to Pamela Wolf, who brought in 256. See who's slacking and who's not on the 24 hour stats page! (Louis Wu 14:38:11 UTC) (permalink)

Tom Clancy joins HBO
The tru7h is out! MacGamer's Ledge in a recent Halo news itemstates:

For your daily Halo news and information, we highly
recommend Ding and the other Bungie-crazed lunatics
at HBO.

What can we say! Ding Chavez has finally been outed. We tried to keep his involvement in HBO secret but those MacLedge boys are on the ball! Step forward Ding and take a bow. (Wirehead 14:09:44 UTC) (permalink)

Story uncovers old Halo Story text
Marathon's Story page accuses Computer Games Online of reusing an old Halo preview in their latest E3 Halo preview. Go get them Hamish.;) He also discovers some old Halo story text. And the game isn't even out yet! (Wirehead 14:01:32 UTC) (permalink)

Second E3 wrap-up from Shugashack
Another Shugashack E3 wrap-up comes online tonight. This one gave Halo a score of 7.0, an improvement over yesterday's. Well below Giants, FAKK2, and Max Payne, but WAY above Oni, which scored a 4.0, the lowest rating in the wrap-up. The general complaint was the same: the visuals look good, but until Bungie is more forthcoming with gameplay details, these guys will withhold praise. Guess Bungie has some work to do if they want to get better support at Shugashack! (Louis Wu 07:07:01 UTC) (permalink)

E3 roundup at Time Digital
Time Digital, Time Magazine's online counterpart, has a short e3 roundup... Halo is one of the three covered titles. They liked it. (Louis Wu 04:00:32 UTC) (permalink)

Halo mentioned in Time
Chamber spotted a Halo mention in the May 22, 2000 issue of Time Magazine (pg 156), and posted it to our forum. A short blurb... but hey, it's Time. That's pretty mainstream. ;) Thanks, Chamber! (Louis Wu 02:42:02 UTC) (permalink)

Halo preview from 3D Portal
3D Portal has put up a Halo preview based on the e3 information... with an out-of-the-ordinary slant. The reviewer is of the opinion that Halo might not be released before 2002. It's not long... go read it. (Louis Wu 00:17:01 UTC) (permalink)

Xeno Nemesis comes online
Voodoo God writes to tell us that Xeno Nemesis, a new Halo order, is now online. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 00:12:57 UTC) (permalink)

News May 16 2000

Max clarifies E3 trailer availability
Bungie.net news! Yeroen, the bungie.net webmonkey, has posted a news tidbit regarding the e3 movie's availability.

We have a new poll up asking how much you'd pay, if anything, for a director's cut DVD of the Halo E3 demo. Let me clear up one thing: we're planning on releasing the movie for FREE via the Internet. However, if there's enough interest we may also offer it on DVD, at cost, to help those with slow connections, home theaters, and/or collective tendencies.

Good news for those looking with trepidation at a 3 day download. Don't forget to vote, so Bungie knows whether there's enough interest! (Louis Wu 18:05:11 UTC) (permalink)

GameSpy E3 Halo report
Thanks to Blue's News for the heads up on a GameSpy E3 Halo report. Here's some quotes:

Even though we only got to see a couple of minutes of actual gameplay, Halo was easily one of the most visually impressive of the games shown at E3.

All of the vehicles, Bungie said, could be controlled using the same keys used to control the soldier on foot.

Nice article. (Wirehead 17:20:49 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam!... and Blam! again. The Halo SETI Marinesclimb from #55 to #53 in the Battle of the Teams. Bye bye Quake team. A BIG hello to PhilDog (1047 units) and Shaft'em (637 units). Sadly a Marine goes AWOL: ggore. If you see him report him to the MPs. ;)Find out what happened on the 24 hours stats page. (Wirehead 14:25:29 UTC) (permalink)

bungie.net asks, would you pay?
"How much would you pay for a director's cut DVD of the Halo E3 movie with 5.1 Surround Sound?"is a new Quick Poll at bungie.net. This isn't a joke. Bungie are seriously considering making the movie available on DVD as well as for download (free). Of course the DVD will be better quality. Go vote! Please treat the poll seriously. Let'shope Bungie do the right thing! (Wirehead 11:46:27 UTC) (permalink)

Shugashack slams Halo
Shugashack in their E3 Wrap Up give Halo a score of 6.4 (one of the lowest scores). Tribes 2 got 8.9. Here's one line:

The movie was awesome dont get me wrong but as it stands right now the multiplayer aspect of the game looks to be the equivalent of TRIBES.

Got a comment? (Wirehead 11:00:06 UTC) (permalink)

Nihilist Clan comes online
Seen over at HaloPlayers; a new Halo clan is on the scene, and recruiting. Go check out the Nihilist Clan... site is still under construction, but basic info is there. (Louis Wu 09:24:25 UTC) (permalink)

Wrapup thoughts about e3 demo trailer
A few odds and ends are put together in one last e3 demo trailer writeup at rampancy.net. This one contains several items that still need work, plus corrections from the first two segments. For reference, you can find Parts I and II still in their database. (Louis Wu 09:16:36 UTC) (permalink)

R net posts pics of the Halo banner
Noctavis over at Rampancy net has posted some high res. pics of the Halo banner at the Bungie booth. You can see a new look jeep, some "Bobs", and a "poly glitch". Yes all in the one poster! (Louis Wu 08:51:26 UTC) (permalink)

Gaming sites behind the times
For some reason, several big gaming sites (VoodooExtreme, Shugashack, Blue's News, probably others)are reporting the Gamecenter screens posted a couple of weeks ago as new, now. They're not new. They were posted on April 29. Just wanted to clear that up. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 00:56:13 UTC) (permalink)

News May 15 2000

Best Games from E3 from Stomped
Stomped.com has put up a list of their "Best Games from E3"... Halo was tops on their list. (Thanks to Informer for the heads-up on our forum.) (Louis Wu 18:02:24 UTC) (permalink)

The Official Halo Backstory comes online
Whoa. The Official Halo Backstory goes live. Hamish Sinclair has added a full Halo backstory section to his Marathon's Story site... guess we know who's gonna be handling the Halo's Story site! Congratulations on coming out, Hamish. :) (Louis Wu 17:23:10 UTC) (permalink)

More details on e3 trailer
More details on the e3 trailer posted by Bravehamster over at r.net. A nail gun? Pax. (Crux Fidelis 17:16:41 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Computer Gaming Awards from Gamefan
Seen at Halo Players; Gamefan has posted its first annual E3 Computer Gaming Awards, and Halo took Runner-up in the Best New Technology category (beaten out by Max Payne). This week should be full of awards ceremonies... it'll be interesting to see how prominently Halo figures! (Louis Wu 16:36:28 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam!...*burp* Well, the SETI folks haven't gotten around to updating the Club Teams page yet, but the Halo SETI Marines have jumped a couple of spots on the list anyway. The Chucky Effect has taken down the Quake Team! In the past 24 hours, Banzif has significantly ramped up his crunching, and he takes La Crunch Honneur handily, with more than double the results of his nearest competitor. Ouch! Onis, a newcomer to the team, takes the Frogblast award, with a climb of 15 spots (impressive, in the top 150). Are you doing YOUR part? (Louis Wu 14:29:20 UTC) (permalink)

Chucky leaves Bungie

Chucky departs Bungie! In a dramatic move today Halo's Physics programmer extraordinaire Chucky left the Bungie SETI team to join the Halo SETI Marines. Chucky brings with him a staggering 1665 units for the war effort! Chucky's move has meant the Halo team has now leap frogged the Quake team in the team rankings. Although they don't know it yet! Way to go Chucky. Join the Halo SETI marines for a safer future in space! ;)Pax. (Crux Fidelis 13:23:41 UTC) (permalink)

GameStar preview translation posted
CyberBob and Noctavis teamed up again to translate the GameStar Halo preview. The results are now posted at r.net. Some interesting reading in there... (Louis Wu 13:21:43 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Sightings opens
Freewill announces the opening of bs.bungie.org, a Bungie sightings archive. Got a Bungie related/inspired photo?Then send it to Freewill. Full details at BS. (Louis Wu 11:04:50 UTC) (permalink)

SiliconDream posts e3 report
More E3 Halo reports. SiliconDream posts an interesting Halo report from E3 on theRampancy.net forum. Go read it here. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 10:57:28 UTC) (permalink)

More E3 details at Marathon's Story
Marathon's Story page posts an E3 report on Halo from Jon Chang of the DEHc-3 HALO site. Some interesting solo/story details. More nice reporting. (Louis Wu 07:28:00 UTC) (permalink)

Article on Halo's live action posted
New article on the first part of the Halo demos (the live part) posted at rampancy net. Everything we've hoped for, in terms of realism... nice reporting job, Ferrex! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 06:03:23 UTC) (permalink)

more info on e3 movie
Pfhor posted a nice followup to Ferrex's E3 movie transcript on our forum... some juicy tidbits in there. A snippet:

He drove around, then flipped the jeep over a couple of times, and as he did I watched the marine and he was jerking forward and back, then he did a special code while saying, "No one look", to get the jeep back on its wheels, heh.

The whole post is worth a read... (Louis Wu 05:07:00 UTC) (permalink)

Halo War comes online
First seen on rampancy.net... a new Halo site has joined the rank and file. Halo War has a little of everything... good luck, guys! (Louis Wu 04:46:40 UTC) (permalink)

Fan Fiction page updated
New Fan Fiction from SyburWulf... worth a read! Check our Fan Fiction page. (Louis Wu 04:31:42 UTC) (permalink)

News May 14 2000

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam! The Halo SETI Marines take back another notch in the Battle of the Teams, passing the Israliens, thanks largely to Lucas Wolf, who brought 636 units to the team today. (Thanks also to tobias and onis, who brought in 143 and 68 units, respectively.) The Quake team is (as of now) only 1100 units ahead. Can we catch them? Banzif is doing his part, winning the La Crunch Honneur for the sixth straight day... are you doing yours? Check the 24 hour stats to find out! (Louis Wu 14:21:25 UTC) (permalink)

e3show.com posts Bungie booth pics
e3show.com posted a bunch of pics of the Bungie booth. As with the rest of their pages, you shouldn't try to view these in Netscape (at least not on a Mac). Pax. (Crux Fidelis 13:43:04 UTC) (permalink)

Daily Radar and e3show.com put up MWNY trailer
Daily Radar put up a trailer they said Bungie was playing at their booth. It got some people excited, because it was 44 MB and talked about in the context of E3... but according to CyberBob, It's just the old MWNY trailer. e3show.com is distributing the same movie. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 13:36:01 UTC) (permalink)

Halo wins Most Promising Game of E3
Snagged from rampancy.net: last night, Halo won Most Promising Game of E3 from All Gaming Monthly (couldn't find a website for these guys). Just another step on the road to world domination... Pax. (Crux Fidelis 13:19:35 UTC) (permalink)

e3 Halo article at MacCentral
Mac Central put up an e3 Halo article on Friday... nothing really new. Their description of the system that Halo ran on:

Bungie indicates that the demo was run on a Pentium III-equipped PC compatible running at 450MHz with an Nvidia-based graphics card; on that system, Bungie suggested that frame rates in the mid-20's was reasonable.

gibes well with, but is put in better context by, the information posted by Halo Vault on the first day of the show ('P3 400 with a TNT2 at 1024x768x32'). (Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 13:01:23 UTC) (permalink)

Happy Mother's Day!
Don't forget to tell a mother in your life 'Happy Mother's Day' today! (Louis Wu 12:50:53 UTC) (permalink)

News May 13 2000

Music info at Halo Vault
Halo Vault posted a little tidbit about the new trailer's music... looks like timing was about the same as for MacWorld NY. ;) (Louis Wu 20:55:14 UTC) (permalink)

Extreme Hardware looks at Halo
Extreme Hardware decided to check out some E3 software... and they were pretty excited about Halo. (Thanks to Steve Campbell for the heads-up.)

(Louis Wu 20:02:40 UTC) (permalink)

Gamefan First Impressions
Gamefan has a small First Impressions piece on Halo, from E3. Not much content... but it's nice to know that even jaded reviewers can be wowed. :) (Thanks to Platon for the heads-up on our forum.) (Louis Wu 17:10:37 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Dink! Even though the Halo SETI Marines gained back some of their lost units, they still fell a notch to 56 in the Battle of the Teams. The loss of Redhook hit hard... with his 202 units, they would have passed the Israliens by now. Who else is moving? Check the 24 hour stats! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 14:34:45 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Booth pics at MacCentral

E3 Bungie booth pics. Kudos to Tomeone for pointing us to two Bungie booth pics at MacCentral. Here they are:

1. Giant Halo poster outside the Bungie booth
2. The line for the Halo movie

Thanks Tomeone. :) (Louis Wu 10:51:12 UTC) (permalink)

E3 report on Halo from IMG
Inside Mac Games have an E3 report on Halo. Here's an interesting piece:

Doug Zartman cleared up a few issues for us - when it comes to vehicles, you mount just by walking up and pressing an assigned key. Where you stand next to the vehicle when you press that key determines what position you take (gunner, driver, shotgun seat.) He confirmed that you would be able to play as either human or Covenant in multiplayer games, and of course as any combination therof.

They also claim to have new screenshots but they're not new. :( (Louis Wu 09:13:27 UTC) (permalink)

Matt says "Don't make me kick your ass"
Matt Soell lays down some home tru7hs on our forum about Halo's release date, sandwiches, Ronald McDonald, and sex. Yes all in ONE forum post. You best read it if you think Halo won't be released for another two years! (Wirehead 08:05:14 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Halo tidbit on player controls
Nemesis offers us an E3 Halo tidbit on our forums about player controls from talking to Diana Donohue and Joe Staten of Bungie software. Thanks Nemesis. (Wirehead 07:58:32 UTC) (permalink)

Gamecenter E3 review posted
Bam! Matt Hilliard strikes again. Even before there was time to post his first tip, we got a second one... this time about a Gamecenter review. Matt points out a passage that either means the reporter goofed (my guess), or that the 'new' Marine isn't the ONLY marine:

Just as a Covenant alien moves in for the kill, the primary Halo soldier (the one clad in the gold armor and shown in most of the released screen shots), comes upon the scene and takes out the alien.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? (Thanks again, Matt!) (Louis Wu 00:10:45 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Halo report at GameSpot UK
Thanks to Matt Hilliard, who pointed out that GameSpot UK has an E3 Halo report. Not long, and mostly covered already, but the author's enthusiasm is to be commended. (Louis Wu 00:05:37 UTC) (permalink)

News May 12 2000

Halo in the Washington Post
Nice spot, Eric! He found a reference to Halo in today's Washington Post, and dropped a note to our forum. The info is faulty... but you don't get much more mainstream than the Washington Post. (Louis Wu 20:48:39 UTC) (permalink)

Community Links at bungie.net updated
Max is hard at work over at bungie.net. He's updated Bungie's Community Links page. Head on over and take a look. Thanks Max. :) (Louis Wu 17:19:43 UTC) (permalink)

Joe says Marathon's Story worries too much
Hamish Sinclair of the Marathon's Story page spots a discrepancy in the diameter of the Halo in Bungie's E3 press and movie info. 10,000 miles or kilometers? Both are given. As Joe Staten would say:

"we're not quite sure about the diameter as of yet for obvious reasons for some of you people who actually pay attention to diameters and such in our games.

Heh only joking Joe! ;) (Crux Fidelis 16:56:13 UTC) (permalink)

New Poll to Smash
E3 Poll smash! Well Rounded Entertainment have an E3 report page with some Halo info. Nothing new but they also have a Best of E3 Poll and Halo is second after Deus Ex. You know what to do! (Louis Wu 15:46:45 UTC) (permalink)

Press kit says Halo 60% done
Noctavis over at rampancy.nethas posted a transcriptof Bungie's E3 press kit which includes a Halo FAQ. Here's a snippet:

HOW FAR ALONG IS IT? [Halo]
We generally make games in three stages: First the environment and the engine, then the multiplayer game, then the single-player game. Right now we're a little more than 60% done.

Halo is 60% done! Thanks Noc. :) (Crux Fidelis 15:05:18 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
We wuz robbed! Despite heavy crunching theHalo SETI Marinesonly officially gained 93 units rather than the 500+ units submitted in the last 24 hours. We ain't going nowhere in the Alien Hot 100until SETI get their server in order. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 14:26:48 UTC) (permalink)

Etherlife nails Doug
Caught this on the Marathon's Story page. Doug Zartman and Halo feature in an E3 inspired comic at Etherlife. Don't know how Doug is going to live this one down! (Louis Wu 12:20:10 UTC) (permalink)

Quake-oriented Halo report
Kudos to Matt Hilliard for pointing us to a short Halo reportposted by a fan at TeleFragged, a Quake site. We snagged this piece:

The graphics were nothing short of incredible, with immaculate attention to detail,from bump-mapping on the player's suit of armor to little clouds of dust kicked up when he runs. The physics are on par with the best racing simulations -- the ATV bounces and leans just as if it were real. At one point, the Bungie employee accidentally tipped over the vehicle and had to reset it, which shows a greater attention to detail than most racing games which will absolutely prevent a car from flipping.

Go read the full report. Pax (Crux Fidelis 11:26:48 UTC) (permalink)

PC IGN reprint Halo Vault info
PC IGN have posted a description of the E3 Halo movie by Paul "luxor" McElroy. But it's the same as Paul's account on Halo Vault. If you haven't read it yet make sure you check it out! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 09:30:38 UTC) (permalink)

E3 Halo Demo transcript, Part II
Ferrex has posted the second half of his E3 Halo Demo transcript... I couldn't get a plane ticket, so as soon as this is posted, I'm walking to San Francisco. (Louis Wu 06:26:15 UTC) (permalink)

e3news.com shows old MWNY trailer... why?
Just in from Tribby... Gamespot's e3news.com is showing Halo info RIGHT NOW. (started 7:30 PST) Unfortunately, it seems to be the MWNY trailer they're showing... pretty lame, if you ask me. (Wow, time warp. On the main e3news.com page, there's a link for Halo, first impression... the text might be new (doesn't seem to match any of the previous gamespot releases), but the pics are the first four screens ever released!) (Louis Wu 02:53:45 UTC) (permalink)

e3 handout transcribed
News overload! We can't cope! Dammit, Jim, we need more power, kepten! (That's three... anyone care to go for four?) Mark Levin saved your eyes the trouble of deciphering the e3 handouts scanned at Halo Vault, by posting a transcript on our forum. Solid story info here... thanks, Mark! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 02:39:12 UTC) (permalink)

minireview from e3show.com
Posted earlier this evening on our forum... The MGON folk have a quick summary of the movie, as well. Read it at e3show.com. Warning: Netscape (on a mac, at least) can't see the page. Try IE. (Thanks, Myndreach.) (Louis Wu 01:55:30 UTC) (permalink)

Noc posts preliminary review of movie
Almost missed this in the first go-round... Noctavis posted a quick report of the Halo movie on the rampancy net forum earlier. Worth a read... (Louis Wu 01:51:44 UTC) (permalink)

Misc Art updated

Eric Huang submits a very cool little mascot for our Miscellaneous Art page... go check out Froggy! Thanks, Eric! (Louis Wu 00:46:34 UTC) (permalink)

New poll at Alloy Gaming
Amongst all the e3 hype, Neticule sends word of a poll over at Alloy Gaming asking which upcoming squad-based combat game you think is best. You know what to do. (Louis Wu 00:28:55 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Vault scans in press material
Luxor of Halo Vault has scanned in the Bungie printed material given out at the booth. Quality could use a little improvement... but it's worth a look! (Louis Wu 00:24:53 UTC) (permalink)

rampancy.net movie preview
Ferrex of rampancy.net has posted the first half of his Halo Demo transcript. It'll make you drool... go read it! (Louis Wu 00:22:13 UTC) (permalink)

News May 11 2000

Halo Vault describes new movie
Luxor scores again! Halo Vault posts a blow-by-blow (almost) description of the new Halo movie shown at E3 today. Tons of new stuff there, you need to read it for yourself... a snippet:

A soldier was killed near a ledge, but instead of the body laying half-way over the ledge, it slipped off. Another marine was surprised and impaled by a covenant energy blade. The soldiers mouths moved in sync with their speech. A dying marine took out several covenant and their hover ships with a "thermal detonator". The red covenant know a little of the English language. :)

Anyone have an extra ticket to SF? (Thanks to Luxor and Xero for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 21:02:19 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Dink! The Halo SETI Marines fall a notch to 55. Anyone get the number of that bus? (We can't even tell who passed us!) If SETI would stop losing our units, maybe we could get somewhere... check the 24 hour stats for the gory details. (Louis Wu 15:09:27 UTC) (permalink)

Pictures needed from E3!
What's going on here? We just got this email from an unnamed source:

Those of you fortunate enough to be attending E3, do ??? a favor and grab a bunch of stickers from the Bungie booth (whether Oni, Halo, or Bungie specific) and do your best ninja impersonation: Affix the stickers in the most unlikely of places (Blizzard booth? Lara's butt? [smile!]) and then whip out your instamatic and take some shots of said stickers... a record of the act of Bungie fandom! Keep those shots handy... more to come, soon^TM.

p.s. This is not related to the E3 Photo contest over at rampancy.net, but don't worry, we'll take those pics as well. :)

Thanks guys! :-)

Not entirely sure what it's all about... but the instructions are clear. :) (Louis Wu 14:34:19 UTC) (permalink)

Way-cool info about E3 showings
E3 movie content info! We asked Matt Soell if he could give us a little taste of what was coming this week, and here's what he said:

There were plans to dole out a teaser trailer of what will be shown at E3, but time and circumstance conspired against us.

Here's an idea of what you might see if you were at E3:

• firefights, complete with suckers getting hit and going down
• vehicles flying, driving, exploding
• ambient life doing ambient life-type stuff
• new indoor spaces
• a tidbit of dialog that is sure to set Hamish Sinclair's head spinning

The above doesn't sound all that interesting in its own right, but trust me: what we show at E3 is the sort of thing that will convert the doubters and impress the people who've been following this game all along but wondering what the hell we've been up to for the last year. It will make the MacWorld NY demo look old. It will make gamers and software store owners giddy. It will make other developers envious. It rocks.

-Matt

Matthew Soell
Director of Customer Support
Bungie Software
matt@bungie.com

And don't worry... he didn't mean that those of us not going to E3 will NEVER see this stuff... just that there wasn't time to actually get the teaser trailer out the door. It's coming, never fear! (Thanks, Matt!) (Louis Wu 08:53:20 UTC) (permalink)

GameSpot has a Halo preview
GameSpot have an E3 news pagewhich points to a Halo preview. No real new info and they claim to have four new screenshots but they're not new. :( (Crux Fidelis 08:10:04 UTC) (permalink)

New pic from PC Gamer
mad.max, founder of the Halo SETI Marines, has scanned in the small Halo screenshot from the UK edition of PC Gamer. There's also a neat shot of Doug Zartman. Go take a look here. Nice one Max. (Crux Fidelis 07:25:04 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Vault sneaks a peek at Bungie booth
Kudos to luxor, who's put up what must be the first bungie-oriented E3 report so far. A sneak peek at Bungie's booth! Go read about it at Halo Vault. (Louis Wu 01:08:40 UTC) (permalink)

News May 10 2000

The new Bungie.net goes live
Woohoo! The Jobs redirect was probably just a minor glitch in the process of making the new channel system live... it's no longer a beta test. Bungie.net has now officially moved over to the new setup. Check it out... Customized Bungie News, from fan sites! (Kudos to Shadowfax, who noticed the live main site before we did.) (Louis Wu 16:07:11 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie's World Domination plan ramps up
DNS boo-boo, or something else? io.bungie.net, which has been publicly betatesting the new bungie.net channel system, now points to the Job Opportunities page at Bungie. The tru7h comes out... io is just a front for the corporate machine! (Louis Wu 15:41:35 UTC) (permalink)

OMM opens E3 forum, slams Halo
Is Halo more than a real-time dune buggy movie making tool? Old Man Murray wants to know! (Tip o' the hat to Forensic for pointing this out in our forum.) (Louis Wu 14:39:06 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted

Blam! The Halo SETI Marinestake out another team in the Alien Hot 100 and lay claim to position #54. The Quake team are getting real close! But can we take them?Find out those who are trying on the 24 hours stats page. Join the Halo community effort today. "IT'S CRUNCHIN' TIME!" (Wirehead 14:11:02 UTC) (permalink)

Treats at E3, says Peter Marks of b.net
Thanks to Jamie Bartels, who sent in this little tidbit from Peter Marks, at bungie.net (this was in reference to E3):

Question: blah blah blah  
>Anywho, plz put Halo on a cinema display scr33n  
blah blah blah  

Answer: tbpeter@bungie.com writes: 
>Hmm... I'll spend some time looking into this to see what I can turn up. 
> 
>You may be in for a treat at E3 with regards to Halo...but I'll try not to 
>spoil anything... 
> 
> 
>Peter Marks 
>Bungie.net Administration 

The hype begins... (Louis Wu 13:40:52 UTC) (permalink)

Doug says you're human in solo play
Also seen at rampancy.net: Doug Zartman confirms that in the single-player mode of Halo, you will be human. No aliens for you, Johnny! (Louis Wu 13:27:47 UTC) (permalink)

Interview with Jaime Griesemer at rampancy.net
Some good news over at the Rampancy.net Jaime "Case" Griesemer, Senior Designer for Halo, passes on some info about Halo's tools, communication in multiplayer games and defective players. Go check out the Jaime Griesemer Interview. (Crux Fidelis 13:17:26 UTC) (permalink)

Warcraft III pulls away in GameSpot's E3 poll
E3 tomorrow! And the game people are most looking forward to seeing at E3 is... Warcraft III? Yes according to GameSpot's E3 poll Warcraft III leads with 29% followed by Halo with 27%. Whatcha going to do about it? With over 20319 votes so far it would require a lot of 'tweaking' to get Halo up to #1. (Crux Fidelis 07:32:30 UTC) (permalink)

New Fan Fiction by Kamikaze
We've snagged a very short Fan Fiction piece off our forum... take a look! Thanks, Kamikaze. (Louis Wu 04:42:00 UTC) (permalink)

News May 9 2000

Halo SETI team stats posted
The Halo SETI Marines hold steady in the Team Standings... but several new members come on board, including Scotty with 209 units, which brings us within striking distance of the next couple of teams. See who's helping on the 24 hour and 7 day stats pages! (Louis Wu 14:41:57 UTC) (permalink)

Matt says modems probably okay for multiplayer
Matt Soell, too, stayed up late last night... and passed on a tidbit that ought to make some folks happy: multiplayer Halo will most likely be running just fine over 56k modems. Read about it on our forum! (Louis Wu 09:26:13 UTC) (permalink)

rampancy.net comes online
And from the ashes, rampancy.net is born. The Core is no more, but its content and people are up and running again... looks good. Guess we're going to have to go through and change some links... (Louis Wu 09:19:57 UTC) (permalink)

the Core goes offline
And the Core is dead. At 7 PM PST, The Core went offline. Currently, the system is purging itself... here's what it looked like right after failure. Time will tell what's next for the crew... (Louis Wu 02:06:09 UTC) (permalink)

Halo order SAS comes online
Leonem sends us word of a new Halo order, an all-British team called the SAS. They're not recruiting yet... but want all Brits to know of them when the time comes. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 00:46:08 UTC) (permalink)

Halo, a book with Bungie parallels
Another tidbit spotted on the Marathon's Story page: Seems there's a book, published in 1991, with the title of 'Halo', about a space station named Halo and an AI named... Aleph. Some coincidences are spooky. (Louis Wu 00:42:39 UTC) (permalink)

magazine scan page cleaned up
Thanks again to Phish, who cleaned up another magazine scan for us. looking good! (Louis Wu 00:38:38 UTC) (permalink)

News May 8 2000

I.M. Banks gets cyclical with T.S. Eliot
Hamish Sinclair notices a nice little bit of cyclicism in Iain M. Banks' Culture novel. The title of his latest book, Look To Windward, comes from a T.S. Eliot poem called "The Waste Land"... and this particular passage was quoted at the start of Banks' first Culture novel, Consider Phlebas. (Just to try and tie it all into Halo, another T.S. Eliot quote appears in the Cortana Letters.) Nice spotting, Hamish! (Louis Wu 20:32:47 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam! Another SETI team bites the dust. The Halo SETI Marinesmove up to #55 in the Battle of the Teams. Way to go! Let's keep the pressure on. The Quake team are close. Can you feel them?Find out who's crunchin' and who's munchin' on the 24 hours stats page. (Wirehead 14:23:03 UTC) (permalink)

CGI has Bungie on gamebuilding
We got our hands on the June edition of CGI magazine which features a Bungie profile. Here's a quote:

"By developing the multiplayer mode first the whole team can get a good feeling for the world and how it works, and what needs to be added". Once the game in in production mode it needs then to be debugged, and it turns out that when push comes to shove "debugging is easier on a Mac OS than on the Windows OS".

(Wirehead 09:03:35 UTC) (permalink)

Doug confirms that second face is Shikai
In the midst of the chaos, info. While we let whatever's happening at the Core take its course, we'd like to pull out one nugget from the wreck that is the forum. Char the Pirate passed along that Doug Zartman confirmed that the sniper in the GameCenter shots is Shikai Wang, not Doug himself. The actual quote, on the off chance that all info at the Core is lost, was this:

In a letter to doug telling him what I liked about the shot i mentioned the snipers face (I congratulated him on it). He replied with this, "Thanks! I'd love to take the credit, but I gotta tell you (assuming you're talking about the Gamecenter screens) that that's a pic of Chucky and Shikai, one of the Halo artists. All of the team's faces are in one or another build of the game at this point."

Nice to have closure on that one. (Louis Wu 07:38:06 UTC) (permalink)

Fan Fiction and Miscart updated together
Wow, here's a first... We've had a submission of fan fiction, that comes with cover art! Ian Mankowski wrote a Halo-inspired story, then created artwork for its cover. You can find the pieces in the Fan Fiction section and the Miscellaneous Art section, respectively. (Both are quite good.) Thanks, Ian! (Louis Wu 03:32:50 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Center's Squad Section is recruiting
Got this from Recoil, over at Halo Center:

Halo Center is looking for some Halo squads to host. If you have a Halo squad site and you think it has what it takes to be hosted by Halo Center drop on by the Squad Section of Halo Center and send Recoil and email.

Go on and sign up! (Louis Wu 02:00:21 UTC) (permalink)

News May 7 2000

bungie.org mystery link changed again
Kudos to Forensic, who pointed out on our forum that the bungie.org front page link has changed from ?B? to ??S?. Dan Rudolph's not buying it,though... (Louis Wu 18:46:27 UTC) (permalink)

Halo references in new Culture novel
Just noticed on the Marathon's Story page (who got it from DEHc-3 Halo): The cover for Iain M. Banks' new Culture novel has been released... note the Halo-like Orbital on the right side. Word is, there will be Halo references in the book. (Louis Wu 14:58:52 UTC) (permalink)

nextgen scan improved
Kudos to Phish, who sends us a better scan of one of the images from the Next Generation December 1999 article. Thanks, Phish! (Louis Wu 14:54:15 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Network forum post with Bungie answers
To facilitate curiosity, we're adding a link to the original forum post that spurred the Halo Network news article Freewill noticed. Read it for yourselves! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 14:42:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
The Halo SETI Marines kick into high gear, fueled by a SETI unit return and the addition of TickleSpace #1 and Winston Smith, who brought with them 365 and 414 units, respectively. If the pace keeps up, there should be a team or two biting the dust tomorrow! Don't put yourself on the Your Mom list... crunch those units! Check out who's moving on the 24 hour stats page. (Louis Wu 14:35:53 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Network publishes some Bungie answers
Kudos to Freewill who posts to our forums about a short questions and answers session with Bungie at www.gamesweb.de. Seems a German reader sent in questions to Bungie and got some replies. Go read Freewill's forum post. (Wirehead 13:01:42 UTC) (permalink)

Allan Turner says more models to come
Massa, from Halo Network, asked Bungie about the Gamecenter screens. Allan Turner, tech support for Bungie, suggested that these are but a taste of what is to come. Encouraging news! (You can read his whole quote here.) (Louis Wu 05:41:27 UTC) (permalink)

SETI scope in one piece
Dr. Nick says it's all bunk. That SETI telescope is fine. Dang... we thought it was gonna be proof of alien existence! (Even better than finding pulses!) (Louis Wu 04:09:38 UTC) (permalink)

News May 6 2000

Aliens destroy SETI telescope in South Africa
Not new news to some of you... but hey. ;) Alan Stott sent in the May 5 copy of the Internet Support Newsletter, which contained an article entitled SETI Radio Telescope Destroyed by Aliens! Pretty bizarre stuff... maybe the Halo SETI Marines need to be mobilized? (Thanks, Alan.) (Louis Wu 23:14:43 UTC) (permalink)

New PC Gamer (UK) out with Halo info
Red Curry points out in our forum that the new PC Gamer (UK) is out, a few days ahead of schedule... and it may or may not have new shots. ;) (A followup by Jenkz of Haloplayers suggests that RC's initial assessment might be wrong.) The interview with Doug might be interesting, though... thanks, guys! (Louis Wu 19:49:04 UTC) (permalink)

?B? at bungie.org
B is for? Thanks to Bagman for pointing out in a forum post that bungie.org have changed their secret link to ?B?. (Wirehead 11:12:11 UTC) (permalink)

SETI Server problems
Transfer interrupted! The current SETI difficulties are due to data server outage. SETI techs have this to say:

The data server is currently down due to unexpected problems with how the server communicates with our database. We have been debugging this since early this morning, and there is currently no definite end to this outage in sight. We'll update this message when a solution is nigh.

(Wirehead 11:06:20 UTC) (permalink)

News May 5 2000

No new Bungie Games at E3, says Matt
No new game announcements at E3 according to Matt Soell in a news item at The Core. However they'll be behind closed doors demos to a handpicked crowd of industry and media elites. Oh to be a fly on the wall. SPLAT!!! (Wirehead 21:55:38 UTC) (permalink)

More about Matt's body parts
Matt Soell gives the official line on Adrenaline Vault's timeline for Halo in a forum post. But what do bullocks have to do with it? (Wirehead 20:32:47 UTC) (permalink)

Daily Radar talks about Bungie at E3
Halo gameplay and SECRET NEW GAME! Thanks to MoBill who points out in a forum post that Daily Radar have a news item which claims that Bungie will be showing actual Halo gameplay and their secret new game at E3! Halo gameplay! Secret New Game! Halo Secret! Secret gameplay! Halo game! Secret gameplay!... E3 will you be there! (Wirehead 18:08:15 UTC) (permalink)

The Core gearing up for web page revamp!
Rumors and degradation over at the Core... what's going on over there? (In case you think that you can still trust what you read there, check this forum thread.) (Louis Wu 18:23:44 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam! Another team eats SETI dust! The Halo SETI Marines are back up to #56 in the Battle of the Teams. But can we hold onto it? Keep those units coming marines! A big welcome to Luke Brannon and Scott Cline who join the team with 208 and 198 units respectively. With new recruits like these how can we possiby lose? Find out who's crunchin' and who's munchin' on the 24 hours stats page. (Wirehead 14:24:11 UTC) (permalink)

Adrenaline Vault says Halo Sept 8... yeah, right
September 8th! CyberMaven tells us that Adrenaline Vault have an exact release date for Halo (Sept 8th) and Oni is coming a week after Halo! And then monkeys flew out of my... butt!. ;) (Wirehead 13:54:38 UTC) (permalink)

New Fan Fiction
Peter Ultsch has sent in our first new fan fiction since mid-March... go read it! Thanks, Peter. (Louis Wu 04:26:22 UTC) (permalink)

News May 4 2000

Logos page updated
Fred Carter sends us a number of new logos for our Logos page. Thanks, Fred! (Louis Wu 19:18:45 UTC) (permalink)

The Psyjnir Complex redesigned
Psyrixx writes to tell us that The Psyjnir Complex has been redesigned to load faster on slow connections. (This came in a while ago, but slipped through the cracks.) Go check it out! (Louis Wu 16:06:03 UTC) (permalink)

3dfx has another poll to smash
From BattleGround: Halo, by way of Xero... 3dfx is running yet other "most anticipated" poll. Halo needs your help! (Louis Wu 16:00:00 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam! The Halo SETI Marinestake back position #57 in the Battle of the Teams. But for how long? This is one tough battle. If you're keeping an eye on team movements you'll see some old friends ahead. So let's hear it from the Halo community... "IT'S CRUNCHIN' TIME!". Big welcome to Torpedo 8 who joins the team with 103 units! Are you doing your part to keep space clean?Find out who's crunchin' and who's munchin' on the 24 hours stats page. (Wirehead 14:30:39 UTC) (permalink)

June PC Gamer to have new pics
Seen at Haloplayers... confirmation that the June issue of PC Gamer (a UK mag due on the shelves in less than a week) will have new screenshots. Are you drooling yet? (Louis Wu 12:22:42 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Center going to E3
Dan "R@ge" Wright of Halo Center tells us that their parent network (MGO) have launched a new E3 site. One of Halo Center's tasks is to find out what Halo fans want to see. Use their easy fill in form to ask your questions and to quote R@ge "I will personally get every question answered that I can possibly squeeze out of them". Way to go! :) (Wirehead 07:28:17 UTC) (permalink)

CGW DOES have new Halo info
nicx confirms in a forum postthat Halo features in the new issue of CGW magazine. Just a snippet though. (Wirehead 06:33:24 UTC) (permalink)

News May 3 2000

GameStats and GameSpot both leaning to Halo
Fire Phoenix points out that Halo is solidly in the lead in the GameStats poll (26% to Diablo 2's 22% with 1000 votes in). Make sure you help keep it this way, if you haven't voted yet! The GameSpot poll is a tougher nut to crack... with 11,351 votes, Halo is slightly ahead of Warcraft III. They seem to do IP checking here... but the buffer size (number of IP addresses stored) is less than 2000, maybe much less. If you haven't voted in a while... give it another whirl! :) (Louis Wu 22:51:54 UTC) (permalink)

And still more new Wallpaper
Fred Carter sends in another nice image for our Wallpaper page. These could be the hills behind the two new soldiers... (Louis Wu 17:30:54 UTC) (permalink)

German PC Games says 5% of readers want Halo bad
Thanks to Christoph Schmidt, who sent in info of a 'most wanted' list in the German PC Games. Halo placed 4th, with 5% of the vote. They were beaten by Black and White (32%), Diablo 2 (13%), and Half-Life 2 (7%). Seems as thought Halo isn't making as big a splash in Germany as it is in the US! (Louis Wu 17:12:51 UTC) (permalink)

CGI or CGW, or both? Halo previews abound...
CGI or CGW? Haloplayers reports that the June 2000 issue of CGI contains a Bungie profile... but nicx reported yesterday on our forum that CGW (Computer Gaming World) contains a Halo preview in its current issue. Are these two separate articles, or does someone have their story wrong? (The CGW site has a preview of its current issue on its website, with no mention of Halo or Bungie. The CGI site was singularly unhelpful (and indeed nearly impossible to load). Anyone with more info, please drop us a line! (Louis Wu 15:37:57 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Dink! Nordlichter edges the Halo SETI Marines back a spot on the Team Standings... by 2 units! We need more power, Captain! 24 hour stats show who's pulling their weight... and we've put up 14 day stats, as well, from yesterday. Pax. (Crux Fidelis 14:43:25 UTC) (permalink)

Older new Wallpaper added
Apologies to Fire Phoenix, who uploaded some new Wallpaper to our uploads folder over a week ago... careless, careless. You can see it now, though, on our Wallpaper page. (Louis Wu 06:20:19 UTC) (permalink)

GameStats poll needs crushing
Thanks to David Oosha, who pointed out on our forum that GameStats, the old host network of The Core, is having a "most anticipated game" poll... and Halo is woefully behind. 5 times as many GameStats visitors are waiting for Diablo2 as are drooling over Halo... go show 'em who we are! (Louis Wu 03:00:39 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper page updated
Fred Carter sends a some character-filled desktop for our Wallpaper page... (Louis Wu 01:40:56 UTC) (permalink)

News May 2 2000

Halo SETI team stats posted
SETI server problems last night resulted in a loss of units. Even with the problems Banzif takes the La Crunch honneur in fine style and Kadreal just pips And0 for the Frogblast award. See the 24 hours stats. SETI haven't updated the club team rankings yet so we'll have to sit this one out. Keep and eye on it though. While you're waiting for Halo why not join theHalo community effort to find the Covenant and wail on some teams in the process. (Wirehead 14:22:34 UTC) (permalink)

Poll-crashing time at GameSpot...
Rock the vote! Thanks to Myndreach [OSC] for pointing out that GameSpot have another poll featuring Halo and Oni. What are you most looking forward to seeing at E3?Go tell them that Halo is coming! ;) (Wirehead 05:35:28 UTC) (permalink)

News May 1 2000

Jim Ruiz sets up Oni/Halo Alert list
Word from Jim Ruiz at Bungie is that he's got an Alert list for Oni and Halo... as soon as Bungie has a release date for either game, he'll send a message out to everyone on the list. If you're interested in being on it, drop him a line! (Louis Wu 19:38:37 UTC) (permalink)

Beta test THIS!
Max Hoberman and the rest of the bungie.net crew have been setting up some pretty cool stuff over the last few months, and now they're ready to go into a public beta phase. Stop on by and check it out! (And don't forget to add a few HBO channels to your sidebar...) Pax. (Crux Fidelis 18:38:45 UTC) (permalink)

Halo SETI team stats posted
Blam!... another team bites the dust. The Halo SETI Marines pass Nordlicter for position 56 in the Battle of the Teams. Competition heats up for La Crunch Honneur... but Jjaro Tech holds on for another day. Lord J takes the frogblast award. 133 marines contributed units yesterday... were YOU among them? Check the 24 hour stats! (Louis Wu 14:41:55 UTC) (permalink)

New Wallpaper
Jimmy Parker whipped up a nice little desktop from the new Gamecenter shots for our Wallpaper page. Thanks, Jimmy! (Louis Wu 03:34:56 UTC) (permalink)

May 2000

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