Old news but still good news!

Wow, that's big.
A simply MASSIVE new logo from X - in our Logos section. (Louis Wu 16:55:51 UTC) (permalink)

HBO XBL Gamertag list gets an upgrade
Two months ago, forum regular Tarrsk set up a list of HBO forumgoers and their Xbox Live gamertags, so that people could find friends to play with. Recently, that list moved here, to HBO. Now, it's become quite a bit more automated. The list keeps track of which XBL games you play, and you have full access to your own entry, so that you can add and remove games as you buy new ones or get tired of old ones. All existing entries have been moved to the new system, and assigned random passwords. None of these, of course, have games associated with them, because that information wasn't collected the first time around. If you'd like to edit your existing entry, simply visit the list, and follow the 'Edit your existing entry' link at the top of the page. We found email addresses for most existing entries, so you can have your password mailed to you - once you're in, you can change the password to something you can remember. There were about a dozen entries for which we have no email addresses - if you're one of these, you'll need to mail Tarrsk again with your address. (Follow the instructions on the page for details.) You're welcome to set up a new entry, as well - but be advised that these will be screened; spam will be deleted, and spammers will be banned from the system. Hopefully, this new setup will give people more control over who they play games with! If you have any questions about the list itself, please contact Tarrsk. If you have a PROBLEM with the list (something isn't working properly) contact me - I coded it, and any errors are certainly my fault. (Louis Wu 16:23:09 UTC) (permalink)

Someone at MS is smokin' funny stuff...
Whoa. Nice find by mnemesis. After seeing all those hardcover copies of The Fall of Reach on the Bungie Webcam, he went looking at Del Rey's online catalog... and the latest iteration of the entry for the next Halo novel is rather intriguing. It's now listed in 3 categories, instead of just two. The older two ('Fiction - Science Fiction' and 'Fiction - Science Fiction - Adventure') have been there for months... but now it's listed in 'Fiction - Movie/TV Tie-In' as well. After all those times Matt's said that there's no Halo movie in the works, it looks like SOMEONE thinks Halo's gonna get SOME screen-time... I'm curious to see how this unfolds. (Louis Wu 02:24:40 UTC) (permalink)

From Germany to the US and beyond!
Back in September, we posted a piece of Halo fan art that showed an interesting composite submitted by macro werner. Well, its fame is spreading - you can find this picture (unattributed) on page 91 of the February 2003 issue of OXM. (Interestingly enough, the footer of that page says 'February 2001' - maybe they're having some quality control issues.) Thanks to elect5 for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 21:50:37 UTC) (permalink)

The Fan Music Prototype?
Griffon pointed out that he announced a piece of Halo fan music more than two years ago. (As far as I can tell, this is the FIRST piece of Halo fan music - I'm sorry it's remained buried until now.) You can grab a copy (3.2 mb, mp3 format) from mythica. (Louis Wu 17:00:51 UTC) (permalink)

Morning Pictures
Matt Purcell asks a momentous question, Katana_701 sketches some weapons based on the Halo assault rifle. You'll find the results in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 16:52:12 UTC) (permalink)

Belly of the Beast Remix - now local, too
A couple of days ago, we mentioned a new piece of Halo fan music. We've recently gotten permission from Spiderstyle (the creator) to host a copy here; we've placed it on Mythica's HBO Mirror. It's 3.9 mb, and nicely polished. We'll add comments from the author about the piece as soon as we get them. Hopefully, this will take some of the pressure off Xboxworld.nl, the original host (they still have it available, we're simply mirroring it). Enjoy! (Louis Wu 14:49:02 UTC) (permalink)

HBO XBL Gamertag list up again
Tarrsk's HBO XBL Gamertag list was updated recently - but he's in a place where he has no access to the website. To help out, we're hosting it here at HBO. Find friends now! (For those who don't know, this is a list of HBO forum regulars, correlating their Xbox Live gamertags to their HBO Forum profiles.) (Louis Wu 15:50:00 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50k - back up!
dolbex writes to say that the new, improved Halo50k.com website is up and running. Check it out! (Louis Wu 22:09:49 UTC) (permalink)

If you're really, really bored...
In the December issue of OXM UK, the top 10 plays included a few Halo pieces (as usual). Most were rehashes of standard stuff... but one was something that I haven't really seen filmed before. (This might be because it is so mind-numbingly boring to actually film that nobody wanted to bother... or it might be because it's pretty boring to actually WATCH. Either way, this was the first clip I'd seen like this.) 2 minutes of killing your coop partner, over and over and over again (lots of parts were skipped to keep it from being TOO boring), so that you could drop all the bodies at once. 10 megs to download from Mythica. (You can actually see the end result in a Frogblast movie from many months ago - but in a different context.) Thanks muchly to Griffon, who ripped this for us and sent it along. (Louis Wu 21:38:01 UTC) (permalink)

the 'hog has almost been completely digitized, and instructions should be done within a couple weeks. in the mean time, you can try and scrounge up this piece, cuz you'll need four of em. the only set I know of that has these is number 6933, that blacktron six-wheeled thing. either go find one or get ready to improvize with the smallest shocks you can find.

David also points out that the Moden HL server has moved to 68.115.32.145. Looking forward to seeing the final product! (Louis Wu 21:30:33 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Soundtrack Remix, from the Netherlands
Nadorst points out that there's a Halo remix on the Dutch Xbox site Xboxworld.nl that we've never mentioned before. It's pretty powerful - and rather nicely done. I don't read Dutch, and there doesn't seem to be any way to contact the creator of the piece... but you can download it from Xboxworld.nl either at the above link, or directly from the download page. It's 3.9 mb, in zipped mp3 format. Check it out! (Louis Wu 21:22:31 UTC) (permalink)

Gonna be out for most of the rest of the day. Please don't get antsy if you submitted something. Thanks! (Louis Wu 17:32:16 UTC) (permalink)

PC Halo info - in German
Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox, spoke recently at CPL's Winter Event about Halo for PC. (We mentioned this several days ago, referencing the Gamespot article about it.) There was also a summary at The Adrenaline Vault - and Halo Orbit, the German fansite, has translated this into german. Go take a gander if the english version is giving you trouble! (Louis Wu 03:12:02 UTC) (permalink)

Hoist a Guiness!
The latest issue of the Guiness Book of World Records has given the title of 'Most Advanced Game Console' to the Xbox - and the picture they've chosen to use to illustrate the point is the Master Chief. Not too shabby! (This was posted at Bungie.net - but we received email about 4 hours earlier from md10md.) (Louis Wu 03:05:56 UTC) (permalink)

As much as we'd like to, we cannot accept fiction (or artwork, for that matter) with no Halo influences; we are, after all, a fansite devoted to a particular video game, and not a general host for anything you put together. Thanks! (Louis Wu 15:55:06 UTC) (permalink)

Pictures, pictures, and more pictures
Pair of desktops for you today - Threshold/Earth, and Absolut Halo, rehashed. Check 'em both out in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 13:30:14 UTC) (permalink)

Absolut Artwork
An AIM icon, a hide-n-seek game, some booze, a Christmas wish, and a new enemy... what more could you want from Halo? All these images can be found in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 14:00:33 UTC) (permalink)

3 new wallpapers
Desktop submissions are all composites of bungie.net artwork - and the similarity between the last two is entirely coincidental. (As far as I can tell, these two guys have never met each other.) Check 'em out in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 13:48:13 UTC) (permalink)

Techno Halo
Atom put together an audio tribute to Halo - the link lets you grab it off his server. If enough of you mail us and tell us that the Halo influence is obvious, I'll add this to the Fan Music section of the Miscellaneous page... but for now, just get it from the source. Update: file localized. (Louis Wu 13:26:49 UTC) (permalink)

...a good night.
Well, Christmas is nearly over... but it's still so beautiful here (it's been snowing since 5 am) that there's no way I can clear out the backlog tonight. I'm headed back to the fire, to sip eggnog and enjoy family conversation... fanfiction and artwork will get put up in the morning. Peace to all!

From the HBO crew and our families, to you and yours, we wish you the merriest of holiday seasons. Pax.

We'll be back updating on Thursday, the 26th.

Halo begins to catch up
Poll update: The BBC Game of the Year poll has had another 1600 votes cast since yesterday, when we first mentioned it... and roughly half of those were cast for Halo. Dunno if that was you folks, or other people... but Halo's catching up to GTA: Vice City (which suggests that the theory that a GTA fanboi might have been cheating early on is a sound one). If you haven't voted, stop by! (Louis Wu 15:08:59 UTC) (permalink)

Ideas for new goodies?
Bungie is now taking suggestions for new merchandise for the online store - grunt plushies, anyone? Go read about it at the Underground, and chime in! (Thanks to Ghôlsbane for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 10:45:35 UTC) (permalink)

When Chipmunks go Rampant
Jonas stopped by our forum to say hi - and dropped off three super-cool desktops. Two of them involve a Covenant craft he created some time ago, the Vesper. The third is... something else. Check 'em out in our Wallpapers section. (Louis Wu 19:02:18 UTC) (permalink)

Killtacular!
stosh has added another comic to his 'Blam!' series - this one looks at recent media claims about the powers of Halo. You can tell it's not real, because members of the Taliban don't eat fried chicken, peas, and mashed potatoes... but it's pretty funny anyway. :) (Louis Wu 18:47:44 UTC) (permalink)

Game of the Year poll
Dang... managed to format this, start posting it, and forget to finish, about 4 hours ago. The BBC has an article on the change in video gaming ('it's not just for breakfast any more' - wait, that's orange juice), and while Halo isn't mentioned in the article itself, it is one of the 5 options for best game of 2002 in the poll included with the article. There doesn't seem to be any way of seeing the results now... but go vote! (Thanks to Andrew Czereyski for the heads-up.) Update: Andrew Katz points out that you can see poll results... but they're not very promising right now. Halo has 22.6% of 6200 votes... trailing Medal of Honour: Frontline and GTA: Vice City. Have YOU voted? Update 2: Deimosœ, of Subnova, noticed that it's a Mac/PC thing... if you vote from a PC, your vote is counted, and you're shown the results. If you vote from a Macintosh, your vote is ignored, and you can't see the results (without following the explicit URL above). I SMELL A FIX! Update 3: hehe - maybe I should actually do some testing first. Turns out it's a browser issue, not a platform one. IE can vote - Mozilla (and its variants) cannot. Still fishy... Update 4: lol - should have kept my mouth shut. Works for all browsers, all platforms. Deimos™ suggests that a Vice City fanboi was cheating, and the BBC page maintainers went overboard on the lockdown at first. Seems quite possible. In any case, go vote, and only vote once. (Louis Wu 16:50:13 UTC) (permalink)

I can fly...
Rory Hartley has put together a short (2:03, 7.2 mb) movie called Superman. The techniques aren't new... but the presentation is pretty fun. (Check out the sequence that starts about 38 seconds in...) It's not very big - so we've put a copy up at Mythica, and mirrored it on Pez's FTP server. Take a look! (Louis Wu 14:37:54 UTC) (permalink)

Psyjnir - still down
A little while ago, we mentioned Psyjnir.com would be going down for maintenance. It seems to still be down - there's no word on why, but I'd guess you could check in at Tiridurin, the official Psyjnir.com fansite, for speculation pretty soon. (Or you could go to the source - the Hotline server seems to still be running...) (Louis Wu 13:56:20 UTC) (permalink)

Jedi Knight II Halo model finished
agentJ64 and Darth Epy0n both wrote to let us know that agentJ64's Covenant model for Jedi Knight II is finished. In a forum post, DE links to JediKnightII.Net for the download (14.5 mb). In an email, agentJ64 links to JediKnight2Files.com. Take your pick. There's also an SDK (3.3 mb) for skinners available. Finally, here's a preview of the model (1024x767, 124K). If you play Jedi Knight II... you HAVE to check this out! (Louis Wu 06:48:30 UTC) (permalink)

Solo campaign won't change

Project is "40 percent done"

Minimum graphics card to be supported - GeForce2 MX

Multiplayer will have all new maps, up to 32 players per server

Unlikely to see play between PC and Xbox

Difficulties will be tweaked (read: increased) to compensate for mouse/keyboard

There's tons of good info in here - go read it for yourself. Thanks to all the folks who let us know, either via email or on the forum, about this article (looks like Parias was first). (Louis Wu 06:19:14 UTC) (permalink)

New day, new digs...
Spike writes that Project-Halo has moved, to its own URL. Just a forum at the moment... but it says new content coming in January. (Louis Wu 06:05:06 UTC) (permalink)

Jellied Covie... mmmm
Forum regular Red Loser (back after a short break) posted a wonderful reworking of 'The Night Before Christmas' on our forum. I was inspired to add a bit of artwork. Enjoy it in the spirit of the season! (Louis Wu 04:55:23 UTC) (permalink)

Woo!
Razorback spent about a month brushing up on digital art (sorry) - the first attempt at digital painting makes a pretty gorgeous desktop. Check it out in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 19:26:18 UTC) (permalink)

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2552
A couple of images from Tru7h - another mode of transportion tossed to the curb by Bungie, and an ad for the Halo shotgun. You'll find both in our Miscellaneous Art section. Super-quick update: As I was posting those, another image came in... It's Christmas on Halo. Finally, a decent use for that energy sword! Check out Blade's work here, or see all three in this update at this link. (Louis Wu 19:13:36 UTC) (permalink)

Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body
Another pair of large, spoiler-rich banners from Sir Jivealot - they're in our Banners section. (I still haven't found time to overhaul the section... apologies for the large loading times.) (Louis Wu 18:33:18 UTC) (permalink)

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...
Subnova regular 2 and 2 make 5 has recorded a cool little clip of... SuperGrunt. In his own words:

Very few know the awesome power of flight given to all grunts. I however have managed to convince one of them into showing it off without the helpful nudge of explosive fragmentation grenades. He didn't know I had a camera underneath my trenchcoat, so now all can see the hidden power of grunts.

The movie is 412K (it's only 3 seconds long), and 320x240... but 2 is working on a higher-res version, for anyone interested in using this clip in a Superman-themed music video. Contact him (or us) for more details. (Louis Wu 18:11:11 UTC) (permalink)

Older Halo review found
cHigiRi pointed out a Halo review we missed - back in February, the Swedish site Telenordia looked at Halo and decided it was great. We've added it to our Reviews database. (Louis Wu 16:57:12 UTC) (permalink)

Which one will you choose?
Whoknew dropped off a Banshee-flavored desktop... pick your poison. You'll find it in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 20:58:33 UTC) (permalink)

Big ol' banner
Sir Jivealot has sent in a monstrous, spoiler-laden banner for our Banners collection... this might be the one that forces an overhaul of the section. (Not today, though.) (Louis Wu 20:52:20 UTC) (permalink)

Little bit o' writing
Quiet pre-Christmas weekend... just a couple of Fan Fiction bits:

Take a look... it's not often the offering is this light. (Louis Wu 20:37:34 UTC) (permalink)

Another H2 preview at ZTGameDomain
hipboyscott points out a Halo 2 preview he's written at ZTGameDomain.com - this one's full of Halo: CE spoilers, but speculates on what's in store for the story in Halo 2. Take a look! (Louis Wu 10:47:07 UTC) (permalink)

Interruption of service at Psyjnir
Psyrixx, of The Psyjnir Complex, dropped us a note that the website will be down later today, Saturday, for 'rather serious maintenance'. (Personally, I'm guessing it has something to do with the sticky buns he's been eating while the server case has been open...) (Louis Wu 10:09:49 UTC) (permalink)

Gamers.com previews Halo 2
Gamers.com has put up a Halo 2 preview. It's a word-for-word reprint of the 2-page spread that came out in the Winter 2002 issue of Xbox Nation magazine (we won't be able to bring that to you until January 21, when this issue is no longer on the stands), and most of the information has been seen before... but there are a couple of interesting tidbits. It states (rather than suggests, as other previews have done) that the Master Chief will be visiting another Halo... and it mentions an overhaul of the Human pistol. Go read it! Thanks to Andrew Katz for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 01:49:07 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Game gets a makeover
The French Halo site Halo Game has had a complete overhaul - and what a pretty design it is! There are still a few bugs to be worked out, it seems (some of the links don't work, and the movies are hosted on an ftp server that's currently down), but that's just teething pains... the big work was the site redesign. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 01:26:02 UTC) (permalink)

Brothers in Arms
A very cool drawing from Covenant - a pair of blue MCs. (For some reason, they scream 'Oni' at me... not sure why.) Check 'em out in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 17:15:55 UTC) (permalink)

I see Farquod!
Before I forget - there are a pair of new mirrors for the recently released 'Holiday' video - Rampancy.net (thanks, Vec!) and customsex have both put up copies. This is a good thing, because mythica will be moving soon, and will be down for a bit to make the transition. Links can be found on the Mirrors page. (Louis Wu 06:44:44 UTC) (permalink)

Christmas on Halo
In honor of the upcoming holiday, mnemesis has tipped the proverbial hat to the Battle Cat, a longtime Bungie fan who, once upon a time, wrote a heartwarming Christmas tale. tBC has never made the transition from Marathon to Halo, so mnemesis took it upon himself to update the tradition. Many thanks to Evil Otto, supplier of cool screenshots to desperate fans everywhere. Don't forget the razzleberry dressing! (Louis Wu 06:37:05 UTC) (permalink)

Pretty pictures
A couple of cool sketches from Tina C. (including a Christmas one), and a very nice composite by Ross Mills (would easily serve as a desktop image, but I was working on Miscellaneous Art, so...) - all can be found in the Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 22:19:07 UTC) (permalink)

PC Mag says Halo's the best
Lophan points out that the January 2003 issue of PC Magazine lists Halo as one of the best products of 2002 (yes, even though it was an Xbox exclusive for the entire year). Their description of the game is a little odd:

"As the Master Chief, you can shoot with semiautomatic pistols, rocket launchers, and assault rifles. At the same time, you can raid underground labs and rescue fallen comrades. Prepare yourself for a major story twist in the middle."

But hey - press is press, and it's actually something for a PC magazine to vote a console game 'one of the best products of the year'. It'll probably win again for 2003, since it'll be a PC game during that year... (Louis Wu 21:52:19 UTC) (permalink)

Coming Back
stupid silence dropped off a desktop showing characters he thinks he'll see again. You'll find it in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 21:48:38 UTC) (permalink)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
Hickadam has done it again. His earlier 'A**hole' video set all sorts of popularity records... because it was hilarious, and because the timing was simply spectacular. He's released a holiday movie, to begin to get you in the spirit of the season (something tells me we're going to be seeing quite a lot of this sort of thing), and once again he's provided you with three minutes of reasons to love December. We currently have it listed at Mythica.org, Pez's FTP server, and Psyjnir.com... but we'd love more mirrors for this. It's available in both Windows Media and QuickTime versions - check out our Mirrors list! (Louis Wu 21:25:16 UTC) (permalink)

Halo mural found
Xavier De Coster discovered another version of the gorgeous mural first seen on the cover of the September 2002 Edge Magazine. It's clearly created from the original artwork... which leads me to believe that out there, somewhere, that original artwork exists, in beautiful, hi-res, non-watermarked form. Oooh... in the meantime, go grab a copy of this one from GameWallpapers.com! (Louis Wu 18:39:08 UTC) (permalink)

Free Mini PEZ? Dude - I'm there.
A couple of interesting images for you... Martino sketches the Master Chief, and Brian Josselyn finds another marketing test. (Hey, I'd buy 'em...) Find both images in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 18:38:09 UTC) (permalink)

Vote and contribute
Whoknew has set up a unique site; halo2vote is designed to allow visitors to speculate (in a controlled fashion) about the storyline of Halo 2, and in so doing contribute to a Fan Fiction project to be compiled after two weeks of 'voting'. Check it out. (Louis Wu 18:04:02 UTC) (permalink)

Icon Update
A few days ago, we posted some icons from FunkDaddy, for OSX and WIndows XP. Turns out the Banshee icon for OSX was actually showing a Scorpion tank, and the Scorpion icon (which existed in the XP collection) was missing altogether. The OSX collection has been replaced (it's now 847K, one K bigger), and a new preview (containing all 27 OSX icons, 1024x768, 95K) has been uploaded. The XP collection is unchanged. (Louis Wu 17:23:51 UTC) (permalink)

As Christmas grows nearer, the processing of these might slow a bit... apologies in advance. In the meantime, enjoy! (Louis Wu 16:42:11 UTC) (permalink)

More Parking Mirrors
A quick note - thanks to customsex and vector40 for more mirrors for the Parking Attendant movie released yesterday. If you haven't seen this - grab it now, it's not too big and it's really funny! (Louis Wu 13:57:56 UTC) (permalink)

It's not a segway...
Mutti raided the dumpster behind Bungie's offices, and found some discarded concept art showing an early attempt to get around the slow walking speed. You'll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 21:10:19 UTC) (permalink)

Who are you?
Alex Sullivan wants to know what you're made of - find his challenge in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 21:03:13 UTC) (permalink)

The Funniest Movie in a Long Time
Addam Weirich, showing up out of nowhere, has submitted a hilarious one-minute-long film that all Halo fans should watch. It's really, really funny. Extra points (lots of 'em) for using a soundtrack voiced by Pete Stacker, the voice of Captain Keyes (and Sargeant Stacker) in the game. It was originally submitted as a DivX-encoded .avi, but we know some of our visitors have trouble with that format. We've reencoded it as a QuickTime movie, in two sizes; all three versions (the original, and the two QT encodings) are available from the Parking Attendant Mirrors page. Unfortunately, Mythica.org is unavailable at the moment for hosting (the web server is running, mostly, but the ftp server is not, so I can't upload files), so we've spread this out over a bunch of different mirrors. If the first link you try is too slow, try a different one. We'd be thrilled to add more links to this page - just let us know if you can mirror any of the versions. Luckily, it's not very large - depending on the version you grab, it's only 4 to 7 mb worth of downloading. Go get it! (Louis Wu 18:07:12 UTC) (permalink)

Marty doesn't do Raves
Local problems (Sprint lost another New York router last night at 10 pm) and the need to get up early kept me from hearing the Marty O'Donnell interview at X-treme Gaming Radio last night... but you can hear the stream even now. According to Major Tom, Marty danced around the Halo 2 questions... but was pretty forthcoming on the Halo: CE info. Go listen! (Louis Wu 09:30:27 UTC) (permalink)

PA plays Halo - and has fun
Heh - the Penny Arcade boys played a bunch of Halo last night... and their attitudes are definitely changing. (Even Gabe - though he hastened to point out that even though he really had fun playing multiplayer, he still thinks the solo campaign is 3 times too long.) Thanks to Skeletor for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 02:06:33 UTC) (permalink)

Marty Speaks. (wortwortwort)
Wanna hear Marty O'Donnell wax poetic? Tune in to X-treme Gaming Radio tonight at 9:30 pm EST; he'll be interviewed. Thanks to Matt Soell for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 20:24:17 UTC) (permalink)

Banners
Rough weekend - missed some of the fan-submitted content. This Side Up dropped off a couple of banners - we've added 'em to our Banners section. (That, too, needs an overhaul. It never ends...) (Louis Wu 19:54:01 UTC) (permalink)

Legendary Walkthrough - now as PDF, too
Yesterday, we posted a Microsoft Word document containing the Legendary Walkthrough housed here on this site. (This, btw, made Asmodeus happy.) Moloch was kind enough to save yet ANOTHER version - this one in PDF format for those without access to Microsoft Word. It's 553K, and it's pretty much identical to the Word doc - so grab it only if you don't have the other one. I've linked both on the Legendary Walkthrough page, for convenience. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 18:13:46 UTC) (permalink)

Another version of the Movie trailer
Nukedude has re-encoded Brian Josselyn's Halo Movie trailer in DivX5.01 format; it's as big, screen-wise, as the original, but 10 megs smaller. (You'll need DivX Doctor II to play this on a Mac.) You can download this from Nukedude's server, but if demand is great enough (and I'm sure Nukedude will let us know ;) ), we'll mirror this one, too. (He's also added a mirror for the original Halo 2 trailer, in WMP9 format... we've added it to the mirrors list.) (Louis Wu 17:43:37 UTC) (permalink)

Stories, stories, and more stories
Astounding quantities of Fan Fiction from this weekend:

It's going to be time to reorganize the section pretty soon... (Louis Wu 16:58:25 UTC) (permalink)

SprigganHalo sets up info
Theo Arjona dropped us a line to let us know about SprigganHalo, a website devoted to a series of tournaments based in the San Francisco area. The first one is on January 18, and they'll continue on the third Saturday of each month for the rest of 2003. Details and rules can be found at the website. (Louis Wu 13:51:17 UTC) (permalink)

XBL Gamertag list status update
Tarrsk, maintainer of the HBO XBL Gamertag list, asked that we point out that the lack of updates on that list is due to finals. He'll be done with 'em in a week or so, and will begin updating then. Please be patient! (Louis Wu 01:56:50 UTC) (permalink)

Picture Cleanup
Family day, no updates... been out. Last night, though, we received a bunch of desktops... you'll find 'em in our Wallpaper section. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 01:45:18 UTC) (permalink)

Tha's alotta windows...
Johndoe102 did some rearranging of his desktop to bring you a Halo tribute - you'll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 11:17:28 UTC) (permalink)

Legendary Walkthrough - printable
This came in a week ago, but it was sent to the Halotips address, so I missed it the first time 'round... Chris Swenson has kindly compiled our Legendary Walkthrough (written by Asmodeus) into a printable Word document; download this (196K, zipped) and print it out, and you can have our legendary tips sitting next to you on paper as you work your way through. Thanks, Chris! (Louis Wu 10:58:31 UTC) (permalink)

Team HBO Kicks Butt
Team HBO, a ragtag collection of disreputable folks who share membership in the HBO Junkies Seventh Column chapter, finished in the top two today in The Halo Winter Season Second Round Qualifiers, and move on to the Regionals, to be held February 2, 2003. Way to go, guys! (Read Miguel's update on the event.) (Louis Wu 22:26:27 UTC) (permalink)

Psychedelic, dry, and black
Three new desktops for you today... you'll find 'em in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 12:34:21 UTC) (permalink)

Halo icons for your desktop
FunkDaddy has created a set of 26 Halo icons for use on your computer - there's a set for OSX (128x128, 846K stuffed), and a set for Windows XP (48x48, 269K zipped). You can see a preview of the OSX versions here (968x820, 90K). (Louis Wu 12:21:52 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie HALO comes online
Chris Solomon writes that he's started up a new Halo site, called Bungie HALO - content is growing. Take a look! (Louis Wu 10:12:53 UTC) (permalink)

Love those stickydooms...
Skeletor found a pretty funny comic from VG Cats that's Halo-related. Someone doesn't like Nintendo fanbois... (Louis Wu 20:55:23 UTC) (permalink)

New Halo 2 site opens
Ninjas On Fire, a Halo 2 fansite, officially launches today - full content sections and a forum... take a look! (Louis Wu 20:05:20 UTC) (permalink)

Wonga.
A cornucopia of random art submissions for you today... bikeman and Kyle turn in Yellow Banshee-related pieces, Warbow shares a pretty funny postcard he received, and CYBRFRK passed along a pair of Master Chief sightings in major US cities. (Looks like this might be a rough winter for the MC...) You'll find all the goodies in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 19:27:11 UTC) (permalink)

Final day for contest entries at B.net
A quick warning - if you're working on a Seventh Column theme for the contest, today is the deadline; the winner walks away with a 'hefty allowance at the Bungie Store', and Evil Otto points out that new Halo goodies are coming soon. (Louis Wu 19:14:29 UTC) (permalink)

Yes, it's odd.
Apologies for the downtime (both physical, and in terms of updates). Blame life. To start off with, here are a couple of desktops for you - the Wallpaper section gets bigger and bigger... (Louis Wu 18:47:32 UTC) (permalink)

Blondie ain't got nothin' on MC
Heh - Inky, from Crocodile Bungie, has a dirty Halo disc. It still plays... but he gets some bizarre artifacts. Rather than gripe, though, he squeezed his lemons... and came up with Disco Halo, a 1:33, 9.4 mb film showing some bizarre texture problems. (The Glass MC at the end is AWESOME.) Aside from the flashbacks the music induced, this film is a lot of fun. We've mirrored this at mythica.org, just in case. Update: thanks to Pez, for allowing us to add one more mirror of this flick. (Louis Wu 12:55:19 UTC) (permalink)

Strategies needed at The Junkyard
Ryan 'Mhaddy' Matthews points out that the The Junkyard's Halo Strategy Archive could use more content. If you have any strategies or tips that you'd like to share (whether or not you've already submitted them to the Halo Tips database here at HBO), head on over and hit the submit button! (Louis Wu 11:30:39 UTC) (permalink)

Halo for free
In Germany, Microsoft has decided to sweeten their standard Xbox-plus-two-apps bundle with a free copy of Halo, for all bundles bought between December 11 and December 31. Nice! You can read about it at IGN Xbox. (Thanks to ragereset for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 09:32:11 UTC) (permalink)

Drink away! Drink away!
Heh - Bungie's showing off the newest additions to their merchandise line (hopefully to be available soon in the Bungie Store) - the webcam this afternoon is displaying a Grunt mug. (The black mug behind it is also relatively new - it's the Seventh Column mug.) Thanks to Boss "Wart" Hogg, who first noticed it. (Louis Wu 20:19:03 UTC) (permalink)

Somebody likes us.
A pair of desktop images for you today; one is dedicated to us (unsolicited again - must be the holiday spirit), the other celebrates a more legendary beast. Check 'em both out in the Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 17:48:06 UTC) (permalink)

Pretty Pictures
Our Miscellaneous Art collection grows by three items today; there's a new Halo 2 cover mockup, a Halo-based holiday card, and a teaser for an upcoming Halo-based mod. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 17:32:54 UTC) (permalink)

More HBO Banners
Apologies to all the art submitters in the last few days - life here's getting busy (holidays, and all), and stuff's been piling up. Let's see what I can get out right now. First up: another 4 banners touting the goodness of this very site, created by Tru7h. We're honored! You'll find 'em in the Banners section. (Louis Wu 17:23:10 UTC) (permalink)

Stories and games
Three Fan Fiction pieces were added to the database earlier this evening, but I didn't have time for the news post:

Dispraiser's story was first released a week ago, under the name 'The Lunar 4 Chronicles' - this is a completed version. It's rather large, so be warned. (Louis Wu 00:44:20 UTC) (permalink)

Rate your gameplay
Glen Sanford has created a small program (unfinished at the moment) to rate yourself as a Halo player. Simply plug in the stats from the final screen of a multiplayer game, and it'll rate your skill (from 'Too bad to calculate' to 'Level 10 Spartan II'). Currently it only works for Slayer games... but at 28K for the download, what do you have to lose? (Requires Windows - not sure what flavors; I tried it on XP, and it worked fine.) Glen's looking for feedback; he wants to know if it's worth finishing. (Louis Wu 18:56:38 UTC) (permalink)

Halo/Oni musical tie-in
So a few days ago, I got a message from Bizkit522, a regular over at the IGN Halo board, mentioning the similarities between a couple of Marty O'Donnell tunes. Hurry, from the Oni Soundtrack, kicks in right after Konoko's uncle is killed, and and is a high-tension piece punctuated by quick violins. On a Pale Horse, from the Halo Soundtrack, plays in a couple of places on the Assault on the Control Room/Two Betrayals level(s), and kicks in when the action is about to heat up - it, too, is a high-tension piece punctuated by the same violins. In fact, if you listen, these are very similar pieces (although Hurry is a bit faster - in my opinion, the refinements for On a Pale Horse make it a better piece)... is this a tip 'o the hat by Marty to an older game, or did he just run out of music to use? He's given us permission to let you hear both pieces - you can decide for yourself. Feel free to post speculation on our forum.

These were both ripped at a relatively low bitrate (80 Kbps) - you should really buy the soundtracks for the hi-res versions. (Louis Wu 09:47:25 UTC) (permalink)

To iGames or not to iGames
Although Jester and Psyrixx, two original members of the iGames Players Council, have recently stepped down because of differences with the iGames philosophy, the games go on. Round 2 takes place this Saturday, December 14. Get some details at Bungie.net. (Louis Wu 09:08:17 UTC) (permalink)

We've got mirrors - lots of 'em!
The Halo community, once again proving how much it rocks, has provided you, the viewer, with a boatload of download links for the new trailer for Brian Josselyn's Halo Movie. We've compiled them on the Halo Movie Trailer Mirrors page. (Louis Wu 02:13:57 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Movie Trailer Update
In the hours since we mentioned it, there's been quite a bit of activity surrounding the Halo Movie trailer put up by Blackstar Productions. Nick has created a smaller, modem-friendly version (8.3 mb) which we've mirrored at mythica.org... and Brian himself has posted a smaller (21 mb) version at the home site. This one (as well as the original, 35 mb version) are now mirrored as well at Mythica.org - and we're gladly accepting any other mirror offers. It's a pretty impressive trailer - leaves you wanting the whole thing! (The small version was encoded with the MsMPEG4v2 codec, and requires WMP 9 to view. Jacke points out that there are downloadable codecs to allow this to be seen on Macs, but as far as I can tell, they're OS9-exclusive; I couldn't find a way to watch this in OSX.) (Louis Wu 19:46:51 UTC) (permalink)

Sarge Goes Loony
gd managed to grab a pretty funny sound clip of the Sarge, on Silent Cartographer - read about it in this post, listen to the relevant piece here. I've never heard this in the regular game (gd got this off the one-level demo) - I wonder if it's unique to the demo, or if it's actually there to be found in the full version? (Louis Wu 05:51:06 UTC) (permalink)

That ain't no angel...
Michael DiBiccari knocked down a Banshee on AotCR, and its landing spot was rather timely, given the season. We've added the pic to our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 05:27:54 UTC) (permalink)

That Poor MC...
Bonk comes back from a pretty long absence with a new cutscene blooper vid; 10.5 mb, 2 and a half minutes, in QuickTime 5 format. Messin' with the Master Chief in the Shafted cutscene... to see what you can do with Bungie's prescripted stuff, go check it out at iBonk.com! (Louis Wu 05:09:00 UTC) (permalink)

Halo: The Movie... trailer
The site's being slammed pretty hard at the moment, so I can't even get in to grab a copy we can put up at mirror sites, but it seems Brian Josselyn, of Blackstar Productions, has put up a trailer for his (in production) Halo movie. According to some forumgoers, it's pretty impressive! (Louis Wu 04:59:16 UTC) (permalink)

Of Men and Machines
Whoa, interesting. Mark Levin has whipped up a Circular Room Grand Tour with pictures and commentary about the indoor portions of Assault on the Control Room. This is the first really intense look at the possible meanings behind the structures on Halo... and there are some interesting speculations. Check it out! (Louis Wu 04:34:17 UTC) (permalink)

Raising (Cash in) Arizona
Xboxlanaz, a Phoenix, AZ-based 7th Column chapter, is hosting another big team Tourney, the Halo: Killtacular Invitational, on January 11. Top prize is $1000. You can read all the details at bungie.net. (Louis Wu 04:14:15 UTC) (permalink)

A Banner Day
Five new banners for you - four from Tru7h, who submits a series of HBO banners, and one from doggone, who plays with the 'O' in Halo to come up with a new Halo 2 logo. Gettin' to be a real collection! (Louis Wu 17:08:13 UTC) (permalink)

More Details Emerge
Red Loser has started a site devoted to the legendary Yellow Banshee... check it out for everything there is to know. (Louis Wu 03:34:23 UTC) (permalink)

There was a fourth. You couldn't have known.
While it's true that the Tricks queue has languished for months and its maintainer should be taken out and summarily shot, folks are still discovering cool stuff about Halo. Case in point: Finn, stalwart Halo Story page pillar, has discovered an unexplored area in Halo; a fourth Pulse Generator on Two Betrayals. It's not fully operational... but the architecture is complete. Some of the areas are spooky in their darkened state. Check it out on Team 7hr33's website! (Louis Wu 03:22:22 UTC) (permalink)

Minor Housecleaning
The last two movies uploaded (Halo Hoedown and Priceless Lessons) have been added to the Movies database. Definitely makes life easier when you know where to find it! (Louis Wu 15:55:11 UTC) (permalink)

Priceless Lessons
ArakniZ has submitted a short film with some important lessons to be learned if you want to be a Halo pro. It's just about a minute and a half long, and you can find it in QuickTime 5 (5.3 mb) or WMP 9 (3.9 mb) formats at mythica.org. (Notice that 9 on the Media Player version - this is NOT playable on a mac, or on a PC with WMP 8 or lower installed.) Update: As noted by oddworld18, the content might be considered inappropriate for younger viewers. Nothing pornographic, but definitely mature themes. (Louis Wu 15:17:59 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Tournament in Michigan, January
Jake McCarthy writes to say that there'll be a Halo Tournament at Central Michigan University, in Mt. Pleasant, next month. 4v4 gameplay, $5 team registration, the event will happen in the Carey Dining Commons in the Towers on January 25, at 7 pm. If you want more info, you can call Jake at (989) 774-6367. (Louis Wu 05:43:38 UTC) (permalink)

Halo for PC - see it in Dallas in 2 weeks
Thanks to both Johnny Rotten, on our forum, and Adam Clark, via email, for the information that Gearbox will be showing Halo for PC at CPL's Winter Event. On Saturday, December 21st (yes, that's just 2 weeks from now), there will be a one-hour workshop on Halo, with a focus on development and 'what's new for hardcore online gamers'. Can't wait! (Louis Wu 05:39:26 UTC) (permalink)

Um...
The elusive Yellow Banshee has finally been pinned down - Matt(Uh... #5?) found it in a buried directory on the Bungie servers. (Check out the Camo Banshee, too.) Random Hero claimed to have found it first... but his image proved to be a hoax. You'll have to do some forum searching for directions on how to find this puppy in-game. (Louis Wu 05:31:32 UTC) (permalink)

Hey! They're not working!
Some fun stuff happening on the Bungie webcam recently... Opie captured a rare sighting of the Bungie Webmaster (you can never see him because he's really a ghost), and Second Hand Plasma and Skeletor bring you news of Lego building. (Louis Wu 05:22:11 UTC) (permalink)

US Army brings you tomorrow... today
Maj Hardon found some new suits for US Army soldiers that look to be Mjolnir precursors... check 'em out. (Louis Wu 05:17:42 UTC) (permalink)

Halo audio discussion at Music4Games.net
Music4Games.net has put up a discussion between Marty O'Donnell and Aaron Marks, a freelance composer/sound designer and author of 'The Complete Guide to Game Audio', about the use of audio in Halo and Halo 2. A snippet, Marty discussing how he managed the job for Halo:

Part of my ability to manage the whole thing came because I had no other project to work on. Until Halo, I had been running my own business and had other clients and projects. With Halo, I thought of nothing else, probably almost to the point of obsession (I'm getting help, don't worry). But this enabled me to pay attention to every detail of implementing audio. Jay Weinland, my right hand man here at Bungie, and I shared the same vision for Halo's audio and it was a relief to know that someone else was being as compulsive as me.

Also, just 7 hours after a news post mentioning that we really, really aren't happy with revisions, we received a revision of Bobby Lucas' Sarges Platoon, Chapter 1. I'm going to try again, nicely: We'd really, really, really appreciate it if you'd proofread your stories BEFORE you submit them, and accept the state in which they're submitted - revisions are a pain in the behind for the maintainers. :( I'm gonna hope that this gentle reminder actually has some effect... (Louis Wu 18:16:34 UTC) (permalink)

Flying Elite Banner
Merecatfish has turned in another HBO-styled banner. You'll find it in the Banners section. (Louis Wu 17:15:33 UTC) (permalink)

Random Halo Sighting
op_ivy found an interesting article about a new breed of gaming center... and though no games are mentioned by name, the mockup of what the place will look like has a huge (and I mean HUGE) wallscreen showing... Halo. Nice! (Louis Wu 15:28:09 UTC) (permalink)

Jeff Graham's story was submitted about a month ago - this is an overhaul. We really, really, really frown on overhauls... but I'm gonna let this one go. The existing comments apply to the old version. (Louis Wu 20:35:09 UTC) (permalink)

The PoA... in C-S!
bikeman704 has finished up a Counter-Strike map that prominently features The Pillar of Autumn. Check out some screenshots, and download the map! (Comments should go in this forum thread.) (Louis Wu 16:40:43 UTC) (permalink)

The Halo Boys, revisited
Last spring, Brian Josselyn created a spoof called 'The Halo Boys Soundtrack' - and today, Revolver_Ocelot has submitted an updated soundtrack for it. (It's the same soundtrack, with a new background track.) Just for fun... (It's 628k, in .mp3 format.) (Louis Wu 13:49:08 UTC) (permalink)

The Artwork Keeps Rolling
A composite from the French MOX Halo 2 cover, a vision of what we're happy isn't, and a use for the UNSC flag... all in our Miscellaneous Art section! (Louis Wu 10:15:34 UTC) (permalink)

Jobs, jobs, jobs
Two new (well, one new and one not-so-new) job openings at Bungie - the recently filled Game Producer slot is available again, and there's a need for a 2D/3D artist. Check out the details at Bungie.net! (Louis Wu 03:10:40 UTC) (permalink)

New Music for Sale or Rent
Tru7h and Reconciliation's Music Outtakes section has been updated with a song which was left off the Soundtrack. (Read the news story for details.) Thanks to Exogenesis for the heads-up... usually I get mail when b.net gets updated, but the system is temporarily fuxored. (Louis Wu 03:06:16 UTC) (permalink)

Dunno how you do it...
The writers are working overtime... Fan Fiction for the day:

Images, Images, Everywhere
A veritable cornucopia of Miscellaneous Art, just a few days after Thanksgiving. Personally, I like the For Sale ad, though I must warn you about the spoilers... (Louis Wu 16:56:00 UTC) (permalink)

Background issues
Death and Patriotism... a pair of new desktops in our Wallpaper section! (Louis Wu 16:40:45 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Map - the fans have started!
Covenant has put together a Halo 2 map idea in 3D Studio Max; looks like it'd be fun to play! (I don't see any good reason why this couldn't be made for the PC version of Halo next summer...) (Louis Wu 14:08:16 UTC) (permalink)

QT Hoedown
For folks who have trouble with Windows Media files (you know who you are), Bryan Bayley has kindly submitted a QuickTime version of the Hoedown video. (Any encoding problems can be blamed on me... I made it a bit smaller than its original 40 megs.) You'll find the 14.3 mb file at mythica.org. Hopefully, it won't take me weeks to get this into the Movie database... Update: Both versions of this movie are mirrored on Pez's ftp server. Thanks, Pez! (Louis Wu 22:02:25 UTC) (permalink)

Search that site!
For all the folks who've complained over the last year or so about how difficult it is to find information on the Halo Story site... it now has a basic search function. Works a lot like the search function on the main news page. (Funny, that.) Hopefully, it'll ease your pain. Please don't use it to abuse mnemesis and Finn... they're twitchy enough as it is. (Louis Wu 21:51:37 UTC) (permalink)

To warn you - Lunar 4 Campaigns is rather large. (Louis Wu 15:54:22 UTC) (permalink)

Look! Up in the Road! A Head!
ThetaDot sent in a rendering of the MC's helmet. He never finished the rest of the body (or, indeed, the helmet), but what's there is pretty nice! Check it out in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 10:25:53 UTC) (permalink)

The State(s) of the Seventh Column
A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned an effort to list the top 50 Seventh Column chapters (one per state) in the US. A couple of days ago, a story went up on Bungie.net that the effort had been finished... and now emildux has posted some more details to our forum. Beyond the top 50 chapters, there are all sorts of stats... see where you fit! (Louis Wu 10:09:05 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Hoedown
Bryan and Ross have created another gameplay movie - it's in the vein of 'Rocket Dance', and it's great. (These guys never heard of HBO before they finished the movie...) It's 3:50 long, 10.6 mb big, and in .wmv format (yeah, yeah). You can find a copy on their own server, or a mirrored copy on mythica.org. If you guys find it as fun as I do, we'll probably need more mirrors. (I wouldn't mind a hi-res QuickTime version, either, but that's just me...) Watch this, and see why you can STILL make a gameplay movie based in Blood Gulch and not have it be the same old thing! (Louis Wu 09:57:30 UTC) (permalink)

But what about the Story?
Hefty update for the Halo Story page this evening... and more exciting, it will soon be sporting a search function! For now, check out the latest speculation on all things Halo, and add your own two bits! (Louis Wu 09:39:04 UTC) (permalink)

Finding that tidbit
As you may or may not have noticed, the news search function (accessible at the top of this page) is now a bit more flexible. Searches now default to exact matches - if you type 'Fall of Reach' into the box, you're looking for that phrase. If you don't want an exact match, you have the option of altering the search type right from here. As always, problem reports are appreciated. (Louis Wu 21:33:13 UTC) (permalink)

Halo art
pete_the_duck is working on an interesting project. Without promising anything, let me say that if all goes according to plan, you might see more of this sort of stuff soon... (Louis Wu 20:07:36 UTC) (permalink)

Light on the fanfic
It was a pretty quiet weekend, as far as Fan Fiction goes; we received a comedic entry from Gasmask (which should have gone up days ago), and two stories that didn't meet our length requirements... guess everyone was recovering from the tryptophan in their turkey. (Louis Wu 16:38:57 UTC) (permalink)

Now THAT'S dangerous.
What if Halo 2 used Pelicans in multiplayer? And what if they had cannons? Eric Redmond speculates in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 16:24:05 UTC) (permalink)

Trap shooting, Halo style
Dinky, from HaloJuggaloProductions, sends word of a small (1 mb) video clip showing a pretty nice midair rocket shot. (400% health probably helps; usually, when you get a grenade stuck to your leg, you're dead, not just flying. :) ) It's 24 seconds long; the fun stuff starts about halfway through. WMV format. (Louis Wu 16:17:41 UTC) (permalink)

BlueGamers.com previews Halo 2
Browsing the Battleground: Halo forums, I ran across a mention of a new Halo 2 preview at bluegamers.com. There's nothing really new in it (most of the info seems to have come from the EGM preview last month), and there's some interesting stuff that might be a little too strongly worded (EGM says 'the team is toying with the idea' of detonator mines, but the article suggests they're in)... but hey, it's a preview! (Louis Wu 16:10:35 UTC) (permalink)

More Halo Half-Life stuff
bikeman704 went back to his old Halo stuff (built for Half-Life) and whipped up another pair of images; check 'em out here. Pretty slick! (Louis Wu 15:09:28 UTC) (permalink)

Halo and Marathon... again
Game Girl Advance has posted an article called 'Halo: Original Game, or Sequel?' While we strongly disagree with the conclusions drawn in the article (we - the staff of HBO, not just me), I'm quite pleased they were able to find the info they needed so easily. (The screenshot of Keyes was taken from a pre-release movie put out by Gamespot in October, 2001.) Check it out! (Louis Wu 00:12:01 UTC) (permalink)

MC Action Figure - unofficial
Whoa - someone got tired of waiting for Halo action figures! Check this little guy out. (Thanks to Physalis for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 15:21:02 UTC) (permalink)

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December 2002 Archived News