Old news but still good news!

Potential Problem Heads-Up
A user has just tracked down what had seemed to be a problem with the server here... and I thought it might be worth passing on the information. He'd recently found that images in some sections were disappearing. Further investigation showed that a single line of the navbar on the left of every page was gone, too. (That line was the banners link.) This all got traced back to the ad-blocking feature of Norton Internet Security. If you're running this program, look to the left. If you don't see a link to the Banners section, just below 'Logos' and above the Press Coverage section, you're experiencing this weirdness, as well. (It might be killing all the thumbnails in the Miscellaneous Art section for you, too. It was for him.) (Louis Wu 21:34:05 UTC) (permalink)

You gotta be quick...
Hehe - Cybrfrk has been capturing Bungie webcam images automatically, and this morning, it paid off. Apparently, someone put an MC action figure in the picture for ONE FRAME - Cybrfrk noticed it while reviewing recent captures. You can find details (and the frame) on his site, linked from his forum post. (Louis Wu 19:02:38 UTC) (permalink)

Interested in a lanfest?
A group of halo players that gets together every Saturday night is looking to recruit players for their lanfests. The only problem is... nowhere in the email I was sent, OR on their website, do they list where they are! The website mentions gatherings in both Ecourse and Plymouth - both towns in Michigan. However, according to MapQuest, they seem to be almost 200 miles apart... so I'm not sure about that. Anyway, you can visit their website: the Dust and Echoes Halo League, and if what you see interests you, drop 'em some email and see where they are. Update: Moloch points out that according to their FAQ, they're in southeast Michigan, in the greater Detroit area. (The FAQ link is on the RIGHT side of the top image, and wasn't visible to me, in my 800-pixel-wide browser window... one of the dangers of framed sites.) (Louis Wu 16:11:30 UTC) (permalink)

Insert Witty Pants Reference Here
Last chance to get into Bungie's pants... contest closes tomorrow. How much money IS in there? (Louis Wu 22:39:53 UTC) (permalink)

The stories begin again
Six Fan Fiction submissions in the past 24 hours - and zero rejections due to the new rules. Nice!

MC in UT2003
Strato ran across a Master Chief model for UT2003 - you can find it at UT2003 HQ. The download is just over a meg, and there's a screenshot (mirrored locally in case it vanishes) to show you what you're getting. (Louis Wu 10:15:28 UTC) (permalink)

Lots and lots of pretty pictures
Recently, there was an impromptu art contest on our forum. A couple of the contestants were Postman and Shishka - both have have their entries added to our Miscellaneous Art section. (There are a couple of OTHER images in today's update, as well. Check 'em all out!) (Louis Wu 10:06:46 UTC) (permalink)

Fight For Her... and Cortana
A pair of desktop images were submitted recently - you'll find 'em both in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 09:42:24 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50K mirror
Thanks to Whoknew - his Halotics server is the newest mirror to grab the new Halo50K Framework movie from. (As one discerning viewer wrote, this movie "was so good it was scary." He warn't kiddin', either. (Louis Wu 23:23:00 UTC) (permalink)

I'll buy THAT for a dollar... um, 7!
Holy Paperbacks, Batman - Halo: The Flood is now available for pre-order at the Bungie Store! (Wallpaper from the cover coming soon. Read about it here.) (Louis Wu 20:09:02 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 details emerge
Some Halo 2 tidbits at SPOnG.com today - some information we knew about, some that might be new. (The ability to sprint was mentioned in a few print articles... but that the MC lowers his weapon (so firing is out of the question)? That's new, I think. And the 'Expect a hands-on opportunity at the May's E3 in Los Angeles' is DEFINITELY new.) Thanks to eva05 for the heads-up. Update: Ouch, seems I'm being burned by the double-reporting bug, too. Opie301 points out that the info from SPOnG was reported in both the GamingWorld X preview (posted in September), and (more damning for its freshness) the Bungie.net Halo 2 FAQ put up by SketchFactor a couple of weeks ago. Sorry, folks! I'll get back into the swing of it all soon. (Put this one down to rustiness.) The hands-on stuff, assuming it's not just conjecture, is still new. Update 2: Matt sez, "It's conjecture." I'll get you for this, eva! (Louis Wu 18:59:50 UTC) (permalink)

A Movie To Learn From
Yee-haw! Mythica.org is back online (as some of you have already noticed), and we're gonna stress-test it RIGHT NOW. Dan Chosich, who's proven himself to be a pretty talented moviemaker, has created a full promo movie for the Halo50k event coming up in Atlanta in a couple of months. (Yes, there have been other movies made by him for this event... but this is the big enchilada, the piece he's been working towards for months.) It's oh-so-professional-looking, and should inspire you to want to kill your friends. (In a game of Halo, of course.) There are two flavors - a big one and a small one, both in QuickTime format. (Warning; I had trouble running the large one on a slower machine; if you experience this, grab the smaller one.) Currently, only Mythica and the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server have copies of these movies... but we'd LOVE to hear from you if you have bandwidth to spare; we'll add you to the mirror list. Go grab this film now. (There are many, many films in the queue right now, but we can't release them very quickly, because of our bandwidth limitations. We'll pump 'em out just as quickly as we can...) (Louis Wu 18:25:21 UTC) (permalink)

More short notice - big money
Hehe - speaking of late notice... Jacob McCarthy writes to point out the 2003 Northwest Regional Festival and Tournament, sponsored by the International Video Gaming Federation. Online registration is closed... but On-Site registration will be available on Saturday morning. The event covers a bunch of games, but the Halo portion has a $50 entrance fee, and a first-place prize of $8000. Gameplay rules are rather bizarre (first to 30 kills? How are they going to judge that?), but hey, the money's good. It's a two-day event (Saturday, March 1 and Sunday, March 2), and 'Come and Watch' passes are available for purchase as well. This will take place in Bellevue, Washington - more details are available on IVGF's website. (Louis Wu 17:52:09 UTC) (permalink)

Short Notice on a Florida Halo Tourney
Ouch - sorry for the short notice on this one, but it was submitted as an add-on to a movie readme in our uploads directory; since Mythica was down for so long, it's simply been sitting in the 'to be dealt with' pile. MCheif-117 is holding an 8-hour Halo tournament in Vero Beach, FL, this Saturday night, March 1. It starts at midnight. Entrance fee is $10/head ($40/team), first place is guaranteed at least $100. Check out the details at the 7th Column Chapter of the Florida Halo Community. (Louis Wu 17:22:05 UTC) (permalink)

More Fiction Options
Rams, the head honcho over at Battleground: Halo, writes to point out that BGH is opening their own Fan Fiction section. They're willing to provide a home for ALL fiction, as long as it's legible. This is great news for fiction writers - you can have your work shown on more than one site, if you choose... and if you find our new Fiction guidelines too strict for you, BGH is happy to help you out. Write more! (For more information, drop them a note.) (Louis Wu 15:11:25 UTC) (permalink)

Platform Loyalty
Heh - the PS2 is defined by its processor, the Xbox by Halo. At least according to THIS comic... (thanks, Cybrfrk) (Louis Wu 15:04:57 UTC) (permalink)

Sleeper, Awake
Woohoo! A venerable name in the Halo community, Haloplayers, has woken up! New site design, the beginnings of a content flesh-out, and the promise of the return of the Squad Centre, a place for Halo clans to gather. Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 05:41:42 UTC) (permalink)

With Trepidation, Fan Fiction Reopens
The Fan Fiction section of this site has been closed to new submissions for two weeks. Several options for overhauling the submissions procedure have been considered - most were discarded due to time constraints. The new rules are about as simple as I can make them. The length requirement has been increased slightly. The types of submissions we will accept have been restricted to three. Basic common sense has become a requirement in the submission process. A brightly colored box has been placed at the top of the Fiction section - if you miss it, you're blind. The new guidelines have been posted in a much more concise manner. If you submit a story that does not conform to these guidelines, we will simply throw it away. We will not contact you to tell you we did this. Subsequent inquiries will be directed to the Guidelines page. Several frequent submitters have suggested that we institute a screening process by which new fiction submissions are vetted by community members before being submitted to the archive - we haven't implemented this yet, but it's not off the table. If the quality level remains where it was when we closed down, we WILL set up a screening panel. As of now, the Fiction section is open for submissions... hopefully, the new rules will help, rather than hinder, the overall productivity of the site. (Louis Wu 05:01:24 UTC) (permalink)

So THAT'S what happened to Greg...
A window into Bungie Culture... ouch. (A little more detail can be found here.) (Louis Wu 03:09:44 UTC) (permalink)

Screenies - with no HUD!
Spec Ops Elite came up with a pretty cool technique for taking screenshots that are similar to Bungie's cursor-less shots. They require a modded Xbox, and it only works in the latter half of the game - but if you meet these requrements, the basic steps are described in this forum post. Examples of what you can do with it are here, here, and here. (All of these images are under 50k each.) The possibilities for moviemakers are mouth-watering... (Louis Wu 18:51:54 UTC) (permalink)

WideSpaceHalo... a bit narrower
Random Hero took BOLL's recent tri-monitor desktop and created a single-monitor version with all the images. You'll find it in our Wallpaper section. Update: oops, missed one - here's another from Michael Frank. Enjoy. (Louis Wu 18:28:15 UTC) (permalink)

More Isi love, plus sketches and such
9 new pieces of non-wallpaper art, including two cool tributes to Brian Morden. There are a couple of other gems in the bunch, as well - check out the Miscellaneous Art section! (Louis Wu 22:01:36 UTC) (permalink)

Random Halo Site News
A number of Halo sites have come online, or dropped offline, or whatever. These are the ones who've asked for some coverage. Kyle Gallagher has put up Kyle's Halo Website. Bullet, who started Halo World almost 2 months ago, has pulled it down and replaced it with a page about a band. Firestrike (now Shadowfox) wrote to ask for feedback on the site design (and a plug) for Wams.Fireion.com - but when I suggested (politely) that the design was pretty much of a ripoff of THIS site, and that maybe content should be fleshed out a bit, he told me to blame the site designer. And that's the link news as we know it. (Louis Wu 20:35:59 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper collection updated
Whoa. Back... and faced with thousands of emails. The nice part is, Count Zero has taken care of a large chunk of the Halo ones. One thing he left, though, was artwork - there are 8 new desktops submitted in the past week, and you'll find 'em in our Wallpaper section. There are also 3 images submitted last week that got their own page; BOLL requested that they be submitted, individually, to the Wallpaper section. Miscellaneous Art coming soon. (If you submitted a desktop via ftp, and you don't see it in this collection, it's probably because you didn't bother to tell us who you are.) (Louis Wu 19:59:34 UTC) (permalink)

Ooo, they're working on Harry Potter too!
Westlake Interactive, the folks doing the Macintosh port of Halo, have updated their progress page with the news that Halo has reached the Prototype stage, which they define as "far enough along to have some interface drawing and most data files loading, but not far enough to actually play." (Westlake and Gearbox are mostly independent at this stage, so this news has no bearing on the progress of the PC version.) Thanks to Michael Paulus for pointing this out. (Count Zero 17:13:16 UTC) (permalink)

Quick Mythica Update
Looks like Mythica, our main movie bandwidth provider, will be up and running sometime this week - most likely late in the week. For all those who are jonesin' for movies... fear not, we'll have access again in a few days! (Louis Wu 14:18:14 UTC) (permalink)

We love you, Brian.
Quick update from the guy who doesn't post... too often, on the Brian Morden Memorial Halo Lanfest, held last night at the Morden house. Sounds like it was the place to be. (Louis Wu 07:23:49 UTC) (permalink)

iGames Spring Season Tourney info
iGames, the folks who sponsored the National Halo Winter Season Tournament, has set up the iGames National Halo Spring Season. This one is a doubles tourney - two-player teams. Entrance is $15/player for the local tournaments, $20/player for the regionals. More info can be found on the iGames site. Thanks to ninja on fire for the heads-up. (I'm not really back yet - gonna spend all of tomorrow on a plane. Thought I'd try and fill in while the rest of the staff pay their respects to the Morden family in Pennsylvania, though...) (Louis Wu 07:08:40 UTC) (permalink)

In Memory
The entire remaining staff of HBO is currently en route to Brian Morden's memorial, so the news has slowed down a bit. Things should be back to normal by Sunday. (Count Zero 00:47:29 UTC) (permalink)

So the dinosaur was really 32 feet long?
Bungie.net has posted an interview with Curt Chiarelli, Sculptor, the actual creator of the Halo toys spotted recently. Thanks to Red Loser for noticing this. (Count Zero 02:36:25 UTC) (permalink)

On the forum this morning, Lacsap posted a link to an article about the recent resurgent interest in movie tie-ins with video games. Obviously Halo is mentioned as being shopped around. But it's not just some little title being bandied about, it's actually, according to the article, backed by one of the largest agencies in the biz, CAA, which was once Michael Ovitz's home.

Of course, Matt, Official Bungie Spin Doctor, had a while back mentioned how suspicious Bungie was of the whole movie tie-in thing. And can you blame him? Still, we'd be foolish not to keep our ears to the ground on this one.

Update: Matt has chimed in with an explanation. They've been signed up with CAA for quite awhile, and as far as Bungie is concerned, CAA is only poking around to see who's interested. Bungie's busy with Halo 2 at the moment. A Halo movie is not something they're at all concerned about.

Guess they finally found Jonesey
A new artist has appeared on the forum, and despite rampant self-deprecation the drawings are very good (the post originally referred and linked to "Marine killing unspecified things", Postman updated his page afterwards). My favorite is definitely this one. (Count Zero 19:57:39 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie guys... They're everywhere.
Bungie.net has tracked down one of their own and interviewed Doug Zartman, who left Bungie around the time of the Microsoft acquisition. Lots of fun stuff in there about the upcoming toys and novel! (Count Zero 07:20:57 UTC) (permalink)

The Master Chiefs Behind the Game
An email from the raVen tipped us off to an interview with Bungie artist Shikai "Shiek" Wang. Woohoo, UIUC! (Count Zero 16:23:45 UTC) (permalink)

HCC Update (long overdue)
This came in a while ago, but got missed - vacation can do a number on concentration. Halo Command Central has overhauled the site design, and content is growing. Graphics work is stunning. (Check out the extracted characters and vehicles!) (Louis Wu 08:13:01 UTC) (permalink)

The Ultimate Desktop
BOLL sent us a collection of three images, created from Bungie.net shots and NASA images, that are designed to be used together on a 3-monitor array. If you've got the screen real estate, this is a pretty fine desktop collection to use on it! And because these came in to our FTP site, they've reminded me that we've recently gotten many uploads with no attribution - if we don't know who made it, we're not going to post it. Drop off a small text file, containing the relevant info (name, email, what file you've uploaded, that sort of thing) - just like BOLL did! (Louis Wu 00:06:02 UTC) (permalink)

New Wallpaper
A new composite desktop is now available in our Wallpapers section. (Louis Wu 22:18:45 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Orbit translates Halo 2 FAQ
Came in yesterday... but we couldn't post it. Xerxes, of Halo Orbit, writes to say that a translation of the Halo 2 FAQ posted recently on Bungie.net has now been translated into German. For non-english speakers, this might be a better choice... (Louis Wu 21:26:04 UTC) (permalink)

Lots of pretty pictures
Four new art pieces - two nice composites by gizella Varga, an all-too-true strip by dogsounds, and a gorgeous rendering of AotCR. Check 'em all out in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 20:41:15 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie.net update - majorly
Bungie.net comes back to life... and the updates are too numerous to mention. Go read about 'em. Short synopsis - Achronos rocks. (Louis Wu 20:26:31 UTC) (permalink)

Brian Morden update
For those interested, the Brian Morden Fund page has been updated. Brian's parents wrote an obituary for him on our forum - we've added it to the page. (Louis Wu 19:03:00 UTC) (permalink)

Downtime is no fun.
Apologies for the 18 hours of downtime - HBO is back up and running again. I can't guarantee it won't go down again - but I CAN guarantee that the cause for this recent outage will never, ever happen again. And that's all I'll say about that. (Louis Wu 18:34:57 UTC) (permalink)

Mmm... standards
THR8807 has found an interesting trick on a PC mod site: How to give an Xbox controller a standard USB connector. The process is not for the faint of heart, and requires completely disassembling the controller. But maybe now we can settle all the controller-vs-mouse arguments... (Count Zero 16:49:32 UTC) (permalink)

The answers to your Halo 2 questions
Back to Halo: a few days ago, SketchFactor, Bungie's newest member of the Online Team, wrote a Halo 2 FAQ over on Bungie.net. It covers a substantial number of subjects, and contains lots of good info we can point to - always nice to have an official source on this sort of thing. Several people emailed us or posted this information to our forum, but as far as I can tell, Felix was first. (Louis Wu 01:09:47 UTC) (permalink)

The Fall of a Warrior
I, too, will miss Brian Morden - he epitomized, to me, the strength of human spirit and the power of faith. That a teenager could keep up the courage to fight so long, and so hard, against a disease that simply wouldn't give up reminds me that we're stronger than we look - and I'll always owe Brian for showing me that grace and humor don't have to disappear in the face of personal horror. I spent most of yesterday on a plane, and was sleeping when Brian passed away this morning - but in lieu of a 21-gun salute, I'd like to offer a high-quality recording of Brian's single spoken line in the Halo script. (Thanks to Marty O'Donnell for providing this.)

The Autumn! She's been hit! (QT format, 76k)

If you're interested, you should also read poena.dare's eloquent tribute to Brian, over at Bungie Sightings. (Louis Wu 00:07:18 UTC) (permalink)

Now where the heck is my grunt plushie?
As below, the American International Toy Fair started today, and pictures of the Halo figures on display are already hitting the web. There's a nice collection at Figures.com, including several Halo figures on this and the next few pages (use the "2", "3", and "4" links at the bottom). Thanks to Spartan ][ for noticing this. (Count Zero 14:31:03 UTC) (permalink)

It is with a heavy heart that we here at BORG announce that Brian Morden, aka Ar-Isildur, died at 5:55AM. He was 19 years old. His younger brother, Jamin, posted a note on our forum telling us the sad news. Please reply with good thoughts.

I and a few others have actually met Brian in person, and I feel privileged to have been in the company of someone that was both a lover and a fighter. Brian shocked his doctors by fighting the cancer that was eating through his body to the bitter end. Yet through out it all, his love for his friends and family never faltered, and we never failed to give it right back to him.

You didn't have to meet him in person to see what a great guy he is. Just do a search through the forum's archive for his posts. You will see that we have lost a warm and decent human being.

For the man that popularized "<3", it is only fitting that he stayed with his family and friends through Valentine's Day. Brian was no fool.

Cortana goes to the fair
According to Team Xbox, the upcoming Halo action figures will be shown at the 100th annual American International Toy Fair in New York, starting... tomorrow. (Anyone who actually makes it to the fair... TAKE PICTURES!) The fair runs through Wednesday, February 19. Thanks to Strato for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 10:11:15 UTC) (permalink)

EGM articles yanked
Upon request from the publisher, we've removed all Electronic Gaming Monthly articles from our Press Scans section. We apologize to EGM for violating their copyright (we were under the impression that we had at least a tacit okay for this, based on communications with EGM personnel), and we apologize to anyone inconvenienced by the removal of this information. (Louis Wu 09:42:59 UTC) (permalink)

Yank me, sweet cheeks
Bungie's superstar intern Skip Weasel gets into the holiday spirit with a guide to love on Bungie.net. Neither Bungie Studios nor Bungie.org are responsible for the consequences if you choose to take his advice. (Count Zero 05:10:20 UTC) (permalink)

Speedrunning Halo, revisited
A few days ago, Åstro dropped into our forum to suggest that he was trying to speed-run Halo again. He was shooting for a 90 minute full runthrough, on Legendary. Yesterday, we got mail from Rory Hartley and Bill Copeland, a pair in Calgary, Canada that have done a full run-through on Easy:

Total time there: 110 minutes, 52 seconds. (I'd guess this means Åstro's estimate might be a little optimistic...) Rory and Bill weren't counting beginning and ending cutscenes, and they skipped all skippable cutscenes. (It's unclear what rules Åstro and company are playing by.) Could this be the start of some friendly competition? (Louis Wu 12:52:08 UTC) (permalink)

His life is a waking dream
In what is clearly one of the most bizarre interviews Bungie.net has yet published, Matt Soell interviews the Disembodied Soul. The beauty of this one is, you can reproduce it yourself! (Ask Matt's questions, you'll get the same answers.) For long-time Bungie fans, learning about some of the Soul's girlfriends might be the highlight of this one... The Soul, unfortunately, is clearly behind the times:

Question:	What do you know about Halo?
The soul says:	I'm a soul, not a psychiatrist. Ask me a question about one of Bungie's games. That's what I was enslaved to answer.

Everybody's a comic
In an attempt to show up Lorraine R. McLees, Stosh has put up a Valentines-themed comic of his own. (Give it up, Stosh.) Don't forget the site itself... I think he's just bitter cause he got beat by a girl. (Two, if you count Lorraine.) Update: DOH! Wrong comic. (No wonder I had troubles with it...) Try this one. (I still give the round to Lorraine, though. This one's pretty funny... but the Halo Babies can't be beat.) (Louis Wu 00:44:58 UTC) (permalink)

The Fight Continues
Another Brian Morden update from SilverBrin - the news isn't great, but the power of positive thinking is astounding. We have nothing but love for you, Isi... (Louis Wu 00:29:18 UTC) (permalink)

KYA - in style
Last fall, a dozen or so website maintainers in the Xbox community were invited to Microsoft's headquarters for XBL Bootcamp, a two-day infofest on Xbox Live (then a month or so from release). Yesterday, the marketing team that organized that event, AEG, sent out some pretty nice Valentine's Day boxes... you can see a couple of pics in this forum post. Mmm... the chocolate is GOOD! (Louis Wu 00:27:17 UTC) (permalink)

Valet Parking gets another mirror
Whoknew writes to let us know he's added a mirror for Valet Parking, a movie we mentioned about a month ago. In these days of tight bandwidth (mythica is still down), it's good to know there are volunteers out there! (Louis Wu 19:36:55 UTC) (permalink)

He did WHAT?
Whoa - he's right. opie301 noticed that the Halo Story page was updated at the beginning of this week - I missed it entirely. It's not a big one, but it's another piece of the puzzle... (Louis Wu 19:08:41 UTC) (permalink)

10,000 words or so
A serious collection of artwork for you, finally - 10 images, ranging from pen sketches of battle scenes to a visual apology for a fan fiction joke. The highlight, for me, I think, is the Silent Cartographer render. Check 'em all out in the Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 12:41:30 UTC) (permalink)

The start of the pics
Finally clearing out some of the backlogged artwork - first up, two desktops in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 11:35:34 UTC) (permalink)

We need a Halo Hall of Fame.
Proving once again that ingenuity and perseverance will eventually solve most problems, Frogblast performs a Halo trick shown to be possible only yesterday - and this time, there are no hacks involved. This trick contains spoilers, for the 6 of you who are still avoiding them. For the rest of you, watch this and giggle maniacally. (Louis Wu 10:27:17 UTC) (permalink)

The Book's The Thing
There's an interesting article over at Publisher's Weekly about the emerging market for video game tie-in books. They're more than a gimmick (as the article makes clear), and they're a reasonable source of income, as well:

Sales for Halo and Resident Evil sell about a third of what the biggest science fiction titles, like those by Terry Goodkind or Robert Jordan, do, while second-tier titles, such as Orson Scott Card's novels or the Dune series, sell only twice as much.

I wouldn't have considered Card as 'second-tier'... but maybe he is, from a sales standpoint. In any case, swing by and read the piece! Thanks to Eric Trautmann for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 20:08:01 UTC) (permalink)

Milk it, baby.
mnemesis and cybrfrk both sent in links to articles about the Xbox Greatest Hits program (one at Yahoo, one at CNN) - the gist is that MS is slashing prices on some Xbox games. The reason it's Halo news, however, is because Halo is NOT being included in the 'Platinum Hits' program - according to Ed Bland, a sales director at MS, it's still doing very well at $49, so they're keeping it there. Way to go, Halo! (Louis Wu 14:56:02 UTC) (permalink)

Words fail me.
...Wow. I mean... wow. Update: upon consideration, I feel I should point out that at least two of these movies have pretty serious spoilers for REAL tricksters - they show things that might ruin one of the last remaining 'big' tricks left to do. Don't watch them if you're intent on doing this trick on an unhacked box. (Frogblast makes it clear which movies these are - this note is simply an attempt to help you resist the temptation.) (Louis Wu 11:58:02 UTC) (permalink)

The last of the stories - for a bit
The last Fan Fiction update for a couple of weeks:

There is almost 500k worth of text here to read - and the last update was 72 hours ago. Two of these stories (The Marine Chronicles and Under the sergeant's cap) are over 150k EACH - beware if you're on a slow connection. When the Fan Fiction section reopens, there'll be some new ideas for you all. (Thanks to all who've written - there have been some great suggestions, and you've given me lots to think about.) (Louis Wu 11:48:24 UTC) (permalink)

Movie bandwidth provider offline
First Fan Fiction... now movies. Brian Towne writes to say that the mythica.org server is having disk troubles... it might be a few days before it's up and running again. The movie queue has just been delayed again... Please be patient. (Louis Wu 02:17:57 UTC) (permalink)

IF YOU WRITE FAN FIC - READ THIS
ATTENTION - ALL FAN FIC WRITERS: Effective immediately, and for the period of two weeks, the Fan Fiction section is closed for submissions. (There are 16 stories in the queue right now - those will be posted in the near future.) Any stories that arrive between now and 00:00 UTC, February 26, 2003, will be ignored. They will not be posted after that point - I do NOT have the resources to keep track of submissions during this timeframe. Some MAJOR changes need to be instituted; there is simply too much material coming in, and most of it, frankly, is crap. I'm getting demoralized formatting it. Suggestions are welcome, and I'll do some thinking as well. That is all. (Louis Wu 22:59:01 UTC) (permalink)

What to know when you're writing
A long time ago, vector40 wrote a guide for Fan Fiction authors on filetypes, and what you should think about when submitting fiction here. It was hosted at Zenith, a site devoted to Fan Fiction authors that has since gone under - but vec has dredged up the piece for the edification of current writers. Worth a read, if you're submitting stories to us. (Louis Wu 13:39:53 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Action Figure Info
HomeLAN has a Q&A with Chris Huisman, product manager for Joyride Studios (the guys that are making the Halo collectibles) posted. They're shooting for a July release for these products, and from the interview it sounds like there'll be plenty of detail to the figurines... but I wanna know... who's this guy? (The linked image at the top of the article is HUGE - 2.2 mb, and almost 3000x2000 pixels. Nice view of three models!) (Louis Wu 09:38:46 UTC) (permalink)

Wasted Water, and Wallets With Legs
Two new pieces at Bungie.net - A rundown of the Bungie Pentathlon 2003 (the Bungie Pentathlon is an annual beat-the-hell-out-of-your-coworkers event at Bungie), and a new Soapbox article from Matt Soell—the first in over a year—on what, exactly, the Bungie Way is all about. Both worth reading - nice to see Matt's writing for the public again. (Louis Wu 09:27:18 UTC) (permalink)

Big Money in Michigan
Steve Messinger writes to let us know of another Halo Team Championship tournament. (We mentioned their last event a few months ago.) This one is taking place on March 22nd, in East Lansing, MI. Entry fee is $10/person, and the field is limited to 50 teams. Microsoft is helping to sponsor the event, and there are over $4,000 in cash and prizes. Take a look if you're in the upper midwest! (Louis Wu 00:57:51 UTC) (permalink)

More Self-Righteous Info
Self Righteous has picked up a couple more mirrors (and a thumbs-up from moviemaker Dan Chosich), so we've put together a full mirror list. If you haven't grabbed it... it's only 13.7 mb! Thanks to Dinky, of HaloJuggaloProductions, and That Weasel, of That Weasel Television, for the bandwidth. (Louis Wu 22:05:44 UTC) (permalink)

Easter Egg Info
We get an awful lot of mail from folks who seem to be confused about what constitutes an 'easter egg'. So much, in fact, that it was finally worth my time to write an Easter Egg FAQ, of sorts. Check it out for what we consider eggs - and what we don't. (Suggestions welcome, but there's no guarantee we'll agree with you.) (Louis Wu 19:39:29 UTC) (permalink)

February OXM Halo 2 info
The February issue of the Official Xbox Magazine (off the stands as of the 7th of this month) had a one-page quick look at Halo 2. nukedude was kind enough to scan this for us and send it in. (Normally, this wouldn't be necessary - I subscribe to this mag, and usually scan it myself. I never got to it this time, though, so his efforts are appreciated!) You'll find it in our Press Scans database. (Louis Wu 14:59:18 UTC) (permalink)

One month of the webcam
On January 13, kapowaz bundled up an archive of images taken from the Bungie webcam over the span of a month - every 5 minutes, 8,000+ images in all. The zipped archive weighs in at 83 mb - and has been made available by Eclarap, of Halo-Game, for anyone who wants to use it. (Louis Wu 14:05:31 UTC) (permalink)

Self Righteous
Whatever problems mythica had recently seem to be cleared up. Therefore, we're going to post the latest movie in the queue for you - it's called 'Self-Righteous', and it was made by Mobius. (We'd planned to release it more than a week ago - and then the hacking craze hit, and suddenly we didn't have the bandwidth for it.) It's 13.7 mb, 3:30 long, in QuickTime format. Timing is quite good... and there's a short clip starting at about two minutes in that I just LOVE. We've mirrored it at the Psyjnir Complex hotline server, if you have trouble reaching mythica - and there should be other mirrors on the way. Enjoy! Update: Whoknew writes to say he's added a mirror. Thanks! (Louis Wu 13:21:30 UTC) (permalink)

Team HBO - at Halo50K
Break Point writes to say that he's started a profile for Team HBO at the Halo50K competition. There are still two positions open - if you're interested in representing our site at this massive Halo competition at the end of April, stop by and sign up! (Break Point asked if there was another official 'Team HBO' before setting this up. There is a team made of HBO Junkies that played recently at the iGames Regionals... but they won't be headed down to Atlanta, so the name was available.) Show what you're made of... and bring the honor of winning (if not the $50k) back to HBO! (Louis Wu 01:45:41 UTC) (permalink)

We'd LIKE to show it to you...
We have another movie for you - this one's not a hacking film, but a gameplay one - but our main bandwidth provider, mythica.org, seems to to be having some nameserver troubles. As soon as we can get there, we'll serve this puppy up! (Louis Wu 23:39:57 UTC) (permalink)

Stories, stories, and more stories
Been a few days since Fan Fiction was updated - here are 10 more:

Hopefully, I'll have time to check the forum tomorrow. (Busy weekend...) (Louis Wu 02:43:45 UTC) (permalink)

Forum Update
Thanks To Ciarán Walsh, our Forum search features just became more useful. Before today, if you were looking for a specific snippet of text, you could search for that text, or you could search for the author of that text - but you couldn't do both. If you knew you were looking for a post about banshees, from, say, Red Loser... you could search for 'Red Loser', and manually check almost 800 posts... or you could search for 'banshee', and sort through almost 1300 posts. Now, however, you can search for both, and pare your results down to a manageable 54 posts. Nice! It's a simple checkbox in the Search window, and it's been added to the forum archives, as well. (If all goes well, there will be more enhancements in the not-too-distant future.) (Louis Wu 12:19:41 UTC) (permalink)

New Jobs at Bungie
Rampancy.net posted links to two new Bungie jobs listed at Gamasutra (but not yet on the Bungie Jobs page). These new job openings (posted a week ago) are for a 3D Environment Artist and a Developer. (The developer job is for Halo 2 - the last bullet in the 'Responsibilities' list is "Work with the graphics team, artists and designers to insure that Halo 2 is the best looking game on this planet or any other." Seems like a worthwhile goal to me!) To see these at Gamasutra, you'll need an account there. It's free - and if you're too lazy to sign up for one, you probably don't want these jobs. (Louis Wu 20:08:58 UTC) (permalink)

Look, Ma - No Hands!
HUNTR-KILLR created a small (900K) movie showing the jumping ability of a floodified marine with the recent Halo hack. The library is 4 stories high... the marine has no trouble getting above the final platform in one huge leap. (For good measure, a second jump proves, once and for all, that there are no branches in the roof. If you don't know what that means... consider yourself lucky.) (Louis Wu 19:16:28 UTC) (permalink)

The wonder of drawing
A pair of great sketches from Tina - originally done with coloring pencils (sorry, Tina, I'm American, can't use the British spelling without twinging :) ) and pen, with a little photoshop help. (Spoilers, for those still keeping track.) You'll find 'em in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 19:03:15 UTC) (permalink)

Don't Pay to Read
Wanna get a copy of the next Halo book (Halo: The Flood) for free? The MOSHPIT, a 7th Column chapter at Bungie.net, is giving one away - just drop by their website and add your name to the giveaway database. They'll pick a winner at random on April 1, and ship a copy to that lucky person the day the book becomes available! (MOSHPIT Membership is welcome, but not required, for this contest.) (Louis Wu 17:53:44 UTC) (permalink)

Hacking movies, organized
A bunch of mirrors have come online for both Halo Hackin' Fun 2 (released a couple of days ago) and Heffalumps and Woozles (released last night). I've set up mirror pages for both - follow the links above to grab your copy. Thanks to all the bandwidth providers - you guys make all this possible! (Louis Wu 17:42:14 UTC) (permalink)

The Human-Covenant War, a desperate struggle for humankind's very survival, has reached its boiling point on the mysterious, ring world called Halo. But the fierce Covenant warriors, the mightiest alien military force known, are not the only peril lying in wait.

As the fortress world of Reach and its brave defenders were bombarded to rubble, a single cruiser fled the carnage with the battle's only human survivors-Captain Keyes, his crew of a few hundred Marines, and the last remaining SPARTAN super-soldier, the Master Chief.

With the cruiser's artificial intelligence, Cortana, concealed in his battle armor, the Master Chief crash lands on Halo in the midst of a massive Covenant occupation. Curiously, the alien soldiers appear to be searching for something hidden on the ring. Built by a long-dead race, Halo harbors many deadly secrets, but one overshadows them all. Now the Master Chief must lead the scattered troops in a brutal race to unravel Halo's darkest mystery-and unleash its greatest source of power. . . .

Heh - one of the topics that's come up a lot recently on our forum is whether the Forerunners are actually gone or not - this text suggests they are, but is it just random copy written by someone who doesn't look as closely at the story as some of our visitors? (Thanks to Aaron Charles for noticing the new copy.) (Louis Wu 13:52:43 UTC) (permalink)

And Another One...
Okay... we've got another Hacking vid for you. This one is called 'Heffalumps and Woozles', and was created by HUNTR-KILLR. (Okay, he shouldn't be blamed for the name. That's my fault - it's full of such fancy that the name just seemed to fit.) This one's a monster; 11 and a half minutes long, 33 megs, in QT format. There's no sound at all, and segments are broken up by a second or two of black space, so keep your eyes open. There are more cool things than you can shake a honey pot at! Think of this one as a library of what might be. Right now, it's ONLY at Mythica.org - we'd love mirrors. (I'm currently uploading it to the psyjnir.com hotline server, but I'm only getting about 6k/sec... gonna be an hour or more.) The next movie after this one won't be a hacking vid - we've had a Blood Gulch action flick in the queue for FAR too long. (Sorry, Mobius.) Oh - and Dinky, of HaloJuggaloProductions, sent along a link for Dozi's SECOND hacking fun film - you can grab it here, if mythica is too overloaded with this current film. Thanks, Dinky! Update: Frogblast, in his infinite kindness (and despite the pain), has provided mirrors for both 'Heffalumps', and the recent Halo Hackin' Fun 2. We <3 you, Froggie... (Louis Wu 00:22:21 UTC) (permalink)

This site rocks.
Mmm... pie. (Thanks, Razorback.) (Louis Wu 21:20:28 UTC) (permalink)

Back to the Future
Couple of updates on yesterday's news... The guys running Sector.7 have bought a domain name, www.sector7-halo.com, and will be moving there shortly. (Currently, it's just a placeholder page.) And the editorial by poena.dare on hacking and what it means to the Bungie community has generated a host of interesting comments, including several from Bungie employees. Go read. (Louis Wu 20:41:34 UTC) (permalink)

The artwork keeps coming
Three new Art tidbits - a nice satire piece, a boot logo for Win2K, and a cute exercise pic. Check 'em all out in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 20:23:09 UTC) (permalink)

New Banners
In the last couple of days, we've gotten a couple of banner submissions, from Andrew Austin and Fuzzy - you can find both of them in our Banners section. (Louis Wu 20:03:57 UTC) (permalink)

Wanna know a story?
poena.dare is putting together an interview of Brannon Boren, a consultant at Microsoft who's been intricately involved in the creation of the 'Halo Bible', the collection of information about the Halo universe that all Halo content creators (official ones - book authors, folks writing the stories for the games) use to keep their facts straight. If you have anything you'd like to ask Brannon, send your question along to p.d - he'll add it to the list. (No promises on answers, of course - Brannon isn't going to violate any secrets he's been entrusted with... but it can't hurt to ask!) Update: the window for questions is now closed. Thanks to all who contributed! (Louis Wu 13:49:47 UTC) (permalink)

Hacking Movie 2
Here's the first of several Hacking movies we have for your perusal. This is another one from Dozi, the guy who made the first one - again, sound is pretty rough. (Much rougher than the first one, as a matter of fact. There's a static rumble throughout the entire movie.) You're watching it for the action, however, not the sound. :) Things shown in this film: bumping a jackal, some hilarious high jumps, bumping marines, grunts, and hunters, and more fun jumps. It's 2:23 long, and 9.3 megs big, in QuickTime format. You can grab it at Mythica.org. (Some of the ones in the queue contain many more tricks - if you're limiting yourself, this isn't the best one to grab.) Update: MereCatFish writes to point out that blam.forerunners.org has mirrored this. (He also points out that the main site has been updated.) We love mirrors! (Louis Wu 09:45:32 UTC) (permalink)

These aren't the chips you're looking for.
To all the folks asking questions about modding your xbox, and hacking Halo: while we here at HBO think the results are pretty cool, this is a Halo site, not an Xbox modding site. We do not provide any information on how to mod your Xbox or how to hack Halo, nor will we in the future. There are plenty of places to get this sort of information, if you're interested - if you can't find them without our help, you probably shouldn't be looking. (I'm adding this information to our FAQ, as well.) (Louis Wu 09:36:23 UTC) (permalink)

Who'da thunk it?
Famine to feast. Within a day of the release of the Halo mod information, we've received 4 NEW hack-related movies (and there's still one non-hack related film in the queue). There's well over half an hour of unreleased footage at this point... we'll start releasing some of it in the morning, but please, please, please - don't send any more right now. :) Look for an update in about 8 hours. (It'll be doled out a movie at a time, every couple of days - we simply don't have the bandwidth for anything else.) (Louis Wu 02:15:15 UTC) (permalink)

If you find yourself locked out of the section - blame your friends or yourself, not me. I don't have time to clean up after you guys. (Don't bother sending me excuses...) (Louis Wu 22:52:04 UTC) (permalink)

The Hacking of Halo
poena.dare, latest miscreant to be assimilated by b.org, has written a very, very nice editorial over at Bungie Sightings, on the subject of Halo hacking, and what it means to the community. Definitely worth a read. (Louis Wu 19:32:55 UTC) (permalink)

Sector.7 comes online
This came in a few days ago - I managed to miss it. :( Sparks writes that a new website, Sector.7, has come online. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but there's more content all the time. They plan to move to a purchased domain (and away from the banners/popups) as soon as they get more visitors. Take a look! (Louis Wu 18:42:46 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper Collection Swells
I know, it's been building up for a few days. Sorry about that. There are 10 (count 'em, 10) new desktops in the Wallpaper section today - check 'em out. Fan Fiction coming sometime later, I hope. (Louis Wu 17:59:27 UTC) (permalink)

Hacking Movie - now in WMP format
For those folks who couldn't get the DivX-encoded .avi or the QuickTime version of the HaloHackinFun movie to work, Cybrfrk has re-encoded in WMP 9 format. It's quite a bit smaller, too - 9.5 mb. You can grab it at his site, or snag a copy from Mythica. Anyone else wanting to mirror this, we're thrilled - drop us a line with a link and we'll add you to the mirror list! (Louis Wu 01:15:55 UTC) (permalink)

PAL mod warning
Almost forgot: Eclarap, of the French site Halo-Game, wrote this last night about the Halo mod app:

By the way, we were able to make it work on our PAL, but only by downloading a NTSC version : so it doesn't normally work here - might be useful to warn all Europeans from HBO in your news.

From models to sketches to costumes...
5 new entries in the Miscellaneous Art section for you today - some pretty fun stuff. Take a look! (Louis Wu 11:50:08 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Logo Animation
DovBer (pronunciation - "the bear dove into the river") Friedman dropped off a 2 sec. loop animation of a spinning 3d model he created of a potential halo2 logo/title. We reduced the size a tad - it's still a full megabyte, but that's better than 2... you'll find it in our Miscellaneous section. (Louis Wu 11:25:22 UTC) (permalink)

Halo on Dead Zone
Apologies to all the people who noticed Halo on the tv show 'The Dead Zone' Sunday night - it's been sort of busy here lately. (I'm pretty sure Dzejms was first.) Basically, one of the characters was playing the game - the comment made was 'He's trying to save the universe.' Nice to see Halo getting prime time TV placement! (Louis Wu 11:16:39 UTC) (permalink)

Get Into Bungie's Pants
Matt Soell asks, is that a roll of nickels in my pocket, or am I just glad to see you? Wait... I think that might be a bit off. In any case, Bungie has a new contest running - go read all the details at Bungie.net. You've got three and a half weeks to come up with what's in Matt's pants... (Louis Wu 09:28:37 UTC) (permalink)

Sarge Rocks
lol - When I saw the headline from Bungie.net ('Happy (Belated) Warthog Day!'), I thought, in my Halo-saturated mind, that Bungie was paying tribute to the one-year anniversary of Randy Glass' Warthog Jump. Silly me - I forgot there's a world outside these walls! And every year on February 2, Punxsutawney Phil goes looking for his shadow... this year, in honor of the little 'hog, Bungie has posted a warthog-related comic, starring some of our favorite Halo characters. Check it out! (Louis Wu 09:19:12 UTC) (permalink)

super-melee-one-hit-kill-swing-of-death
Dozi, the guy who created the Hacked film, stopped back into our forum to answer a few questions about modding possibilities. It's a really interesting read. (Louis Wu 02:21:41 UTC) (permalink)

Hacking Halo Fun now online
Okay, there are more mirrors coming soon, but here's the starting lineup for the Hacking Halo video - visit the mirror page for all the links we have. As more mirrors come online, we'll add them to the page. (If you're interested in mirroring this file, PLEASE, let us know.) See yesterday's news if this post makes you go 'huh?' - I've got some kids to take care of. (Louis Wu 00:47:11 UTC) (permalink)

Bandwidth needed - NOW!
Desperate call for movie mirrors! Dozi has just uploaded a 20 mb film showing a few of the things you can do with a modded Xbox and the cheat hack mentioned this morning. The problem is... we don't have the bandwidth to serve it up to all who want it! It's going to take a bit of time to re-encode it anyway, but I thought I'd get a head-start on the bandwidth issue. If you think you can support a mirror link for this movie, please - send mail immediately. As soon as we have the best version we can get, we'll get a copy out to you. Once the mirrors have uploaded the files, we'll make them live. Again - mirror sites only right now. Thanks! (Louis Wu 21:00:02 UTC) (permalink)

Team HBO at the iGames Regionals...
Thanks to Miguel Chavez, for the heads-up on the activities of Team HBO at the Halo Winter Season Regional Championship held this weekend. As he mentions in his post, King Games has put up a page devoted to the event - here's a shot of Team HBO kicking some butt in round 1. (They're the team on the left; the head in a white shirt is Miguel, and the four players, left to right, are ninja on fire, neo, konrad9 (I could have those two confused - hard to tell from behind :) ), and KP.) And for a bit of humor, check out the screen names of Krypt, the blue team in the final game. (Louis Wu 17:42:46 UTC) (permalink)

HALOID Legends emerge
BIGwooly, of the Seventh Column chapter HALOID, writes to let us know about a bit of internal news that might be interesting to non-HALOID members. For the past year, they've been having a monthly lan party dubbed 'FRAGFEST'. (You can see some of the gameplay in a movie released last spring.) At each fest, they award points to the players ranked first, second and third - and at the 1,000 point milestone, they induct the player as a HALOID Legend. FRAGFEST XII took place last weekend... and not one, but TWO players were inducted. Congrats to Mad Cow and BIGwooly for their Mad Halo Skillz! (Louis Wu 16:20:40 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Story Page Updated
It shouldn't require forum members to remind me... but sometimes it does. The Story page was updated this weekend; check it out for new speculation and ideas! (Louis Wu 15:06:15 UTC) (permalink)

NEVER DIE YES/NO
Whoa. Didn't think it would happen... but apparently, someone's reverse-engineered enough of Halo to provide some cheats. Read this thread for details. (Understand that in order to play with this, you'll need to do all sorts of things that will void your warranty, ensure that you'll never use this Xbox for XBL, and so on.) Waiting for pics... (Louis Wu 14:47:51 UTC) (permalink)

Bernie Freidin interviewed at Xbox.com... sort of
Recently, we mentioned an interview at the Australian Xbox.com. poena.dare pointed out that not only was this interview ALSO available on the US Xbox.com... but until recently, ANOTHER interview, with Bernie Freidin (a Bungie programmer), was ALSO available. For some reason, that one is now offline, but luckily, p.d saved a copy. We've reformatted it a bit (removing the javascript, the flash, and the worst, but by no means all, the bad html), and made it available in close to its original form, here at HBO. Check it out! (Louis Wu 03:16:56 UTC) (permalink)

Last update for a while.
It's been 3 days since I could process Fan Fiction, and the flood continues. I'm going to institute a new policy, for my own sanity: if you submit a piece, and yell about its not being posted before I manage to get it up, I'm tossing it out, and we won't accept any more fiction from you. ALL content creators need to remember that you're not paying ANYTHING to have your work displayed here for the world to see, and sometimes real life gets in the way of updating. I'm tired of being berated for not getting your artwork/fiction/movie posted within 30 minutes of when it hits our inbox. That said, here's the current Fiction collection.

Go read 'em - I'm sure there'll be another dozen by tomorrow. (Sometimes I wish fiction writers would actually take the time to PROOFREAD their work; it seems that some of you are so eager to get your fiction posted that you can't take the few minutes it would take to run it through a spellchecker... it's rather discouraging to kill an entire Sunday morning formatting pieces as rough as some of these are.) (Louis Wu 17:02:52 UTC) (permalink)

One Player's View
Rob Farquhar points out his personal review of Halo - while containing a few minor mistakes (he mentions that Warthogs are the only vehicle available in multiplayer, for example), it's a pretty thorough and well-written piece. I'd disagree (strongly) with his opinion that the repetitiveness of several levels really detracts from the overall quality (despite the fact that there are many circular rooms, AotCR is STILL one of my favorite levels), but again, that's opinion, not fact, and all reviewers are entitled to their own. Take a look if you'd like to read an exhaustive overview of the game! (Louis Wu 17:55:43 UTC) (permalink)

Dust and echoes...
Early this morning, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry for a scheduled 9:16 EST landing, within four days of the 17th anniversary of the loss of the shuttle Challenger. With it were lost its crew of seven. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them. (Count Zero 17:19:37 UTC) (permalink)

That Weasel is Back
That Weasel Television, a staunch bandwidth provider in the past for Halo movies, has put up a few of the most popular films released recently - all three Halo National Championship segments, both versions of Blair Halo Project, and In Too Deep. Swing on by and check 'em out! (Louis Wu 16:28:26 UTC) (permalink)

New Art by the Armload
A bunch of new desktops for you today, including one (from Germain Couët) that was submitted a couple of months ago, but got lost in the shuffle... and a pair of pretty cool ones from kL!p. There are 6 in all - check 'em out in our Wallpaper section! Update: Whoops, missed one. You can find M2's poetic entry in the Wallpaper section, too. (Louis Wu 12:11:14 UTC) (permalink)

Penciling in the new guy
Steve Hatch turns in a sketch of a Brute - you'll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 11:49:14 UTC) (permalink)

Shikai Wang Interviewed.
A week ago, Bungie artist Shikai Wang was interviewed by the Australian official Xbox site - it's got some nice background info on Bungie's interviewing process, and a look at what was needed, artwise, to get Halo out the door. Check it out! (Thanks to Benjamin Swinbanks for the heads-up on this one.) We've added this (and yesterday's Chris Carney interview) to the Interviews database. (Louis Wu 10:53:27 UTC) (permalink)

Snazzy New Halo Trailer
Wow - this one's cool. We got mail from Brandon Jones, Director of Media and HomeGrown Content at GameTrailers.com - they've put together a pretty cool Halo trailer. It's available in both QuickTime 5 and WMP9 formats (23.1 and 17.9 mb, respectively), and covers most of the game in 2:40. There are spoilers in here... but overall, filmmaking quality is very high. Check this one out! (Louis Wu 01:57:52 UTC) (permalink)

Not Just Fighting Foos
Heh - disappointed with the 'NSync-related Halo sighting we posted a month ago, Brandon Thomas pointed out that Dave Grohl, guitarist for the Foo Fighters, puts Halo on the shortlist of hobbies (up there with skeet shooting and speeding in residential areas). That's a pretty wide swath of the popular music spectrum playin' Halo! Update: Jester reminds us that the latest Foo Fighters album (One By One) actually has a song called 'Halo' on it. (Louis Wu 01:51:24 UTC) (permalink)

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February 2003 Archived News