Old news but still good news!

Bungie Comic Goodness
Woohoo! New comic artwork from Lorraine Reyes-McLees, in honor of the Danger Boy interview! It's Chris Carney day! (The caricatures are astoundingly good.) (Louis Wu 19:59:26 UTC) (permalink)

He's just a simple man...
Matt Soell has interviewed Chris "Danger Boy" Carney, an environment artist/designer at Bungie. Read it for some interesting insights on how this farmer wannabe gets his work done! (Louis Wu 19:56:42 UTC) (permalink)

More Bungie Schwag
A couple of forum threads (here and here) and an email from Broony all point out that according to the Bungie webcam, the latest offering from the Bungie store will likely be hooded sweatshirts. Nice! (Louis Wu 18:37:43 UTC) (permalink)

Mac Halo - now from MacSoft
Yesterday, Destineer Studios, the Macintosh game publisher founded by Peter Tamte, bought MacSoft, another Mac game house, from Infogrames. (Tamte founded MacSoft 10 years ago.) The press release for this sale can be found on Infogrames' site. What does this mean for you, the Halo fan? Not a huge amount... except that according to Inside Mac Games, "Destineer plans to begin marketing all of its future Macintosh products under the MacSoft brand immediately." This means that Bold is no longer the arm of Destineer that will market Mac Halo - MacSoft is. (Louis Wu 16:26:04 UTC) (permalink)

Gamespy's Most Wanted Console Games
A week ago, we mentioned that GameSpy's Most Wanted Games of 2003 put Halo for PC at number 4. Their Most Wanted Console Games is now up, as well... and Halo 2 pulled the number 3 slot (beaten by Final Fantasy X-2 and Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker). Not too bad! Thanks to Ben Bayes for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 20:53:25 UTC) (permalink)

Lots o' Pics
5 new desktops, from two artists - some nice composites, and three modified MC uniforms. Check 'em out in our Wallpaper section! (More stuff later - have to head out for a bit.) (Louis Wu 14:56:17 UTC) (permalink)

Who is Cortana, anyway?
Wow. I thought I had a handle on Cortana... but I'm starting to wonder. The speculation today started with Mark Simmons - he brings up some pretty intriguing points. Even if you feel you can slough off most of what he says, though... check out barkbat's reply. Wow - there's some serious food for thought in there. (It should go without saying that posts like these are FULL of spoilers - but I'm saying it anyway.) (Louis Wu 22:05:18 UTC) (permalink)

The Bad Guys have the Most Style
Yesterday, the new Elite shirt showed up on the Bungie webcam. Today, MastaSnypa noticed that it's for sale in the Bungie Store. Nice! (Louis Wu 17:58:39 UTC) (permalink)

Story Overload
Whoa - boatloads of Fan Fiction sent in in a very short time last night:

PalaNIN's story was apparently a prizewinner at a Fan Fiction contest held at Halo Online last year. I'd point you to the contest page... but I couldn't find it. :( (Louis Wu 16:48:25 UTC) (permalink)

One more deep hole...
One of the few remaining places to explore in Halo is the bottom of Truth and Reconciliation (level 3). Many have tried... but nobody's gotten down there yet. c0ld vengeance and demonelite are getting close, though... check out this forum post. (Movies are listed later in the thread.) (Louis Wu 15:19:19 UTC) (permalink)

Another Truth and Reconciliation
Forum regular Lion wanted to point out his Halo site, Truth and Reconciliation. There's not much there yet... but there are a couple of notable items. The first is a movie he made some time ago - it's called 'Friends', and you can download it from the Movies page. (the site is framed, so I can't point you there directly, without losing the navigation.) The second is a page devoted to an XBC Halo tournament - there are currently 5 people signed up to play, so if you're an Xbox Connect regular, sign up and join in! (Louis Wu 14:44:20 UTC) (permalink)

Star Wars Halo
Joshua Griffon, of TheForce.net, has written an interesting editorial for his site. A Halo-engined Star Wars title? Hmm... there's an intriguing idea... (Louis Wu 14:38:29 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Makes the Top 10
The NPD Group has released a report on video game sales for 2002 - and among other interesting facts, they've compiled a Top 10 Best Selling Game Titles list. On the list are seven PS2 games, one GameBoy Advance game, one GameCube game... and Halo. Booyah! Thanks to kareem ramos for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 20:16:51 UTC) (permalink)

The Webcam is Back!
After a 2-week hiatus, the Bungie Webcam is back in action - and if you look now, you'll get a glimpse of the Elite Halo t-shirt. (It's archived here, in case the image changes.) Thanks to SketchFactor for the heads-up! (Louis Wu 18:52:02 UTC) (permalink)

Movies, movies, and more movies
Took some work... but the Movies database has finally been brought up-to-date. 20 films released in the past 2 months are now listed (and searchable). Hopefully, this'll help folks looking for that special film. The most recent addition hasn't even been mentioned here in the news yet - so let me do that now. Athol Productions has created The Blair Halo Project, a nearly-7-minute-long vid which starts, and ends, like the movie it got its name from. (In the middle you'll find gamplay and antics.) It's available in QuickTime and WMV formats, and weighs in at 30 or so megs. (Plus or minus 3, depending on your format.) We've put it up at both Mythica and The Psyjnir Complex Hotline server... but additional mirrors would be very much appreciated. Next up: The Miscellaneous database. (Tomorrow, maybe.) (Louis Wu 18:48:47 UTC) (permalink)

Interviews Section Updated
Bringing the Interviews section up-to-date, we've added 4 recent interviews with Marty O'Donnell - the guy's been talkative these past couple of months! (Louis Wu 16:02:38 UTC) (permalink)

Funky pics
Three new desktops for you today - A Matrix-inspired one (well, Reloaded, at least) that's wicked-cool, one that uses the recently-posted Helljumpers interpretation, and one that... well, I can't really explain it. I suppose that's because I don't understand it. You'll find all three in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 14:39:35 UTC) (permalink)

Feet First
Joshua Pettigrew created a logo for the Helljumpers, Special Forces troops mentioned in the Fall of Reach. You'll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 14:22:28 UTC) (permalink)

Cybrfrk gets to work
10 tips have been added to the Tips Database, including a pretty exhaustive look at all the ways of dealing with Banshees on the Natural Bridge of AotCR. Sometimes internet worms can pay useful dividends for fansites... (Louis Wu 09:53:00 UTC) (permalink)

The old guy's still got stuff left.
Hehe... and the egg-like things continue. Yesterday, Argos noticed that 'Rock Anthem for Saving the World', a high-energy piece from the Halo Soundtrack, was exactly 1:17 long. Not only does that match up nicely with the Master Chief's Spartan II designation... but expressed in seconds, it's got a length of 77. Marty made it clear that this wasn't an accident. The Halo Soundtrack's been out for 8 months now, you'd think someone would have noticed sooner... (Louis Wu 19:37:46 UTC) (permalink)

The Way of the Warrior
In the first all-from-existing-footage movie in a LONG time that seems worth passing along, Senator32 has combined the soundtrack from the StarCraft Ghost trailer with Halo footage spanning almost 3 years to create 'Halo Warrior'. It's 6.4 mb, in MPEG format. (The byte savings from converting to QuickTime format wasn't worth the effort.) Mythica, as usual, is doing the hosting honors. Take a look! (Louis Wu 05:44:28 UTC) (permalink)

Halo links
We got word of three new or revamped Halo sites over the weekend; John pointed out Halo Reamped ('your source for every thing halo'), sk8er told us to check out Halo HQ (which has ZERO information except a couple of links to buy Halo and Halo 2 at EB Games, passing along a commission to the site), and Chris Ryan let us know that the Halo hub at Forerunners.org has been resdesigned. I'd expect more of these updates, as Halo for PC and Halo 2 draw nearer... (Louis Wu 05:18:12 UTC) (permalink)

More pics for your screen
Three new desktop images for you; a nice composite of the very old (one of the earliest wallpaper submissions we ever got) and the very new (a Halo 2 shot), a nice cleanup of some magazine art, and more playing cards. Check 'em out in our Wallpaper section! (Louis Wu 05:08:19 UTC) (permalink)

Watch out, he's got a grenade...
MiNiTeK14 dropped off a drawing of a Covenant Elite - we've added it to our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 04:57:02 UTC) (permalink)

Screens DB up-to-date
A little earlier than usual, maybe, but the Bucs kicked some serious butt tonight, so what the heck. The new Screenshots posted at Bungie.net yesterday have been added to our Screenshots database - unreferenced shots and all. (Louis Wu 03:56:06 UTC) (permalink)

Of Shadows and Dynamic Lighting
Ferrex dropped in for a minute to pass along some tantalizing tidbits about the newest screenshot... and to update the community, in a roundabout way, on where the Halo engine is in lighting progress. Very, very nice to get new info... (Louis Wu 21:40:23 UTC) (permalink)

This is the Series Finale of Wings of Death - and it's a long one! Update: Oops, forgot one. Check out Locke's Ring of the Forerunners, Chapter IV. Sorry about that! (Louis Wu 21:34:58 UTC) (permalink)

Word from Ar
He lives! *Ar-Isildur took time out of his busy schedule of bedrest and nasty treatments to pop into our forum with a quick update. He's not out of the woods yet... but your emails and cards are definitely helping. Way to go, folks! (Louis Wu 17:53:21 UTC) (permalink)

Once again, Halo kicks butt
Thanks to Griffon, who points out that the latest OXM UK contains their 2002 Awards piece. Halo won 3 of them:

He sent in some digicam shots of the article, but 1) they were REALLY hard to read, and 2) we couldn't put them up yet anyway. Nice job, Bungie! (Louis Wu 17:23:59 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50K now set in stone
At long last, the Halo50K tournament has firm dates for play - clear your calendar for April 26th and 27th, 2003. Fifty Grand on the line... don't miss it! Thanks to Dolbex for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 01:32:13 UTC) (permalink)

Screens, screens, and more screens
Nice work by BOLL - he discovered a couple of unreferenced screens on Bungie.net in the newest batch of Halo 2 uploads; one of them has been seen before (in the recent Halo 2 Photo Story), but the other is brand-spankin' new. And a gorgeous shot it is! (Louis Wu 01:28:38 UTC) (permalink)

One More Egg on the Books
A couple of weeks ago, a Halo easter egg that had been discovered back in March was finally documented on Bungie's website - so we've taken this to mean that we can finally include it in our Easter Egg collection. (Originally, Joe Staten asked that we not document it with a screenshot, so that future egg hunters could find it on their own.) The full discovery process is documented in the egg entry. (Obviously, the entry is full of spoilers.) (Louis Wu 12:20:43 UTC) (permalink)

Serious Updates at Tru7h and Recon
Wonga. I sleep, Bungie works. The Tru7h and Reconciliation website has gotten some serious updating... there's boatloads of Halo 2 content now. All of it, as far as I can tell, has been seen before... but it's never been on the official site, and some of it is in better digital form than ever before. You'll find a pair of new desktops (using some of the coolest artwork released in the past few months), some new screenshots (at least two of those are angles we haven't seen before, in digital form), a page of concept art (again, available in magazine scans, but not officially in digital form before), and a whole bunch of new gallery shots (the weapons, especially, are great). Bungie's newest Online Team member, SketchFactor, is responsible for the overhaul... nice work! (Louis Wu 11:12:26 UTC) (permalink)

Light years, huh?
Mac Gamer has another Westlake update - Glenda Adams, Westlake's president, says

the code they are getting is "light years different code-wise than anything that ever ran on the Mac."

Celebrating in Style
Devastator, a member of Team Caucasians, sent us this picture of his team celebrating their win at the Qualifiers of the Halo Winter Season. I'm pretty amazed that they gave out trophies like that for the qualifying rounds - there were 100 iGames centers hosting qualifiers, and three rounds played... that's a LOT of trophies. Nonetheless, it's a fun pic. (Louis Wu 17:51:16 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Previews organized
We've added a new subsection here at HBO - in the navbar, under 'Press Coverage', you'll find Halo 2 Previews. It's just a list of Halo 2 Previews posted on the net, with links to the original pages and the dates they were posted. Thanks to Proximity Zero for two that we didn't have on our list. (Louis Wu 17:16:56 UTC) (permalink)

Vector graphics - now in vector format
Brian Hannan checked out the recently submitted weapons graphics extracted from the Halo manual, and decided that vector art should be available in vector format. He re-extracted the images, cleaned 'em up, and placed them all into a single EPS file. You can find this file (and a graphic showing what you can do with the artwork) on the Gun Schematics page. (Louis Wu 15:25:46 UTC) (permalink)

You've got questions? We've got answers.
In response to a slew of questions sent to us (and asked on our forum) about the Pillar of Art contest, we've added a Frequently Asked Questions section. Check it out, and don't hesitate to send us mail if your question isn't answered. We've also reduced the maximum size of paintings to 5' x 6' - still rather large, but not the enormous 10' x 12' we'd originally listed. Apologies if this confounds anyone's plans. (Louis Wu 02:24:08 UTC) (permalink)

Pictures for your screen
Three new desktops from fans today - check 'em out in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 20:59:32 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Electronica
D.J. Clich has created an electronica Halo-sample song called 'Get Up (Halo Mix)'. It's a 5.6 mb mp3, composed of outtakes clips from b.net set to a beat. Won't appeal to everyone (I found it a bit repetitive myself), but it's pretty well done. We've dropped it on our Mythica mirror - if there's a problem downloading it, let us know, we'll find mirror sites. (Louis Wu 19:22:59 UTC) (permalink)

Short flix, now in QT
Yesterday, we mentioned a couple of posts by Dark Helmet, showing some cool vids of high-jumping on Halo. We got mail from a couple of people who couldn't watch them, for whatever reason... so DH was kind enough to send along mpegs, which we converted to QuickTime movies. The High Jump vid (1.3 mb) and the Red Baron vid (850K) are now available here. (Louis Wu 18:34:02 UTC) (permalink)

GameSpy's Most Wanted
Tarrsk and FatWalker both write to point out that PC Halo is #4 in Gamespy's Most Wanted Games of 2003 list. Tarrsk also reminds us to keep an eye peeled for the Top 10 Console Games list coming later this week. (That link won't work until tomorrow...) (Louis Wu 18:28:23 UTC) (permalink)

CMU Tournament - Last-minute Warning
A month and a half ago, we mentioned a tournament at Central Michigan University, in Mt. Pleasant. Jake McCarthy writes to remind folks that this is happening this weekend, on January 25. You can call him at (989) 774-6367 for details. (Louis Wu 18:21:10 UTC) (permalink)

The Pillar of Art
bungie.org is proud to announce its first-ever Art Contest. The Pillar of Art will reward artists who work in traditional media - no digital art allowed! Prizes include cold, hard cash and some super-cool stuff from Bungie. Read the details on the Pillar of Art page! (Before going in, don't forget to admire the front artwork, done by Ian McConville, of MacHall fame.) (Louis Wu 19:52:13 UTC) (permalink)

In Too Deep
Mike Miller has created a movie called 'In Too Deep (Things to Do in Halo When You're Bored)' - it's 6:22 long, 20.7 mb large, and pretty much covers everything in our Tips and Tricks section in one easy lesson. (Okay, not everything. But an awful lot of it.) Mix in some humor, nice timing, a decent score, and a Monty Python quote I've been waiting to see in a Halo movie for over a year, and you've got entertainment. Currently housed at mythica.org and the Psyjnir.com Hotline server- but we're happy to post mirrors if you want to provide bandwidth for this. (Louis Wu 19:14:42 UTC) (permalink)

Mac Halo playable soon
MacCentral has posted a project status update from Westlake Interactive, the folks that are working on the Mac port of Halo.

Westlake said that's in "Prototype" stage, an important development milestone that precedes the game's playable status. Bold hopes to ship the game almost concurrently with its PC counterpart's release, expected later in 2003.

So - not playable yet, but getting there! Thanks to potifer for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 18:46:08 UTC) (permalink)

A Movie Star Returns
Dark Helmet is back. After a spell away from Halo moviemaking, he's submitted a slew of films in recent days. Two new ones today; a 250+ meter jump on the level Halo (measured with a Navpoint), and a truly high-flying banshee. Both posts lead to WMV vids. (Louis Wu 14:44:53 UTC) (permalink)

A year down the road, still finding reviews
RevolutionSF reviewed Halo about a year ago - dr_saius discovered it today. We've added it to our Reviews database. They also reviewed The Fall of Reach, at about the same time. (They liked it.) (Louis Wu 14:33:44 UTC) (permalink)

It's gettin' cold down below...
What's this? Two Halo Story Page updates in two days? What's the world coming to? (Louis Wu 20:51:17 UTC) (permalink)

High-quality weapons
Recently, Ghôlsbane extracted the vector-format weapons schematics from the Halo Manual. We've tossed them up for you to grab, if you're so inclined. (Louis Wu 20:49:15 UTC) (permalink)

Playing with Fire
Yesterday, Bowser posted a note to our forum explaining how a slow run through the Maw seemed to gain extra time at Foe Hammer's pickup site. Some experimentation showed the limits of this feature. Here's a short film (23 seconds, 1.4 mb, QT format) showing a gain of almost a minute. The situation is this: when you pass into the area where you're supposed to wait for Foe Hammer, the timer drops off the screen. It doesn't come back until AFTER she is shot down, and when it DOES come back, it comes back with the amount of time that was on it when it disappeared... with an exception. The rule is this: If you enter that area with LESS than one minute on the clock, your timer will be reset to (2 minutes - your time on the clock). Go in with 59 seconds, you'll come out with 61. Go in with one second... you'll come out with 1:59. This suggests that if something happens to you on this run, and you get to this area with less than a minute on the clock, you should run it down to nearly zero before crossing into the 'pickup zone'; the longer you're willing to wait, the more time you end up with. (Of course, if you misjudge, and the timer runs out before you get in, you're dead.) Interesting find... even more interesting, in context; the game has been on the shelves for more than 14 months, and nobody noticed this before! (Louis Wu 14:44:43 UTC) (permalink)

Links to Websites and Tournaments
Links around the Halo universe... there are lots. Chris Hamilton pointed out his new Halo site, Proximity Zero. It's devoted to Halo 2 info. He plans to buy a domain name if the community grows enough, so go visit! Also, OrangeMC pointed out that the family of Halo sites at forerunners.org isn't listed in our Links section - that's been rectified. (Soon, we'll do another links pruning as we do periodically.) There are also a couple of Tournament sites worth noting; different scales, but we report what we're told about. The Elite Spartan sent word that the Arkansas tournament we mentioned last week now has a website... and Jay, from the Associates of Gmaing Professionals, sends word about AGP's second Halo Championship Event. It's taking place in Nashville, TN, on April 12-13, and there's a guaranteed $7,000 pot no matter how many teams show up. There are slots for 64 teams, and Darkman and the Dream Team will be back to defend their titles. That should keep you busy for a little bit! (Louis Wu 13:26:22 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Cover Art Continues
Another pair of Halo 2 covers for our collection - one is from Spikedadragon, the other from Z77. It's getting to be a big collection! (Louis Wu 10:42:44 UTC) (permalink)

Random Artwork for your Eyes
Again, we had to filter out a number of images, but the remainder (four pieces, plus variations) can be found in our Miscellaneous Art section. Some nice stuff! (Louis Wu 10:33:32 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper from the weekend
Beginning to clear out the artwork backlog... first up: desktop images. Three new ones (and several that didn't meet the newly posted guidelines) - check 'em out in the Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 10:08:48 UTC) (permalink)

Cortana glows
More action figure goodness... this time, right from the source. Check out the story at b.net, including a nice shot of a Cortana figure prototype. (A tad too sexy for my taste... but she ain't done yet.) Thanks to mnemesis for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 02:47:27 UTC) (permalink)

Dogtags - sold, at a Bungie price
Whoa - we forgot to get back to it. Thanks to archon, at the Marathon's Story Page forum, for reminding us. A week ago, some Halo dogtags (from Japan) went up for auction at eBay. They closed a couple of days ago for $77.02. Now THERE'S a nice profit. (Louis Wu 16:38:47 UTC) (permalink)

Cortana - in plastic.
Nice find. Brandon Tyler points out an article at Yahoo which details the agreement between Racing Champions Ertl (a marketer of collectibles) and Microsoft to create collectible figures and vehicles based on Halo (among other games). No dates have been given. (Louis Wu 16:32:19 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Halo comes online
scibot3 points out his new Halo site, Bungie Halo. Currently, the Weapons section is the most fleshed out, but he plans to add content continuously. Check it out! (Louis Wu 15:23:40 UTC) (permalink)

Updates coming... soon, I hope
For all those who've submitted artwork, fiction, movies, in the last few days - apologies for the delay in posting. It's a holiday weekend, and we have relatives in town. I was hoping to get to much of it Sunday afternoon... didn't happen. Monday, as well, looks booked up. I might get some time, but I might not. If family delays me, I'd really appreciate your patience; I'll get it all posted just as soon as I can. Thanks! (Louis Wu 04:27:14 UTC) (permalink)

Helping Brian
It took a few days, but a mechanism has been set up whereby Bungie community members who would like to contribute to the Brian Morden Recovery Fund can do so. Check this page for details. (Louis Wu 04:23:56 UTC) (permalink)

A Halo Koan
Now this is a pretty cool glitch. In answer to the old chestnut "If a tree falls in a forest, and nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound?", SaFruk discovered that on at least one multiplayer map, the answer is 'No.' Toss a couple of plasma grenades on a dead body on the map Chiron, leave the room before they explode... and they'll REMAIN unexploded until someone enters the room. This doesn't seem to work on open levels... but Chiron is a series of unconnected rooms. SaFruk suggests using the glitch to set up proximity mines for your enemies... see what else you can come up with! (Louis Wu 20:53:12 UTC) (permalink)

New Cover Art
Whoa - can't wait to see a bigger version. Dulaman87 noticed that the Ballantine entry for Halo: The Flood (the next Halo novel) now has all-new cover art. Is that the Master Chief with his helmet off? Update: Thanks to the more than half-dozen people who sent links to this picture (made local here in case it changes again), making it clear that the MC's face is NOT visible. My bad. (Louis Wu 17:08:43 UTC) (permalink)

Nekkid Covs
A Covenant anatomy project? Looks that way. Check out the details here, and get on the stick helping Shishka out. (Louis Wu 15:03:51 UTC) (permalink)

How to Warthog Jump - the Exhaustive Tutorial
Most movies we post are either fun gameplay vids, or trick exploits... this one's different. ArakniZ took the time to build, step by step, a tutorial for Warthog Jumping. If you already know how to do this, don't bother downloading the movie. This one's for the folks who periodically pop up on our forum, asking "how do I make a warthog go so high?" (It's also for lurkers who want to know the answer to this question, but have never asked it out loud.) It covers such niceties as saving regularly after you get what you need, how to make sure the grenades fall in a tight formation, and other nuggets. It's quite large (21 mb), in QuickTime format, and rather dull if you know this stuff - but if you don't, it will really make the process easier. Grab a copy from Mythica.org. (We have other movies in the queue - we've been waiting for bandwidth demands to drop. Apparently, there's been some international linkage recently.) (Louis Wu 14:20:50 UTC) (permalink)

It's been too long...
Whoa - I'm slow sometimes. Bungie's Letters to the Webmaster have been updated. He's in top form. Or something. It's even Halo-related. Go. (Thanks, Miguel.) (Louis Wu 13:21:37 UTC) (permalink)

Shishka's Guide for Newcomers
New to our forum? Shishka just wrote up a guide which should help newcomers fit in to the existing community. It's not a set of rules... just a series of suggestions. Definitely worth a read. (Louis Wu 13:12:34 UTC) (permalink)

Ar-Isildur Update
Followup on Brian Morden and a donation fund... Brian's dad is in the process of setting up an account at their local credit union. As soon as we have an address, we'll post it. (There will also be an email address you can use to send Paypal donations.) Nobody's going to hound you to donate; this is being set up because several people have contacted me about ways to help out the family. When we know more about his condition, we'll let you know. (Louis Wu 21:16:46 UTC) (permalink)

Image Posting Guidelines
Over the years, HBO has grown to house a pretty big collection of fan-created artwork (images, stories, movies, you name it). We've reached a point at which we can no longer accept pieces with no regard for quality. This is unfortunate, and we hate turning people away... but we need to draw a line. Our new guidelines are posted here. They're also linked on many of the gallery pages. Please remember - we're not saying don't create it... we're just saying we can't host it. (Louis Wu 20:54:49 UTC) (permalink)

Keyes Screens Added
The screenshots that were posted along with Bungie's recent addition to their Legendary Walkthrough (Keyes) have been added to our Screenshots database. This is especially timely, since bungie.net seems to be down this morning. (Louis Wu 14:33:59 UTC) (permalink)

There are still some artwork pieces undealt with... but most of them don't make the cut under the new guidelines. :( Guess I have to get the rules up pretty soon... (Louis Wu 21:23:07 UTC) (permalink)

Goin' on Safari
Early adopters of Apple's new Safari browser have discovered that they can't view spoiler-laden posts on this site, because Safari won't save the cookie that allows access. Steve Rice, a kind reader, has sent in a fix. Check it out. (Louis Wu 14:16:51 UTC) (permalink)

50 States, 50 Chapters - redux
In early December, emildux posted some information about an effort to pick the top 50 chapters in the US (one per state). Today, he points out that this list has been overhauled... he's keeping up on activity (the HBO Junkies lost our spot in Connecticut because we haven't been doing anything), so if you're looking for active chapters in your state, this is a great place to start. Check it out! (Louis Wu 13:23:15 UTC) (permalink)

A Quicker Way to say Get Better
Yesterday, we mentioned that *Ar-Isildur, a stalwart member of the community, was in a bad way and could use your get-well wishes. Ciarán discovered a link to the Hospital's web site, where you can send a get-well email to a patient. Ar's full name is Brian Morden, and he's in Room 8. (You might want to include 'North', as well.) (Louis Wu 13:47:59 UTC) (permalink)

Hedge Interviews Marty O'Donnell
About a month ago, Hedgemony, a forum regular (absent now for a few weeks), was in the middle of a project to catalog all the dialog in Halo. He wished out loud that he could ask Marty O'Donnell all sorts of questions about the sound in Halo... well, Marty's a pretty good guy. Hedge wrote up the questions, Marty answered 'em. It wasn't overnight, but then, it was the holiday season... In any case, the interview is now available for the public. I've been unable to reach Hedge to let him know about it, but I have no doubt he'll be back online at some point to check it out for himself. If you have any interest in some of the background issues in the Halo aural scene, read this interview! (It's far more of a 'how does this work?' interview than a background 'who are you, and why do you work for Bungie?' interview.) (Louis Wu 04:16:50 UTC) (permalink)

Halo in Arkansas
Hmm... got mail from The Elite Spartan, he's interested in setting up a Halo tournament in or around Fayetteville, AR. He needs to know how much interest there'd be for a summer tournament, though... if you're interested, drop him a line. (Louis Wu 02:36:23 UTC) (permalink)

Hey! Don't step on that, it... uh oh...
Well, you can't say they don't have spirit. Heliocentric has started up a forum with one purpose in mind: to find a new easter egg in Halo before Halo 2 is released. While I can't say I understand how they plan to accomplish this with a forum, I can't fault them for their passion... go on by and visit if you want to help! (Louis Wu 00:43:42 UTC) (permalink)

Tricks that Rock
Every once in a while, a new trick pops up that potentially changes the way Halo gets played among friends. (One that sticks in my mind is the Sidewinder Sneak - it forever changed CTF games on Sidewinder, and opened huge vistas for tricksters looking to explore the single-player game.) Now there's a new one... two players can share one powerup (overshield, invisibility, even a health pack). A week ago, *DeatH* mentioned that he had a trick to use one overshield for two people... he wasn't taken too seriously. Today, however, guy who doesn't post....too often tested this on many levels, in both single and multiplayer. He found it to be true, after all. (And he found it to apply to invisibility, including Infinite Invisibility, and health packs... the list goes on.) There's a short film, showing the effect on Rat Race... where you can take this is up to your imagination. (Louis Wu 21:51:55 UTC) (permalink)

Hide and Sleep
Warbow's Hide and Seek game, Round 3, is finally over. (It started on January 8.) Watch the short movie referenced in his announcement, and you'll understand why it took so long to solve the last image... (He's tired, it'll be a while before round 4.) Congrats, c0ld vengeance - a clean sweep of all five images! (Louis Wu 21:00:53 UTC) (permalink)

Swedish Halo forum opens
Tobias points out a new Swedish Halo site - Halo-Se. There's nothing there yet (but forums)... but he wanted to help build a community. (Louis Wu 20:46:01 UTC) (permalink)

The Skinny on Beta-Testing.
Periodically, folks show up on our forum, or in other gaming forums, and claims to know someone who's beta-testing Halo 2. Or they claim to be beta-testing it themselves. Dave Candland of Bungie made such a clear statement today explaining why these people couldn't possibly be telling the truth that we've added his explanation to our FAQ. From now on, when you hear someone spouting off about Halo 2 beta-testing... just point them here. Update: Thanks to Matt Soell, we added a rumor-buster about the supposed 'June 2003 release' of Halo. (It ain't happening.) (Louis Wu 20:01:50 UTC) (permalink)

Ar needs your help.
Not Halo-related... but it's community-related, and pretty important. Check out SilverBrin's post about forum regular *Ar-Isildur, and send along a card! (Louis Wu 16:19:27 UTC) (permalink)

They'll make you laugh, they'll make you scream
Fan Fiction backlog is now ALSO cleared out:

Randy Pitchford talks Halo (a little)
Homelan Fed interviewed Randy Pitchford, of Gearbox Software, yesterday. For the most part, it's a discussion of Counter-Strike... but there are a few positive Halo tidbits, as well:

HomeLAN - What can you tell us about the status and progress of Halo for the PC at this point?

Randy Pitchford - Halo is going great. We'll be talking a lot about it soon. Playing Halo with a mouse and keyboard has been an awakening experience. The idea of playing Halo's multiplayer modes over the internet is equally exciting. Working on Halo has been teaching us much and has been a perfect match for our strategy that builds towards Gearbox's future.

Go check out the whole interview! (Thanks to Nick Danger for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 13:16:42 UTC) (permalink)

Of Warthogs and Men
Pistol Poppers has put together a little movie called 'Valet Parking' showing what not to do with your warthog. 3:41, 6.1 mb, wmv format. We've decided we don't have the space for it, so if the link it's on is unavailable, you'll have to wait for the bandwidth restrictions to be lifted to grab it. (Louis Wu 09:42:04 UTC) (permalink)

A home for fiction
Eep - this should have gone up yesterday, I'm getting sloppy. Dispraiser writes that he's created a site to host his fan fiction pieces - you can check out Dispraiser's Fandom for stories, artwork, and rants. (The stories you can still get here, too, but the artwork is unique to that site.) (Louis Wu 09:36:26 UTC) (permalink)

Lots o' Wallpaper... and a heads-up.
We've got six new desktops for you (some in multiple sizes), which finally clears out the artwork backlog. Go visit the Wallpaper section! It's not posted yet, but in the next day or so, there'll be a new Artwork Posting Guidelines page up to address the currently growing issue of flooding. There are lots and lots of you who are snagging a screenshot off of Bungie.net, slapping some text on it, and sending it in as a Wallpaper or Miscellaneous Art submission. In the past, we've been really lenient in our rules... but the collections are getting too big. We're going to start turning away more artwork, in an effort to keep the overall quality of displayed pieces higher. Hopefully, the guidelines will help you decide if that cartoon you've made, with a thought balloon pasted onto a stock image of Cortana, is worth mailing in or not. (If you'd uploaded art in the last few days, and it hasn't been posted yet, chances are it fell under the new rules... you're welcome to send a followup message, but please don't resend the piece. Thanks!) (Louis Wu 00:23:04 UTC) (permalink)

He's just a boy.
Gah - sometimes, the updates get away from you. While you're all waiting for me to clear out the art queues, the fiction queues, the screenshot queue... go watch this movie. Figh7erbo1 is a short (1:39) piece set to Avril Lavigne's Sk8ter Boi... nice timing. 6 mb, in QT format, from chris_roc. (Louis Wu 20:08:39 UTC) (permalink)

Halo World adds content
Roland Scarlett writes to say that Halo World (which we mentioned about a week ago) has been adding content at a rapid clip. Most sections are fleshed out now. There are a couple of games on the site - one is a variant of Bungie's Extreme Closeups, and the other is called 'Guess The Spot', where you're given a screenshot with a number of blanked-out areas, and you need to choose the correct one to answer the question. (No fair cheating by looking at the originals!) Watch for a few broken links in the top nav bar. (Barring some MAJOR changes, this will be the last post we make about this site with a progress update.) (Louis Wu 21:50:52 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Cover Art - Covered!
c0ld vengeance's Halo 2 Cover Art challenge ended a few days ago - he's now posted his results. For the Front Cover Only section, he gave the award to Ninjas on Fire. For the Front and Back Cover section, Ed Murphy took home the honors. (Check the forum post for more details and justification.) In addition, we've added 6 MORE entries that have come in; this subsection of the site will remain as a permanent fixture, and all Halo 2 cover art sumbitted in the future will go here. (It's unlikely that I'll move the existing entries from the Miscellaneous Art section, because it would break too many existing links... but I might find a way around the problem some day.) (Louis Wu 21:19:07 UTC) (permalink)

mailbox sweep, first run
Attempting to BEGIN to clear out the Artwork backlog... first up, Miscellaneous Art. We've got a new Halo mini-game, a very nice exchange medium, and a misplaced Halo Box Art entry. You'll find 'em all in the Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 20:17:19 UTC) (permalink)

Don't blame him - he had a fever.
Okay, so if you're stripping your field piece and washing the bits in denatured alcohol, and you fall asleep and your head lands in the cleaning bowl, and lightning hits what you disgorge as it comes flying out of your mouth and torques it, by some freaky cosmic coincidence, into human-looking words... this is what might result. (Be nice to Scav - he hasn't been the same since the Yellow Banshee incident.) (Louis Wu 18:14:33 UTC) (permalink)

Took a little while...
After two disappointing attempts, Team Overkill makes the iGames Winter Season Regionals in the 3rd Qualifying round. Read the details on their website. Congrats, guys! (Louis Wu 16:41:23 UTC) (permalink)

Spartan II dogtags - up for grabs
Ever wish you could get your hands on a set of those Spartan II dogtags that were being distributed in Japan? Well, thanks to Nekomusume, now you can. She's got one extra set she's auctioning off on eBay... starting bid is just under $36, and you've got almost a week to decide. (Louis Wu 01:18:14 UTC) (permalink)

What an Athol...
Athol Productions has put together a new gameplay movie for your viewing pleasure. 5:30 long, around 20 megs big, it's gameplay on a number of levels... with a few oddities thrown in. Nice timing, and an interesting combination of musical styles. Folks offended by gay jokes probably shouldn't download this. You can find it at Mythica.org (in both DivX-encoded .avi format, 19.2 mb, and Sorenson-encoded QuickTime format, 21.6 mb), and at Pez's FTP server (both formats as well). Other mirrors are always welcome. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 15:55:44 UTC) (permalink)

Words to fill your mind
Barring a few pieces that were too short, and one that never fully uploaded, the Fan Fiction backlog from this week has been cleared.

Get to reading! (Artwork/movies coming soon.) Update: Guilty Spark re-uploaded Chapter 8 of his New Year's Day saga, so that's up now, too. (Louis Wu 15:06:13 UTC) (permalink)

BS is full of... stuff
Shame, shame. Two pretty neat pieces of Bungie-related trivia occurred recently... and we have to read about them from bungie.org's newest staffer, poena.dare. Scoopin' the old-timers! The important one is that Alex and Laura Seropian (and their new baby girl, Amelia Eve), were featured in Parent magazine recently. The second one is actually more embarrassing, from a scoop point-of-view... bungie.org turned 4 last Tuesday, and we forgot! Welcome aboard, p.d.... and remember, the next time you scoop an old-timer, we're taking your thumbs. (Louis Wu 11:17:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo box contest, revisited
There were a couple of late entries in the Halo 2 Cover Art Contest - this contest is now officially closed, so please don't send us any more entries. You can see the two new versions on the contest page, though - Mr. Yun's is in the top row, second from the left, and Doggone's is the first double-sided entry. Don't forget to vote! (Louis Wu 01:59:53 UTC) (permalink)

The Keyes to it all
Bungie's Tru7h and Reconciliation website has put up Chapter 9—Keyes—of its Legendary Walkthrough - spoiler goodness and 26 new screenshots! Go check it out... NOW! (The inclusion of shot 19 also means our Easter Egg page is going to be updated in the near future...) (Louis Wu 01:48:10 UTC) (permalink)

Photo Story now viewable by all
A few days ago, we posted a note about a 'Photo Story' Microsoft had put together about Halo 2. Some of you could watch it, others couldn't. Thanks to Stuntmutt and Djoey154, we now have pictures of all the slides... check 'em out in our Miscellaneous section. (Louis Wu 01:33:21 UTC) (permalink)

Cover Art Contestants posted
A week ago, c0ld vengeance threw down a gauntlet: create a better cover for Halo 2 than, say, EB Games. We've received 9 entries for this competition; 7 show just the front cover, two show front and back. We've posted all 9 on a display page. c0ld vengeance will judge these and announce a winner soon. Update: There was one more entry - apparently, it had been sent to c0ld a couple of days ago, but it never made its way here. It's been added now. (Louis Wu 20:34:06 UTC) (permalink)

Ain't they cute?
Whoa. Grunts that THINK they have guns... but don't. Spec Ops Elite managed to capture some bizarre activity on the level Keyes... a long thread, including an MPEG movie and an explanation of how this was induced can be found on our forum. It's unclear how much bandwidth Spec Ops Elite is allowed for that movie, so I made a quick conversion to QuickTime format - filesize is about a third of the original, but I DID make it too bright; sorry about that. Speculation on WHY you can make this happen is always welcome. (Just add it to the forum thread.) (Louis Wu 16:09:57 UTC) (permalink)

Grunts in Supermarkets
After another hellish flying experience, I'm back and safely ensconced in the comfort of HBO Headquarters. There's a boatload of stuff to get to... but it's going to take a little while. In the meantime, Stosh has posted a new Blam comic - I think Stosh might have some... um, issues. But you should go read it anyway. (Louis Wu 15:13:37 UTC) (permalink)

A tale of many images...
Okay, this is a long story. Bear with me. It all started when Dulaman87 sent us a note pointing out that the Random House entry for the next Halo novel (Halo: The Flood) now has a picture to go along with the cover. The thing is... that picture's been around for a while. It first showed up as a cover for the Portuguese magazine, BGamer, sent to us by Razorback over a year ago. Three weeks after that, we put up scans from the January 2002 Official Xbox Magazine... and the same image (sort of) was included as a 2-page mural. (DT_Spike combined the two halves to make it easier to see.) What's interesting about that image is that OXM seems to have airbrushed out the Master Chief in the foreground (though they left his leg shadows on the rock he was standing on). Two months later, we received a Miscellaneous Art entry from Draikin that seemed to show the same image as the original BGamer scan... and though we didn't notice it at the time, it's NOT the same image as the OXM mural. (Look at the right side of the images, for example; Draikin's version has a pair of Jackals that are replaced by Grunts in the OXM version. There are other differences, as well.) Upon close consideration, it's clear that this image (these images, rather) are composites... they pull in pieces from many, many released screenshots. This is not a standard thing for Bungie to do... but the picture has shown up in a huge variety of places, which suggests that there must be SOME official-type source for it. We have three questions:

Who created the original image?

What screenshots were used to composite the images (there will be at least two lists, since the images are different)

Is this really the final cover for the Halo Novel, or was Random House simply putting up a picture to have one up?

Feel free to answer as many of these questions as you think you can in this forum thread. Thanks to Dulaman for instigating this investigation! (Louis Wu 15:45:05 UTC) (permalink)

Oh. My. God.
Two new mugs have appeared on the Bungie Store, and to celebrate the occasion, Matt Soell interviewed Marty O'Donnell about the event. All I can say is, Miguel... you've been slammed. We hereby relinquish the title of Master of the Art of the Cheap Shot. (Louis Wu 01:22:14 UTC) (permalink)

What the heck is THAT?
Started almost 12 hours ago, but incomplete as of right now - check out Round 3 of Warbow's Halo Hide and Seek. New rules this time out, so read that first post carefully. Good luck! (Louis Wu 00:17:43 UTC) (permalink)

Fan Fiction delays
Apologies to Fan Fiction writers - there's no way I can format stories before I get home. Any submissions between Monday and Thursday won't be posted before Friday. Please be patient! (Louis Wu 11:20:33 UTC) (permalink)

Photoshop pretty
David S. sent in a very nice HBO-themed banner for our Banners collection. Check it out! (Louis Wu 11:17:01 UTC) (permalink)

Disco ain't dead...
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo... do the Hustle! (Thanks to Steener.) (Louis Wu 10:43:03 UTC) (permalink)

New Halo content (for some) at xbox.com
Thanks to both Simon Hill, via email, and Brandon Tyler, on our forum, for the heads-up on Xbox.com's newest Halo Picture Story. It's not viewable on a mac, or on some PC configurations, it seems... but the audio works fine. If anyone can get screen captures, we'd be most appreciative... (Louis Wu 09:45:00 UTC) (permalink)

HJP - mirrors and more
Not sure how I missed this last night... but Dinky, from HaloJuggaloProductions, has not only posted the HNC final segment for download, he's sent along a new URL for a flash-based Halo design, and would love feedback on it. (Louis Wu 16:04:22 UTC) (permalink)

HNC Mirrors
Some mirrors for you: DeaDSwiTcH has made the entire Halo National Championship set available - Round 1, Round 2, and Round 3. At some point, I'll even add these to the Movies database... (Louis Wu 07:18:48 UTC) (permalink)

Run 'n Gun
Looking for a challenge? This sounds like fun. (Louis Wu 07:14:43 UTC) (permalink)

The Best of the Best
A little sooner than I'd planned to post it - but as I said, I'm headed out. We've got the third and final chunk of the Halo National Championship, as televised by G4Tv, up and ready for download. 8:04 long, 31.7 mb big, in QT format. The final 8 play a 50-kill, no-shield slayer match on Blood Gulch... you gotta love that spawn point sniping! Once again, it's available at Mythica.org (which has spit out a quarter of a terabyte worth of files for you guys in the last 6 days, I might add). Just in time, the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server comes back online, and we've tossed all three segments there, in the Halo Movies folder. (Shouldn't be hard to find, since the section got completely wiped out in the recent outage - but Psyrixx is hoping to have a backup in place sometime today. If that happens, search for g4hnc files.) We're thrilled to hear of other mirrors - but I won't be able to post them for a while; I don't get near a computer again for at least 12 hours. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 15:29:48 UTC) (permalink)

I swear I've seen that somewhere before...
Warbow posts Round 2 of his Hide and Seek contest - the rules are a bit different, so check 'em carefully. 5 images this time. Get to it! (Louis Wu 15:27:22 UTC) (permalink)

Short Reading List
It's possible that more Fan Fiction will be submitted later today, but I'll be on a plane. For right now, we've got Domitri Giovanni's Starship Daybreak, part 1 for you. Domitri wants to make sure he should submit the rest of the parts, so be sure to comment! (Louis Wu 15:03:46 UTC) (permalink)

Let God sort 'em out...
A dark desktop from Professor Keo - check our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 14:52:58 UTC) (permalink)

No way... HE plays Halo?
As much as I realize this might sour the Halo experience for some of you, I feel obligated to post it. David S. notes that the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine has an article on Justin Timberlake, of 'NSync - apparently, he hurt himself, and he's been sitting around the house a lot during recovery. Doing what? Yep, playing Halo. Hey! It's still a cool game! No, come back! Wait... (Louis Wu 14:34:48 UTC) (permalink)

Cool beans!
A couple of days ago, we posted a wallpaper from Lexicus, which also acted as a teaser for the trophy for a then-upcoming fragfest. The contest is now over (won by Nate)... Lexicus has sent in an image of the trophy. Nice! (Louis Wu 08:12:35 UTC) (permalink)

Covenant Elites... in JKII
A couple of weeks ago, we reported about a Covenant model for the game Jedi Knight II - and yesterday, Darth Epy0n sent in a few in-game shots of this mod in action. Check 'em out to see what a Cov elite might look like in a different game... (Louis Wu 06:01:21 UTC) (permalink)

Hide and Seek, round one... complete!
Ross Mills, putting together the work of three forumgoers, posts the solution to Warbow's Hide-and-Seek puzzle mentioned a couple of days ago. Read Warbow's confirmation here. (Louis Wu 23:10:42 UTC) (permalink)

Another taste of things to come
Dan Chosich, who has already proven his abilities as a Halo filmmaker, has decided to release another teaser for his upcoming Halo50K trailer. You can find links in this forum post. (Louis Wu 22:28:07 UTC) (permalink)

Another HNC mirror
Geez, forgot... Dinky has mirrored the second Halo National Championship Semifinal, as well - you can find it on HaloJuggaloProductions. (Louis Wu 16:58:55 UTC) (permalink)

There's more stuff in the queue (artwork and stuff), but I'm headed out for some sledding... be patient. (Louis Wu 16:02:53 UTC) (permalink)

From 10,000, there are now 8.
Part Two - with a side of fries. The second (of 2) semifinal round of the Halo National Championship is now online. 6:53 long, 26.9 mb big, in QuickTime 5 format... 8 more competitors, plus Chris Carney and Hamilton Chu from Bungie, giving you some background on the game. Major props once again to Bigsauce, who brought us the hi-res mpeg version of this episode of G4's Arena! (Louis Wu 20:28:56 UTC) (permalink)

Halo National Championship films - update
Okay, the plan had been to release one segment of this program every couple of days; the first one was released on Thursday. However, yesterday we were contacted by one of the competitors, Bigsauce, who provided us with much higher quality mpeg versions of the films. (G4 provided these files to all competitors.) I'm currently in the process of converting these to a more web-friendly size... but it's slow going (there's a lot of crunching to do). Likely what will happen is that later today we'll release segment 2 (the second semifinal match) as planned... but with the new versions as the base, rather than the original VHS-ripped versions. At the end of the cycle, we'll re-release the first segment, for those who strive for completeness; folks who just wanted to see the vids can pass on it. I must say that getting a hand from one of the sixteen finalists (he placed 4th, overall, out of the more than ten thousand competitors who played in the HNC) simply rocks. Okay, back to re-encoding... (Louis Wu 12:32:18 UTC) (permalink)

Halo World comes online
Seen over at Battleground: Halo - a new Halo site has come online. Halo World is still under construction, but the content is beginning to fill in. (There hasn't been a Halo website by that name since Cyberbob's German site went under more than 2 years ago.) (Louis Wu 12:17:56 UTC) (permalink)

Lots of pretty pictures
A pretty nice collection of desktop images for you today - whether you're looking for something artistic, or lighthearted, or something in between, there are five new images which should give you something to play with. You'll find 'em in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 12:02:54 UTC) (permalink)

Where's Warbow?
Yesterday, Warbow put up another installment of Halo Hide-n-Seek; there are three pictures, taken in various places around the Single-player scenario, and your job is to determine where those places are. Full rules are spelled out in the post - forum regulars nailed one of the pics early on, but the other two are still unidentified! Go to it. (Louis Wu 19:07:17 UTC) (permalink)

Go ahead... touch my nose.
Heh - you ever find yourself getting a bit loud at a Halo LAN party? Seems like the Penny Arcade boys did... (Thanks to Ross Mills for the heads-up.) (Louis Wu 17:18:35 UTC) (permalink)

Concept art?
Another couple of pics for you: an image I can't really explain, and another mock Halo 2 cover. (If you like Halo 2 covers, check out the impromptu Halo 2 Cover challenge currently ongoing on our forum.) Today's art can be found in our Miscellaneous Art collection. (Louis Wu 16:22:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo being crushed in VE poll
Ouch. Voodoo Extreme has a poll on their front page - 'What game are you most looking forward to in 2003?' (We're talking PC games here.) Halo PC is showing dismally - it's currently in 14th place. (Please - if you go vote, do so only once. We've had trouble in the past with folks from here stuffing VE's ballot box... play fair. May the best game win.) Thanks to coexist for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 15:53:44 UTC) (permalink)

HNC round 1 mirrored
Thanks to Dinky, who mirrored the Halo National Championship first semifinal round - if you couldn't get it from mythica, grab a copy off of HaloJuggaloProductions! (We'll release the second semifinal round tomorrow, unless another use for our limited movie bandwidth comes up in the meantime.) (Louis Wu 13:41:10 UTC) (permalink)

I can buy a WHAT?
Hehe - Cheerio noticed this item on eBay - hurry, you've got 8 hours left to buy an advance copy of Halo 2. (Of course, you'll pay at least $69.99 for it, and there's absolutely no guarantee you'll get it any faster than you would by going down to your local EB Games... but hey! You can say you were first in line!) Caveat Idiota. (Louis Wu 21:20:05 UTC) (permalink)

Separating VHS from Beta
In late August, 2002, the Halo National Championship was played in Los Angeles. G4 Media, the folks who run the all-gaming cable channel G4tv, filmed it, and on September 20, broadcast it for the first time. A couple of HBO regulars (Asmodeus and Lophan) were kind enough to film this - but we could never get the folks at G4 to let us know whether we could put up a copy on the web. Well, it's a new year, and it's no longer in the episode rotation schedule... so we're gonna give it a shot. We've broken it up into three segments; the two semifinal rounds, and the finals. We'll release one every couple of days. The first chunk is Semifinal Round 1, and the first minute is of dubious quality. (A problem with Asmodeus' tape deck - and Lophan missed that minute.) From that point on, however, quality is decent. The movie is 7:16 long, 28.4 big, and hosted by Mythica.org - we are happy, of course, to add mirrors. Go grab it... and see how the first 8 of the top 16 Halo competitors in the country play! (Louis Wu 20:23:40 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper
Matt Purcell dropped off a new desktop for your perusal - you'll find it in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 12:42:03 UTC) (permalink)

Reading for the new year
A couple of Fan Fiction stories built up over the holiday:

I guess most writers have been reveling... Update: oops, missed one; Sarge turned in Banserki's Journal, part 10 yesterday as well. (Louis Wu 12:35:16 UTC) (permalink)

Poll Smash
eva05 noticed a new poll at Gamers.com (bottom of the main page) - 'Which 2003 Xbox games are you most excited about?' Halo 2 is currently running away with 52% of the vote... (Louis Wu 12:18:35 UTC) (permalink)

Another Lego Hog
Fury Three discovered yet another Lego Warthog over at Brickshelf - check out the work of Jeremiah VanderMark. I love the dedication of Lego fanatics. The little painted Master Chief rocks! (Louis Wu 10:53:04 UTC) (permalink)

Keep smiling and don't fall over.
To make up for the Metroid vs. Halo train wreck posted earlier, we'd like to present you with Halo-Wannabe's Official Bungie Illustrated Swimsuit Video. 6.9 mb, 1.45 long, in QuickTime format. Thanks to Brian Towne of Mythica, as usual, for the hosting. Happy New Year! (Louis Wu 02:42:38 UTC) (permalink)

Thats-a big one.
Matt Purcell has turned in a new Halo banner - originally enormous (far too big for service as a banner, but attractive nonetheless). We've scaled it down a bit, but the original is still available from the Banners section. (Louis Wu 01:15:56 UTC) (permalink)

Man, it must be Christmas, still.
If this weren't half a meg, I'd have said forget it... but it's so bad it's funny. Check out Wisgary Torres' Halo vs. Metroid flick - 572k in WMV format. Don't get mad - we'll be posting another film in the not-too-distant future. (Louis Wu 01:06:43 UTC) (permalink)

Warthog mod for OF:R
Grant White sends word that a friend has put together a Warthog mod for Operation Flashpoint: Resistance. You can see a picture of it, and apparently can download the mod, as well - though the download server seems to be offline at the moment. (When it's up, go to 'Addons2' and follow the link for a FAV.) The list of games affected by Halo grows... (Louis Wu 00:58:28 UTC) (permalink)

Got some cleaning up to do - there might be updates later today. (Or maybe not until tomorrow...) (Louis Wu 16:19:47 UTC) (permalink)

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January 2003 Archived News