Old news but still good news!

More Tricks
The Tricks queue continues to shrink. It's not gone yet (by ANY means)... but it's six tricks lighter. You'll find these six (ranging from simple stunts to pretty cool explorations) in our Gameplay Tricks section. Another few days of this, and they'll ALL be processed. (Until the next one comes in...) (Louis Wu 20:53:33 UTC) (permalink)

Spread the wealth!
Bungie.net has expanded their forum system to allow forums for each 7th Column chapter - if you have a burning desire to chat with your chapter mates, get to building! (Louis Wu 18:37:53 UTC) (permalink)

10,000 strong... and growing
The Halo National Tournament just passed 10,000 contestants... wonga. According to Yeroen, that makes this the biggest LAN event ever. :) (Louis Wu 16:09:11 UTC) (permalink)

CrAzYjOhN911 submitted a VERY large scan of a Halo sketch

BOLL submitted a modified screenshot using Swedish candy, inspired by this forum thread

We're famous!
Heh - The Banners section gets an update... with an HBO banner, no less! Thanks to Mr Bill Jr V for the submission. (Louis Wu 13:43:37 UTC) (permalink)

Where's Shel Silverstein when you need him?
I... I... words fail me. (Apologies to Jen Taylor, and smacks around the head and ears for Team Overkill.) (Louis Wu 13:35:18 UTC) (permalink)

They're supposed to be FUNNY.
Good lord. (Thanks, mnemesis.) (Louis Wu 00:38:23 UTC) (permalink)

Halo's all the (Biz) Buzz
Doh! Tarrsk sent word last night that Halo is back in the news on Gamespy - due to the Halo National Tournament. (Registration for said event, btw, is at 9552 at the moment - closer and closer to 10,000 contestants!) Gamespy sees the large number of contestants as a positive sign that online console gaming has a future. Oh, yeah... (Louis Wu 20:56:39 UTC) (permalink)

The Albatross' Left Wing
Finally—FINALLY—the Gameplay Tricks queue gets looked at. No, it's not cleared yet. In fact, most of the stuff that went up has been known for months... but remember, baby steps, right? 10 down, 25 to go. More tomorrow, unless a rock falls on the house. Go look at the ten posted today. (Louis Wu 18:53:09 UTC) (permalink)

Monsters at Play reviews Halo
Another Halo review has been posted - Monsters at Play, a site aimed at the thinking crowd, has weighed in... and Halo gets another thumbs-up. Give it a read - it's worth it. We've added this to our Reviews database. (Louis Wu 16:10:49 UTC) (permalink)

New Logo Treatment
Mr Bill Jr V has sent in a Bryce/Photoshop composite honoring a great game, and a great operating system. Check the Logos section. (Louis Wu 08:57:15 UTC) (permalink)

Evolutionized
CrAzYjOhN911 has dropped off a new tidbit of Miscellaneous Art for our collection... (Louis Wu 08:53:31 UTC) (permalink)

Miscellaneous Art Bonanza!
Ample amounts of artwork came in to our coffers recently - We have the following tidbits for you:

A rendered sniper rifle, by nova kog - nice Maya workmanship!

A postcard from Halo, by Mr. Bill Jr V - makes me wanna go...

New camo outfits for the Halo marines, by Warbow - and if I'm not mistaken, Private Gough has been replaced by Private Warbow...

Keyes' Corner writeup gets an update
At the end of May, a new section opened at HBO - Keyes' Corner. The first (and so far only) installment was an in-depth look at the Unlimited Ammo glitch in Halo... and now, 2 months later, Storm Singer has added another little twist to the whole shebang. He learned that the limits on the UA glitch with respect to vehicles can be circumvented in some cases. Check the writeup for details. And let us know if you come up with innovative uses for this! (Louis Wu 16:59:39 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Mod for Half-Life
A few weeks ago, n3m noticed a new project over at Planet Half-Life - a mod called 'Incoming'. We neglected to mention it then - but it came up again yesterday. So we're mentioning it. :) (Louis Wu 15:54:20 UTC) (permalink)

Mythica's Back!
After a two-week downtime, Mythica.org has returned! 2.7 gigs of movies are back online, and the biggest Halo movie host (by far) has returned to serve up the goodness. Try not to crush it in your haste to grab whatever you were missing... (Thanks to Brian Towne, whose tireless efforts have returned this resource to the Bungie community... we now know EXACTLY where we'd be without you, Brian!) (Louis Wu 14:16:18 UTC) (permalink)

Guess the Release Date!
Woo - long weekends out of town can be GOOD things. :) First up - The Junkyard is running a new competition - guess the release date of PC/Mac Halo (exactly), and win stuff! (There are several copies of Halo, and some multimedia cards on the line.) The news story is here, the Guess Contest is here. Check it out! (Thanks to Vector40 for the heads-up, and apologies for the delay in posting this.) (Louis Wu 13:20:05 UTC) (permalink)

Funky Blue Things
Daniel Conway was inspired by the energy stations (the blue beams) in Halo... and whipped up a little something for our Miscellaneous Art section. Check it out! (Louis Wu 03:16:35 UTC) (permalink)

Logos section updated
Orlando Cortez has sent in a huge logo conversion for our Logos section - reversal of fortune, or maybe just colors... (Louis Wu 03:04:40 UTC) (permalink)

GameWatchers reviews Halo
Another Halo review - this one at GameWatchers.net, and far more recent (just a few weeks old). Overall score? 99.5. We've added it to our Reviews database. (Louis Wu 09:57:55 UTC) (permalink)

Emily Litella would be proud...
Joseph "Zef" Howells sent in a modified screenie for our Miscellaneous Art section... I like that logo. (Louis Wu 02:06:20 UTC) (permalink)

Halo reviews from GamePartisan
A pair of Halo reviews have surfaced - from GamePartisan.com. These were posted in mid-March, but we just got word of them today. (Thanks, Creamyears.) We've added them to our Reviews Database - 122 reviews, average score of 94.9%. Whoa! (Louis Wu 17:19:07 UTC) (permalink)

Today, we'd also like to point out a link to a fan fiction piece over at Zenith - Uriel's 'Beyond the Paradise'. Worth a read - and when it's finished, we'll get a copy too. (Louis Wu 16:03:44 UTC) (permalink)

Halo National Championship Roster passes 7000
Woohoo! 7000... who was it? (We got word that the 7000 mark was passed from Grail, of cWB - but he didn't say if he was the lucky contestant.) We'll just have to wait for word from Bungie... (Louis Wu 15:48:59 UTC) (permalink)

He shoulda stayed in bed...
Oh, the fun you can have with cutscenes... (Thanks, Warbow.) (Louis Wu 14:43:31 UTC) (permalink)

Pics from last week's fest
Subnova's Deimos™ has posted a set of pictures from MacWorld NY 2002, including a collection from the after-show Halofest. No labels, and some of the lighting is questionable... but you can get a sense for the space and people. One of these days, one of us will actually write it up, too! (Louis Wu 13:23:32 UTC) (permalink)

6000 Strong... and Growing
Bungie.net has been keeping track of the total number of registrants for the Halo National Championship... and tonight that number passed 6000. (Check the upper right-hand corner of their website for the current tally.) Will you be the 7,000th contestant? (Louis Wu 00:03:22 UTC) (permalink)

Aaal-righty, then!
Thirsty? (Thanks to Cap'n Keyes...) (Louis Wu 00:02:34 UTC) (permalink)

Who said she's just a Hologram?
Heh - for those who think there aren't any tricks left to find in Halo, think again. Lennox noticed an interesting interaction yesterday... and after the forum settled down and stopped calling him a liar, Warbow actually FILMED a variant. It was intriguing enough to get the attention of a Halo Dev team member... which means it's pretty likely that this behavior wasn't seen in the Bungie offices before now. Nice going, guys! (Louis Wu 00:01:57 UTC) (permalink)

Chaos II is Coming..
Wonga. Remember Chaos on the Ring? (Back when Warthog Jumping was relatively new, this flick pushed the limits.) Well, these guys are putting the finishing touches on Chaos II... and their website says it'll be ready by Saturday! The hitch? It's gonna be HUGE. (Like 400 megs huge, if I read their blurb right.) I'd be happy to talk to them about making it smaller... but in the meantime, we're gonna start collecting offers for mirrors. :) (Brian Towne says Mythica.org should be back up by tomorrow... we hope he's right. :) ) Every byte is gonna count! (Louis Wu 00:01:23 UTC) (permalink)

Designer Warthogs
Warbow has polished up two new Warthogs for your perusal - a Copper version, and a Winter Camo version. You can find both in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Personally, I'd LOVE one of those Camo models...) (Louis Wu 00:00:40 UTC) (permalink)

Mid-week Fiction Harvest
Built-up Fan Fiction (including a fixed version of the Misadventures):

Candy for your desktop
Continuing to clear out the Incoming file queue - a couple of new desktop images for you. One composite, one original... check 'em out in our Wallpaper section. (Fan Fiction coming later this morning...) (Louis Wu 09:38:58 UTC) (permalink)

The Return of Halo Babies
Oh, and before we forget... Xbox Weekly has a story on Halo Babies. Be sure to read it carefully. Thanks to ChromeFX for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 09:29:32 UTC) (permalink)

More MS Musing
GameSpot interviewed David Hufford, Xbox product manager, and one question stood out with regard to the Halo community:

GS: There was some confusion regarding the "Halo online" announcement made at E3 2002. Is Bungie developing an Xbox Live version of Halo, or did the announcement pertain to an entirely new product?

DH: An entirely new product. The Halo guys are at work on the next version of Halo right now, and they'll be talking about it in the near future. It's a "ground up" approach. When we acquired Bungie a few years ago, they were very clear with us that their original vision for Halo was to bring it online, and now what they're going to do is take that initial vision but apply it to the next version of Halo, so it will be the product that they always wanted to deliver.

So this would suggest that the 'online' version of Halo some folks have been talking about, doesn't exist. Whether Hufford's product is the same thing as John O'Rourke was talking about has yet to be confirmed... but it would seem so. Will Halo 2 ship before Halo for PC/Mac? Only time will tell... (First heads-up goes to AOPaul, via email, though Team Overkill was a close second.) (Louis Wu 09:22:52 UTC) (permalink)

Another Online Halo Option
Another entrant in the Xbox tunneling software category... Xbox Ladder comes onboard. It's unclear how it works yet (the FAQ's not up, and we have no reports from adopters), but if the other solutions aren't working for you, give these guys a try! (Mentioned by zoe on our forum - part of the team?) (Louis Wu 02:09:36 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Live?
Thanks to Tirion, who pointed out a Reuters article at Yahoo which quotes John O'Rourke, MS's director of worldwide Xbox marketing, as saying that

"the company is committed to bringing out new versions of both "Halo" and "Project Gotham" in the next year, and taking advantage of Xbox Live, the new online gaming service Microsoft plans to launch later this fall."

Disbelief of our forum constituents aside, it's an interesting statement from someone near the top of the marketing food chain... it'll be fun to watch how this plays out. (Louis Wu 02:01:41 UTC) (permalink)

I like Copper, too.
Man... it's Warthog Week, or something. (Louis Wu 01:44:52 UTC) (permalink)

Phoenix Paper
It's not really Halo-related... but the Phoenix site here doesn't have a Wallpaper section yet. :) Phoenixhunter has submitted a Phoenix-styled desktop image, which we've added to our Wallpaper collection. Nice job! (Louis Wu 21:03:13 UTC) (permalink)

The smashing of preconceived notions
Team Overkill points out a Gamespotting article praising the power of Halo to convert even non-gameplayers to console gamers. A fun read. (Louis Wu 20:25:20 UTC) (permalink)

Warthogs in the Wild
Back from the wilds, and still in an off-road frame of mind... nice to see that in my absence, there's been a bunch of Warthog-related action. Blackstar has created a pair of Warthog ads—I like the first better than the second, but they're both worth watching—in QuickTime 5 format, at 6.9 mb and 7.4 mb respectively... now we've had Ford AND Chevy representation. Also, dogsounds has weighed in from the other side of the pond, with a Range Rover version, which you'll find in our Miscellaneous Art section. (He apologizes to Razorback for the use of the Warthog logo, but points out that since RB stole it from Warthog Games anyway...) I could have used this yesterday! To all content submitters - deep apologies for my forgetting to pass on new access perms to the rest of the crew - the latest round of material will go up in the next little bit. Good to be home! (Louis Wu 20:16:31 UTC) (permalink)

Halo National Championship filling up fast!
The folks at Bungie are overjoyed at the number of folks that have signed up for the first Halo National Championship. At last count, the roster contains 3,665 brave men and women! Slots are filling up fast though, so if you've got the sack for it, sign up now!

psst! Word has it that some of our fellow BORG'ers have signed up!
(Ding 20:33:40 UTC) (permalink)

Adventures in Babysitting
Join us as we heave a collective sigh of relief: It's been almost a whole day since our fearless leader left the premises, and there have been no problems bigger than perms that need tweaking, etc. All-in-all, things are great here! :: wonders if someone left the oven on :: (Ding 04:18:45 UTC) (permalink)

An important note about submitted stuff
Eep... Louis forgot to give me access to HBO's ftp so now I can't upload new fan fiction or art. Count Zero isn't able to do it either. So anything submitted between yesterday and Wednesday will not be posted. Sorry, all! Pax. (Crux Fidelis 19:53:22 UTC) (permalink)

Futuristic Hummers
Wonga - what are the chances? Two misc art submissions, from two different people, with the same general idea! Razorback sent in a very cool workup of the M-12 GT, a civilian version of the military 'hog. I LOVE that hood ornament! Not quite in the same league, but still freakily coincidental, )hog sent in his own Warthog ad. Our Miscellaneous Art coffers runneth over! (Louis Wu 07:00:03 UTC) (permalink)

Lanfest writeup
Team Overkill, a group of four sharpshooters from Staten Island, have put up the first writeup of the end-of-Macworld Lanfest sponsored by the NYC Bungie-holics. You can find it linked from their Clan site... or you can cut to the chase and visit the Events page directly. These guys kicked ass and took names. Go read about the carnage! (Pics, too.) (Louis Wu 06:45:39 UTC) (permalink)

Mythica to return
Speaking of movies, Brian Towne has checked in after a week-long vacation... and it sounds like his movie server was not the only bad news he faced. :( The good news (for HBO visitors) is that mythica.org should be back up and running in the next day or two, depending on when Brian can get to the datacenter. Hang on a bit longer... (Louis Wu 06:33:59 UTC) (permalink)

Halo-Trigger Happy posted
Hnn Productions sends word that they've put a new movie up for you to grab. It's called 'Halo-Trigger Happy', and it's a 4:15 long .wmv that weighs in at 6.9 mb. It mostly shows solo gameplay, set to 'Click Click Boom', by Saliva. We'll list it soon in our Movies database. (Louis Wu 06:29:34 UTC) (permalink)

Lots to read - last for a bit
The Fan Fiction just doesn't stop - here's the stuff that's been building while we've been out of town at Macworld:

There were some mixups this time around - mostly owing to my very erratic schedule this past week. Halo 2: Jupiter has already had chapter 2 posted - because I missed chapter 1. You might want to read the whole thing as a series, for continuity. Also, Ascendant, part 7, actually came in over a week ago - it got lost in the inbox. Enjoy this batch - I'm out of town for a few days, starting tomorrow, and it's unclear if stuff coming in before Wednesday will be posted by one of the others. Please be patient! (Louis Wu 06:24:49 UTC) (permalink)

Box art, future style
This came in a couple of days ago, but we missed it because we were all at MacWorld (except for Crux, who was burning incense and hoping for salvation). Jon Bonneau has created his view of what the box for 'Halo Next' (OXM's unimaginative moniker for the next Halo game) will look like. Check it out in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 11:14:24 UTC) (permalink)

Halo National Tourney
A Halo National Championship? Microsoft, EB, and iGames (a game center company) have teamed up to offer you a nationwide competition with prizes like a 50 inch flat screen TV, amazing audio systems, and lots of Xbox-related hardware. You can read Bungie's description at Bungie.net, or visit Xbox.com for links and a movie with some fun content. (To see if there's an iGames near you, check this participating centers list.) Thanks to Grail, of CWB, who sent us a notice of this before Bungie had even put up its page! (Louis Wu 10:53:16 UTC) (permalink)

The Son of the Man
It's better to change the Man's diapers, than to be the Man... or something. The founder of Bungie Studios, Alex Seropian, has announced that he's leaving Bungie at the end of August to concentrate on... well, life. You can read the details at Bungie.net... but I'd like to say right here and now that we're gonna miss him. (Louis Wu 19:24:38 UTC) (permalink)

Peter Tamte Interviewed
A couple of days ago, Miguel 'Freewill' Chavez, master of BS, cornered Peter Tamte at Macworld New York and asked him some interesting questions about the Mac and PC ports of Halo. Read the interview here - we'll add it to our Interviews database in the near future. (And thanks to Peter for all the great info!) Comments, of course, should be directed to the forum... (Louis Wu 14:59:59 UTC) (permalink)

Destineer's Peter Tamte on Mac Halo
MacGamer had a chance to catch up with Peter Tamte of Destineer to talk about Halo for Mac. When asked about system requirements, Tamte could only say:

"Desktops you can buy today will be able to run Halo. We can't make any promises about older machines, however."

Now THAT'S a plane.
Want a serious fighter jet? Check out Storm Singer's Skyhawk - Background in Bryce, plane in Lightwave. You'll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. Fly me to the moon, baby... (Louis Wu 11:32:14 UTC) (permalink)

Attack of the 50-foot Elite
Whoa. Do you live anywhere near San Jose, California? Would you be willing to pay $30 for the chance to play Halo on a screen that is 40 feet by 60 feet (12x18 meters)? Swing by this page, then, and register forMax Games, at the Tech Museum of Innovation - on August 15, they'll be holding a competition, in which the final round for various games will be held on the IMAX Dome theater screen. Wowza. (First heads-up for this puppy goes to Ryan Foote.) (Louis Wu 08:11:14 UTC) (permalink)

Tips queue cleared out
Whew! The Gameplay Tips queue has finally been emptied - almost 30 tips added. (Some quite good, even.) Now we just need a reasonable way to sort them... For those myriad fans still waiting patiently (or maybe not so patiently any more - dang, Bungie got their PC Halo announcement out before we finished this), the Gameplay Tricks queue has been organized - there are currently almost 30 tricks in it, and I'm going to make getting them up a priority in the coming days. (It doesn't help that I'll be camping for most of next week... but we'll see what we can do.) In the meantime, go learn the best Flag defense on Sidewinder! (And lots of other stuff...) (Louis Wu 01:57:24 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie.net forums open
Bungie.net came back up from its downtime this morning... and you're gonna like the reason. They were installing their new Forum system - eventually, every chapter will be able to ahve its own forum, but for now, there are just a pair of them, The Underground, and the Septagon. It's completely custom-built - check it out! (Thanks to Warbow for pointing them out.) (Louis Wu 21:12:30 UTC) (permalink)

HBO's changing servers
Pack up the lamps, Granny - HBO is moving. We're setting up new digs on a nice fat pipe, so that folks who've had trouble connecting should find that things have improved. (It's not, unfortunately, fat enough to handle all of the movies we mention... sorry.) We'll keep both the old and the new sites updated for the next week or so, to make sure nobody gets left behind - with one exception, you shouldn't even NOTICE the transfer itself. The one exception is Fan Fiction comments. There's no easy way to keep the two sets nicely synchronized - so some of the old comments might get lost. Just a warning to anyone LEAVING comments. Now is probably a good time to mention that Halo coverage in the near future will be pretty spotty - I'm headed out of town again, and CZ is on a pretty lousy connection. I'm looking into the possibility of pulling Crux out from his self-imposed isolation... but no guarantees. Things will be back to normal next week. (Louis Wu 14:35:31 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie.net scheduled downtime
Bungie.net has put up a notice that all Bungie web services will be down for several hours tomorrow, starting at 10:30 AM PDT. (Obviously, you won't be able to read it THERE after that point, so we're mentioning it here.) This means a couple of hours of webcam downtime... (Louis Wu 01:18:46 UTC) (permalink)

Still playin' catch-up... Update: Within 7 minutes of posting those two, Shadow turned in his latest chapter of the Rise to honor series. Gotta love it! (Louis Wu 16:36:54 UTC) (permalink)

Keyes Loop modeled
Ever wanted to see what the Keyes Loop actually looked like? NthDegree256 modeled it for you. (Also available as a 139K .mov file, if the .avi is hard to see...) Pretty cool! (Louis Wu 16:17:03 UTC) (permalink)

Free Xbox/Halo from MyLocalBands.com
Want a free Xbox, and a copy of Halo? MyLocalBands.com is giving one away, autographed by Home Town Hero (a 'postiviely valiant rock 'n' roll band'). You need to visit the contest page, and send the link to all your friends - each friend who visits the page from your link earns you a chance to win. Contest ends on July 31. Thanks to TomeOne for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 08:58:23 UTC) (permalink)

Links page reorganized
We've updated the Links section a bit - stripped out URLs that no longer lead anywhere (though we didn't remove seemingly inactive links that actually still pointed to a Halo site), added a site or two... reorganized a bit. There is now a Fan Fiction section, a Movie Mirrors section, and all the known online hacks are listed in the Miscellaneous section. Hope this helps! (Louis Wu 16:55:11 UTC) (permalink)

Movie mirror updates
Mythica.org still seems to be down - an ominous sign. Stepping to the plate are The Repertory and Project Mjolnir - two sites devoted to Halo movies - and That Weasel Television, another long-time bandwidth donator. Most movies released recently now have multiple mirrors at one or more of these sites. The Movies database has been upgraded to allow searches by movie name, so finding that one film you want to see should be easier now. (Louis Wu 16:25:44 UTC) (permalink)

Movies database updated
Just in time for mythica.org, our biggest movie bandwidth donor, to go down, the Movies Database has been updated - 21 movies created in the past month or so have been added to the database. Unfortunately, many of them are hosted only by the mythica server, so they're not all available at the moment... but it's usually a temporary problem that brings the server down. (We hope.) A search by name function will be added in the next day or so. To kick off the new additions, we've included a previously unmentioned film - HaloCable - submitted recently by XERO Productions. It's 5:40 long, in .wmv format, and contains footage from Ian Haddock's Rocket Dance, as well as original footage - all set to new music. Take a look! (Louis Wu 03:12:58 UTC) (permalink)

Bryce-rendered Halo movie released
Mr Bill Jr V, a fan-fiction submitter in the past, has created a Halo movie entirely in Bryce. It's 3:02 long, 13 megs big, and in QuickTime 5 format. Vector40, who is hosting the movie over at The Repertory, calls it 'meditative.' Seems to me it would have worked very nicely with a Tangerine Dream soundtrack... (Louis Wu 21:56:52 UTC) (permalink)

The week's fan fiction
Sunday's Fan Fiction (really, the last several days):

Logos section updated
Cowboy Leo recently dropped off a new Logo enhancement for us - we've added it to our Logos page. (Louis Wu 15:45:09 UTC) (permalink)

Blackstar Productions produces
Brian Josselyn, aka Blackstar, has put together a couple of movies for your viewing pleasure. The first is a trick with relatively far-reaching implications - what are the limits on projectile flight? (This has been added to the Tricks queue, as well.) You can find some interesting discussion about this movie on our forum. The second movie is a highlights reel of a lanfest held right here at HBO HQ last weekend - we called it 'Freedom to Kill', and there was quite a lot of that. Brian's movie combines halo footage with some live voice action from the game, and some inspiring music choices - it weighs in at 30 megs (QT5 format), so be careful with it! (If demand is high, we'll rustle up some mirrors for this puppy.) (Louis Wu 16:15:59 UTC) (permalink)

Sno's Ultimate Tiporium opens
A few days ago, Sno mentioned his Ultimate Tiporium on our forum. It's not only Halo material, but there is a Halo page there. Some of the tips use techniques that Vidmasters might scorn... but sometimes, it's whatever keeps you alive! Take a look. (Louis Wu 16:09:38 UTC) (permalink)

New Captions shots posted
Overshadowed just a little bit by the official MS PR announcement about PC Halo was an update to the Screenshot Captions section of Bungie's Tru7h and Reconciliation site. There are 4 new photos... and some of 'em just make you want to break in to Bungie Headquarters and steal that dev kit. First heads-up props to MasterOmok, who sent us email about it. (Louis Wu 10:56:12 UTC) (permalink)

Back, finally...
Whoa... back. Sort of. First off, I'd like to thank Count Zero for the backup this week - he kept the site running while I was incommunicado (unexpectedly so - who'da thunk that I wouldn't be able to find something faster than a 19200 connection in Bakersfield... or even any time to log in with it?). Figures that I'd miss the biggest news of the last few months, too, doesn't it? Secondly, in response to a suggestion by B-Sharp, news headlines will now appear in the news article they are associated with - to make recognition easier in following days. Finally, I'll be slowly (over the course of the day) adding news items for things that turned up this week but might not have made the main news page - but there are still quite a number of family activities planned for the day, and I have no idea how much time I'm going to have here. Might run through tomorrow, even. It's good to be home! (Louis Wu 10:45:52 UTC) (permalink)

Apologies from the various trolls and MS-haters may be provided at their convenience.
OK folks, this is the big one: Real details on the computer version of Halo. Zaruthustran first broke the story on the forum, and then the press release hit Blue's News.

The important parts:

PC version: Gearbox Software (Half-Life: Opposing Forces).

Macintosh version: Westlake Interactive (Mac ports of Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, and more).

Publisher: Destineer

Release date: "Summer 2003" for the PC, just "2003" for the Mac.

There's one more critical line in there: "Additional information regarding game content, features and enhancements will be announced at a later date".

Well, there you have it. Not much more I can say here (except maybe, to some people, "We told you so"). (Count Zero 17:42:25 UTC) (permalink)

July OXM vids posted
Thanks once again to Team Overkill, who provided copies of the Halo-related videos on the July OXM DVD - the top 3 Top Plays were Halo stunts, and they made a movie called 'Dreams of Master Chief' (a spoof on Warthog Jumping, with stunt footage by Randy Glass himself). The films are 2.2 mb and 21 mb, respectively, and in QuickTime 5 format. We needed to wait until the issue was off the shelves before we could post these. (Count Zero 02:17:54 UTC) (permalink)

Scandahoovian?
Apparently yesterday's translation of the GameReactor interview left a bit to be desired (despite being endorsed by the man himself). So much that Christian H¿jberg has sent in an alternate translation (as well as pointing out that GameReactor is a Danish site, not Scandinavian as was claimed yesterday). Since I have no way to verify either translation or pick a superior, I'll just post them both and let the Danes sort it out... (Count Zero 15:04:01 UTC) (permalink)

The Battle of the... uh... Lake!
If you're in the southeast Michigan neighborhood and have a hankering for a SPNKRing, MOSHPIT is planning a big Halo bash "within the next month". From the looks of this, it will be a major event, with food, organized tournaments with prizes, and laser tag(!). For more information, head over to the MOSHPIT Seventh Column chapter. (Count Zero 05:40:09 UTC) (permalink)

Nobody's immune to rumors
fAt1 informs us that the August issue of PC Gamer UK claims to have a little information on the computer version of Halo. Specifically, they predict that Remedy Entertainment, the studio behind Max Payne, is doing the port. Remember, this information did NOT come from Bungie and has NOT been verified. (Count Zero 02:10:54 UTC) (permalink)

Bork bork floogen bork...
Subnova has noticed an interview with Halo designer Jaime Greisemer at the Scandinavian site GameReactor. There is no English version of the article, but translation assistance is always welcome... Thanks to Pallor for the heads-up. (Count Zero 02:03:43 UTC) (permalink)

Blur of Halo available
Dang, almost forgot - this came in on Saturday, but we were so busy playing Halo that I never put it up. :( NevaFuse and Spike Lee made (and are hosting) a movie called 'Blur of Halo'. It's a Warthog Jump vid, in .wmv format; it's 8.8 mb, and a bit over a minute long. They made it because they felt there was a glut of movies that weren't of very high quality, and wanted to contribute to the other side of the fence. Take a look! (Louis Wu 12:04:29 UTC) (permalink)

To watch, or not to watch...
Culture comes to HBO - The Master Chief stars in Hamlet, a new movie trailer by Warbow. (A cookie to anyone who can tell where Blackstar helped out...) This one gets the HBO Seal of Approval. You'll find it at Mythica.org (where else?). 4 megs, in QT5 format - check it out! (Louis Wu 02:04:02 UTC) (permalink)

Northwest Regional Tourney summary posted
Jester has written up a summary of the Northwest Regional Halo Tournament, held at the end of June in Boise. You can read it at The Psyjnir Complex. Congrats to the HALOID Elite! (Louis Wu 01:53:28 UTC) (permalink)

Last fanfic installment for a bit
It's the last Fan Fiction for a few days - Spartan415 has turned in Chapter 7 of The Lost Spartan. I'm going to be out of town for a few days, and while it's POSSIBLE that I'll find time to process fan fiction, it's rather unlikely. Enjoy! (Louis Wu 01:47:55 UTC) (permalink)

The Halo Saga has been split into 5 pieces to fit into the database, but can be read in one piece at the link above. (Louis Wu 22:36:26 UTC) (permalink)

Freedom to Kill webcam
'Freedom to Kill' Quick Update: We've set up a webcam showing the gameplay on one of the screens here - a beautiful projector image provided by Freewill. There's no guarantee that what you see will be interesting... but you'll see what we see, refreshed every 30 seconds. ;) (We may actually move the camera around a bit... or we may forget it's there, and simply play. :) ) At the moment, a couple of guys are cooping through T&R on Legendary... but who knows how long that's gonna last? Enjoy! (Louis Wu 15:52:51 UTC) (permalink)

Movies, and an explanation
News is backing up a little - the HBO Junkies have been having a weekend-long lanfest (started Friday evening, we're just getting going again today after knocking off at 3 am last night), so news has been sparse... but there are a couple of movies for you anyway today. First up is yet another addition to Warbow's Bottom of the Maw Jump Trick - Halo Wannabe has submitted a movie showing a much more reproducible route to the bottom. (This film is 2.7 mb.) For a wider audience, Skavenger_s7 (and Renegade Theatre) have melded Robert Redford and Halo in a beautiful way - check out The Castle, a 4.7 mb, 60-second short. Enjoy the vids, enjoy the day! We'll be back soon. (Time to start shooting again...) (To all content submitters - we'll get to your stuff as soon as we can. Please don't send new copies, thinking we didn't get it. Thanks!)

Start the weekend reading
Gonna be scarce around here for a bit... but here's some Fan Fiction to keep you busy:

More praise for Marty
Music4Games.net has reviewed the Halo Soundtrack... and it's definitely worth a read. It's not an album you'll find in your record store's easy listening section, they say:

This soundtrack really highlights the importance and difference between writing great "game music", as opposed to simply writing great music that's used in a game.

They didn't love everything, but they were good about describing where they thought the faults lay. At the end of the day, they ask, "will game music ever be the same again?" - high praise, indeed! (Louis Wu 13:11:23 UTC) (permalink)

That's all for today - back to enjoying the holiday! (Louis Wu 19:38:22 UTC) (permalink)

New Logos to look at
We don't get many of these any more, but Scott Dyer has sent in 3 new modifications of the Halo (Combat Evolved) logo. You'll find 'em in our Logos section! (Louis Wu 14:04:14 UTC) (permalink)

Good thing it's a holiday...
Fireworks-filled Fan Fiction on this Fourth of July:

And just in time for our 547th entry in the Fan Fiction database (yeah, amazed me, too), Vector40 has written another must-read-for-authors article on filetypes. Check it out, over at Zenith! (Louis Wu 01:34:00 UTC) (permalink)

Piles and piles of Halo updates at B.net
Juicy Bungie goodness - on the one hand, we've got the next chapter of Bungie's Halo Legendary Walkthrough, created by CandyMan - Assault on the Control Room never looked so gorgeous. (mnemesis, who pointed out all the nice links, especially wanted you to notice Sarge, the incredible one-handed sniper.) On the other hand, we have "Halo: A 'Her'spective", an article written by Tinuviel, of WolfePack (a team that made it to the finals of the Seventh Column Halo Competition a month ago), giving a female perspective on this game. And finally, on the other other hand, Matt wanted to point out that Halo soundtracks are finally in local stores. Get over to Tru7h and Reconciliation and get readin'! (Louis Wu 00:31:46 UTC) (permalink)

Yay! Lorraine gets credit!
Skeletor noticed a hardcover version of the Fall of Reach on the Bungie Webcam (saved for posterity here) - and Matt Soell dished up a few details about this version. If you want it, you gotta buy 6 books for the price of one... (Louis Wu 21:10:32 UTC) (permalink)

New version of Aquaduct
Wanna play internet Halo using a Mac to facilitate? Aquaduct Beta 2 has just been released. Check out Phforslayer's post! (Louis Wu 19:32:52 UTC) (permalink)

Folks - do everyone a favor, and make sure your fan fiction title isn't already in use. It makes databasing the whole shebang quite a bit messier. Thanks! (Louis Wu 02:35:26 UTC) (permalink)

Dark Helmet's Halo gets overhauled
Dark Helmet writes to point out that he's overhauled his Halo site. The guy's right up there with the best in terms of his trickster abilities... check it out! (Louis Wu 02:14:57 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Calling

Halo on your phone! James Robinson has put this Halo logo on his cell phone - here's a small picture of it in action. Now that's dedication! (We're still waiting for the playable version, though...) (Louis Wu 09:12:53 UTC) (permalink)

I think there's krazy glue on that seat...
We've (okay, I've) been very remiss with respect to the Gameplay Tricks section - I'm really sorry about that. Hopefully, I'll have good news for you on that front in the not-too-distant future. (Say, before the release of Halo 2?) In the meantime, though, Warbow has submitted a movie that we could simply add to his existing trick... and therefore did. No new entry needed. Almost 4 months ago, Warbow sent in some pictures from the bottom of the Maw jump. They were cool... but they didn't show anyone how to repeat the stunt. Well, now he's turned in a movie supplement... and even after all this time, I found my jaw dropping, wondering why he wasn't dead. Check it out on the Floor of the Maw trick page. (Louis Wu 21:38:03 UTC) (permalink)

PanZer recommends that you read Taker of Life by following the series link rather than the direct one, since it's been about a month since the last installment... (Louis Wu 20:34:44 UTC) (permalink)

Elite Halo Gang site comes online
[E}-{G]Bioblob writes to let us know that the Elite Halo Gang now has a website up - swing by and see if you want to join! (Louis Wu 20:00:59 UTC) (permalink)

Dr. Seuss's got nothin' on us...
Another desktop submission by Justin - Red vs. Blue, all over your screen. Check it out in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 19:03:07 UTC) (permalink)

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July 2002 Archived News