Old news but still good news!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Screens and more
Last week, Bungie posted an article on the Tru7h and Reconciliation website called 'Designing for Carnage', which looked at 3 multiplayer maps and how they were developed. We've added the 15 images (screenshots, 3D Studio Max views, and sketches) to our Screenshots database. For posterity, and all that. (Louis Wu 14:50:10 UTC)

Starry Starry Cartographer
Team Overkill drops off a Van Gogh-ized version of a Halo screenshot for our Miscellaneous Art collection. (It pulled an 'A' in the class it was turned in for.) (Louis Wu 01:35:30 UTC)

The Jump, Part II is dedicated to the author's friend Ken, who died recently in a car accident. Our sympathies... Update - oops, forgot one; Cameron Eades' Halo: Combat Evolved, chapter 2. Sorry about that! (Louis Wu 21:56:32 UTC)

Latest Egg added
The easter egg discovered this weekend has been documented for the Halo Easter Egg page; thanks once again to everyone who contributed. I've taken the liberty of using the screenshots posted by 2 and 2 make 5 for documentation; if this is a problem, I'll replace them with copies I create myself. (Hopefully, it won't be; the only difference will be that I'll have to spend the time to create them. :) ) (Louis Wu 18:29:05 UTC)

Screen Art
Three new desktops for you today, including a rather oddly shaped one, an image that was first submitted in a much smaller size for the Misc. Art section, and a subtly changed image (look closely in the shadows). You'll find all three in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 18:46:05 UTC)

Eggs fer sale...
Over the last few days, the HBO forum has fixated itself on finding a mentioned-in-passing easter egg in Halo. Elan Sleazbagano has done a decent job writing up the progress to date; start here, if you're interested in joining in the hunt. What began as a casual remark has turned into another community event like the bungie.org glyph puzzle last year. Keep an eye on that Miguel character... (Louis Wu 16:07:47 UTC)

What's in a Voice?
Back in August, Mr.Poke discovered a pretty cool mp3 of some of Jen Taylor's voice acting credits. It's pretty fun to hear 'Cortana' selling body wash and chicken strips. It never occurred to me, or to anyone else who communicated with me, to look for other Halo voice actors... but today Stuntmutt found a similar file for Steve Downes, the voice of the Master Chief. That got me to do a bit of digging... and armed with The Names Behind The Voices, and the archives of Voicebank.net and The Talent Group, you can find clips from a large number of Halo voice actors. Moviemakers... start your engines! (Louis Wu 14:21:30 UTC)

Have you got a savage breast?
Back in August, Silverbrin turned in a piece of music called 'Mahdrigalo'. It was well-received... but SB has built on it.

A few months ago I uploaded a piece of fan music called "Mahdrigalo". It was a combination of the Halo gregorian chant with the Siege of Madrigal. Both (in my opinion) are some of Marty's best works. Both songs are also on the Halo soundtrack. After releasing the somewhat crude midi, I got a surprising amount of requests to rework the piece into a more high quality audio effort. Months passed and I came to own some new software. I decided to start from scratch and bring the old piece to life through more powerful software; the way it was meant to be heard. After a a few days of tinkering I was able to recreate the original Mahdrigalo and maintain a duel Myth/Halo aura. The main differences between this sequal and the original include a much higher quality of audio and a new ending. I hope you enjoy Mahdrigalo2.mp3.

From where I sit, it's definitely a more polished piece of work... check it out, it weighs in at 4.8 mb. (It's currently hosted here, but if bandwidth issues get in the way (and we'll only know if you tell us), we'll move it to another server.) (Louis Wu 14:45:44 UTC)

Hey - he's cute!
Stosh has started up a new comic series, called 'Blamed!' You'll find the first installment in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Louis Wu 17:48:43 UTC)

Halo Fan Music Rocks.
Wow. Justin Durban, who turned in a pretty cool reworking of the Halo theme about 6 weeks ago, has spoken again. Justin says:

Its hard to describe this one is like. I guess you'll just have to hear it. Basically the theme comes in and out and is even modified to a point. Perhaps Marty will do the same with his score.

It starts quietly, and builds to a beautiful finale - this is three and a half minutes of beauty. It weighs in at just under 5 megs... if you're a fan of the Halo 2 theme, you should grab this piece. (You can check out more of Justin's work at Edgen Animations, if you like what you hear.) (Louis Wu 09:10:03 UTC)

Speed. Indeed.
In 1998, when people were stil playing Quake, a group of insane people decided to not only see how fast they could get through the entire game, but to put together their results in attractive, viewable packages. The result was Quake Done Quick. Now, nobody's EVER going to run through Halo in under 15 minutes (the unskippable cutscenes alone would take longer than that), but Inky and FeralBob of the Down Under group Crocodile Bungie, have done the next best thing; a movie called 'Speed'. Halo, start to finish, in a bit over 3 minutes. Yes, there are spoilers. (They're easy to miss if you blink.) There are two versions; a 25 mb, 300x240 copy (with a few small exceptions, very clear) and a 10 mb, 200x166 copy (compression artifacts are a bit higher, of necessity). You can find all current links on the Speed Mirrors page, and we're happy to add other mirror offers. (Louis Wu 16:40:42 UTC)

New images for your screen
Bunch of desktops for you today... some cool backgrounds that poena.dare #CP# pulled from a GDC Talk that Marty O'Donnell gave last spring, and some weirdly-shaped collections from Gasmask. You'll find 'em all in our Wallpaper section. (Louis Wu 14:55:54 UTC)

Difficulty badges, for sale cheap
Ask, and ye shall receive (sometimes). BLOODLUST visited our forum this morning, asking if anyone had high-quality versions of the Difficulty badges visible at the start of Halo. Back in February, we'd posted a composite made by taking screenshots, then extracting the images... it worked, but the quality wasn't very good. Dave Candland took time out today to send along much prettier versions. You can snag a high-quality jpeg (45K), or a zipped, layered Photoshop document (499k). Use them in good health! (Louis Wu 18:16:56 UTC)

Movies updated
I've brought the Movie database up to the present, including a new movie (one we're not hosting) showing a 16-second warthog jump. You'll find mirror lists to the recent Jackass and Winter Season Promo films, as well as a few other recent entries. If all goes well, there might even be another one later today. Next up: the Miscellaneous section (woefully behind; almost 3 months out of date). Warning: The new warthog jump film starts with a rather risque clip; right out of a porn movie, as a matter of fact (though with the naughty bits blacked out). Just a quick note in case you're watching with someone who might not appreciate this... (Louis Wu 00:02:04 UTC)

Matt Soell on the Gamesome Mac
Sean Smith writes to tell us that Matt Soell will be on The Gamesome Mac, a weekly Mac gaming radio program, tonight. Broadcast is 6-8 pm PST on Monday, November 4 (that means it starts at 9 pm on the east coast, and at 2 am Tuesday, UTC.) If you miss it, archives are kept. Discussed tonight will be (among other things) the Mac version of Halo. Check it out! (Louis Wu 14:08:59 UTC)

Hey! You got HBO in my XBL!
Tarrsk is compiling a database of HBO forumgoers who play on Xbox Live; it's unclear at the moment where it will be hosted, but if you want to be included, simply reply to the forum thread, or email Tarrsk with your HBO forum screen name and your XBL gamer tag. (If you include only one or the other, or submit your entry more than once, you'll likely be ignored.) Update: there is a page live for this - you'll find it here. (Louis Wu 16:19:05 UTC)

Apparently, the comments abuse is getting worse. A forum thread has been started to get votes from people interested (one way or the other) in the continued existence of the Comments section - be sure to chime in soon. (Louis Wu 19:43:00 UTC)

A word of advice to fan fic writers: If you decide to use a font that 95% of your readers do not have access to (like, say, Tengwar Sindarin), be sure to submit any text in that font in GRAPHIC format (take a screenshot, save as a gif). This is the first and last time I'm going to be downloading fonts to do this for writers; in the future, any text that comes in in a totally random font will be displayed in the default font (which will, I promise, make it look really stupid). (Louis Wu 18:12:08 UTC)

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