Year: 2001

Huh? Take a look at this page, see if anything strikes you as… odd. If not (either because they’ve changed it, or because… well, because, check this local page.) Thanks to Harry “I live for ChibiToys” Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up!

Justin Brimm sends in an updated version of his rust-colored Halo logo – recolored and larger. You’ll find it in our Logos section.

Joseph Staten stopped in to rag on Marty’s anility, and to second Marty’s suggestion that you ignore (if you can) the Gamespot movies, to keep from becoming jaded. He also, almost as an aside, passed along the tidbit that the Certification that Microsoft is putting Halo through at the moment is a two-week process… so…

The Ancient One Speaketh: Marty O’Donnell stopped in this evening to discover the Gamespot movies for the first time… and his words to Halo fans: RUN AND DON’T LOOK BACK. Don’t watch these movies, sez Marty… and Marty has a decent argument. Go read it.

Thanks to Korrupt, who has made the two largest Gamespot movies available on a personal server – these are numbers 1 and 5, and weigh in at 40 and 24 megs respectively. If you’re having trouble with Gamespot’s servers, give this a try!

Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi – seems Microsoft has started a bunch of new Usenet news groups, including microsoft.public.xbox.halo. Doesn’t show up yet on my server… but I’ll keep looking! Update: Thanks again to Harry “I’m planning to infiltrate every news post today” Al-Shakarchi, who noted that you can use Microsoft’s news server to see this…

For those on slower connections, we’ve thrown up a page of screen captures from the movies. They’re predominantly taken from the intro movie and the cutscene, since the PoA level was already shown quite nicely in the Staten/O’Donnell discussion video a few weeks ago. They’re dark because… well, the movies are dark. 🙂 Enjoy!

B-Sharp noticed that the captain of the Pillar of Autumn has a Marathon symbol on his chest. Matches the one outside the ship nicely… While we’re here, does anyone else think that the captain and Joe Staten could have made it into Spy Magazine’s Separated at Birth column?Just curious… Update: TomeOne did a little enlarging…

IGN Xbox has put up a shortened version of the intro movie – if 40 megs is too large for you, you can grab the first 40 seconds (it’s only 1.6 megs) of it here. The rest of the films are in their Insider section – you need to pay to get ’em.

A handful of desktop images came our way recently – two more from Enforcer (variations on a theme) and one from [SE]Eye_of_the_Tiger. You can find ’em in our Wallpaper section.

Rampancy.net is stating that Halo is currently being certified, and unless a major problem pops up, it should be certified as Gold Master. So: stick a fork in it – it’s done.

Holy mother of… Looks like the whole first level (and more!) has just been made available by Gamespot. 9 movies, a total of 115 megs if you grab the mpegs… I (obviously) haven’t had time to watch ’em all… but the first couple are jaw-dropping enough. Bad news – Cortana’s still the same voice as…

Nice snag by Narcogen over at Rampancy.net – seems the FAQ that’s up now at xbox.com is ruling out Xbox output to monitors:Can the Xbox hook up to a Computer Monitor? The Xbox video game system is intended for use with television sets. This focus allows gamers to enjoy the superior visual and sound capacity…

Never let ’em tell you Vector only writes one-liners. Though he’s brief on the forum, his fiction’s a little… meatier. His latest offering, the fourth installment of the Hawk Chronicles (it’s really Chapter 2b, but who’s checking?), can be found in our Fan Fiction section. Pull up a chair and get to it!

Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi, who noted that Halo has a good showing on the official WindowsMedia.com Media Guide – it’s number 2 in the showcase (after WWF, of all things), and in the top position just to the left of that list (in both low and high-bandwidth versions). In fact – it’s the only game…

As reported by every Xbox site under the sun, the news out of Cannes yesterday was that the European Xbox release will be on March 14, 2002, and it will retail for 479 euros (about $435, at today’s rates). Games will run 69 euros (about $63). Ouch!

Bob’s in trouble… go read Chapter 13 of the Hermes Trismegistus saga in our Fan Fiction section. Don’t forget to let Tursas know what you think!

Bounty, of Battleground: Halo, learned a bit about diurnal transitions in Halo from Matt Soell today – apparently, there won’t be any situations where you can see the change. Hmm… guess that means that sunset scene mentioned in Xboxweb’s preview is gonna be pretty short… Swing by BGH to read the full quote.

Got a burning question to ask Marty O’Donnell? Stop by TeamXbox’s forums and add it to this thread – apparently, the webmaster of Score Central will be conducting that interview next week, and is happy to pass along fan questions. Just remember… don’t ask Marty how old he is.

An interesting little elucidation about level design, from Bungie’s Tyson Green, aka Ferrex (Dead). Bigger levels are better, right? Not always… sometimes, spending more of your finite development resources on making smaller levels cooler is more advantageous than creating huge, boring levels. Nice insight! Check the details (and throw in your own two cents) on…