Author: Louis Wu

22 new stories in the Fan Fiction section today. Old faces, new faces… they’re all writing. Go read.

Another IGN article – their 2004 Readers’ Choice results are up. The fans picked the same things that the editors picked, with one Halo-related exception; Bungie.net lost out to Fable for ‘Most Innovative Design’. Thanks again, John Rivas. Update: Alerus points out that there was one other change with respect to the Editors’ awards; the…

Tons of articles out there right now about the NPD 2004 numbers (the NPD Group keeps track of gaming sales, and yesterday released their top 10 game sellers in 2004 list) – first one I saw (and one with a nice Halo slant, to boot) was at MLGPro.com; thanks, Dolbex. Halo 2 sold more units…

mrsmiley and Master Chief headed to New York recently for a holiday… and came back with pictures. Just thinking about what was needed for the photography should bring a smile to your face.

Seiru found a mini Master Chief game at Crimson Edge – it’s only in the very beginning stages, but it looks pretty nice! Check it out.

There’s a new ‘Sniping Locations FAQ’ over at IGN, discussing sniping on Coagulation. Comes with a bunch of ‘rules’, too. And a warning that XBL sucks.

Speaking of HALOChat and movies… the recent release of Stryke Force’s second episode now has a QuickTime version; HALOChat has offered the bandwith to host the version we re-encoded (15.3 mb). (He warns people not to try and use download accelerators; you won’t get a useable file if you do.) Gotta love this community!

Gah. This was supposed to go up earlier this afternoon, but I’ve been gone all day. TheTaintedOne created a video he calls ‘Tribute to Burial Mounds’ – a glitch film with one important difference from other glitch films – it’s in widescreen mode. Really nicely done, showing most of the funky stuff you can do…

Another one of theose ‘Game with Fame’ events – this time, you have a shot to play online with Incubus. Visit their web page and register for a shot at 100 slots to play online on January 24. (There are also 10 runner-up prizes of their new DVD.) Thanks, DailyGame.

Wired Magazine has announced their nominees for the Sixth Annual Wired Rave Awards – Pete Parsons has picked up a nomination for ‘Game Designer’ for his work on Halo 2 (hehe). The Wired site itself hasn’t been updated yet; it’s still showing last year’s awards. Thanks, ICDedPpl.

There’s a great interview with Kristen Rutherford, the actress who played Melissa (and several others) in last summer’s I Love Bees ARG, over at TVG. Give it a read to see where the CREW was coming from. Thanks, Dolbex.

Machinima marches on – Stryke Force HQ, a series started up a month ago, has posted episode 2 on their video page. Lots of backstory, mixed with clean filmmaking technique – absolutely worth a watch! (This episode is WMP9-only at the moment, but I’m working on a QT version… the only issue is bandwidth.) 17.6…

The World Cyber Games are coming to Europe March 10-13. Prize money on the line – 150,000 € (nothing to sneeze at). One of the tourney games: Halo 2, 1v1. Thanks to Marc, of Halo Universe, for the heads-up.

Gavin Miller dropped us a note to let us know that the machinima series Them vs Us (first mentioned a couple of weeks ago) has a new website, a new forum, and two new vids up… with their first actual episode coming later this week. Go check ’em out!

Lothar Hex writes to let us know that Halo gets a brief mention in today’s Exterminatus Now webcomic.

Over on Xbox.com, Alex McLain writes about Xbox Live multiplay – and what makes it work. Halo 2’s ranking system is held up as a model for other games. (Splinter Cell’s stealth adn Itagaki’s tournament play are also highlighted.) Thanks to Wolfy for the heads-up.

Two more Halo-related pieces over at TalkXbox – there’s the second third of the Halo 2 vs MechAssault 2 comparison (we mentioned part 1 last week), and there’s another strategy guide – Beaver Creek CTF. The first compares graphics and multiplayer features between the two titans (Halo 2 loses the former and wins the latter,…

Boatloads of movie tidbits today… but there’s lots of stuff, so we’ll take it as it comes. First up: mirrors. Richard Bentley added another mirror for the Team Sexy Release Night vid (I think there’s enough bandwidth for that now 🙂 )… and so did That Weasel – who ALSO mirrored all the rest of…

Ducain has interviewed Ms. Man, a trickster of some repute. It’s a fun chat – a look at what makes him tick, what keeps him going (kept him going, I guess – sounds like his Halo days are nearly over), why tricking is so addictive. Go read!

Interesting article over at GamesIndustry.biz – looks like a hardware shortfall led to an overall decline in video game growth in December 2004, compared to December 2003. Ouch! Halo 2 was 4th in December sales, with less than 900,000 units. (I have a little bit of trouble with those numbers: according to the same website,…