Author: Louis Wu

Peter Askam sends in a pair of desktop images, based on the recent Craig Mullins piece – these are variations on a theme, and include the Pillar of Autumn, as well. Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section.

Robert “Apache” Howarth, of VoodooExtreme, presents some comments about Halo, and its length:I’m still hacking away in Halo, and thankfully it’s continuing to kick major ass. I’m deep into the game at this point (chapter 7 out of 11) and well past what I can talk about without spoiling it for you, so I’ll just…

An epilogue, of sorts… Vector40 turns in ‘Hawk Chronicles: Supplemental’, to wrap up the series. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section. Don’t forget to let him know what you think of it!

Thanks to Geordie McCabe, who pointed out that some Xbox posters around his University campus are listing an Australian release date in January 2002, with the slogan “The Game is Over – Reality Begins.” Looks like folks Down Under will be playing before those in Japan (February 22) and those in Europe (March 14)!

Heh – sometimes, you just gotta get your content where you can find it… I was hunting through the Xbox.com.au site to see if I could find an official release date for the Xbox in Australia (no luck there) – and I happened across the Halo page. They have a pretty fun little Flash animation…

OrangeWarp mentioned yesterday that there was a Halo blurb in the November 2001 issue of Maxim magazine. He took pity on HBO and scanned it for us (45K). They call Halo a “staggeringly polished first-person shooter”… which almost makes up for calling the Xbox “an overgrown Atari”. Take a look! (OW also scanned in the…

Another one… TeamXbox has put up an ‘Early Hands-On Halo Preview’ as well. Like VoodooExtreme, they liked it – a lot:If any of you had any doubts that Halo would live up to the hype, you can put all that to rest. Period. There are also three .asf clips showing gameplay – all new, as…

VoodooExtreme has posted a hands-on Halo preview – they took issue with the controller, and mentioned the framerate concerns, but mostly, they just liked the game:The writing is great, the story is solid, and to be honest, Halo is hands-down the best action game I’ve ever played in my life.A full review will be coming…

Thanks to Lophan, for starting a pretty fun thread on our forum yesterday. What is your favorite “waiting for Halo” memory? Add your thoughts, now that the light at the end of the tunnel has been shown not to be a train!

Halo “Start to Crate” value: infinite. So says Gothmog, and he should know. As one of the faithful forumgoers says, that’s worth celebrating.

WOOHOO! Halo is gold! Matt stopped by our forum to confirm that certification was passed yesterday, the manufacturing plant got the gold master today, and they are ‘pressing up a zillion Halo discs as I type this’. There’s more – read it.

Thanks to Hyperium, on the IGN Forums – here are some new links for the OXM Halo preview scans:Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4To be clear – this is a new home, not a new set of scans; the pics are the same.

OrangeWarp writes to say that the newest issue of Maxim magazine has a Halo blurb in it. If we get ahold of it, we’ll let you know what it says!

The Hermes Trismegistus saga takes a distinctly religious turn with Chapter 14… check out Tursas’ latest offering in our Fan Fiction section.

Though the OXM scans mentioned yesterday were pulled from the IGN Xbox General Board post (or, more accurately, from the aol account they were being hosted from), HBO Forum regular Funky J has once again stepped up to help – you can find them on his Hotline server. The address can be found easily in…

A number of posts on other boards have commented on frozen or malfunctioning Xbox units in stores – Matt Soell steps into one discussion to allay fears on this subject. The good news is, he’s probably right.

Over on the IGN Xbox General Board, game132 has scanned in the Halo preview from the December 2001 issue of the Official Xbox Magazine. Colors are a little funky, and text can be hard to read in sections… but the screens are amazing! The verdict? They liked it (9.5/10):This, then, is Halo, for my money…

Dave Candland, part of the Bungie Online Team, stopped by to pass along the news that lefties will have to watch themselves shooting as righties; there is no lefty display option. However, there is a left-handed controller option for both the trigger/button and joystick configurations. Speaking as a lefty, I think I’ll live.

Thanks to NaliGun, who pointed out an article at Eurogamer stating that a series of UK Xbox Xperience events will kick off on November 17. Gamers in various UK cities will get the chance to play Xbox games and wallow in Xbox paraphernalia several months before the console is actually released there. (The article suggests…

Like your Mullins unadulterated? Or maybe with different adulteration? Skeletor played around with Paint Shop Pro, and turned out three different versions of yesterday’s cool desktop: the first has no logo at all; it’s just the Halo (and Threshold in the background). The second has the old-style blue Halo logo. The third is the same…