Cyber Slam is an Australian Halo tournament starting this Friday, November 7th. 16 national finalists will be flown to Sydney to compete in the finals on December 6 – and the winner will pocket $1000 in cash and be flown to the US to play in the International Halo Championship tourney in January 2004. You must be 18 or over to participate. Unfortunately, registration closed at midnight on the 3rd of November; we received this note a day or two before that, but it was sent to a hidden address (we were bcc’d), and my junk filter didn’t let it through. Note to folks with time-critical info – in these days of heavy spam filtering, you’re better off taking the extra time to actually mail the announcement to individual addresses. (There are even apps for this.) Good luck to all who entered!

HUNTR-KILLR writes that his clan, ..::DFA::.., has issued an invitation for tryouts; if you’re interested, check out their webpage!

endrom has drawn today’s guest One One Se7en strip… I’m at a loss. It’s a RvB nod, I can say that much.

Okay, I’m ready to call it a day. Or a month. Or whatever. On October 6th, we kicked off The Great Halo Scavenger Hunt, and with the help of a whole bunch of Halo-related websites and Bungie, we set up what we thought was a fun, thought-provoking contest. Seems like we went too far, though – even in the face of more and more blatant hints (to the point of giving away key parts of the puzzle), we STILL have had just 5 successful entries (not counting the instant win tokens). Bungie supplied enough schwag for 28 winners – but we’re gonna leave some of that unclaimed, I’m guessing, because I’m putting a one-month deadline on the game. As of 6 pm UTC on November 6th (that’s 1 pm Eastern Time on Thursday), we’re declaring this contest over, and posting a full solution on the net. Any unclaimed prizes will remain with Bungie, probably for use with future contests. (Part of the reason to call it quits is that there are at least 2 other contests I know of, waiting in the wings for this one to end; there will be plenty of other opportunities to snag cool stuff, and maybe some of them will capture more imaginations than this one did.) You’ve got a bit over 48 hours to finish up, if you’re still interested in taking home some of THESE prizes; as far as I know, at least half the trinkets have been posted in full view on our forum, so finishing up shouldn’t be that hard, if you really want to finish up.

Pico submitted a new movie, called Lethal Rage 2, recently. The first time I watched it, I felt that he spent too much time trying to get that ‘cool cinematic shot’, and not enough time advancing the plot. Watching it again, I see that part of my problem was the confusing flag colors. (Seems to me the capture is going backwards. Maybe it’s me being slow.) Anyway, a second runthrough shows me that it’s actually a pretty slick film. It’s the story of a Blue assault on the Red flag, and it’s got all sorts of James Bond-ish features tossed in. (The drop-off-the-cliff-into-the-ghost scene is quite nicely done.) It’s been re-encoded into QuickTime format, and weighs in at 16.6 mb (it’s 5:40 long). I’ve posted copies at both files.bungie.org and Mythica – and if anyone feels the urge to mirror, we’re always happy for extra links. Pico’s asked for feedback in this forum thread.

Ben Roth has compiled a list of HBO forum regulars, and the HPC handles they play under. If you’re looking for folks from our forum when you’re online playing Halo PC, this is a list you should read!

Halo Ops has put up a Halo PC Vehicles Guide – and though the screenshots are quite nice, some of the info is a bit questionable. (I thought ‘Phade’ was a typo, at first, as the name of the Shade – but it’s used more than half a dozen times.) As a discussion-starter, this article is worth a read.

Titanium Designs, a modding group for Unreal Tournament 2003, has released CTF – Bloodgulch 2, a map design based on Halo’s Blood Gulch. You can see screenshots on this page, or grab a 17 mb WMP9 vid of the level from their Videos section. (Personally, I’m having trouble seeing the resemblance…) The 3 mb map download can be snagged off FilePlanet. Thanks to Alex Bilas for the heads-up.

Okay, this one’s weird. tjc2k4, a forum member over at xbox-scene, has managed to get injected models to work on his modded Xbox. (Not yet for Halo PC, unfortunately.) It’s not ready for release yet, but there’s a proof of concept movie showing a warthog with wings flying around. He didn’t have the bandwidth to host it, and Haloskins hasn’t posted the upload yet, so Break Point came to the rescue and put the movie up on his site. (We’ve also tossed a copy of this 2.2 mb WMP7 vid up on Mythica.) Bizarre-looking stubby-winged Warthog… maybe we should call it the A10. Take a look!

Rockin’. Destineer has updated SketchFactor, who in turn has updated the world about the latest with the Mac Halo beta. Looks like the programmers are being worked pretty hard… but the payout’s pretty big! Check it out.

Hankerin’ for a new Halo action figure? The second wave of figures have shipped; two Master Chiefs, the Elite, and the Ghost went out on trucks today. Details at Bungie.net!

The Halo-Ween pumpkin-carving contest has been judged, and the winners can be found over at Bungie.net – congrats to winners Michael Coffing, Cheyenne Space, Jason Whited, and Warbow! (There many other entries visible in the Pumpkin Contest Gallery, as well.) Very cool stuff!

There’s another SeeMePlayMe online tourney this evening at 7pm CST. 2v2 – but rapture points out that it’s easy to find partners in the SMPM Halo lobby. Other relevant links are in the forum post.

If you bought one of the first wave of action figures, Joyride would give you an Active Camouflage Master Chief, for a $5 shipping fee. Not a bad deal… unless you’re One One Se7en‘s MC. Ouch!

Do cyborgs dream of holographic sex? Halo: Resolution looks at this bizarre question today.

The Silent Cartographers, a Halo PC modding group, has moved into new digs at www.islandfour.com. Well, they gotta get SOME use out of that domain, don’t they? (If you don’t know the story… count yourself lucky.) Go visit the site; it’s WAAAY easier on the eyes than the original. (And check out the newly described – but not announced – project, Aquaphobia!) Postman pointed it out on our forum (though it’s my bad for forgetting it was going live today).

Programerz points out that HaloSpy has been released; it’s a server browser/server monitor, and it shows you FULL STATS on the gametype. Very cool. Check out Halocity for details.

Thanks to Hamid Djangi, who pointed out a couple of review sites with lots of links we haven’t reported yet – all of the following came from GameRankings and Metacritic.

• New Zealand Herald (September 25)
• Maxim Online (September 25)
• ActiveGaming (October 1)
• Lawrence.com (October 2)
• IcronticGames (October 6)
• USA Today (October 8)
• Gaming Target (October 10)
• Gaming Nation (October 11)
• The Next Level (October 13)
• Cincinatti Inquirer (October 14)
• The Globe and Mail (October 14)
• Thunderbolt Games Online (October 14)
• GameOver (October 17)
• Gaming Age (October 21)
• The Discworld (October 22)
• PGNx Media (October 25)
• Computer Gaming World (October 27)
• Gaming Media (October 28)

Whew! That’s a lot.

Gonna be near Portland, Oregon in mid-January? Check out PDXLAN 2004 – both Xbox and PC Halo tourneys. Lots of prizes. Cost to get in is free-$2.00 depending on when you register. Thanks to Demented for the heads-up.

Hehe – goatrope figured out how to make the MC melee with no weapons. Okay, it’s just for show, but it’s still pretty cool looking. Check out this forum thread (more pics farther down, as well).