New Halo reviews at Adrenaline Vault, GamePlanet.nz, Gaming Illustrated, and The Entertainment Depot. Opinions ranged from ‘eh’ to ‘good with flaws’. Thanks, as usual, to Blue’s News. Update: oops, missed one; Boomtown looked at it yesterday, too. Thanks, Narcogen (who got it from Shacknews).

The Adrenaline Vault has posted an interview with Randy Pitchford about Halo PC’s performance. On the positive side, he points out a bunch of the critical issues that explain some of the negative press Halo’s been getting. (The biggest is that this is really the first mainstream game to extensively use DX9 – and people haven’t adjusted their expectations from experiences with DX7/8 yet.) The negative side is that some of the frustration of dealing with day-to-day problems leaks out into some of his answers. It’s a good read, and there’s a lot to look forward to. I’m just glad I’m not forced to support people screaming for my blood…

Yayap the grunt has written a short FAQ about the Great Halo Scavenger Hunt; we’ve linked it in our list of helpful URLs on the right side of the forum. Yayap isn’t a Bungie or b.org employee; he’s just a fan who’s written up what’s known about this hunt to date. If you’re having trouble figuring out what you’re supposed to be doing, give it a read!

Oops – almost missed this one. SketchFactor posted a mini-update on Mac Halo over at bungie.net; the official beta testing starts next week. That’s rockin’ news…

Speaking of comics, today’s guest One One Se7en comes from forum regular hehbo2k3. He looks at the PC coop issue. And what an issue it is.

New strip over at Halobabies.net! The Baby Hunter… ain’t very nice. Thanks, mrsmiley. (There are also a couple of new sketches in the MOXC Sketches section, for registered visitors.)

Michael M. points out an article about Halo PC on XtraMSN, a New Zealand portal site. Not a lot of info… but press is press. Now let’s see… $99 NZ dollars… that’s about $59 US. Not too bad.

CNN reviewed Halo today – sort of. That is – it’s not an in-depth review… but it’s a full CNN article, and that’s about as mainstream as it gets. Mostly, the reviewer was happy with it. (He was sad about the lack of coop.) Thanks, RustedAngel!

Mirror sites for the Halo Trial are coming fast and furious. We’ve compiled a mirror list; if you know of a mirror that’s not listed, please drop us a note. Thanks!

The Halo PC demo is now available over at IGN – go grab it! (131 mb…) Update: 3D Gamers has put up a mirror already – we’ll probably create a mirror page later today. Thanks, Frans.

Yesterday, we mentioned a blog written by Mat Noguchi, a Bungie programmer. He’s added another Halo tidbit to the mix; he explains WHY the infinite ammo/camo glitch (one we chronicled pretty thoroughly in the one and only Keyes’ Corner entry to date) comes about. Way cool. (Thanks to Rampancy.net, who noticed the RSS feed for that page (and the article itself, for that matter) – it’ll be easier to keep up on changes.)

Gah – I haven’t been making my rounds. (Been a busy week.) Lots of new knicknacks over at Rampancy.net; this news post summarizes the enhancements to the user experience.

It must be Friday – time for another roundup of Halo reviews (thanks again to Blue’s News). Lessee… we got GamerDad, Gamer’s Hell, Gameguru Mania (with 60 screenshots), and Wicked Toast. The first three thought it was okay, the last one hated it. Well, ‘hated’ might be too strong a term; the final summation was ‘an overall good game with some hideously disappointing bits’. (They lamented the ‘Doom-level’ AI and the ‘now-standard assortment of Deathmatches, CTFs and Assaults’ in multiplayer – two criticisms that tell me they didn’t put very much time into their test.) Go check ’em all out; new perspectives are always an okay thing. Update: Whoops, missed one; Christ Centered Game Reviews looked at Halo, and gave it a 90%. I’m not sure I see the ‘Christ centered’ part of the review, except the note that swearing is almost nonexistent… there was a review last year from a Christian site that seemed to hold the game to a much higher standard. I guess you just never know. Thanks, Narcogen, at R.net (who noticed it at Battleground: Halo.)

Maybe I’ve just been around too long… but today’s One One Se7en made me laugh out loud. I miss that game…

The Master Chief is just like you – he’s too busy to pick up his clothes. Or so says Halo: Resolution today…

17 stories and poems for you today in the Fan Fiction section.

• The Resistance Alliance: Prologue, by Awesomedudeman
• Angels war II stage, by Javier Fernandez-vina
• The Rise and Fall of the Flood Chapter 10, by BlackValkyire
• Evanangel (Part Two), by Jinkaiden-XI
• Threatened-pt 1, by UNSC_spec._117
• Modern Trench Warfare, by Postman
• A Marine Named Peters: Ouch, these walls are HOT!, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Aftermath, Chapter 1, by FOrunnER
• Yearning, by Sergeant B
• A Marine’s Cheer, by Alpha Lance
• Brave Jumpers of the Skies, by Alpha Lance
• Halo: A Troubled Galaxy , by Ghost
• MJOLNIR, Chapter Two, by Nemesis
• Jaffa Part 3, by Neal Stack
• Homeworlds XIX, by Mainevent
• A John Before Halo: Escape (Part 13) , by J-117
• Plasma Burns and Bullet Shells-chapter 2, by Myth

Another day, another torrent…

131 mb of Halo goodness… Friday at 10 am PST! (That’s 5 pm UTC, or 1 pm Eastern.) Check out the article at IGN – The Halo PC demo (Silent Cartographer for solo play, Blood Gulch with limited vehicles for netplay) will be released (exclusively, they say) at IGN Downloads. Thanks to the former Huntr-Killr for the heads-up.

This morning, on CNN Headline News, there was a piece showing a CNN reporter taking over the Editor in Chief’s job for the day over at Electronic Gaming Monthly. According to Blackstar, They played a bit of Blood Gulch multiplayer; not a bad job to have! And now you can read the story on CNN.com (thanks, Lophan and Cybrfrk) – there’s a small fact box halfway down the page about the 16-player game of Halo they played. Halo in the news!

Whoa. It’s been announced. The Halo for Windows Worldwide Tournament will kick off on November 15 – you have to be registered by then to play. (Registration opens today.) Play will take place in iGames member centers around the world. Go read the B.net page for full details; prizes look pretty cool.

Leave it to Miguel to make things accessible to the world. Sometimes we forget that not EVERYONE reading this website has been here since Bungie opened its doors 12 years ago. (Okay, truth be told, NONE of us have been here THAT long… but you get the point.) Read this forum post for some pretty concrete suggestions about where the motivations for the Scavenger Hunt might have come from, and where you might go with what you have. For the record: Miguel is not privy in any way to the inner workings of the contest; beyond knowing that it’s going on, he’s not participating at all, either as a searcher or a creator. He’s just trying to give you some overlying perspective.