Another Halo review – this one at GameWatchers.net, and far more recent (just a few weeks old). Overall score? 99.5. We’ve added it to our Reviews database.

Joseph “Zef” Howells sent in a modified screenie for our Miscellaneous Art section… I like that logo.

A pair of Halo reviews have surfaced – from GamePartisan.com. These were posted in mid-March, but we just got word of them today. (Thanks, Creamyears.) We’ve added them to our Reviews Database – 122 reviews, average score of 94.9%. Whoa!

Friday’s Fiction Flood:

• The Mis-adventures of master chief, part 3, by el_halo_diablo
• Rise To Honor, part 11, by Shadow
• The Return of the Archons, part 3, by Wado

Today, we’d also like to point out a link to a fan fiction piece over at Zenith – Uriel’s ‘Beyond the Paradise‘. Worth a read – and when it’s finished, we’ll get a copy too.

Woohoo! 7000… who was it? (We got word that the 7000 mark was passed from Grail, of cWB – but he didn’t say if he was the lucky contestant.) We’ll just have to wait for word from Bungie…

Oh, the fun you can have with cutscenes… (Thanks, Warbow.)

Subnova’s Deimosâ„¢ has posted a set of pictures from MacWorld NY 2002, including a collection from the after-show Halofest. No labels, and some of the lighting is questionable… but you can get a sense for the space and people. One of these days, one of us will actually write it up, too!

Bungie.net has been keeping track of the total number of registrants for the Halo National Championship… and tonight that number passed 6000. (Check the upper right-hand corner of their website for the current tally.) Will you be the 7,000th contestant?

Thirsty? (Thanks to Cap’n Keyes…)

Heh – for those who think there aren’t any tricks left to find in Halo, think again. Lennox noticed an interesting interaction yesterday… and after the forum settled down and stopped calling him a liar, Warbow actually FILMED a variant. It was intriguing enough to get the attention of a Halo Dev team member… which means it’s pretty likely that this behavior wasn’t seen in the Bungie offices before now. Nice going, guys!

Wonga. Remember Chaos on the Ring? (Back when Warthog Jumping was relatively new, this flick pushed the limits.) Well, these guys are putting the finishing touches on Chaos II… and their website says it’ll be ready by Saturday! The hitch? It’s gonna be HUGE. (Like 400 megs huge, if I read their blurb right.) I’d be happy to talk to them about making it smaller… but in the meantime, we’re gonna start collecting offers for mirrors. 🙂 (Brian Towne says Mythica.org should be back up by tomorrow… we hope he’s right. 🙂 ) Every byte is gonna count!

Warbow has polished up two new Warthogs for your perusal – a Copper version, and a Winter Camo version. You can find both in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Personally, I’d LOVE one of those Camo models…)

Built-up Fan Fiction (including a fixed version of the Misadventures):

• The Mis-adventures of master chief, part 2 , by el_halo_diablo
• Halo 2: The End, by Eric Gunther
• The Return of the Archons, part 2, by Wado
• The Lost Spartan, part 9, by Spartan415
• Halo 2: Jupiter, part 3, by Chi Zhang
• Warning: escaping convicts… part 6, by Cap’n Keyes
• There is Another, part 3, by Chris Reebe
• Through Fiery Eyes:A Jackal’s Tale, by Mercforhire

Nearly caught up…

Continuing to clear out the Incoming file queue – a couple of new desktop images for you. One composite, one original… check ’em out in our Wallpaper section. (Fan Fiction coming later this morning…)

Oh, and before we forget… Xbox Weekly has a story on Halo Babies. Be sure to read it carefully. Thanks to ChromeFX for the heads-up.

GameSpot interviewed David Hufford, Xbox product manager, and one question stood out with regard to the Halo community:

GS: There was some confusion regarding the “Halo online” announcement made at E3 2002. Is Bungie developing an Xbox Live version of Halo, or did the announcement pertain to an entirely new product?

DH: An entirely new product. The Halo guys are at work on the next version of Halo right now, and they’ll be talking about it in the near future. It’s a “ground up” approach. When we acquired Bungie a few years ago, they were very clear with us that their original vision for Halo was to bring it online, and now what they’re going to do is take that initial vision but apply it to the next version of Halo, so it will be the product that they always wanted to deliver.

So this would suggest that the ‘online’ version of Halo some folks have been talking about, doesn’t exist. Whether Hufford’s product is the same thing as John O’Rourke was talking about has yet to be confirmed… but it would seem so. Will Halo 2 ship before Halo for PC/Mac? Only time will tell… (First heads-up goes to AOPaul, via email, though Team Overkill was a close second.)

Another entrant in the Xbox tunneling software category… Xbox Ladder comes onboard. It’s unclear how it works yet (the FAQ’s not up, and we have no reports from adopters), but if the other solutions aren’t working for you, give these guys a try! (Mentioned by zoe on our forum – part of the team?)

Thanks to Tirion, who pointed out a Reuters article at Yahoo which quotes John O’Rourke, MS’s director of worldwide Xbox marketing, as saying that

“the company is committed to bringing out new versions of both “Halo” and “Project Gotham” in the next year, and taking advantage of Xbox Live, the new online gaming service Microsoft plans to launch later this fall.”

Disbelief of our forum constituents aside, it’s an interesting statement from someone near the top of the marketing food chain… it’ll be fun to watch how this plays out.

Man… it’s Warthog Week, or something.

It’s not really Halo-related… but the Phoenix site here doesn’t have a Wallpaper section yet. 🙂 Phoenixhunter has submitted a Phoenix-styled desktop image, which we’ve added to our Wallpaper collection. Nice job!