Whew – the fanfest is over, and what a lot of fun it was! There will certainly be descriptions forthcoming (if there haven’t been already – I haven’t had time to read the forum) – but in the meantime, we’d like to release a bunch of videos that made their debut tonight. There are a bunch of mirrors for each film, but we’re always happy to hear of more! Mirror pages will be set up as soon as I get back to HBO HQ – for now, though, the links are here.

• HaloST3K – Patroclus’ homage to Mystery Science Theater 3000, with appropriate Bungie footage. In the spirit of A**hole…

Small (240×180, 2 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television
Medium – Low (320×240, 6 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television
Medium – High (320×240, 10 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television
Large (640×480, 16 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television

• Fragfest: Unleashed – a music video full of fantastic lanfest footage, very well set to music; some really incredible flag kills here.

320×218, 17.2 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television

• Maw 700 – Patroclus: Director’s Cut – A reformatted version of an entry to the Maw 700 contest – with more cool stuff.

320×240, 20.1 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television

• Hurricane Halo – a re-release of a fun movie, with cleaned-up audio, and two extra sound clips.

320×240, 24.0 mb) – Mythica, That Weasel Television

Apologies for the unorthodox format; I don’t have my standard tools. (Plus, I haven’t slept in days…)

Not snow or rain or E3 will stop the fan fiction:

• The Hell of War Through The Eyes Of A Marine, Part 12: The Last Battle by Jaywhit10 (The final chapter)
• Banserki’s Journal, Part 6 by Sarge

This should help pass the time while we wait for news from the fanfest…

A LOT of people have informed us that this story at Computer and Video Games claims that “Halo Online” will be a full sequel to Halo. Before you think too much about what this statement means, notice that this article was taken from what Microsoft PR said and NOT from what Bungie said.

MacGamer has scored an E3-related interview with Bungie’s Matt Soell. Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for pointing this out.

We’ll keep getting email until this is posted, so here it is: Shacknews has an interview with Chris DiCesar, the group PR manager for Microsoft Games. Note that this interview says exactly what Bungie has been saying all along: They want Halo for computers to happen, they just don’t have any details yet. Thanks to Johnny Rotten for the heads-up.

Time has run out – my bad. 🙁 I’m leaving for the airport to make the final day of E3 (and the Bungie Fanfest) in about 15 minutes – there are a couple of Fan Fictions waiting in the queue that will have to continue to wait until I get back. Likewise, any art submissions in the next couple of days will be posted as soon as possible… but not before Sunday. Please be patient (and don’t send ’em again, just because they haven’t gone up 🙂 ). Hopefully, I’ll have some news to post this evening, after the Fanfest…

mrmin123 submits a new desktop made a bit ago… you’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

Nightly Fan Fiction offerings:

• Into the Unknown, part 3, by Jean-Paul Allee
• ODST Saga, part 7, by Robo42786
• Saturn’s the Best!, by Lynnada
• Warning: escaping convicts, part 4 and part 5, by Cap’n Keyes

Enjoy!

Whoa – weird news from SonicStorm, of Battleground: Halo…

I spent about an hour looking for ANYONE from Bungie yesterday, but didn’t see a soul. I was at E3 all day, and…nothing. Anyways, I asked the Microsoft people and they said Bungie isn’t presenting anything at all, and don’t have any setups, but they could be found at Developer Row in booth 5113 on the Concourse (long hallway between South and West halls). So I find the booth (finally) and lo and behold, the people there tell me that the Bungie guys were never there, and that all they’re here for is to wander the show floor aimlessly.

No announcements? No Phoenix, no Halo (PC/2/Online)? I’m gonna cry…

More Bungie trivia – deanero got a bunch of pics of Bungie employees at E3 – if you ever wondered what some of these folks look like, here’s your chance.

Two new desktops – one based on our friend the Hunter, the other not strictly a Halo desktop at all (it’s a Seventh Column desktop), but cool nonetheless. Both can be found in our Wallpaper section.

Hmm… here it is, 10:30 in the morning (Pacific Time) on the second day of E3… and not a peep from ANY Bungie fan or employee about what’s coming from Bungie! What’s up with that? (We even have some b.org personnel at the expo… but not the smallest report from them!) Could it be that Bungie has nothing to announce this week? If that were true, why is a huge chunk of the Bungie staff in LA at all? (Well, yes, there’s a Fanfest coming up on Friday… but that doesn’t explain the folks that deanero saw yesterday…) I’ll be in LA tomorrow, and may find out for myself what’s going on, but in the meantime, I’m a little confused.

deanero posted a brief but mouthwatering rundown of his first day at E3 – lots of Bungie personnel sightings, followed by some very fun-sounding Halo lanfesting, also involving Bungie employees. Who says gaming companies don’t enjoy mixing with their fans?

Forum changes – our forum has recently been changed over to run on style sheets – this drastically reduces the amount of text needed to render the page. (On the main index, the savings can be in the hundreds of kb per load…) The downside is that those with large monitors might have trouble reading the new default font size. Luckily, you’re not stuck with the default – head to the Preferences section of the forum, and you’ll find you can change the size to something that might work better for you. Comments are always welcome, though time is rather tight at the moment; changes might not be instant, if you suggest something.

Today’s Fan Fiction update consists of a pair of chapters from Jean-Paul Allee, the first and second of his ‘Into the Unknown‘ series. Check ’em out! (We also got two copies of a story from Gordi… but both were corrupt upon arrival, and Gordi’s email is blocked by his ISP – mailbox is full. Maybe he’ll see this…) Update: Gordi DID see this… and sent in another copy of ‘Upon This Stage (Prologue 1)‘.

Apologies for the Fan Fiction buildup – there are now 8 new stories:

• Warning: escaping convicts, part 3, by Cap’n Keyes
• Sam’s Halo Story, part 1 and part 2, by Mr. Bobo
• Warrior Eternal, by Gi’Tbad’Eovad’Dvan
• Project-Halo, part 1, by SpikeDaDragon
• Operation: Risen from the Ashes, prologue, by Anthony Coronado
• Last Hope, part 7, by SSJBRK
• Halo: Reclaimer, part 1, by T. K. Niemann

Get going – there’s a lot here!

For anyone keeping tabs on the Console War, Nintendo finally announced its price drop (effective today) for the GameCube – it’s down to $150. Hehe – $550 will now buy you one of each of the three major consoles! (What does this have to do with Halo? Nothing. Why is it being posted here? Because experience tells me that if I DON’T post it, we’ll get a dozen emails from people telling us to post it. Dollars to donuts, we’ll STILL get that mail…)

E3 tidbits: Gamespot has an article which looks at a comment Jason Jones made yesterday with respect to Xbox Online (he said that with the service, it would be possible to “build the part of Halo that Bungie wanted to do”), and speculates on what it might mean for the future. And Team Xbox posted a Microsoft press release which contained an intriguing quote from Ed Fries, vice president of Xbox games content:

“As for “Haloâ„¢” and the work the Bungie Studios team is doing, gamers can rest assured: The fate of humanity is in good hands … and online.”

The future looks bright for World Domination… (Thanks to the rather large number of people who mailed this news in.)

Heh – what do you do when you’re playing Counter-Strike and you need a quick virtual break? Well, you sit down and play Halo, of course! BOLL has made it possible – details can be found in our Miscellaneous Art section. Very, very fun (even if you don’t play C-S!).

News.com interviewed John O’Rourke, marketing director for Microsoft’s games division about Xbox Online. O’Rourke, as well, mentioned an online version of Halo:

Microsoft is also preparing online versions of its popular Xbox titles “Halo” and “Project Gotham Racing.”

They’re not expecting to have a full beta program for their online service before Autumn, however, so don’t be looking for this product in the next 3 months… (Thanks to Patroclus for the heads-up.)