Ran across another Halo review – Xen Gamers gave it an A, a few weeks ago. We’ve added it to the Reviews database.

Nico D., of Game-presse.de, sends word that Warthog jumping was so much fun, he had to make his own Warthog Jump tribute movie. It’s in .wmv format, 4:30 long, and weighs in at 7.4 mb. Take a look!

Goodness. Alan Wu sent in a map, created by friend Jonathon Cairns, of Blood Gulch in Starcraft format. If you play Starcraft, snag this! (There are a few easter eggs, so hunt around.) It’s 80k, zipped.

Black_Jackal sends in Chapter 1 of his ‘After Halo‘ story – you’ll find it in our Fan Fiction section.

Before this gets out of hand… Korps sent in this link to a page at Gamer’s Logik, purporting to contain information about the upcoming Bungie game code-named Phoenix. Now, I don’t claim to be completely ‘in the know’, but I did get the chance to walk through the Phoenix development room back in January of this year… and if the information on that page is accurate, Bungie threw out EVERYTHING they were working on just 2 months ago. (For those of you who have trouble with indirect statements: what I saw 2 months ago bore ZERO resemblance to the product described in the page above.) Take this at face value – I’m not a Bungie employee, and I don’t have the inside scoop. Update: Seems Gamer’s Logik has confused Phoenix, a Bungie game in development, with a mech title that FASA Studios (another Microsoft-owned gaming house) is working on. More info on that title will be coming soon… but rest assured, it ain’t Phoenix. (It doesn’t even use the Halo engine.) Thanks to Jon Kimmich, Halo’s Product Planner, for the info.

Speaking of plots… the Halo Story Page got a MASSIVE update recently – the inbox has been cleared, for the first time in a long time. Mnemesis has retreated to his isolation tank to regenerate the brain cells lost in this endeavor – please read his work, so as to make the effort not in vain. (You might even learn something about the Halo story…)

The Halo plot hole defined by this quote from Truth and Reconciliation:

While the Covenant had us locked up in here, I overheard the guards talking about this ring world. They call it… “Halo.”

has been discussed extensively on our forum. (Why could Keyes understand what the guards were saying when the super-duper translator in our own suit can’t even do that?) However, Master Chief IV used this line to ask an even better question – why, if Keyes is just now learning what the Covenant call this ring, does the screen behind him on the bridge of the Pillar of Autumn ALSO call it ‘Halo’? (Yes, it’s just a game. Bungie makes few enough mistakes like this, though, that it’s worth pointing them out when they DO happen.)

Three new tricks in our Gameplay Tricks section – a pair of Out of Map experiences from pete_the_duck, and some vehicle manipulation from Scott Kelly. Check ’em out!

And now, a word from our sponsors… in a manner of speaking. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the Halo community is the ability to see what insane – erm, intrepid people are doing to push the Halo engine. However, because Halo’s got no built-in film feature, stunts have to be recorded as video… and video eats bandwidth like Homer Simpson eats donuts. We’d like to take this opportunity, then, to thank some of the bandwidth providers from this community (and point out the newest files they have for you to download):

• Mythica.org – Brian Towne has been here since Day 1, pretty much, and has provided homes for most of the high-ticket items out there. He hosts all the iBonk movies, as well as almost everything that’s been mentioned here at HBO. Latest morsels: Eleet Ops Faction’s Various – EOF film, and the Xbox Goodies that disappeared recently from Team Xbox.
• The Repertory – Vector40 started this site up with the express purpose of giving a home to homeless movies. Latest tidbits: Various – EOF and Dan Chosich’s Montage Video.
• That Weasel Television – That Weasel started off with the Warthog Jump movie, but has recently put up the Xbox Goodies (both the full package and the music tracks by themselves), and created an HBO Video Mirror page in case there is more to add.

There are others, of course… but these three had new content RIGHT NOW. 🙂 To all in the community that make it possible for us to keep people informed about the latest funkiness… thanks!

Drunken Elite? TitaniumPez found a pretty bizarre looping Banshee on Halo… nice perfect circles, but he doesn’t seem to notice the player. Hmm…

Alan Wu did the community a nice favor, and extracted all the interesting stuff off the Xbox Japan site we mentioned yesterday. Three music clips (in MP3 format), and a bunch of mini-screenshots… plus one bizarre grunt sound. All in a package only 260k! Grab it today.

Justin Gochanour, of gyeah.com, sent us pics of another LAN party – more heavy drinking, some RIDICULOUS stats (you have to check this pic out), and some fun with guns on walls. Hope these guys didn’t drive home…

Shadow dropped off Chapter 7 of his Renegade Marines saga – ‘The Return Home‘. I want one of those 6-tube rocket launchers… man, I bet that’s heavy. Fan Fiction is fun.

A week ago, Team Xbox posted a package full of goodies, including a WMP Halo skin, a copy of the Halo trailer, and 3 never-before-released (on the net) Halo tracks… in WMP format. Total package size: 4.6 mb. It’s already gone off their servers. 🙁 Because the music tracks were so cool, I made room for them in some overflow space we have at mac.com… but I couldn’t fit the whole package. Vector40, abusing the stupidity of a provider he’s doing his best to get rid of, has agreed to host the entire package, if you’re interested in the skin and the trailer, as well. The music tracks alone, at mac.com, are 2 megs. The full package of goodies, no longer available from TXB, is 4.6 megs. Download away!

Review Roundup… we added reviews from Vision Gaming Online Network (19/20), Fragland.net (95%), Eurogamer (8/10), LoadedInc. (9.5/10), and Tilt TV (10/10) to our Reviews Database. Thanks to all who dropped off links! Total reviews to date: 88. Average score: 94.4%. Wonga.

Thanks to Paladin, who kindly sent in a translation for our most recent Danish Halo review – seems the original (random) quote I chose was pretty inappropriate. Oh, to speak more than 5 languages!

Some days, you open up your inbox and see some weird stuff.

Two years ago, Lynx deodorant made a huge splash in the Halo community due to their outright theft of the Halo font – but the furor has died down. However, today, we received a picture of a DIFFERENT Lynx deodorant – Gravity – which uses an interesting graphical logo… these guys don’t quit. 🙂 (Thanks to Rage Reset for the pic.)

Them titles is gettin’ outta hand… Ian Barnes turns in Chapter 6 of his Operation False Prophets series – check it out in our Fan Fiction section.

Nice find by protexts… The Official Japanese Halo site is up, and it’s not simply a copy of the US site (as so many others are). Nice Flash layout, nice music, good screenies (if a bit too small). Now if only I could read Japanese…