Gamespot is reporting that Halo’s lack of presence at Microsoft’s International Gaming Festival bodes ill for long-suffering PC fans:

And while Microsoft recently admitted that the game is still scheduled for an eventual release on these platforms, the absence of Halo at Microsoft’s event–which featured some games that won’t be out for another year–suggests that a computer version of the game may be a long way’s off.

(The wording itself should raise a few flags, but…) Here’s something to chew on – the lack of a PC Halo at the event might just mean that… Bungie isn’t ready to show it yet? (Absolutely nothing says it will take more than a year from this point to finish PC Halo, Gamespot’s speculations notwithstanding.) Thanks to Alan Koslay for the heads-up.

Velker’s Halo 2 saga just got a chapter longer – you can find Part III in our Fan Fiction section. Don’t forget to leave him comments!

Three new tricks have been added to our Gameplay Tricks page – 2 of them collaborations. Bizarre physics, exploiting the zone freeze bug, and weapons theft… they’re all worth looking at!

Bonk, unfazed by the fact that his server is offline (because you guys have been downloading too much stuff from it), has created a 14.3 mb, 3 and a half minute long video showing off some fun Warthog driving (plus a bit more). Be warned, though – there are spoilers in here. (Thanks again to Brian Towne for the hosting…) Update: Mr. Zarquon has kindly provided a mirror. Welcome, Tasty Bandwidth…

Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox site has posted a Halo promo video which basically shows off Halo and talks about the game (I can’t understand Japanese, so I apologise for getting that wrong). You can hear all the various characters speaking in Japanese here. The video is Windows Media:

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Be warned however that there is potential spoiler material in this video. Pax.

Three new Halo reviews have surfaced – Four Fat Chicks (4/4), Game Industry News (5/5), and a second review from MGON (9.5/10, compared to their first 9.8/10). All three have been added to the Reviews database. Thanks to Blue’s News for the heads-up on these.

Not sure how I missed this (my issue came several days ago), but Electronic Gaming Monthly listed its 2001 Gamers’ Choice Awards in the April 2002 issue… and Halo picked up Game of the Year.

And on the first day the Xbox did launch with a Halo, and we looked upon it, and we saw that it was good.

Halo placed 3rd in the Readers’ Choice poll at EGM’s website – 4 votes (of a total of nearly 5000) shy of Final Fantasy X, and 80 votes shy of Grand Theft Auto III. It also won the Readers’ Choice Xbox Game of the Year (though the EGM editors decided they couldn’t give it both titles, so their Xbox pick was Oddworld). Thanks to VeeoftheMiB for the heads-up!

Operation: False Prophets gets another chapter, as Ian Barnes pays tribute to the mighty Hippo. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section.

Brad ‘Stuy Parker’ Root sends in a new treed Warthog shot for our One-Shots page… there are a few more levels in which this can be done! Who will be the first?

For those who didn’t notice it, the Halo Story page got a massive speculation infusion yesterday – mnemesis processed a goodly number (though nowhere near all) of the backlogged ravings – erm, ideas you people have been sending in. Check it out! While you’re there… you might notice that the Level Transcripts section is nearly complete – great thanks to Ape Man and Åstro for sending in 3 of the last 4 levels (the Maw should be coming soon)! Been a long time… but they’re there now!

Heh – forum regular Frogblast gets a mention at Bungie.net – the Soffish theme for 7th Column fansites has gone live ahead of schedule, because of him. (Remember – if the link leads you to a message about a database wipe, first hit reload to see the REAL message, then send Yeroen a note to fix this. 🙂 ) Thanks to brandontyler for the heads-up!

A great big shout-out to Vector40, who has created The Repertory (“because Bandwidth is Expensiveâ„¢”), a Halo movie site. Currently, it mirrors a few very popular films, as well as being the only source for the videos that go along with Doum and Pat’s AotCR trick (their server pulled the vids some time ago). We luv ya, Vec. 🙂 (Folks should realize that without kind souls like Vector40, and Brian Towne of Mythica.org, and B-Sharp of Omnicon, and many others… you might not be seeing much of the cool footage people are creating. Because bandwidth IS expensive… and nobody’s making money from this stuff.)

Velker turns in Part II of his Halo 2 tale… again, don’t read this if you haven’t played the game. You’ll find it in our Fan Fiction section (or you can read both parts together).

Three more cool feats for you – from two of the most productive teams around. Metafire (with able direction from Legolas) gets down to the bottom of the second Shaft on Silent Cartographer; Eleet Ops Faction rides a pelican to its final resting place, and Metafire (again) surfs a sentinel outside the crashed Pillar of Autumn. Check ’em out in our Gameplay Tricks section!

Slowly but surely… the Tricks backlog is clearing away. Two more go up for your perusal – Johnnycab & MuFF DaDDy investigate an interesting physics conundrum, and Metafire (aka Frogblast) checks out some energy beams. Take a look!

Scripts have been overhauled (again), and the latest stats for the Halo SETI Marines have been posted. The team continues to add new members… but the total number of CONTRIBUTING members stays roughly constant. Who’s slacking? (Not Int_21, that’s for sure…)

Another online enabler has come on the scene – the Xbox Connector is an alternative to the GameSpy Tunnel software or the XboxGateway software. Running on any Win32 platform, it requires no other software to operate. Initial reports suggest that with fast connections, 4-box games are quite playable – something not really true with the Tunnel. It’s still in beta – but give it a try and let us know what you find!

Several days ago, one of the more impressive feats of mass displacement was demonstrated on our forum. It’s now found a home on our Tricks page – a tribute to the power of the plasma grenade (and some simply astounding timing). More to come tomorrow…

Hehe – Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site has been updated – the Gallery contains clips from 6 different foreign-language builds of Halo (well, 5 plus English, for comparison), as well as new Storyboards of the final scene. (The quality of the translations seems to vary pretty widely – or maybe it’s the voice acting; some seem very much in character, while others…) Check ’em out!