Another pair of stories have found their way into our mailbox – Albino Joe sends us an interesting viewpoint on a contentious portion of the Halo story (don’t read this if you’re not up for spoilers), and Gasmask sends in part 4 of his Strange Tale saga. Check ’em both out (along with almost 250 other pieces) in our Fan Fiction section!

Walkthroughs: Neogamer has updated his Halo FAQ/Walkthrough to version 0.9 (it’ll be bumped to v1.0 when he finishes his Multiplayer stuff) – it’s available at GameFAQs, among other places. Also at GameFAQs (same URL, even) is a new Walkthrough by R.K. Raja – it contains most of the info from the Halo manual, plus a walkthrough/strategy guide. The element both of these are missing (in fact, that every guide I’ve seen so far is missing) is a discussion about the different strategies that work on different difficulty levels – most walkthroughs seemed to be aimed at those playing on Normal. While this makes sense – most folks LOOKING for a walkthrough are playing on Normal – it would be really nice to see an in-depth, well written guide showing how to get through certain areas on Legendary, for example. Ah, well – one can dream, can’t one?

Phear X has created another music video, and is looking for hosting, as well. It’s pretty standard Halo gameplay (there’s some fun stuff at the end) set to Rob Zombie’s ‘Dragula’. While I’m loath to discourage new creative material, this video has a few issues;

1. It’s pretty big (there are two flavors, a 33 meg version and a 16 meg version – it’s 3 and a half minutes long)
2. Unfortunately for Phear, the subject material has been done – a LOT; it concentrates on the beach scene of Silent Cartographer, and there are literally dozens of movies that came out of E3 using similar footage
3. It’s not very high-quality video (this is due to the capture source, a digital camcorder – it’s acceptable, but nowhere near crisp)

All that said, we’d be happy to facilitate the mirroring for anyone who wants to help out. Drop us a line if you’re able to help, and we’ll get you the movie. (Part of the reason for elaborating here was to make it clear that if you want to make a movie for the community, you should consider finding a niche. Aaron Suhr did that admirably – his footage was fantastic, in terms of its novelty. Video is too big, and bandwidth costs too much, for folks to want to host a lot of the same-old, same-old.) Update: Both flavors (well, the big one right now, the small one very shortly) have found their first mirror on the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server. Go take a look!

Another shout-out to genohunter – he’s dropped off a pretty positive 6-page Halo review from the January 2002 issue of Joypad, a French Console mag. Yes, it’s in French. Check it out in our (soon to be finished… hopefully) Press Scans section. (Okay, it’s true – it’s the only article in the new format. They’re coming – really!)

For those who haven’t noticed, the Halo Story page has finally kicked into high gear. (Blame me – they were waiting on some scripting work.) The submissions have been piling up,but they’re beginning to pare down that backlog! Check it out, and add your own speculation!

genohunter points out a pair of French Halo reviews – one from Consoles-France.com (posted on Christmas day, of all days), the other from GameTeam Xbox. Both were quite positive – 95% and 9.5/10, respectively. These have been added to our Reviews database.

Fanatic drops off a swirly, digital image for your desktop – you’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

Psyrixx writes to let us know that The Psyjnir Complex has a new hotline server – you can find it at 216.229.182.74. No login/password needed… check it out! Update: Geez, guess I should read ALL my mail. The Halo Music Video released yesterday can now be found on this Hotline server – if the other mirrors are not giving you joy, try this one!

After a few months of waiting for new artwork, Chris Cox has decided to submit the next two chapters of his ‘The Wanderers’ series – you can read them separately, here and here, or you can read the whole series in one shot. Don’t forget to leave him feedback! The Fan Fiction page continues to grow…

Eep – new poll at Bungie.net, and we missed the start! ‘What is your favorite section of the Halo Tru7h and Recon site?’ Go vote! (Only 100 folks have, so far…)

Thanks to Mark Levin, who’s overhauled our FAQ – there are still a few questions to add, but the info, by and large, is very up-to-date. You’ll also find that there’s quite a difference between the spoiler and non-spoiler versions of the FAQ – for those who haven’t played Halo, and want to experience it without the taint of knowing what’s coming, the FAQ contains general information, but nothing that will ruin the game for you. For those who’ve already played through Halo, there’s quite a bit more info; gameplay tips, extra info, and so on. Check it out!

More mirrors for the music video (this one’s definitely worth watching):

• Aaron Suhr’s mac.com space
• Omnicon (thanks, B_Sharp!)
• *Ar-Isildur’s home hotline server (last resort; slow)

I love you guys…

A few days ago, Cal sent in a number of pretty nifty shots taken on Sidewinder. Some of ’em just make you go ‘hmm…’ Well, they got lost in the shuffle… but we unburied them. Check ’em out! They’ve been added to the rapidly growing Tricks page… which is going to need a better navigation system, and soon. (The backlog of tricks submissions is currently running in double digits… apologies. For those in the queue – be happy you’re not in the Gameplay Tips queue, which is even longer! I gotta find some serious updating time…)

The first mirrors for Aaron Suhr’s music video are up – they’ll get swamped fast, due to their alone-ness, but there should be more coming. (If you can help, write us.) Thanks to Beorn, who provided two different mac.com download sites (Site 1 and Site 2). Enjoy!

Aaron Suhr has made a pretty amazing Halo music video – Bush’s ‘The People That We Love’ has been accompanied by a fantastic collection of clips of… well, you gotta see it. Unfortunately, it’s 15 megs, and we simply don’t have the bandwidth for it. Aaron doesn’t, either – so we’re begging for volunteers; anyone with a big pipe and a big heart, drop us a line, we’ll get you the movie and let folks know of the mirror sites. Thanks!

[HELL]-genohunter writes to point out a pair of Halo previews on two French sites; Nihon-fr and MaxoeGames.com. Both are quite positive. There’s also word of Halo stories in both the January 2002 Joypad (console gaming) and Joystick (PC Gaming) – scans of the Joypad article will be coming soon. Halo is taking over the world!

Tom Murphy sends in the first installment of his new series, ‘Casualties of War‘. So far, it has nothing to do with Halo… but we’ll cut him a little slack. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section!

Fun stuff updates: We’ve added a small note about yesterday’s Gameplay Trick – a number of readers sent in a far simpler solution… yesterday’s Easter Egg has been updated with a nearly complete list of translations… and a new Gameplay Trick entry has been added: Mark Levin shows, in a video, how to visit that infamous ‘Lone Marine’ on 343 Guilty Spark. Enjoy!

The January 2002 issue of PC Gamer UK (off the shelves as of yesterday) contained a Devil’s Advocate column (238K) in which Kieron Gillen, Deputy Editor of PCGUK, raves about how Halo will NOT come to the PC (because if it did, the Xbox would fail, apparently – and if the Xbox fails, FUTURE good games will not be ported to the PC). Bizarre logic? Yes. But hey – it’s in a mainstream UK gaming mag, which means a lot of gamers will read it… so it’s worth knowing about. And in case anyone wasn’t sure – he’s completely, utterly, absolutely wrong about Halo not coming to the Mac/PC. It is. And that’s that. Thanks to Berk for the scan! (One of these days, we’ll even get our Press Scans page populated – there are a few dozen articles here which just need to be listed…) Followup: This should teach me to comment on unknown entities… Apparently, on page 42 of the same issue of PC Gamer UK was this passage:

Good news: ex-cover star halo is finished! Bad news: it’s on the Xbox. Ignore grumpy Kieron’s Devil’s Advocate column (p.22), and take bungie at their own word: their excellent first person shooter will be arriving on the PC. The only question now is when and in what form. On the Xbox, it’s a highly playable shooter with vehicles, with some sterling game design and gorgeous visuals. Give it us.”

(They also gave it 5/5 for an Anticipation Rating.) The column, it seems, is often used for stupid arguments. Ah, well. Thanks to Griffon for the heads-up.

poena.dare #CP#g has uploaded 7 new desktop images, extracted from the Halo Game Manual (available online at Xbox.com) – they really do make nice desktops. Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section! (And Matthew – who’s Howard Zimmerman, anyway?)