VoodooExtreme Robert ‘Apache’ Howarth has put up Apache’s Top10 of 2001, an article detailing what he thought were the 10 best games of the year. And Halo turns up at … Number 1.

1) Halo (Bungie)Ê­ After playing through Halo a couple times I can safely say with no repentance that it’s one of the most engrossing action games I’ve ever played. Prior to Halo, I’d have to give the nod to Half-Life as the best first person shooter ever. But now, that award goes to Halo, as the game is masterfully presented and offers a rich gameplay experience until the very end. Visually, the game is splendid, aurally; the Xbox has better sound support than the PC can match, and other than a few rare occurrences where the frame rates become somewhat choppy in wild firefights, it’s perfect.

Go check out the rest of the list, as well! Thanks to Max Payne for the heads-up.

Eric Trautmann mentions that there’s a Halo review in the latest issue of TV Guide. (He hadn’t actually seen it, so he couldn’t summarize.) We were hoping to get our hands on a copy today… didn’t happen. We’ll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, if anyone has this lying around, next to their scanner… Update: Thanks to DT_Spike, who pointed out that it’s not much of a review – more of an overview of gaming. Halo’s mention is pretty short:

Halo (MICROSOFT) Harnessing all the graphic power of the Xbox, this stunning Sci-Fi epic takes you as close as you’ll get to saving the universe (this season, anyway)

It IS a pretty widespread periodical, though…

Hot damn – finally, a theory you can sink your teeth into! Thaumaturge suggests that the Halo was built by… humans. I’m not gonna steal his thunder, so go and read the whole shebang – it smacks of Bungie goodness, right out of the gate. Now, where’s that dang Story site?

Space Cowboy points out that Next Generation magazine reviewed Halo, and gave it 5/5 stars. Their opinion:

“Let’s keep this simple: ʈalo is one of the best games you’ll ever play. ʐeriod.”

Maybe it’s time to start adding magazine reviews to the Reviews page… but to do that, we’d have to go back and figure out who reviewed Halo so far. Too much work. 🙂

Matt Soell stopped by our forum to debunk the Adrenaline Vault ‘cheat’ posted earlier – it ain’t true. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to finish the game on Legendary in 3 hours… just be aware that doing so will get you nothing except maybe a headache.

Huh? Adrenaline Vault is listing the following hint in their Halo Cheats section:

Beat the easiest setting then on the hardest in 3 hours to unlock 2 new guns

I’m nowhere near good enough to confirm or deny this… anyone want to give it a shot? Thanks to Afoxi for the heads-up.

A couple of weeks ago, Bungie solicited questions for a fan-conducted interview with Jason Jones. They said the answers would be available the following week. (That should have been last week.) Last week, Matt Soell apologized, explaining that Jason wanted to do it right – and was taking extra time. He said it would be up this week. Well, this week’s over… and Matt has posted an explanation, of sorts, on the Truth and Reconciliation site – looks like Jason’s taking the weekend, but there have been some serious threats made if he doesn’t come through. (I’m a little disturbed by the actual nature of the threat – in the early days of bungie.org, we routinely asked for thumbs from those who failed us. In fact, I may have to dig out the form letter The Battle Cat wrote for us to send out to those who warranted a ‘talking-to’…) Thanks to Pfhor for the heads-up.

Halo Orbit has packaged up some 200+ screenshots, ranging from July 1999 through this month, and made them available in a single zip download. You can find the link on their Downloads page (It’s called ‘Screenshotarchiv #1’). Only 16 megabytes! Get yours today.

The Haloport team writes with the info that they’re looking for a few beta testers for their site. The official request:

www.haloport.com is looking for select members of the Halo community to beta test a system which has been underdevelopment for several months. We’re looking for mainly squad leaders, members of squads and anyone of great intrest in Halo. Please contact alan@stott.net.

If you’re interested in trying out what’s behind the curtain, drop ’em a line!

ActionTrip has reviewed Halo – ‘A HALO review from a PC gamer’s perspective‘ – and though they spend well over half the review whining about how Halo isn’t really a console title (and the Xbox is really a mini-PC in disguise), and how they HAVE to take points off because “MS ruined some of the fun by making it an Xbox title”… they STILL gave it a 91%. If you’re willing to put up with the constant whining (I thought he had it out if his system after he spent the first 25% of the review on it, but it came back well before the end), go check it out. We’ve added it to our Reviews section. (Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.)

Last month, Matt Soell wrote an article for the opening of Bungie’s Seventh Column community site called ‘Hosting a LAN Party‘. Now Part 2, written by David ‘Candyman’ Candland, has been posted: ‘Finding the Right Venue‘. It has some great ideas about places to get together, if your living room just doesn’t cut it. It also has a hilarious screenshot to go with it. Thanks to No7orious for being the first of many to point this out.

A glimpse into the mind of a Portuguese student… Razorback submits a sketch he did during school last year, doodles and all. I love the duck. 🙂 Check it out on our Miscellaneous Art page.

BiBoFieTo sent in information about using jeeps as flag defense on Blood Gulch. Using some of the techniques described recently, or a combination of rocket launchers and grenades (if other vehicles aren’t available as ramps), you put a Warthog on the roof of your base… then drive it down onto the flag. (Alternatively, you can block the lower entrances to the base by pulling it around the corner once it’s inside – you still have to watch for folks climbing over (or dropping down from above), but the chain guns might help…) He sent in digital camera pics, but they weren’t much different from what’s been seen. He also passed along a pair of images showing a little-known sniper location:

From the blue base it looks like a steep trangular face of the cliff (bloodgulchsniperbottom.jpg). Simply walk up and snipe (bloodgulchsniper.jpg).

This is a different location than the sniper spot mentioned in the recent Multiplayer Guide update at Bungie’s Truth and Reconciliation site – that one is behind the red base, in the shadows, and has cover to hide behind. BiBo’s is at about 2 o’clock (if you’re IN the blue base, looking towards the red base), and is wide open – but you’ve got a nice field of fire.

Thanks to LK.Rage, who pointed out a Dutch review of Halo, in video format. Okay, it’s not really a review – ShrimpTV simply played the game on camera for about 5 minutes. It’s not bad footage… and it’s relatively understandable for non-Dutch speakers (there isn’t much voice-over stuff, and a chunk of what there is is actually in English), but it’s a rather large file. It’s episode 11 of ShrimpTV, available as a 95 MB download (in zipped WMV format) from this page. The Halo segment starts about 9 minutes in. (There’s some footage of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, as well, for those intrigued with the graphics of that game.) They liked it… the ‘Positief’ listed at the end is simply ‘moehahahahaaa’, which sums up Halo pretty well. (Their negative has to do with the wait Europeans are faced with.)

VoodooExtreme’s recent poll on console systems has ended, with the Xbox crushing the competition (47% of 6800 votes)… there’s a new one up; ‘Who is the 2001 Developer of the year?’ Bungie is currently leading, with 172 (17%) of 1011 votes… but Blizzard isn’t far behind with 104. If you haven’t voted, get on over! (Thanks to Aginor for the heads-up.)

Thanks to Vector40, who wrote to point out a new article at Bungie’s Support site about playing system link games over the internet. Bungie’s Stefan Sinclair has written up a nice overview of the available options and their pluses and minuses… worth a read if you’re interested in finding online carnage. (Thanks also to No7orious, who pointed out the same article on our forum, several hours later.)

Wow, that was fast… bsotizz submits a desktop image based on Razorback’s recent Miscellaneous Art. You’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

Razorback submits a sketch of a Halo marine – there’s the before pencil sketch, and the after colored version. (They’ve been combined into a single image for our Miscellaneous Art collection.) Check it out!

More vehicle shenanigans – DraegonMage and IllusionGuy spent some time putting a bunch of vehicles INSIDE the base on the Blood Gulch map – DraegonMage sent a bunch of pictures, but image quality was very, very low. Here’s one of the best shots. It’s pretty clear that we’re talking Warthogs and Ghosts here… which means that Team 7HR33, made up of Finn, Shovelface, Chavez, Dodge, and Lift, takes the award for First Team to Put a Scorpion INSIDE the Base – you can read Finn’s account here. (As Count Zero said, the best line is this one:

Then add two Warthogs and lightly season with Ghosts.

Beautiful imagery, there…) Can’t wait to see the Team 7HR33 website!

Oops, we missed it… but it’s all good. VoodooExtreme’s last poll, ‘What game released in 2001 had the best graphics?’, was won (narrowly) by Halo – 23 votes ahead of Return to Wolfenstein (with more than 8700 votes cast). The new poll asks your opinion on the best console system of the year… and yes, the Xbox is currently winning. Go add your vote!