Apache reminds us that today is the last day to vote for the 2001 Game of the Year at VoodooExtreme. Halo is currently trailing Max Payne by nearly 500 votes (out of 12,000) – if you haven’t voted, get on over!

Brad Custer created a new Halo desktop for Inside Mac Games last week… we missed it. Check it out, in all its green glory, here. Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.

Team Xbox has put up a Viewer’s Choice poll for Xbox Game of the Year – Halo currently has 60% of almost 900 votes… but don’t get complacent! Go vote today.

Gamer’s Voice has reviewed Halo – they considered it the ‘Cadillac of platform shooters’. I especially liked this comment:

There won’t be many of the standard PAUSE-POUND A PEPSI-PEE breaks when playing this one.

They gave it a 5/5. We’ve added it to our Reviews page.

Live, from the Shaft floor… it’s Thursday night! Shovelface and Finn, of Team 7HR33, made it to the bottom of the Shaft… and made a movie. The lengths (or depths) some folks’ll go to…

Angel writes to tell us that Bungie.de is now online. Currently, Halo is covered, but a Myth site will be coming online in a few weeks. Except for taking our misc art and concept art sections whole hog (with no attributions to the original authors), it’s a pretty nice site!

Halo Center, once a major Halo fansite, has finally gone offline after a long static period. A moment of silence…

Nice – Hamish Sinclair notices a new job at Bungie – 3D Environment Artist/Designer. Check the job description for a peek at the ideas Bungie is playing with for upcoming games… and drop ’em a resume if you think this could be you!

The plot thickens in the case of the Starhammer trilogy. (Get it? ‘The plot thickens’? Plot? Story, background…? Never mind.) Jon Chang points out that the three books he called the trilogy are listed that way here – so something is screwy. I guess we have to wait for more definitive info from someone who’s read the series… or for all 7 books to arrive here. 🙂

Heh – bonus screenshot! Max tells us we’re confused – a short update on the T&R site:

You imagined that duplicate screenshot. Go check for yourself. Us, slipping? Never!

(He’s referring to a comment we made last night…) Upshot – everyone gets a surplus screenshot. It’s a pretty nice one, to boot! (We’ve added it to our Screenshots database… but the original is still there, to remind those guys to keep on their toes…) Thanks to mnemesis for the heads-up.

Argh! Bravehamster =PN= writes to correct this morning’s info from Jon Chang – Starhammer IS part of a trilogy by Chris Rowley… but not the one we thought.

It actually looks like Starhammer is part of a trilogy, but it’s not book 3, it’s book 1. It’s called the Vang series. Check it out here: http://www.scifan.com/series/series.asp?SR_seriesid=947 The other two books you named are actually part of a different series by the same author, the Fenrile series. http://www.scifan.com/series/series.asp?SR_seriesid=946Ê® Hope nobody ordered all 3 books expecting to have a complete series ;0

Methinks Chris Rowley is gonna be selling a lot more books than he expected today…

ESCMag has reviewed Halo – and it’s a pretty solid review. They liked what they liked, they didn’t like what they didn’t like, they backed up their opinions with examples.

So what’s missing? Some of the more tired clich?s of the FPS world are erased. There’s no big Boss at the end of the game to outwit. You won’t be required to leap across pits, swim, climb walls, hunt for keys to locked doors or flip switches in the middle of nowhere. Your character gets two weapons at a time, period. Scavenging the battlefield is important, as is perseverance. The emphasis is on action, period. You against the AI. Crank up the difficulty and you’ll be muttering to yourself.

Open-eyed praise (for the most part)… worth a read. They gave it a 9/10. We’ve added it to our Reviews section.

Thanks to Jon Chang, who pointed out that Starhammer, the space opera mentioned by Jason Jones last night, is in fact a trilogy (and ‘Starhammer’ itself is book 3). abebooks.com seems to have ample copies of all three books (‘The War for Eternity’, ‘The Black Ship’, and ‘Starhammer’) – just do a search for Christopher Rowley, or the individual titles. Powell’s Books has the first two books, but is missing ‘Starhammer’ itself. Bookavenue.com also has all three books. Remember… the Halo Reading List just got longer!

In addition to the Jones interview (have you read it yet?), the Truth and Reconciliation website got a MAJOR update tonight. New screenshots (spoilers!), new storyboards (way-cool spoilers!), a new (and final?) section to the Multiplayer Guide. We’ve added the screens to our Screenshots database… but that shouldn’t stop you from visiting T&R. (For the sticklers among you, it should be noted that scrn_046 happens to be the nearly the same picture as scrn_022 – is Bungie getting sloppy?)

The Big News of the night (hell, of the month!) is the Jason Jones Fan-Conducted Interview – finally posted at Bungie’s Truth and Reconciliation site in all of its glory. This is one of the best developer interviews I’ve read in a long, long time – it’s a glimpse into Jones’ thinking, it’s a bunch of Story hints (not that we’d use them for any upcoming projects, nope, not us), it’s thoughtful and funny and a damn good read. And hey – they used my question. 🙂 If you care at all about Bungie, the company, or the making of Halo… go read this now. (And then go looking for your own copy of Starhammer – I found one (and bought it) this evening.) Thanks to the multitude of fans who wrote to let us know about this (I was out all evening, and you know about the rest of the slackers here) – first dibs go to Mr. chimp.

Eep – a couple of weeks ago, we noted that a Halo FAQ/Walkthrough had been created – it was at version 0.3 at the time. We neglected to notice that a week later, it was up to version 0.5, with quite a bit more information, and walkthroughs of the first four levels. It’s available at several different sites – GameFAQs is where I found it. Presumably, this will be updated again in the not-too-distant future.

IGN Insider has posted a Roundtable discussion amongst the 12 IGN editors, in which the Game of the Year is discussed. Final results won’t be posted until January… but the consensus (if there is one) right now is for Halo. If you don’t have Insider access, this article (like most others) will probably migrate eventually to the free section of IGN.

ShackNews is running a Game of the Year poll – currently, it’s separated out into PC GotY and Console GotY, and if you don’t vote for a PC game, you get a ‘No Vote!’ message… but Halo is up in the Console section. Results should be posted next week some time. (No real-time results here.) Thanks to Battleground: Halo for the heads-up.

Matt Soell stopped by our forum to apologize for one more day’s delay in the Jason Jones interview (or read the more elaborate explanation at the Truth and Reconciliation site) – should be ready tomorrow. (Psyrixx wanted us to be sure and let you know that you could read this news at the Psyjnir Complex, as well. You should, too… he’s getting fanatical about this sort of thing. You don’t want him showing up at your door, do you?)

As sort of a teaser for the upcoming Halo Story site, we’ve pestered Marty O’Donnell until he answered our questions, just to make us go away; we’ve compiled a list of voice actors (from the Halo manual, mostly, with a few additions), and Marty’s matched them up with names. This is a nice resource for folks who like this sort of thing… but the best part can be found at the end. A preview of the ‘prequel’ Marty alludes to will be forthcoming (as soon as we can stop sniggering). Go take a look at The Names Behind The Voices! (Warning – the names of some of the characters might be considered spoilers for those who are trying to remain completely free of prior information.)