DT_Spike, a mod on the IGN forums, did some nice driving during a CTF game on Blood Gulch. He took some photos with a digital camera – check out the results here. Let’s see who’s the first to get a SCORPION up there…

XboxGate has reviewed Halo (don’t pay attention to the ‘Preview’ banner at the top – this is a full review), and they loved it.

As you play the game it gets you saying to yourself, “Man, this is just like a movie.”

With the exception of the 2-weapon-at-a-time limit (and the fact that “you seem to run out of ammo quickly”), they thought it was nearly perfect. We’ve added the review to our Reviews listing.

You gotta wonder, sometimes, where our forum denizens get their free time… Matt Baker has submitted his interpretation of the Halo team for our Miscellaneous Art section. What I wanna know is, how did Marty get that scar?

Hmm. Momo writes to ask us to add the German site ‘PlanetHALO‘ to our links list… seems we noted when they came online (a year and a half ago), but neglected to ever add them to the links page! Sorry… rectified, now.

Jack has put up the beginnings of a Halo Story page. In his words,

It’s my own little attempt to give back to the halo community, and it’ll be there til’ someone puts up a REAL one :). I’m no hamish, so i don’t plan on updating this thing constantly, or really making it really that good, butt it should provide some sort of resource for the future Halo Story Page maker! 🙂

To all who have pointed out to us both the need and our ‘responsibility’ to provide a resource like this… we’re working on it. 🙂 As soon as we have something presentable, we’ll post it, we promise! In the meantime, feel free to send in suggestions – we’ll hold them in abeyance until we have a real home for them. And thanks, most of all, to folks like Jack, who make it clear that if we fall down on the job, SOMEONE will be there to kick us till we get up.

Oh and not to forget: a very nice addition to the multiplayer strategy guide has been made on Truth & Reconciliation: overhead maps of all the multiplayer levels! Pax.

New concept art hits Bungie’s Halo site, Truth & Reconciliation; this time featuring human vehicles. Check out those tank concepts! Pax.

Last year, the first images from the Bungie Research Center Photo Archives surfaced, and generated a bit of confusion. This died away when no further pictures were forthcoming. Today, the latest discovery has found its way into the light… when we know what’s going on, we’ll be sure to pass that information along.

Inside Mac Games has posted an interview with Alex Seropian aka The Man. Check it out for a good read:

IMG: And the big question…will Halo ever come to the Mac? Any details you can share with your loyal Mac fans?

Seropian: Yes, Halo will be out for the Mac. Be patient. Or, I suppose if you have no patience, get yourself an Xbox [insert evil music here] 🙂

Be sure to read the rest of the interview, but beware of a tiny spoiler in one of the responses Alex gives. Pax.

Gaming Age has put up a Special article about Halo – ‘Hail Halo‘ paints Halo as Microsoft’s ‘Trojan horse to move systems’ that will sell the Xbox to more than the Bungie faithful. A pretty good read – thanks to op_ivy for the heads-up.

Heh – Xbox365 has written a rather confused review of Halo: The Fall of Reach. While it’s nice to see the book get some press of its own, it would be nicer if the reviewer got the facts straight…

Ever wondered where the cool storyline in Halo comes from? Did you really think that the dudes at Bungie & Microsoft came up with the Covenent, MasterChief and the curvy Cortana? Think again. Halo, The Fall of Reach is the original book from Eric Nylund that introduces Halo, and it’s amazing powers.

(As a matter of fact, the dudes at Bungie and Microsoft DID come up with those things… and Eric Nylund worked closely with members of the team to flesh out parts of the storyline and create a complementary novel. A pretty good one, even.) The rest of the review suffers from more of the same confusion… but again, it’s nice to see it being hyped at all. Thanks to Miguel “I was only joking” Chavez for the heads-up.

Wonga – looking for new WinAmp skins? Christian Bender, of halo24.de, just submitted 10 of ’em. Browse ’em (and download ’em) here.

A pretty gruesome new entry has been added to our Fan Fiction collection – Kyo has sent in Part One of ‘Prince of Angels’ for your reading pleasure (or horror, as the case may be). Don’t forget to let him know what you think!

Dink!… Dink!… Dink!… The Halo SETI Marines lose three MORE positions (down to 60) in the Battle of the Teams… and we’ve just been challenged by an upcoming team! Doesn’t help when high-unit crunchers like SpudNYC jump ship… but that doesn’t explain how the SETI servers lost another 600 of our units. Hang on, Jim, she’s goin’ down! Check out the carnage on the 7 day stats page.

The Reviews page just got a little easier to navigate – an alphabetical popup at the top of the page will bring you to the review you’re looking for. Seemed reasonable, since the review count hit 40 yesterday…

Ghost ramping… a new sport? From daedulus1187:

To play you need a ghost and some stuff to ramp over. The scorpion tank works the best. All you do is just go over the ramp and hold a direction and you can do all kinds of tricks, like barrel rolls and back flips. And to get extra air you can press A.

I can say from experience (during the first meeting of the HBO Junkies, yesterday), that this is, indeed, a blast. Other fun tricks? Let us know!

Lost Hours, a column on the Coming Attractions website, has reviewed Halo – loved the gameplay, hated the lack of a ‘boss’ (and didn’t like the fact that the main character had an ‘uncanny resemblance’ to the main character in Doom), and wished there was a level editor – the game got a 9/10. (It was also rated as 20 lost hours.) For comparison, the last 4 reviews on the site ranged from 4.5 to 8.5. We’ve added it to our Reviews page. Thanks to jeremedia for the heads-up.

Feeling a little depressed at the end of Halo? Looks like Bungie did its job right – you cared about your Marine buddies. A thread on our forum about the weight of fighting completely without human help in the second half of the game elicited this response from Marty O’Donnell:

I just want you to know that I was pushing for one of the marines to make it out with you at the end (maybe the Aussie) but was called a “Pollyanna” by Joe. There are so many dark and disturbed people at Bungie…

Marty – if wanting to save just a single human makes you a Pollyanna, I’m with you. Leave the depressing stuff to Darth Staten.

IDMT13@aol.com sends along a new desktop (in three sizes) made from the Joypad cover last month – you’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

Hot on the heels of our link-culling, firfin sends word of Halo Game, a French Halo site. take a look!