Funky J posted a very nice ‘Halo Impressions’ piece on our forum this morning – 7 hours in his local Software Etc. (You’d think they’d have thrown him out…) Kudos to Rampancy.net for posting this before us… not that we COULD have posted it, of course – the dang site’s been down for the past 8 hours. It’s back up again, obviously.

It’s the end of an era… the Hermes Trismegistus saga has come to a finale. Tursas has submitted the Epilogue… and a fitting closing it is. Find it (and lots of other good reads) in our Fan Fiction section.

More new screens, from Germany’s PC Games Magazine – 8 of ’em, in all. Some pretty nice stuff – a cool shot of a Jeep just off its dropship, a jeep in water, and a dead hunter. Available in both 768×576 and 640×480 formats. Thanks to Uriel for the heads-up.

Another take… netshade, from brainrazor.com, wrote up his take on the launch party. It’s pretty funny, even if it DOES make fun of the denizens of this site… pictures are coming, apparently.

Gunship writes to let us know that the final parts of his ‘humongous fanfiction’ known as Black Ops has been posted at Battleground: Halo – go take a look! This is novel-sized – 70,000 words (in comparison, Eric Nylund’s ‘Halo: The Fall of Reach’ is 95,000 words, and was originally aiming at 85,000)… if you’re pining for some good Halo fiction, this is one worth reading.

Flawless Cowboy (otherwise known as Jaime Griesemer, Bungie designer) stopped in to point out that Gaming Age has put up their official Halo Review. It’s pretty much a recycled version of the First Impressions article they posted last week… but they’ve played a bit longer, now, and they’ve given Halo their highest rating. (They say they’ll never give ANY game an A+.) Check it out! We’ve also added this to to the Reviews page – this is a comprehensive list of all reviews published to date.

Australian Brendan Daly adds his webspace to the growing list of Halo Commercial mirrors – if you’re Down Under, this might be your best bet. Thanks, Brendan! Update: Thanks to Shane, who pointed out that a traceroute shows that that despite the Australian moniker, bjd.au.com is actually hosted on the Jatek Corporation network in Torrance, California – so much for a ‘Down Under’ solution. (Apparently, it’s still fast for Australians, though.)

carrim notes that the Space Channel recently did a 10 minute segment on the Xbox, with some pretty impressive Halo footage… hmm, I wonder if they’ll re-run that?

sinistar notes on our forum that the Primus Halo Strategy Guide is now in stores… but he warns of some pretty major spoilers inside. (Well, it IS a Strategy Guide…)

Matt “Pugano” Pagano sends in a new desktop for our Wallpaper collection. Uncluttered…

A few Launch Party reports we missed yesterday – over at Rampancy.net, No7orious wrote a pair; one is a summary of the entire event, the other focuses on Bungie-related musings (rumors?). Also, Brian from Minneapolis, AKA the Mad Sentinel, sent us a report last night – we missed it. Dang, gotta work on those alarms… it’s now been posted to the Launch Party Coverage page.

Shadab, one of our reporters for the Launch Party, submitted a passel of pics earlier today. They’re finally up. As more pictures roll in, you’ll be able to find them in the Pictures section of the Launch Party Coverage page.

More mirrors – Ryan ‘Mhaddy’ Matthews, of the Junkyard, has put both the Halo Commercial and the Halo Launch Party footage up on their Halo downloads page. We’ll put together full lists very soon.

Woohoo! Mirrors, mirrors, everywhere! Another Commercial mirror, courtesy of Bounty, at Battleground: Halo:

• FilePlanet

And three mirrors for the Launch party footage:

• Fileplanet (thanks again, Bounty!)
• Halo’s Universe (thanks, genohunter!)
• Kbjlake’s mirror (thanks, Kbjlake!)

That should hold most of you…

Thanks greatly to Mavruss, who has sent in 8 minutes of video footage from the Launch party – ambience, food, and gameplay. It’s in WMV format, and it’s 5.6 MB, zipped, and we’d love mirrors for it. (Please – nobody complain about the format; the original upload was a 650 MB .avi that wasn’t readable by anything I have here. This is MUCH more reasonable, and its small size means we can distribute it from our mac.com space. Narration is done by Russell’s wife Sara – brownie points to anyone who can spot the two of them in the video. (Did we mention we need mirrors?)

Dink!… The Halo SETI Marines, despite the influx of two new team members (and an increase in crunching from existing members), are left in the dust by The Athlonmb.com Seti Team. Ouch! They fall one place, to 53rd, in the Battle of the Teams. Are you doing YOUR part? Check the 7 day stats page to see.

Kbjlake writes to say that the Halo commercial (mpeg format) has been mirrored on his webspace – grab it there if you’re having trouble with our link! (Thanks, Kbjlake!)

There are more in the works, we hear… but the first screenshots sent to us of the Launch Party have been uploaded – a few shots showing the Halo T-shirt Bungie was selling at the event. Take a look… this’ll be available to the public as soon as the Bungie Store goes live again!

Ryan ‘TheMystic’ Lord, of Invisible Dream, writes to point out a large article on the Halo launch party – descriptions, interviews with partygoers, and 35 photos – including some fun shots of Bungie employees, like this one, showing Matt’s new “Unabombers R Us” beard… Check it out! (For more Launch Party goodness, check out the most recent submission to our coverage page – Art Sangurai, of the Brotherhood of BoB, wrote a blow-by-blow account of the evening – you’re almost there!)

Kayas has kindly converted the Halo commercial (first available in Real format, then this evening in .asf) to MPEG format – we’ve placed a copy on our overflow space at mac.com. (Anyone who wants to mirror this – let us know as soon as possible!) In addition to being in a much friendlier format, it’s now bumped up to 320×240. Take a look!