Uriel notes that the next issue of the German PC Games will have a ‘huge special about halo’ – it should be on the shelves on the 7th, and he expects to see it by next weekend. We’ll keep you posted!

Well… the Cinematics team said not to watch intro films posted to the net, because they would spoil the ‘first-time’ experience of playing for yourself… but many have said they’re waiting for the PC version of Halo, and in any case, we would be remiss if we didn’t tell you what’s out there. Fileplanet has posted what they call a ‘Halo Intro and Gameplay Movie‘ – it’s a 50 MB, 6 and a half minute film that contains footage similar to the GameSpot films released a week ago. It starts with the Halo opening sequence – this makes up half the movie. The rest gets the Master Chief from his cryo tube to the bridge. The player is very much a novice – in all the running around, they NEVER pick up a weapon of any kind! In a way, this is nice – your view of the scenery is not hampered by the gun in front of you… but a good chunk of the time is spent trying to get through obviously locked doors, and the like. Bottom line: it’s out there, it hasn’t been seen before. There – we’ve told you.

Now this is interesting. Several subscribers have reported that there was no Halo trailer on the December 2001 Official Xbox Magazine DVD… but greatdayne27, over at the TeamXbox forums, says it’s just a little harder to find:

While they are not in the trailers section if you watch the special feature “The Xbox difference” with Seamus Blackley you will see several nice, new clips of the afformentioned titles. They are really sharp and vibrant. I was disappointed in the trailers on the dvd it seems as they were rushed and are lacking punch that I have seen on mpegs.

(‘titles’ refers to Halo and Oddworld.) Very nice – anyone want to describe these clips?

Peter Askam sends in a pair of desktop images, based on the recent Craig Mullins piece – these are variations on a theme, and include the Pillar of Autumn, as well. Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section.

Robert “Apache” Howarth, of VoodooExtreme, presents some comments about Halo, and its length:

I’m still hacking away in Halo, and thankfully it’s continuing to kick major ass. I’m deep into the game at this point (chapter 7 out of 11) and well past what I can talk about without spoiling it for you, so I’ll just leave it at that. So, it should take me three days to win (not sure how many hours that translates into as I lost track, but its big).

11 chapters… that sounds good. The three day thing, though… well, maybe he’s playing EVERY WAKING HOUR.

An epilogue, of sorts… Vector40 turns in ‘Hawk Chronicles: Supplemental‘, to wrap up the series. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section. Don’t forget to let him know what you think of it!

Thanks to Geordie McCabe, who pointed out that some Xbox posters around his University campus are listing an Australian release date in January 2002, with the slogan “The Game is Over – Reality Begins.” Looks like folks Down Under will be playing before those in Japan (February 22) and those in Europe (March 14)!

Heh – sometimes, you just gotta get your content where you can find it… I was hunting through the Xbox.com.au site to see if I could find an official release date for the Xbox in Australia (no luck there) – and I happened across the Halo page. They have a pretty fun little Flash animation to show off some of the cool stuff in Halo… but the funny part was, it finishes up with a copy of this desktop image, created by a fan way back in 1999! Ken, if you’re still out there… you’re famous! 🙂

OrangeWarp mentioned yesterday that there was a Halo blurb in the November 2001 issue of Maxim magazine. He took pity on HBO and scanned it for us (45K). They call Halo a “staggeringly polished first-person shooter”… which almost makes up for calling the Xbox “an overgrown Atari”. Take a look! (OW also scanned in the cover of the mag… but as we’re not Incite, we aren’t gonna show you any breasts.)

New desktop from Enforcer, paying tribute to the Bungie programmers. Check it out in our Wallpaper section.

Another one… TeamXbox has put up an ‘Early Hands-On Halo Preview‘ as well. Like VoodooExtreme, they liked it – a lot:

If any of you had any doubts that Halo would live up to the hype, you can put all that to rest. Period.

There are also three .asf clips showing gameplay – all new, as far as I can tell. They’re short enough that they shouldn’t spoil much for anyone, but you DO get a look at splitscreen coop in the last two (with actual gunplay this time!). Definitely worth a look!

VoodooExtreme has posted a hands-on Halo preview – they took issue with the controller, and mentioned the framerate concerns, but mostly, they just liked the game:

The writing is great, the story is solid, and to be honest, Halo is hands-down the best action game I’ve ever played in my life.

A full review will be coming on November 15 (heh – VE and 80 million other sites) – go read the preview now!

Thanks to Lophan, for starting a pretty fun thread on our forum yesterday. What is your favorite “waiting for Halo” memory? Add your thoughts, now that the light at the end of the tunnel has been shown not to be a train!

Halo “Start to Crate” value: infinite. So says Gothmog, and he should know. As one of the faithful forumgoers says, that’s worth celebrating.

WOOHOO! Halo is gold! Matt stopped by our forum to confirm that certification was passed yesterday, the manufacturing plant got the gold master today, and they are ‘pressing up a zillion Halo discs as I type this’. There’s more – read it.

Thanks to Hyperium, on the IGN Forums – here are some new links for the OXM Halo preview scans:

• Page 1
• Page 2
• Page 3
• Page 4

To be clear – this is a new home, not a new set of scans; the pics are the same.

OrangeWarp writes to say that the newest issue of Maxim magazine has a Halo blurb in it. If we get ahold of it, we’ll let you know what it says!

TeamXbox is back up and running, thanks to the largesse of EB Games. Go check out one of the best overall Xbox information sites on the net! Glad to see the money troubles were solveable…

The Hermes Trismegistus saga takes a distinctly religious turn with Chapter 14… check out Tursas‘ latest offering in our Fan Fiction section.

Though the OXM scans mentioned yesterday were pulled from the IGN Xbox General Board post (or, more accurately, from the aol account they were being hosted from), HBO Forum regular Funky J has once again stepped up to help – you can find them on his Hotline server. The address can be found easily in this thread.